Miss Ingram laughed. “Stimulating to sleep, I would say!” She turned to me, her eyes sparkling with laughter. “What would you say, Rochester?”
“I have only heard the man once or twice,” I responded. Indeed, he had seemed a fool, but a harmless one.
“That is enough for an opinion, surely,” she pressed.
“Well, I suppose he is good for an hour or so of sleep,” I admitted, reluctantly.
Ted Ingram let out a loud guffaw. “At least.At least!Would he not be good for a nightly sleeping draught?” I did not care for Ted; he was tall and slim and elegant, and he had a way of dismissing anyone he did not think worth his time. I could not see him without thinking of Rowland.
“And his wife,” Miss Ingram pressed. “Have you ever seen anyone so mousey? Brown hair, brown clothes, and she never speaks a word without his permission first.”
“That last part is not so bad, actually,” Colonel Dent observed.
“Oh, really?” Miss Ingram parried, leaning forward across the table. “Do you think all women should be silent unless spoken to?”
“Present company excepted,” he responded. “But a woman like that, what possible ideas could be floating around in her head?”
“No doubt she is worrying herself over what woman might steal her husband away from her, such amarvelouscatch he would be!” Miss Ingram said with her eyes fully on me. I nodded uncomfortably and the whole company laughed.
Lady Lynn, who was seated nearby, leaned over just then to ask: did I not have a ward under my care?
“Yes, I do,” I responded mildly. “A French child, but she is learning English.”
“Learning?” said Lady Lynn. “So she must have a tutor or a…a governess?”
“A governess, yes.”
“And is she pretty?” Miss Ingram interjected.
“She’s only seven, but yes, I suppose—”
Miss Ingram laughed. “The governess, I meant. Isshepretty?”
“Ah.” I hesitated, unsure how best to halt this line of inquiry. “In a way, I suppose.”
She laughed again. “Not such high praise, I think.” She leaned closer to me, in confidence. “My father had an eye for every governess we ever had. He seemed to think it his prerogative. My mother ignored it, but we all three hated every one of them.”
“Adèle seems to like this one well enough,” I said, and I left it at that.
***
My father had an eye for every governess we ever had.I could not shake the comment. As my time at the Leas lengthened, my opinion of Miss Ingram soured and my respect for Jane grew. But how true were my feelings? Did I find her appealing only for her dependence? No, decidedly not—she was hardly of a dependent spirit, whether or not she accepted a salary. But I could see how it would look if I seemed to favor Jane—to Jane first of all, but also to Miss Ingram and all the rest as well. Even to Mrs. Fairfax, no doubt. I, the master of the house, exacting pleasure from an underling—that’s how it would appear, and how many times had that happened? I thought back to Jamaica, where many menownedgirls and they so often took advantage of the fact. Had not I myself, at the age of fifteen, tried to claim the affections of a girl in the mill’s employ? No. If there were to be anything between me and Jane Eyre, I would have to convince her to come to me. I must reveal to her my affections without expressing them directly;showher how she suited me far better than any other; then extend my hand and wait for her to take it. For this now seemed immutable:shemust make the movement—I could not.
I could almost laugh at the irony: I had spent years in Europe, hoping for a woman who would suit me. Now here I was, faced with one woman who suited me better than any ever had, but whom society would not accept as my equal; and another woman who pleased society to no end but not me; and still a third woman with whom no one cared to spend two minutes unless paid handsomely for the duty. And it was this last to whom I was married. Oh, God in heaven. Jane was my only hope for relief, for regeneration.
But how to manage it? How to convince Jane, first of all, that I preferred her company above these others’, that I was not merely dallying with her as a man in my position might? How to break through that composure and provoke a reaction that would allow her to reveal what she thought of me, she who guarded herself so closely?
***
As I contemplated all that, the days flew by; there were riding parties and excursions and picnics and every evening a dance or an entertainment of one sort or another. Though it did not give me quite as much pleasure as it once would have, I enjoyed showing off Mesrour to Miss Ingram, who did at first seem to be suitably impressed. She admired his size and his vigor but seized immediately on the fact that, as I had been warned, he was not a good jumper. “You should have taken me to see him before you made the purchase,” she scolded me. “I would have told you he wasn’t suitable.”
“Well,” I responded, “he’s suitable forme.”
“Really, Rochester,” was all she said.
I did try to flirt when the occasion called for it, but my heart wasn’t in it. In the rare moments that we were alone together, Miss Ingram asked me about Thornfield—she seemed already to know the extent of its acreage, but she was curious about the number of cottagers and the amount of land under cultivation and the number of servants I kept in the house, all of which she approached in such circuitous ways that I believe she thought I would not notice her interest. I was reminded again of Rowland and his calculations and was surprised this had not struck me before.
I was reminded of someone else as well, a figure even more loathsome in my life than my callous brother. I watched Miss Ingram make her grand entrances, determined to be admired in all things: the best markswoman, riding the finest horse, dressed in the most beautiful clothes, noted as the best dancer, the best singer, the best pianist. The others, I noticed, always made way for her to go first. It was that familiar determination to be the envy of everyone present that completely, irredeemably finished her for me, and after that I knew I must withdraw myself from her inner circle. That was the easy part; the other—provoking Jane to act—was much more difficult, but perhaps, I realized, I could use one to accomplish the other.
