My Mr. Rochester (2 page)

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t envy my cousin’s beauty or rank. I envied her freedom and her education—though I wouldn’t like to go to the heathen old country, as we all called the United States. Not even for an education.

“Georgiana doesn’t complain,” Mrs. Reed said. “She makes the best of things, as usual. She’s met what decent people she can find in Cambridge. Useful connections for the future.”

“Perhaps she’ll marry a diplomat.” Mr. Fleming frowned at his tea as if searching his cup for a pleasanter response.

“I did consult Bishop Brocklehurst,” Mrs. Reed added. “He found no fault in Harvard.”

“Well done, Mrs. Reed.” A smile broke out like sunshine over Mr. Fleming’s face. “The bishop always knows what’s best.”

Mrs. Reed loved to be caught out at being clever. She drank in everyone’s approving looks until she came to me. All the pleasure drained from her expression.

“As to Jane Eyre. I don’t know what to do with her, vicar. Truly.” She sighed her martyr’s sigh. “It’s so unfair. The daughter of my dead husband’s dead sister. Hardly a real relation.” It irked her so to be bound to me.

Yet bound to me she was. Mrs. Reed was a cruel woman. (She never allowed me to call her aunt.) She had countless faults. But she was a pious woman. With meanness of spirit and undaunted bitter resentment, Mrs. Reed kept to the letter of her oath.

She had never promised to love me.

We all at the same time noticed Bessie standing in the doorway. “Madam, a package has come for Miss Jane.”

The room went silent but for the crackle of an ember on the fire. Everyone stared dumbly at the housekeeper as if some alien language had just danced on her tongue. John Reed and his mother glared at me in indignation. How dare I presume to receive a gift!

Bessie held, as announced, a package wrapped in maroon paper and tied with a gray jute string. What could it be?

More mysterious, who could have sent it?

« Chapter 2 »
Madam Mope

I hesitated and glanced at Mrs. Reed. Had the vicar not been present, John Reed would have already laid into the package and torn away the wrapping. He’d be taunting me with whatever was inside, holding it over my head or threatening to toss the thing into the fire.

But the vicar
was
present, and we all stared at each other.

“Well, Jane?” Mrs. Reed finally said. “Don’t dawdle. See what it is.”

Too much to hope she’d let me escape to open it in private.

Bessie brought the package to the side table near me. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity. I felt she was happy for me to have received any kind of present while the others were consternated and more than a little angry.

“Bessie, go to the kitchen and fetch more hot water for the tea,” said Mrs. Reed. “And send someone in with another log for the fire.”

Inside the paper was a dark gray cardboard box with a white oval on the top. Within the oval, gray letters read
Harvard Book Store Since 1932
, and beneath the oval in white letters,
1256 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge Harvard Square
.

I felt a smile curl my lips as I ran my fingers over the words. What would the inside of a hundred-fifty-year-old bookstore be like? I’d always heard they read with technology in the United States, on little flat slabs where the words changed automatically and there were no pages to turn. But of course a university would have real books.

“Well, Jane? What is it?” Mrs. Reed said. “Who is it from?”

“It’s a book.” I could have said more. Of course I knew who it was from, though I was baffled as to why Georgiana would send me anything. I opened the cover and found a loose sheet of paper lying inside.

“Read us the note, Jane,” Mr. Fleming said. “There’s a good girl.”

I obeyed.

“
Jane. I know you’ll be gobsmacked to receive this package from me, but let me tell you what it is. A brilliant insight struck me this morning as I browsed the campus book store.
Jane Eyre shall become a teacher!
The idea must have come from your guardian angel, Jane; otherwise I can’t explain why I thought of you at all. Let this
Atlas of the World
mark the beginning of your career. Say hello to my brother and sister, and give Mama my love. –Georgie.”

Mrs. Reed paled. “Georgie!” She forgot to be flummoxed that Georgiana would send me a present, let alone such an expensive one. “Did you hear that, vicar?
Georgie
. Oh, dear. Why did we let our sweet girl go to that heathen land?”

“There, there, madam. All young people go through phases.” Mr. Fleming touched Mrs. Reed’s hand, which she didn’t withdraw. “It’s nothing, I’m sure.”

“May I be excused?” I hugged the precious gift to my chest.

“Yes, go. Leave me to my distress, selfish creature.” Mrs. Reed waved me on.

I felt rather than saw John Reed rise to follow, but his mother came to my inadvertent rescue. “Oh, John,” she cried. “Come hug me. I’m so glad you’ve stayed home this year.”

I closed the door behind me and skipped away with my present, punching the air in victory.

On her return to the morning room, Bessie caught me thusly dancing. Her mouth fell open, and I thought sure she’d report my behavior. I jerked my finger to my lips and shook my head, silently pleading with her to say nothing.

Sweet Bessie nodded and waved me on with a grin.

I rushed to the library and climbed into the window seat and closed its curtains. As was my ritual in that cold space, I stuffed one of the pillows behind my back, tucked my feet under my skirt, and pulled the coverlet over my lap.

I was free and safe, with John Reed detained in the morning room for as long as the vicar stayed.

Sitting cross-legged in my hideaway, I opened my new treasure. In one section, maps of North America before and after the Great Secession faced each other. I traced the outlines of New Judah and found New Bellefleur in Idaho, the state farthest northwest. The United States bordered our country in larger masses than I’d imagined, especially in the east.

I found Cambridge, Harvard’s home in Massachusetts. Pepperdine was in the southwest on the California coast. John Reed’s campus-to-be overlooked the ocean. How wonderful.

It was interesting to compare the current maps with the one country of two generations ago. Spokane had been part of the state of Washington. Reno was part of the state of Nevada. Half the Sierra Nevada Mountains were part of California! That made no sense. Our westernmost state, Jefferson, was carved out from parts of Oregon, California, and Nevada. A strip of United States little more than a hundred miles wide ran along the Canadian border. Why did they do that?

