Page 91 of John Eyre

I slid the interior bolt in place, if only as a precaution, and using the key, I opened one of the glass cases to take out a scroll. It was Egyptian, that much I recognized. But I hadn’t any notion what the writing said. As for the images, they seemed to depict a kind of funeral rite.

Examining the other scrolls and books, I saw that they were much in the same vein. Texts from ancient civilizations—each with depictions of burial and rebirth. It’s a common enough belief in mythology, the idea of rising from the dead. But given Edward’s recent revelation about a book which would enable him to walk in the sunlight, I felt a distinct sense of unease.

Was this the belief that currently possessed my husband? That he was some manner of deity who would soon rise again? I couldn’t help but make the comparison. The way he slept in the dirt, among his many victims—like a pharaoh entombed with slaves for the afterlife. It was a sort of delusion, I supposed. A mania, such as one read about in the sensation papers. With no doctors to take him in hand, his delusion had been permitted to advance to a gruesome conclusion. To murder and mayhem.

But what of the way he’d interacted with the mist that I’d seen from the window? What of his eyes that night in my room, as red as the devil himself?

I was puzzling over these very things when a faint—and quite persistent—scratching sound commenced. It set my nerves a jangle. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and didn’t remain to find out. Returning to my room, I dined on the last of my store of spoiled bread and cheese, and while I waited for the clock to strike twelve, I began to formulate my escape.

26 April, later that day. — I’ve sent Mr. Poole on an errand, equipped with enough coin (tossed down from the barred window) to see it through. I pray he’ll have success. It’s a foolhardy thing to have asked him to do. A reasonable woman might have simply commanded him to go to the authorities. However, Mr. Poole has informed me that Senniskali is all but empty. And even if there were a local policeman or magistrate hereabouts, what could they possibly do to help me?

Edward Rochester is stronger and more powerful than I am, both in law and in fact. This is his homeland, not mine. His people, no matter that he chooses to disavow them. While I have no allies save Mr. Poole. If I’m to escape this place, it must come down to my own ingenuity.

27 April, midday. — I write this entry with an unsteady hand and a heart that has twice, this long night, come close to beating its last. In making my plans to escape my husband, I failed to appreciate the true nature of the man I was dealing with. Man, I say. But he is no man. He is something else entirely. I pray to God that I—

But I must calm myself and start at the beginning or risk my account sounding like the deranged ravings of a lunatic. No one will ever believe what I have seen—what I have done—if I cannot relate it clearly. Would that there was a drop of laudanum remaining to steady my nerves!

My ordeal began yesterday at sunset. I knew my husband would eventually discover that I’d taken the key to his vault, but I hadn’t reckoned for how severe his reaction would be. Indeed, it was out of all proportion—or so I believed at the time.

At sunset, when he rose from his slumber, he came to my room. I stood to meet him, a branch of candles flickering on the desk at my back. I was as wary of his presence as ever, but no longer strictly afraid. Hope of escape had made me bold. That was my first mistake. Had I been more on my guard, I’d have noticed right away that something was different about him. He looked sated. As if he’d just partaken of a nourishing meal—something I hadn’t enjoyed for many days. It was a mistake to provoke him.

“You have something that belongs to me,” he said.

“Such as?” The key to his vault was still in the pocket of my skirt, along with my Nock percussion pistol. I longed to reach for it, if only to give myself additional courage.

“You have my key,” he said, approaching me slowly. “Give it to me now.”

“What key? Not the one to the front door, else I’d be gone by now.” I sidestepped away from him. “By-the-by, where are the house keys? I’ve had no luck in finding them.”

“I warned you—”

“They must be secreted away somewhere. I know they’re not on your person.”

“Bertha—”

“You’ll need them to unlock the front door and bolt it again when we leave this place. It’s but three more days until the date of our departure. Have you forgotten?”

He circled around me like a wolf stalking its prey. All the while I edged closer to the door. “You came to me when I slept,” he said. “Do you deny it?”

“Why should I?”

“Because, my dear, it means your very life.”

A chill went down my spine. I took another step away from him. “From the moment I married you, was my life ever anything but forfeit?”

His eyes gleamed with an unnatural light. “No, indeed. But I might have kept you awhile longer as my pet.” He came closer. “You saw me at rest. What else did you see?”

Try as I might to present him with an innocent countenance, the expression on my face must have told him all.

“Did you see my brides?” he asked. “The ones who came before you?”

Women of a trivial nature, he’d called them. Women possessing neither souls nor hearts. I’d thought he’d meant his prior lovers. Ladies he’d met who hadn’t been worthy of marriage. Good lord, had those desiccated bones with their scraps of feminine clothing truly been his former wives?

I stared at him in slow-dawning horror. By this point, I was disposed to think him a veritable Bluebeard. “I saw bones.” My voice shook, betraying me for the coward I was. “I saw Agnes.”

The name didn’t appear to register with him.

“Agnes,” I repeated with growing anger. “Did you not even mark her name? She was my maid. An honest and hardworking servant girl who you killed in cold blood.”