“You make it seem like the cross was yours to bear, alone, do you really think you are brave? Let me tell you, who the brave one is, it’s each and every member of your family who didn’t slap you silly the first time you went awry, the first time you brushed your children aside for merriment. It’s your children, Mr. Lockwood, they are the courageous ones. Not you, you are nothing but a coward. And all for what? For your own selfish needs and whims, your own desire to be alone and free. Free from pain, was it? Or do you really want to leave a debauched legacy? Well are you free Mr. Lockwood? I don’t see any shackles on you; Are you free from the pain and happy, truly happy?……No passion is great enough for you to lose sight of what’s your duty, and the right thing to do. For that is not passion, but madness. You’re mad Mr. Lockwood, completely, utterly, mad.”
Thus begins the fiery odd relationship between Jane, the governess, and her employer, the widowed landowner John E. Lockwood. But Jane has her own crucible as well, and it’s hers to bear alone. Find out what Jane, The Governess, is made of. After all, True Worth has no regrets and takes no detours. Should you?
A movingly passionate and introspective character analysis of lonely people living through emotional abuse, grief and guilt.
Targeted Age Group:: 18+
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I love to write. I am a published freelance journalist as well as a broadcaster. Fiction is a different medium of expression. In it, I don’t write because I know. I write because I feel.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
The hero or male protagonist was an after thought. The book is a coming-of-age revenge redemption story of a woman and her struggle.
Book Sample
Chapter eight
1
‘My big fantasy, the one I had grown up with since the age of fourteen, was to wear this armor of gold and be totally indecent like those kings and queens of exotic lands who used to walk up to and step all over the men in their lives. That the bejeweled shield would protect me from everything except a man’s lips and hips; That I would give my permission and let him liberate himself on me; That the golden chemise would be unhooked and the distance between him and me seize. That was the beauty of any good solid dream. It was bound to be unchaste and equally unrealistic. I would be clasped forever, not in a cage or arms or legs, but his mind. It did not feature a beast, or a dungeon or an evil witch, it required no battles, no rescuing and no silver slippers. The man would not be a charlatan or a prince or a foreigner or a bricklayer. He would not be the man dabbling in unlawful adventures or lawfully upright sedateness. No, indeed in my barred land, the man would smell of dirt and labor of a time well spent, attending to chores all day, papers and people; a real man who ended up at my side with that mixture of an old coat and muzzled sweat that made him more familiar than the color of my hands. There was no need for him to be anything more than what he was – pleasant, rewarding, mine. I did not seek a prisoner, though you have to admit that more enticing a thought doesn’t exist in fiction, no, I wanted a man as hot as coal is when it first leaves the pit, as firm as a stone once it’s gone cold, and as ready to embrace me as the sun is in the afternoon. Most of all, the gilded dream meant that I be mattered to him, more than any other woman; that he would honor me – I did not seek idolization, mind you, I never saw the point or purpose of being put on a pedestal, for time had a way of varying the degree of affection in any case, I had seen it happen in almost all marriages around me – but honor was beyond mere recognition or love or duty or veneration of self – it was timeless in a mortal world, warmer than any comfort that riches could provide, and made one feel more complete than an entangled couple’s stewed up finish. Honor is a dry basic achievable chore than all the experiments in intimacy put together and more rewarding than any moment of truth. And though much an affair has been disguised or given half-baked words, it is hard to fake respect. I felt it’s need as basic to my being, as is breathing; to be honored meant so much more than the isolated effects of fidelity, sincerity, ; I deserved it. It clothed me more deeply than any man ever would or could; And I intended to maintain it in the most naked spells of my imagination. For all the largesse of my mind’s colony where a vividly enflamed man would take off each of the precious stones and melt away the cast, his success ultimately lay in