Author: Meltha
Rating: At this point, PG
Feedback: Yes, thank you. All of Firefly, possibly Serenity, and the entire novel Jane Eyre
Distribution: The Blackberry Patch and If you're interested, please let me know.
Summary: The great novle Jayne Eyre comes to life before your gorram eyes.
Author's Note: Why yes, I am insane. Thanks for noticing
Disclaimer: All Firefly/Serenity characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. The others along belong to the great and very late Charlotte Bronte. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
Chapter 6
When last we left our brave Jayne, he was fleeing Mr. Rochester's bigamously lewd suggestions on grounds of his high moral character, thereby leaving himself friendless and destitute, stranded in a strange place with no recourse for his livelihood save the kindness of strangers.
"When did this become Streetcar Named Desire?"
You read a classic drama?
"Yeah, same time Mal read a poem."
I stand in awe of your literary pursuits. Jayne found himself in a small town in the middle of nowhere, having spent his few pennies on a coach ride that took him to a desolate location. Sadly, the few possessions Jayne had thought to bring with him were inadvertantly left in the coach and disappeared into the night.
"Gorramit! You tellin' me I left Vera in there?"
I am sorry, Jayne dear, but yes, Vera is beyond your embrace, much like Mr. Rochester.
"VERA!"
Jayne wept heartfelt tears over the loss of his one true love (and as to who or what that was, dear reader, I shall leave the decision in your able hands), and wandered from place to place, begging food, but there were none about to help him, and doors slammed in his face with never a kind word. Eventually, Jayne thought of selling what he could.
"Come and get it, ladies! A five pound note'll buy you a whole lotta pleasurin', provided you ain't got nothin' catchin', of course."
Jayne! I am… you know, I can't even pretend to be shocked anymore at this point. You did not slip into prostitution! You attempted to sell your handkerchief and gloves, but you found no one wanted them. Jayne wandered out onto the moor and lay down on the grass, staring up into the dark, starlit night and pondered his place in the universe as a child of Nature. For three days this continued…
"Three days!"
Yes.
"And I ain't et nothin'?"
You had some cold, congealed porridge from a pig trough at one point.
"Still probably better than re-formed protein."
Quite possibly. At any rate, when darkness fell upon the third night, Jayne was wandering through the moors, barely able to walk, when far in the distance he beheld a light. At first Jayne assumed it was a mere will-o-the-whisp, but as there was no better place to die, he strove towards it with what little strength he had remaining. The clouds broke upon him, and he was drenched with rain to the skin, shivering pitifully as he trudged towards one last hope.
"This is downright depressin'."
Oh, it gets worse! For you see, when Jayne reached the light, it turned out to be the window of a little cottage, and he saw three women, two young and one old, sitting by the fire and reading happily. But when he knocked upon the door, the old woman answered the door.
"Can I come in? I'm starvin' and soaked," Jayne said mournfully.
The woman looked at him critically.
"Ye look like unto a criminal of some sort," spake the good old dame. "I'm sure ye've got the means to make money, if ye understand me. Besides, why are ye wearin' a dress? Ye'll not pass this door tonight!"
And, after pronouncing this quite correct summation of Jayne's character, she slammed the door in his face and left him to freeze to death.
"So… I'm dead?"
No, for just then footsteps were heard upon the garden path, and a figure appeared, silhouetted in black against the face of the moon by a flash of lightening.
"Why are you here?" asked a decidedly prim voice.
"I'm busy dying!" Jayne yelled. "Now let me get to it, alright?"
"Would you not rather come into the house, sleep, and eat your fill?" asked the voice.
"You dumb or somethin'?" Jayne scoffed. "Yeah, but they won't lemme in!"
"I see," said the figure. "The house is mine, and I shall take you in as my own lost lamb to rear for… service," he completed, though the last word was spoken oddly.
