When the drawing room door opened in the middle of his meeting, Roger Morris lifted his glass of brandy and turned toward the source of the interruption with an undisturbed air of nonchalance. That the source of the interruption would be a smiling, rosy-cheeked girl entering with a vase full of flowers, and that his tumbler would choose that moment to miss his mouth and gauchely empty its contents into his lap, were two circumstances he hadn't counted on. But it was not the first time he'd made a fool of himself, nor would it be the last.
It wasn't without a certain, uncharacteristic timidity that the young estate agent had rapped thrice upon the door of the manor house only minutes before his unfortunate mishap. He had been corresponding with the owner for over two years – ever since he had taken over the position of steward from his father – but in that time he had visited the house on only one occasion, and never glimpsed the man, though he had heard enough gossip about him rather to rouse and sustain than quell his curiosity. Morris Senior had been steward for the Rochester family since the present Mr. Rochester was a boy and had managed the family's two English estates at Thornfield and Ferndean for most of his life. But his last year of employment had seen two changes – the destruction of the house at Thornfield and a sudden onset of ill-health that had obliged him to transfer the stewardship to Morris Junior. With the transfer of employment came also the transfer of information about his employer. From his father, Roger Morris learned that Mr. Edward Rochester, the last surviving member of an old family, had nearly met his end along with the house, had been blinded and badly injured, and had relocated to the remote property of Ferndean to convalesce. An ambitious young man and the first in his family to receive a university education, Morris had been eager to demonstrate his ability and had paid a call upon his employer at the end of autumn two years previous to inquire about the management of the property now that the house was gone. He had been unceremoniously received by the servant, and after waiting over half an hour in the dark, fireless drawing room, had been informed that the master of the house could not receive him and would he please send his inquiries through the post. Disappointed and discouraged by this cold welcome, he'd returned home, fully expecting to receive shortly a letter informing him that his services would no longer be needed by the Rochester family. No such letter came.
As he waited in the foyer while the servant announced him, Morris wondered at the reason for his sudden summons. There had been half a year's silence from the master of Ferndean following his ill-fated first visit. Then, quite suddenly, had come a letter – in a woman's hand – thanking him for his continued service and requesting a thorough account of the transactions with Thornfield's tenants. Rochester's signature – scrawled and nearly illegible – appeared at the bottom. It was not until some weeks later that Morris and his father learned that Rochester had been recently married.
All the talk he had heard, and even his own surmises – briefly, that his employer was a man of profound eccentricity, but a just and liberal paymaster – could not have prepared him for meeting the man in person. As he stood fidgeting with his hat, the door to the drawing room opened and a man stepped forward. At the sight of Morris he paused, squinted, then continued toward him, extending his hand.
"Mr. Morris, I believe?"
"Yes, sir."
"I knew you immediately. You resemble your father."
"So I am told, sir, thank you, sir."
The man was imposing, but neither from height nor girth, for he was not particularly tall nor was he remotely corpulent. It was not even his ravaged face that struck one: rugged to begin with, and now marred additionally by a scar – well-healed, but still a livid mark in his otherwise swarthy complexion – stretching from his forehead to his cheekbone and cutting through the left eyebrow. The eye was obviously sightless, the lid capable of opening only a fraction. But the other eye, the right eye, was clear, dark and piercingly direct in its gaze. It was an eye that gave the impression of being able to see through walls. At the moment it was trained on Morris, watching as he took in the full impression of his host's face, his contradictorily robust and athletic frame, the startling emptiness of his left-hand cuff, where his arm ended abruptly at the wrist. No, it was not the clearly painful injuries the man had sustained that impressed Morris, but his apparent obliviousness toward his appearance – or perhaps his pride in spite of it. He exuded all the self-assertion and confidence of a fully-able man in his prime, and his defiant gaze seemed to dare anyone to venture otherwise. He was a man who commanded, rather than demanded, respect.
"Come in." He gestured to the drawing room. Morris followed him in.
"Will you have a brandy?"
"Thank you, sir, yes."
Rochester went to a side table where a decanter and glasses stood ready and busied about pouring first for Morris, then himself. Morris noticed that he leaned very close while pouring – no doubt to better see the quantity of spirits with which he was filling the glasses.
Morris accepted the drink and the seat offered him, and while he nursed the brandy he looked around him at the room – now quite transformed from the dreary space he'd been made to wait in on his last visit.
"If I may say, sir, it is a very fine room. I cannot recall the presence of these pleasing arrangements when last I was here."
"They are all my wife's doing, I had no part in them." Rochester spoke carelessly, gesturing with a sweep of his hand meant, Morris assumed, to indicate the tasteful yet simple furnishings, the pictures on the walls, the abundance of candles all around the room. But a certain glimmer – was it pride? – in his expression belied his apparent unconcern.
"Ah, yes," Morris said, silently cursing himself. He had forgotten to inquire after the wife, idiot that he was. "Please convey my compliments to Mrs. Rochester."
