Epilogue
Ferndean Manor was suitable for a miserable wretch living out his lonely life, but it was not a fit place for a married couple, nor a family.
I told Jane we should find a better place, but she insisted not, because I had become used to Ferndean, where I could find my own way independent of her, or Mary and John.
“But it is not I for whom we need a house,” I said to her.
“We need a home for our family. And a family home should never be for the oldest and least able, but for the young, for the generations to come—the home they will pine for when they are far off, and cherish when they have returned, a home to hold all the memories of a lifetime. We must build a house, Jane, that has sunshine streaming in the windows, and nooks and crannies where children can hide, and lawns where they can play. We must be sure to have rooms that are not always square or rectangular, but unusual in shape and aspect, and that lead to each other in surprising ways, and there must be attics that children can explore on rainy days, and…”
She laughed. “And banisters they can slide down?”
“Yes! Absolutely!”
“Did you do that? At Thornfield-Hall? Did you slide down the banister?”
“I never dared.”
“Ah! You were not such a ruffian as you like to pretend!”
“Did you? At the Lowood School? Surely not at the Reed house.”
“I never dared, either.”
“We will build the world’s best banister,” I responded, “and we will slide down it every day.”
* * *
It took five years, deciding exactly where such a house should be situated, and how large it should be and what it should look like: the entire planning and building of it.
After two years of our marriage, I had regained a bit of sight in my one eye, and although I could not see the house plans well enough to decipher much, I could see it all in my mind, and Jane drew what we agreed upon.
By the time the house was built, I knew it so well that I did not need to be guided through it, and it has become the house where our sons were born and the house where Jane wrote her life story and where she insisted I tell mine.
And now there is sunshine coming in our windows, and ponies in the pasture, and the orchard blooms in the spring with fruit trees, and I wander in the garden, and there are still some woods left, and beyond them there are meadows where sheep graze and our sons can play at being soldiers or pirates or warrior chiefs, and there is Adèle, more English now than French, who comes home on her school holidays, and has become, truly, a daughter to us, and a blessed relief, sometimes, from our boisterous sons.
And there is Jane, my dearest heart, who walks with me and reads to me and talks and laughs with me and teases, and sometimes slides down the banister when no one is about, and who calls me “Edward” every day of my life.