Thursday, June 6, 2013

ANNE EYRE (Fire: chapter Twelve) #Jane Eyre Retelling



Chapter Twelve
Fire
     Hacking and coughing, I was awoken at two in the morning, barely able to breathe. The faint trace of smoke had started to funnel under the door of my bedroom. I wore only a light t-shirt and pyjama pants to bed, and it was cold when I threw the covers off me; but there was no time to pause and dress or even grab my coat.
     Gasping, I heard a piercing scream from above. I could smell more smoke as I began to cough. I ran down the hallway, pushing my messy bed hair from my eyes.   
     The trail of smoke seemed to lead to Rochester’s room, six doors down. Everyone had stayed up to all hours and the rest of the house guests seemed oblivious to the danger.  
     I knocked frantically on the door. When I turned the handle it opened easily.
     The room itself was enormous, with high, Baroque ceilings and a wide old-fashioned bed situated in the middle. There was no time to think. I ran to the bed where Rochester lay. Perhaps he’d already inhaled smoke because he didn’t move when I said his name.
   ‘Wake up Nathanial,’ I said, shaking him. He didn’t stir. I reached over his bare chest and grabbed his broad shoulders and shook him again. He finally opened his eyes, then coughed and spluttered in the greying air.
    ‘Anne,’ he whispered, ‘what’s happening?’
    ‘The curtain!  Look, fire - Nathanial, get up!’
     I tried to drag him but he was tall and twice my weight in muscle. He managed to get out of bed and with my help sat upright and then he moved suddenly.
    ‘Get the blanket Anne, quickly!’
     He ripped the mats up and threw the blankets onto the curtains and the edge of the bed. I turned on the tap in the bathroom and filled a bucket that was sitting under the basin. I started throwing water at the drapes, wondering where I could dial for the fire department, but in just a few minutes we managed to contain the fire. The stone floors where the carpet had been ripped up prevented the fire from spreading beyond the curtains. Rochester had been planning renovations for a while and the lack of floor covering curtailed the heat at the foot of his bed.
    When the flames had been put out, I felt intense relief mixed with exhaustion. 
    I leaned on the wall then slumped to the floor.
   Rochester collapsed at the foot of the bed, head in hands. Then, it seemed like the only thing left to kill us was smoke inhalation.
    Slowly, he rose. He was shirtless and beautiful in the moonlight as I looked out for a moment from behind my own hands. I was shivering from the open window, the icy water sloshing at my feet.
    He brought me a towelling robe from the bathroom and handed it to me.
    ‘You are cold, put this on. Tell no one about the fire.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Tell no one about what has happened here tonight.’
    ‘Why?’
    He paused.
    ‘Can I trust you Anne?’
    I looked at him from behind my messed up hair, my cold feet suckered together.
    ‘Yes,’ I answered, hesitantly.
    He knelt down beside me in the dark, finally the same height as me, eye to eye.
    ‘Promise me.’
    ‘I promise. You can trust me,’ I said slowly.
    ‘Stay here for a moment, it’s safe now. I’ll be back.’
     I was frozen and in shock but somehow, curled in his dressing gown after moving to the dry couch on the other side of the room, I fell fast asleep. I heard him walking into the room; it seemed like moments later, but was in reality probably half an hour.
    He leaned over me; he’d hastily put on a t-shirt, one printed with a photograph of some old rock band he must have liked from about ten years ago. He smelled of a person freshly showered, so close was he when I opened my eyes I could see his chest moving, breathing heavily; I was bleary eyed, deep in dreams. Suddenly he looked like no one I trusted, like one of the numerous strangers who’d beaten down a door to my path in life. He reached towards me but I pushed him away. He wasn’t easily dissuaded.
     Without asking, Rochester scooped me up close and carried me in his arms quietly, down the hall to my bedroom, and placed me on my bed. The covers were already pulled back where I’d hastily left them. I was tired, sleepy, and almost delirious. He leant over me as if he was checking my breathing which was steady.
    ‘Anne?’
    He touched my wrist.
    ‘Open your eyes.’
    ‘What happened? Who lit the fire?’ I asked. My questions fell over themselves without care.
    ‘I think one of the maids dropped a match; Merida was smoking when she returned from the village; it’s nothing for you to worry about. The extra staff will be leaving soon enough and I’ll get Mrs Fairfax to talk to them and my guests about fire safety over the next few days,’ he mused.
     ‘Don’t joke,’ I said. ‘We could have been killed.’
     ‘It wasn’t that bad.’
     ‘It could have been.’
      Instinct told me he was lying, lying to protect someone, but I couldn’t put all of my suspicions together to form another accusation in the dark. Nor would I question a person who obviously did not trust me enough to share the truth, whatever that was.  
      The handsome man in the night paused before he looked down at me and spoke again, ‘You saved my life tonight, Anne. Thank you. I owe you.’ He leant closer to me and took my hand. I pulled it away, sensing his lie in the dark.