The next moment, the door of the house was thrown wide open, and the figure, now illuminated by the light within and proving to be a man of extremely perfect yet cold masculine beauty, dragged Jayne's form into the kitchen. The old woman shrieked loudly, while the two younger girls jumped to their feet in alarm, dropping their books upon the floor with a loud clatter.
"St. John," cried one, "who is this person?"
"A poor wanderer who has need of help," he responded. "You do it. I am tired."
With that, St. John left the room, leaving his sisters and the housekeeper to hoist Jayne's unconscious body up to a bedroom, get him into a nightgown, spoon broth down his throat, and launder his clothes. It was three days more before Jayne could stand up again, and during all that time he was waited upon hand and foot by the girls, named Mary and Diana, and Hannah, the maid.
"I must be sicker than I thought," said Jayne. "For some reason, them two girls ain't had no effect at all on my libido. Maybe I done broke it!"
Fear not, Jayne. It would take far more than a few days of starving to cause permanent damage to a lecherous personality such as yours.
At the end of his recuperation, Jayne walked downstairs and sat across from Hannah at the kitchen table.
"You done locked me out to die," he said bluntly.
"Yes," she said, "I did."
"You don't look none bothered by that," he continued.
"Nay," she replied. "I'd have done it agin if I had to. St. John brought ye in, though, and that is out of my hands. But I stand by what I said: ye've not a virtuous face."
Jayne smiled in a way that particularly underlined his lack of virtue. "Know what? I think I like you."
The old woman blushed a bit.
"But lemme get this straight. Some guy named St. John rescued me?" Jayne asked.
"Aye," she replied. "He owns this house, and Mary and Diana be his sisters."
"What kinda loon names their kid St. John?" Jayne asked.
"Probably one what wanted a preacher as a son, and he got his wish," Hannah said as she wiped her hands on her apron. "St. John is the soul of Christian piety."
"Sounds boring," Jayne said, poking the fire.
"Aye," Hannah said very quietly with a roll of her eyes, but said no more.
A few minutes later, St. John, Diana, and Mary entered the kitchen. The latter two expressed great joy at seeing Jayne up and about, but St. John merely sat down at the table and gazed at Jayne intently.
"Who are you?" St. John said calmly.
"I'm Jayne… uh… Edwards," Jayne invented.
"That is not your real name," St. John countered.
"No, cause I don't see how my name's any of your business," Jayne barked.
St. John raised one eyebrow imperiously. "And what are your abilities, Jayne Edwards, if that is what you wish to be called?"
"Uh…," Jayne began, deciding not to mention drinking and shooting as his main talents, "I'm a governess."
St. John nodded his approval. Something about him bothered Jayne tremendously.
"Yeah, I always liked Book, but this guy's like a walkin' mortuary advertisement."
Nicely put, dear Jayne. As soon as Jayne was well enough, St. John installed him at the village school, teaching the little girls their ABCs and the essentials of running a home.
"I think I'd rather be back out on the moor starvin', if that's alright."
Actually, you quite enjoyed this time, finding that you owed no one anything, and that your pupils, though low-born, carried within them spirits that wished to learn.
"I'd still rather be out on the moor."
One day, St. John came to Jayne's apartment with an odd look on his face.
"I do believe you shall leave us when I tell you my news," St. John said as his face, as usual, betrayed no emotion at all.
"And what news is that?" asked Jayne.
"You are wealthy, Mr. Jayne Eyre," St. John said, clearly ennunciating the long-hidden last name.
"Huh?" Jayne said intelligently.
"You see, Jayne, you had an uncle in Madeira," said St. John.
"Yeah, that kinda got thrown in in the last chapter," Jayne agreed.
"Well, his brother was your father, and his other brother was my father," St. John explained.
"So… we's cousins?" Jayne asked.
"Quite," St. John affirmed. "And what is more, I have just received word that our uncle has left his entire fortune to you, all 20,000 pounds."
"Twenty… thousand… pounds…," Jayne said, then passed out.
