Page 34 of John Eyre

On our wedding night, for example, he asked me to remove the silver timepiece locket that I always wear. You know the one. I explained to him what it meant to me—that it held the final portraits of Mama and Papa—but he was adamant that I take it off. He claims that silver is all but toxic to him, and says that if it touches his skin, even for an instant, he breaks out in the most painful rash. I ask you, Blanche, have you ever heard of such a thing?

But you must forgive my endless prattling. Reading over all that I’ve written, I’m tempted to tear up this letter and start afresh. You will think me dreadfully unhappy here. Not at all, my dear. I promise you, I’m perfectly content. I’m only a little homesick, I suppose, for you and for Thornfield. Too many weeks have passed since last I received a letter from you. Are you well? Are you happy? Do write to me and set my mind at ease.

As soon as the weather clears, I shall endeavor to have a servant journey to Varna to see what’s going on at the consulate. Perhaps they’ve forgotten to forward my mail. Or perhaps there’s been a mix-up with the direction to Senniskali. Trust me to sort it out.

Until then, all my love to you, dearest,

Bertha

Krepostta Nosht-Vŭlk

Senniskali, Bulgaria

Wednesday, 15 February 1843

My Dear Blanche, —

You’ll be pleased to hear that I enlisted Mr. Poole to make the journey to Varna, and he returned this morning with a whole stack of your letters. They have been sitting at the consulate, waiting for me to retrieve them. Apparently, the consulate was unable to forward them on to Senniskali. I don’t fully understand why. Some bureaucratic nonsense, no doubt. At any rate, I have your letters in hand now and have read them all one after the other. They’ve given me such solace and have inspired more than one appreciative laugh. Your descriptions of the vicar are delightful. He sounds a rare fellow, and I’m so pleased to hear that your courtship continues apace.

Things here are much as they were in my last letter, save for one alarming incident that I must recount, if for no other reason than purely for the oddness of it, and because it has greatly affected both my peace of mind and the harmony of my marriage.

It all began with Mr. Poole. Unfortunately he was injured during the journey to the consulate. A wheel came loose on the carriage he was travelling in, and he and several passengers were thrown into a ravine. Mr. Poole escaped the accident and was able to continue on to Varna by hired calèche, however when he returned home today, I discovered that he’d hurt his arm quite badly. He’s such a stoic figure, you know, and won’t admit to any aches and pains. I mightn’t have ever known he was hurt if he hadn’t nearly fainted while climbing the stairs into the hall.

Mr. Rochester wasn’t at home at the time, nor was Mrs. Wren. The two of them had left the previous night to visit Mr. Rochester’s solicitor on the Wallachian border—an elderly fellow, I’m told, who is unable to come to us himself. I would have gone with them, but my husband insisted I remain. He didn’t like the idea of my traveling at night, and claimed the journey would be faster if just he and his sister went, accustomed as they are to the peculiarities of the countryside.

But what to do about Mr. Poole? I haven’t been in residence long enough to know of any surgeon in the area. And Mr. Poole’s arm was beginning to swell up most dreadfully. Left to my own devices, I could think of nothing else but to walk down into the village and ask after a healer. Senniskali was relatively empty today. Most of the villagers had gone into town for the twice-monthly market, and others had accompanied my husband on his journey to the border. Those remaining looked on me with wary eyes.

I gestured at them, addressed them in my schoolgirl French, and—at length—did my best to utter the few words of Bulgarian that I’ve learned (my accent is atrocious). Initially, they drew back from me. They must have thought me a veritable madwoman. No one would so much as grant me a minute of their time. And then the queerest thing happened. An elderly peasant woman approached, clothed in loose-fitting garments—an embroidered tunic and apron worn beneath a warm scarf and coat—with a belt at her waist on which hung a variety of dried herbs and root vegetables.

She spoke a few words of English, for which I was ridiculously grateful. Through that, I learned that she wouldn’t accompany me back to the house. Indeed, she outright refused. She would only see Mr. Poole if he was brought to her. Well, you can imagine my discomfiture—and his, as well. But with a great deal of patience, I somehow managed to get him down to the village so the woman could have a look at his arm.