being nice to me, being nice to himself irrespective of the behavior of each, of being proud of me and of himself irrespective of worldly success, holding me in regard with an almost primitive sense of courage irrespective of the purity of my body or spirit. Love was usually about being one with the other person and rested on external forces, be they of returned affections or unrequited feelings or tribal sense of self and compatibility; It was selfish, driven for ulterior motives and extended only for so long as the other person remained the apple of eye or existence. Honor had two separate individuals, with the man shadowing and protecting the woman without moral trickery or manly subterfuge, and the woman likewise without thinking of reciprocity, a selfless act that elevated the worth of a person, through means other than baubles, or horses. One had to develop taste for the habit than a habit to experience taste. Honor was more tangible, decipherable than the informal erratic pretense of love. It was rough, while love remained pleasant. Love demanded niceties, for no one could put up with a charged rude person for long, or remain enamored with one for long; Honor had no such compulsions, for it encompassed the experience of it while being beyond it. Love demanded virtue, honor adhered to conscience. Love was indulgent, honor was all about self-control. Love could be a hypothetical scenario, but there were no if or buts and conditions to the regimented. The honor that a man could give a woman was beyond matters of petty likes and dislikes. It had nothing to do with outward aggression and symbols of manhood, but something that emanated from the persona and stayed there. Most of all, one may aspire to have love, but one never really required it, as one needed honor. A heart that loved could be beastly, but an honorable one valued the woman too much to hurt her. Honor meant that I could be commanded by a man who reflected it.
Each night I waited for him. I used to wait for him totally prepared. My body would be supple and fragrant, the length of my chemise adjusted to show one part of the flesh or the other. I would choose a different place to sit always, though being a bedroom there were only a few available positions to place one’s self. I used to wait with folded hands and uneven breath, my heart hardly mine, with wrapped comprehension, and a hope to be seen, broken and thereby fulfilled only to be left curious for more. I was a fool. For my wish did come true – he did set his eyes on me, he hurt me and left me restless to know ‘Why?’ The question that the most helpless of souls ask when all else fails, when waiting for an explanation is useless, indeed laughable. Was I that hideous, that pungent, that undeserving of being loved by him? My vain mind thought it knew how to please him, by being more visible, more attentive, more silent and more skilled than the last time. He rejected me in a million ways. Sometimes I was a vessel to be emptied into, sometimes I was tossed about for unsaid grudges, sometimes I was left wanting for he was exhausted, sometimes I was ridiculed for deserted imagination, sometimes he said I was wasting his time, sometimes he had better things to attend to – like a book or a party or work – mostly I was left to my own devices, he was usually tired and I could choose whether I wanted to sleep next to him or stay awake for him to be unceremonious with me. I was used, discarded, abandoned, jilted and then owned all over again the next morning only to relive the same cycle again at night.
The fault lay in the Bible. God made us believe in the goodness of people, and required us to start with that assumption, working upwards to higher goals. For one, God made me believe in the sacredness of the union, between a man and a woman, so much so that no question could be formed as to the nature of it without being rebuked for one’s small-heartedness. For all the bawdy art that girls giggled at in school or drew to shock, nothing matched the verses: ‘This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’, and because they came from God Himself, they could not be purer, no matter how foul the imagery that the words generated. The entitlement to happiness that lay at the door of a spouse, through complete submission to the desires and rights of each other, being a slave to and trust the judgment of someone one hardly knew: ‘The wife has no authority over her body but a husband does. The husband has no authority over his own body, but the wife does.’ And ofcourse, the biggest hubris of all: ‘Love bears all things’. Well, Bible lies.
