The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [25]
One of the group had their hand up and was determined to have his say.
“Excuse me,” began the young man in an American accent. A muscle in the tour guide’s cheek momentarily twitched as she forced herself to listen to someone else’s opinion.
“Yes?” she inquired with icy politeness.
“Well,” continued the young man, “I’m kinda new to this whole Brontë thing, but I had trouble with the end of Jane Eyre.”
“Trouble?”
“Yeah. Like Jane leaves Thornfield Hall and hitches up with her cousins, the Riverses.”
“I know who her cousins are, young man.”
“Yeah, well, she agrees to go with this drippy St. John Rivers guy but not to marry him, they depart for India and that’s the end of the book? Hello? What about a happy ending? What happens to Rochester and his nutty wife?”
The guide glowered.
“And what would you prefer? The forces of good and evil fighting to the death in the corridors of Thornfield Hall?”
“That’s not what I meant,” continued the young man, beginning to get slightly annoyed. “It’s just that the book cries out for a strong resolution, to tie up the narrative and finish the tale. I get the feeling from what she wrote that she just kinda pooped out.”
The guide stared at him for a moment through her steel-rimmed glasses and wondered why the visitors couldn’t behave just that little bit more like sheep. Sadly, his point was a valid one; she herself had often pondered the diluted ending, wishing, like millions of others, that circumstances had allowed Jane and Rochester to marry after all.
“Some things will never be known,” she replied noncommittally. Charlotte is no longer with us so the question is abstract. What we have to study and enjoy is what she has left us. The sheer exuberance of the writing easily outweighs any of its small shortcomings.”
The young American nodded and the small crowd moved on, my aunt and uncle among them. I hung back until only I and a single Japanese tourist were left in the room; I then tried to look at the original manuscript on tiptoe. It was tricky, as I was small for my age.
“Would you like me to read it for you?” said a kindly voice close at hand. It was the Japanese tourist. She smiled at me and I thanked her for her trouble.
She checked that no one was around, unfolded her reading glasses and started to speak. She spoke excellent English and had a fine reading voice; the words peeled off the page into my imagination as she spoke.
. . . In those days I was young and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind; the memories of nursery stories were there among other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigor and vividness beyond what childhood could give . . .
I closed my eyes and a thin chill suddenly filled the air around me. The tourist’s voice was clear now, as though speaking in the open air, and when I opened my eyes the museum had gone. In its place was a country lane of another place entirely. It was a fine winter’s evening and the sun was just dipping below the horizon. The air was perfectly still, the color washed from the scene. Apart from a few birds that stirred occasionally in the hedge, no movement punctuated the starkly beautiful landscape. I shivered as I saw my own breath in the crisp air, zipped up my jacket and regretted that I had left my hat and mittens on the peg downstairs. As I looked about I could see that I was not alone. Barely ten feet away a young woman, dressed in a cloak and bonnet, was sitting on a stile watching the moon that had just risen behind us. When she turned I could see that her face was plain and outwardly unremarkable, yet possessed of a bearing that showed inner strength and resolve. I stared at her intently with a mixture of feelings. I had realized not long ago