I know little of my birth, for my mother died long before she could tell me—before I ever heard her voice or gazed at her face—and my father banished the woman who helped deliver me, blaming her for my mother’s death. Of course, my father himself had no interest in telling me the least part of it, even if he did remember, which he almost certainly did not. There was no room for sentiment in my father’s existence. Although my mother had proved her worth by providing him with two healthy boys, he would still have considered it a waste to lose a good broodmare.
But with her gone, who was there to oversee the raising of his sons? Not himself, that was certain, as he was away on business most of the time, so he turned to Holdredge, his butler, and to his housekeeper, Mrs. Knox, and a succession of nursemaids and governesses, who were sometimes bad and other times worse. It was years before I could think of a governess as anyone other than a presence that must be borne. But in large part, my brother and I were left to entertain ourselves, and we did so separately. Rowland was eight years older than I, and as one might imagine, eight years between brothers does not make for a great deal of affinity. I do not recall much of what he did with himself in those days, but as for me, whenever I was released from the schoolroom I was content to ramble the gardens and fields and woods of Thornfield-Hall.
Even now, when I think of Thornfield-Hall, I choose to remember what it was then—the playground of my childhood—and not what it was to become: a place of secrets and threats, of angers and fears. If I had been prescient in those days, I might have attempted to destroy it myself.
My mother was never spoken of; I never heard her name pass anyone’s lips, and it was years before I even knew what it was. But one of my earliest memories is of the portrait that hung over the mantel of the front drawing room, a cozy place where a fire was always laid, and which my father rarely entered. He spent his time at Thornfield riding around his holdings, seeing to business here and there. Running an estate as large as Thornfield occupied all of a man’s time, and my father had a steward to do the daily work of it, but when he was home, he took part in overseeing it all, leaving early and returning late, grumbling the whole time about the price of grain or the lack of dependable labor. As if I had antennae, I knew what he was about; it was in my best interests to do so. How else is a child to survive?
But how I loved the drawing room—its walls of a soft green, almost like moss, echoing in more muted tones the lawns beyond the window casements; its ivory-colored carpet and white ceiling with moldings of grapevines; the velvet-covered chairs whose dark wood glowed from decades of polish; the gleaming silver candlesticks; and, most of all, the portrait above the fireplace. The woman was fair-haired and fair skinned, with eyes the shade of the summer sky, standing slim and proud in a dress whose color seemed but a poor copy of her eyes. She stood on a terrace—which I did not recognize—and in the distance a pair of peacocks paused in mid-strut, as if taken aback by her beauty. Of course, without having to be told, I knew who she was; my brother, Rowland, was her exact image.
It became my habit, first thing in the morning and just before bedtime, to stand before that portrait, as if standing before the reality, as if waiting for her approbation, or, when I had done some little thing of which I might be ashamed, as if sensing her disapproval. My father caught me at it one day when I thought he was gone from the Hall. He must have come back for some forgotten item and passed the half-opened door and seen me there. “Boy!” he said, startling me. “Come away from there! You have no business in there.”
I stepped back, and then, fearing his quick hand, darted past him and up the stairs to the nursery, another place he never came. I stayed away from my mother for two whole days, but I kept hearing her calling me, until finally I crept back to the parlor and pushed the door open—and she was gone. In her place was another painting—a hunting scene, with horses and red-coated riders milling around, dogs nearly underfoot, the master of the hunt with horn in hand—the sort of thing that hangs in public houses. There was nothing familiar or reassuring about it, nothing to fill the aching hole that suddenly came to my gut. It was a painting that should have been in the dining room, or my father’s library or his bedchamber, not in this room that I loved so dearly.
I had, after that, only the memory of her portrait. From then on, I stayed mostly in the nursery or the schoolroom, when I was not in the kitchen or the stables looking for a kind word or a pat on the head, or outside wandering through the wood or across the moors. I peeked a few times into the parlor, hoping that I had been mistaken about the hunting scene, but after that I rarely entered that room again.
As the years passed, my father left more and more of the estate responsibilities to his steward, while he traveled far distances. He was building up his business interests, and sometimes he took Rowland with him, but never me. This was a vast relief to me, as I had no idea how to speak with him or whether he would think me impossibly stupid if I tried to do so.
