“Here? Well then, Fairfax, you must take me to her now!”
“No.” Despite that he frowned at me like a petulant boy, I went on: “Not now. She has always been worse at night; you know that. I will take you in the morning, I promise. She is safe in an upstairs apartment. Now, tell me: Were they married? Bertha and Rowland?”
“She was a child!”
“With your father’s permission she could have married. Rowland would have been a good catch for her. Better than I.”
He shrugged. “Rowland didn’t want her, I suppose. I’m sure I don’t know.”
“But somehow you learned of it?”
He looked away. “Oh, you know,” he said vaguely, “a child hears things.”
“What kinds of things?” I pressed. He was not telling me all of it, I was sure.
“Your brother seduced my sister—is that not bad enough?” he said with renewed vigor. “Does there need to be more? When do I see my sister? Is she truly here in this house?”
“You will see her in the morning,” I said, reassuring him as best I could. I was not convinced that he had come to terms with the severity of her case, nor with how difficult and unpredictable she had become. “Come, now,” I added, trying to change his mood. “Have a drink with me, and tell me what brings you all the way to England.”
He watched as I poured us each a glass of rum. “Yes,” I said ruefully. “It’s not quite grog, sad to say. But it will have to do.”
We both drank in silence for a few moments. “Do you still live in Madeira?” I asked him.
“I do,” he said. “Wine is a better crop than sugar. Grapes are far easier to grow.”
“Ah,” I responded, “that does not surprise me. And”—I looked at his glass and mine—“is it wine now that you drink?”
“Mostly. Are you familiar with Madeiran wines?”
We switched to wine after the rum, and to nostalgic conversation, reminiscing about the balls we had attended, about his father and Valley View, about the sad state of affairs in Jamaica now. It was almost as it had once been between us, the easy friendship when I had first arrived in Spanish Town, except that he occasionally raised again the issue of his sister. But each time I calmly assured him I would take him to her in the morning.
It had become late, and I ushered him up the staircase to bed. The others had already retired, and, filled with wine and spirits, we bade each other a pleasant good-night.
*
But as I retreated to my room, my mind seized again on the appalling news: it was true, then, about Bertha and Rowland. Of course, at thirteen, she could have been infatuated with my dashing brother, but would Rowland actually have taken advantage of her in that way? All elements of my soul resisted the image of the two of them entwined. I still simply could not believe that there wasn’t a terrible misunderstanding. But then I thought back to that conversation on our first night in Spanish Town, and Bertha’s assertions about Rowland. She had mentioned the portrait of my mother, the one that I had found hanging over my brother’s bed at Thornfield—that, I realized, must once have hung over the bed, my bed, in Spanish Town, where Bertha had seen it with her own eyes.
Oh God. Poor, pitiful Bertha, festering in her upstairs chamber: how much of the precipitation of her madness could be laid to Rowland’s abandonment, to the loss of the baby?
And now her brother was here, eager for a reunion with his sister, and I was aware of the shock he would have in the morning. Although Bertha had been in a poor state the last time he saw her, years ago, she was infinitely worse now. And I didn’t believe Richard had ever visited his own mother, whom, though my heart recoiled in confessing it, Bertha resembled more and more by the year.
Unable to sleep, I tried distracting myself with happier thoughts: my Gypsy ruse, while not wholly successful, had gone well enough that Jane had declared herself a loyal friend to me, at least, and—as a friend—even offered to lay down her life in my aid. I had also felt the undeniable satisfaction of puncturing Miss Ingram’s haughty confidence. I wondered how long it would take for her interest to wane.
Eventually, I faded off into sleep.
*
In the middle of the night, a startling shriek arose: Bertha, screaming into the night. No, I thought, of all nights, not now, not Bertha now. I held my breath and listened but heard nothing more. As I was drifting back to sleep, thinking it must have been some part of a dream, suddenly there came muffled sounds, and shortly afterwards desperate cries: “Help! Help!” And then, “Will no one come?”
At that I leaped from my bed and began to dress, for I knew it was Richard: despite my warnings he must have gone to his sister in the night. And then came: “Rochester! For God’s sake, come!”
When I reached the upper chamber, I found Richard clutching his shoulder, his arm dripping blood, and Bertha wielding a blade and struggling against the valiant Grace Poole. I moved to subdue her, wrestling the weapon from her grasp, but at just that moment she broke free and buried her teeth in her brother’s shoulder, growling and shaking her head like a tigress. It was all Grace and I could do to separate them and return Bertha to her chamber. Once there, she still would not calm, so I reached for the bonds we kept for an emergency, and Grace and I bound her as she muttered angrily. Satisfied that my wife was under control, I left that inner room.
In the outer room, Richard had collapsed, blood soaked and moaning, into a chair. I thought his wounds, though many and bleeding profusely, were not life threatening, and at that moment I began to hear voices below—it was just as I had feared: my guests had been aroused by the blood-curdling cries. With a glare, I forbade Richard from making a noise until I could return, for I had more important things to attend to.
As I ran back down the stairs I could hear Colonel Dent shouting, “Where the devil is Rochester?”
“Here!” I called, doing my best to sound unruffled. “Be composed, all of you: I’m coming.” I reached the gallery to see them all there, candles in hand, clustered together in their nightclothes.
Miss Ingram ran to me and clutched at my arm. “What awful event has taken place?” she asked. “Speak! Let us know the worst at once!” At the same time, the Eshton girls rushed over and clung to me as if their lives depended on it.