I can blame him for being conniving, or clever but the truth is, my father was too trustworthy. He had spent his life being generous to strangers, giving chances to nobodies, so it did made sense when he took a shine to a street vendor who had a stall in Pan’s Carnival. Charles was a large man and seemed like a man with a large heart, with the way he was with children at his stand, and a general affable nature. Charles told him about his family and how his father kept telling him he was the golden goose in the family, how he would make the family proud, how he was taking classes in double-entry bookkeeping. My father liked him instantly. As chance would have it, he was looking for an apprentice and told Charles to come by. I did not think much of the exchange because my father was always running into friends or making friends. He was a great salesman. I had just returned from studies abroad and was helping my father the way I had as a child: taking his books and scribbling them, though now the writing would be legible, numerical, and showed financial assessments. I liked the smell of fresh ink on old paper. Sometimes I had hands that reeked of it. It was something I had grown up with, that made me feel at home in the shop more than back at the house. The shop was a noisy place to grow up in – and one saw all kinds of customers, all kinds of moods. I had seen my father deal with them, though he never expected me to liaise with them. My work was to come and sit every once in a while and see the records and mind the receipts. But my father and Mrs. Fletcher wanted to see me married, and soon. I was nineteen and had little of society for company, my father had his male friends, and I was a member of clubs headed by wives of a few of them. I had been called upon by a few men and two had desired courting me, but my father had ended the prospect of it by simply saying that they didn’t deserve me and were mostly after his money. Most of the roles in my life up to this point were ceremonial, save the ones I had for him, Mrs. Fletcher, Madeleine and Susan. My only real passion at this point was growing and sketching roses, visiting nurseries and designing the garden beds.
Charles was first told to mind the warehouse, quickly gaining my father’s confidence to sit at the shop. He had a sweet gentle manner of speech, the kind that makes one a lovable log, had a confident air about him as if he could conquer the world, and was constantly studying to better some part of himself. He wanted to achieve something, reach somewhere. I did not know him beyond the pleasantries and only observed him from afar, conversing with my father or chatting with boys. Over time, it was hard to ignore him. His frame used to literally fill up the small office seeking something or the other – be it a book or information on losses, or my opinion on some sale – he would try to talk to me on one pretext or another. I got used to it over time. My father liked his spirit, his sharpness, and his leisure-footed nature. I liked that he still had close bonds with his family, and he spoke warmly of his father. It was obvious that he was still close to him, like I was with mine. Over time, he started coming over to the house for tea with my father. They used to sit and laugh over a few drinks. His advice was sought on new materials to export, he was sent to districts, even Paris to find exotic articles, and he accompanied us to the annual London exhibition almost from the first year of his employment. Then he started coming unannounced to the house, on pretext of looking for a book my father had told him to fetch or read, bringing some new specie for the rosary, fixing the shed or a horse’s shoe without being asked to do it. At such times, he sought my company. That was the first time I realized that his interest in me was more than mere professional courtesy.
It had been the most natural thing in the world – at the time – for him to ask for my hand in marriage. My father was convinced he would take good care of me. Mrs. Fletcher thought he would be considerate given his poor background, and grateful for having the hand of an heiress. In my heart of hearts, I was governed by ideas of a woman finding her place in marriage, where she would find love, respect, companionship and purpose. I liked his energy and ambition; I liked that he had modest values and content demeanor. I liked his almost middle-class way of expression, as if there was something rogue and untouched about him, not that I wanted to fix anything, but it intrigued me, it was something to look forward to. Most of all, I admired his accomplishment. He had raised himself from downtrodden circumstances and made something of himself. My father was a self-made man, and I always had a soft spot for hard work. Charles was not a man in a hurry. He had a calm way of nurturing his progress. I could see leading an uneventful unproblematic comfortable life with him. I was raised with ideas that passion came with marriage and believed in my capacity to please any man, having confidence in my ability of being a quick learner. It was a formal proposal. If there was an affection, it was from his side. If there were words of love, they were from his side. He had not even approached to hold my hand, for fear of Mrs. Fletcher who thought it imprudent and against the laws of a proper engagement.
He wanted to get married in his hometown for no apparent reason. On hindsight, it seems like he wanted to make an impression on all his old mates and relatives he had left behind in search of a better life, showing me off, his success in nabbing a rich wife, given his precarious circumstances. He had less relatives than my father had acquaintances, they could all be accommodated in any number of inns – if not in Rosewood itself – for the ceremony, but it was Charles whose wishes were respected in the end. I had never been to Ash, and for the entirety of my marriage, I would never see that place again – for my husband never mentioned a renewed tour after that day in the chapel. It was a grey dust of misery, that town. The only reason why my father agreed to it as a venue was me – I had prayed on the day of my engagement that no act of mine be imprudent towards my husband or reek of false pride. After all, what was marriage without accepting a man as he was? And what could be more intimate and self-confirming than the place one was born in. Charles obviously thought so, and it was my duty as a would-be wife, to respect his wishes. So Ash it was. and Ash it went.
