Chapter Three – Out Of Bed Already

I ate half of what was on the tray. Within an hour of finishing my meal, Adele came to see me by herself. She came running into Mr Rochester's room with the very sunshine for a smile, saying in French –

'Miss Eyre! Miss Eyre! I have missed you so much!' jumping up on the bed, flinging open her arms to surround and embrace me. 'I was so afraid you would never come back! And when Mr Rochester discovered you were gone he was so upset that I saw tears falling from his eyes, and so did Sophie and Mrs Fairfax. For a moment, I thought it could not be him! He ran out the door yelling your name, and called John to send for help. He set off on Mesrour right away to find you and he did not come back for days.'

'Thank you, Adele. It is lovely to see you, too. Let us talk about something else besides Mr Rochester, and in English please. He found me and here I am. Sit here, close by my side, and tell me what you have been doing these last five days?'

'Miss Eyre, it has been a full week since you went away!'

Adele proceeded to inform me on what she had spent the time doing, for the most part of it idle and in angst for my safety. She told me how 'She could not sing a note or dance a step while I was abroad.'

I soon discovered, much to my surprise and delight, that Adele had pressed on with some sums I set out in her workbook a week since. In addition, she completed sewing some ribbon to a bonnet to improve her needlecraft. Her smile on producing the item for appraisal kinked as she began talking of not going to school after all.

'What do you mean, Adele? Does Mr Rochester say that you are to remain here now?'

'Oh no, Miss Eyre. Mr Rochester tells me I shall go to school very soon. But now you are back there is no need for me to go.'

'I know this is confusing for you, Adele, but I am afraid that you must go to school as planned.'

'Why? If you are not going to be married then you can stay as my governess?'

'It is not possible.'

'Why not? I don't understand!'

'Oh, Adele, please don't cry. Hush now my dear. I must find a new situation and you must go to school. That is the way it will be. But do you know what shall please me very much when I am missing you?' I hastily wiped a tear from my cheek before she looked up to me with large curious eyes.

'What, Miss Eyre?'

'Reading your letters and writing back often. You must tell me all about your school and its people. Will you promise?'

'I shall promise, if you promise that we shall see each other again soon?'

'Oh, Adele! It is written in the stars. We shall certainly see each other again many times, and I pray very soon.'

'Then I promise to write always.'

Once Adele had quit my room, I expected Mrs Fairfax to enter it. As yet, she did not come to see me. I worried why. Surely she did not blame me or think me imprudent for fleeing when the danger was at this very house. While I pondered endless suppositions for the good widow's avoidance, I busied my hands with correcting Adele's needlework, finding a small miscalculation in the front, which was nothing that could not be unknit and rethread correctly. With a ploughing brain and idle limbs, my hands begged for some task. I had not strength enough to rise from the bed and move around as I desired.

After dinner, which Leah brought me on a tray, and removed an hour later, Mr Rochester called upon me as arranged. It was a brilliant clear sky for dusk out the window when he knocked on the door, and entered it in the keenest fashion – as if I were his wife, sat up in our bed, stitching Adele's bonnet. The sudden idea became an image of fancy and I longed for its authenticity.

It was not real, and Mr Rochester was merely taking it upon himself to inform me my new chamber was ready. I moved to get up quickly to avoid those all too eager arms of his carrying the 'provoking invalid' as he termed me. I would have managed it too, if not for an unsuspected bout of coughing, which rose up and rendered me incapable of anything for a few moments, and by which my master was alerted to my scheme.

'Here, Jane,' he said, handing me water.

I drank and gradually recovered. As if without a moment to lose, he grasped me firmly about my waist and under the knees, and with his brawny arms elevated me to rest against his large and pounding chest. Beneath two dark smiling planets, in only my nightdress, with the shawl drawn about me, I strongly protested –

'Sir, I can manage!'

'I see you can manage coughing like a consumptive, Jane.'

'Mr Rochester, I am perfectly capable of walking.'

'But, Jane, you've nothing on your feet and the floor is ice.'

'I had slippers; did they survive?'

'If this should be the last time I carry you, Jane, may I relish it? Such a stern gaze! Very well – very well, but we are now midway and your slippers are in your new apartment. And here we are, you see.'