It is true that, though I lacked for love, I was never actually mistreated. I was fed and clothed—perhaps not in the fanciest ways, but adequately. I generally ate what the servants ate; in fact, when I was not being fed in the nursery, I usually dined with them in the kitchen. It was plain fare, and to this day, having tried the other, I much prefer Cook’s simple dishes. In dress, I could have been mistaken for the stableboy in a clean set of clothes, and that I preferred as well. Breeches and waistcoats are a damned nuisance, if you ask me.
While Thornfield-Hall was never truly warm in the winter months, it was never freezing, either, and the cupboards harbored goose down enough for anyone’s tastes—though more than once I heard my father berating the housekeeper, Knox, over the quilts on my bed. “The boy must learn to be a man, standing on his own, putting up with whatever life brings him,” he’d say, and she would gather up a goose down and slowly fold it for storage. Soon it would appear again, but not a word of it passed between the two of us, though I would try to flash her a smile when I could. She was a slim, black-clad woman with reddish-brown hair, and usually a frown above her gray eyes. But despite her stern appearance, she almost never had a harsh word for me, and for that I am grateful. We both understood that her job was to please the master, not to cosset his second son.
And no one beat me, though there were times when the touch of a hand would have been welcome, even in anger—a slap to the head or a good shaking of the shoulders.
Except of course for Rowland, who’d give me a swipe whenever I was within arm’s reach, and if I particularly annoyed him, he would take up the cane. He was enough older, and I was naïve enough then, to believe that that was the job of an older brother: to keep the younger one in his place. By the time I learned differently, he was gone. I will have to keep this in mind, for I have learned the ways of second sons and it would be a sore useless experience if I cannot set things aright.
In those days, Thornfield-Hall was an impressive building constructed of the gray stone so familiar in the area. Two bays, one on each wing and running the full height of its three stories, served to prevent the building from looking like a simple square box, and battlements of carved stonework on the rooftop further softened the effect. The front door was of half glass, with black oak shutters against nightfall and inclement weather. Just inside was a large entrance hall with tall doors to the downstairs rooms, and between them hung portraits of people I presumed to be my ancestors. A massive bronze lamp hung in the center, and in one corner stood a carved clock, taller than my father. I loved that clock, loved to run my finger along its carvings. A grand staircase of oak with twin newel-posts the size of a grown man led from the entrance hall up to the family’s private chambers and, beyond, the guest rooms, and on the very top floor were storage rooms and the servants’ quarters. In all, the place had a masculine appearance, with ornate panel boards on the walls, heavy tapestries at the windows, and rich plasterwork on the ceilings.
As an adult, I always felt that the Hall was built for show. It was only in the nursery—and, of course, in the drawing room, until I was banished—that I felt the comfort one ought to feel in one’s own home. Perhaps that was another reason why I spent so much of my time in those early years hovering about the kitchen begging for a scrap of sweetened dough, or in the stables asking Jem and Kip if I could help with brushing down the horses or polishing and oiling the tack. “No, Young Master,” they would always say, adding, “Go ask Cook for a bunch of carrots for the horses, there’s a good boy.” Cook would wink as she handed them over, and I would dash back, eager to deliver my offering of friendship to those patient beasts.
In the storage rooms on the third floor (a place forbidden to me, which made it all the more attractive), I found treasures: cast-off fishing tackle and butterfly nets, but I never caught any fish, perhaps because I had no one to teach me. I did catch butterflies, but I could never bear to stick a pin through the tiny quivering bodies, so I set them free. There were all sorts of other treasures to be discovered in those rooms as well: trunks of clothing from another era, toys I had never seen or played with, vases gathering dust, furniture blanketed with canvas coverings, and various other items whose use or purpose was a mystery to me—and since I was not supposed to be there in the first place, I could not ask about them. I scoured those rooms, searching for the long-lost painting of my mother, but I never found it.