My first night as a newly-wed was in Ash. Charles later said that I had taken a fragmented man and made him whole that night, that we had taken a hubris under the moonlight and made something timeless with it. I remembered no such thing. I am not questioning his intent – and he did seem experienced in how he approached me in bed, making me wonder who or what else he had experimented with – and I had to shirk the thought – modesty and best wishes rarely make the best of sense, neither do mean impressions, and it was best to leave both for a happy beginning. I had no reason to question his motives. Later in my more cynical moments I doubted even his eagerness in those first months. He seemed like a pig who had lunged at me and tried to make my breath his, it was not passion, it was rage, for nothing could prepare a woman like a man bent upon erasing her by being in her. I scraped to find my place in him, in his charge towards me, and having finished with me, having gained his throes and pangs, leaving me unsung. It was almost as if I did not matter. I longed for a feast in performance, but had to satisfy myself with nothing more than a pebble of pluck and treble. He was never rough in expression, only in performance. I could tell him to be gentle, but he would take offence. I could tell him to stop, but that would only lead to meaner behavior. Instead, I kept quiet. He was never rude to me, he never hit me, and he never left me; but I felt lonely in his presence. It was as if something was missing and no matter what I did or said, it wouldn’t change.
Now I think it was his way of setting himself in my eyes, so that I would give in to him completely in all other matters as well.
The chief amongst those was his insistence that I stay at home. Ofcourse he wanted me away from the office – for reasons that would become clearer five years later, but they did not seem at the time to accord a slight. I agreed because running a house was no joke. Mrs. Fletcher did not live with us anymore, having moved to live with her daughter in London. Father was not well and needed attention. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It had it’s rewards. I used to wait for Charles to come home to tell me all about it, what eccentric customer came that morning or what other shopkeepers were up to, or what his trip to some shire had been like, interesting people he may have met. He had a milky way of answering each question, something I came to be irritated by with each growing year. It came to represent his way of skipping the part where he had to talk to me, and getting right down to what he wanted from me: what the mayor’s wife was up to, where my father went, whether his sister had been there that day, had any of my father’s friends visited, whether I was pregnant yet. I led a far more structured narrow-patterned life than he, and he was quick to remind me of the dangers inherent in routine than in seeing something new out there in towns and cities. He thought of all kinds of ills that I cold pollute my mind with – such as talking a bit too much with the gardener, which he said could be construed as being a bit too friendly with hired help; going out by myself to theatre, which I enjoyed in his absence; being with Madeleine at the cost of neglecting the house, not being religious enough, or spending more time with the Bible than with him. I am a rational person but I could not unravel his insecurities, his second-guessing me, his need for control.
He was always around, irrespective of the business, that had him traveling a bit; consultations, with customers, vendors, taxmen, city council; problems of his family, which almost always were money-related; and his own responsibilities to self as he liked to call his duty to perfect his hobbies; still he was always there for a walk with me in the garden, for a book reading seminar, for the tea party at home intended for only female attendees. He left me for short spells, as all working men do from time to time. I received his letters, in quick succession, from various places. My father, Mrs. Fletcher, Madeleine all envied the fact that I had attained a husband who thought of me so often, and so well, who missed me so much as to write sometimes twice in a single day. I thought it was weird. The letters all sounded mechanical, as did my responses. Now that I try to remember what I wrote and what he sent, it was ironical that a couple had as little to say to each other as we both did. I was obligated to tell him of some new rose-cross breed I had planted, or some new way of cooking I tried, or the advancement of Madeleine’s husband. He was careful to enter a few lines of poetry, praise my beauty, express his love for me, and add the number of sales made. It seemed like things a husband and wife would say to each other, especially those married a few years. It all felt manufactured.
