This last niggled at me: it fit with what Jane had told me—that the Reeds had never considered her a true relation—and yet it made me wonder again why she had been sent for. Since I was ready to return to Thornfield anyway, I made the detour to Gateshead unannounced. Of course, I did not intend to make my presence known to Jane, but I thought I could get a better picture of the Reed family and perhaps even hear some gossip about their visiting cousin.
I found accommodations in a nearby inn, telling the landlord I was distantly related to the Reed family and asking for news of them. He was a loquacious man and warmed up easily to conversation, telling me that the Reeds had experienced no end of trouble since the death of Mr. Reed. The son had been a bully as a youngster and had grown into gaming and alcohol and other dissolute substances, had played too much with women he shouldn’t have, and had recently died, though, he assured me, he hated to speak poorly of the dead.
And his mother? I asked. Ah, yes, that woman was as blind as a bat as far as her son was concerned, wasting her money on him until, rumor went, it was mostly gone, though the one daughter still dressed and acted as if she were a princess. And now the mother had apoplexy and was not well, maybe even dying for all he knew, and there was another daughter, as thin as a stick and with a sour face to go with it. Was there a cousin who used to stay with them? I asked cautiously. Name of Jane Eyre? It was she, I added, who was my relative.
“You may be in luck,” he told me: “I heard a young woman, a distant relative perhaps, is doing the work of a servant in old Mrs. Reed’s last days. If you have any sense”—he leaned closer—“you’ll get her out of there before they make a maid of her.”
I left him, determined to see for myself, but they must have been keeping Jane busy, for it was three days before I saw any sign of her. The “princess”—whom I assumed to be Georgiana—was walking along the street finely attired, carrying a parasol, with Jane in her usual sober gray a half step behind, loaded with bundles. It was a pitiful sight, and immediately I decided that when I had Jane home, I would dress her in the most beautiful silks and satins and shower her with jewels. I left, then, for if I had stayed, I would not have been able to resist interrupting this charade, no doubt fully humiliating Jane.
At Thornfield, returning with my new carriage and bearing gifts for Adèle, I was surrounded by the idyllic sight of the hay harvest: laborers swinging their scythes and others with rakes drawing the hay, and haystacks in meadows all around under the warm, early summer sun.
When I set foot in the Hall, however, I was greeted with unwelcome news. “That same gentleman has been here to see you, sir,” Mrs. Fairfax said as she took my hat and cloak. “Mr. Rochester, he calls himself; he says he is your nephew.”
I was just removing my gloves, and I looked up sharply. Mrs. Fairfax, as any good servant would, had no expression at all on her face. “He is here now?” I asked.
“He has been here, sir. He is staying in Millcote, I believe. He said to send for him when you return.”
“Thank you,” I replied, retaking my things from her arms. I made directly for the stable, where Mesrour had just been unburdened of his saddle, and I ordered the hand to saddle him up again. I should have left the poor horse to rest from our journey, should have taken another mount, but Mesrour was in my heart and I needed him beneath me, and Pilot beside me. If Jane had been present, I might have wanted to take her with me as well.
*
Everson was just tidying his office when I arrived. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
“Have you?”
“Mr. Gerald Rochester, he calls himself,” he said.
“You have met him?”
“He came here. He says he is your nephew.”
“How did he know you were my solicitor?”
Everson shrugged. “It is known in Millcote. It would not be hard for him to discover who represents you. But once he told me his business, I refused to speak further with him.”
“And…what is his business?”
“He says he is wanting to see his mother, that he understands you are responsible for her care. That’s what he says, although I have no idea how he has learned of her whereabouts. Rochester, I expect he intends to lay claim to what he would call his inheritance.”
“Thornfield.”
Everson nodded, and sat back down at his desk, indicating a chair for me as well. But I could not sit; I could not even stand still.
“He intends to take it from me.”
“He did not say so specifically; that is only my inference.”
“What’s to be done?” I asked, collapsing then into the chair.
“Have you known all this time that there was another possible heir? Can he be discredited?”
“I don’t know. Bertha often cried out for a lost baby, but I always assumed it was merely the ranting of a madwoman. But when Molly, her Jamaican servant, left, she told me there had indeed been a baby that was taken away. Bertha was only thirteen, poor child. And, recently, I asked her brother, Richard, and he confirmed it.”
“And her brother said…,” he prompted.
“That, yes, there was a male child, who was sent with friends to be raised in America. And the father was my brother. Richard does not believe there had been a marriage.”
Everson nodded. “Would he testify to that?”
“I have no idea what he would testify to.”
“A child born out of wedlock, or even born of a marriage that is not considered a proper one—that is, outside of a church or without the proper banns—is considered filius nullius: the child of no one. If he cannot provide proof of a proper marriage, that is what he is in the eyes of Chancery: the child of no one.”
I sat for some time in silence. “And we do not know if he has proof,” I mused.
“In the meantime,” he said sternly, “I advise you not to speak with him except in my presence.”
I nodded. “Have you had an opportunity to look for a suitable house for my wife?”
“I have begun, but as you know, a house as you’ve described is not easily come by. But my inquiries continue.”
“Very well,” I said. “And as for Gerald Rochester, or whatever his name is, let it be understood that he is not to come to Thornfield again as long as I am master there.”
“Indeed,” he said.
*