Chapter 17
“You must be drunk, sirrah,” said Tony. “You sold the lands of the burned out Thornfield Hall; and Miss Varens paid to have Phoenix Hall built in its place.”
“Who the devil are you? Her pimp?” sneered Rochester.
Tony sneered back.
“If you were a man, I would lay you out for that infamous remark, in front of my parents, too! It will, however, be added to the plaints against you. I will see you in court.”
“You think much of yourself,” snarled Rochester.
“Yes,” said Tony. “Here, Porkins! Have the fellow soused under the pump to sober him up and place him in charge.”
Reader, my heart swelled with pride and love at how magnificent Tony could be when he took charge.
Rochester took a swing at him, deliberately aiming at his glasses.
Tony blocked the blow, and contemptuously slapped him.
The footmen arrived, and Rochester backed up.
“All of you have to see that she is a whore who has stolen from me!” he cried. “My neighbours, can’t you see it? She has connived and whored her way to wealth to trick me into selling my land to her through a solicitor! It is my house, my lands, it has been in my family for centuries!”
“Why do you think I bought it?” I snapped. “I inherited enough to buy it and rebuild out of respect for the ancestors we have in common, that everyone knows, even though you have never acknowledged me! To keep the place in the family when you were considering selling it to an industrialist to build a factory here!”
Any wavering amongst my neighbours was promptly back on my side with that.
Nobody wanted a factory in the midst of their country idyll.
Willing hands helped to thrust him out.
“To think, I once thought him a desirable parti!” cried Blanche Lynn. “Of course, he was seduced and deceived by that governess.”
“That is untrue,” I said. “I, who was here, saw it all; I saw how he fascinated her, as a snake fascinates a bird. How he wore her down with his flattery. And why? Because he is a man who needs a woman, and she was strong enough to refuse his advances without a ring on her finger. And so, he ruined her by making her party to his bigamy, because he dared not do that to you, when you were Miss Ingram, and with family to protect you. And he held her still enough in thrall to return to him, to learn the hard way what he is like deep down.”
“You were a child; what could you have known?”
“Oh, come, Mrs. Lynn; surely you recall being a child, and people saying ‘not in front of the child’ countered with ‘she is too young to understand’ and half-resenting that they did not think you old enough to understand, and half pleased, because if you pretended a bit of stupidity, you learned more,” I said.
A half-smile touched her lips.
“Ah, I do not dispute it,” she said. “Yes, and perhaps a child was in better state to see through him, when he did his best to fascinate grown women.”
“When is the court case?” asked her mother.
“At the Michaelmas Assizes,” I answered, sounding calmer than I felt.
We went in to dinner then, and afterwards we were ready to dance, with all the unpleasantness behind us. I was glad, after Marianne’s and Miss Thwaite’s hard work.
I opened the ball with Lord Ingram, of course, as he had the highest rank of precedence; and Tony led out Lady Ingram. I could see myself being a friend of hers, now we had agreed in public about our fears of horses.
It was fun. I danced every dance until we broke up for supper; we should not dance on after supper, it being a country ball, but everyone went home murmuring congratulations, whilst I made deprecating comments about my dear chaperone, and my prospective mother-in-law.
“That was very successful, my dear,” said Sir Geoffrey. “And a hidden blessing to have that fellow turn up; I think he believed that if he could make the neighbours take his side, he would be restored to his former position.”
“I am just sick of him,” I said.
Tony took my hands.
“He will never hold his head up in the neighbourhood when this is over,” he said. “You have done nothing to be ashamed of.”
Ah, that touched my conscience; I had stolen, lied, play-acted, and begged. But Tony knew what I was thinking, and turned up my face.