On three sides, beyond the house and its gardens, were fields of wheat and barley, and on the fourth side was the hawthorn wood that gave the Hall its name and that fueled the many fireplaces and the kitchen stoves. In the springtime the wood bloomed with a haze of bluebells and the delicate white starbursts of wild garlic; in the summer it provided cool respite; in the autumn I practiced creeping through fallen leaves as silently as a fox; and in the winter bare branches clawed their way toward the sky. And beyond the wood and the fields, as far as the eye could see, were the moors: tall grasses bending in the wind; heather seeming scrubby and useless in the springtime but blossoming to brilliant pinkish purple in late summer; lowering skies warning of weather on its way; hawks circling high above; rabbits darting between tussocks; and random outcrops of silent stones.
The nannies and governesses never lasted, for various reasons. The place was remote, with little social life, my father being gone so much of the time and seeming to care little for society when he was home. Rowland could be curt and dismissive of those he considered beneath his station, and I suppose I seemed untamed and unmanageable much of the time. All in all, there was little to recommend it to anyone who might be hunting for work, although the household servants were remarkably steady.
We were insular at Thornfield-Hall, and I imagine I thought life would go on like that forever. But on my eighth birthday, everything changed.
We did not generally celebrate birthdays, but Cook always made a special sweet just for me, smiling as she laid it before me. Her smiles were rare, but when they appeared they were a sight to behold: dimples deep enough to lose a farthing in, and not one but two wide gaps between her front teeth, one up and one below. Once I thought I heard someone call her Susan, but for the most part we called her “Cook.” She was extraordinary in her skills, making feasts at short notice and with whatever she had in her larder at the moment. My father nearly always ate by himself, and he wanted only plain food to fill his stomach, the quicker the better; but by the time Rowland was twelve, he was demanding the most exotic items he could think of, probably only to see if he could confound Cook and give reason for a scolding. She always nodded at his outlandish requests and smoothed her apron and set to work, and he rarely found excuse to complain.
Which does not mean he never did so.
Rowland, when he was home, ate mostly in the dining room, in full dress with a white neckcloth, sitting alone when Father was not in residence, reading the trade news from London or abroad, or examining his butterfly collection. I envied that collection—such astonishing beauties—but I could never understand how anyone could bear to kill those defenseless creatures. As for myself, once I was released from dining in the nursery, I usually ate in the kitchen, if for no other reason than that there I was less likely to offend my brother, and therefore less likely to receive a box on the head or a rap on the knuckles.
Rowland had had a tutor since he was eight or ten, and I looked forward to the day when I could have a proper scholar to be teaching me as well. Rowland’s tutor was, no doubt, the second or third or fourth son of someone not wealthy enough or too old-fashioned to provide well for all his offspring, or perhaps he was the son of a penniless vicar. I was naïve at that age, but I’d overheard enough gossip among the servants to know that if there was any fortune to be had in a family, it was vastly advantageous to be the eldest son. I had not yet thought what that might mean for me, as I was too enthralled with ideas of knights and pirates to be having practical notions about my own future.
I imagine that Mr. Richards, the tutor, was actually a decent teacher, but Rowland, who was anxious only to get on with life, was at best an indifferent student. Except in maths. Rowland loved calculations of all sorts. The income needed per month to reach three thousand pounds in two years. The odds at a horse race. The likelihood of being able to buy some tumbledown building in any given town or city and hire laborers to fix it up—if only to dab on a bit of whitewash to hide the worst of the damage—and then sell it at enough of a profit to make the whole thing worth the trouble. Or the market advantage of planting rye instead of oats, or raising cattle versus sheep. One of the earliest arguments I ever heard him have with our father must have been when I was about four and Rowland would have been twelve, and Rowland was trying to talk Father into inclosing more of his land to increase his crop yields, sending the less-industrious tenant farmers packing and turning over their fields to more assiduous ones. “You can charge higher rents,” I remember him saying, “and the crop yields will be better. It is not our responsibility to provide a living to incompetents.”
Father just laughed and gave Rowland an affectionate cuff on the shoulder. He never followed through on any of Rowland’s ideas, but even I could see his pride that this first son of his showed such interest in economic betterment.
I had always imagined that when I was old enough for the tutor, I would become as wise in the ways of the world as Rowland, and Father would laugh and cuff me on the shoulder too, and we three would dream up more and more inventive ways to make Father’s wealth greater and greater.