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The Way She Was

David J. Thompson

I was shocked on such short notice
to get an invitation to my old friend
Rochester’s wedding. I hadn’t seen
him much since our crazy days at Oxford,
but I had heard all about all the hell
he went through with Celine, that French singer,
a polite word for what she really was,
and with that little girl (and by the way,
does anyone really believe she’s not his?
Yeah, right. Give me a fucking break)
around all the time as a reminder,
I never thought my long suffering buddy
Rochester would be the one to tie the knot.

London gossip said it was Blanche Ingram
that Rochester was going to marry. She had
a reputation as kind of a ballbuster, but she was
drop dead gorgeous and rich as hell, too.
So, when I got to Gateshead, and he introduced me
to this real quiet, mousey girl named Jane Eyre
as his fiancée, I could barely fucking believe it.
She was the friggin’ governess for Christ’s sake,
and, frankly, not really much to look at either.
So, you know, go figure. Love is blind, I told myself.

That night I expected, at least, a rockin’ bachelor party
with, you know, our whole college gang reunited,
an open bar, some strippers and a pile of coke
but it was just me and Rochester with his big dog
sitting around sipping dusty bottles of Claret
and playing a few hands of whist. I was just about drunk
enough to ask him what the hell he was thinking
marrying such a nobody, when he excused himself
for bed. Big day tomorrow, he said, then blew out a candle.

So, the next day just a small group
of us are in the chapel for the wedding,
the first time, I must say, I ever attended
a wedding without a throbbing hangover,
and it’s as dull as any other time in church.
I’m daydreaming about one of the serving girls
I saw at breakfast whom I hope will be working
at the reception afterwards, when some guy
nobody seems to know stands up and says
the wedding can’t go on because, get this,
Rochester is already married. Well, that sure as hell
woke everybody up, but then so much shit happened
so fast that it’s all a little blurry. Next thing I knew
we were all back at the house staring at this drooling,
chained- to the- wall creature being restrained
by that butch servant Grace whatshername.
Come to find out, it’s some woman, human apparently,
from back in Jamaica and the world’s most fucked up
gene pool that Rochester was tricked into marrying
years ago. I guess she was normal at first, but then
went straight to hell fast as lightning due maybe
to too much Creole blood, but, in any case,
Rochester was stuck with her. What the hell was
he supposed to do? Any-hoo, nobody could believe
what was going on though I did hear someone say,
Well, I guess that explains the weird noises and the fire.
After that, we all just kind of slipped away,
like let’s pretend all this shit never happened.
Nobody noticed what became of the not quite bride.
I guess that’s just the way she was.

I spent the night in town at a little B&B
with a bottle of Scotch whiskey and that girl
I told you about. I left early in the morning,
and a few miles from town my carriage passed
a small woman walking along all by herself.
I knew who it was immediately and thought
for a minute about offering poor little Jane Eyre
a ride, but, hell, she was only a governess
and not cute at all, so we didn’t slow down,
or even bother looking back.

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