Georgiana and I reached Gateshead at five p.m. on December first.

The sun had long set as winter was in control of England and her lands, and the wind was bitter and full of ice, the promise of snow heavy on the horizon. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to wake in the morning and find a meter of snow had fallen.

It wasn’t quite as grand as Thornfield, nor was its grounds as vast, but Gateshead was a manor house with a long winding history of its own. It sat on the outskirts of Greater London, mere miles from the outermost tube stations that linked the country to the city.

We entered the house via the kitchens, and when we entered the sitting room, Robert Leaven and another woman I didn’t recognize greeted us. Our coats and bags were taken and set to the side, and we were doted upon like ladies of station in the old days.

“Miss Jane!” Mr. Leaven exclaimed, taking my hands. “I’m glad to see you. Your hands are like ice. Come, sit by the radiator and warm yourself. Miss Georgiana, come.” He fussed over us like an old nursemaid, turning up the dial on the wall to blast more heat into the room.

“Are you hungry?” he went on. “I can call Violetta and have her make you something.”

I glanced at Georgiana and she said, “Violetta is the cook. We still keep staff on to run the household even though it’s only mother and me. There is another maid, who you have just seen, and also Mr. Leaven and another man to help keep the grounds. In summer, the house has been open to visitors for the National Trust, and they bequeath staff on open-house days, but we have kept it closed since mother became ill.”

We were served a hot dinner and regaled each other with stories as we ate. Georgiana had been living in London, working, studying, and partying when her mother became ill. She’d had many boyfriends and several offers of marriage that she’d turned down. She was neither ready nor willing to settle, and it was refreshing to hear it, knowing Aunt Sarah would have pressured her to wed some rich fellow of noble stock like she was breeding pedigree racehorses.

My story wasn’t quite as spectacular, but I told her all I could, leaving out the events of the last year and all mention of Edward Rochester and the damage he’d wrought on my heart. My cousin and I were two different sides of the same coin.

She asked if I was happy, and I answered as well as I could since my own life was also in transition. I would leave Thornfield soon, but I was unsure as to where I would sojourn. Georgiana was scandalized I didn’t keep a mobile phone or any social media profiles and took it upon herself to help me find the perfect device so we could keep in contact once I left.

I studied everything I could see, trying to recall the Gateshead of my childhood. Some things had certainly changed, the walls had been painted, and the rugs had been changed, but overall, it was exactly as I remembered. The same paintings hung on the walls, the rooms had the same air about them, and even the chandelier in the dining room sparkled the same way.

I slept in the guest room that night, and it was a sight better than the cot I was given as a child in the old servants quarters. Truthfully, being at Gateshead as I was now unsettled me, and I couldn’t fall asleep easily even though I was exhausted from our journey and a whole evening of talking. Being welcomed into this place with a warm heart wasn’t something I associated with these walls.

Fifteen years ago, I’d left Gateshead as a burden, my heart raw and bleeding, departing for an unknown place that was to be a waking nightmare. Now I returned to it with my prospects completely unknown, my insides battered and bruised, and my soul aching just as much as it did then.

What had I learned in all those years? Had I grown? I scarcely knew, but I suppose many things had changed even as doubt remained.

The next morning, I went to see Aunt Sarah.

Georgiana said she was in her old bedroom, the one she’d always occupied when I was a child, and I found it with no trouble. I didn’t need to be guided through the house at any stage yet, and I remembered Gateshead as if I was resident in it as recently as last week.

As I eased open the door, I wondered if I would remember my aunt when I finally entered her room and looked upon her face. I recalled her likeness completely, though so much time had passed. Surely she was as much changed as I.

I saw her immediately as did she when she saw movement at her side. There was an assortment of medical equipment at the head of the bed, but I scarcely noticed what each was or what it was for. The room had a sickly scent about it even though the curtains had been drawn open to let in the gray but bright light from outside. All I could focus on was Aunt Sarah.

