“Never mind, Munroe,” I said. “In fact, I was pleased to be able to open the door for myself, to step on my own inside a place that is so special to me. And if you do not mind, I will take my time, on my own, renewing my acquaintance.”
“Of course, sir.” He stepped back, excused himself, and left.
I stood there, taking in the familiar scene: the portraits and the pendant bronze lamp, the great clock standing sentinel—at the sight of which my fingers felt again the childish urge to trace its carvings. Then into the dining room, and the drawing room with its same ivory-colored rug bordered with flowers. I glanced above the fireplace, but the only painting that hung there was the same hunting scene that had tormented my days as a motherless child. I paused in that room, memories flooding my mind, nearly overwhelming me. And slowly I climbed the broad, curved staircase to the second floor. To the right was a guest bedroom, and another, and another, until, at the end of the hall, the nursery and the schoolroom, and then I turned the other way and strolled down the hall. To the left of the staircase was the room that had been my father’s, and afterwards, I supposed, my brother’s, when Rowland came of age and my father moved permanently to Liverpool. It was the room that now would be mine.
But when I opened the door, the world stilled. There it was: the portrait I had so hoped to recover, hung above the bed as if it had never been anywhere else. I walked closer, almost unbelieving. My mother, whose memory to me was only in this portrait, gazed back. Rowland must have brought it back from Jamaica and hung it here above his bed—for she was his mother too, and he was the one who could remember her.
I stood before that painting, my mind numb, then moved closer and took it from its place above the bed. I carried it out of the chamber and down the stairs and into the drawing room, where I removed the hunting scene and hung my mother’s portrait there, where it belonged. In that moment I came to fully realize not only how much I had always loved Thornfield, but also how much I had lost: Carrot and Touch, dead. My father and my brother—and my mother—all dead. Even Mr. Wilson and Jonas, dead. Now Bertha—my pitiful, hateful bride—was all the family I had in the world.
***
Back in the entrance hall, I returned to Munroe, who stood silently in a corner, awaiting my orders. “If I may,” I said, “a light lunch. Nothing heavy.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and disappeared.
As I waited in the dining room, the new steward stopped in to greet me. His father had been my father’s longtime steward, and this younger Ames had worked side by side with him for some time, taking over fully two years earlier, when his father passed away. We talked of my concerns and his, and I was pleased to find that he seemed as competent as his father had no doubt been. Afterwards, I took a walk into the fields—now that I was not in Jamaica, it did not seem an extraordinary thing to do. The haying had started, and I watched the workers, their scythes swinging in rhythm. I almost envied their simple, backbreaking labor. The sweet, grassy scent of new-cut hay hung in the air, and I closed my eyes and listened to a lark as it rose high in the sky, and, from a distance, the call of the cuckoo. I stopped in to the little church at the gates to Thornfield Park and strolled through the graveyard there, the last resting place of my ancestors—and of my father and my mother. Even Rowland’s body had somehow been brought back from Scotland. Rowland. When I saw his gravestone, when I thought of him, I felt neither sadness nor joy, just an emptiness.
That night I slept in the room that had once been my father’s. I felt strange in that place, as if I were an interloper, for the only bed I had known before at Thornfield had been in the nursery. When I awoke, the sun was still low in the sky, but I could not force myself back to sleep. I knew I must return to Ferndean and take care of my responsibilities there, so I rose and threw on my clothes and pulled up my boots, and, unshaven, I hurried down the broad front stairs. I had not even reached the ground floor when Munroe appeared.
“Mr. Rochester, sir,” he said, striding forward, nodding a bow.
“Is it likely that Mrs. Keen has bread and jam in the kitchen?” I asked.
“I am sure she is preparing a proper breakfast. If you will allow me—”
“Please…I will just go into the kitchen myself and see what she has there.”
“Sir…” He looked at me in puzzlement.
“We will sort it all out, I am sure, Munroe, but for now I must hasten back to Ferndean.” I was already walking away from him.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Hearing the note in his voice, I turned back to him. He looked quite forlorn, as if bereft of all responsibilities. “I apologize if I seem abrupt,” I said. “I shall just take a bit of breakfast in the kitchen and then be off.”
“In the kitchen, sir?” He had no way of knowing it was for me one of the most comfortable places at Thornfield.
“Yes.” I nodded.
I found Mrs. Keen in the kitchen, where she was already frying up bacon and cooking eggs. After I had turned down her offer to send them to the dining room, she studiously avoided any more discussion, surely thinking her new employer strange. So be it. She was thinner than the only cook I had known at Thornfield, which had seemed to me a bad sign, but her tea the night before had been very tasty, and the breakfast turned out to be perfectly cooked.
When I made to leave, Munroe appeared at the door to see me off, as a good butler should. “When shall you be returning, sir?” he asked.
“I am not sure,” I responded. “But I will send word.”
“Very good, sir.”
I wished I could stay. I wished Ferndean did not weigh so heavily on my mind. I wished I had a better plan. I wished I had a choice.
***
At Ferndean I found a silent house, except for Mrs. Greenway working quietly, with Tiso lingering uncertainly in the doorway. I took a seat at the table.
“Is your mother with Madame?” I asked her.
Tiso mumbled something.
“And Madame Antoinetta?”
