Chapter 8 #2
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?”
I paused before responding. “Of course I met her only briefly,” I equivocated. And then I added, “Perhaps Mrs. Wilson told you that her sister seemed unable to abide my presence. I did not stay there at her house.”
“She told me.” His eyes had not left my face, and I knew he expected more of me than I had already given. But dare I say that the woman had not seemed of sound mind? That was not something one would blithely say to the person’s relation.
“Perhaps her distress was due to my having the same name as their unfortunate brother,” I suggested. “Perhaps the memory was too much—”
“That was all? There was nothing more?”
I wished I knew what else Mrs. Wilson had told him, but the fact that they had talked in private the whole evening was enough for me to know that she must have unburdened herself to him quite completely.
“She seemed…quite fragile of mind,” I ventured.
“She did not at first recognize her sister, and when Mrs. Wilson told her who she was and mentioned your name as well, she seemed not to know who you were—who John Wilson was. I am sorry that I could not have observed her further, but she was adamant that I leave. And when I returned, she was not in sight.”
He seemed increasingly frustrated at my responses. “And Mrs. Wilson said nothing about it on the return?”
“She did not, sir, nor did I think it my place to insist. She was quite distraught.”
He took a decisive bite of his toast and chewed it slowly.
I looked down at my plate. I was not used to being the bearer of such disheartening news. My egg was growing cold, the fat of the bacon congealing, but I could not think what else to say.
“This changes everything,” he said at last. “I shall have to write to your father.”
This brought my head up in alarm. Had Mrs. Wilson told him of my leaving Harrogate on my own?
Oh God, I thought. Mr. Wilson was going to write to my father of my truancy.
I could not imagine what would become of me—nearly sixteen years old and not even fit yet for any trade except for the meanest of them.
I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my silence and let my breakfast grow fully cold in front of me. Finally, he nodded at my plate and said curtly, “You’d better eat your breakfast, Rochester; there’s no telling what you’ll be getting henceforth.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, but I hadn’t the heart to eat now. All appetite had left me.
“You will not come to the mill today,” he said, as I by then suspected he would. “You must find other lodgings for yourself. I shall inform your father that you can no longer be accommodated here.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, just as if I understood what he was saying.
“One day will be sufficient, I should think.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will be back tomorrow, then, as usual.”
“Sir?”
“At the mill. Tomorrow.”
“I don’t…I thought…I don’t quite…”
“Get it out, Rochester. I haven’t all day,” he snapped.
“It’s just that—if you’ve dismissed me—let me go, then why—”
“For heaven’s sakes, Rochester, I haven’t dismissed you.” His face softened, but only by a degree, as he understood my foolishness.
“But you said—”
“I said you no longer will stay here. Mrs. Wilson has told me, and you have confirmed it: her sister must come here and live with us. God knows, it is not what I—well, not what anyone would choose.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Yes, sir,” I managed to say.
“You shall have to find other accommodations, and I will write to your father that our arrangement is, perforce, changed, and now that you are to be on your own, he and I shall have to work out who is responsible for your living expenses.” He gazed down at his plate for a moment.
“Until Miss Little and Mrs. Brewer arrive, you may keep your room here. Unless you prefer to move out sooner.”
“I shall do the best I can,” I said, my head still reeling. For the first time in my life, I was to be on my own.
He rose to leave, but he turned back, his right hand gone to his pocket. “And I suppose it was necessary for you to pay for your lodgings in Harrogate from your own purse.”
“Well, sir—” I started, but he interrupted.
“Rochester,” he said, “some advice. If someone offers to give you payment, do not argue.” And he placed a note on the table.
“Yes, sir, I will remember that,” I said.