But I couldn’t get Thornfield out of my mind. In the first months and years at Black Hill I had missed it terribly, but eventually the pain had healed over, as almost any wound does. But like a scar remains, thoughts and visions of Thornfield would surface in my mind: the magnificent clock, the grand staircase; the aroma of Cook’s kitchen, the stable smell of horses and hay and leather; the fields and woods and moors beyond the house. Now all that flooded back upon me and I longed for it as an abandoned child longs for his parent.
And yet, how would I get there? I had only Sundays to myself—to myself, I say, though of course I was expected to spend mornings and evenings of that day with the Wilsons at services. As well, I had no money, save the two pounds Mr. Wilson gave me each month, which was enough to pay for an occasional pint of beer or meat pie, or to have my boots mended or to save toward the purchase of a new pair of trousers, but not enough to include the cost of a coach to Thornfield and back. Until Rowland’s visit, it had not occurred to me to ask what kind of arrangement had been made between Mr. Wilson and my father. Now I wondered about it, and attempting to be sly, I tried asking questions, but Mr. Wilson was reticent in his own way, only telling me not to worry, that he had sent a good report to my father, that all would be well, and that he was sure my father had plans for me when I was ready.
My father. Was he back at Thornfield too? Or had he remained in Jamaica—or was he somewhere else entirely? I had no idea, nor did I know what he would say if I somehow managed to get myself to Thornfield. I knew full well what Rowland would say, but I didn’t care.
And then, one evening a week or so later, an astonishing thing happened. “Mr. Wilson,” Mrs. Wilson said over rum pudding, “I received the strangest letter today; I hardly know what to think of it.”
“What manner of letter?” Mr. Wilson asked, not even glancing up from his dish.
“From Ella—”
“Ella, your sister?”
“Well, really not from Ella herself, but from Mrs. Brewer.” She caught the frown on her husband’s face. “Mrs. Brewer, her companion. And she seems quite concerned about Ella. She says my sister has been more and more confused with ordinary things, and now she seems to be talking about Mother as if Mother were still alive, even talking about taking Mother to London, or to Bath, for the season.”
At this, Mr. Wilson looked up. “You must have read the letter wrong. It’s Ella who’s wanting to go to Bath and she’s set Mrs. Brewer to writing to you as if she expects me to pay for it.” He started back in on his pudding.
“I did not misread it!” Mrs. Wilson exclaimed with uncharacteristic passion. “Not at all!” And she pulled the folded letter from her pocket and handed it to him.
He read the letter over quickly, and again more slowly. “This is not good,” he said. I imagine he had quite forgotten I was there.
“I hardly know how to respond,” Mrs. Wilson said.
“Perhaps it would be best not to,” he replied.
“I cannot just ignore it. She’s my sister! My only living relative!”
“What would you propose?” he asked. “She’s in Harrogate. We are here.”
“I feel I must at least go and see her,” she countered, “see if she is really as Mrs. Brewer reports. And Harrogate is not so very far away.”
“The better part of a day’s travel,” he said. “You are too frail as well to make the journey on your own, and I cannot go with you. I have commitments here. Two days away at the very least; no, it would be impossible for me to make such a trip until after the first of the year. And even so—”
“I could go,” I offered. “I could accompany Mrs. Wilson.”
Mr. Wilson turned to me. “No, that’s impossible,” he said. “We are not…We could not…No, it’s impossible.”
“But—my sister. I cannot just ignore her,” Mrs. Wilson insisted.
“She has Mrs. Brewer,” he said. “And she has a housekeeper, has she not? What more does she need?”
“She needs me!” Mrs. Wilson responded, seeming to rise in stature even though she remained seated in her chair. “And I need to see—I need at least to see—that she is taken care of properly.”
Mr. Wilson sat back in his chair, the rum pudding forgotten, his mind working. “Would you be willing to go with her, Rochester?” he asked at last. “Would you make sure Mrs. Wilson arrives and returns safely? Would you ascertain if her sister is taken care of adequately?”
“Yes, sir, I would be glad to do that,” I replied, my mind calculating. Harrogate was more than a half day’s travel north of Maysbeck and not exactly on the way to Thornfield, which was mostly east, I was thinking, but it could be a start; surely I could work something out. I had a few pounds saved, and hoped they would be enough.
“Well then,” Mr. Wilson said, “you may write to Mrs. Brewer and tell her you are coming at the end of the week. But keep in mind, it is already the middle of November. The weather will not hold and I forbid you to get snowed in there in Harrogate. You may not stay longer than two days.”
“Yes, of course,” she said.
But I thought: Two days! How can I get from Harrogate to Thornfield and back in two days?
Chapter 8
We left Maysbeck on a bright, sunny morning. It had poured rain all the previous day and night, and now everything seemed washed clean—even, almost, the unpainted cottages and shacks of the bottoms. As the coach rumbled past, I gazed at them, hoping to see Alma once more, but I saw only crooked, narrow alleys, children shivering in filthy rags and adults bundled against the mid-November cold and damp, and lank dogs, snuffling amid the detritus. Soon Maysbeck was behind us and we were in the countryside, heading toward Harrogate, and I was imagining myself at Thornfield again, not just being in the place that I had last seen half a lifetime ago, but seeing as well Cook and Knox and all the rest, if they were still there. From Mr. Wilson’s gazetteer, I had surmised that with even the fastest of coaches it would take me a good day just to make the trip back and forth, without any time remaining to spend at Thornfield itself. I could not think of how I could persuade Mrs. Wilson to extend her stay in defiance of Mr. Wilson’s explicit order. And what excuse could I give for being gone so long?