“Because I, too, seek my best interest,” he answered. “I am closer to the negroes than you are. I can sense the tension. But in the meantime I am saving money. When the sugar estates are gone, opportunities will come to the men who have the experience and the funds in hand.”
“How soon do you think it will be?” I asked.
He gazed absently at the cigar in his hand. “Who knows?” he said, turning away and staring out over the cane fields. “You will be lucky if it’s another eight or ten years,” he murmured.
“And what then?”
“God knows,” he said.
God knows,I thought. “Are there rumors of an uprising?”
“There are always rumors,” he responded.
“But still you stay.”
“I am a single man.”
I nodded. He was alone in the world, with no wife or children or possessions other than the savings he had accumulated. But I; I had Bertha. And Bertha would go nowhere without Molly and Molly would go nowhere without her Tiso.
He rose finally, bade me good night, and made his way to his cottage, but I sat for a time by myself on the veranda, wondering how it would come. In the distance I could smell the remainders of the cooking fires from the negro quarters. If they rose in rebellion, would it be on a quiet night like this? Or would it be later in the year, when the rains came every day and sometimes the wind whipped trees back and forth and the sea rose in a fury that damaged boats and buildings alike? Or would they wait until winter, when the weather was calm and dry and the fields would burn more easily? Or would they plan it at all—would they simply rise at the least expected moment and for no reason, like Bertha, lash out in a passion that could not be sated until all was destroyed? And perhaps not even then.
Chapter 13
Despite that I had anxiously awaited Everson’s response, when I actually held it in my hand I could barely bring myself to open it. It was my future. My entire life-to-be was inclosed in that slim packet. I took it into Jonas’ room—a room in which I still felt his presence—and I sat at his desk and held the missive in my hands. Finally, I forced myself to break the seal.
Mr. Rochester—
You ask about your brother, Rowland Howell Rochester: perhaps your father did not inform you that Rowland Rochester was seriously wounded by a careless shot during a grouse-hunting expedition in Scotland in the month of August last year.
Your father was quite distraught, but the seeming culprit was a Scottish earl, and the barrister was of the opinion that pursuance was inadvisable, given the lack of available witnesses. If I may say so, I believe it was that blow that weakened your father’s constitution and made him even more susceptible to the dropsy to which he was already inclined. I am greatly sorry to be the bearer of such unpleasant news.
You ask the extent of the Estate that had once been your father’s, and then your brother’s, and now has fallen to you. Thornfield Estate is as it has been for the last many years, consisting of something over thirty-five hundred acres. It includes a residence, Thornfield-Hall by name, and the village of Thornfield and its chapel, as well as the village of Hay. And of course there are the usual outbuildings suitable for such an Estate, most of which have been reasonably maintained, as well as the farm cottages, also in acceptable condition, although that is the responsibility of the tenants. The property in all provides a comfortable living of ten to twelve thousand pounds per annum.
In addition, there is Ferndean Manor, a residence including some five hundred acres, mostly wooded, a distance of thirty miles or so from Thornfield Estate, a property that the late Mr. George Howell Rochester used as a hunting retreat.
The Hall has not been occupied for the last year, since the unfortunate accident that took your brother’s life, and the servants—only a few remained at any road—were dismissed.
I await your instructions as to your intentions for Thornfield Estate and the ways in which I may be of further service to you.
In addition, there are a number of other ventures that had been your father’s. You will find them listed on the accompanying page.
Sincerely,
Paul W. Everson, Esq.
I sat back in Jonas’ chair, the letter still in my hand. Beyond the window was the lush expanse of the cane fields. I felt I should be grieved over the loss of Rowland and my father, and I suppose I was, but what grieved me more, I realized, was the absence of any sense of deep feeling toward either of them.
And, as well, I understood that despite all my fretting those last weeks about what path I should take, I had only been waiting for what this letter affirmed. Thornfield was mine. I had not lived there in nearly twenty years, had not seen it in nearly ten, and even back then I had come to it almost as a stranger, an intruder in a place where I had no right to be. Cook had greeted me then with tears in her eyes, and I had sat down at that familiar, worn kitchen table with trepidation. My father would not have wanted me there; Rowland would also almost surely not have wanted me there, and it was only by the grace of God that he was absent when I came.
It was for Thornfield itself that my heart longed most. With Rowland dead for more than a year—Rowland, dead! I still could not fathom it—Thornfield had been standing empty. I could not imagine it: empty. If I could have flown there within the hour, I would have. But, in fact, there was a great deal for me to do in Jamaica before my journey could become a reality.
It was already nearly November. The skies would have turned gray over Thornfield, and the cold would have descended on the moors, and the Hall would be damp and cold with no one living there to keep up the fires. It was one thing to completely disrupt Bertha, to take her to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar sounds and smells and food and people. But it would be downright cruel to do so in weather she had never known, in a chill that would creep into her bones in ways she had never experienced. And Molly: Bertha would go nowhere without Molly, and yet the moment Molly set foot on England’s shore, she would be free. I could, as her master, force her to leave Jamaica, but if she were unhappy in England, I could not force her to stay.
No, I would have to be patient. I would have to wait until spring, wait so that we could arrive in June with its pleasant weather, its lark-filled skies and flower-strewn meadows. I had to bring them both, Bertha and Molly—and Tiso, too—at a time that had the best chance of enticing them. The thought of it excited me so that I even began to imagine that a new place could perhaps enthrall Bertha and cure her mind.It could be, could it not?I told myself.
I wrote back to Everson, thanking him, and engaging him to make a visit to Thornfield and find a suitable housekeeper and begin looking for a butler and cooks and maids, to make ready for my arrival in early June. I urged him to see if he could entice Mrs. Knox and Cook to return, and perhaps even Holdredge, and any former housemaids and footmen. I was giddy with the thought of bringing them all back, just as it had been, but in another moment I knew that could not be. They would be gone, scattered to other houses; they would have no reason to come back to Thornfield, save for my desire to have them there. To them, I was still just a wild little boy.
And I asked Everson to send me the name of the neighborhood physician as soon as possible.
