Midsummer at Eyre Hall: Book Three Eyre Hall Trilogy (25 page)

My mother never saw the state I was in
after the fight. It was Michael’s condition and I had to agree. Some of the
damage was repaired. My broken arm and multiple bruises were cured, and I
stopped bleeding while passing water after some months. Other injuries were
more permanent. My nose was broken, changing my face permanently, and I never
recovered the full use of my left arm from shoulder to fingers, but I had been
lucky. He could easily have killed me, and quite frankly, no one would have
cared. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded dying if it meant he’d be hanged. 

Mr. Smythe took care of the financial
arrangements and negotiations over the following months, and by the summer my
mother had returned to Eyre Hall, Annette had moved temporarily to London and I
was living in Boston.    

****

20
^th
June 1879.

It was almost Midsummer, and I was
sitting at my mother’s old desk in her Tower Room at Eyre Hall, writing a
letter to Catherine, my friend from Lowood with whom I had kept in touch over
the years. She had written the nonsense story books I read my children, which
were enhanced by her beautiful illustrations.

 My mother never used this study any
more. She had moved to the modern new wing she built before we went to Jamaica
to recover Michael. She rarely came upstairs to the old building, which she
kept threatening to refurbish completely. I’d begged her not to, because I preferred
the older, original furnishings, which had a serene and timeless beauty.
Perhaps it reminded me of the years I missed my home, when I was torn from her
side after birth, and I was recovering those early memories I never
experienced.

My mother told me I was born in the
bedroom below the Tower, where Max and I slept when we visited Eyre Hall. I
loved the smell of beeswax on the old oak furniture, and the rich, dark colours
of the thick woollen carpets. I gazed into my mother’s long looking glass and wondered
how many times she must have seen her reflection when I was still in her womb,
and wondered what I would have looked like. She told me she had searched for my
ghost in the room and sometimes imagined she had seen me. I wondered if I had
left a part of myself behind, when I was kidnapped, the part I was now
searching for.

The evening was drowsy and peaceful. Max
lay on the bed, taking a nap after our late lunch. I pushed the window and the
smell of sweet, rich grass wafted up. I heard humming in the trees. Perhaps
there was a nest. I needed to ask Simon to see to it before all the guests
came.

Simon and Beth had returned to Eyre Hall
with their children, although they lived in their own cottage on the estate.
Beth ran the household impeccably and delightfully since stiff Mrs. Leah
retired. Running water and electricity, which had been installed when my mother
and Michael returned to Eyre Hall five years ago, made a great difference.
There was much less work, and my mother made sure all the new staff worked fair
hours and were given the choice of living at Eyre Hall or on rented
accommodation on the estate.

Tomorrow was Midsummer’s Day, and we had
arranged a party to celebrate the occasion. The gardens at Eyre Hall would be
teaming with local children playing blind man’s bluff, running in wheelbarrow
races, watching puppet shows, eating sandwiches and fairy cakes, licking
ice-cream cones, and drinking lemonade, while a band played.

I was overlooking the gardens below, as
my mother would have done so often, pen in hand, writing her first novel, born
out of the regret and sadness of my loss. They had told her I was stillborn,
and she was eventually forced to believe it, after almost losing her mind.

I could hear my mother in the garden
now. She was laughing as she tied the blindfold at the back of James’s head,
getting ready to play their version of blind man’s bluff with Beatrice, which
was more like ‘catch’ with a blindfolded ‘catcher’. I didn’t know where she got
the energy. My brother James and my daughter Beatrice were so boisterous; when
they combined forces, they wore me out.

Michael was sitting on the grass telling
young Max, his nephew, William, and Ben, Simon’s son, some Bible stories with
the help of a wooden Noah’s ark and model animals. Every now and then Beatrice
ran over and toppled the animals with a sharp kick to infuriate her younger
brother, and Michael pretended he was a lion, chasing her away on all fours.

