Page 11 of John Eyre

“Eccentric, you might say. And others have said. She speaks in such a blunt manner, you see, and has such decided opinions. She was always thus. Even as a girl. It amused her to put people out of countenance.”

“What of her husband, Mr. Rochester? Did you know him well?”

“Not at all. Mrs. Rochester was both married and widowed during her travels. Her husband passed sometime last winter. She returned with Stephen and Peter in the summer. A month in residence, and then she was gone again. Heaven knows where. She doesn’t care to be idle.”

With that, Mr. Fairfax concluded his dusting—and his tale. He offered to show John over the rest of the house. “If you’re looking for the most scenic views to sketch, you won’t find them from the gallery windows.”

“Do you know of a better vantage?”

“The best, sir.” Mr. Fairfax led the way up the stairs to the third floor and down a dark, narrow hall. They passed low-ceilinged rooms filled with oversized furnishings from years gone by—heavy bedsteads, rows of narrow chairs with carved animal feet, and Egyptian-style ottomans and settees. Some of the furniture was shrouded in holland covers, other pieces stood bare, revealing ebony surfaces painted with gold, and giltwood tables with jackal-headed figures standing upright in place of legs.

Such garish furnishings had been popular decades ago. Gaudy imitations of the treasures found in Egypt. John thought them more tasteless than sinister. And yet, when coupled with the gloomy quiet and the cold, stale air, the relics gave the third story of Thornfield Hall the feeling of a tomb. He couldn’t imagine spending a night in such a place.

“Do the servants sleep here?” he asked.

“No. They occupy smaller apartments to the back of our own. These rooms aren’t in use, nor are any on the third floor.”

John followed Mr. Fairfax up a narrow flight of stairs to the attics. From there, an even narrower ladder gave access to a trapdoor overhead, leading to the roof of the Hall.

“I can no longer manage it myself,” Mr. Fairfax said, “but if you wish to venture up, you will have a fine prospect from the battlements.”

At the butler’s insistence, John made his way to the roof alone. Raindrops fell in a gentle patter, dampening his hair and collar. Leaning over the battlements, he surveyed the grounds below him: the winding road, the velvet lawn, and the great meadow with its thorn trees.

The Millcote mists were settled over the landscape like so much silver vapor, clinging to the trees and swirling all about the drive. Were he standing below, they would obscure his view. Confuse him as they had on the night of his arrival. But here, on the roof, he could see above them. Over and beyond, all the way to Hay. Indeed, he could just make out a little spire rising from the hills. The village church. Not but two miles away, and yet undiscernible when on the ground.

John inhaled deeply. His head began to clear, the fresh air whisking away the last remnants of the small dose of laudanum he’d taken the night before. Mr. Fairfax was right. This was a princely prospect, and one John looked forward to sketching when the weather permitted.

Returning to the ladder, he climbed back down into the attic. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.

“Go ahead,” Mr. Fairfax said. “I’ll fasten the trap-door.”

John retraced his steps down the narrow staircase to the third floor. Once there, he waited in the passageway for Mr. Fairfax. It was still and quiet as death, all the wood-paneled doors in the corridor shut, and nothing but a little window at the end of the long hall to give any light. It was in all this silence that he heard the sudden sound of a man’s laugh, echoing from the darkness.

It was a chilling noise. Cold and mirthless, with nothing of humor about it—or of humanity.

John’s breath stopped in his chest. He froze where he stood, listening. The laughter ceased for a moment only to begin again, louder and more inhuman than before.

There was no way of pinpointing the source of it. It seemed to come from both nowhere and everywhere, the icy vibration of it infused in the very vault-like air around him.

“Mr. Fairfax,” John said as the butler descended the stairs.

“Yes, sir?”

“Who was that laughing?”

Mr. Fairfax answered, quite unperturbed, “Mr. Poole, probably.”

Mr. Poole?

John had never met the man. Which wasn’t saying much. He rarely encountered the servants. “You did hear it, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I often do. Mr. Poole has a keen sense of humor.”

At that moment, the laugh sounded again in a low tone.

“Mr. Poole!” Mr. Fairfax called out.

John didn’t expect the fellow to answer, for the laugh had sounded almost preternatural. Indeed, were he a superstitious man, he might have been afraid. But it was the middle of the day, and there was no other circumstance of ghostliness about the incident. Certainly nothing like the night John’s laudanum-addled brain had conjured Helen out of the mists.