On my return to Valley View, I took a walk in the orchard, the one place on the estate in which I felt true peace. In the evening breeze the avocado leaves brushed against one another in a soothing rhythm and a nearby parrot screeched into the night. The citrus scents of oranges and lemons surrounded me, and I closed my eyes and imagined myself at Thornfield—would that it were so easy to transport oneself from one place to another, with no cares and no responsibilities. After a time, I rose and went to the house and drank a mug of grog and another and another, and I finally managed to find my way to my own bed and fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed of Bertha, of her setting the cane fields afire, of her attacking me with a machete, of her tormented screams that went on and on, until I woke and realized it truly was her screaming—as she did often enough in the night hours—and I rose, still half-drugged with sleep and overpowered with a sense of hopelessness. I could choose either Valley View or Thornfield; it made no difference: I would always be burdened with a mad wife.
I opened the jalousied window further, expecting a rush of cooler air, but it was a steamy Jamaican night, the beginning of the hurricane season. The moon was setting bloodred in the west, half-covered with clouds; mosquitoes flew into the room, surrounding me with their maddening whines. Bertha—two rooms away—still screamed curses at me, at her father, at God, at whomever or whatever she could imagine. What kind of life is this? I asked myself. It is hell. She is as sound of body as she is unsound of mind. She will live for years and years, and I will have to endure it all. I suddenly felt I could not. I could not go on living in that hell, and I wished I had not talked Richard out of a duel, wished I had stood before him and let him shoot me as many times as it would take for him to find the target and kill me. For I felt, at that moment, that only death would relieve me of a burden that had become too heavy to bear.
I pulled a little trunk from under my bed and unlocked it and took out the case with the loaded pistols. I had placed it there after Richard had left, for safekeeping. Now I lifted one, heavier than I would have thought, and I held it in my hand for a time, thinking how easy it would be. I put it to my temple. So easy.
But then a breeze came and brought with it a rainstorm. The skies opened and rain poured down, cleansing the air. I closed the window, pistol still in hand, and watched the rain pelt against the casement. As quickly as it had come, the storm was gone, moving off to the west. I opened the window again and the air felt purer, and with it came a new sensibility. I laid the pistol back into its box and locked it away.
I left the house then, my mind already working, and I strolled across the wet grass to the orchard, where I walked again among the trees. A sweet breath of wind from Europe was on my face. I could sense the thunder of the distant Atlantic against the shore and my heart swelled within me. There is a way, I thought. There has to be a way. If I must, I will take Bertha with me. She can be cared for as well at Thornfield as she is here. For England—Thornfield—pulled on me, now that I knew it could be mine, was mine.
In the morning, I doubted my decision. How could I do such a thing? Did I not have a good life at Valley View? How in God’s name would I make a life for Bertha at Thornfield? But my heart had already fled there, and I slowly came to understand it fully: Thornfield-Hall had always been my home in ways that Valley View had never, and would never, become.
*
In the following weeks, as I anxiously waited for Everson’s response, I shared with Osmon my situation. It was only fair that he should know, since he would have full management responsibility if I returned to England. We had often spoken of the future of Jamaica and the life we led. He was a keen reader of history. “Men wait and watch and take advantage when they can,” he said one evening. “It will be no different when the negroes finally rise.”
“Then why do you stay?” I asked him.
“Because I, too, seek my best interest,” he answered. “I am closer to the negroes than you are. I can sense the tension. But in the meantime I am saving money. When the sugar estates are gone, opportunities will come to the men who have the experience and the funds in hand.”
“How soon do you think it will be?” I asked.
He gazed absently at the cigar in his hand. “Who knows?” he said, turning away and staring out over the cane fields. “You will be lucky if it’s another eight or ten years,” he murmured.
“And what then?”
“God knows,” he said.
God knows, I thought. “Are there rumors of an uprising?”
“There are always rumors,” he responded.
“But still you stay.”
“I am a single man.”
I nodded. He was alone in the world, with no wife or children or possessions other than the savings he had accumulated. But I; I had Bertha. And Bertha would go nowhere without Molly and Molly would go nowhere without her Tiso.
He rose finally, bade me good night, and made his way to his cottage, but I sat for a time by myself on the veranda, wondering how it would come. In the distance I could smell the remainders of the cooking fires from the negro quarters. If they rose in rebellion, would it be on a quiet night like this? Or would it be later in the year, when the rains came every day and sometimes the wind whipped trees back and forth and the sea rose in a fury that damaged boats and buildings alike? Or would they wait until winter, when the weather was calm and dry and the fields would burn more easily? Or would they plan it at all—would they simply rise at the least expected moment and for no reason, like Bertha, lash out in a passion that could not be sated until all was destroyed? And perhaps not even then.
Chapter 13
Despite that I had anxiously awaited Everson’s response, when I actually held it in my hand I could barely bring myself to open it. It was my future. My entire life-to-be was inclosed in that slim packet. I took it into Jonas’ room—a room in which I still felt his presence—and I sat at his desk and held the missive in my hands. Finally, I forced myself to break the seal.
Mr. Rochester—
You ask about your brother, Rowland Howell Rochester: perhaps your father did not inform you that Rowland Rochester was seriously wounded by a careless shot during a grouse-hunting expedition in Scotland in the month of August last year.
Your father was quite distraught, but the seeming culprit was a Scottish earl, and the barrister was of the opinion that pursuance was inadvisable, given the lack of available witnesses. If I may say so, I believe it was that blow that weakened your father’s constitution and made him even more susceptible to the dropsy to which he was already inclined. I am greatly sorry to be the bearer of such unpleasant news.