After that, the proceedings took a surprisingly modern turn. I had expected her to treat Mr. Poole with some natural remedy, but drawing us both into her thatched hut, she produced a locked box filled with stoppered glass bottles. She mixed the contents of one of the bottles and used it to clean Mr. Poole’s wound. She then withdrew another bottle, from which she urged him to drink. He proved hesitant—understandable after the scorching pain he experienced from the first treatment (which I suspect was some derivative of sulfuric acid).

I asked her what the second bottle contained and she said something in Bulgarian—or possibly Romani—which was difficult for me to discern. We went on this way, back and forth, in abject frustration, as she tried to get him to drink from the bottle, until finally she said: “Lod-num.”

That, at least, I could comprehend. I took the bottle from her, unstopped it and smelled it. Sure enough, its fragrance was as sickly sweet as the laudanum Mama was accustomed to taking in the final days of her illness. Just to be certain, I tipped a few drops of the stuff onto my tongue. It was definitely laudanum, and so I assured Mr. Poole.

He swallowed the contents. The drug shortly did its work, and while he was pliable, the woman set his arm in a long splint. She then gave me three small glass phials of laudanum, which I assumed were to be administered to Mr. Poole over the course of the next several days, should his pain become too much to bear. I tried to offer the woman money, but she pushed it away. Instead, she briefly covered my hand with hers, folding my fingers tight over the phials of laudanum.

“Hurry home, my child,” she said in heavily accented English. “Morții călătoresc repede.”

I don’t know what she said, or what language she spoke in, but I must tell you, Blanche, it fairly turned my blood to ice. I’d never seen this woman before. Didn’t know who she was or where she came from. But the tenor of her voice told me that she’d just issued a warning. I was incapable of ignoring it. Gathering my wits, and the semi-alert Mr. Poole, I returned to the house and bolted the door firmly behind me.

When Mr. Rochester returned this evening, I met him at the door, anxious for the comfort of his arms. It suddenly all seemed very silly—the healer and her mysterious words. I felt so stupid to have been afraid. I opened my mouth to tell him about it, but before I could utter so much as a single syllable, Mr. Rochester’s hands gripped me very hard about the shoulders. He thrust me away from him, his face contorting into a fearsome mask of anger. He demanded to know what I’d done.

I was speechless. He’d never before taken such a tone with me. I told him that I didn’t know what he was talking about, and asked what he meant. He accused me of lying and said that I “reeked of the stuff.” He then shook me hard, making my head snap forward and back on my neck, ordering me to tell him where I had got it.

My heart was beating like a drum. I told him that he was making no sense at all. Was it the laudanum he smelled? But surely that was impossible. I’d only swallowed a few drops, and that was just to be certain that it was laudanum. I explained as much, telling him the story of Mr. Poole’s injury, and how the healer in the village had treated it. No sooner had I finished than he abruptly shoved me away from him, so forcefully that I nearly fell upon the flagstone floor of the hall.

He commanded me to go to my room, claiming that he couldn’t be near me in my present condition. He said the smell of laudanum—or any opiate—was repulsive to him. I tried to reason with him, but he only roared at me to go, scaring me so much with his rage that I could do nothing but flee.

As I sit here in my bedchamber, I’m ashamed to reflect upon the altercation. He was being wholly unreasonable, and yet…I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight. I was too afraid to do either. Heaven help me, Blanche, I ran away from him and raced up the stairs like a scalded dog. Mr. Poole is here with me now, keeping vigil on a chair near the door. I didn’t dare leave him outside to face my husband’s wrath.

Tomorrow, I pray Mr. Rochester will be in a better frame of mind, and then I’ll be able to broach the subject of his behavior. I’m certain he’ll have an apology for me, as well as a reasonable explanation. But honestly, darling, it’s so perplexing to me. How did he know I’d taken those drops of laudanum? How could any person have known?

I will hide this letter away until Mr. Poole is well enough to take it to Varna. Given his condition, it may be many weeks. By then, I know this incident will be nothing but an unfortunate memory. I daresay Mr. Rochester and I will laugh about it one day.

Your faithful friend,