A/N: Haven wrote in her review of Chapter 9 that the use of "Rochester" was disturbing to her reading and this I can understand. It was something I thought over quite a bit when forming my story, but ultimately decided his name was Sesshoumaru Taisho, Earl of Rochester. Thus, as the peerage was known by their title and not by their surname, he is therefore Mr. Rochester or, rather more properly, Lord Rochester. To his peers, then, he is simply "Rochester." I took a great liberty calling him "Mr." and I was greatly unsettled on it. I have decided to change it retroactively and henceforth to Lord Rochester. In the book, as far as I recall, his title is never mentioned so this is of my own invention. There will come a time when she refers to him by his first name, but that is not just yet.
Twistidcandi wrote that she thought I had better to write the story in more modern English. This, I'm afraid, would betray my object, for I had hoped to adequately learn to emulate this style of story and cadence of speech so as to write an historical romance novel apart from this fandom, which, having completed, I entertain a vain hope to send to publishing houses. So, you see, this is a writing exercise for me, a way for me to build skill so I might write something of my own.
I wished to take this opportunity to thank those of you reading this my second work and especially to thank those of you who have been encouraging me with reviews. It has been my delight to read them and I do hope to keep your interest in the chapters yet to come as they shall start my divergence from the book and more into fairy tale. This next chapter has caused me much anxiety, but more on that later.
On with the show…
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Chapter 10
The next morning Lord Rochester was summoned on some business into town and the assembled personages ensconced themselves in the drawing room for the weather was dreary and wet. Indeed, it was so much so that their much looked forward to outing to a gypsy camp which had settled near the Hay Lane was postponed. After lessons, I reported as I was told to the party and sat with Inuyasha as my companion in our usual spot in the window seat making up stories to tell each other while we mostly ignored the talk of those others gathered.
The sound of a carriage approaching caused Inuyasha to shout, "He is back! Sess is back!"
This attracted the attention of those others and Miss Blanche Ingram rose to come to the window. In her desire to see out, she imposed upon my person to the point where I was forced to shrink back out of her way. "You miserable donkey! How like you to bray with misinformation! It is not Lord Rochester, for he rode out this morning on his horse and with Pilot, too. This is but someone else." She turned from him and stomped in her elegant way back to her place by the fire.
I rolled my eyes discreetly at my charge and he brightened, giggling conspiratorially. We watched as a fashionable but foreign-looking gentleman with straight, black hair kept long in the style of my master and his ward disembarked from the carriage and entered the house. There was then the sound of some parleying in the hall before he was shown into the drawing room with us.
He greeted the party, "Hello, then! I am an old friend of Lord Rochester's come from abroad and since he is away, I shall encroach on your party here, if you don't mind."
As the man was quite well dressed and spoke in a fine voice with hardly an accent, the group accepted him gladly as one of their own. He seemed just a little over Lord Rochester's age, somewhere between 30 and 40. Through snippets of the conversation, I heard the name Hikaru and of Japan and the city Kyoto. So this gentleman was from my master's homeland. I wondered what news he would bring. He seemed in pleasant spirits as he played and flirted with the company so I was sure it could be nothing grave.
The hour drew later and we were interrupted by the footman, Sam, recently hired to attend to the many guests, who came to Mr. Eshton's chair and said something to him quietly from which I only heard "quite troublesome."
"Tell the baggage she shall be put in the stocks is she does not quit the place immediately!" said Mr. Eshton.
The young ladies were all atwitter and began begging and pleading to see her.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the Colonel. "What luck that we should have been put from our mission to see the gypsies and yet does one come here to this very place to tell our fortunes! I say we allow her entry."
Mrs. Ingram tried to reason that the woman was not to be trusted, but there was no one to listen to her. Sam was sent off to bring the Mother. He returned shortly saying, "She demands she be placed in a room where she may deliver her proclamations in privacy away from the vulgar masses."
"There, now, put her in the library! I mean to have my fortune read away from prying eyes and ears," announced Miss Blanche.
"I shall go first, to ensure there is no danger," spoke the Colonel.