    ‘You owe me nothing, Rochester,’ I said.
     I would be lying if I didn’t say the memory of his flat, hard chest against me as he held me and carried me to my bed, did not conjure unexpected feelings of warmth and security that had always eluded me.
     There was also a new sensation, one I’d pushed aside and never allowed myself to feel before - desire. Wanting the closeness of another human being was new to me; trusting someone was almost incomprehensible. I’d avoided human contact for years, ever since my aunt had abandoned me. I pulled the covers to my chest as I lay on my side, thinking he’d go soon enough.  
     ‘Are you just going to let me leave Anne?’ He asked.
     I turned around, my eyes made out his shadow in the moonlight.
     ‘I want to know the rest,’ I whispered, reaching to touch his face.
      His voice cracked, as he spoke, low and hesitant.
    ‘When I was younger, a year older than you, I made a terrible mistake; one that has haunted me to this day.’
     He stopped talking. The room was filled with silence. I reached out and touched his chest, leant into him, listened to his beating heart. He knelt on the bed and held me close and warm, whispering my name in the night. Then he pulled me tighter, slightly, wrapping his arms around me and breathing into me as if his breath could also sustain my own. Nate was warm and close enough to hear my heart beat for the first time. I listened to his breathing as he seemed to contemplate whether or not to tell me something. 
     Then, for a moment, I wanted to kiss him, wanted him to stay with me. But it was only for a moment and I’d never admit it to a man who appeared to have the upper hand in all aspects of knowledge.   
     Instead, I pushed him away from me, annoyed that he held back whilst expecting so much from me. He seemed wary of offering me more information or even a plausible explanation for the inexplicable.
     Besides, I thought, the last thing I needed was an older, more experienced man taking what was, for a moment, freely offered, then surely laughing in my face.
     I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders, got off the bed and stood at the door.
     ‘Please leave now. It is time for me to go to sleep.’
     He got up reluctantly and left the room. The door slapped behind him softly and all was quiet in the house except my breathing which was deep as I crawled under my covers and drifted back into an unsettled sleep and an even more unsettling dream.        
    In my dream, I was getting married.
    It was my wedding day and I was dressed in a long cream gown with the finest lace and flowers in a posy of pink that spilled out across the front of my dress. Then I looked across the room as I prepared to walk down the aisle and Sophie was smiling, dressed in ivory and lace, excited to be my bridesmaid.
    Music played as we began to walk down the aisle.
    I walked alone. This bothered me, initially; but little Sophie caught the train of my dress and I didn’t notice my aloneness at all, because I was about to be joined to someone… but who? I couldn’t remember his name and when I reached the front of the church after passing hundreds of seated guests whose faces were unfamiliar to me, Nicola, dressed as a bride, greeted me with a smile and pushed me to one side.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ She demanded to know. ‘This is my wedding and this man is to be my husband.’
    The man who stood in the corner talking to his best man was Nathanial Rochester. In silence, he turned to face us.
    ‘Get out,’ Nicola said. ‘Get out you poor, plain, uninteresting girl! Leave this place!’
     It was more like a nightmare than a dream.      

ANNE EYRE (Sounds In The Silence: chapter Thirteen) #Jane Eyre Retelling


Chapter Thirteen
Sounds In The Silence
     Rochester behaved as if nothing was amiss the next day.
     After lessons, Sophie and I heard the house party arrive back from the stables.   We were padding upstairs, our hair wet from swimming. Sophie was so good now; she didn’t need her floaties but I still watched her like a hawk. We were both laughing and dripping water on the floor. Meanwhile Leah was, tut tutting us as the group entered the hallway.
    I pulled my long robe around me and Sophie stood close; I needn’t have bothered. Neither the house guests nor Rochester appeared to notice us at all as we walked upstairs. When I turned around as we reached the top, all of the visitors were deep in conversation. I could hear their upper class accents spinning off the walls. As I glanced downward, Rochester was in the middle of the group – the centre of everyone’s attention.
    Nicola Ingram was tall and graceful. She’d had her tumble of blonde hair styled   fashionably around her shoulders. Nicola, who wore long riding boots and jeans with a designer label, was busy laughing at everything Rochester said. I saw her flick something off his scarlet riding jacket and link her arm through his. She clasped his firm hand to hers behind their backs.
    Sophie was playing quietly that afternoon and I could hear animated conversation coming from the drawing room. The men were getting ready to go swimming after finishing a game of pool. When their voices became softer, I walked downstairs with the car keys, preparing to go the village.
    The drawing room, which I was required to walk past, was filled with stale smoke and recent conversation.
    ‘Anne?’
    ‘I… I thought you’d left.’
    Rochester walked out from the connecting library.
    ‘Are you hiding from us?’
    ‘No. I was with Sophie.’
