He did not react to this at all, so good a butler was Holdredge. “Follow me, please,” he said, and stepped forward and led the way down to the kitchen, where we found Cook and Mrs. Knox enjoying an afternoon cup of tea. When no family was present in the house, I could imagine, this was the kind of relaxed atmosphere that prevailed.
“We have a visitor,” Holdredge announced as we walked into the kitchen.
Automatically, Mrs. Knox rose before she even turned to look. I can see her face still—shock there, and confusion, and then the dawning. “Master Rochester,” she said quietly.
“Oh, my heavens!” Cook proclaimed, rising and running around the table as fast as her bulk allowed. “Master Rochester! Young Master Rochester!” Mindless of the flour on her apron, she pulled me to her bosom, her body suddenly wracked with sobs. “I thought I would never see you again! I thought I would die without ever seeing you again!” When she came to herself and realized how unseemly her outburst had been, she stepped back, her arms at her sides but her face still locked on mine. “It is,” she added, still marveling, “it truly is.”
“Welcome,” Mrs. Knox said.
“Thank you,” I replied. “I know you have not planned for me. And I can go back to the village if necessary. I only have until tomorrow morning, as it is.”
“Of course not,” Mrs. Knox said. “You shall stay here; of course you shall.”
“It would be my greatest pleasure,” I responded.
“Master Rowland is not here,” she added.
“So Holdredge told me.”
“He has gone down to Bath, with his friends.”
With Carrot? I wondered. “No matter,” I said. “In fact, I saw him only a short time ago. I have come to see Thornfield. And you all. Not him.”
Mrs. Knox did not react at all. “And we are delighted to have you,” she said. “Are you sure you can stay only until morning?”
“I’m sorry, but yes. I must be back in Harrogate by this time tomorrow.”
“I shall make your favorite tea,” Cook said. “Is it still pork and kidney pie?”
“It is indeed.” It was then that my eye was caught by a movement in the shadows of a corner. It was a young woman—perhaps a few years older than I, square built, with a kind of wary cast to her eyes. I had seen such looks on some of the children in the mill. “Hello there,” I said, to put her at her ease.
Shrinking back, she stared at me.
Mrs. Knox glanced at her and at me and back at her, but it was Cook who spoke up. “It’s Gracie, Master Rochester. Jem’s sister.”
“Of course,” I said, though I would never have recognized her. I remembered my occasional playmate Gracie as something of a daredevil, but her spirit seemed to have deserted her. “Is Jem still here?” I asked, out of politeness—to change the subject—and from curiosity about my other old friends.
The young woman looked at Mrs. Knox to respond to my question, and then turned quickly away, as if fearing I would ask another.
“Master Rowland let Jem go,” Mrs. Knox said.
“He doesn’t keep horses?” I asked. That did not seem like Rowland.
“Oh, he does,” she responded. “But Jem got into a bit of trouble and—”
“Trouble?”
Mrs. Knox shook her head, and I understood not to push the subject. But still— “Where is Jem now, then?”
“He’s at the Grimsby Retreat. He has the care of the workhorses there. Mr. Holdredge gave him the recommendation.”
“The Grimsby Retreat?”
“I suppose you would have been too young to know of it. It’s a place started by the Quakers, a kind of madhouse, but…designed, as they say, for ‘moral treatment’ of the mad, whatever that should mean. There is a farm there, and gardens which are supposed to help heal sick minds, though heaven knows if it works or not.”
“And you,” I said to Gracie, taking a step closer, still attempting friendliness, “do you work here?”
She stepped back, as if I had raised a hand in threat.
“She has—” Cook began. I caught a quick movement at the corner of my eye, but when I turned, Mrs. Knox stood as still as a stone.
“Perhaps you could find a place for her here,” I barged on.
“I think perhaps not,” Mrs. Knox said. Though her voice was soft, her words were firm.
I insisted on having tea that evening in the kitchen, as I so often had done as a child. Holdredge joined us, and they asked me of my life and seemed impressed that I was a kind of assistant to the owner of a woolen mill. I am afraid I rather inflated my importance at Maysbeck Mill, but it seemed to please them that I could make such a good account of my life. Nothing further was said among us of Rowland. It was, truly, like being home again.
I did not see Gracie again during my brief stay at Thornfield, and I had little occasion to think of her. We had been playmates as children, but we were no longer children.
*
Mrs. Wilson and I rode back to Maysbeck in silence. She was clearly distraught about her sister, and I hardly knew what to say. At first I asked if she had had a pleasant time, knowing that it could not have been anyone’s idea of pleasant, but that is the sort of thing one asks after a visit and I thought I should do so regardless of the situation. She barely responded, turning her head toward the window and closing her eyes. She didn’t say another word.
Once home, she removed her bonnet and trudged up to her room. Mr. Wilson would soon be back from the mill, so I did not go there. Instead, I went into the parlor and tried to read the newspaper, though my own thoughts ran far from the page. I realized it had not been difficult at all to go to Thornfield, and I was no sooner back than I was thinking of how to go again. But as easy as it had been this time, it seemed still a difficulty beyond comprehension: how would I find the time and how would I find the money?
When Mr. Wilson arrived, he stuck his head into the parlor and saw me and frowned. “You have returned, I see,” he said.
“Just, sir,” I said. “Mrs. Wilson has gone to her room, I believe. The trip was a difficult one for her.” I said no more and he asked nothing, just turned, and with a kind of harrumph he mounted the stairs.
Some time later, I heard the housekeeper climb the stairs to knock and announce tea, but she came down almost immediately and told me in a softer voice than usual that tea was served in the dining room and not to wait for the mister and missus. I did not take the newspaper with me; it is bad manners to read and dine, even if one is alone, and I was barely able to focus my mind anyway.
I did not see Mr. Wilson again that evening, but in the morning, he was, as usual, already at breakfast when I came down. He did not glance up from buttering his toast when I greeted him, but he did ask, “You met Mrs. Wilson’s sister, I understand?”
“Miss Little, yes, sir, I did.”
He spooned a dab of marmalade on a corner of the toast, then, his eyes on me, he asked, “And how did she seem?”