Glover was waiting with the trap in the front courtyard at seven o’clock in the morning. Cook had already given me as hearty a breakfast as I could eat, and had further wrapped three pork pies and a half dozen ginger biscuits into a square of muslin for me to take, “to keep that stomach of yours from rebelling.” She held me close to her ample bosom, careless for once of her floury hands, then hurried me along and turned quickly away. Holdredge and Knox waited at the front door to bid me farewell, the kind of display one might expect for my father or even Rowland but that came as a surprise to me. Holdredge shook my hand wordlessly in good-bye, and Knox put her hands on my shoulders and told me that she would expect me to comport myself in a proper manner, but I thought I saw moisture in her eyes. Then it was down the step and across the paving stones, and I climbed onto the trap, where my rope-bound trunk had already been laid, and I was off. I gazed back at Thornfield-Hall as it disappeared from sight, and Knox remained in the doorway for as long as I could see her.
In Millcote, Glover was kind enough to wait with me at the George Inn until the coach came through, whereupon he put my trunk up and made sure I was settled inside. He told the driver where I was bound before he gave a perfunctory wave and walked back to the trap. I had been a careless child, it is clear. In my yearning for the larger shows of love, I had barely noticed such little kindnesses. I forced back the tears and distracted myself by gazing about me, the cloth-wrapped parcel held possessively in my lap. To my left was a portly gentleman in a brown waistcoat and yellow trousers who smelled of snuff and who had an abundance of whiskers covering his jowls. To my right was a lady in a dark gray traveling outfit who spent most of her time holding her skirts close, as if afraid I might infect her. Across from me sat another woman, with a girl younger than I, and beside them a man, large and red-faced, opened his eyes just enough to see me enter and then closed them again and proceeded to snore.
I had never been farther from home than Millcote, and there only three or four times, so I spent most of the journey staring out the coach windows at moors and fields, hills and dales, and occasional villages with muddy sheep grazing in the commons. The woman and the girl left us at Keighley, but two men took their place, wearing heavy blue greatcoats that seemed the worse for wear. Their entrance disturbed the sleeping man in the corner and caused much grumbling and resettling among the three of them. A few times they glanced across at me and the lady beside me, as if wondering whether one of us, who took up so much less space, could be persuaded to change places, but they never asked. I sat back into my seat as comfortably as possible, sleepy after a night of anticipation and fear. The coach stopped a few more times, but no one got off and the new passengers had to climb up top. The day waned, and shadows spread over the fells and dales around us.
The coach let us all off at the Four Bells, where the others would spend the night, and from which I was to be picked up and driven to Black Hill. By that time it was dark, and there seemed to be no one there for me, so I lugged my trunk into the common room and found a place to sit. It was far from the fire, near which all the seats had already been taken, but it was still warmer and somewhat lighter than it was outside. My stomach rumbled, but with everything else taken care of for me, I had been sent off without money, and I had long since eaten the pork pies and biscuits. The lady who had been sitting beside me had disappeared, but the two men in greatcoats were standing near the fire, engaged in banter with the innkeeper. One of them eventually noticed me and strode over. “You’re by yourself, boy?” he asked. “Not with the lovely lady?”
“No, sir, I am on my own.”
“And not having anything to eat?”
“They are coming for me,” I said, not wanting to reveal that I had no money.
“Who is coming?”
I shrugged, because indeed I had no idea who was coming. “From Black Hill,” I said.
He turned away then, going back to his companion and the landlord, who said something to the men that made them laugh, but he looked over at me with a new curiosity. Some minutes later a barmaid brought me a plate of cold roast beef and a knob of bread, but I shook my head, telling her I had no money to pay. She smiled, showing blackened teeth. “Never mind,” she said, and she shoved the plate into my hands. I fell to it, thinking it the best meal I had had in months.
I must have nodded off, because the next thing I knew someone was shaking me awake. I opened my eyes to see a man, short and broad and nearly square, grasping my shoulders with both hands. “Master Rochester,” he said in a gravelly voice, “is this you?”
I nodded wordlessly.
“And it’s me to get you,” he said. When, still dazed with sleep, I didn’t respond, he added, “For Black Hill.”
With that I was up like a shot. He shouldered my trunk and led the way to an old cart parked outside, drawn by an even older horse. There was but one seat—for the driver—so I climbed into the cart and sat beside my trunk as we jolted along in the darkness. Not a star was in sight; even the moon had disappeared, and I wondered how the strange man could find the way in such complete darkness, until I realized that he was probably giving the horse its rein and letting it find its own way home.
It must have been about an hour, though it seemed half the night, before the driver turned to me and said, “There it is, just ahead.” I could still see nothing—no candle burning in a window, no slant of moonlight against a brass door handle, nothing. Then I began to hear a difference in the hoofbeats, as if the horse were hurrying toward the stable, and the driver said, “Yee,” to stop him. In the sudden silence I could hear only the wind in the trees and a distant owl and the snort of the horse.
The driver climbed down and pulled my trunk from the cart, leaving me to get out in darkness as he walked to the door. He did not pull a bell but just walked in, and as soon as the door opened I could see a faint light—enough to follow him by. He preceded me into a room with a fireplace burning low and a lump of something seen dimly in the glow of a single candle.
As we came closer, the lump stirred and I could make out that it must be a man sitting in a chair, and I stopped. The cart driver dropped my trunk unceremoniously and left. “Come closer,” said the man in the chair. “Let me see you in the light.”
I stepped as close as I dared, shivering from the cold or from anxiety, or both.
“Closer,” he said, and I took another step. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Mr. Hiram Lincoln?” I responded.
“You are young Edward Rochester,” he said. It was not a question, so I did not reply.
“Are you not?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir, I am,” I said.
“You are very late.”
“I had to wait for the cart. I did not know how to come otherwise.”
“Hmm,” he said. I had gotten a better look at him by then—he seemed a huge man, both tall and heavy, and his voice was unusually high. “We go to bed with the sun here at Black Hill,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” I said.
“And we rise with the sun.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gazed at me for a time without saying anything. There was something about him that I sensed, a kind of latent power, and I realized that not only was I powerless—a feeling I was used to anyway—but I had little idea of where I was, or for how long, or what was to become of me afterwards. “There are three of you boys now,” he said. “The other two share the big bed. You will sleep on the cot. Did you bring your own bedding?”
“No, sir, I did not know—”
“You should have known. Your people should have told you.”