Before Bertha awoke, I returned to her room. Just outside her door I found Molly and Tiso curled up on the floor, a rug over each of them for warmth. In my rage, and to my shame, I had forgotten all about them, about the fact that they would not have understood that beds awaited them in Bertha’s chambers—that they indeed were expected to sleep in beds. They did not know so many things, and it was up to me to make sure their way was made smooth; I could in good conscience do no less.
Indeed, although I wanted nothing other than to hurry off to Thornfield-Hall, I saw that I would have to stay at Ferndean much longer than planned. I remained with Bertha that morning since she seemed distraught by her new surroundings, and later I had a long conversation with Mrs. Greenway, who, I learned, was fearful that “the people from across the sea,” as she called them, would make unreasonable demands of her. “It is only that I am suddenly a widow with no savings and no other source of income that I am here,” she confided to me. “I have no idea what West Indian people eat. And the black ones—do they speak English?”
“Yes—they are servants to the white woman, and I imagine they are as afraid of you as you are of them,” I told her. “The white woman is not well. Did you know that?”
“Yes, sir, I did, sir. But in what way unwell I was not told.”
“She is, to put it bluntly, a bit mad.”
“A bit mad?” She took a step back, looking around as she did so, as if searching for the nearest escape route.
“Not dangerous—she sleeps much of the day and keeps mostly to herself at night.” I hoped that description could be made true. “The two servants”—I could not bring myself to use the word slaves in England, and, indeed, in England they were not slaves—“will need to learn English food and how to prepare it, and of course how and where to get it. They are used to gardens supplying most of what they eat.”
“We have gardens,” she said stoutly, as if I could not know that.
“Yes, but here gardens are seasonal. In Jamaica, crops grow all year round.”
“Oh,” she said. “Will they eat eggs?”
“Yes, and bacon as well. They are used to big breakfasts.”
“Porridge?”
“Not so much porridge. But they will eat soup.”
“For breakfast?”
It was just then that Tiso peered into the kitchen, and Mrs. Greenway, seeing her, gave a start. Tiso slipped back out of sight. “Tiso,” I said, “come here. Meet Mrs. Greenway.”
Accustomed to doing as she was told, Tiso stepped back into view, but not into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Greenway,” I said, “this is Tiso. She is a good child, well behaved.”
Mrs. Greenway smiled cautiously, but for a moment she hardly knew what to say or do. Then she recovered herself and said, “Good morning, Tiso.”
“Tiso,” I said, “are you hungry?”
The child was startled: she had never been asked such a question by a white person before.
“I am sure Mrs. Greenway can fry up some eggs for us both,” I offered.
Tiso stood stock-still, staring at her feet. A white man had offered her food; a white woman was to cook it for her. She had no idea what she was to do.
The next day, having assured myself that Mrs. Greenway was capable and sensitive to the situation, I sent for a hired horse and set out for Thornfield. It would have to be a short visit, I knew, but I could wait no longer. This was what I had worked toward for the last six months; indeed, it had been my greatest dream from the moment I was sent away three days after my eighth birthday. I had not known it as a child, but now I did: there had never been another home for me, only way stations on a homeward journey that I had somehow always dreamed of making.
And now I was taking the final leg of that journey, riding across the meadows and fields and woods, seeing that dark shape in the distance that was again to be my home, then—coming closer—the outlines of it: the chimneys at its four corners, the stonework balustrade defining its roof, the wide, plain front, even the stables and outbuildings. Suddenly I spurred my mount, dashing headlong toward Thornfield; I could not reach it soon enough. And when I did, and tied the horse and lifted the latch and opened the door, a flood of emotion overwhelmed me, and I stood just inside the door in awe, as if I had entered a cathedral, and I wept.
Chapter 2
I was not inside the door more than a minute before a man appeared, whom I took to be the newly hired butler. “Munroe, is it?” I asked him.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I am sorry, sir. I did have knowledge from Mr. Everson that you could be arriving one of these days, and I apologize that I was not at the door to greet you.”
“Never mind, Munroe,” I said. “In fact, I was pleased to be able to open the door for myself, to step on my own inside a place that is so special to me. And if you do not mind, I will take my time, on my own, renewing my acquaintance.”
“Of course, sir.” He stepped back, excused himself, and left.
I stood there, taking in the familiar scene: the portraits and the pendant bronze lamp, the great clock standing sentinel—at the sight of which my fingers felt again the childish urge to trace its carvings. Then into the dining room, and the drawing room with its same ivory-colored rug bordered with flowers. I glanced above the fireplace, but the only painting that hung there was the same hunting scene that had tormented my days as a motherless child. I paused in that room, memories flooding my mind, nearly overwhelming me. And slowly I climbed the broad, curved staircase to the second floor. To the right was a guest bedroom, and another, and another, until, at the end of the hall, the nursery and the schoolroom, and then I turned the other way and strolled down the hall. To the left of the staircase was the room that had been my father’s, and afterwards, I supposed, my brother’s, when Rowland came of age and my father moved permanently to Liverpool. It was the room that now would be mine.
But when I opened the door, the world stilled. There it was: the portrait I had so hoped to recover, hung above the bed as if it had never been anywhere else. I walked closer, almost unbelieving. My mother, whose memory to me was only in this portrait, gazed back. Rowland must have brought it back from Jamaica and hung it here above his bed—for she was his mother too, and he was the one who could remember her.
I stood before that painting, my mind numb, then moved closer and took it from its place above the bed. I carried it out of the chamber and down the stairs and into the drawing room, where I removed the hunting scene and hung my mother’s portrait there, where it belonged. In that moment I came to fully realize not only how much I had always loved Thornfield, but also how much I had lost: Carrot and Touch, dead. My father and my brother—and my mother—all dead. Even Mr. Wilson and Jonas, dead. Now Bertha—my pitiful, hateful bride—was all the family I had in the world.
*