"I shall. The improvements of these rooms and the upstairs chambers have been her special project. It will please her to hear of your approval." Rochester downed his brandy, set his glass down with a sharp clink, and turned his falcon eye to the young man.
"Now Morris, I asked you here for a particular reason. I understand that you have fully taken over the stewardship of Thornfield from your father."
"You understand correctly, sir."
"As you are no doubt aware, I have not given much thought to the property over the past two years, other concerns have all but driven it from my mind. Now, however, I feel I ought – indeed, I should like – to reassume my responsibility. It has come to my attention that the property in its current state may be considered by some to be a – waste of good land."
"You are thinking of rebuilding, sir?"
"Perhaps, but before I can seriously consider such an enterprise I must know better the condition of the grounds, how much can be salvaged from the remains of the structure, and so forth. Do you follow?"
"Yes, sir."
It was at this point in the conversation that the door opened. The girl sashayed into the room like a wood-sprite, careless and free. There was something rather extraordinary about her voice as well – it was lower that most, but sweet and melodic and at this moment cut through with an undercurrent of happy excitement.
"Look at what I found – growing just by our tree stump! Aren't they lovely?" Then she noticed Morris.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!"
"Hello my dear," Rochester said, smiling, but whether it was at this radiant girl or at Morris' soaked shirtfront, Morris didn't know.
"Darling, this is Mr. Morris. Morris, my wife, Jane."
Wife! This slim, girlish creature his wife! Morris had imagined a demure matron of thirty – quiet, plain and rather plump – the sort of woman a man like Rochester might bend easily to his will. He saw now he couldn't have been farther off the mark had he made a deliberate effort.
As she set down the vase and he rose awkwardly to his feet to shake her hand, he could not help noticing how young she seemed – why, she must be younger than he was, and yet married to such a man! Rochester could crush a tiny thing like her if he chose; she was as a bird to his bear. Yet even Morris had not been fool enough to miss the look of mutual affection that had passed between them, the joy with which she'd entered the room to bring flowers to her husband, believing him alone. This was clearly no intimidated, shrinking violet. And youthful as she was, Mrs. Rochester met his gaze evenly, shook his hand with a firm yet graceful ease, and spoke the required "How do you do, Mr. Morris?" with the calm, steady tone of a grown woman. Morris wondered if there were already children, only to find himself blushing at the thought. He was painfully aware of his soiled shirt and mud-caked boots and he felt clumsy and uncouth.
"Morris is here to discuss estate business. Would you care to join us?" Mrs. Rochester paused, appeared to consider her husband's invitation, rather to Morris' astonishment. Estate business was of no concern to a lady, at least in his experience, but the warmth in his employer's voice told him the offer had indeed been genuine. He unconsciously chewed at his lower lip. If that sprite were to sit with them while they discussed Thornfield's future, he hardly knew whether he'd be able to keep his composure. To his relief, she declined, murmuring something about garden work before excusing herself with a sweet smile – directed at her husband – and a cordial nod – directed at him.
Rochester carried on as if the interruption were nothing, with only the lingering color in his face – which had sprang into animation with his wife's brief appearance – as testimony to its having ever occurred. Meanwhile Morris, still flustered, found himself only half listening to his employer's suggestions of going over the grounds together, his mind's eye still captivated by that – there was no other word for it – enchanting creature.
That afternoon, as he rode out of the wood and hit the road to Millcote at a gallop, all he could think of was his employer's young wife – her light step, her smile, her grace, the utter sincerity in her gaze as she calmly shook his hand. And Rochester was contemplating transplanting that youthful spirit to the death-hush of Thornfield Hall! He pictured Thornfield – the wrecked, soot-blackened stones, now the retreat of rooks and owls, gloomy on all but the brightest days – a sight that cast an unsettling air on the whole vicinity. Morris would as soon attempt to convince a happy little songbird to live out the rest of its life in a dark cave as picture Mrs. Rochester as mistress of that forsaken place.
It was not his station to dissuade his employer from any plans he saw fit to make pertaining to the reconstruction of the house unless they were firmly grounded in real impracticalities. Yet he hoped that their walk which was to take place on the morrow would reveal to Rochester what Morris could not tell him in words: that the hall had burned for a reason, and to defy whatever force had determined this fate by building another on its ashes was ill-advised, even sacrilegious. Morris was not a particularly superstitious man. He did not believe, for instance, the popular local rumors that the hall was cursed. But he had a sense for atmosphere – for ambience; and he did not see wisdom in desecrating the churchyard-tranquility of Thornfield with the clamor of the architects' and masons' and carpenters' trades. Some things were simply better left undisturbed.
In his mind, Mrs. Rochester was something like a heroine in a fairy tale: circumstances had presented her with a forbidden door of sorts which, if opened, threatened to lead downward into a darkness from which, he feared, there might be no return.