Jane Steele(86)

When Jane Eyre understands that she must depart from Mr. Rochester or else become his mistress and not his wife, her eyes remain entirely dry, and her former fiancé surmises that her heart must have been weeping blood before he begs her to stay. I admire this passage for a number of reasons—not merely because it is beautiful, but because I can be moved by it even when recalling my own experience of leaving Highgate House, and my reasons for doing so, and want to shake the other Jane’s damn fool head off for leaving a gentleman who loved her so, and was remorseful for his error. For I understood that night—not with a dry eye, either—that as much as I had come to adore Sahjara and esteem Mr. Singh, I could not love Mr. Thornfield every livelong day without having him.

I could have lived off my fingers in his white hair, or my brow against his collarbone, or the whole expanse of our bared skin nestled together in sleep, or my lips against his rugged temple. I had done far worse things for love than entwine fingers or kiss the nape of a neck, had I not? The prospect of total famine, however, dying of thirst and nothing betwixt me and the glass of water resting on the table—I cannot imagine that anyone could have done it.

Very well, I determined around midnight, my eyes crimson and my head pounding. You will live as you used to, and life is a tenuous thing after all, so one day inevitably the hurt will stop.

There was still the matter of Highgate House, however, so I located the fateful letter from London and opened it with shaking fingers.

SNEEVES, SWANSEA, AND TURNER

No. 29C Lisle Street,

Westminster

Dear Miss Steele,

Though you addressed your letter to Mr. Swansea, that gentleman passed away six years hence, necessitating my own return from abroad; thus, know that it is Mr. Cyrus Sneeves who addresses you. If you are able to call upon me at the above address, I believe I can make your position clear to you; in fact, I consider it my duty to do so, as I may have an unexpected opportunity to right a wrong which I had begun to consider permanent.

I regret the loss of my partner but rejoice in the fact your appeal found me. Forgive my reticence but the matter is of such delicacy that to confide it to ink and paper would be unforgivable. There even exist solicitors who abhor scandal, if you can credit me, and I number myself among them.

Humbly,

Cyrus Sneeves, Esq.

My blood seemed to thin as a weightless excitement filled me.

No longer did I delude myself that I could usurp Highgate House from people I had grown to love; but if the property were clearly mine, perhaps I should not have to pen gallows ballads, or perhaps I could pen them from the relative luxury of a small Chelsea flat. I should not ask Mr. Thornfield for any staff or horses: merely enough of an allowance that I might live well, and my other expenses should be supplied by my writing. Mr. Thornfield had, after all, given a thousand pounds each to the white servants who had left his employ; surely I, a woman for whom he harboured a slight attachment, could request assistance when Highgate House was legally mine?

And think that twice yearly—no, once a month, you might insist upon once a month—a cheque would be delivered to Mr. Sneeves and perhaps a letter with it! If you had his letters, you could have as much of him as here at Highgate House.

I dried my eyes. This would not be an ideal life, living with a tiny gouge where my heart had once been; but it would be a possible one, one which would make waiting to die more tolerable.

Since he could not touch me, what was it to him if I was here or in London? I had been accounted a good enough writer to earn my stout and oysters by it; if the endearments I showered him with, all the languidly falling petals of my shaken tree, were written rather than spoken, so much the better—he could read them over whensoever he liked, shove them in a drawer if he preferred, and my love would have some permanence, the way whispers made in the dead of night do not.

I retained his first letter by accident, the one regarding my ankle—I had set it upon the mantelpiece and simply forgot to bin it. Standing, I went to fetch the artefact; for a few seconds, I studied the curve of his e’s, and then I carefully refolded this as well as the latest note and placed them in the grey reticule I had bought at a slop shop off Covent Garden, thinking it would suit a governess.

Then I went to the mirror to survey the carnage; my features were so petite that eighty percent of them were blotchy, and my eyes so large that the whites appeared bloody pools. Washing my face in cold water helped a bit, and—when I beheld myself again—I realised that there was a third reason to go to London other than escaping Mr. Thornfield and finding Mr. Sneeves.

If I could settle this dark affair for the residents of Highgate House, would that not be a fine thing?

Resolved, I took a quiet moment to regard Aunt Patience’s old room with all its lovely new trappings, the draperies in impossible shades of lavender and plum, the melancholy patina of winter moonlight . . . and then I set to packing.

? ? ?

Getting my things in order was not difficult, and I spent the rest of the night in a downy laudanum haze, only stopping the small doses when I collapsed into bed a mere few hours after quitting it. A brightly scouring sun woke me early, for I had forgot to draw the curtains; this was for the best, however, and I did my hair up carefully but looser than usual. Lifting my trunk, I carried it downstairs and left it in the hall.

The coward in me wanted to avoid Mr. Thornfield entirely and simply ask one of the Singhs in the stables to drop me in town. When I thought of the crags of his cynical brows, however, I knew I must explain myself or go mad to the tune of hearing, Do you think me a blackguard following that terrible account, Jane? So I went to the parlour and dining room and, finding them deserted, approached his study and knocked.