“Sir—sir—” interrupted the clergyman, “do not forget you are in a sacred place.” Then he turned toward Richard and asked if he was certain that Bertha was still living.
Richard still shrank back, for he knew he owed me much, but the lawyer urged him on. “She is now living at Thornfield-Hall,” he said in a stronger voice than I could have imagined possible. “I saw her there last April.”
And she would have killed you, I thought, if I hadn’t saved your life.
Mr. Wood, too late, seemed to take my side. “Impossible! I have never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield-Hall.”
At that, I could not help a grim smile—to have succeeded all these years, to be mere seconds from happiness, only to be brought down by one who owed me his life. Indeed, this was not an act of man but one of God—Providence had checked me. I had never been anything but a sinner, and I was wrong to believe in forgiveness. Out with it, then!
“Enough,” I said. “Wood,” I said to the clergyman, “close your book and take off your surplice.” I turned to his clerk: “John Green, leave the church; there will be no wedding today.” Or any day.
Once started, the truth came bursting out of me, as if from a dam; if it had not been so painful I might have been relieved to be done with the secrecy after all these years. But in the moment my misery, my self-loathing, was too deep. As I spoke to those around me, my words were meant for Jane. I could not bear to look her in the face, she who had trusted me, and whom I had brought into shame. I confessed it all: I had a wife, and she lived, and knowing this I had still intended to marry another—yes, I was a devil. I felt like one, through and through. I tried, too, to have them know that she had been thrust upon me by my father and hers, without my knowledge of her family history of madness. I bitterly wanted to have them understand the nature of this “wife”—and in the end, with nothing left to lose, I dared to bring them back to the house to see her for themselves, in the flesh, for she was the greatest evidence of my desperation. And even as I clung to her with an iron grip, I absolved Jane of all knowledge or responsibility for my plan. “Come, all of you, follow!” I demanded, and I led the way back to Thornfield-Hall.
The servants, knowing nothing of the drama in the church, crowded forward to congratulate us, but I shooed them away and stormed upstairs, with a trail of bewildered men behind me, until we burst into Bertha’s private chamber. Grace, surely as shocked as anyone, handled the intrusion with perfect aplomb.
As soon as Bertha was aware of our presence, she rose from her crouch in a corner and uttered a ghastly scream that shattered the small group behind me. None of them had ever beheld such I sight, I’d wager.
“Ah, sir, she sees you,” Grace warned. “You’d better not stay.”
Bertha bellowed and advanced, and the men shrank back. Grace moved forward to distract her, but I wanted to face her myself. I was determined to give them what they’d asked for: proof of my marriage. “She has no knife now, I suppose?” I said.
“One never knows what she has, sir,” Grace responded. “She is so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft.”
“We had better leave,” a frightened Richard whispered behind me.
“’Ware!” Grace cried suddenly, and Bertha lunged forward, scattering the men behind me.
I shoved Jane behind me just as Bertha seized my throat and sank her teeth into my cheek. She was a goblin; a devil as large as I and almost evenly matched—she had lost none of her strength. We grappled—she trying to throttle me while I did my best to avoid hurting her: she growled wildly the whole time, until I was able to wrestle her to the floor, when Grace slipped me the cord, and I bound her hands together with it, and with another I tied her to a chair.
Then I faced the small assemblage of onlookers. “That is my wife. Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And this”—I gently touched Jane’s shoulder, and to my lasting gratitude she did not shrink away—“this is what I wished to have: this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the Gospel and man of the law, and remember, with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize.”
Chapter 23
The others hurried away, while I remained in that chamber of horrors, alone but for Grace Poole and her demonic charge. This, I supposed, would be my life from here on, trapped with this “wife,” unless Jane would forgive me. “Grace,” I said, “you and Bertha will not be moving to other quarters. The whole world is now aware that my mad wife lives here; there is no point in hiding the truth anymore.”
“She will move out of this chamber now, sir?” Grace asked.
“I suppose not,” I said. “This is as safe for her as anywhere, and safer than most.”
Still, I tarried, afraid to step outside and face the destruction of all my hopes. We untied Bertha as soon as she calmed, and with Grace beside her caressing her arm, Bertha dozed off in bed a few minutes later.
Numbly, I left that ghastly place and walked down the stairs, glad not to encounter Jane or Adèle. Mrs. Fairfax was in her sitting room, and I stopped there, for I owed her an explanation. “I am sorry to have deceived you,” I said.
Her eyes rose to meet mine. “I was aware of some of it,” she said simply, and turned back to her sewing.
We both remained silent for a time, and then I asked, “Is Miss Eyre in her room?”
“I imagine she is, sir,” she said, still not looking at me.
I rose and left her there. That is how things shall be now, I thought: the averted eyes, the stares behind my back. People will conjecture all kinds of scenes of mayhem—and worse—hidden behind these walls. Thornfield-Hall would now be a place haunted by my shame and sins, its great reputation forever tarnished. And how could I continue to live at Thornfield myself? Would that I had let Rowland’s accursed son take the place off my hands!