"I—I'm afraid she was very specific about who she would entertain: only ladies, but then only such ladies that were yet young and single."
"Aha! The woman shows she has taste!" pronounced Henry Lynn.
Miss Blanche stood, throwing back her shoulders and lifting her chin even higher than its usual placement. "I shall go then," she said, with the air of a virgin sacrifice, and made her way to the library.
It was some minutes, more than fifteen, I should say, before she returned. She wore a mantle of pride and pronounced to all that she was a real, true gypsy, ghastly in appearance, who had thusly read her palm. She haughtily reminded everyone that this was all just an illusion and not to take any serious excitement in it. Thereafter, she took a book and sat herself in a chair in front of me and though I watched her with interest never once did she turn the page and increasingly did her countenance appear unsettled. Clearly she was not one to consider her own advice.
The Misses Eshton and Miss Mary Ingram declared they must all go together and set forth for the library. Their visit was quite a bit more disturbed than Miss Blanche's had been: heard were bouts of giggles and shrieking and they sounded quite diverted. By twenty minutes, they came running into the drawing room.
"She knew us entirely!"
"Even to the contents of our private chambers!"
"And of things that happened as children!"
"And knew, she did, of the ones foremost in our hearts and minds and whispered their very names in our ears!"
The young men were much interested in this last and tried their best to wheedle out the information but were met with profound blushes and sputterings.
Amidst this clamor, a throat clearing near to me was heard and I looked up to find Sam looking to me. "If you please, Miss, the crone said there was still one young, single lady in the house and said she will not leave until she sees her. I can only think she means you. Will you go?"
"Of course," I said, and rose to follow him out. He told me he would stay close in case I became frightened, but I bid him return to the kitchen for I was unafraid. And so I was, though I did feel an excitement at the prospect of not only deserting my company but also to hear what this woman would have to say.
I entered the room and saw her there in a chair in the corner, close to the fire yet shielded from most of its light. She wore a red, hooded cloak and a black, broad-brimmed gypsy hat, tight about her face was a striped scarf, she was leaning over a small black book, which might have been a prayer book, and whispering the words as old ladies are in the habit of doing. I came to the fire and warmed my hands, awaiting her, for it was cold in my window seat in the drawing room and far, too, from the fire.
She closed her book and slowly looked up at me and I saw a much-weathered face, almost masculine in its appearance of jowls, with a great, hairy mole on her chin; her eyes were cast in shadow by her hat, though they glittered up at me; I could not discern the color.
"So you wish your fortune told, my dear?"
"If you are one to do so. I would tell you I have no faith in your art."
"Ha! I expected as much from you, child. You have an impudence to you."
"As you say."
"Why do you not tremble?" she asked.
"I am not cold"
"What do you not pale?"
"I am not sick."
"Why do you not seek out my answers?"
"I am not silly."
She snickered then and stared off into the fire. Long moments she looked there before pronouncing in a meticulous manner, "I say you are cold, you are sick, and you are silly."
"Then prove so," I dared her.
"And so I shall. You are cold because you are alone; you want of human contact and companionship to warm you. You are sick because the best of feelings, the highest and sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you while it burns yet in your breast. You are silly because you have the means to secure great happiness but you do not reach for it, rather allowing convention to guide you."
"Such could be said of anyone in a dependent position in a large estate such as I am."
"Not of anyone, but of you. You are in a unique situation."
"How is being a governess unique? There are employed thousands of us throughout England."
"There are not one in a thousand in your position. If you would but know it, you are within a very small distance to your true happiness. Fate has vouchsafed it for you and I knew this before I even entered this house for it is profound. You need only stand and pluck the fruit from the tree."
"Is that not what the Serpent told Eve?"
"Ha! So quick a tongue you have! Well, then, let me see your palm and I will speak more plainly."
"And I should cross it with silver, then, I suppose?"
"But of course."
I handed her a shilling. She took it and placed it in a worn child's stocking at her waist. She took my hand and frustratingly said, "Who can tell a thing from this hand? It is too fine, too young, scarcely a line from which to divine. Let me instead see the face! All can be seen from the eyes, mouth, and brow!"
