My Mr. Rochester 1(32)

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, a grandfather clock tolled the hour. Ten in the morning! No wonder I felt so rested. The front door I’d come through the night before was in the foyer to my right. I turned left into a parlor. The furniture wasn’t new or stylish, but all was made of good quality woods and fabrics and well cared for.

A horde of maidservants went at the carpets, curtains, and windows with dusters and cleaning rags. A relieving sign. Antibiotics hadn’t been effective in a generation, and prevention was the best weapon against infection. I always believed Mrs. Reed employed so many maids not to provide work for the local people but out of fear for her own health.

I continued on through the open pocket door at the end of the room into a larger, more cheerful room. “Where can I find Mrs. Fairfax?” I asked a maid dusting a Steinway grand piano.

“In the garden, miss. Past the lilacs.” She curtsied and indicated a glass-paned French door.

I straightened my collar and went outside. I found myself on a broad and wide pressed concrete veranda surrounded by a marble stone half wall. Ceramic pots as high as my waist were scattered in the corners, empty now. I imagined them bursting with flowers in summer, a quartet playing at one end of the veranda and fine people dancing under the stars. I took the marble steps, crossed the cobblestone drive that came around from the front of the house, and walked through a set of spindly lilac bushes holding onto the last of this year’s leaves.

On the lawn I found a lady in her fifties or sixties wearing a black dress and a white widow’s cap. She stood up from one of two wicker chairs. A tuxedo cat meowed in protest at losing her lap. It arched its back, examining me resentfully.

“Miss Eyre, it’s so good to meet you,” the lady said. She had the very look I’d hoped for: relaxed and efficient with an air of kindness. “I’m afraid I don’t stay awake as late as I used to. I hope you didn’t have a tedious ride from the halt. John drives so slowly.”

“Mrs. Fairfax?” It felt odd being treated so graciously by my employer. I felt she didn’t expect a curtsy, so I nodded my head to show respect. “Everything is more comfortable than I could have wished. My room is lovely.”

“I’m glad you like it.” She asked me to take the other wicker chair and offered coffee and teacakes from the little table between us. “I put you near my room in the west wing. Mr. Rochester’s room is also in that corridor, but don’t concern yourself about that. He’s hardly ever in residence. The servants sleep in the east wing. The front rooms do have finer furnishings, but they’re so solitary. I didn’t want you to feel set apart.”

“Who is Mr. Rochester?” I said.

“Why, Mr. Rochester is the owner of Thornfield Righteous Estate.”

“Then you aren’t my employer?”

“Heavens, what a thought!” Mrs. Fairfax said. “Although I am related to the family. Mr. Rochester’s mother was a Fairfax, you see. Second cousin to my husband. But I never presume upon the relationship. I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve felt lonely here without an equal to talk to.”

I found out that the men at Thornfield worked in the gardens and fields. The inmates of the house were female, all but John who served as a handyman and driver. He was married to Martha, the cook, and they had an apartment in the servants’ wing where the unmarried females, such as Leah who showed me to my room, slept. The other married employees lived in little cottages on the estate.

“Mr. Rochester seems an extravagant employer.”

“In some ways, I suppose,” Mrs. Fairfax said. She patted her lap, and the cat jumped up again. She scratched under its chin and repeated, “We see him so rarely.”

“When was he here last?”

“About two months ago, when he brought Adele. He was here for the day, long enough to give the order to hire a governess for her. Then he was gone again. The child speaks more French than English. I hardly know a thing about her.”

How curious. Was Adele Mr. Rochester’s bastard? Or perhaps a charity case, as I had been.

Mrs. Fairfax proposed to show me over the rest of the house. I followed, admiring all as we went.

“Before Adele came,” I said, “how long had Mr. Rochester been away?”

“Before? Oh. Let me think. I believe before this last time he hadn’t been to Thornfield in more than a year. He travels all over the world, you see. Once he was gone for four years. When he returned, I’d closed half the house and let most of the servants go, thinking to economize. He was furious.”

“I don’t understand.”