    ‘Never mind. I want to introduce you to someone properly. Anne, this is Nicola Ingram.’
    I smiled at the woman who was maybe a few years older than me and very self-possessed.
    ‘Nicola and her brother are close friends of mine from London,’ Rochester stated.
    I noticed her frown when he said the word friend. The haughty woman looked me up and down from her secure position next to Rochester.
    ‘Hello. And who are you?’
    ‘I’m Anne Eyre, Sophie’s governess.’
    ‘Oh, so you’re the nanny; I grew up with loads of nannies; we used to play tricks on them. They were all just awful,’ she said disdainfully, looking straight at me.
     I ignored her insulting remarks.
    ‘I also tutor Sophie in English. I’m preparing her for school.’
    ‘Yes, and doing a brilliant job,’ Rochester said, backs turned to us as he went to make drinks.
    ‘I must go,’ I added. ‘I don’t want to miss the post office.’
    ‘Perhaps she’s off to meet her boyfriend in town,’ I heard another girl snipe. Nicola’s friend giggled.
     I heard fading whispers from the females as I attempted to leave the room.
    ‘Why doesn’t she just use email? Oh but of course, Rochester, it doesn’t work all the way out here in the wilderness,’ Nicola scoffed. ‘I really don’t know why you left London. We must do something about that next summer, darling.’
    This woman, Nicola, was clearly making plans for their life together. If he was using her to make me jealous, it was working.
     I felt superfluous. I didn’t want to listen to any more of their idle conversation and was glad to be out of the house as I navigated the not overly familiar terrain, stumbling along Hay Lane and towards the pathway that lead to the village.
     I needed a walk to clear my head, and the longer the better.
     The summer days were becoming brisker, with autumn approaching. I couldn’t really understand why my eyes were smarting with tears as I walked. I knew I could drive but I wanted to take as long as possible to get to the village, and then to return would take up the entire afternoon. I wanted to stay out of the house that had previously been so welcoming to me now that it had been invaded by an unfriendly adversary. I’d met girls like Nicola at school. When they set their sights on their male prey, they marked any other female, even one who didn’t rate by their standards, as competition.
   That night was just as bad.
    I was compelled to go to the dining room with Sophie and we were asked by Mrs Fairfax to dress for dinner again, something I’d been previously annoyed about.
    ‘I’ve nothing to wear,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’ll just take tea in the play room and read.’
    ‘No, you are invited, Anne. Nathanial especially asked for you though I daresay he wouldn’t miss either me or Sophie,’ she joked. ‘And never mind about your outfit, dear, just wear a different top and make sure Sophie looks her prettiest. Mr Rochester doesn’t like her not to be well presented around his friends. We’re expecting an engagement announcement very soon. He’s ordered some jewellery to be brought down from London next week. They do make a lovely couple, don’t you think?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. There was no point in showing my hesitation. I was used to being overlooked, underestimated and ignored. It was normal for me from my past, but not now, not here and never in my future.
    ‘Oh, and Anne? It wouldn’t hurt you to put on a little lipstick and blush tonight. It’s a party – there is no need for a teenage girl to look so unhappy and severe.’
     She touched my cheek in what I could only describe as a motherly gesture. It was what I occasionally did to Sophie when she’d said or done something particularly sweet. I smiled tepidly.
     Mrs Fairfax left the room.
    After Sophie was dressed in a beautiful sapphire blue outfit (a newly bought design from one of Rochester’s recent trips to France), I looked properly at myself in the mirror. I washed my face and did my best to hide the damage of recent tears staining my cheeks. 

ANNE EYRE (Dinner Party: chapter Fourteen) #Jane Eyre Retelling


Chapter Fourteen
Dinner Party
    I decided to dress for dinner, to give Nicola something to worry about.  
    I bathed and dried and used tongs on my hair in a fairly good attempt to imitate the fashionable models I’d noticed in magazines discarded where Nicola had left them.
    It is true I only had one dress; I’d spent the part of my salary I wasn’t saving at the local village shop on brushes and paper and art supplies; but the dress was new and very fashionable – a dark, above the knee, fitted sixties style. I wore it over a cherry coloured polo sweater, black opaque stockings and knee length, black riding boots - the ones I’d been mysteriously provided with even after I’d said I did not wish to take lessons.   
    Sophie wore a pink dress with a bow at the back and flat, ballet slippers. She looked like the flower girl at a wedding as she skipped across the ballroom and into the dining room.
     The table was lit up with candles and flowers. Mrs Fairfax had been told to hire extra staff from the village specifically for the weekend. The dinner party was in full swing when Sophie and I entered the room. Although Rochester looked up momentarily and smiled, his eyes noting that I was more appropriately dressed as Mrs Fairfax had remarked, he did not stop talking to Nicola. There were other friends, a guy named Riff and another woman called Jess. Riff wore a black leather jacket. He was the lead singer in Riffraff, the band Rochester managed. Riff was half asleep throughout dinner but still managed to drink at regular intervals. His girlfriend hung off his every word, nuzzling his shoulder.