"Finally you speak sense to which I might agree," I said as I knelt before her.
"I wonder with what thoughts and feelings you came to me tonight, what answers you hoped to hear. Where does your mind flutter as you sit there in yonder room amongst those that pay you no mind and little attentions and, I daresay, one who wishes you gone entirely?"
"I feel tired at times, yet am I never sad."
"You have some secret hope, then? Some dream that buoys your thoughts?"
"My only hopes are to serve my master and charge well and to one day have saved sufficient money to open a small school where I might teach."
"Bah! Such is not a dream that entreats the soul to soar! When you sit there in your window seat (see, I know your habits)—,"
"You have them by speaking with the servants, Mother."
"Such a quick wit have you! As I was saying, then, as you sit there amongst those in the next room, where besides that fleeting idea of a school does your mind settle? What face do you study above all others? Whose features do you wish to see most?"
"I examine all faces and all features."
"No, Miss, I know you single out one, or mayhaps of late it be two."
"And so shall I when the conversation moves in an interesting direction."
"And what story is of most interest to your gentle ear?"
"There is little choice! They speak so much of pairing and matrimony I feel I sit in a lecture on animal husbandry."
"And you do not approve of this single-mindedness?"
"Surely, I care little; it is nothing to me."
"Nothing to you? When a ripe, young, vivacious lady of means and family does smile and whisper such entreaties into the eye and ear of a gentleman you—,"
"I what, Mother?"
"You know…and perhaps think well of."
"And yet I say I do not know the gentlemen here. I have spoken barely three words together with the lot of them. As to thinking well of them, I have seen that some are respectable, though not all. Some are older with a keen eye yet and some younger, prettier; all are well dressed and well spoken though some it can be seen paid little attention to their lessons for their opinions are poorly informed."
"Not know them? How can you say such? I venture you would not say so of the master of this house!"
"Lord Rochester is not at home."
Another bark of laughter. "What sophism you display! What an ingenious quibble! Your Lord Rochester this day went to Millcote on business and will return anon, but does that yet strike him from the face of notice?"
"I can hardly conceive what Lord Rochester has to do with any of this."
"Because, child, I spoke of ladies smiling into the welcoming eye of gentlemen. Has not your Lord Rochester received such smiles, such adulations and attentions?"
"He has a right to partake of any society he chooses," I replied cooly.
"There is no question of his right, but certainly you have noticed how eagerly he welcomes this company, how he hangs on her every syllable and sigh with great affection?"
"Your art is failing you, for I tell you there is no great affection between the two."
"So! You have paid attention!"
I was silent.
"You can see, though, how they will be happily wed, then, have you not?"
"Ha! Another black mark, Mother!"
"What the devil have you seen, then?" Her voice seemed for but a moment to lower, but I dismissed it as her upset.
"Never mind. I came to hear my own fortune and now you are all about Lord Rochester. Do, please, divine, if you can."
"Your fortune is unclear: there are such differences in your face. I tell you again that the answer lies in whether you will yet extend your hand to take what is so clearly there for you. See there, now, those eyes—such a uniqueness about them! The color is one of daydreams and great wishes, the shape is soft and full of feeling, fine, long lashes there be, indicating capacity for great affection, the lid is not fully held back—past pain and recent sorrow there lie. The eye is favorable. The mouth is one that should never tell a lie, accustomed to seriousness where instead it longs to pronounce the mind's deepest secret and laugh with joy. I can see the echo of your smile here and know that though you smile and laugh but rarely, does it yet transform your face from its seeming plainness to a show of magnificent beauty. You are also a singer, child, and if you could but see your face when you sing, you would never again think of yourself as anything but wondrous. Indeed, your voice alone has the power to captivate and ensorcel. That feature, too, is propitious."
Her words, her acclamation of me, wove me into a dreamlike state. I felt an unreality to these moments but I was snared by her words and confused, too, by their meaning. Could she really know me? It was as though she had sat on my shoulder these months and knew all my secrets.