At long last, St. John roused Jayne with a stringent application of smelling salts. In his confusion, Jayne almost drank them.
"So… when you say rich, I'm rollin' it?" Jayne asked.
"Indeed," said St. John icily.
Jayne, moved by generosity of spirit, at once stated that he wanted to split the inheritence four ways so that Mary, Diana, and St. John would each receive and equal share. To Jayne's mind, the greatest gift he had received that day was the knowledge he had family somewhere in the world, that he was no longer a drifting soul, that he had roots, that he had…
"You outta your mind! The greatest gift I received was 20,000 smackers! I ain't givin' that livin' sanctified gargoyle nothin'!"
Yes, Jayne, you are.
"No, I ain't!"
Yes, you are!
"No, I ain't!"
Jayne, to use the vernacular, put a sock in it.
"Well, leastwise I know why Mary and Diana didn't get my engine kickin' over," Jayne sulked. "I'd have to be a sicko to lust after my own cousin."
"Jayne," said St. John promptly, "I want you to marry me."
"WHAT?"
"I want you to marry me. It is your destiny, and you shall rot in hell if you do not do as I say, or rather as God says, and marry me so you may become a missionary with me in India, where doubtless you shall die of various diseases," St. John said in the same tone that a normal person would order a ham sandwich.
"No!"
"Think wisely, Jayne," said St. John coldly. "To refuse me is to refuse your salvation. You will burn in the everlasting lake of fire for eternity if you do not consent to be my wife."
"Hell with you!" Jayne yelled.
"No, it shall be hell for you," St. John stated matter-of-factly. "Now, goodnight, cousin Jayne, for whom I bear no love at all. In fact, I find you homely and disquieting, yet you would make a goodly missionary wife. I expect to hear your acceptance in the morning, preferably at 7:25 a.m. I am a busy man and cannot afford to waste my time upon trifles."
As St. John went up the staircase, Jayne was filled with a sense of despondancy.
"How 'bout a sense of disgust? Where do I start? The part with us bein' cousins, the part about his not lovin' me at all, the part about him threatenin' my soul with damnation if I turn him down, or the part where I gotta go to India and die cause he wants a housekeeper?"
To be fair, cousins marrying cousins wasn't at all uncommon in the 1800s.
"Yeah, well, so was steppin' in horse crap!"
That night Jayne slept little, but when morning came, St. John demanded her acquiesence to his proposal (or rather order) of marriage.
"Stuff it!" yelled Jayne, throwing an inkwell at him.
St. John sighed, looking put upon, then, with a martyred look, he said, "I shall ask you again tonight, Jayne. Your answer, I trust, shall be different." With that, he left.
Mary and Diana, both of whom had heard this conversation, urged Jayne to remain steadfast in his determination to avoid matrimony with St. John, mainly because both of them thought he was a freak, but also because kindly sisterhood had blossomed amongst the three. Jayne, though, was confused as to where he should go and what he should do. He did not wish to abandon the only family he had known, and in truth, his heart still pined for Mr. Rochester.
"I miss old Ed."
Indeed you do. That night, St. John once again confronted Jayne. Just as Jayne was about to scream with frustration, he heard a strange voice.
"Jayne!" it wailed. "Jayne!"
It was the voice of Mr. Rochester, though whence it came from Jayne could not tell. St. John heard nothing, but could tell Jayne percieved something.
"You are hearing heavenly voices telling you to marry me," he assured him.
Jayne turned to him, then, picking up a very large coal scuttle from the kitchen, he smote St. John mightily over the head, dropping him like a highly pompous sack of potatoes.
"See, now that was fun!"
I must concur. Jayne immediately ran through the night and out to a carriage, soon being wisked away to Thornfield Hall to see if Mr. Rochester was well.
"This story is weirder than jugglin' goslings."
Indeed, but I believe there is but one more chapter left in its telling.
"Good. These corsets are killin' me."
