Jane Slayre (29 page)

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instructions I gave and keep him at your house until he is quite well. I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?"

"The fresh air revives me. But one thing?"

"Well, what is it?"

"Let her be taken care of. Let her be treated as tenderly as may be. Let her--" Mr. Mason stopped and burst into tears.

Such care for one who had nearly devoured him hours earlier?

"I do my best, as I have done, and will continue to do" was the answer. Mr. Rochester shut the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.

"Yet would to God there was an end of all this!" he added as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates. "Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments. That house is a mere dungeon. Don't you feel it so?"

"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir." With not-so-splendid secrets. I didn't want to push. I hoped he would come out with what I longed to know.

He strayed down a walk edged with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, primroses, pansies, and various fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them. The sun was just entering the dappled east.

"Jane, will you have a flower?" He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.

"Thank you, sir."

"Do you like this sunrise? That sky with its high and light clouds, which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm?"

"I do, very much."

"You have passed a strange night."

"I've passed stranger. Or perhaps, equally strange."

"I suppose you have." His brow arched, but he did not press. "I

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would not have left you there in danger, you know. The door was locked. You were safe. I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb so near a wolf's den, unguarded."

"What will you do about Grace Poole, sir? Will she remain here?"

"Don't trouble your head about her. Put the thing out of your thoughts."

"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays. And what of those around you?"

"Mr. Mason took a ridiculous risk. It should never have happened. He knew what he was up against."

"Am I to ever know what he was up against, sir? I have no doubt of your faith in my confidence by now. I assure you, there is naught you could tell me that I would run from, fear, or disbelieve."

"And you have faith in me, I know. Please, don't lose your faith, Jane, and don't ask me to reveal secrets that might hurt you. It is enough that I bear such a burden."

"And Mr. Mason." And how many of the other servants? "You trust him not to spread the news of his attack?"

"Mason would never defy me, not willingly. Unintentionally, perhaps, he could in a moment let slip one careless word to deprive me, if not of life, yet forever of happiness."

"Then he must be cautious. Order it so! Let him know what you fear, and show him how to avert the danger."

"Would that it were so easily done." He picked up my hand, then seemed to rethink his actions and released it as quickly. "I cannot say, 'Beware of harming me, Richard,' for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled."

"I want to say the thing that will help you most. Not knowing the particulars of your situation, I know not how to guide you, or what course to recommend."

"You do guide me, Jane. Your mere presence guides me. You make me want to be a better man, to find my way to happiness. You

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have allowed me to think it possible I could be happy. I act, and I think to myself, 'What would Jane say to that?' and make sure I behave accordingly."

"You might have rethought your Gypsy ruse. I would not have recommended duping your guests."

"My guests? You have such concern for them, do you? I believe you mean you would not have recommended my playing the role with you."

I nodded. "I dislike deceptions, sir."

He took my hand and led me to a rustic seat in the arbour, an arch in the wall lined with ivy.

"Sit. The bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?"

I had no answer. I sat beside him.

"Now, I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own. Will you stay to hear? Are you comfortable?"

"It's a lovely spot. Had I no responsibilities to tend, I might find myself sitting here for most of the day. Perhaps with my paints and an easel." I breathed deep of the dewy air and felt reinvigorated after such a long, terrible night.

Sharing a sunrise, sitting so close to Mr. Rochester--my employer--did feel startlingly intimate and, perhaps, unwise. But the night was long and cold, so filled with death and threats that I embraced the little bit of contentment at the start of the new day without reservation.

"Very well. Jane, suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards. You find yourself in a remote land, and there commit an error with such consequences that haunt you through the rest of your life. In time, the result of your choice becomes utterly insupportable. You take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable, without hope as without sun or air."

He could not have touched on a better comparison to draw my

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sympathy, for I had lived without hope or sun, though through no active choice on my part.

"You wander seeking rest in exile. You find no pleasure to blight the bitterness or bring the return of true happiness until you find a stranger filled with the good and bright qualities, which you have sought for fifteen years and never before encountered. Such society revives you. You feel better days come back--higher wishes, purer feelings. You desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom--a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?"

"Sir, you must know, first, that not all immortal beings are worthy. There is great risk in supposing it. And next, if your conscience neither sanctifies nor approves, I don't think you need to hear my answer, for you know it well enough. And thirdly, your happiness never depends on a fellow creature. This stranger you speak of has some influence, perhaps, but ultimately bears no fault or credit for the changes you take to attain your own steps to happiness."

"Ah." He rose now and paced before the branches of the nearby tree. "I see your opinion of the matter. It makes sense. You would follow your conscience and judgment, even if it led you to misery when happiness was right within your grasp?"

"How could one be truly happy in purposely choosing what his conscience knows is not in the right? It would be troubling to you, sir. The happiness would be fleeting."

He sighed. "My little abbess."

"Sir?" By the change in his face, the softness fading, I knew my answer had not been the one he wanted to hear.

"Have you noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram?" His tone, too, changed from dreamy and melodic to harsh and sarcastic.

"I have. And you should know"--though I dreaded to inform him--"that she is not your vampyre. I've seen her in the sunlight."

"So it is true that vampyres can't abide the sun?"

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"They burn to a crisp."

"You've seen it?"

"Not entirely. Though I have seen one scorched on the arm, just there." I pointed to a patch above my wrist. "I imagine it would be quite painful for them to go that way, sir."

