The Eyre Affair

seemed to be severely agitated by the arrival of the airhead Blanche Ingram, but I gave it little heed. I was busy trying to arrange security with John, the cook’s husband, who was a resourceful and intelligent man. I had taught him to shoot with Rochester’s pistols and he was, I was delighted to find out, an excellent shot. I had thought that Hades might make an appearance with one of the guests but, apart from the arrival of Mr Mason from the West Indies, nothing out of the ordinary occurred.

The weeks turned into months and I saw little of Jane—on purpose, of course—but kept in contact with the household and Mr Rochester to make sure that all was going well. And it appeared that all was going well. As usual, Mr Mason was bitten by his mad sister in the upper room; I was standing outside the locked door when Rochester went for the doctor and Jane tended to Mason’s wounds. When the doctor arrived I kept watch in the arbour outside, where I knew Jane and Rochester would meet. And so it went on until a brief respite when Jane went away to visit her dying aunt in Gateshead. Rochester had decided to marry Blanche Ingram by this time and things had been slightly tense between him and Jane. I felt some relief that she was away; I could relax and talk to Rochester quite easily without Jane suspecting anything.

‘You aren’t sleeping,’ observed Rochester as we walked together on the front lawn. ‘Look how your eyes are dark-rimmed and languorous.’

‘I don’t sleep well here, not while Hades is barely five miles distant.’

‘Your spies, surely, would alert you to any movement of his?’

It was true; the network worked well, although not without some considerable expenditure on Rochester’s part. If Hades set off anywhere I knew about it within two minutes from a rider who stood by for just such an occasion. It was in this manner that I was able to find him when he was out, either walking or reading or beating peasants with his stick. He had never come within a mile of the house, and I was happy to keep it that way.

‘My spies afford me peace of mind, but I still can’t believe that Hades could be so passive. It chills and worries me.’

We walked on for a while, Rochester pointing out places of interest to me around the grounds. But I was not listening.

‘How did you come to me, that night outside the warehouse, when I was shot?’

Rochester stopped and looked at me.

‘It just happened, Miss Next. I can’t explain it any more than you can explain arriving here when you were a little girl. Apart from Mrs Nakijima and a traveller named Foyle, I don’t know of anyone else who has done it.’

I was surprised at this.

‘You have met Mrs Nakijima, then?’

‘Of course. I usually do tours of Thornfield for her guests when Jane is up at Gateshead. It carries no risk and is extremely lucrative. Country houses are not cheap to run, Miss Next, even in this century.’

I allowed myself a smile. I thought that Mrs Nakijima must be making a very sizeable profit; it was, after all, the ultimate trip for a Bronte fan, and there were plenty of those in Japan.

‘What will you do after this?’ asked Rochester, pointing out a rabbit to Pilot, who barked and ran off.

‘Back to SpecOps work, I guess,’ I replied. ‘What about you?’

Rochester looked at me broodingly, his eyebrows furrowed and a look of anger rising across his features.

‘There is nothing for me after Jane leaves with that slimy and pathetic excuse for a vertebrate, St John Rivers.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘Do? I won’t do anything. Existence pretty much ceases for me about then.’

‘Death?’

‘Not as such,’ replied Rochester, choosing his words carefully. ‘Where you come from you are born, you live and then you die. Am I correct?’

‘More or less.’

‘A pretty poor way of living, I should imagine!’ laughed Rochester. ‘And you rely upon that inward eye we call a memory to sustain yourself in times of depression, I suppose?’

‘Most of the time,’ I replied, ‘although memory is but one hundredth of the strength of currently felt emotions.’

‘I concur. Here, I neither am born, nor die. I come into being at the age of thirty-eight and wink out again soon after, having fallen in love for the first time in my life and then lost the object of my adoration, my being…!’

He stopped and picked up the stick that Pilot had considerately brought him in place of the rabbit he couldn’t catch.

‘You see, I can move myself to anywhere in the book I wish at a moment’s notice and back again at will; the greatest parts of my life lie between the time I profess my true love to that fine, impish girl and the moment the lawyer and that fool Mason turn up to spoil my wedding and reveal the madwoman in the attic. Those are the weeks to which I return most often, but I go to the bad times, too—for without a yardstick sometimes the high points can be taken for granted. Sometimes I muse that I might have John stop them at the church gate and stall them until the wedding is over, but it is against the way of things.’

‘So while I am talking to you here—‘

‘—I am also meeting Jane for the first time, wooing her, then losing her for ever. I can even see you now, as a small child, your expression of fear under the hooves of my horse—‘

He felt his elbow.

‘And feel the pain of the fall, too. So you see, my existence, although limited, is not without benefits.’

I sighed. If only life were that simple; if one could jump to the good parts and flick through the bad—

‘You have a man you love?’ asked Rochester suddenly.

‘Yes; but there is much bad air between us. He accused my brother of a crime that I thought unfair to lay upon the shoulders of a dead man; my brother never had a chance to defend himself and the evidence was not strong. I find it hard to forgive.’

‘What is there to forgive?’ demanded Rochester. ‘Ignore forgive and concentrate on living. Life for you is short; far too short to allow small jealousies to infringe on the happiness which can be yours only for the briefest of times.’

‘Alas!’ I countered. ‘He is engaged to be married!’

‘And what of that?’ scoffed Rochester. ‘Probably to someone as unsuitable for him as Blanche Ingram is for me!’

I thought about Daisy Mutlar and there did, indeed, seem to be a strong similarity.

We walked along together in silence until Rochester pulled out a pocket watch and consulted it.

‘My Jane is returning from Gateshead as we speak. Where is my pencil and notebook?’

He rummaged within his jacket and produced a bound drawing-book and a pencil.

‘I am to meet her as if by accident; she walks across the fields shortly in this direction. How do I look?’

I straightened his necktie and nodded my satisfaction.

‘Do you think me handsome, Miss Next?’ he asked quite suddenly.

‘No,’ I answered truthfully.

‘Bah!’ exclaimed Rochester. ‘Pixies both! Begone with you; we will talk later!’

I left them to it and walked back to the house by way of the lake, deep in thought.

And so the weeks wore on, the air becoming warmer and the buds starting to shoot on the trees. I hardly saw anything of Rochester or Jane, as they had eyes only for each other. Mrs Fairfax was not highly impressed by the union but I told her not to be so unreasonable. She flustered like an old hen at this remark and went about her business. The routine of Thornfield didn’t waver from normalcy for the next few months; the season moved into summer and I was there on the day of the wedding, invited specifically by Rochester and hidden in the vestry. I saw the clergyman, a large man named Mr Wood, ask whether anyone knew of an impediment that might prevent the