Page 36 of Fragile Wicked Things

During my absence, Thornfield had not been cared for.

Edward had fired the gardener and the house staff, keeping Giovanni with him.

Giovanni confided in me that Edward never left Thornfield while I was gone, not even to go away for his business trips, but with my return, the trips started up again at the same frequency as before.

On one particular weekend, not long after I had returned, he left, and Giovanni stayed behind as Edward had instructed.

I took advantage of my time alone with Giovanni to find out all I could.

"He must have traveled to the city occasionally," I said.

"No," Giovanni insisted. "He never crossed the door of the house except at night.

He was like a mad ghost walking outside and in the maze.

He got rid of servants and said I have to cook.

I said no! He said I have to clean. No! Wash clothes.

No! No! No! He wanted no one around, grew savage after he lost the most precious. .." Giovanni’s voice trailed off.

It was heartbreaking to know I had shattered Edward and that I was responsible for him living the life of a hermit, locked away, making Thornfield his coffin.

"What about business trips?" I asked.

"No need to go away. They came here to him. The last one, she scratched him. I fought to get her back in the carriage and take her home." Giovanni shook his head, remembering the details.

"She?"

Giovanni looked up at me, his face worried, his eyebrows knotted.

"The wife of a businessman. She was angry...about the deal her husband entered into." At that point, he mumbled remembering something and left me in a hurry. I was happy he had lied to me, as I was more willing to accept a falsehood than the truth about how Edward survived. Oh, I had suspected, but knowing is something entirely different. Jane, you must understand that these women you’ve seen here, they are aware of his…peculiarities. It’s better for him to compel them during their time here so that they remember little of what transpired.

With Edward away, Thornfield felt lonely. I did all I could to pass the time—I revisited the classics in the library, enjoyed walks around the grounds, and even persuaded Giovanni to tidy the overgrown maze. Yet, nothing seemed to alleviate my loneliness.

When Edward did return, he seemed different; he had grown a little distant from me, and I thought it was because of the precarious situation he was in, wondering whether I would leave him again.

I assured him I never would as I laid a thousand kisses on him.

I kissed him about his face and reached for his hand, and when I went to kiss it, he pulled it away.

"Edward, you're hurt," I said.

"It's a small wound."

"What happened? It looks like a bite."

"Dog. Yes, a dog bit me."

"Have you seen a doctor? It could be serious."

He shrugged my concern off.

We had begun a new life together. The year ended, but what's more, the start of a new century filled us with thoughts of a new beginning, a rebirth, a future with much promise.

We decided to leave Thornfield once our baby turned two.

While it upset me to leave our home, I understood we had little choice.

Edward was not aging, and friends were beginning to notice.

He could keep the charade going for a little longer, but then we would need to move to another city and another a few years after that.

One evening after dinner, I lay on the sofa while Edward sat on the floor, knees bent, holding cards. He taught me a card game. I've forgotten which one, but I couldn't follow the rules anyway, so I laid down my cards, smiling.

"You call that a good hand?" said Edward.

"I had the most terrible teacher. Now, show me what you have?" He laid down his cards. "You cheated," I said.

"Do you accuse me of cheating simply for winning?"

"Did you win? I'm not sure you did, except that you say you have. This is all confusing, and I don't know how you men can play such a game night after..." A pain shot through me, and Edward reached out for me, knocking the small table over and scattering our cards to the floor.

"Catherine, what's wrong?"

"I felt a sharp pain, but it's gone now. Strange."

A few minutes passed before I felt the sharp pain again, and a liquid poured out of me. I placed my hand up my skirt, between my legs, and when I pulled it back out, I stared at a bloody palm.

"Edward!"

"Giovanni! Go for the doctor!"

Edward carried me to our bed, and I rolled over to pull open the night table drawer. My face tightened from the pain, and I let out a scream.

"Tell me what you want," Edward said, and I pointed to the open drawer.

He pushed things aside. "What? Tell me what you want.

" Edward picked up a silver cross that he clutched in both hands against his chest. "It's this that you want.

" I nodded, and he held it out to me, a glint refracting in the darkness of his eyes that mesmerized me.

Then, the burning of flesh distracted me, and I looked down to see his hands smoldering.

Grabbing the cross from Edward, I wrapped my fingers around it, prayed for our baby, screamed in pain, writhed on the bed, and begged to push, but Edward pleaded with me to wait for the doctor.

Giovanni returned with the physician, and his nurse tried to coerce Edward into leaving the room, but he refused.

She ran about getting clean sheets, ordered Giovanni to boil water and responded to all of the doctor's instructions.

When the doctor told me to push, I did, but he repeated it and told me I had to try harder.

Couldn't he understand that I was trying?

The nurse moved behind me, sat me upright and whispered into my ear to push.

The doctor kept telling me that I wasn't responding.

I yanked at my clothes, wet with perspiration and blood, mumbled something they couldn't understand and felt myself being drained, my life slipping away.

Edward begged me to push one final time, to find my strength, which he knew I had and with his encouragement, I pushed our baby out of me.

My breath heavy, my eyes closed, I rested and waited for a cry.

Not a sound came. My eyes shot open. The doctor bent over the lower part of me, holding my baby.

The nurse wiped away a tear trickling down her cheek. I turned to Edward, who said nothing.