    As the first course was served, Jess started to nibble Riff’s ear which made Sophie giggle.  Meanwhile, Nicola looked enraptured at the man seated opposite her, Nathanial, and even made a point of getting up out of her seat to cut up his food for him while he’d excused himself to take a phone call. I’m not sure that was the best move on her part. He didn’t look entirely pleased when he returned.
    Sophie and I were seated near the end of the long table.
    To my right was a good-looking stranger, a man who did not seem to know the rest of the party. He had dark brown hair with a long fringe and was around the same age as Rochester. He smiled warmly and introduced himself to me.
     ‘How do you do? I’m Christopher Mason. May I ask who I have the pleasure of sitting alongside?’
     His accent was from somewhere across the sea; America or Ireland; perhaps both. I noticed Mr Rochester’s casual glance in my direction and it pleased me that now it was his turn to see my attention diverted elsewhere.
     ‘I’m Anne Eyre, Sophie’s English tutor. I’m also her nanny,’ I said, quite loudly and proudly.
    The young man smiled at me, then looked coldly at Sophie, who smiled back at him in her trusting way. Sophie looked particularly adorable with her curls tied in a pink ribbon. She was an enchanting child, (like a pet Rochester had noted, when Sophie was out of earshot, with his usual droll humour).
    I noticed Christopher again glanced at the child coldly, and I wondered why.
   ‘And… how old is the child?’ he asked me, almost impatiently, as the first course of lobster bisque was served.
   ‘Sophie is six,’ I said, quietly.
    He nodded as if mentally doing some arithmetic that I couldn’t possibly understand. I broke some bread and took the soup spoon, grateful for the etiquette lessons I’d considered stupid at Lockwood School. I knew to use the round spoon first and to eat using utensils from the outside in. I’d taught Sophie to do the same and she was behaving extremely well for a soon-to-be tired six-year-old.
    The conversation around the table grew more animated, the smoke thicker and the music louder. Mrs Fairfax had taken Sophie off to bed after pudding, which was covered in a delicious cloud of caramel sauce over cream and strawberries. After I’d finished eating, I decided it was time for me to also escape.
     Nathanial Rochester had been happily talking with Nicola all evening, barely acknowledging my presence and not bothering to speak to me even once. On the other side of Nicola was a good-looking man called Matthew Eaton. He ate with relish, talked animatedly all evening and was extremely good natured. Matthew had also been to university with Rochester and every now and then tapped on his glass to tell jokes that were vaguely funny.
    The only time Nathanial looked over at me was when I spoke to Christopher Mason  and he only appeared to be interested in our conversation when Christopher  started telling me about his life in New Orleans (where he’d come from before his legal office transferred him to London).  
    After coffee was served, Christopher excused himself on the grounds of being tired from his long journey.
    ‘Nonsense, man,’ Rochester said. ‘London is just a few miles…’
    ‘Yes, but Ireland is a few hours, by plane and before that I was in America so I’m afraid I’ve had a long week…’
    He smiled and said, ‘It’s been nice to talk to you Anne, I hope I see you in the morning.’
    I wasn’t sure what he meant by that comment. After he left, the conversation became rowdier as Riff and Jess started playing guitar and bickering between chord progressions.
     Finally, I managed to get up and leave the room unnoticed. 
    I wound up the stairs, haunted by the generations of Rochesters that lined the wall along with statues and paintings of birds and other exotic creatures that had been lured to this place from other lands; captured and kept here. The wind outside was howling as I made my way to my room. When I got ready for bed, I again had the sense that I was not alone.
     A loud thump was followed by a scream beyond the rafters. The house guests, to my knowledge, had remained in the dining room. Mrs Poole was normally asleep at this hour but I thought Edwina Fairfax had told me she had gone into the village to meet a friend. It was unusual that she hadn’t made an appearance at dinner, although she tended to eat in the village on most occasions. The sound was not of this world. It definitely wasn’t Mrs Fairfax or Sophie who were both asleep by now, or either of the maids who weren’t in bed yet.   
      The next morning, at breakfast, most of the guests were still asleep. Nicola was bleary eyed but had obviously decided to eat breakfast and be civil. She made an effort to smile at me, saying, ‘Good morning Anne,’ in a way that could almost have been described as warm. I suppose once she felt secure in her perceived superiority there was no need to treat me like a threat.
     Mrs Fairfax announced that the entire party would be leaving to go to a recording   session in London. One of their friends, Matthew Eaton, owned a music studio there. They had left after breakfast without so much as a goodbye. I was told they would return when they were finished.
    Sophie looked quite dismayed that she hadn’t had the chance to wave them off. ‘Come on Sophie,’ I said. ‘It’s just us again. Let’s go over our sentences for the week then go outside.’ Reluctantly, she walked upstairs with me after breakfast. Mrs Fairfax shook her head, clearly not impressed by Nathanial’s thoughtless behaviour. 