She was stern, harsh, and judgmental as always, her pointed features wrinkled, and her hair dusted with gray. How often had she cast those darkened eyes on me in hate as a child? Too often to count, I was afraid. Recollections of punishments and incarcerations lifted to the surface of my mind as I beheld her and she beheld me.

“Is that Jane?” she asked, her voice nothing but a low rasp.

“Yes, Aunt,” I replied, surprised to find I was not afraid of her. “It is Jane as requested.”

“Jane?” Her mind seemed to have become muddled, and she no longer recognized me. “I had so much trouble with that child. Such a burden to be left on me! She caused me so much annoyance every single minute of every day. Her solitary ways, her strange eyes always watching, and her sudden fits of temper! She became so violent I had to send her away. They said the headmaster at that school abused his students, and a girl died because of his neglect. I wished she’d been the one, but she wasn’t. She lived, the wretch!”

“Why do you hate her?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“I disliked her mother. She was my husband’s only sister, and he doted on her more than he did me. He was the only one in his family who did not oppose it when she married that charlatan. He was poor and conniving, and no one liked him, not at all! When news came of their deaths, he cried like a baby for weeks. Their child was in the car with them, did you know?” I nodded, but she didn’t notice. “When John sent for the baby, I tried to convince him to let it go to an orphanage, but he wouldn’t listen. I hated it from the first time I set eyes on the thing. All it would do was cry and cry! I hated it, and he treated it as his own. If I’d known it would grow into such an ungrateful child, I would have cast it out sooner, but John died and made me promise to care for it.” She scowled fiercely and turned her face from mine.

I didn’t know what to do or say, so I sat there and allowed her to rant and say her piece, no matter how hurtful it was to me. She was an elderly lady on her deathbed, and I was afraid if I excited her further, she would expire on the spot.

Rising to my feet, I straightened her blankets and made sure her cup of water was full before turning to leave.

“Wait!” she croaked. “Don’t let John come here.”

“John?” I asked, hesitating at her bedside.

“My son! Don’t let him come. He asks for money all the time, and I have none left to give him. He threatens me continuously with violence and his own death, and I cannot bear it anymore. How can I help him? I am done.”

Georgiana appeared at the door, drawn by her mother’s raised voice.

“I think I better leave her now,” I said to her.

“Come,” my cousin murmured, gesturing for me to leave the room. “She’ll settle once we’re all gone.”

Once the door was closed and we were alone, I began to wonder on Aunt Sarah’s declining health.

“Is she always like that?” I asked as we returned to the sitting room.

Georgiana nodded. “It’s becoming more frequent. The doctors said the stroke damaged the parts of her brain that control memory and emotional response. She can be quite unpredictable some days.”

“There’s nothing to be done?”

“Nothing. The only thing we can do is make her comfortable.”

“It must be a terrible burden to bear. I didn’t understand.”

She smiled as we sat beside the fireplace. “It is what it is.”

I hadn’t wanted to revisit my past, let alone look upon its face, but I’d promised, so here I was. The true test was still to come as whatever Aunt Sarah wanted to tell me was still very much unsaid. What could she possibly have to say to me after all this time?

I went and saw Aunt Sarah again the next day.

It was a wet and windy afternoon. The rain beat strongly against the windows, and the heat from the radiators fogged the panes of glass. Outside, I could see the trees swaying to and fro in the gale, and I fancied I could see sleet beginning to form among the heavy drops of water.

Turning, I gazed down at Aunt Sarah who was peering at me curiously. She looked frailer to me than she had the day before, the gray light from the gathering storm outside casting a look of the hereafter about her face. I wondered where she would go once she’d passed, but I suppose I wouldn’t know or understand until it was my time.

In pondering the great mystery of the next life, I found myself thinking of Helen and her last words to me that night she lay dying in her bed at Lowood. She believed she wasn’t meant for this world, not yet, but all I could see at that moment was my failure to save her. She didn’t die because she wasn’t ready to live, not at all. She’d died because she’d been neglected. If reincarnation was indeed real, I believed Helen Burns was reborn that very night.