Michael had been much more than a father
to me. He saved my life, united me with my mother, and acted as a father figure
to the man I loved. Jane had been more than a mother. Even when I hadn’t known
she was my mother, I had thought she was the most wonderful person in the
world, and before she knew I was her daughter, she had loved me and looked
after me, generously. I couldn’t love her more than I did, and although I had
always felt loved by Michael and my mother, I also knew that they loved each
other more than they could ever love anyone else. 

I never felt unloved, but I did often
feel left out of their intense relationship. Max was much lonelier than I was
when we met, having lost his parents and grandmother at an early age. I was
sure that was one of the reasons we bonded from the start. We both felt
abandoned, so we became friends before we became lovers, and that has helped us
remain supportive throughout our marriage. I knew he was an honest, loving
husband and father, and I wouldn’t want to be married to anyone else; in fact,
I couldn’t imagine my life without Max. He was my rock, but sometimes I missed
loving him with the overwhelming and consuming obsession with which my mother
loved Michael.

Michael, my mother and I moved into
Manderley with Max when his father died. We all got on famously from the start.
Max was always eager to please, and although he was sometimes awkward and prone
to moodiness and sulking, Michael seemed to know the right time to praise him
or reprimand him for his low marks or behaviour, and my mother was always able
to smooth things over.

We wrote hundreds of letters to each
other while I was at Cheltenham and he was at Christ Church, and we spent every
minute of the day together when we were at Manderley during the holidays. Max
knew all the secret passages, which Michael or my mother hadn’t bothered to
explore, so that we even spent some nights together, mostly talking, although
we also made love. I had watched my mother closely, so I knew making love was
what bound her to Michael with an invisible glue that made her eyes shine and
her mood merry. I knew from the first time Max kissed me, the first day we met
on Cove Beach, that his love would make my heart sing the way my mother’s did
when she was with Michael.

The worst day of my life was also the
best. Michael and my mother were walking along the beach with James, while Max
and I were alone at Cove Cottage; we must have been so immersed in kissing each
other that we didn’t hear them.

I’ll never forget Michael’s stern voice.
“That’s it, Maximilian de Winter. You either marry Helen Eyre Rochester or
fight with me.” Jane and I protested while Max seemed to have lost his speech.
I was terrified that Michael would beat him to death, when suddenly Max threw
himself down on one knee and offered me a small jewel box. “I love you Helen. I
have loved you since the first day I saw you walking along this very beach, six
years ago. Will you marry me?”

They all stopped in their tracks, jaws
dropped, while James clapped and giggled. I shouted “Yes!” and grabbed the box.
I showed them my ring, before even putting it on.

Michael surprised us all by laughing
heartily. He pulled Max up and thumped him on the back. “You’ve been carrying that
ring in your pocket for over a month. What were you waiting for? When were you
going to propose to Helen?” Max reddened and complained that he was waiting for
a special moment.

Michael burst out laughing. “Glad I
helped you find the special moment.” 

Apparently, the local jeweller had
informed Michael that Max had ordered an engagement ring some time ago, so he
knew exactly when it had arrived.

Today, six years after our wedding, I
looked at my loving husband who was having an afternoon nap by my side, on the
bed in my mother’s study. We had married when I turned eighteen and had two
lovely children, little Max and boisterous Beatrice.

Max respected Michael’s authority from
the day we moved into Manderley, and they got on amazingly well, except when they
talked about politics. Max was more conservative, like his father, believing
the social classes should never mingle, except in exceptional circumstances,
such as Michael’s case. Only those who bettered themselves through the church
or the military forces should be allowed to rise to an upper class. That was
one of the reasons Max scorned his mother, who I learned had been a servant at
Manderley. As his father and grandmother were dead, I was not able to ascertain
the exact reason she left, or was forced to leave. In any case, I persuaded Max
to visit his mother. She was an aloof, middle-aged woman, and although she was
not much older than my mother, her hearing and eyesight were failing and she
seemed ancient in comparison. Her only topic of conversation was the weather in
winter and the flowers in her garden in summer. My mother persuaded Max to buy
her a red brick house in a quiet village, over an hour’s journey away from
Manderley, and send her a monthly allowance. We both thought she was a harmless
influence, so we visited three times a year.