    After our English lesson, Sophie and I walked around the estate that morning repeating our bilingual game of naming every object in sight in both French and English. This helped my language skills as well.
    At one point, after we’d exhausted the words to describe everything we saw, Sophie grabbed my fingers and asked me why I wasn’t listening to her chatter or her jokes. For some reason, today, I didn’t find them funny. Together we walked around the frosty grounds back towards Thornton Hall. I found myself glancing at the trees and the sky with my young charge, hardly thinking about our conversation or the answers I gave to Sophie’s many questions. I was distracted, thinking about Nathanial, wondering when he would return.
     When he did return, the following evening, I was seated in the drawing room, enduring the mundane chatter of the female guests who basically ignored my presence in their company. Tonight, Christopher Mason was noticeably absent and the seat beside me was empty. Sophie had been taken upstairs early after she had been passed around the group like a toy. Her prattle had become decidedly irritating to Nicola who disliked anything or anyone that took Nathanial’s attention away from her.
      After the evening meal was served, I ate just enough pudding, before I felt I could leave the crowded room without being missed.
     Nathanial Rochester and I stood up simultaneously as he announced, ‘Anne, I hope you are not leaving us. We have arranged after dinner party games - a magician has arrived to entertain us with card tricks and illusions,’ he stated.
     I had never really enjoyed fairground entertainment but it would be extremely obvious if I left in full view of everyone.
     Nicola stood up and tapped her glass with a spoon before stating, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have organised, for your entertainment and because it is my birthday request, a fortune teller! A palmist from the local country fair is visiting for the evening to read everyone’s fortunes!’ Nicola then clapped her hands loudly.
   ‘Come Anne, she will be set up in the library in ten minutes… you must go early since you are always the first to leave.’
    Nicola nodded, clearly happy to be rid of me sooner than she expected. My absence would allow her to linger exclusively with her intended husband.  
    Rochester stood and whispered something about, ‘I’ll just finalize the payment.’  Nicola looked extremely self-satisfied. The most amiable of our house guests, Matthew Eaton, jumped up and said, ‘Okay, I’ll go first then.’
    Nicola smiled approvingly. ‘Each time slot goes for ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Anne, I’ve scheduled you in next.’
    Having once worked as a society party planner, Nicola was in her element  organising others. I had no doubt both the magician, who was happily pulling a card from behind my ear as I inwardly cringed, and the fortune teller, were the result of her suggestions and probably known to her.   

ANNE EYRE (Fortune: chapter Fifteen) #Jane Eyre Retelling


Chapter Fifteen
Fortune
     It was easier to comply with everyone’s wishes but I had little faith in so-called fortune tellers. Matthew and I were clearly the guinea pigs for this form of entertainment but I wasn’t particularly bothered either way since I didn’t believe in the validity of it. Whether the reader said good or bad to me or about me was not of any particular concern.
    The library was dark when I entered as if the novels themselves were whispering their secrets. Matthew Eaton was leaving sheepishly as I entered. ‘She’s good, but a bit spooky,’ was his only comment.
    At the far end of the hall there was a shadowy figure seated in a lazy chair, apparently hunched behind a curtain. Her voice was raspy and deep.
   I hesitated as I approached.
   ‘Do I… do I get to see you?’
   ‘Reveal myself to you? No dear, I work better incognito.’
   ‘Oh.’
   I sat down. 
   ‘You are a sceptic dear.’
   ‘Excuse me?’
   ‘You do not believe in these dark arts.’
   ‘Um… no, not really.’
   ‘I can hear disbelief in your voice. Why have you come here then?’
   ‘Out of politeness.’
   ‘Mmm… I see.’
   ‘My employer requested it.’
   ‘Oh. Is he the tall, dark and very handsome one?’
   I laughed.
   ‘Um… you could say that, I suppose so.’
   ‘Mm… let’s see. Do you have anything to offer me my dear?’
   ‘What? Oh, you mean a question?’
    ‘Questions come later. I mean a donation.’
   ‘Oh.’ I thought she had been paid but I searched the pocket hidden in my waistband and found some gold coins which I placed on the table.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said.
     A long pause precluded her first observation. 
    ‘You are slightly conflicted.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘You are not an easy person to understand. Most of my clients come in here, shivering. Why aren’t you cold?’
    ‘It’s summer.’
     ‘It is quite drafty in here. You are afraid of something or someone.’
     ‘I don’t think so. I try not to be afraid of anyone.’
     ‘Nevertheless, there is someone, a man who has you perplexed.’
     ‘Prove it,’ I said.
     ‘These are not things that can be proven. My words simply are or they… are not. In this case, they are.
      I nodded casually.
      ‘You are solitary but dependent… do you… do you teach a child in this mansion?’