I met Aunt Sarah’s gaze and held it, wondering where she would go, and if she’d walk this earth again. I could speculate all I wished. The decision wouldn’t be up to me.

“Who is that?” the old woman asked.

“Jane,” I replied. “Do you remember asking for me, Aunt?”

She peered at me as if she were trying to recall. “I know those eyes,” she said with a snarl. “Those are Eyre eyes.”

I frowned, wondering what strange story her mind had conjured this time. Moving from the window, I sat in the chair beside her bed.

“Fifteen years,” she said. “I haven’t seen you since the day you left for Lowood.”

I nodded.

“You have truly come?” she asked, her hand searching for mine.

“I have.” I allowed her to hold onto me, my gaze sitting upon her cold, withered hand. Her mind seemed present today, and I readied myself to hear the words she wanted to tell me in person.

“I’m very ill,” she said, her voice weakening. “No doubt, Georgiana has told you the whole story?”

“Yes, she has.”

“Then there is naught much else for me to explain.” She let my hand go and waved to the dresser drawer beside the bed. “There’s a letter in there. Will you retrieve it?”

I obeyed her direction like an automaton and found the letter quite easily. It was the only item in the drawer.

“Read it,” she commanded.

With shaking fingers, I opened the envelope and slid out the folded paper. Upon opening it, I found it was very short.

---

To Sarah Reed,

---

Would you have the decency to send me my niece’s name and address, and tell me how she is?

It has been some years since we last spoke, not since the passing of your late husband. This letter will cause you some discourse as I have built a great fortune in the meantime and currently reside in Madeira. I wish to know the young girl as I have had no family of my own. As the daughter of my late brother, she is my last living relative, and I wish to adopt and bestow upon her all I have earned.

I hope you will allow the past to lie calmly and forward me her information as soon as you are able.

---

Sincerely,

James Eyre.

Madeira, Portugal.

---

“Jane Eyre,” Aunt Sarah rasped. “That is who you are.”

Eyre.

I closed my eyes as it settled in my thoughts and sank into my very being. My name was Jane Eyre.

My name. I’d craved it my entire life, to know where I’d come from and who I belonged to, if anyone. Now it was before me, and I didn’t know what to do.

I was Jane Eyre.

“When did you receive this letter?” I asked, hardly daring to look upon her face.

“Ten years ago.”

“Ten years?” My eyes flew open. Was this her chance for a final blow to my spirit?

“You were just a baby,” she whispered. “A defenseless little baby, and I hated you. You are the spitting image of your father, did you know?”

I shook my head. “How would I know? I’ve never seen his picture.”

“I know you hate me, Jane,” she said. “You are well within your rights.”

“Dear Aunt,” I said, my heart heavy with the burden my past had placed on me. “Perhaps I should be angry, but I am more passionate than vindictive. I would have loved you if you would have let me, and I tried on many occasions. Many wrongs were done, but neither of us can change them. What’s done is done.”

“Jane…” She grasped my hand desperately.

“Love me or hate me, I no longer care,” I said. “You have my forgiveness, and what you do with it is entirely up to you.”

She glared at me, distraught at my words even though I’d given her what she wished. Forgiveness.

Rising, I slipped the letter into my back pocket and then offered her some water. She turned from me, almost spilling the entire contents of the cup over herself. When I fixed her blankets, she shrank away from my touch, and finally, I removed myself from the room, leaving her to rest alone.

Poor woman, I thought to myself. Perhaps it was too late to change. After a lifetime of hating, she must despise me on her deathbed, too. There was nothing to be done about it—I could neither love nor hate her—so I withdrew to the sitting room.

The next morning, Georgiana came to tell me Sarah Reed died calmly in her sleep during the night. That same morning, I assisted my cousin with the preparations for the funeral as we waited for the ambulance to come and withdraw my aunt’s body. We lingered at the door as the vehicle departed, now familiar as cousins and friends, and her mother was borne away.

Neither of us spoke as snow began to fall, the flakes settling on the lawn and clinging to our hair and coats. Everything was still and close, the reality of living heavy on our minds.

It was a strange and solemn day.