Chapter Seven
Lockwood
I
said nothing as Rochester sipped his port, contemplating the interview.
‘And was it a strict religious education?’
he asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
I thought of morning prayers bringing a
sense of calm, strength and routine to my days. Then I remembered mean girls
hitting me with wet sheets after lights out and screaming at me for being foster
care scum, ‘welfare scum, Social Services rubbish’. I thought of the teacher
who’d snidely made remarks about writing my family tree in history ‘as if I’d know it’ and the headmistress
who’d wrongly blamed me for a student prank because it looked better to blame a
charity student whom no one would speak up for. I thought of the freezing cold
mornings and the lack of hot water for baths we were expected to take. Prestige
existed only on the surface of Lockwood School for Young Ladies. I think I may
have fared better at a local comprehensive but then I might never have learnt
French in the focused and careful manner Miss Stevens had taught the language
to me… or music or probably have received such high marks on my final exams.
Yes, it had been a privileged education.
Rochester’s words interrupted my
recollections.
‘I
went to boarding school… not far from here actually. There was no real reason
that I should have been sent away, it was simply family tradition. All the
children were sent to boarding school by age eight. My parents didn’t
particularly care for us. Well, that’s an understatement. My brother and I got
along though, lived in our own world. My family didn’t know any differently,
nor did they educate themselves about children. I’m a great believer in
education, Anne. Are you?
‘Yes, of course.’ I added, ‘…although
there are many ways to be educated. ’
For
one thing, formal education hadn’t prepared me for the verbal challenges of Mr
Nathanial Rochester.
‘This
is the twenty-first century but my father, before he died and left me his estate,
still held the view that shooting helpless animals was the greatest sport in
the world. He also didn’t believe it was useful to educate women. He thought
the woman I’d marry would have so much money she wouldn’t need an education … You
probably think his views were very… backward.’ I remained impassive. ‘I dropped
out of Oxford because I couldn’t stand having to answer to my father. I then found
myself in America, attended college in Los Angeles, and went to the South to
produce a film in New Orleans.’
‘That sounds exciting.’
He raised an eyebrow and changed the
subject.
‘I
wish you had met my father, the original Lord Rochester. I wonder what you
would have made of him. He spoke his mind even more than I do… much more than
you.’
‘He sounds like just the sort of man I
would have gotten along with,’ I said sarcastically.
‘On the contrary, both he and my brother
would have had you drinking port by now. I fear they would have had you dancing
on the table.’
I glared at him. ‘You must be joking,’ I
said under my breath.
He smiled. ‘They liked straight talkers and
you seem to tell it as it is. Father wasn’t very happy about me running around
with my college friends, I can tell you that. Oh, at first he didn’t care
because it was never supposed to have been me inheriting the house and the
title but things happen. Life doesn’t always go according to plan. When my
brother… passed away, I was expected to come back to this part of the world to
take over the running of the estate but it’s not really me. I try to limit my
time here. Before returning to England,
I lived in Los Angeles and South America. I travelled to Brazil, Mexico, places
I’d grown up imagining. I liked the Deep South…’
‘Wow,’ was all I could say.
‘…You
enjoy Sophie’s company, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘She
has few talents beyond being pretty but… I don’t choose my pets based on their
talent and this one was rather… foisted upon me.’
I was shocked by his candour and said
nothing.
‘I wonder, would you like her as much if I
told you her mother was a…’ he hesitated, trying to think of the right words,
‘a … French dancer?’
I paused.
‘Is there something wrong with that?’
He laughed uproariously.
‘You are quite naïve aren’t you?’
‘No,’ I blurted out.
‘I think you are. What I meant to say is… I
met her in Paris. Sophie’s mother sold her body… to men… for money. She said she was a dancer, Anne, a high class one as it turned out. Once I realised Sophie
was mine, she agreed to sell her to me… for ten thousand pounds.’
‘Oh,’ I said, trying to hide my surprise.
‘Well, she worked evenings; she was
beautiful, exotic… Still, we all make mistakes. You’ll realise that too, as you
get older.’
‘It’s getting late,’ I said, pretending to
take this conversation in my stride though I was completely at sea. I’d decided
I had better bring the interview to an end as Rochester was onto his third
drink and about to tell me more secrets I didn’t want to hear.
‘Don’t worry, Anne, I’ll let you in on the
rest of the family story on a need to
know basis,’ he laughed. ‘I’m not as bad as I seem.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying…Mr R - ’
‘Nathanial,’ he pre-empted his name.
‘Nathanial … you are too young to be
worrying about the past. You have everything: wealth, comfort…. You can be
anything you want to be. You should take what is good from the past and change
your future to erase the bad. We are all capable of change and of doing what is
right.’
He looked up at me incredulously in the
dark.
‘Ah, a lesson in morality from little Miss
Eyre.’ His gaze lingered on mine a moment, ‘Oh Anne, you really have a lot to
learn. The past is what impacts the future and something I cannot erase.’
There was a moment’s silence and in that
gap, as he drank his port and I sipped my tea, I could have sworn I heard a
faint scream. It came from somewhere beyond the walls, beyond the rooftop even.
It was out of this world.
I was startled.
‘What was that?’
He looked up at me. There was another thump
on the roof.
‘That!’ I said.
Silence.
‘Perhaps it’s Sophie or Mrs Poole, the
lodger. Mrs Fairfax agreed to let her stay in the upstairs rooms for the summer,
she’s an old family friend,’ he added, by way of explanation. They seemed to
have a lot of them.
I hesitated at the door.
I
think you’ve had too much to drink, I thought, as I went to leave. Our
conversation had been smoother than I’d anticipated, given that my employer was
gruff, and slightly inebriated. And yet, I hadn’t expected someone quite so
young and handsome. Still, we had reached unfamiliar territory and I was
uncomfortable talking with a relative stranger as if we were friends. Suddenly,
I longed for the comfort of my own bed.
‘Anne?’ he said, turning back as I went to
leave.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m glad you’ve come to stay here.’
‘It’s just for the summer, Mr Rochester.’
‘Yes, I know. Oh, and Anne? My name’s
Nathanial. My friends call me Nate and sometimes by my surname, Rochester.’ I
think he enjoyed the confusion he was creating between us.
I said goodnight and left the room.