He was closest to his sister, Hannah, who had moved to Wexford when her brother did, and ran a mid-wifery business out of her home. I disliked her but had to contend with her advice because Charles thought a great deal of her opinion than any doctor in the world. I took two years to give him the good news. He was not kind to me for the delay. He was extremely obsessive about it’s care within me. He changed his room from our marital bed to the one down the stairs, lest his erratic schedule disturbed the unborn child. I had to drink Hannah’s concoctions, listen to her endless lectures on being a good wife, and pray a lot in her presence. I did it to please a husband who loved his sister. Despite everything, I miscarried, not once but twice. The doctor Charles had approved of said the same thing Hannah had – raising my husband to say ‘I told you so’. I felt ridiculous then, as I do now, but there was no escape from his contempt then as there is now.
He had a curiously malevolent relationship with his own father, something that had to be seen to be believed. His father was always telling him he needed to ‘spread his wings’, that he could do better, that he had wasted a lot of time. The son was attentive, nervous and quiet around him, though never failing to kiss his hands when parting. The father preferred to live back in Ashwood, but saw Charles frequently in Brown Street. He took the death of his father pretty bad, regretting some unspoken words or deed. I asked him what was the matter. He said he wanted to make his father proud. All my father had ever wanted from me was that I be happy, hence I failed to understand the need for this compulsion of his to be good in the eyes of a man who was a source of discontent in life as in death. It’s an emotion that I have only now come to empathize with – given my current troubles. Indeed my desire to improve my circumstances has more to do with restoring my father’s good name in the society that knew and recognized him than anything else. After his father’s death, Charles was always pre-occupied. He stopped the letters, the walks, the travels. All of a sudden, he was mercenary towards me. He was in a perpetual hurry. If I questioned him, I would be derided, or ignored – and over time – slapped. He called me clumsy, immature and un-amusing, though he was quick to never let the statements become a habit. In time, I found it harder and harder to love him or even accept him. That’s when the real trouble begin.
My father had kept up his routine of going to the shop or the warehouse all the mornings he was able to. He used to dress himself at six, with tremor, without help and walk to the carriage till he had to be wheeled in and out of it. No matter how many times I scolded him over his lack of care, he almost always manage to annoy me. He found certain discrepancies in either the accounts or defects in some items, he didn’t tell me exactly what it was. He just said he had heard something, a claim so preposterous that he had to cut his visit to Brown Street short and came back home. He never told me what he knew, no matter how agitated I was over his condition. Initially he told me not to heed the words of ill-informed people, for people were jealous of my good fortune, that I had a good husband, and that wold not change. I did not know what he meant. But his behavior became more ominous with time. My father was already a very affectionate man, now was a gentler bear. He was old and wrinkled and unwell. I had kept my troubles away from him. I had wanted his world to be all perfect. So, whenever he was out of his room, be it the drawing or the garden, Charles and I had a united veneer about. It failed to convince him. He took my hand a bit more often. He spoke to Charles in the drawing room a bit too often. And he was away from the house – despite his constitution – a bit more often. I did not know what to make of it.
Charles rarely visited my room now, confining himself to the bedroom on the ground floor, near my father’s eoom. Still I got to see my father more than him. Each morning I waited for him. The breakfast would be prepared as to his wishes. He would enjoy it, praise my skills in housekeeping and disappear. Each night I heard the carriage stop, his steps through the door and then the sound of a door closing shut. He didn’t ask for me or inquire after me. When I went to his room, in protest or to register myself in his senses, he brushed me off or pulled me to the ground to wreak havoc on me or tell me to lie on the bed without a fuss. I used to pride myself on my reasonable intellect, my patience and my self-worth, thinking that he deserved it all, and he was a better man because of it. It all failed me in that room. His manner of showing interest or affection in me didn’t change, infact he went one step further, crudely looking at himself in the mirror while I lay burnt and humiliated. In time his methods improved to include putting a hand over my mouth the whole time, lest some maid may hear. And he did it, while my father slept as his neighbor in the adjoining room. I could not scream, cringe, cry or agitate against any violation. It was almost as if the last remnants of some facade were finally coming off.
