Dangerous Letters

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Letter LIII

March 19, 17--

Dearest Hannah,

There has been a terrible accident. This morning, at five o'clock, Ms. Pennyworth arose from bed and left our room for some purpose, likely to use the water-closet. I had succumbed to sleep after a restless night and did not hear her awake nor the door open and close. I was only aroused, sometime later, by the cries of the innkeeper's wife that found her. Having no light, she must have tripped down the stairs and fell with her head upon the flagstones; she was taken up bleeding from the mouth and nose, rendered quite senseless, and died before her awful plummet was discovered.

Hardened by the events of late, I bore it better than expected to the surprise of the tavern's lodgers. The inn keeper's wife was insensible, having had to see the body before it was covered. Perhaps because I was spared that sight – or because even this could not compare to the horrors that have come before – I was able to bear her passing with little agitation. I am sure that seems cold of me. Perhaps I am merely numbed. I am glad for the reprieve, however; the mute, inconsolable, blubbering variant of myself that often takes over in moments like this would not have had the presence of mind to extract Villette and myself before others arrived to investigate.

We are now in a different establishment; I changed transport three times and took us in another direction entirely – towards the mountains. We were almost unable to travel the last leg of the journey. A Christmas frost has come once more before the midsummer; a white December storm whirling over March; ice glazing the ripening apples, drifts crushing the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lies a frozen shroud: lanes which so recently blushed full of flowers, today were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.

There is no point attempting to travel to England anymore, at least not now with Mrs. Pennyworth gone. We also quit the tavern before the deadline I gave to Mr. T—D-------. I did not anticipate that he would come to our aid, but now I will never know for certain. Villette was very upset by all that transpired; she was somehow in the room with Mrs. Pennyworth afterward and laid eyes upon the corpse. When I found her, she would only say: "Who would have known the old woman to have had so much blood in her?" Poor lamb is in more shock than I. She refused to eat tonight, demanding that I take her home to her papa and was in such a short temper that I failed to coax her with entreaty or bribery of sweets. At last, I had to stealthily administer a larger dose of the laudanum (I have been applying it to her nightly milk as a preventive against her sleepwalking). She now rests like a little angel.

Erstwhile I am still kept awake by worries of our present circumstances that were troubling yesterday and even more dismal today. I have spent the better part of the last hour in rumination: "A new servitude. There is something in that," I soliloquised (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud), "I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any one may serve: I have served as a governess for many years; I can serve in another way. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing feasible? Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it.

What do I want for Villette and myself? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I suppose: but I have already pursued that avenue of inquiry. And the Marquis has my letters; he will know all of my correspondences. (He will also know of Mr. T—D-----; perhaps he has already intercepted my message?)

There are many others who have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?" I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly twenty minutes it worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts. One notion was immediately discarded for another; I could advertise under a pseudonym or make inquiries in person at some schooling establishment but what respectable employer would take a woman with a child and no references?

Finally, I alighted on one possibility: a convent in L--- called S---- M------'s C------ --- Y---- G----. You may recall that I spent some time there briefly many years ago; it is undoubtedly a risk to attempt to hide in any place that could be associated with my past but with little alternative I might try my luck there. Or, if not, any recommendation can be made to some member of that community on my behalf. I am, after all, qualified to teach the usual branches of a good French education, together with English, Drawing, and Music. This may yet secure us something. I cannot fathom what will become of us if this plan fails. I will not allow Villette to return to her father, I would sooner her body died than send her soul back to such an accursed fate.

When I think of the Marquis, of his powers of eloquence and persuasion, and then I think of the lifeless form of his late wife, my imagination kindles and I can almost think of striking out against the fiend. I was so certain that he was somehow responsible for Mrs. Pennyworth's untimely demise, that his hand had reached out an orchestrated yet another innocent to fall. That a ghoulish entity at his behest had sprung for the chateau and, no longer confined to disturb those walls, sought revenge on behalf of the man who first ripped its life from the body. That this is all some nefarious scheme of entrapment whereby I would believe us free only to be cruelly and mercilessly snatched up at the last second. Even now, he may be lurking just beyond – but no, I must not think in these ways; that way madness lies; let me shun that; no more of that.

When murder is sanctuarized; revenge should have no bounds. If it were not for my mademoiselle, I should think little of the risk of turning against him more firmly – now that my virtue has become but a shadow, my happiness and affectation turned into bitter and loathing despair. Yet he is free to continue as he was, never stopped, whilst I must be content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; would I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. The fact that he lives to haunt us is almost unbearable; when I run over the frightful catalog of my Master's sins, I cannot believe that he is the same creature who I once thought of with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of nobility. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

How I miss you, Hannah. How I long for my home. My mother and father. How I wish I could join you all once more. Oh, oh, I cannot write on –

C.B.