“You have done nothing to be ashamed of,” he repeated. “You were a frightened child who used such skills as you had to forge a way forward. And the greater part of what you made, to establish yourself, was at play. And as society does not censure gambling, how can that be wrong? Merely that they thought they were playing with a youth not a young girl. And shame on some of them, even so, for taking advantage of the years of a lad at university. You survived without having to risk disease, pregnancy, and the loss of self-respect that goes with taking that route to survive. Your little apprentice went back to it for what she saw as easier money. That was her loss. And I am proud of you.”
I clung to him. He was my rock, and my haven.
Mr. George Eshton came calling a day or two later, and asked for private speech with me. Tony looked daggers, but I was fairly sure that George was not giving me any sheep’s eyes, so with the proviso of leaving the door open, I saw him in the study, and sat behind my desk.
I learned, in interviews with Mrs. Bridges, that a desk is an intimidating piece of furniture which creates a distance, and enhances authority.
“What can you tell me about Mary Wakefield?” he asked. “She seems most ladylike, but I sense she is concealing something.”
“What you have to understand, Mr. Eshton,” I said, carefully, “Is that the school we attended was happy to take those of irregular birth; a school chosen by those who wanted their daughters well-educated, and ladylike, but out of the way. Mary’s father is Sir William Florrington, and he is a steam magnate. He has a legitimate son some seven months older than Mary, and I am sure you take my meaning in that.”
“Oh! His wife was ill, but he respects her enough not to foist his daughter on her,” said George.
“Exactly so,” I said. “Mary has been reared by a chaperone, and I believe there is a dowry. I do not know how much she knows of this; I don’t think her father has ever told her who he is, and I came upon the story quite by accident. However, if this does not put you off, I should think that her father would be gratified to be approached by a clever man who has worked it out, and who wishes permission to address her. To have her established respectably and at a great distance would probably gratify him.”
“But I say, it’s you who were clever and worked it out,” said George.
Sometimes men can be too noble and honest.
“Suppose you mention that she resembles him and his son closely, and you pieced it together?” I said. “He has been photographed for his part in advancing the cause of steam. Try the Morning Post for last month, then you can truthfully say you have seen the resemblance.”
“I say, thank you!” He shook my hand vigorously. “She is a rather splendid girl, but my parents want to know that she has some background. Do you know her mother’s origins?”
“Mary was removed from her mother as soon as she was weaned and has no recollection of her mother,” I said. “I suspect she had been one of Sir William’s household. But Mary’s holiday chaperone is a poor relation, and quite respectable.”
“Thank you!” he said again, and left, looking quite buoyed up.
Mary caught my arm as he was leaving.
“Adele, is that Mr. Eshton?” she asked, in agitation. I had noted her blushing becomingly as she spoke to him at the ball.
“It is, indeed, and I have sent him to apply to your father for his blessing to court you,” I said, smugly.
“Adele! Even I do not know who my father is!” said Mary.
“But I, who read the newspapers, am aware that those unfortunate ears are a definite legacy,” I told her.
“You are a wretch, you know,” sighed Mary. “He truly wants to address himself to me?”
“He does, and you will be very good for him.”
“So, who is my father?” she asked.
“Oh, I think I will leave him to tell you; or Mr. Eshton.”
“Adele! You really are a wretch!” she cried, exasperated.
“You should be used to me by now,” I retorted.
She sighed.
“I am,” she said. “It’s why I know it’s no good pestering you.”
“Eh bien, you know me then very well.”
She laughed, and embraced me.
“You can be smug at times, when you read people aright; those of us who know you, forgive it, but it is not an endearing trait. Do not frighten off your Tony!”
“My Tony is a very special man who has learned to know me very well. He also forgives my character flaws, including my temper.”
“Ah, you have been working to overcome that,” said Mary. “I really think that, if Rochester had burst in as he has done several times, when you first joined us at school, you would have gone for him with the fire-irons.”
“Du vrai, you are correct,” I said. “Me, I work on containing my temper, and now I let loose part of my inheritance on him, the part of me that I have from him, that knows how he will act if poked, and poke him until he betrays himself to all; and instead of being angered by him, so I am cold and English, and I will have my vengeance on him as a cold dish, not a hot one.”