      ‘Yes.’ I hesitated.
     She jumped on my answer.
      ‘You see, I was right, solitary but dependent. You seek love but you do not know it when you see it.’
     I paused, trying to work out her previous comment before thinking about the next one.
     ‘Don’t you mean independent?’
     ‘No, dependent. You have grown dependent on others, more than you ever thought you would…’
      I screwed up my face, more than a little irritated.
      ‘You could say what you said to just about any young woman.’
      ‘Not in this house. In this house, you have a rival.’
       I couldn’t believe she’d picked up Nicola Ingram.
      ‘A rival? For what?’ I challenged her to spell it out.
      ‘For the affections of another.’
      I was silent.
      ‘Do you disagree with an elderly lady?’
      ‘If that is what you say you are,’ I added. I was starting to get suspicious. The older woman had hidden her large hands behind gloves as she took my coins, just a little too swiftly to be well mannered.
       ‘In your circumstances, you have many choices.’
       ‘Really?’ I asked sarcastically.
       ‘You have not had an easy upbringing. I can see that in your face. Now, if you wish to know more, I must read your palm.’
       ‘Whatever,’ I said under my breath, exasperated.
       I held my hand out to her across the table. 
       ‘Mmm…. Normally I can see lines for marriage and children but I…. I have to… ah, there they are. I see both in your future although in truth, your destiny is not clear since both of these are a matter of choice.’
     ‘I believe you,’ I said.
     ‘I look into your hand and it does not reveal your inner most secrets. I wonder what is in your mind as you sit there and what rests in your heart. Are you happy? Are you sad? You see, with a hand like this… it is hard to tell, you do not reveal your true feelings to anyone. Although, I see a great fondness that you have here and here (she pointed to a random line on my palm) for children,’ she whispered eerily. ‘You had a harsh childhood and in a way, to make up for that, you are extra kind to the children that come into your life.’
     I really had started to twig that this whole scenario was some sort of a set up. Obviously, this fortune teller had been given information about me in advance. For fun, I decided to play along with the joke.
    ‘May I ask you a question?’
    ‘Of course Anne, that is what I am here for.’
    ‘What… what I really want to talk about is… a man…’
    ‘Ah, the tall, dark and handsome one? The one who is your employer?’
    ‘No, the one who was seated next to me recently at dinner.’
     The voice behind the curtain sounded more agitated.
     ‘Do you have feelings for this person?’
     ‘I believe so.’
     ‘Not for the dark, handsome one?’
     ‘Oh, I have feelings for him too; feelings of irritation, anger and annoyance! Shall I add to those feelings Nathanial Rochester?’
      I pulled the curtains apart to reveal Nathanial and Jess, who was seated on his knee, doing her actress voice as she later told me, with prompting of questions quickly scribbled by Nathanial on pen and paper.
    Both of them laughed uproariously as I stood up, smiling ever so slightly.
   ‘Don’t tell the others, Anne,’ Jess pleaded.
   ‘We always play practical jokes at these dinner parties. Please don’t spoil it, Anne. Didn’t you think it was funny?’ Nathanial asked.
   ‘It was quite funny, Nathanial, but let me give you a tip. Big hands give you away.’
    I think I’d caught on to the practical joke about half way through and I hadn’t in all honesty found it as hysterical as they did, but I suppose it wiled away the evening. Of course, if Nathanial thought his obnoxious questions would reveal my inner most thoughts, he was sadly mistaken. From the start - well, almost - I’d guessed it was him.    

ANNE EYRE (Wounded: chapter Sixteen) #Jane Eyre Retelling


Chapter Sixteen    
Wounded
    Days and nights continued in a strange pattern as the house guests came and went. Sophie and I tried to maintain our learning routine (her spoken English was nearly perfect), but most evenings there was extra noise and the atmosphere of a party; I didn’t mind this. In fact, I enjoyed falling asleep knowing that Sophie had learnt all that was required of her, and more. The atmosphere of the house was often enhanced by these merry parties. It was only occasionally, during dinner, that I was quick to retreat.
     The following night, Nicola was making more pointed comments about her dreadful childhood nannies and how they were all, miserable women with few prospects, calling them, dowdy and plain in the nicest possible way. I began to shift uncomfortably in my seat. I felt her comments were directed at me, even though her brother interrupted her and contradicted her. Nicola’s opinions were loudly vocalised; enough was enough.  
    When I slipped out of the room, I heard footsteps following behind me.
    ‘Anne, what’s the matter? You look unhappy.’ Nathanial said.
    ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’
    ‘Since I returned with The Eatons you haven’t been the same.’
     Was he trying to make me admit jealousy or was he just not perceptive enough to care?
    ‘Really?’ I said, playing cool. ‘Perhaps it’s since you played that stupid trick pretending to be a fortune teller - as if I would pour all of my thoughts onto your table.’
