Jane Slayre (30 page)

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breath, and I was glad to see that it was day and I could dress and prepare for my tasks instead of trying to find sleep again.

That afternoon, I was summoned from the schoolroom by a message that someone wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I found a man having the appearance of a gentleman's servant waiting for me. He was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a crepe band.

"I daresay you hardly remember me, miss," he said, rising as I entered. "But my name is Leaven. I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still."

"Robert! How do you do? And how is Bessie? You are married to Bessie?"

"Yes, miss. My wife is well, thank you. She brought me another little one about two months since--we have three now--and both mother and child are thriving."

"How sweet. And are the family well at the house, Robert?" Mourning clothes could mean only one thing, but mourning one of the Reeds seemed impossible. I ruled it out.

"I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, miss. They are very badly at present--in great trouble."

"You don't say? How can that be?"

"Mr. John died last week, at his chambers in London."

"John Reed? Dead?"

"Yes."

"You mean, gone dead? Not just--"

"Gone." He looked down respectfully.

"But, how? And how does his mother bear it?"

"Why, you see, Miss Slayre, it is not a common mishap. His life has been very wild. These last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking."

"I heard from Bessie he was not doing well."

"He could not do worse. He ruined his mother's estate and got in

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amongst the worst of his kind. He got into debt and into jail, killed his jailors and escaped, no less, in a rather spectacular way."

Which was to say, dear reader, that he ate them and left the blood-drained bodies on the prison floor. I understood it distinctly.

"His mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free, he returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted Missus to give up all to him. Missus refused. Her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance. So he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows! They say he killed himself."

Or, he'd run into some slayers who did the deed quite well for him. A stake through the heart, an end to his troubles. He might have sought them out on purpose, or he might have run into them in a misadventure. Or, perhaps, he'd run into a tree on his own devices and let a branch hit home, but I couldn't imagine John Reed would have the courage to attempt such a trick.

I was silent. The news was frightful. Yet, I was glad for it. What could one say?

"Missus had been out of health herself for some time. She had got very stout from hunting, but was not strong with it. Now she's unable to hunt at all, and she will not eat even what her daughters bring to her. The loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John's death and the manner of it came too suddenly. It brought on a stroke."

"A stroke? Heavens!" Immortal and yet not immune to brain ailments such as stroke? Bad luck, that.

"Yes," Robert said. "She was three days without speaking, but last Tuesday she seemed improved. She appeared as if she wanted to say something and kept mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie made out the words, 'Bring Jane--fetch Jane Slayre. I want to speak to her.' Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind or means anything by it, but she told Miss Reed

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and Miss Georgiana and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first, but their mother grew so restless and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many times that at last they consented. I left Gates-head yesterday. If you can get ready, miss, I should like to take you back with me early tomorrow morning."

His words gave me quite a start. I didn't fancy ever returning to Gateshead, under any circumstances, and it didn't thrill me to contemplate making the journey now with Mrs. Reed unwell. I had no idea one of her kind could even suffer a stroke! It was quite a notion. Yet my heart went out in sympathy to the poor woman. To live forever in such a state? To lose her precious child in such a way and to know that she had to go on, though she had no means to recover her finances? "Yes, Robert, I shall be ready. It seems to me that I ought to go."

"I think so, too, miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse, but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?"

"Yes, and I will do it now." I directed him to the servants' hall and recommended him to the care of John's wife, and the attentions of John himself. That settled, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms, not in the yard, the stables, or on the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him. Yes, she believed he was playing billiards. I hastened to the billiard room. The click of balls and the hum of voices resounded. Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers were all busied in the game. It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party. However, I could not defer my errand, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram's side.

She turned as I drew near and looked at me haughtily. Her eyes seemed to demand, "What can the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a low voice, "Mr. Rochester," she made a movement as if tempted to order me away.

"Does that person want you?" she inquired of Mr. Rochester.

Mr. Rochester turned to see who the "person" was. He made a curious

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grimace--one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations--threw down his cue, and followed me from the room.

"Well, Jane?" he said as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had shut.

"If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two."

"What to do? Where to go?"