"No," I said, dropping the cross from my hand. "I want to hold my baby."

"Mrs. Rochester, you shouldn't see her," said the doctor.

"Her? Give me my baby."

The doctor nodded to the nurse and passed her the bundle that she whisked away into a corner.

There, she dropped a cloth into a bowl, squeezed out a rivulet of water, whispered what sounded like a prayer, and then returned with my little girl, clean and wrapped in a blanket.

I held and kissed her, smelling her as I lifted her tiny hand with my finger.

Girls endure such hardship. My arms collapsed, and I let her go.

Then the nurse took her from me in a quick swoop of her arms and walked out with her.

"Mrs. Rochester," the doctor said, rushing to my side and reaching for my wrist to take my pulse. "Quick, I'll have your man bring the carriage around. She needs a hospital." The doctor ran out, calling for Giovanni.

Edward fell to his knees beside me, holding on tightly to my hand.

"I’m dying, Edward."

"Shhh, conserve your strength. I will not lose you now that I have you."

"Maybe in death..."

"Stop. I saved you once. I can save you again, make you like me."

"No, Edward. I can't." My strength failed me, but damning my soul and living an eternity with such darkness inside me was worse than death.

"Promise me," I said. "Promise me that you will never turn me.

" Edward didn't speak, buried his head into my chest, and touched my neck.

"Edward, promise me. It's my decision. You can't make it for me. "

"I can't be without you. You don't know what I was like with you gone. I was empty, and in that emptiness, the darkness had power. The monster will thrive without you here."

"Don't make me beg for my happiness. Let me have my peace."

He started at the word "peace." "It's selfish of me to give you this torturous life. I know it. I seek peace, knowing I will never find it. You have my word, Catherine."

Edward kept his promise. They rushed me to the hospital, where I recovered. Almost. A part of me was gone, never to return. I knew if I were to have a life with Edward, it would be childless. That was the sacrifice I made.

Weeks later, the post arrived with an unopened letter I had sent James.

The "Return to Sender" notice did not surprise me, knowing he would not want to hear from me again. Still, I had to tell him about our daughter. Over the following years, I tried to reach him but never found him and failed to obtain a divorce. At that point, I returned to Cousins, my maiden name that once belonged to my mother. Edward and I never married and, I must admit, defying convention was scandalous and fun. Besides, Edward would have balked at standing in a church with a minister, taking vows before God. God wouldn’t have invited him anyway.

Nonetheless, he took care of me. So that I would not feel obligated to remain with him should my feelings change, he set aside quite a substantial amount of money for me that only I could access.

That way, I always had financial independence.

When I was well enough, Edward and I left Thornfield and traveled to New York City, where we stayed for more than ten years.

It was glorious; there were many people to hide among as we pretended to be husband and wife.

We attended balls and threw parties in our rented townhouse on East 79 th Street.

Afterwards, we left for Chicago. In 1915, when Giovanni passed away, Edward hired Auntie as his handler.

She was young, newly arrived from Jamaica.

There was talk around that time that America would enter the Great War being fought overseas, and people would speak of nothing else at restaurants, parties, and coffee shops.

When we entered the war, not much changed in our lives at first, but then the whispering started, and some began asking if Edward would join.

"After all," a smug elderly man said one evening during a card game, "if not for England, at least for America.

" Some took to calling Edward a coward. We closed our doors then, shut the outside world and swore not to re-enter until the war ended.

It wasn't long before it did, and we emerged from our home, but America entered another war—against alcohol.

We remained in Chicago when prohibition passed and were caught up in a secretive underground of speakeasies, drinking and gambling.

It was all good fun at first, but it wasn't long before certain types were found in the hidden party rooms, drinking, smoking cigars, and making deals of a different kind.

Those people took over, and it all began to change for me, especially one night when I was at a speakeasy on North Broadway, huddled in a booth with Edward, and Al Capone walked in and sat in the booth next to us.

He winked at me. Well, that just terrified me, and I began to reconsider what we were involved in, worried about Edward being arrested.

The forged birth certificate he had at the time put him at more than sixty years old, so we had to hurry, get new paperwork and move on.

By the time we left Chicago, Auntie had a daughter she left behind to be raised by her sister.

I didn't go with her when she said goodbye, and she never spoke to me about her decision to work for us.

No one else would have paid her what Edward did, so I understood her desire to provide for her daughter from afar.

To avoid the strictness imposed by prohibition, we headed for Montreal, Canada and began anew.

The French language comforted me and reminded me of New Orleans, but it also made me homesick.

We then spent years in Europe—Italy, Belgium, France.

When the Second World War broke out, we returned home and settled in New York again.

Edward gave me as extraordinary a life as he could.

Now that I look back, I have no regrets and am grateful for the lifetime that I had with him. Seventy-five years.

When enough time had passed that no one would remember Edward, we returned to Thornfield. Few friends remained, and they were surprised at how much Edward looked like his namesake grandfather. How sad that's what it looks like at the outset, that he's my grandchild.

Jane, I brought you here to be with him when I'm gone.

My doctor told me little about you, your age and that you were orphaned, and I connected to you before we even met.

We're sisters and I know with you here Edward will be happy.

Without you...Oh, Jane, think of his misery; think of his wickedness—look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following his despair.

Please stay. Soothe him. Save him. Love him. Tell him you will be his.