     In his presence, it felt as if my own feelings were a mystery, even to me. Turning at the top of the staircase, I challenged him.
     ‘These days of merriment have been frivolous but mostly fun.’
      He smiled approvingly.
      I didn’t tell him about the previous afternoon when I had tried unsuccessfully to unbolt the door that led to the highest floor of Thornton Hall.
      Instead, I blurted out, ‘As if the dinner conversation wasn’t humiliation enough, I have heard screams in the night. Last night, again, I heard a woman’s laughter. It was not Mrs Poole who was in the village having dinner with friends.’
    ‘The house is full of guests, Anne. The rooms are packed; sometimes there are hangers on in the music business; I cannot be responsible for every stranger that friends drag in here. It’s all a bit of a joke, a bit of summer fun. It will all be over soon,’ he shrugged, ‘and then everyone will return to their normal life. I doubt the band will last beyond this contract. It’s their final album and the others didn’t exactly set the world on fire. I’m sorry if they are annoying. The walls are paper thin in these old places; I’ve been intending to get proper insulation for years. If it’s a problem, you could move to a cottage on the estate until my guests leave.’
    ‘Sure,’ I said, turning from him. ‘In fact, maybe Sophie should come with me,’ I said sarcastically, adding, ‘since we are both so unwanted.’
     He went to take my arm but I shook it free. In truth I was less worried about things that went bump in the night than I was about Nicola Ingram. I wasn’t sure how long I could cope with a changed household where I would soon be superfluous. I had no intention of moving to an isolated cottage on the estate, as he well knew. When we reached my room, I said, ‘Goodnight.’ Turning, I shut the door.
      That night I was again woken from my sleep; not by Sophie or Mrs Fairfax but by Rochester.
     ‘What is it?’ I whispered. The look on his face was intense and troubled.
     ‘Anne? Wake up, Anne! Didn’t you do some sort of first aid course?’
     ‘Yes, I had to, to work with children,’ I said groggily.
     ‘I need your help, Anne. Would you help me? Please come with me, now?’
     I grabbed my coat and pulled on my socks; my feet were freezing. The heating was turned off in the summer evenings but the house was so large and icy in the night. We went to one of the upstairs sitting rooms where I was surprised to see Christopher Mason lying on the sofa curled up in some sort of obvious pain.
     ‘I’m warning you Christopher, don’t tell her anything.’
     ‘And Anne? If he talks, don’t listen to him.’
     I was left hovering by the door. The light was low as Rochester went to grab a first aid kit from the kitchen two floors below us. He came running back a few minutes later. I stood mute as he handed it to me.
    ‘Can you manage this, Anne? Help him?’
    I was already pressing a bundled up t-shirt onto the gash in Christopher’s stomach.
    I put on some gloves while Rochester took over. I cleaned the wound, just as I’d been shown to and got some hot water from the bathroom and generally did anything I could, including wrapping a bandage around Christopher’s stomach. This was only temporary help. The man needed stitches, badly, and probably a tetanus shot. There were knife wounds and puncture marks the size of pencil dots across his veins in some sort of pattern I couldn’t begin to make out.
       Typically, once I looked like I had it under control, Rochester had disappeared.  When he returned, ten minutes later, looking stressed out, Christopher was doubled up in pain as I applied pressure to the bandage.
     It was no use.
    ‘We need help,’ I said.
    ‘I know,’ he replied.
     Our house guest lay limp, moaning in pain as Rochester hoisted Christopher Mason over his shoulders and carried him downstairs via the scullery. Outside, there was a waiting car.  
     I was left shaking my head. I could not have imagined what fight had caused Christopher’s wounds or how they had been inflicted. I sat on a couch in the dark of the drawing room and finally fell asleep, crumpled under an old coat, still wondering.    
     ‘Anne, Anne, wake up.’ Rochester shook me awake. It was six in the morning and the sun had barely risen. The house was quiet. A hush had settled over it like mist.
    ‘Come with me.’
     I grabbed my coat and hastily pulled it on over my pyjamas.
     We walked together outside to the stables in the cool morning air.
     ‘I didn’t want to talk in the house. Our voices might wake everyone up.’
     ‘How is he?’
     ‘He’ll live.’
     ‘Who… who did that to him?’
    Rochester took my arm as if he wanted to tell me something but was weighing up the cost of speaking aloud. He shook his head as he spoke.
    ‘I can’t tell you.’
     I turned to leave but his voice stopped me.
     ‘When I was your age I made a mistake. Its consequences have marked me for life.  But recently…’ He leant towards me as we spoke, ‘I have met someone who might understand, who might want to… be with me if only I could tell them the truth; with her I feel I could reform myself and learn to live again.’
     He was clearly describing his feelings for Nicola Ingram.
     ‘Anne?’
    ‘Nathanial?’
    ‘Do you think love justifies telling a lie?’