"To see a sick lady who has sent for me."

"What sick lady? Where does she live?"

"At Gateshead, sir, in----shire."

"That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for people to see her at that distance?"

"Her name is Reed, sir--Mrs. Reed."

"Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate."

"It is his widow, sir."

"And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?"

"Mr. Reed was my uncle--my mother's brother."

"The deuce he was! You never told me that before. You always said you had no relations."

"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off."

"Why?"

"Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me."

"But Reed left children? You must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town."

"More than a rascal, I'm given to understand, sir."

"Indeed." Mr. Rochester stroked his beard as if considering the situation. "They're the vampyres, then?"

I nodded. "John Reed is dead, sir. He ruined himself and half-ruined his family and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."

"And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady vampyre. Besides,

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you say she cast you off. I'd rather not send you back to such a woman."

He was standing too near. He was too male, too protective, too potent. I had the sudden urge to press myself to him, to cry out for him to love me and hold me and keep me from such dreadful fiends. But I could not. I was not that weak, that vulnerable, or that foolish. I could face the Reeds, and I could leave him. I remained calm.

"Sir, she needs me. I feel I must go."

He slipped his fingers under my chin and tipped my face up to meet his gaze. "You must? Now, Jane?"

"Now that her circumstances are so very reduced, so different from what they were, I cannot neglect her wishes."

"How long will you stay?"

"As short a time as possible, sir."

"Promise me only to stay a week--"

"I will not make a promise that I might be obliged to break."

"At all events you
will
come back. You will not be induced under any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?"

"Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well."

"And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone."

"No, sir, she has sent her coachman."

"A person to be trusted?"

"Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family. I know his wife quite well. They're perfectly human, the pair of them and their children."

"And they haven't been eaten?"

"The Reeds do not indulge in common blood."

"Oh, I see." Mr. Rochester meditated. "When do you wish to go?"

"Early tomorrow morning, sir."

"Well, you must have some money. You can't travel without money, and I daresay you have not much. I have given you no salary yet. How much have you in the world, Jane?" he asked, smiling.

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I drew out my purse, a meager thing it was. "Five shillings, sir."

He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocketbook.

"Here," said he, offering me a note. It was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.

"I don't want change. Take your wages."

I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first, then, as if recollecting something, brightened again.

"Right, right! Better not give you all now. You would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten. Is it not plenty?"

"Yes, sir, but now you owe me five."

"Come back for it, then. I am your banker for forty pounds."

"Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity."

"Matter of business? I am curious to hear it."

"You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?"

"Yes, what then?"

"In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school. I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it."

"To get her out of the way of my bride, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically? There's sense in the suggestion, not a doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school. And you, of course, must march straight to--the devil?"

I went there now, as it was. Heading back to the Reeds' house might as well have been jumping headfirst into the pits of hell. "I hope not, sir, but I must seek another situation somewhere."

"In course!" he exclaimed with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes. "Good God, Jane, you deal me a blow to say you're leaving me for weeks, and then you come back with sending Adele to school so that you can leave me permanently? And old Madam

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Reed, or the misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?"

Deal him a blow? In leaving Adele without a governess, though she had a perfectly capable nurse? It wasn't as if I were abandoning my charge, merely her education for a short time. "No, sir. I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favours of them--but I shall advertise."

"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane. I've a use for it."

"And so have I, sir," I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. "I could not spare the money on any account."

"Just let me look at the cash."

"No, sir. You are not to be trusted," I said with a laugh.

"Jane," he said seriously.

"Sir?"

"Promise me some things."

"I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform." My heart raced. I was likely to perform any request he would make of me.

He looked at me a moment, his eyes shifting as if he searched for answers in mine. Then he stepped back to the door. "To carry your stakes and your daggers. Not to advertise, and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I'll find you one in time."

"I shall be glad to do so, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that Adele and I shall both be safely out of the house before your bride enters it."

"Very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go tomorrow, then?"

"Yes, sir. Early."

"Shall you come down to the drawing room after dinner?"

"No, sir, I must prepare for the journey."

"Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?"

"I suppose so, sir."