A/N: A short bit. There's much more to this but I'm polishing it all up. I decided not to write it all in one go, so I have tons of little bits from the story arc on paper. You can read some of the rough work at http/pillars-of-fire. This is actually a combination of two timed writings, and so is a first draft. Why am I posting it then? Well, because I haven't posted in three years and I need feedback since I would like to publish it when it is finished (I've published some poetry, but I'd really like to try something more substantial).
Dark, his eyes shone deeply with a glistening, glaring light. He had cried, he had wept bitterly when no one could hear him. His heart howled in the stillness and would not raise a cry, up through the throat, giving relief but instead the heart tyrannically help the howling within. And the wildness of that cry nearly tore the frame apart. The frame of the man, not the heart, shook with the effort of escape but knew the enslavement would last yet. Now there was a chance, a small change chance for a freedom from the destruction of fear and the pain of remembrance.
"I wish I knew, one way or the other," he moaned. Across the room, Leah started. Put down a tray and looked up enquiringly. "Where is she now?" he continued. Leah touched her hand, touched the hand to her face and put the silver on the tray, picked up the tray and then departed to the other side of the room. Meanwhile Mr. Rochester continued sitting, face turned down, eyes bent, all haunched, inclined in the chair, looking at vacancy, at the floor. "where is she now?" It was a whisper, a lost child in pain, seeking solace. Leah left the room, closed the door softly behind her.
The moment the door closed, he reached his hands over his eyes and wept silently. After a time he slid the hands down, held them over his moist mouth, panting, striving to restrain the sob. He held them. He turned his shining, depths of black eyes to the whiteness of the old plastered ceiling. Blinking back the tears, the eyes turned along the moulding, searching while within the concealed thoughts tried in vain to seek what had been torn away. Unwillingly, the gaping wound's healing, the aid and prop torn. Sough her in vain, shuddered and heaven in painful spasms of guilt, of love yet burning without the fuel to feel the flame.
He stood up, fingers grasping at the sleeves of his coat, hugging himself in, trying to hold himself in. The inward thoughts multiplied. He turned and viewed the window. The light filtered in golden shimmers through the diagonal panes, black leading. Showing dust in the dimness above the carpet on the floor. He rose, moved with a long motion, uncertain. Back and then over to the window. He still held his arms close. Much was in fear, at the stake. He was removed from thought in thought from his hope of living.Yet fear was not of his own desperation and desire. He was piteous, terrorised by one notion predominant. The past had seemed an oppression of the will, driving him- the fiery goad of hellfire- towards a certain end unwritten unspun by Nature. Those that would soar above cloud, hateful beam and storm, fell, rolled, was sullied, broken in the darkened, dusk of a mud-drenched brake. And now where was she? He had to speak, the mental murder- turned the past. Made impotent, the real came upon him, churning wisdom, cautioning the wailing passions.
"I've killed her," he said. he shook his head, caught his arms closer. Shook his head. "Oh, no," he groaned. "no, no" And he sat back, released the arms, wiped his nose, and sniffed back the choking again. he examined the progress in his mind and knew there could be only the one outcome. A woman, disconnected, unprotected and alone. No money, no home, no friends or family. Her mind- was it feeling sympathy with his own? God help her! To be alone, distressed, unprotected and youthful. The inner tormenter of his soul turned upon him, lacking ower to sting. The dread of remorse- of his error- had died. The loathing of the innocent, naive wild boy who stumbled and feel had vanished. The moistness of the lead drying with the sun. For now he was gone to a deeper sin. He had been the shepherd- not who murdered the ewe-lamb but the one who led her to desolation, grief, and sin. Perverter of innocence. In his body, the poor spirit shrunk from unwilling wrong, begged relief from the mind and found no mercy. This is where the hot tears welled- out of the exertions of that soul- the bright thing, encased and hampered- fettered, It had killed its own kind- a self muder. A suicide without death where one part of an entire soul must struggle on in a desolate world, abandoned and maimed without its life.