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I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edwards father, he explained. I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words that Mr. Edwardmy Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he was!)was at least alive: was, in short, the present gentleman. Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all that was to comewhatever the disclosures might bewith comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he was at the Antipodes. Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now? I asked, knowing, of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the direct question as to where he really was. No, maamoh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last autumn,Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself. At dead of night! I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield. Was it known how it originated? I demanded. They guessed, maam: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware, he continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, that there was a ladyaa lunatic, kept in the house? I have heard something of it. She was kept in very close confinement, maam: people even for some years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her: they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad, and some believed she had been his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year sincea very queer thing. I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the main fact. And this lady? This lady, maam, he answered, turned out to be Mr. Rochesters wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in But the fire, I suggested. Im coming to that, maamthat Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch himservants will, you know, maamand he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but Ive heard Leah, the house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched. Well, he would marry her. You shall tell me this part of the story another time, I said; but now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it? Youve hit it, maam: its quite certain that it was her, and nobody but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs. Poolean able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one faulta fault common to a deal of them nurses and matronsshe kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a drop over-much. It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it |
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