Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Richard Mason pressed the cloth to his bleeding ear. He hung his head in shame. He had thought he would do some good in seeing his sister. The room spun before his eyes and he leaned more heavily than probably was appropriate on Jane Eyre's arm. "You must leave, Mason." Mason heard Mr. Rochester say. "I will have Robert prepare your carriage."
As he lay in the bed he had been brought to, he wept. Jane inquired after his tears. "It is because I am the worst blackguard of a man you will ever meet, Miss Eyre. I can say little else. Rochester has seen to that."
"Mr. Rochester? Of what interest is your plight to him?"
"You see, Miss Eyre. I can say little other than I have already said."
"Mason," Mr. Rochester entered the chamber. "I must speak with you. Miss Eyre, you may wait in the hall if you like. I must speak with Mason alone." Mr. Rochester specified.
"What were you thinking, Mason?" Mr. Rochester said lowly, but with intensity.
"I had to see her." Mason cried.
"Why is it so difficult to leave me alone?" Mr. Rochester asked. "You know as well as anyone that the creature upstairs is so far gone into the clutches of disease and demons that no one can save her."
"I want her to be seen."
"Impossible. What purpose would it serve?"
"People could see you've been lying."
"Mason, not one more word." Mr. Rochester warned. He helped Mason up and to the door. In the hall, Jane waited for them. She had heard little of their conversation; the doors of Thornfield Hall were rather thick. Therefore, she was not terribly curious about what they had said because she did not know there was anything to be curious about.
"Will Mr. Mason be well?" Jane inquired of Mr. Rochester once Mason had gone.
"He will." Mr. Rochester nodded.
"Would it be improprietous for me to inquire of what you spoke of with Mr. Mason?" Jane was simply concerned for Mr. Rochester, as he seemed extremely agitated--or was it haunted?--by something Jane could not identify.
"It is late; you should return to bed."
"Yes, Mr. Rochester." Jane noted that he offered no reply to her question, and thus concluded that it was a topic he wished not to speak of, even to the sole person he had called his confidante not a long while earlier.
Jane remembered the events of that night with vivid clarity when Mr. Rochester guided her up the twisting passageways to the upper floor some weeks later, followed by the parish minister, Mrs. Fairfax, and the few others included in the group, such as Mr. Mason, who had put a swift end to what was to be the happiest day of Jane's life.
"This is my wife." Mr. Rochester sorrowfully introduced a wretched, tortured figure to the astonished audience before him. He explained the circumstances behind his marriage, stepping so close to Mason as he recounted Mason's role in the deception that he could have easily strangled the man. Once the others had departed after hearing the entire tale, only Jane, Mason, and Mr. Rochester remained. "Mason, leave." Mr. Rochester ordered, bluntly, with no care for propriety any longer.
"I will go, but I will return." Mason said.
"Mr. Mason," Jane asked, still in shock and not quite in control of her faculties, "please. Why were you such a willing participant in a scheme against Mr. Rochester? You are an intelligent man."
"It was fifteen years ago, Miss Eyre." Mason said. "I was barely older than you are now. Mr. Rochester was anxious to find a bride for his son, and I was anxious to find a mate for my sister. Her 'unchaste propensities', as Mr. Rochester describes them, were something I could never control. She was indeed a terrible beauty. When Mr. Rochester's father offered thirty thousand pounds, I accepted immediately. It was terribly wrong of me to do so. I hope both you and Mr. Rochester can forgive me in time."
"I hope so as well." Jane said, drawing Mason aside from Mr. Rochester. "But it is not truly I you have wronged. Mr. Rochester is the main victim today."
"Don't you blame me for preventing your wedding?"
"I would rather not be married than to marry a man who is already bound, by choice or otherwise, to another. I do love him, Mr. Mason." Tears came to Jane's eyes and then to Mason's as he finally realized how many people he had hurt from one action more than a decade earlier. "I pray to God that Mr. Rochester will forgive you." Jane told the man. "Forgive me, I must depart."
Mr. Mason watched in sorrow as she bade a tearful goodbye to the man she loved and departed the house, and then the estate. How could one decision resonate through so many lives so completely?