Page 110 of John Eyre

“John!” Bertha flew into his arms. “Thank God you’re safe. I was about to go in after you.”

He held her fast as he scanned the lawn, feeling her heartbeat against his breast, as swift and wild as his own. “Is everyone here? I don’t see Jenkins or the footmen.”

“Alfred has gone to summon the engines from Millcote. Jenkins and the others are seeing to the horses. The only ones unaccounted for were you and Stephen. And Mr. Poole. He wasn’t inside, was he?”

A breath shuddered out of John. “Mr. Poole is dead.”

She drew back to stare at him. “What?”

“I think he was trying to unchain Mr. Rochester in order to get him out of the house. He must have thought he was saving him from the fire. You said he didn’t know what Mr. Rochester was. That he believed him to be nothing more than a lunatic.”

Bertha’s eyes lit with dawning horror. “By God, John, you don’t mean to say that Edward got free?”

“He killed Mr. Poole. He must have taken his keys and unlocked himself. I saw him on the third floor. He spoke to me. Tried to take Stephen.”

“Where is he now?”

“Still inside the house. I threw an oil lamp at him and he caught fire. I thought he’d given chase—”

“Heavens above!” Mr. Fairfax pointed to the battlements. “Who’s that on the roof?”

As one, they all stared upward. It was a black, starless night, but Thornfield stood out against the darkness in a growing conflagration. Its upper stories were consumed by flames. They licked out from the third-floor windows, and higher still, reaching toward the roof.

Along the battlements a figure moved against the night sky, his body consumed by fire.

It was Mr. Rochester.

Stephen gave an inarticulate cry, and Peter’s face crumpled. John pulled them closer, circling them with one arm while the other remained securely around Bertha’s waist. The boys clung to him, leaning against him as she did, drawing strength from his nearness.

“His face,” Bertha said under her breath. “He’s burning.”

And he was. John could see it even amidst the chaos of the fire. Mr. Rochester’s skin was blackening to ash. As they all watched, he yelled something out in a strangled voice and sprang from the roof, as if in a desperate attempt to escape the pursuing flames. He landed on the paving stones with a loud crack of bones and thud of flesh.

The servants screamed, and the boys buried their faces in John’s shirt. John would have liked to hide his face as well, but he forced himself to look. To bear witness.

He wasn’t alone.

Bertha, too, refused to avert her gaze. She regarded the bloody heap on the ground. The creature who had once been her husband. Her bosom rose and fell on shallow, trembling breaths. “I must go to him. I have to be certain.”

“No,” John said. “It isn’t safe.”

“Come with me, then.” She slid her arms from his waist, and hoisting her skirts, picked her way across the lawn.

“Stay with Nurse,” John said to the boys. “Mr. Fairfax? Watch over them. They’ve had a fright.”

“As you say, Mr. Eyre.”

John went after Bertha. She was standing over her husband’s body, staring down at it with an expression that was hard to read. He came to a halt beside her, following her gaze. His stomach recoiled in protest.

Mr. Rochester’s skin had flaked away, but the blood inside of him—his final meal—seeped out of him and into the paving stones in a steady stream.

“Mr. Poole wouldn’t have let him perish,” she said. “It would have meant an end to his position here. And he liked his wages too much to give them up.”

“It was his choice to go inside. He must have known the danger.”

“I’d given him tonic to drink. It should have worked as a repellent. Indeed, I thought it would.” Her brow creased. “But it doesn’t work, does it? Not reliably. It didn’t work the night the mist came into my room. The night Edward bit Mr. Poole. I should have realized then—”

“It isn’t your fault,” John said. “And perhaps he didn’t take the tonic as often as he was meant to.”