Jane Slayre (39 page)

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"Not so, Mr. Mason," I realised. "She did bite him."

"Ah, yes, thus the Italian potion. If administered soon enough, it might prevent any effects, or he might end up a mad werewolf himself yet. But, back to my tale. My wife was genetically predis-posed to madness, and in the course of our first four years together, a werewolf as well. My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my father died, too. I was rich enough, yet I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings, for the doctors now realised that my wife was showing signs of full-blown madness, too. Jane, shall I defer the rest to another day? You look unwell."

"No, finish it now. What did you do when you found she was mad?"

"I approached the verge of despair. A remnant of self-respect was all that intervened between the gulf and me. In the eyes of the world, I was associated with her. I remembered I had once been her husband--that recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while she lived, I could never be the husband of another and better wife. Though five years my senior, she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-three, I was hopeless."

"So young."

"And yet older than you are now. One night I had been awakened by her yells. Since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up. I wouldn't trust her to an institution due to her unique condition. It was indeed a night of a full moon, and a fiery West Indian night besides, one of the sorts that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulfur steams--I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes buzzed in. The sea rumbled dull like an earthquake, black clouds casting up over it. The moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannonball. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the howls of my creature-wife

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as she made her transformation. She momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon hate, with such language and wolfish shrieks."

"And the laugh?"

"Ah, yes, she was yet perfecting her vocal stylings. At last, I'd had enough, or so I'd thought. 'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell. Let me break away and go home to God!' But a wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement. The air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. I would go and live in Europe again. I would have to take the creature with me to England, as I could not trust her with anyone else. I would confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield, then travel and form what new ties I liked. She was not my wife, I reasoned. Not really. She was barely human. No one would know of her relation to me. My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance. Far from desiring to publish the connection, they were as anxious to conceal it as myself."

"They acted badly," I said.

"But they were dead and without a chance to meet the charmer my wife had become. I should have thought of it sooner. To England, then, I conveyed her. A fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thorn-field and saw her safely lodged in that third-story room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's den. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed, for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret. Besides, she had lucid intervals of days--sometimes weeks--which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter, are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence."

"I owe Grace Poole my thanks and many apologies. I've thought so ill of her."

"It is my fault, for I helped in creating the impression. She

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doesn't need approval when there's money to be made. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper, though, owing partly to a fault of her own, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant. She has never failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses, once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell and issue forth in the nighttime. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed."

"And the cows, Edward. She attacked the cows." I still was not sure if she was responsible for killing the charwoman, but no need to mention her. Edward had not been at home.

"The cows?"

"Later that night, there were two found mutilated. One in the pasture and one dragged straight through the yard."

"Ah, yes. Before she set my bed afire, she went for a rampage in the surroundings. Thank God for the cows, easy targets, or she might have gone after a person. I'm sure they filled her up suitably. It was the first time she made it out of the house during a full moon. She probably wouldn't have even returned had it not been for attacking the cows fueling her excitement to murderous intent. She has always had it in for me, Jane. I believe she meant to devour me rather than just burn me in bed, but perhaps she knocked over the candle and frightened herself to seek the safety of the third-story sanctuary. Hard to say how it all came about."

"The main thing is that you were safe, sir."

"That we were all safe, Jane, my angel. On her second escape, she paid that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she spent her fury on your wedding apparel. On what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect."

"It wasn't quite a full moon. I think she was yet more lunatic than wolf. But back to your story--once you got her settled here at Thornfield hall, what did you do?"

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"What did I do? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp. Where did I go? I pursued wanderings that could take me far and wide. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield."

"But you could not marry, sir."

"I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to tell my tale plainly and make my proposals openly. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another. Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society. No circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman in all countries of my travel, and I could not find her. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me, for the antipodes of the Creole, and I longed vainly. Yet I could not live alone, so I tried the companionship of mistresses."

"Celine Varens." I nodded.

"She was the first. You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent. I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet, but heavy, mindless, and not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake, don't you?"

"I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes. Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course."

"It was with me, and I did not like it. Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior, and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading.

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I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara."

I felt the truth of these words, and I drew from them the certain inference that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling that now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this conviction. It was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial.

"You are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses, in a bitter frame of mind--the result of a useless, roving life--recalled by business, I came back to England. On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace, no pleasure there. On Hay Lane I saw a quiet, little figure standing in the road. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it. I had no presentiment of what it would be to me, no inward warning that the arbitress of my life waited there in humble guise. I did not know, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. I was surly, but the thing would not go. It stood by me with strange perseverance and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand; and aided I was.

"When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new--a fresh sap and sense--stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf must return to me, that it belonged to my house down below, or I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge without singular regret. I heard you come home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of you. The next day I observed you while you played with Adele in the gallery. Adele claimed your attention for a while, yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere. Still, you were very patient with her. You talked to her and amused her a long time.

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"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual character I suspected was yours. I desired to search it deeper and know it better."

"Don't talk any more of those days," I interrupted, dashing away some tears from my eyes. His language was torture to me. I knew what I must do--and do soon--and all these reminiscences and these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult.

"No, Jane. What necessity is there to dwell on the past, when the present is so much surer--the future so much brighter? You see now how the case stands--do you not? After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I truly love. I have found you. You are my better self, my good angel. It was because I felt and knew this that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery. You know now that I have but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you, but I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly. I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity, shown to you not my resolution, but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then"--he dropped to his knees at my feet--"I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane, give it me now."

My gaze searched his. How could I? How could I not? He wrapped his arms around my knees, dropped his head on my lap, and looked up again.

"Why are you silent, Jane?"

A hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment, full of struggle! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved. I knew how I felt about his wife, his very much alive creature of a wife. In name only, perhaps, but here she was, now known to all. Here, she lived. She shared his name. It left me one option, and he had told me how he'd felt about his mistresses.

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"Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise--'I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.' "

"Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours."

Another long silence.

"Jane!" he cried with a gentleness that broke me down with grief. "Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?"

"I do."

"Jane." He rose and stood over me, pulling me to my feet so that I stood right up against him, so close to him I could feel him breathing. "Do you mean it now?"

"I do."

"And now?" He dropped soft kisses on my forehead, my cheek, the tip of my nose. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me even closer. He kissed me as I'd never been kissed, and it aroused something wild in me that demanded exploration. I tasted him, the tobacco and the wine, until I was trembling and breathless and--insane! It was insane, to allow him to come so close, to nearly convince me.

"I do." With two hands on his shoulders, I pushed him away hard.

"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This--this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me."

"It would to obey you."

A wild look raised his brows and crossed his features. "One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. What have I without you? I have but the maniac upstairs. As well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard."

That could be done, I thought, but did not say. I had a past, too. It served me well to remember it now. I'd stood up to vampyres and zombies and ended miserable lives with mercy and kindness. I was Jane Slayre, and I was strong.

"You have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need