Smoke and Silk

An ImaRead production · text & illustration by the production line

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A slight woman in a white nightgown kneels beside a smoking bed, an emptied pitcher in her soot-darkened hands, while a heavy dark-haired man lies drugged on a charred pillow, the last amber glow of dying flames in a slate-blue smoke-filled room. — When his eyes at last focused on mine, there was a moment when neither of us spoke, and in that silence something was exchanged that I could not name.

A small governess in a plain dark dress sits in shadow at the edge of a bright drawing room, watching a tall dark-haired lady play piano for a man standing close beside her. — I sat in corners and watched, as was my place, and I learned something about my own heart that I would rather not have learned.

A lone small female figure on a lawn at first grey dawn light, hands dark with stains, a large manor house looming behind her through moor mist, a faint amber glow in one upper window. — The dawn came up over the lawn and found me still at it, with stained hands and a heart so full of unanswered questions I thought it would crack.

The smoke reached me before any sound. I was awake in an instant, the way one wakes when something is wrong in a house at night - not slowly, but all at once, like a door thrown open. There was a smell of burning, and through the partition I heard a laugh, low and guttural, the kind of laugh that does not belong to a sane throat. I thought of the woman said to have walked the corridor at her own wedding. I thought of her again when I pushed open Mr Rochester's door and saw the sheets curling in flame around his pillow. He lay there as if drugged, or dreaming, and I ran for water and doused him and the bed with my own hands. When his eyes at last focused on mine there was a moment when neither of us spoke, and in that silence something was exchanged that I could not name and did not dare to examine. He broke it first, lightly, with a thank-you spoken like a man speaking to a servant who has done a useful thing. Then he said the name Grace Poole, as though that settled the matter, and when I pressed him he closed like a door in my face. I returned to my room with my hands still smelling of soot and my pulse unsteady, and I understood for the first time that I had been living under the same roof as a danger I was not permitted to see. He had asked me to keep the secret, and I had given my word before I had a chance to weigh the cost of it.

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After that, the house changed. Carriages began to arrive, and with them a kind of person I had not known lived in the world at all - ladies in silk who did not address servants, gentlemen who looked through you as through glass. Among them was Blanche Ingram, tall, dark-haired, and so certain of her own value that she did not need to be kind. She played, she sang, she looked at Mr Rochester across the piano with an understanding so complete it was almost a contract already drawn. I sat in corners and watched, as was my place, and I learned something about my own heart that I would rather not have learned: that I could be jealous without ever raising my eyes, jealous in the bone, in the quiet hours when no one was looking. I told myself that love such as mine - plain, fierce, and without hope - was a weakness I must learn to master, and I set myself to master it. I matched my face, took up my drawing, said civil nothings to the ladies, and answered Mr Rochester's occasional half-jesting questions with as much composure as I could command. When he walked with Blanche in the garden I did not look out of the window. I told myself I did not look out of the window. I did not look out of the window.

It was during one of these bright, false days that a stranger arrived - Mr Mason, an unremarkable man with an unremarkable manner, who spoke little and watched Mr Rochester with an attention I could not read. I was not surprised when the trouble came at night; I had begun to expect it as one expects weather. I was not yet undressed. I heard the cry, and then a rush of feet, and Mr Rochester at the attic door with a face I had never seen him wear before - the face of a man whose secret is bleeding on his floor. He asked for my help, and I gave it, and I helped him carry Mr Mason down by the back stairs and tend his wound while he cursed and soothed and pressed money into the surgeon's hand for silence. The dawn came up over the lawn and found me still at it, with stained hands and a heart so full of unanswered questions I thought it would crack. I had promised once to keep the secret; I was being asked to keep a larger one. I did not yet know that the two were the same.