She continued, "Yet stands the barrier of the forehead. It shows a seat of pride and intelligence that will not allow the body to yield if the cost is the soul. It watches as the play is enacted around it and seeks to find some explanation that will not come. This pride there, it says you are a strong woman, an independent, full of feeling, yes, but not without reason. This reason demands a righteousness of behavior, a goodness in word and deed, and will not allow you to falter. No matter the temptation, it remains ever the guiding light of your conscience."
"Well said, forehead: your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavor of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet—That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Higurashi: leave me; the play is played out."
I woke as from a deep slumber, my lids blinked heavily before focusing on the figure ahead of me. There at the end, the voice had changed, slowly becoming one I knew as well as my own. I stood and poked the fire. A hand grasped the scarf and pulled it tighter around the face and there I noticed the hand: not the gnarled hand of a wizened old woman but the large, elegant hand of one most dear to me. Indeed, there on his hand was his ring, one which I had seen hundreds of times before.
The hand stopped tugging and instead smoothed back the hat and hood, parted the scarf and removed a mask. "Do you know me now, Kagome?"
"Sir! What strangeness took your mind to do such as this!"
"But well done, don't you agree?"
"You surely riled the ladies."
"But not you?"
"You did not play the part of a gypsy with me."
"And what character was I? My own?"
"No, something else…You have been trying to draw me out—or in; you spoke nonsense to me to encourage me to speak nonsense."
"Do you forgive me, Kagome?"
"I should not know, sir. I must think and reflect. Have I been made a fool?"
"No, Kagome. You were ever on alert."
"I would not be so sure," I mumbled. I smiled at him then.
"And what means that smile?"
"Wonder, sir. You spun a good web and I am glad I kept myself as well as I did," I said as I moved toward the door.
"Where do you go?"
"To bed, sir. It is late and I have had much excitement. Oh! Do you know there is a man here for you?"
"A man? No! Who is he?"
"He calls himself 'Hikaru' and says he has come from Kyoto."
"No…Hikaru…" My master, normally possessed of pale as moonlight skin, went full white before my eyes.
"Lord Rochester!" I ran to him. "Are you unwell? What pains you?"
"You offered me your shoulder once, may I have it?" he asked desperately.
"Of course and my arm—here! Let me get you to a chair."
"Tell me, Kagome, little friend, since he came, do they speak of me?"
"What? No, sir, only for him to say he was your friend."
"If they all came in here and denounced me, what would you do?"
"I should throw them from the house, as I was able."
"And if they shunned me and forever kept me from their company, would you follow suit?"
"Never, sir!"
"And if they called you names, vile, vicious things for siding with me?"
"I shouldn't have occasion to hear it, but I shouldn't care in any event. They matter not at all to me, only you."
"Only me," he said in a breathy voice full of wonder of which I knew not what to make.
"Go then, to this man Hikaru and whisper in his ear that I am here and will see him. Escort him then here and head off to bed."
I did as I was told and when I opened the door to admit Hikaru, I saw my master was once again composed. I went to bed, but I lay awake worrying for him until I heard his voice behind the wall: gaily did he tell Hikaru where his room was and wish him a good night. My worry relieved, I slipped promptly into sleep.
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A/N: Dear reader, I admit to much anxiety concerning this chapter. It is my favorite in the book as I find Lord Rochester infinitely romantic in his need to ferret out her feelings and, indeed, it is where he decides his intentions must be honorable. (I am always appalled when film adaptations cut this scene!) It is also, in my opinion, the finest written passage to be found between the covers, full of flowery prose, deep angst and whimsy. I thought of simply quoting Miss Bronte, for I felt it unfair to try to cheaply imitate what I feel is her best work but I felt that would ill serve her or myself. So instead, I, ever trepidatious, wrote my own summary of that fine chapter and only quoted sparingly and of my favorite moment: his revelation. I hope in doing so I have not offended any who know the beauty of the original and may see my paltry attempt as anything disrespectful. I hope you enjoyed the treat of this extra long chapter!
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