be traveling up the Nile by steamer ship first thing in the morning. The heat has only increased since last I wrote. We’ve been obliged to keep indoors in the middle of the day, only emerging in the early dawn hours or later in the evening after the sun has set and it’s grown a little cooler. When they open the tomb, they will do so by lantern light. It’s all quite thrilling, my dear. I cannot think how I will manage to sleep tonight knowing the treat that lies before me tomorrow.
Until then, I remain, your loving friend,
Bertha
Hotel des Anglais
Cairo, Egypt
Tuesday, 19 July 1842
My Dear Blanche, —
You will find this a disappointing letter, I fear. As you can see from the direction, I have returned to Cairo. Thebes did not live up to expectations at all. I arrived there on Friday for the opening of the tomb, only to discover—along with the rest of our party—that the sarcophagus was empty. Farouk explained that it had been ransacked, probably many hundreds of years ago. There were broken jars and some pieces of statuary but no sign of the mummy who had been interred there. It was all quite deflating.
But I haven’t returned to Cairo empty-handed. While in Thebes, I met the most delightful lady. Mrs. Wren is a widow who is touring Egypt as I am. She’s been here since the spring, and knows ever so much about the place. She took me under her wing at the dig, and yesterday accompanied me back to Cairo. Indeed, she was already staying here, at a nearby hotel. I can’t think how it is we’ve never encountered each other until now.
You would like her very well, my dear. She’s older than we are—somewhere in her middle forties, if I was to hazard a guess. Yet still rather strikingly beautiful, with dark hair and eyes and a sun-bronzed complexion. The very picture of a lady traveler in her flowing robes and veiled hats.
Mrs. Wren is intelligent, as well. I’ve observed her speaking flawless Arabic to the servants, and equally flawless French to the maître d’hôtel. Her father’s people were English, but she was born on the Continent and has spent many years living in Eastern Europe along with her brother. I have not met him as yet, but Mrs. Wren promises to introduce me this evening at dinner. If Mr. Rochester is half as charismatic as his sister, I’m sure I will be smitten.
I must stop now to bathe and change. I shall write again tomorrow with a full report. God bless you, my dear.
Your loving,
Bertha
Thornfield Hall
Yorkshire, England
October 1843
John pulled back the faded velvet curtains, letting in the cold gray light of morning. The library at Thornfield Hall was a cavernous room lined with bookcases that stretched up to the ceiling, and scattered about with heavy chairs and tables on which books were stacked in no particular order. Mrs. Rochester had determined that it must be used as the schoolroom. And it wasn’t entirely unsuited to its role. A cabinet piano resided in the corner, and near the bank of windows a globe stood in a wooden frame, alongside an inlaid drum table covered in maps of the world.
Most of the books in the library were dusty tomes of history, philosophy, and archaeology. Relics of an age gone by. Among them a single shelf had been allocated for John’s use. It was stocked with a variety of elementary works, along with several volumes of light literature and poetry. He supposed that Mrs. Rochester believed these were all a tutor would require, and indeed, they might have been, had his students been capable of understanding English.
As to that capability, John had no notion. Seated at their makeshift desks, Stephen and Peter were as mute after a week of study as they’d been when John had first made their acquaintance. For the last seven days, he’d read to them and talked to them and made attempts at teaching them their letters. But how much was truly getting through?
There was only one activity the boys had exhibited any interest in.
John gestured to the cold hearth. “Shall you light the fire this morning, Peter? Or perhaps you, Stephen?”
The boys’ eyes remained wary, but John knew enough of children to recognize the slight change in their posture.
“Come,” he said. “Both of you, up.”
Pushing back their chairs, the two boys slowly came to join him in front of the fireplace, their every movement as halting and jerky as a