Thornfield Hall

An ImaRead production · text & illustration by the production line

ImaReadFolio 02 — 03

Wide charcoal-and-wash scene: a young woman steps down from a carriage at night before a grey old house whose wings disappear into shadow; black columnar trees line the avenue, and a servant waits on the steps with a single candle. — By moonlight, Thornfield stood grey and holding its breath — wings stretching into shadow, most windows shuttered, and the house itself seeming to listen as I climbed the stairs by candle.

Mid-shot in a long pale gallery: a young woman in a dark plain dress stands halted with one hand half-raised before a narrow plain door set with a visible lock; cold morning daylight from a side window throws her shadow long across bare floorboards toward the door; her face and hand drawn with harder charcoal line than the wet grey wash of the receding walls. — At the end of the long gallery stood a plain door, very narrow, with a lock set into it — and from behind it came a laugh I had never heard before.

Eight years at Lowood. I count them in my head the way one counts stones set into a wall — each one separate, each one holding the next upright. Six of those years I sat as a pupil, then two more as a teacher, returning to the same rooms that had been my shelter and my long grey trial. I did not love Lowood. I do not think one loves a place that gives so little and asks so much. But I had grown into its habits, and when at last I left, I left without ceremony, as one steps down from a stage one has stood on too long. There was no one I grieved for. Miss Temple had married and gone to a distant parish; the girls I had taught were already scattering into other lives. I packed a small trunk, placed an advertisement in a paper, and waited.

The reply came quickly. A few letters were exchanged, a brief interview was held, and I was engaged. I was to take charge of a single pupil, a child not of English birth, in a country house in ——shire. The pay was modest. The terms were plain. I accepted them without haggling, for I had nothing better to bargain with, and the prospect of earning my own bread had a dignity in it I had come to want above most things.

The journey to Thornfield was a long one, and I made most of it after dark. By the time the carriage turned into the avenue, the moon was up and the trees stood about like columns of black stone. I had been told the house was old and not very large, and I had pictured something comfortable and a little weather-beaten, the kind of home a quiet family might keep. What I stepped out into was a house holding its breath. It was grey, even by moonlight. The wings stretched away into shadow. Here and there a window caught a pale gleam, but most were shuttered, and the whole place gave me the impression of a body with too few veins — too few pulses of life to warm its great cold limbs. A servant met me in the hall and led me upstairs by candle, and the house seemed to listen as I climbed.

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ImaReadFolio 03 — 03

Intimate: a young woman lies awake in a narrow bed in a cold room, face turned upward, jaw set, listening; a trimmed candle stub burns as a small amber point while the rest of the room is cold grey-blue wash fading into paper-white, the curtain perfectly still. — That first night, with the candle trimmed and the curtains still, I lay awake and listened — and the house, as if it knew I was listening, kept its counsel.

The woman who received me was Mrs Fairfax, the housekeeper. She was elderly, neat, and gentle in her manner, with a face that had never been handsome and was now only kind. She asked the proper questions, made no fuss over me, and gave me tea in a small sitting-room where the fire burned low and the curtains were drawn. From her I learned that Thornfield was the property of a Mr Rochester, who was at present abroad and had been for some months; his arrivals and departures, she said, were uncertain, and the house stood much of the time with its master out of it. I learned also that the child in my charge was called Adèle — a French girl of perhaps seven or eight, the ward, I gathered, of Mr Rochester. She was to be my pupil, and I was to be her governess. Mrs Fairfax spoke of her with affection, but with the air of a woman who manages what she cannot quite understand. As for the master himself, when he was at home he kept his own hours and his own thoughts, and she did not pry into either.

In the daylight of the next morning, Thornfield looked less spectral but no less strange. It was, I saw, an old house, built for show and left to lean toward its own decay. I wandered, as one does in a new place, into passages and rooms, and at last climbed to the upper floor. There I found a long gallery with chambers opening off it, and at the far end a narrow door, very plain, with a lock set into it. As I stood there, a sound came from behind that door — a laugh. But such a laugh as I had never heard. There was mirth in it, yet not the mirth of a contented soul; it was a laugh stripped of joy, an ugly thing, made in haste and as though in spite of itself. It stopped as I listened, and the silence after it was worse than the sound.

I went down and spoke of it to Mrs Fairfax at the first opportunity, in as careful a way as I could. I told her only that I had heard laughter from the upper passage, and that it had startled me. She answered without surprise — too easily, I thought — that it was Grace Poole, a servant who sewed among the upper rooms, and who laughed to herself at her work. Grace was a good worker, she said, and not quite right in her head, and that was the whole of it. But I am not a fool, and I am not a child, and I know the sound of a lie when it is offered kindly. Mrs Fairfax, I think, believes what she tells me. Or she chooses it. Either way, I had been told the truth and not told the truth at the same time, and Thornfield had already begun to keep its secret from me.

That night, in my own room, with the candle trimmed and the curtains still, I lay awake and listened. The house did not creak. The wind did not stir. Somewhere far above me, I fancied I heard the tread of feet, and then nothing. I had arrived, and I had been welcomed, and I had already been deceived. I had begun my work.

I was ascending the staircase to bed, when I encountered Mrs. Fairfax in the corridor, key in hand.