    ‘I think you are talking in riddles. But if I’m to treat your words as if they are meant in all seriousness, I would say that love should not need a lie but that sometimes the truth is less kind.’
    He slumped up against a stone wall, centuries old.
    ‘What do you mean, Anne?’
    ‘When we lie, if we do so to save a person we love from hurt, that’s understandable. When you wore a riding jacket that didn’t suit you as well as your velvet one, I didn’t tell you because you were already saddled up and ready to ride out when you asked my opinion.’
    He paused.
    ‘Ah,’ then he laughed. Nathanial reached over and took my hand. ‘Just your presence here makes the day better. I do not know what I shall do without you.’
    ‘Am I leaving?’
    ‘I fear that you will… someday.’
     So, he was already planning for the time when I would leave, when he would ask me to go because Sophie was going to school and Nicola would be her stepmother. Poor child, I thought, but there seemed no point in vocalising my feelings. The man had clearly made up his mind to go through with the marriage that all of the household staff whispered about behind closed doors. Nicola Ingram was the sort of woman who was only nice to children and underlings when others (particularly the man she’d set her sights on) noticed.
    Of course, in front of Nathanial, she was all smiles. Like most men in love, he couldn’t see through her and he would resent me for pointing out her faults, so I stayed silent on the matter of the beautiful Nicola Ingram.
    I wondered how he could think so little of my feelings, how he could imagine I had none. He had trusted me with last night’s secrets and told me about Nicola so easily, as if I was now more than an employee but less than a girlfriend; a friend, of sorts, was how he had begun to treat me.
    I did not want to think about Nicola Ingram and turned away. There was still a secret in this house that intrigued me. I wondered why, after all these months of friendship (if indeed we were friends), he did not trust me enough to share it.
    ‘I still don’t understand about last night.’ I ventured. ‘Were you and Christopher fighting over a woman?’
    ‘You could say that.’
    ‘Does he… does he like Nicola too?’
     Nathanial laughed. I changed tack.
    ‘Did you… it looked like someone stabbed him with a pen or worse.’
     ‘I cannot explain further, Anne. I must entrust you only with my silence.  I value your opinion Anne. I need to know if I’m justified in not telling the woman I love everything about me.’
    ‘You mean, about this, about whatever has occurred here tonight with Christopher?’
    ‘Sort of…’
    I shrugged, annoyed that he would never offer me a straight answer but always asked my opinions as if they should be freely supplied. I had nothing to lose any more so I told him exactly what I thought.
    ‘I think true love should overcome all obstacles. Just because the woman in question doesn’t have as big a fortune as you, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s a total gold digger… I guess, well, she is attractive, beautiful even, that’s if you go for trashy blondes. Her father is also a lord or whatever and I mean, clearly, you are an appealing alliance. Both families will be thrilled.’
    Nate’s face went blank.
   ‘Anne? Who do you think I’m talking about?’
    I looked him square in the eyes.
    ‘Nicola Ingram.’ 
    ‘I’m not talking about her. I’m asking you what you would do to secure your own happiness? What lengths would you go to for true love?’
    He reached over and wound his scarf around my shoulders as I began to shiver. He leant into me, closely; I wanted to touch him but I held back; I didn’t want to be bought with riddles, rhymes and lies.
    ‘I would do anything within the limits of my own conscience.’
    ‘Yet I cannot risk telling you everything,’ he looked away. 
    ‘Nor I you,’ I whispered, half turning from him. 
    ‘You are an unusual person, Anne. You see things from an unconventional angle.’
   ‘Well, I’ve had an unconventional life, so far.’
   ‘Do you ever want a conventional one? Are you too young to think about marriage and children?’
    ‘Of course, unless I met the right person.’
    ‘I think in the end, most of us want the normal things: love, security, protection. Am I right, Anne? Is that what you want from life?’
     ‘At the moment, I’m planning to go to university,’ I laughed. ‘But it is true that for someone who studied hard at school, I have no great desire to continue studying. I might get a job instead or as well. I want to see more of the world after I leave here.’
     ‘Yes, of course. I suppose what I’m asking is, if it took a lie to get to a greater good, would you be prepared to be involved in something like that?
    ‘I’ve often thought that people who never tell lies have never had to; but sometimes I wonder if anything good can come from bad. If there is something you haven’t told the woman you wish to be your wife, then maybe you should tell her.’
    ‘Even if telling her means she’ll probably leave me?’
    ‘You must be the judge of that, Nate.’
    ‘You called me Nate,’ he smiled. ‘I liked it.’
    I turned from him, shivering,  fed up with his egotistical flirting and the constant talking about this other woman as if I was just a teenage girl with no feelings of my own. I moved towards the house.
    ‘Where are you going?’
     ‘I don’t think this conversation is going anywhere. I’m cold, I’m going inside; Sophie has her riding lesson and I need to get her clothes ready.’   
    I walked down the driveway, my head reeling with questions. His words were loaded, like a gun.