My new room was nearer Mr Rochester's. We did not pass my former chamber, so I could not peek at the remnants of the madwoman's efforts to burn me in my bed. Mr Rochester set me down in a grand four-poster, his hands keeping hold of me longer than necessary.

'He is a married man!' I reminded myself, to which a treacherous voice subjoined, 'A married man whom saved my life; a man I love with all my heart and who loves me in return! A man I could not part with again if he keeps this gentleness up.'

I felt the need to provoke him into a harsher, if not more tyrannical mood, in order to keep from failing myself. He had long since set me down on the bed, but was busying his fingers tucking me up within the blankets. I therefore used brute force to push those wedded hands of his away.

'Hardened thing!' he fumed, watching my face carefully while I drew up the covers. I then commenced scrutinising my new room, noticing to my horror a sofa near the fireplace, made up with blankets and a pillow.

'Who else is going to sleep in here?' I demanded.

'Suspicion is another look that becomes you well, Janet. But doubt me no more! Leah will sleep in here with you to-night. I want you under someone's eye and– and without causing you to get up, you understand the necessity of bolting your door?'

'In this house, sir, I certainly do.'

'This apartment is bigger, Jane, and better than your former chamber, is it not?'

'Sir, do not think for a moment I am unaware of why I'm not in my old room. I am not impressed by grand apartments, which you very well know. I am impressed by – by what, sir?'

'By honesty, Jane?'

'Oh, so you do know me a little.'

'A little! I should be in Italy if I did not know you, Jane. I should be in mortal dread of continuing on a road to ruin, shoddier than any road I have taken this past twelvemonth, to be sure, if I did not know you, Jane. In short, I should be with the Devil! – God may have checked me, Janet, but He did it because there is hope of my reformation yet. He answered my prayers when I begged Him to let me find you.'

'With what did you bargain, sir, if you found me?'

'Do you think I made some promises, Jane?'

'Oh, certainly, Mr Rochester! It is only natural to offer up sacrifices for those things we want. And you, sir, passionate as you are, out there each night searching endless countryside for my small frame. Either you blasphemed at the sky in the acutest way, or you offered up a sacrifice! I'm sure of that, but I rather hope it was the latter.'

'Then you're in luck, Janet! I prayed realistically. I promised God I would treat you right, Jane, and that if He would aid me in finding you before it was too late, I would do best by you, even if it meant parting with you.'

'Did you mean it, sir?'

'Yes.'

'At the time?'

'I meant it then and I mean it now, Jane, because I love you.'

'Then best by me, you ought to know, is not to speak of love for each other.'

'Yes, Jane.'

A pause.

'Jane?'

'Yes, sir?'

'Did you not fear you might die out there?'

'No, sir, I did not fear it; in fact, I welcomed it.'

He laughed. 'You strange unearthly thing! I should have guessed at such a reply as that. But, Jane, you do not welcome it now?'

'No, sir, not now. Right now, I feel ready to sleep more. My voice is fading fast, as you hear.'

'Well, I hope that ancient elf returns your little stern voice by morning, so I can be taught how to behave like a better man,' said he, getting up from my bed, smiling, 'and sit, like an obedient dog.'

'Goodnight, sir.'

'Goodnight, Jane. Sleep well, my – ' He shook his head and abruptly quit my room.

Mr Rochester sent Leah up, having given her instructions to fasten the door and virtually wall ourselves up within.

Perhaps it was having had Leah for a companion, or because she had fastened the door securely, that I slept the entire night through, right until the sun had well risen. Leah must've risen with her, since the room contained none but me. With my energy restored enough to rise myself, I did so, and dressed myself – asking Leah to help me when she returned with a tray. I ate a good deal of toast, and drank two cups of tea, reflecting meanwhile on Mr Rochester's behaviour. There was a kind of additional nourishment in that, which I thrived on more than any surplus food. His repentance was genuine; I trusted he would not take drastic steps with me. How long I could remain in the same house with him, no matter his present attitude, was another question entirely. With that dangerous woman upstairs and my feelings for her husband, and his for me. It was not a situation in which I could remain, I knew this much.

