“Indeed, I will.”
She smiled again, her perfect lips, her perfect teeth, her little tongue. I could have stayed with her forever, but she motioned toward the door, and I understood and left her, though it was as if I had awakened from a dream. The carriage pulled away, leaving me in the roadside, watching.
Within a week, she sent for me twice. Her apartment was not far from mine, and I wondered that I had not been able to find her, that she had instead found me nearly by chance. I never knew the man who kept her there; he was a wealthy merchant of some sort who traveled often.
Céline was a delight. She was childlike without being childish; she was quicksilver; she could listen. She was not well educated, but it was clear she had an active, lively mind. Her merchant-lover wasold, she said, emphasizing the word, and it soon became obvious that she was looking for someone younger, with whom she could attend the theater and balls. But we did not go anywhere those first few times, perhaps because she was known to be attached and it would not have done for her to be seen with another man.
I was insanely jealous of her merchant, though I had no real cause. Although I could go to her only when he was away on business, when I was with her I was the center of her attention: I was in heaven. She sent for meals from a nearby café, and sometimes she fed me as if I were her child, and sometimes we ate together from the same plate, and sometimes the food grew cold while we made love.
Before autumn I had moved Céline out of the merchant’s apartment and into another that I provided for her. She had not wanted to move in with me, as I had hoped, and I could not force her, for I knew that in the world of Paris, one was lucky to have such a woman at all, under any circumstances, and that I was even more fortunate that an angel like her could give her heart to someone like me. When she danced, I went to her every performance, most often at the Opéra, but sometimes elsewhere. I installed a piano in her apartment and played for her while she danced for me. Sometimes she urged me to sing, and, flattered, I held her in my arms and sang love songs into her ear.
We ate dinners at our favorite restaurants and we often went to the theater or to a ball, but sometimes we stayed home by ourselves, which was my preference, though her choice would have been to go out every night. That was her life: to see and be seen in the most fashionable of company. I bought her things: the finest gowns of silk and cashmere, jewels for her lovely throat and arms and for her hair, even a full equipage, complete with matching horses and a coachman and footman, and she rewarded my gifts with love and attention, calling me herchouchou. I entreated her to call me by my given name, as no one ever had, but she pouted that Edward was a hard name—like feet stamping, she said—and instead whisperedchouchouinto my ear, licking my earlobe, giggling softly, her breath against my cheek. I could not deny her anything. Because her very name—Céline—meant heavenly, I called herma petite ange.
Amid our bliss, I did not confide in her the burden I carried. I told myself it was because of fear that she would leave me, but that surely was not the full truth; in Paris, especially with Céline, I had simply found for myself a refuge where I could forget Bertha, and her long-lost child, and all that I had left at Thornfield-Hall.
Chapter 6
In Paris, there had been no need for me to return to England. Ames was a fine and trustworthy agent, and Grace Poole had never given reason for concern. I had long since given up hope of any reversal in Bertha’s condition, and because I had been unable to locate any further information on her son, it was enough now to know simply that she was safe and secure and receiving adequate care. She had even almost grown to appreciate Grace—as much as she could appreciate anything or anyone—and after the first few weeks she no longer tried to attack her caretaker, although she still could not be trusted to wander at will through Thornfield-Hall. But because she had always preferred dark and inclosed places, the third-floor apartment, with its hidden entrance, was a perfect sanctuary. No one came, save Grace, to disturb or anger her.
In early summer, however, I made a hurried trip back to Thornfield because Ames had written that Munroe had given notice. It came as no surprise, for without the master in residence, there was little need for a butler. There was still the cook, Mary, and her husband, John, who did whatever was required; and Leah, the parlor maid; and young Sam, the footman. All that was needed in addition was a housekeeper. I could have left the responsibility for hiring such a person to Ames, but the situation at Thornfield was delicate, and the personality of the housekeeper was crucial, so I returned, telling Céline I might be gone for a week or more.
Because Thornfield was rather remote, and a madwoman residing there made the place seem even more daunting, Ames had suggested that we not inform the new housekeeper of Bertha’s presence.How can we not?I wondered.The housekeeper has the run of the Hall, and the responsibility for it; how can she not know of its peculiar inhabitant?
But when I arrived, I discovered that Ames, who had lived in the neighborhood his entire life and knew nearly everyone, already had a plan. First, he voiced a strong concern that keeping servants would always be a problem, unless Bertha’s presence was a carefully guarded secret. He revealed to me that a distant relation lived nearby, a discreet and respected widow, Mrs. Fairfax by name.
The name caught me straightaway. “Fairfax?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said. “She would have been married to your mother’s second cousin. Caroline Fairfax Rochester, your mother was.”
The revelation stunned me. I had not known until then the provenance of my second name. “I was named for her,” I said. “Did you know my mother?”
“I never met her,” he said, “though I saw her a time or two when I was a boy. A lovely woman. And this Mrs. Fairfax is a widow of great reputation but with very little to live on. It would be of benefit to you both.”
“But she would be my relation! And you propose I not tell her of my wife? How could I do that?”
“You simply tell her—or I will, if you prefer—that Grace tends to private concerns of yours and is not to be interfered with. Stranger situations than that have happened in great houses such as Thornfield-Hall.”
“But—” I could not think what to say, except that it felt unseemly to keep such secrets.
“She is a proper woman and would be just right for what you require. There is no need for her to know all your family secrets,” he countered.
Perhaps I had become jaded in Paris, where, in the circles in which I lived, secrets more often than not were willfully flaunted. Every man, it seemed, had a mistress, and his wife, if he had one, ignored that blatant fact; and every woman, married or not, had her own dalliances, which were common knowledge to all.
Yet in England secrets are held close to the breast—the more dangerous the secret, the closer it is held. One may call such a state hypocrisy, and perhaps it is. But: “Hypocrisy is an homage vice pays to virtue,” La Rochefoucauld wrote, and there are few secrets as dangerous—or as shameful—as a mad wife.
Ames arranged for Mrs. Fairfax to come for an interview the very next day, and she seemed to me indeed the very epitome of rectitude and discretion. I could immediately see that she might well have balked at the knowledge of Bertha in the hidden apartment, as well as at the idea of working for a man who would keep his wife in such a state, especially while he lived like a will-o’-the-wisp abroad, and I was certainly of no mind to explain in detail my history or my choices.
I confidently offered her the position, but before our interview ended, I could not resist asking her if she had known my mother.
“Not well,” she answered, “for Mr. Fairfax and I married late, and your mother died young. But she was beautiful, an elegant lady, well regarded and the darling of the county. Yes, it was a pity she died so young that you never knew her.”
“But what was shelike?” I pressed.
“As I say,” she replied, “I did not know her well; I only saw her a time or two. But I do know this: she was kind, and it was her kindness that made her beloved.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fairfax,” I said, and she nodded to me and tightened her bonnet and left. But I hung on to those words and played them again in my head:She was kind.
***