I curse myself now for having been misled so. But no one knows they are about to have an accident before the travesty occurs. There were signs ofcourse, but does a deer really believe it will be devoured by the lion a few seconds after coming in it’s lair? Neither did I. Who could I tell? Where could I turn for a heart big enough to tell me it was not my fault? You know, all his marks, the snides, the effortlessness of it all, it was baffling for me. I could not tell my father. How could a daughter speak of a transgression that began in her body and ended therein? Mrs. Fletcher had just died and Susan was in the family way. I did not think it appropriate to burden her with my troubles. I went to Madeleine and she had a story of her own to match mine. She said Charles had told her husband I was unhappy, and that I was distracted and unwell. She knew we had separate rooms. He told her husband he suspected I was seeing someone else. Maddy ofcourse disagreed with her husband on that count, and she told me so. I was stunned. Was this the reason Charles had been awful to me the whole time? I tried to find a reasonable explanation for his cruel behavior. I tried to remember his earlier affection, his descent into unabashed savagery, his silences and his gaze. I tried to make sense of it all. Yes, it did seem like my husband was under a misapprehension. How could I have been the source of such a nasty misunderstanding. It went against everything I stood for, and had lived by. How could he have trusted the information? I felt sick, for no matter how hard I tried, I could not see or remember any action on my part that could have led my husband astray. I despised Maddy, and her husband, for even acknowledging the rumor. I went away from her place angry and hurt. She did not try to stop me.
I had to confront him. So I went to the shop. And the warehouse. And home back again. He was nowhere. I waited for him at the tip of the stairs to come home. I waited till midnight. He finally came. He was drunk and aggressive. It was no use talking to him. I waited for the sun to come up. He left before the first burst of rays. He had told the maid he had to attend to something in the port city of Timpleton. He was gone that whole week without a word of his whereabouts. When I finally caught up to him, a week later, he listened to what I had to say. I demanded he take back the misguided grievance and remove the cast on my name with the pastor husband of Madeleine’s. I felt betrayed thinking he could go to a family friend with a thought like that, knowing full well that it would be spread and in all probability believed. I wanted him to do the right thing. I slammed and routed and raved for a half hour. At the end of which he spoke. He said he felt overwhelmed with my rejection of him and had said some things over drinks that he shouldn’t have. I could hardly believe it! Casting aspersions on a wife was not the way of an honorable man. Being out of his senses was no excuse. He dared me to do what I had to do, and in the same breath apologized for the mistake. He calmed me down, even though I was in shambles for reasons beyond this comedown. He satisfied me that he would speak to the pastor and set it all to rest.
I did not speak to him after that. I started going to the shop. I had to find a way to get rid of him, without my father getting disturbed or sicker. I had to do it quickly and quietly. I could think of no one more trustworthy or influential than my father’s lawyer Cribbins, whose wife and I had arranged many a soirees together. Lester Cribbins was a genial man of sixty with a firm handshake. He met everyone as if meeting an old friend. He was tall thin and a ladies man, but he was his wife’s husband and for all appearances, she was fine with his indiscretions as long as they weren’t from the society she ran in. That was what my father had told me, and that was what I surmised from her behavior. He seemed like a good idea at the time. He was a well-established lawyer with a long-running association with my father, if there was some one who could guide me as to the proper course of action, surely Mr. Cribbins would be it! I was deceived horribly. And I have felt ashamed of being fooled in such a transparent manner as Charles and Cribbins fooled me.
But most of all, I let my father down. We all did. If I am guilty, then so are Cribbins and Pritchard. And that was something far more unforgivable than any scar left on my body, any insult to my character and any deformity that found it’s home in me. For someone who has seen the whole gamut of the human emotion and cruelty, I still feel incomplete. I feel short-changed.’