I had grown sick of the hot bedchamber that confined me day and night; I desperately sought the warmth of summer in its place. I wanted to walk in the garden to release my thoughts on the breeze. I strolled endlessly, as if I had bounds of energy, savouring that refreshing warm gust on my face. While looking over the familiar flowerbeds, I felt a great pang of guilt at enjoying freedom of my confinement, when Bertha Mason could not. I no longer wished to walk in the garden. I saw Mrs Fairfax through her parlour window, undoubtedly reading her morning portion of Scripture. She looked up and through the glass quite innocently. She spied me and I made a motion to visit her. A footstep on the gravel nearby stopped mine in an instant: it was Mr Rochester.

'Out of bed already!'

'I was in need of fresh air, sir, and exercise.'

'I would have thought you'd had enough of those, Jane.' He smoked as he talked. 'So you haven't quite managed to negotiate your voice back from that grandfather elf, I hear. What could he be doing with it, I wonder! – but what is that look for, Jane?'

'I'm sorry to – in just a moment, sir – stop short your good humour, by reminding you of something deplorable to your ears.'

'There is no need to mention the thing, Jane, I am no longer disposed to cheerfulness. You are going to name that fearsome hag bound to me for all my days.'

'Yes, sir. Though it pains me to pain you, it is true that your situation – indeed, our situation, is now common knowledge.'

'And what, pray tell me, Janet, were you going to mention specifically?'

'Only that now her existence is known, there is no reason not to consider installing her at such a place as one you aforementioned. I have read newspaper articles on the good treatment and general well-being of their patients, where they are encouraged to play games and take exercise. Here am I strolling in the fresh air, while that poor creature is kept locked up like a beast–'

'You do think me barbaric!' broke from his lips, a puff of smoke chasing the words. 'Upon my word, Jane, I thought you spoke out of anxiety, about being locked up yourself, and in the heat of the moment. I did not for one second believe you thought I enjoyed keeping my wife under lock and key all these years! Do you not remember, Jane, how she tried to roast me alive in my bed? How she has since endeavoured to scorch your sheets in that same murderous fashion! How she tore the flesh from her own brothers bones! She was like it before the confinement, Jane. I have Richard Mason to attest to that. I shall have him swear an oath before you.'

'Sir – there is no need–'

'Jane, I'm convinced there is!' He crossed the path before me, huffing on each turn. 'On second thought, Jane, it will not do. Dick would agree, but he'd be long about it; you'd have scarpered before he left Jamaica. I am forming a better idea – you shall be convinced! Tell me, Jane, how soon until you are fit enough to bear a short journey?'

'How short, sir?'

'Some five-and-twenty miles.'

'Where to go, Mr Rochester?'

He stopped before me. 'Picture a beautiful setting, Jane; beneath a field of bright blue sky, wildflowers dance upon a warm meadow filled with their aromas, and the most delectable foods are spread before you – the finest picnic you ever saw. Our destination and enjoyment of it shall be the exact opposite of that – sadly. Oh but it were such a place!' he erelong subjoined, looking the other way and frowning. 'I should have no pangs, no supplementary regrets, no mental torments. I should be free from the constant reminders–'

'Sir?' I interrupted this obscure speech. 'You said our destination?'

'It should be very strange to send you alone, Jane. Stranger still to go by myself when the point is for those hazel eyes to absorb some truth – but I see in this stream of sunlight that your eyes are not hazel, Jane? Indeed, they are green!'

'They have always been green, Mr Rochester.'

'And you have always been an elf! When did you change them, sorceress? – but where are you going, my –, that is, Jane? I am merely walking with you in the midmorning sun; absorbing its energy; there is no harm in it.'

'I am aware of that, sir. But I do so wish to speak to Mrs Fairfax. She looks so very grave and has not come to see me.'

'She's a simple old woman, Janet, with simple ideas of how the world works – or at least, should work. I daresay it is me who have caused the avoidance and the sullen glare – but you are leaving me, Jane?'

'I'm off to speak with her now, Mr Rochester. I hope she is happy for me to join her for supper, as was our routine before.'

'Away with you then, sprite! And think about our mysterious journey meanwhile – and you must settle the day.'


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Thanks for reading!

P.S. If you do like my ideas and style, then you might like my novel, Halton Cray, which is available on Amazon for a bargain. Inspired by Jane Eyre, it is a contemporary paranormal romance set in a Tudor manor in southeast England.