“Is it worth it?” asked Mary.
“Yes,” I said, with conviction. “You see an illegitimate child spurned by her father, and think, aha, Adele is in the same case as me. But it is not just me. This man has made a mockery of his first marriage. Was poor Bertha sane when he married her? Did his jealousy and possessiveness drive her insane? I do not know. But he could have had her nursed, in a quiet private home, where she might have been contented, and would have been better cared for. But no, he is thinking only of his cods when he swives his way around Europe, and why he takes me I do not know; I cannot think it is out of guilt. Me, I think he wants a sweet little girl to attract a governess, a gentlewoman who will suit his lusts, but who has nobody to protect her.”
“Adele!” Mary was shocked. “You cannot think, surely, that you were taken into his household solely to lure a governess to satisfy his lusts?”
I nodded.
“Enfin, such I truly believe now,” I said. “He does not like children, so why saddle himself with one, unless to use in some elaborate plot? It was not out of pity or kindness.”
Mary shuddered.
“How simply horrifying!” she said. “Even if you believe this, and it is not so, that he has given you this impression.”
“And he has driven away his current wife, who fled with her children over his intemperate rage over my escape.”
“It is so sad. Are you in correspondence with her?”
“No, but you are right; I should not put it off any longer,” I sighed. “Perhaps you will help me?”
“Of course,” said Mary warmly.
I managed not to chew on the end of my quill; Mrs. Bridges had largely broken me of the habit of nibbling on it by dipping my quills in asfoetida.
“My dear Mrs. Rochester,
I find myself in some difficulty in how to address you after so long. I am Adele Varens, and I have been fortunate to have been adopted by the grandmother of another child of your husband. My brother was happy to invite me into his family, and his grandmother has been all that a true caring family should be. I have completed my schooling at a school far superior to Mrs. Fielding’s, since I have covered more subjects and, on the whole, with better preceptresses. I fear you spent my inheritance from my mother on false gentility and appearances; but that is water already through the bridge.
So, I have reintroduced myself; I am living now in what I call ‘Phoenix Hall,’ rebuilt on the site of Thornfield Hall, utilising such period materials as were available, which I feel to be what I owe to the ancestors so betrayed by Edward Fairfax Rochester. My adoptive grandmother left me a goodly sum when she died, and I was able to purchase the land, which Rochester was glad to sell, not knowing to whom he sold it.
I have heard stories, none of them much more than rumour, conjecture, and third-hand hearsay that Rochester acted with so much anger that I had escaped him, that he laid hands on you. I know he was wont to backhand little Ned, if he was too noisy, and if you were not in the room; he feared to go near his father, who was then angry when the child shrank away from him when he wished to show him off like a prize porker, This I saw with my own eyes, and I hope the poor child does not remember. I know Rochester could see, for he made sure not to strike his face, but his head, where hair would hide a bruise.
I am suing Rochester for slander, as he came to my house and accused me of whoring in order to have the money to buy it. Such slanders also touch those of my schoolfriends who are there as my guests, and my preceptresses, and also my betrothed and his parents. Do not think that you can dissuade me from this suit, as it impacts more people than myself. He is, moreover, I believe quite insane, for he tried to claim it as his house, and that he has every right to call me as he wills, and chastise me; suddenly he claims to be my father after denying it so long. But I will be of age by the time of the court case, and so such claims become moot. I would invite you and my half-siblings to live at Phoenix Hall, but I feel perhaps that it would be as well to defer that decision until after the court hearing at Michaelmas, lest he try to force you and the children back under his roof.
You, like me, have had your life ruined by this spoilt brat of a man, who knows how to charm women. I believe that he only took me into his household to entrap and seduce any governess who came to care for me, and I am truly sorry that you were a part of his machinations.
I still think of you often, and with much affection.
Adele Varens Rochester.
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