Jane stopped writing. Chronology of any event worked best in obituaries. It had no place in the world of sentiment, where memories, ideas and assumptions co-existed side by side. Jane had thought it best to put hers in writing. This was her first attempt at writing her statement for the judge. Once done, she had to send the draft to Mr. Fox who would submit it in court. Before writing even a single word, her intention had been to narrate the facts as the occurred. But once she began, the miserable memories sketched a life of their own on paper. This attempt, this mildly subversive exercise was supposed to make her feel coherent and in control of what she had to say. But it had made her look like a disaster. This was no affidavit, no testament that could be presented as evidence, it was too emotional, too raw, too plain. Law liked it’s facts as a test to it’s ability to fix all problems. How could any law mend her heart? or give her peace of mind? or make Pritchard repent? Law did not care for her deepest thoughts and pains. Life did not fix all problems, neither did courts. Her only wish was to get back what was duly hers, nothing more nothing less, irrespective of whether law was able to make her husband ashamed or rebuked him or destroyed him.
So she let her first attempt burn in the fireplace and she started again. And this time she used small words.
2
It was a morbid evening. She had been uneasy all day. She went to the study to get the notes Mrs. Green, neigh Ms. Louisa, had asked for. She thought she would be drained after all that writing and re-writing. Her hands were definitely tired. She could not listen to music today, unless someone else played for her! But she felt free. As if a huge burden had been lifted off her and she was seeing everything for the first time. Being a resident of a strange place with fabulously odd inhabitants was nothing new. She had been there before. But it was as if the knots were finally coming undone. Soon she would be as ordinary as she had ever been, with nothing peculiar to report of her and nothing abnormal to anticipate about her. She was relieved and free and heavy all at the same time.
She was standing infront of that portrait like she had before. The young fertile woman in it was smiling as she had always. That was what Mary Lockwood represented: happiness, contentment with a time gone by. While Jane had been plundered and shamed, this wife had known nothing but satisfaction. The cheerful woman was lost in a painting, captured to relive the joy she had known and brought, but Jane, the one still alive, and capable, and independent, was the one truly detained, cramped up in her sorrow and a pile of hurt that only men could bring.
For the first time, in all the times she had stood there, she envied this wife. For she had enslaved not one man but a whole household in her demise, while she, alive and relatively young, had been the source of prosperity for so many at the cost of her own life!
This man and this woman had not required God or the holy text to bind them, to make them honor each other, and they certainly did not need a book to remember each other by. It was all in their hearts and minds – the source of much evil in the world – but was a compulsion so hard to break when it believed and behaved as one ought to. Whatever else Mr. Lockwood may be, she certainly could not accuse him of being a vain man, or an inconstant one, or a rascal. He was a faithless man as far as Church and any priest worth his holy water and sermon were concerned, but he had been as straight as an arrow with this woman. There had been no lies, no wrong, no malevolence. He was who he said he was, and had lived by the only paradigm he called his own, the rule of his own conscience – and they all led him back to his wife. In his life, virtue and sin, ordained by the single measure of love and nothing else, had produced an unbreakable bond with a woman and three children.
Women like herself had all the time to wonder where it went wrong, why they were treated badly, what could they have done to prevent it, but here was a man who had known no other wrong than, no other injustice than, no other pain than, losing his wife. She had so much to restore in herself, while he had only to heal his heart. He lived in a wonderful world.
And it was all because of this jolly girl, sitting plump and satisfied high up on the wall, so that no eye could ever measure her as an equal, she was above it all, them all, and she deserved it. She sat like any benevolent spirit kind enough to wreak havoc with the lives of lesser mortals. That perky sparkling creature had left marks asunder on the soul of another. She was guilty of a crime greater than making people faithless. She was guilty of making a man her own like no other, or being so irresistible that no woman could compete with her.
“Hello.”
The voice echoed in the empty corridor. It was a voice she had grown most familiar with. She turned to look behind her. It was Mr. Lockwood. She bowed. What must he be thinking, of her standing near his wife’s portrait! she cursed herself for not hearing him come in. Startled as she may have been, she was happy to see the master. He had gone to Timpleton on a mission, of breaking new ground, discovering a new way of doing things, to attend the ceremony of the railway connection from that town to Berkshire. The prospects of it had excited her. She could not wait for him to tell her more about it, though she had to curb the excitement just a bit. He was the employer after all. And he did look exhausted.