I was in my glory leafing through the pages. Europe might as well be Mars. I’d met people, visitors to Gateshead, who’d been to Canada and the heathen country and missionaries at church who’d returned from Mexico and Ecuador and Argentina. But not Europe. Or Asia, for that matter.

Of all the places in the world, why did God place me at Gateshead? I was out of tune here. Surely somewhere existed where I could sing a happy song and breathe free. I returned to the map of North America. I closed my eyes, made a circle in the air three times, and pointed to a spot on the map.

My finger landed a few hundred miles from Gateshead in the state of Jefferson in a county called Millcote. I turned to Jefferson’s county maps. Millcote was farm country, spread over foothills and valleys. There were three Righteous Households: Fairfax, Ingram, and Wade—and one Righteous Estate, Thornfield. I traced the county perimeter.

Yes
.

A sense of well-being glowed within me. Surely my guardian angel had guided my hand. Right then I adopted Millcote as my true home, my soul’s home. It didn’t matter if I never saw it. I knew now such a resting place existed in the world. It would be the theoretical anchor for my adrift self.

Had Georgiana done me a favor, sending the atlas? I was glad she did. Somehow it made me like the heathen country a little better. How funny was that? I turned to the county page for Cambridge to look for Harvard.

Someone had written on the page. Scandalous! The lettering was tiny, but when I held the atlas up to the window for better light the writing was clear:

Hamlet 1-3-78

I set the book down and drew my knees to my chest, mulling the inscription over.
Hamlet 1-3-78.
It must be a topographical reference, but Cambridge was far larger than a hamlet. A town, at least. A city, I thought. Anyway, a pox on whoever defaced such a beautiful book!

With my arms wrapped around my legs, I leaned against the cold windowpane and watched the rain fall silently on the world outside. Leaves fluttered and bent and popped up again, gathering and dropping the small weight of raindrops.

In the ivy that clung to the window’s Juliet railing, two tiny brown sparrows sheltered from the weather. One tilted his little head inquisitively, and I wished for my drawing pad and charcoal pencils. I tried to capture his features in my memory.

The library door opened.

“Ha! Madam Mope, I’ve got you!” John Reed cried, as if he’d pounced upon the object of his search—me. He paused, having found the room empty. “I know you’re in here, Jane Eyre. The choker’s gone, and I’ll seek until I find.”

Choker.
John Reed and his friends called all clergymen chokers after the white cravats tied so tightly in fanciful knots around their necks.

“Where the hell is she?”

If only Mrs. Reed could once overhear her darling boy’s foul swears.

“Eliza!” he called out. “Jane isn’t here. Tell mother she’s run out into the rain. She’s in trouble.”

I closed my eyes and thanked my guardian angel for giving me the presence of mind to close the curtain. I prayed John wouldn’t find me. That I wouldn’t hiccup involuntarily.

“She’s in the window seat. I’m sure of it.” Eliza came into the room in answer to John’s call. “She’s always there.”

I’d give him no satisfaction of discovery and no opportunity to drag me out. I threw back the curtain and stepped down to the floor. “What do you want?” Though my heart raced a hundred miles a minute, I tried to affect utter indifference.

“Say:
what do you want, Master Reed.”
He sat in the armchair by the unlit fireplace and pointed at the floor. “I want you to come here, and bring that book.”

Bile rose in my throat. By accident of birth, I was expected to submit to this bully? “No.”

Eliza gasped.

“Come here, charity case,” John Reed said. “I don’t think you understand the precarious nature of your position.”

I laughed. “Do you even know what that means? You’re repeating something you read in a book.”

“Jane, do be careful,” Eliza said.

She was right. I had no defense against him. He’d bamboozled his mother, and there was nothing anyone could do to correct him. The servants were terrified of him. I was too, but my contempt ran deeper than my terror.

He held out his hand, palm up, as if he really expected me to give him my book.

“It wasn’t Georgiana’s to give,” he said. “You know that, Jane. All the wealth of Gateshead flows from me. You have no business accepting this book. You’re my dependent. You have no money. Your father left you nothing. You ought to work in a factory or beg on the streets of a town before you live in this fine house with an anointed’s children. I can’t believe my mother lets you eat at the same table with us. All your fine clothes are at my expense.”

“Mrs. Reed buys my clothes.”

“From my inheritance. I'll teach you. Go face the wall, away from the windows.”

I glanced at the wall, but I didn’t move.

“In three months, I’ll be eighteen. Do you know what that means, Jane Eyre? My trustee will be gone, and things will change. All will be done according to my will. My mother’s good nature will protect you no longer. And if you persist in modeling such an evil example to my innocent sister, you’ll force me to have you removed to the workhouse.”

“John!” Eliza said.

“However reluctantly,” he added. He turned his palm downward and pointed to the spot he’d indicated before. “Now come here, Jane.”

“No.”

“You impudent girl!” Mrs. Reed was there in the center of the library. I never saw her come in. She was enraged and blundering toward me, her eyes bulging like a caricature of a human being. “You ingrate! You Lilith! You Jezebel!”

She raised her hand to strike, and I raised the atlas as a shield. She stole it away from me, crying
aha!

Mrs. Reed ran to John and I chased after her. He grabbed the book and held it over my head, taunting me as I’d known he would if he got the chance. I charged at him and beat his chest with my fists.

“Help!” he cried. “She’s a wild animal!”

“Take her away,” Mrs. Reed told the servants, for Bessie and Abbot had come to see what all the noise was about. “Take her to the Red Room and secure her there.”

Four hands immediately seized me.

John Reed crowed triumphantly, my beautiful atlas clutched in his fat, teacake-smudged hands.