Dear Jane,

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What do I write about your dear spirit? Words fall short when I try to set my thoughts to paper or screen.

It is difficult to compose all the things I wish to tell you in this letter knowing you will never read it. Even if I send it at its completion, you are not here to receive its arrival. Perhaps it will help soothe my aching heart to know that the truth of my feelings for you resides in physical form. For if it exists, then I can no longer hide from it.

I have told you I was tricked into marrying Bertha Mason, but I never told you of that time.

I was a young man eager to please my father. You know he doted on my older brother Rowland, and I was a mere thing to be bargained with. I had only seen and spoken to Bertha twice before we were married. I didn’t think much of it at the time. My head was clouded with lust—for she was once a beautiful thing—and the desire to become a worthy man in my father’s eyes. It wasn’t until much later that things began to deteriorate.

Her character began to change quite suddenly, and fits of violence would take her. She would strike out to all who came near, curse the foulest words, and spit and strike without provocation.

I pleaded with my father to keep the marriage secret so that none should ever know the truth of the demon I was tricked into taking as my wife. It was agreed upon, and to the world, it seemed I remained a bachelor, and Bertha was hidden, being much too volatile to be set loose.

I kept her with me at first, locked away in the far reaches of a house I kept in Paris. Then, as you know, she took Rowland’s life with a knife she had spirited away like the cunning beast she is. She would have done the very same to you, dear Jane, and she almost succeeded if not for the scene she created stalking you that day.

After Rowland’s death, I employed Grace Poole to care for Bertha. She is a queer sort of woman, but she is tough, though she seems to have let her own faculties slip this past year. With Bertha installed with a warden, I was free to go about my life as though nothing had ever happened.

I became my father’s protégé, but my heart had changed dramatically. Where once I wanted to please him, I now resented all that came with the Rochester name. I traveled the world, I indulged in sins and fantasies, but nothing could fill the darkness in my soul. I took lovers and mistresses. I engaged in sexual acts so depraved I am ashamed to admit them to you. I could not go through life with pleasure without causing myself pain. I did not deserve happiness. I felt responsible for Rowland and Bertha for bending so easily to my father’s will that I could not see the trap the Mason’s had laid for us.

You know what my father did next. How he had attempted to murder Bertha, and then how I had her hidden at Thornfield to keep her safe from both our families. Her younger brother, Richard Mason, was my only ally and sole confidant to what had really happened in those years.

After my father passed, I floated through life made up of nothing but anger and humiliation for what I’d become. I tried to take my own life. Did you know that? Unlikely. It was a lonely evening alone with my self-loathing, and I could not go through with it. I’ve told no one, not until this very moment. Knowing you will never see this letter, all knowledge of the lowest parts of my life will pass with me into the grave.

I have not always been so wretched and despicable, but for the last ten years, I have known nothing else. Truthfully, I wanted nothing or no one until the night of a certain motorcycle accident. I was stone. Closed to feeling to survive my treacherous and cowardly life.

It was a frosty winter night when I almost ran down a lonely woman on the road to the forsaken place I am bound to. Thornfield. What a despicable place it was until I saw you walk through her halls and linger in her library. Those books had belonged to my mother. Did you know? If there was any purer soul in the world other than yours, dear Jane, it was hers.

I’d purchased that motorcycle a month prior to riding to Thornfield. I don’t know what whim took me when I purchased it. Perhaps fate led me into that dealership, though at the time, it was a keen sense of despair. I had not lived in a long time, and I wished to feel something other than the darkness my life had become. If I had not bought that motorcycle, I would not have been on that road the night I happened upon you.

I did not know when I laid eyes on the wild and stubborn woman who sent me flying into the dirt that she would be the cause of such fascination to me. She was unafraid to speak her mind even when my temper was raised. She would not leave me alone until I took matters into my own hands and rode away.

When I found you in my library pawing at my mother’s books, I did not recognize you at first, but when I looked into your eyes... I cannot find the words to describe what I felt at that moment. I had to be careful, Jane. I knew not who you were or what intentions you held. I subdued my desire to take you for my own then and there. I could not be tricked a second time.

I listened and watched, determining your character when you were not in my presence. Outside of my influence, you were quiet, thoughtful, and spoke plainly. You helped wherever you could without complaint, you offered others sound advice, yet I discerned an air of worry in you. You were involved in the workings of Thornfield, yet you were apart from it. I saw you turn from frivolity to wander the halls deep in thought.

I wondered if you thought of me and if you would seek me out, but you did not. You kept to yourself, attempting to hide your depression, and snuck away to the library time and time again. You had little hope in you, and it worried me, though when I presented myself to you, Jane, you fought me to the point I was completely intoxicated.

If you think I never saw who you were, Jane, you are mistaken. A name is nothing compared to who a human being is at their core. You showed me your true face time and time again. My most grievous mistake was not trusting you with mine.

I want for nothing more than to marry you and live in this world by your side. I had a wife before, that is true, but she has not been so for many years. It is you I wish to give myself to. You and no other.

You…you unearthly creature. I am lost at scribing words of endearment, and I cannot aptly explain what I see when I lay my eyes upon you. I am much better at showing you my affection, but you are gone. I long to touch your soft skin, kiss your fiery lips, and tangle with your sharp tongue. I ache without you in my arms. Without your love to guide me, I am nothing more than a shell—empty and soulless.

You are my match in every way. You master me like no other, and I cannot let you go so easily.

I know I have hurt you gravely, Jane, and for that, I am deeply sorry. I understand why you ran, and I will give you the time you desire but know this. I will come for you. I cannot let you go, my love, my light, my salvation.

I will come.

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Yours forever,

Edward Rochester.

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