“Good evening, sir. I’m sorry I came to -”
“You don’t have to apologize for anything Jane Adams.” He had a strange voice. Perhaps groggy side effects to the empty bottle that he had in one hand. He stood a bit straighter, coughed a bit, as if trying to clear his throat.
She said, “Are you alright sir? You do not look so well.”
He stared at her as if she had no right to ask that question. Great! she had offended him yet again. She took a detour:
“I had to pick some notes from the forte. Mrs. Cavendish wants me to give them to Mrs. Green.”
He came closer as if to get a clear view of her, as if to see if it really was her. He stood but just a three steps away from her.
“She likes that.” He said in a hollow voice. Mr. Lockwood had the most peculiar expression on his face.
She smiled to deflect the sombre mood and make a pleasant exit. “I see you are back from your trip. I hope everything was satisfactory?”
“No it was not.”
“I did not forget any document did I?”
“No. It’s not your fault. Never was.”
Something was wrong. The master did not look drunk despite the status of the bottle, but he looked ill. She had to say something. “The railway agreement fell through?”
“No it did not.” He continued to stare at her.
“Is anything the matter sir?”
“No.” he said without removing his eyes from her.
She did not know what to make of it. Then she thought she knew why he was quiet: “I did not mean to pry, standing here, I was just on my way upstairs, and had a look.”
“I know,” he said, still gazing at her in a curious way.
Taken aback, she smiled her approval and hurried towards the stairs.
“Ms. Adams, wait.”
He came to stand near her, at the base of the staircase, while she had taken her first step on it.
He began: “Why did you go to the chapel that day?”
She did not expect that. She replied, “To pray….sir.”
“Pray for what?”
“It’s personal sir.”
“I will not insist that you tell me.”
He looked awful. She had to oblige. “I prayed for strength for a better tomorrow.”
His eyes went dark. “It used to be our place you know, me and my wife’s, from before we were married. We would go there to be free…..to be reckless, to be away from prying judgmental eyes. Who would think of going to a graveyard. No one ever thinks of lovers in dark deathly places. No one ever thought of us being there.”
She nodded but was ill at ease. She could not possibly go to pray there now could she, knowing there were fervent wishes of an entirely impure nature that came true over there! Why was the master telling her all this? He was in a pitiable shape though. Something had hurt him. Was it one of her doings?
He continued: “I thought you had broken into a secret place, our place, that you had no business being in.”
“I did say I was -”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
He kept still and silent, with eyes fixed on her.
“Sir wh- Have I -?”
He was abrupt once more. “But it did you good, did it not, being there?”
She nodded.
And he said, “The violations have their dividends, do they not?”
She bent her head as if acknowledging him and turned to go away.
“Please stay…….You will need this.”
He took out some papers from his pocket. It was the letter Pritchard had written to the master months ago. She was surprised.
He sighed, “I thought I was the most unfortunate person alive, till I knew you. As always you win Ms. Adams.”
Jane went away quietly. She knew the eyes were still following her and she would not be safe till she turned the corner and was out of the view of his haunting gaze. She did not know what to make of it. But she had realized something in between the portrait and the man. She knew then that she had been passive all her life, she had been led by the beliefs of people other than her own – but then her values were so intrinsic to her that it had never felt like she was following other people’s wishes and not her own. She truly believed in the right way of doing things, in God’s standards, in being good, pure, virtuous, there was nothing wrong in wanting those things. And if she had surrounded herself with people who outwardly believed in the same things, and deceived her in their sense of integrity, that did not make the morals and ideals bad. She was not a submissive person, she had never been. But here was a brightly lit portrait that carried the image of a girl who had broken rules and she had ended up venerated – and happy/blessed.
About the Author:
Noorilhuda is a broadcast producer and freelance journalist.
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