My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(57)

It had been a tense wait.

Jane pulled her robe tighter around and answered the door.

Mr. Rochester was there with a candle. “Follow me.”

Helen whooshed to her side. “I don’t like the sound of this. And why does he need your help?”

“And quietly,” Rochester whispered.

He rushed through one hallway and down the next. Jane had to work to keep up and stay quiet. Helen gave up walking and just floated.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said.

Jane didn’t want to admit that she felt the same way, but it was the middle of the night, and there was that scream. Of course they should have a bad feeling about this.

Mr. Rochester opened a door at the bottom of the east wing and they began to climb a spiral staircase.

“Jane, do you faint at the sight of blood?”

“Well, that sounds ominous,” Helen said.

“I don’t think so,” Jane said.

At the top of the stairs, Rochester opened the door into a smallish anteroom. Mr. Mason lay on the sofa there, looking pale and drenched in sweat. A ball of bloody rags lay beside him, the freshest still bright red.

“What has happened to her?” He moaned. “She . . . has . . . killed . . . me. She’s gone mad.”

Helen’s mouth fell open. “What. Is. Wrong. With. The. Living?!”

“Jane, sit with Mason,” Mr. Rochester said. “Press the rags into his wound. I will ride into town and bring the doctor.” He pushed Jane into a chair and shoved more rags into her hand. “And do not say anything to Mason, nor he to you. He is too weak to speak. Do you hear me, Mason? You are too weak to speak.”

With that he blew out the door. Jane pressed the rags to the wound, and Mason groaned.

“Helen? I’m scared,” Jane whispered.

But Helen was no longer staring at Mason. Instead she was pacing the room and grabbing her hair. “Something’s not right in here,” she said. “Something feels strange.”

“Stranger than the fact that this man is bleeding to death right in front of us?” Jane said.

“I am?” Mason groaned, apparently more lucid than Jane had thought.

“No, no, sir, you will be fine. Just . . . shhhhhhhhh.”

Mason clenched a fist. “I should have known she wouldn’t want me here. I wouldn’t have come, but . . .”

Helen groaned. “Why would Mr. Rochester ask you to do this? You’re a governess, not a doctor.”

“Stay calm, Helen. We have to keep our wits about us,” Jane said.

A door on the opposite end of the room rattled. Then rattled again. As though someone were kicking it.

“What’s that?” Helen said.

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “Go through the wall and find out.”

This time Mason lifted his head, causing a fresh stream of blood to spurt out. “Go through the wall? Are you telling me to leave this mortal world?”

“No, no,” Jane said. “You are hallucinating. You’ll be fine. Sleep. Shhhh.”

Helen went toward the door, trembling the entire way, but just as she reached it, she stopped.

“It’s not letting me go through,” Helen said. She tried again.

Suddenly a scream came from the other side of the door. And then Helen screamed. Jane froze.

“I can’t get through the wall or the door!” Helen began to turn in circles, pulling at her hair again. “I don’t know what is going on!”

The door rattled again and then a window blew open, the strong gust dousing the candles. The room fell dark and silent.

“Helen?” Jane whispered. There was no response. “Mr. Mason?” She reached out and felt for his forehead. It was cold and clammy. “Mr. Mason?”

Again, there was no response.

And then time stood still.

When you are counting the passage of time by the breaths from your lungs, it moves very slowly, and that was what Jane was doing. She was up into the hundreds of breaths. Maybe even thousands. But that’s all she had in this tiny room. The sound of her breathing, and the feel of her hand pressed into Mr. Mason’s wound.

What had happened here? Who was Mr. Mason talking about when he said she’d killed him? Grace Poole had set Mr. Rochester’s bed on fire. Could it be the same culprit? Could Mr. Mason be talking about Grace Poole?

Helen came back in. For some reason, she could only stand staying in this room for minutes at a time. Jane had never seen her so distressed.

“Something is very wrong here,” she said.

Jane had to agree.

The sound of footfalls came from the staircase, and Mr. Rochester burst through the door, followed by the doctor. Finally, there was some candlelight.

Jane backed away and let the doctor near Mr. Mason.

The door at the other end of the room rattled loudly.

“What is that?” Jane said.

“I heard nothing, especially not the door,” Rochester growled. His face grew stern.

Jane stood there, open mouthed, as Rochester and the doctor carried Mason out the door. When they were gone, she collapsed onto the chair next to the sofa. She knew she hadn’t fainted, because she was very aware of not collapsing on the couch with all the blood on it.

“He almost died,” she said to Helen.