I opened my eyes, frowned, and looked around. I was in a small yet well-furnished room quite close to a half-open window. Across the lawn some tall poplars swayed in the breeze, but I didn’t recognise the view; this was not Thornfield. The door opened and Mary walked in.
‘Miss Next!’ she said kindly. ‘What a fright you gave us!’
‘Have I been unconscious long?’
‘Three days. A very bad concussion, Dr Carter said.’
‘Where—?’
‘You’re at Ferndean, Miss Next,’ replied Mary soothingly, ‘one of Mr Rochester’s other properties. You will be weak; I’ll bring some broth.’
I grabbed her arm.
‘And Mr Rochester?’
She paused and smiled at me, patted my hand and said she would fetch the broth.
I lay back, thinking about the night Thornfield burned. Poor Bertha Rochester. Had she realised that she had saved our lives by her fortuitous choice of weapons? Perhaps, somewhere in her addled mind, she was in tune with the abomination that had been Hades. I would never know, but I thanked her anyway.
Within a week I was able to get up and move about, although I still suffered badly from headaches and dizziness. I learned that after the servants’ staircase had collapsed I had been knocked unconscious. Rochester, in great pain himself, had wrapped me in a curtain and dashed with me from the burning house. He had been hit by a falling beam in the attempt and was blinded; the hand shattered by Acheron’s bullet had been amputated the morning following the fire. I met with him in the darkness of the dining room.
‘Are you in much pain, sir?’ I asked, looking at the bedraggled figure; he still had bandaged eyes.
‘Luckily, no,’ he lied, wincing as he moved.
‘Thank you; you have saved my life for a second time.’
He gave a wan smile.
‘You returned my Jane to me. For those few months of happiness, I would suffer twice these wounds. But let us not speak of my wretched state. You are well?’
‘Thanks to you.’
‘Yes, yes, but how will you return? I expect Jane is already in India by now with that gutless pantaloon Rivers; and with her goes the narrative. I don’t see your friends being able to rescue you.’
‘I will think of something,’ I said, patting him on the sleeve. ‘You never know what the future will bring.’
It was the morning of the following day; my months in the book had passed in as much time as it takes to read them. The Welsh Politburo, alerted to the wrongdoings on their doorstep, had given Victor, Finisterre and a member of the Bronte Federation a safe conduct to the mouldering Penderyn Hotel, where they now stood with Bowden, Mycroft and an increasingly nervous Jack Schitt. The representative of the Bronte Federation was reading the words as they appeared on the yellowed manuscript in front of him. Aside from a few minor changes, the book was travelling the same course it always did; it had been word perfect for the past two hours. Jane was being proposed to by St John Rivers, who wanted her to go with him to India as his wife, and she was about to make up her mind.
Mycroft drummed his fingers on the desk and glanced at the rows of flicking dials on his contraption; all he needed was somewhere to open the door. Trouble was, they were fast running out of pages.
Then, the miraculous happened. The Bronte Federation expert, a small, usually unexcitable man named Plink, was suddenly ignited by shock.
‘Wait a minute; this is new! This didn’t happen!’
‘What?’ cried Victor, rapidly flicking to his own copy. Indeed, Mr Plink was correct. There, as the words etched themselves across the paper, was a new development in the narrative. After Jane promised St John Rivers that if it was God’s will that they should be married, then they would, there was a voice—a new voice, Rochester’s voice, calling to her across the ether. But from where? It was a question that was being asked simultaneously by nearly eighty million people worldwide, all following the new story unfolding in front of their eyes. ‘What does it mean?’ asked Victor.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Plink. ‘It’s pure Charlotte Bronte but it definitely wasn’t there before!’
‘Thursday,’ murmured Victor. ‘It has to be. Mycroft, stay on your toes!’
They read delightedly as Jane changed her mind about India and St John Rivers and decided to return to Thornfield.
I made it back to Ferndean and Rochester just before Jane did. I met Rochester in the dining room and told him the news; how I had found her at the Rivers’ house, gone to her window and barked: ‘Jane, Jane, Jane!’ in a hoarse whisper the way that Rochester did. It wasn’t a good impersonation but it did the trick. I saw Jane start to fluster and pack almost immediately. Rochester seemed less than excited about the news.
‘I don’t know whether I should thank you or curse you, Miss Next. To think that I should be seen like this, a blind man with one good arm. And Thornfield a ruin! She shall hate me, I know it!’
‘You are wrong, Mr Rochester. And if you know Jane as well as I think you do, you would not even begin to entertain such thoughts!’
There was a rap at the door. It was Mary. She announced that Rochester had a visitor but that they would not give their name.
‘Oh Lord!’ exclaimed Rochester. ‘It’s her! Tell me, Miss Next, could she love me? Like this, I mean?’
I leaned across and kissed his forehead.
‘Of course she could. Anyone could. Mary, refuse her entry; if I know her she will enter anyway. Goodbye, Mr Rochester. I can think of no way to thank you, so I shall just say that you and Jane will be in my thoughts always.’
Rochester moved his head, trying to gauge where I was by sound alone. He put out his hand and held mine tightly. He was warm to the touch, yet soft. Thoughts of Landen entered my mind.
‘Farewell, Miss Next! You have a great heart; do not let it go to waste. You have one who loves you and whom you love yourself. Choose happiness!’
I slipped quickly out into the adjoining room as Jane entered. I quietly latched the door as Rochester did a fine job of pretending that he didn’t know who she was.
‘Give me the water, Mary,’ I heard him say. There was a rustle and then I heard Pilot padding about.
‘What is the matter?’ asked Rochester in his most annoyed and gruff expression. I stifled a giggle.
‘Down, Pilot!’ said Jane. The dog was quiet and there was a pause.
‘This is you, Mary, is it not?’ asked Rochester.
‘Mary is in the kitchen,’ replied Jane.
I pulled the now battered manual out of my pocket with the slightly charred poem. I still had Jack Schitt to contend with, but that would have to wait. I sat down on a chair as an exclamation from Rochester made its way through the door:
‘Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?’
I strained to hear the conversation.
‘Pilot knows me,’ returned Jane happily, ‘and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this afternoon!’
‘Great God!’ exclaimed Rochester. ‘What delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?’
I whispered: ‘Thank you, Edward,’ as the portal opened in the corner of the room. I took one last look around at a place to which I would never return, and stepped through.
There was a flash and a blast of static, Ferndean Manor was gone, and in its place I saw the familiar surroundings of the shabby lounge of the Penderyn Hotel. Bowden, Mycroft and Victor all rushed forward to greet me. I handed the manual and poem to Mycroft, who swiftly set about opening the door to ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.’
‘Hades?’ asked Victor.
‘Dead.’
‘Completely?’
‘Utterly.’
In a few moments the Prose Portal reopened and Mycroft rushed inside, returning shortly afterwards clutching Polly by the hand; she was holding a bunch of daffodils and trying to explain something.