I had planned to pay a call upon Augustus Sack that evening regardless of the outcome of my meeting with my solicitor; however, the reader will likely empathise when I confess I was too prostrate with nerves following my identity exploding in multiple fashions to infiltrate the East India Company. A message dispatched via the boots conveyed my intention to call upon the morrow. Moving as if in a dream, I unfastened my fine jewellery, brushed and hung my clothing, donned my soft new nightdress, and crawled into bed with a wineglass full of whiskey and Jane Eyre within arm’s reach.
I was a rich woman now, even without Mr. Thornfield’s assistance. Time drifted sluggishly, distorted by the whiskey and the warmth. Everything about me had changed, and yet I could see the slender bend of my wrist at the end of a white forearm, looking the same as it always had, could see the tiny mole between my left thumb and index finger, assuring me that I was still myself.
I was not myself, however. I was a Jane with an imaginary surname, one who apparently was not to blame for failing to scream. It was too mad to comprehend in an instant, or even an hour, so I burrowed farther into the bedclothes to puzzle over it all. My life’s sole mission had once been a simple one: to carve out a tiny sliver of human affection, having none of the commodity for myself. For all that I so thoroughly disapproved of my own character, however, Mr. Sneeves and Mr. Quillfeather had proven that day I was capable of grievous errors upon the subject of Jane Steele.
I rolled clumsily onto my belly, reaching, and flipped to a passage from my new copy of my favourite book:
To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this little toy; half-fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.
Upon first reading, I had found it bizarre that the adult Jane Eyre regarded this exercise as either puzzling or absurd; upon subsequent readings, I marvel still more at her derision. Lacking interest in dolls, I had once—not unlike my poor, sweet Sahjara—gathered crumbs of pleasure by spoiling horses. This seemed to me neither worship of a false idol nor a quirk of an infantile mind; it did no one any harm if I treated a horse well, and made my days less miserable.
Did I deserve misery for the things I had done?
Yes, of course I did. Even apart from being the tainted bastard offspring of a suicidal mother and a lying father, I was a murderess five times over.
As I seemed incapable of turning myself in, however, would any harm come to the world if for the moment I thought of this newly reborn Jane—Jane without legitimate parentage, Jane without legitimate surname—as a creature worth treating gently?
There was no one else volunteering for the task, after all.
? ? ?
Brisk footfalls outside my bedroom door woke me at eleven the next morning; the anonymous movement dragged me from a weirdly sweet slumber. The sun was high, however, and breakfast long concluded, and the whiskey’s solace had left me with an empty belly, so I clambered from bed and washed. Then I donned another of my fashionable frocks, a floral silk with a dramatic shawl collar, all save the white lace sleeves emerging from fabric printed in grey and silver and a blue which reminded me of Mr. Thornfield’s eyes.
Today is for you, I thought, wherever you are and however you fare, and was seized with such a longing that my breath caught.
My set of modest Punjabi diamonds completed the picture, and I deftly swallowed the remainder of last night’s whiskey, fortifying myself as I quit the Weathercock.
Noontide bells rang as my soles struck the cobbles. I had been too disoriented to give Mr. Sack a specific time the day before, so I did not feel rushed. Luncheon was the first order of business, and I knew of a beautiful tearoom Clarke and I had used to frequent mere blocks away from East India House; I was seized with a longing to see it again, its gliding servers and polished brass rails, so I hailed a hansom and directed the driver to the City.
Cox’s Tearoom was just as I recalled it when we pulled up before its door, and by the time I had paid the driver, both the wind and my stomach bit sharply. A liveried gentleman led me to a table, where I was soon equipped with Darjeeling and a tower of sandwiches. After a few sips and bites, however, I thought I should be more comfortable with a newspaper; I visited the rack and selected a late-morning edition, glancing at the headlines as I returned to my table. Nearly colliding with a waiter, I looked up, murmuring an apology.
I stopped dead, staring in astonishment.
Rebecca Clarke sat at a table by the window, shafts of illumination waltzing through the golden corkscrews of her pinned-up hair.
TWENTY-EIGHT
But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only up-rooting my bad propensities.