"Indeed. So that rules out the Lynn boys, Sir George, Colonel Dent, and Eshton. I've seen them all ride in the sun."

As he paced and considered, my gaze was drawn to something behind him, under the lilac hedges. "Lord Ingram, sir!"

"Dash it, I'm not sure about Ingram. But it's possible. I've only ever seen him ride in a carriage, like one of the ladies."

"No, sir, I mean--Lord Ingram." I pointed to the charred body that even now gave off steam behind him as the sun rose and burned the rest of his exposed flesh. The face, shaded under the bush, was yet untouched. It was most definitely Lord Ingram. "There. I believe we've found our vampyre. And he should no longer be cause for concern."

"Jane." Mr. Rochester stopped before me so as to shield my view of the corpse. "Perhaps you should go in while I examine the body?"

"No, sir. We'll need to get him out of the sun, to alert the others. I can help."

"Bless me! There's Dent and Lynn in the stables. It's too late to worry about the state of the body now. And why raise concern? Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket. I'll head them off and handle this."

As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying with a cheer that no one else might recognise as false, "Mason got the start of you all this morning. He was gone before sunrise. I rose at four to see him off. He shared a carriage with Lord Ingram. It seems Ingram had business in London."

Later in the day, Mr. Rochester found me in the schoolroom with Adele. I dismissed her and waited until Sophie had taken her away.

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"The body was gone," he explained. "By the time I got back to have a look, there was nothing left but ash and Ingram's clothes. I brought those in and burned them."

"I should have expected as much." I nodded. "It happens when one stakes them, too. Poof! They turn to dust. It's fascinating, really. Even a little pretty in the moonlight."

"You're stranger than I imagined, my little abbess." He gazed at me with something like admiration, or perhaps I was only imagining it, trying to recapture what we'd shared in the garden before his mood grew dark.

"But what of Lady Ingram and his sisters? Did they believe he ran off to London, so suddenly?"

"Oh, yes, yes." He waved off the question as if it were a minor irritation. "Tedo, as Blanche affectionately calls him, has been running off on a whim since he was young. It's not unlike him to just leave in the night without a word and show up again days or weeks later. They'll start to wonder eventually, when he does not return, but by then they will be long gone and look for explanations elsewhere."

"To disappear would be easier than having to explain his hunting habits. I wonder if he developed a fascination for vampyres after his experience with the governess? No doubt their Miss Ross was one of them, but not the one who turned him. Vampyres stop aging when they're bitten."

"How sad," Mr. Rochester said. "To stay young while all grow old around you?"

"That's exactly how I feel." Curious, that! "I wouldn't want to be one of them for anything. Tell me, do you think the rest of the Ingrams had any idea?"

"I doubt it. Lady Ingram wouldn't have abided it. She probably would have disowned him at once."

"Not so easy to do if she's reliant on him for her keeping." I had a sudden realisation that the death of Lord Ingram might mean the women stood in line to inherit his fortune, instead of merely being

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dependent on him. Perhaps Blanche would be free to marry elsewhere and leave Mr. Rochester alone!

"I do wonder how he ended up out of doors by dawn." Mr. Rochester paced in front of my chair.

"Perhaps he came upon us just as we were coming out to see to the carriage and get Mr. Mason away. It would have made for an awkward explanation to run into anyone then. He might have hid in the bushes waiting for us to go back in, and then he either nodded off or the sun started coming up before he expected it. Yes, that makes sense. At least he was not indoors eating his friends. He must have had some semblance of a conscience."

"A vampyre with a conscience? Is it possible?"

"I've known it to happen," I said, thinking of my uncle Reed. "They are the most unhappy of creatures. I'm certain he's better off."

"Perhaps he is. You think I should marry the sister then?"

It took me a second to answer. "Yes, if that is your inclination."

"Very well. Shake hands. What cold fingers! They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, will you keep watch with me again?"

"Whenever I can be useful, sir. But perhaps in better circumstances."

"For instance, the night before I am married? I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company?"

My stomach turned but I would not reveal it. "Yes, sir."

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CHAPTER 24

AT VARIOUS TIMES IN my life, I've had presentiments. I have known others who have had them, too. When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child, and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble. The next day, Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister.

Of late, I had often recalled this saying and this incident, for I had been dreaming of an infant. Sometimes, I hushed it in my arms. Others, I dandled it on my knee. It wailed one night and laughed the next, but day after day for a week, it appeared in my dreams. I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the vision drew near. I felt sure the recurrence of such an image occasioned bad news or ill tidings. I remained on my guard, considering the danger of Grace Poole still in the house, but I eventually fell asleep and there the dream came again. This time, I was trying to soothe the infant, rocking it in a cradle in the Reeds' red room, when Mrs. Reed came in and told me that if I couldn't stop it from crying, she would suck out all its blood, and every drop of my happiness with it. I ran with the child, out of Gateshead, through the woods, into a graveyard. Headstones leaned precariously. Some were toppled over, the ground soft from recent rain. And then I saw a hand snaking up through the dirt at my feet, a zombie hand missing the tip of the ring finger and dripping with pea green goo. I tried to run, but it gripped my ankle, the goo sticky against my bare skin. The baby cried louder and clutched at my breast. When I looked down, I saw that it had fangs, like an infant vampyre. Alarmed, I woke in a sweat, clutching my pillow to my chest. I struggled to catch my