“Mr. Wharton!” I cried, for I had been following him for half a mile but had only now caught up to him. I had spied that gentleman walking deliberately along the whitened road, his scarf pulled tight round his neck and his cane in his gloved hand.
He turned and waited for me to approach. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Rochester. It is a chilly day to be abroad, is it not?”
“It is, but I do not dislike it.”
“No? I find it icy enough, but I daresay I will become used to it. Are you walking into Morton? May I escort you? I am not in a great hurry, you see, and am happy to go at any pace you choose to set.”
“Thank you, I would be glad of your company, though I am only going to the apothecary to fetch more cough drops.”
“I hope the good apothecary’s wares, that is to say, the apothecary’s good wares, are of service to you.”
“Is there any harm in the apothecary himself?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” He smiled. “But I do not always like to call men good. Do you know, I find I am set up as a sort of authority as a clergyman. People expect my opinion to be more weighty and momentous than that of other men. I must be careful what I say. Rather absurd, really, for I am an ordinary man, like any other.”
I thought I saw an opportune moment to pose a question. “As an ordinary man, as you say, do you find yourself much affected by these reports of a strange being, a gytrash, a ghost haunting the moor?” I spoke in a light and playful tone, but I looked as close as I could at the parson’s face, and watched as a spot of pink-coloured his cheek.
“What makes you ask me about such a thing?”
“As the spiritual authority of Morton,” I strove to continue the bantering tone, though my companion’s face was growing sombre. “Surely ghosts and spirits fall under your province. What answer do you give your parishioners when they ask you about the subject?”
“I do not believe anyone has asked me yet. They do not seem to expect my opinion to be of much weight there. They are already quite convinced it is real.”
“A remarkable instance of belief.”
“I do not think it is so remarkable,” said he, and in a serious, thoughtful tone. “Men are inclined to regard their immediate experience with greater authority than any other. And I do not think the perceptions of our senses are to be lightly discarded. Our Maker did not grant us eyes and ears for nothing. Nor nerves, nor brain.”
“You do not altogether disbelieve the gytrash? That it stalks the moor portending imminent death?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know a great deal about your moor,” said he, and his eyes took on a far away look. “When the wind is blowing just so, I feel it speaks almost with a voice, a hundred voices, whispering secrets in one’s soul, and not always the sort of secret thoughts one wishes to think. This is a lonely place in Morton Vale, is it not? It is not a hospitable home for the melancholy or dispirited.”
I noted, reader, that he did not answer my question. I wished to know more of Mr. Wharton’s thoughts on midnight visitants, but I seemed to have come near to touching some melancholy idea that troubled him. I would gladly know more of it.
“This is a barren place if one requires diversion from painful and tormenting thoughts. The remembrance of the past may sometimes be a heavy weight under the influence of a lonely fireside and a wuthering wind.”
I thought of Mr. Rochester as I spoke, for the past was ever his tormentor. But I saw Mr. Wharton give an almost involuntary shake of his head as I spoke. “I am thankful indeed, to be spared that. Regrets I have, but they are not of the unendurable sort. Do you suffer much from the scourge of memory?”
“Though not altogether thronged with happy recollections, I own I am comforted to know that having followed the precepts instilled in me when I was young, I have reaped the benefit thereof. I can contemplate my past with gratitude and contentment. The future, too, bears the visage of hope to me. But there are of course some who regard the future as the greater burden. Blighted hopes may be a source of perpetual pain.”
He sighed. “How true that is! It is God’s intention that we should live our days in hope of some future good that is vouchsafed us, but it may be the unhappy burden of despair to look ahead at an immediate future shorn of reward.”
“You remind me of St. John. He was much troubled by the confining atmosphere of Morton. His own hopes for an ambitious calling were almost relentless, I think. They drove him all the way to India.”
“A drastic step, but I believe the calling was a true one. He is well suited, you know, to what he has undertaken.”
“Do you find your current profession a source of dissatisfaction?”
He looked up at me in surprise, for it was certainly a daring question. “Not at all! Whatever makes you think so?”
“I did not think so. I was not sure. You speak of melancholy and despair, of a doubtful future, of constraint upon hope. What troubles your future prospects?”
His step halted and he looked fully into my eyes with a searching gaze. “Your question is rather personal, Mrs. Rochester.”
I said nothing, for I meant to wring an answer from this man. Though loquacious on ordinary social occasions, I had long noticed that he stayed resolutely off one subject in particular: himself. I felt sure now that his heart was burdened in some way. I waited, and watched, and at length, he said:
“I am striving, you see, to live contentedly with my lot, and not always with as much success as I would like. It is of no use to speak of my future hopes, for they are solely in the hands of God.”
“May we not speak of my cousin then? Of Mary Rivers?”
A red flush damasked his face. Misery, anguish, doubt, all passed in turn through his soft brown eye. “Mary is engaged to my cousin. We may speak of that if you wish.”
“You encouraged her to accept his proposal.”
“Yes,” he said, with a sorrowful sigh. “And it is best that she should.”
“But sir, I am sure, if you but knew her heart—”
“I can do nothing about her heart. Or mine. She is engaged to another. There is nothing more to say on the matter.”
“There is a great deal to be said when a woman is engaged to one man while she loves another.”
His face blanched white, truly white, so that his dark eyes flashed even more resolutely. He seemed to give himself a shake however, and turned his gaze away from me, to the high hills beyond the village. A resolution, deeply held and firmly kept, aided him, I thought. He clenched his hands behind his back and walked on.
“You mean well, Mrs. Rochester, but there is nothing else to be done. I can assure you I have thoroughly gone over this line of reasoning, again and again. The facts are as plain before me as they are to you. But what you don’t know—” He stopped once more, his eye on the distant hills. In a very low voice, scarcely audible, he said. “I have seen it, you know.”
“Seen what?” For in pleading Mary’s case, I had forgotten my original purpose.
“The gytrash. It is as real as they say, I am sure of it. I came to Morton because my heart is weak. I wished to give what days I had left to an English village. To spend the remainder of my life ministering to those of my own country. But you must understand. I cannot doubt the evidence of my own eyes. My time is much shorter than I previously believed. God has given me a warning, that I may live my final days accordingly.” I watched him raise his chin, his face set in a look of resolute endurance. “Let us leave matters as they are.