Grace Poole Her Testimony: A Short Story from the collection, Reader, I Married Him

Grace Poole Her Testimony: A Short Story from the collection, Reader, I Married Him
Helen Dunmore

A short story by Helen Dunmore from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.In ‘Grace Poole Her Testimony’, Grace Poole defends Bertha Mason and calls the general opinion of Jane Eyre into question.Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader, I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Grace Poole Her Testimony

Helen Dunmore

A short story from the collection

Copyright (#ulink_c925a464-4f3c-50cd-85bb-a499677bbccd)

Published by The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Foreword © Tracy Chevalier 2016

Grace Poole Her Testimony © Helen Dunmore 2016

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

Cover design by Heike Schüssler © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Jacket photograph © Dan Saelinger/Trunk Archive

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This story is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical events and figures, are the works of the authors’ imaginations.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008150594

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008173333

Version: 2016-03-09

Contents

Cover (#ue21df488-8c2d-56d2-bf5e-a096fbe02109)

Title Page (#u36aa9ade-4734-5835-87bd-630ad0c56674)

Copyright (#u4be6dc95-3393-5144-bc6d-23bf6388b37f)

Foreword by Tracy Chevalier (#ua9226e0c-3e8f-5b08-93ac-b1252c07aa19)

Grace Poole Her Testimony – Helen Dunmore (#u443ef382-8026-5a94-a128-ebb6437783a9)

Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)

A Note on Charlotte Brontë (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

FOREWORD BY (#ulink_16415ba4-33c3-5d42-b4fb-001db7a18d61)TRACY CHEVALIER (#ulink_16415ba4-33c3-5d42-b4fb-001db7a18d61)

Why is Charlotte Brontë’s “Reader, I married him” one of the most famous lines in literature? Why do we remember it and quote it so much?

Jane Eyre is “poor, obscure, plain, and little”, with no family and no prospects; the embodiment of the underdog who ultimately triumphs. And “Reader, I married him” is Jane’s defiant conclusion to her rollercoaster story. It is not, “Reader, he married me” – as you would expect in a Victorian society where women were supposed to be passive; or even, “Reader, we married.” Instead Jane asserts herself; she is the driving force of her narrative, and it is she who chooses to be with Rochester. Her self-determination is not only very appealing; it also serves to undercut the potential over-sweetness of a classic happy ending where the heroine gets her man. The mouse roars, and we pump our fist with her.

Twenty-one writers, then, have taken up this line and written what it has urged them to write. I liken it to a stone thrown into a pond, with its resulting ripples. Always, always in these stories there is love – whether it is the first spark or the last dying embers – in its many heart-breaking, life-affirming forms.

All of these stories have their own memorable lines, their own truths, their own happy or wry or devastating endings, but each is one of the ripples that finds its centre in Jane and Charlotte’s decisive clarion call: Reader, I married him.

Tracy Chevalier

GRACE POOLE (#ulink_21c25641-cb92-59d2-b62a-521000359105)HER TESTIMONY (#ulink_21c25641-cb92-59d2-b62a-521000359105)

HELEN DUNMORE (#ulink_21c25641-cb92-59d2-b62a-521000359105)

READER, I MARRIED HIM. Those are her words for sure. She would have him at the time and place she chose, with every dish on the table to her appetite.

She came in meek and mild but I knew her at first glance. There she sat in her low chair at a decent distance from the fire, buttering up Mrs Fairfax as if the old lady were a plate of parsnips. She didn’t see me but I saw her. You don’t live the life I’ve lived without learning to move so quiet that there is never a stir to frighten anyone.

Jane Eyre. You couldn’t touch her. Nothing could bring a flush of colour to that pale cheek. What kind of pallor was it, you ask? A snowdrop pushing its way out of the bare earth, as green as it was white: that would be a comparison she’d like. But I would say: sheets. Blank sheets. Paper, or else a bed that no one had ever lain in or ever would.

I am a coarse creature. No one has ever married me and I have not much taste for marrying. I like my porter, and there’s no harm in that. I am quick with the laudanum too. My lady takes it flavoured with cinnamon, and I keep the bottle under lock and key because sometimes she likes it too much. This little pale one won’t touch a drop of anything. Won’t let it sully her lips. Doesn’t want to be babbling out her secrets in that French she’s so proud of, as if anyone cared to listen. The little girl speaks French as pure as a bird.