Five years ago, my brother John decided
he preferred America after all. He claimed women were more modest and obedient.
Apparently he had decided English women are too independent and opinionated.

It didn’t surprise me. I knew my brother
had never taken a great interest in running Eyre Hall or the Rochester Estate.
He would have been happy to let our mother run it, and devote his days to
spending the income in a gentlemanly fashion. My mother always said he was just
like his father, and although I never knew him, from what I’ve heard, she must
have been right.

Annette seemed to feel more at home than
John at Eyre Hall, but once they divorced she moved to our London house. My
mother and Michael had bought a town house near Lambeth Bridge, just across
Parliament, because Michael was frequently called to the House of Lords, and he
disliked hotels. There were some permanent staff, and we all used it when we
were in London, so it was like our private hotel. Initially Annette had moved
in temporarily, but she was still living there five years later, although she
kept saying she would eventually like to return to Jamaica for a time. She
owned a plantation in Spanish Town, where her uncle had lived, and she herself
had spent her first twenty-two years there, although she had been born at
Thornfield Hall, in this same spot where Eyre Hall was built.

I had always been close to Annette. She
was the only person at Eyre Hall who had been kind to me, apart from my mother.
My brother John disliked me, and my half-sister Adele had never even
acknowledged me as part of the family.

Annette had confessed she’d like to
remarry and have children, and I was sure it would not take her long to find a
suitor because she was such a beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy woman. I told
her she might meet Harry again in London. I knew he was working there, because
Michael had been in touch with him during his frequent visits to the city, and
he had visited Adele after her accident. We all knew Harry was still unmarried,
but Annette told me she had no plans to stay in England or marry Harry. When I
told Michael he should arrange an accidental meeting between the two he said he
would not meddle because there’s a time for every purpose under heaven, and their
time had passed. I wasn’t so sure Michael was right on this occasion, but time would
tell.

I supposed lack of children was one of
the reasons my brother’s marriage hadn’t worked. Another reason was his
possessive, volatile and violent nature. Michael was imposing and fierce like
my brother, too, but he was always able to channel his strength into his
projects or a good cause, whereas John was just a selfish and mean rascal.   

I imagined John and Annette’s
relationship was powerful like lightning and tortuous like thunder. John was
always too keen to get his own way and subjugate everyone else. I supposed
Annette, who also possessed a determined and fiery character, tired of bowing
to his needs, while he ignored hers.  

After seven years of marriage, when it
was obvious they wouldn’t be having children, and that they were no longer in
love, a divorce seemed inevitable. John ignored Annette’s pleas at first and
continuously embarrassed his wife with mistresses. I had even heard he was
despicable enough to take one home, while she was in residence. Annette said
she still loved him, in spite of the way in which he had behaved. I could never
understand how she could love anyone who treated her so humiliatingly. 

When John suggested my mother, my
brother and Michael return to Eyre Hall, it seemed the only option to keep the
estate on foot. Michael refused to return at first, until John, who was sure he
would have no children, offered to sell his part back to our mother, at a
reasonable price. He had seen a suitable homestead in Boston and he had been
offered a position at the Harvard School of Divinity, where he had studied some
years earlier.

My mother, Michael, and my brother
James, had been living with us at Manderley until John and Annette left Eyre
Hall. Michael sold the pilchard caning business when they left, and he was now
spending more time in London on various Select Committees. He had been awarded
a peerage by the queen, at Lord Shaftsbury’s proposal, but he didn’t like to be
called Lord Kirkpatrick. He always said his duty was to serve the country, not
show off a fancy name.

So, my lucky brother James would inherit
Eyre Hall and the Rochester Estate from his mother, and a great deal of wealth
and the title of Lord Kirkpatrick, from his father. They would always have a
room at Manderley, but I knew they would only visit occasionally. My mother had
built Eyre Hall and pampered the estate for more than half of her life; it was
only fitting that her son should continue with her legacy. She loved Cornwall,
but her place was at Eyre Hall.