Page 20 of John Eyre

“Should I?”

“Oh, yes. I always do before joining her in the evenings. One mustn’t give her any reason to criticize. She’ll have cause enough already, what with you having taken away the children’s tonic.”

John didn’t say anything. What could he say? He’d known when he made the decision to put a stop to the boys’ patent medicine that, eventually, he’d have to answer for it. “I see,” he replied at length. “Well, I trust the improvement in their appearance will speak for itself.”

Mr. Fairfax inclined his head. “Sophie should be down to fetch them directly. I’ll see that she prepares them for tea. They’ve little jackets about somewhere, haven’t they? And clean neckcloths?” With that, the butler withdrew, still muttering to himself as he went.

A gathering mass of anxiety grew in John’s chest. A physical weight he could feel lodging itself beneath the bones of his sternum. He didn’t know enough about Mrs. Rochester to anticipate what she might ask of him, or what she might expect. And he didn’t like having to defend his methods.

“That will be all for today, boys,” he said after the last book was shelved. Sophie had materialized at the door of the library, awaiting her charges as she always did. Stephen and Peter were never permitted to roam the house unaccompanied. “Go with Nurse. I’ll see you again this evening at tea.”

As they passed him on their way to the door, John patted each of them on the shoulder. He’d never endorsed teachers being overly demonstrative with their students. A pupil wasn’t meant to be doted upon. Certainly not by a figure so briefly in their lives as a governess or tutor. Forming an attachment would only inflict unnecessary suffering on the child when the inevitable day of parting came.

But Stephen and Peter were a different case entirely. They were small and frail, and sometimes…

Sometimes, John even fancied that they were afraid.

Of what, he didn’t know.

Perhaps, like him, it was only bad memories that haunted them. Some tragedy from their past. The loss of their parents or their homeland. The least he could do was offer them reassurance. To that end, he’d lately made it his habit to ruffle Peter’s hair on occasion, or to rest a steadying hand on Stephen’s narrow back. Initially, they’d flinched, but now they seemed to accept his attention. Sometimes, even to bask in it.

After they’d gone, John tidied the library, pushing in the chairs at the boys’ makeshift desks and organizing his papers for tomorrow’s lessons. Having done so, he repaired to his room where he shaved and changed into a fresh frock coat and cravat.

At ten minutes to six o’clock, he collected Stephen and Peter from the nursery. Together, they made their way to the drawing room. Mr. Fairfax was already there, seated on a damask-covered settee in front of the fire. Across from him, half reclined on an overstuffed silk sofa, was Mrs. Rochester.

She was clad in unrelieved black crepe. A mourning dress. It was fitted tight through the bodice and arms with a high neck and full skirts that spilled all about her. A jet brooch was affixed to her throat, along with a silver locket on a long chain. It twinkled in the flickering light cast from the fire and the two wax candles that stood on the mantelpiece. Another ornament of jet adorned her hair, pinned into the thick coil of plaits she wore at her nape.

Staring into the fire, she took a sip from the delicate porcelain teacup poised in her hand, not seeming to notice that anyone else had entered the room.

“Here is Mr. Eyre,” Mr. Fairfax said. “And he’s brought Stephen and Peter.”

“Excellent,” Mrs. Rochester replied, still gazing fixedly into the flames. “Boys? Come here to me.”

John urged Stephen and Peter forward. The boys crossed the distance to Mrs. Rochester, coming to a halt in front of her. Stephen’s hand crept out to take that of his brother.

Mrs. Rochester set down her teacup and saucer and turned to examine her two young wards. Her bronze-and-green-flecked gaze drifted over them, her brows drawn into a frown. Searching, searching. As if the two boys were a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

After a long moment, she reached out and touched Stephen gently on the cheek with the back of her fingers. She touched Peter as well, a soft brush of her hand down the length of his slim arm, culminating with a squeeze of his hand. All the while, she looked into their eyes, and they gazed steadily back at her. Something seemed to pass between the three of them. An unspoken emotion, as strong as speech.

John felt it resonate. A taut silence, but not an empty one. The moment was infused with meaning, as impossible to comprehend as the boys’ whispered words had been two nights before.

If Mr. Fairfax sensed it, he gave no indication. Instead, he seemed to think it necessary to fill the vast silence with an endless stream of chatter. He expressed sympathy for Mrs. Rochester’s injured ankle, marveled at her patience in being confined to the couch, and gave voice to his wish that she remain in residence through the winter. He even made a point of commending John’s work with the boys.

“They’re much improved, aren’t they?” he asked. “And it’s all owing to the efforts of Mr. Eyre. His presence here has been a blessing. You can’t imagine how grateful we all are for your having had the wisdom to hire him. Stephen and Peter are flourishing, I tell you. But that’s plain enough to see. One hardly recognizes them from the sad figures they presented when they arrived here. I didn’t like to say so then, but I was quite afraid for their health.”

“Mr. Fairfax,” she said when the elderly butler at last paused to draw breath, “you may return Stephen and Peter to the nursery. I require a private word with Mr. Eyre.”

Mr. Fairfax cast a worried glance at John as he stood. “Yes, ma’am. As you say.” He ushered Stephen and Peter from the room. “Come along, boys. I will take you back to Nurse.”

The drawing room doors shut behind them.

John remained where he was, standing in respectful silence across from his employer.

Mrs. Rochester regarded him from her place on the sofa. “Are you certain you’re not a curate?”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You look the very picture of one now. Something about your face. I thought you an ascetic when I encountered you in the lane. Now it seems to me that you’re more in line with a medieval reformer.” She picked up her teacup from the table at her side. “Do sit down, Mr. Eyre.”