Barbados, 1899
"There are so many colors and varieties of the tropical flowers..." It was necessary, even in the bright sunlight that she put her face with the myopic eyes close to the drawing paper. Only then could she see the details of her work. This artist of renown, this most famous and faithful recorder of the flora of the West Indies did not want to disappoint. No one would ever say that the celebrated illustrator and naturalist Jane Rivers was past her prime or that her work was just not what it was.
Mrs. Rivers peered at the stamen in the center of her latest watercolor flower. The London Botany Society decided to call it The Trinidad Ginger. A touch more of darker amber? A dab of yellow? Did her efforts truly capture the depths of the smoldering honey shade of this newly cataloged plant?
The door opened to her small studio. A man in his late thirties or early forties, blond and sunburned walked into the room. He placed his Panama hat on the table, brushed the dust off his white suit and gave Jane a warm hug. "Mama, you look nineteen when you are painting!" Crispin, the true child of her heart entered the room. Something of the blood she shared with his father St. John had distilled in the now grown man a true memory of the elfin young Jane Eyre.
"My little fairy..." She heard a voice from long ago and far away. Strange, none of her brood of children by HIM, by her one true love were as entwined in her heart as this one charmed Crispin Rivers, born from someone she never truly loved.
"Mama" said Crispin, looking alarmed at her sudden distracted look. "Are you well?"
Jane reasserted herself to the present time. "I apologize my dear boy. It is the prerogative of the elderly to be lost in thought. I was thinking on my Trinidad ginger. Do you think that it has the correct dark yellow?"
Crispin took her frail arm and attempted to lead her to a chair. "Mama, please. The orchid societies and botanists can wait. You are still weak from last winter." Jane Rivers, months earlier, was rendered speechless and without feeling in left her side. It happened as she was reading a letter from England. James...
Slowly, over the months, Jane did regain her powers. But there lingered in her aspect a hint of frailty—a hesitancy that was never in the demeanor of the brisk and no-nonsense Jane Rivers. Crispin Rivers saw the change and, also observed that his mother sometimes had a far away look---an abstracted other-worldly look. Once he observed her sitting alone on the veranda, smiling and mouthing conversations and pouring tea and even reading poetry for an invisible guest named Edward Rochester. Edward had been dead for forty years.
It frightened Crispin.
Jane Rivers patted Crispin's hand. "I am here for a while, my dear. My work is not complete. I have something to do."
Jane smiled. Crispin, the Botany Society and the New York City's Harper Magazine, of course, thought that she was thinking of her deadlines, the boat that was leaving the harbor and her endless trips into the wilds of the island. Jane was thinking of something else.
"Crispin, did your father see you?"
Crispin laughed. "Dear Papa, and I say that with all irony, is seated in a broken wicker chaise on the veranda. Isabelle is patiently and lovingly attending him, even as he calls her 'Whore of Babylon' or some such endearments. Isa just smiles and wipes his brow and gives him some water."
Jane and Crispin exchanged a silent smile. They wondered to themselves if the old Reverend Rivers knew that the dark and smiling Isabelle was in truth his and Jane's own granddaughter. And, did the old ranter know that Isabelle had three sisters who shared Crispin as their father?
Jane finally spoke. "Crispin, you know that I also deplored your free ways with our servants. But, I must tell you that I am reconciled. Isabelle is a blessing to us."
The Reverend St. John Eyre now lived in his own world—a world inhabited by his own fevered imaginings of Hellfire, demons, and threats of eternal damnation.
"Really mother, how could you have even considered cohabitation with such a man..." Crispin started to say.
Mother and son looked at one another, shook their heads and began to laugh out loud. "Really Crispin, how would I have been able to have my delightful companion Crispin in my old age if I had not? Tea, my son?"
Crispin led his mother to the small table with the alcohol lamp. She did have a well equipped kitchen in the main house. But, Jane preferred to have her tea in the snug corner of her artist's studio. The plain heavy (and a little chipped) mugs, the old brown teapot were her memories of another studio, another time... and Edward.
Crispin Rivers finally spoke again. "I have returned from England, mother. My business took me to north of Nottingham."
Jane continued to be over concentrated on the effort of making tea. "Isabelle made some ginger biscuits yesterday. I have them somewhere, they are quite extraordinary." She spoke blandly, as if she did not hear what her son was saying.
Crispin continued "Mother, listen to me. I went to Ferndean."
Jane continued unhindered "They will be bringing the Reverend in quite soon. It would be best for you to be out of sight, you know how angry you make St. John, although I would not take his ravings to heart...I do believe that ranting about the eternal fire of damnation for you is his only comfort in his senility" .
"Mother, PLEASE" Crispin stopped her fussing about the tea articles. "Mother, I spoke with Richard. He has sold some land. Ferndean is no longer surrounded by forest."
"Indian or Chinese?" asked Jane as she reached for the tea containers.
"Mother, you are now a great-grandmother. Helen's oldest had a boy. His name is Erik Fredrikson. They live in a place called Wisconsin."
"I am tired Crispin. Please take some tea. I need to rest."