Chapter: Reader, I married him.  A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and
clerk, were alone present.  When we got back from church, I went into the
kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John
cleaning the knives, and I said--

"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning."  The
housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of
people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece
of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some
shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy
wonderment.  Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with
which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for
some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time
John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending
again over the roast, said only--

"Have you, Miss?  Well, for sure!"

A short time after she pursued--"I seed you go out with the master, but I
didn't know you were gone to church to be wed;" and she basted away.
John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.

"I telled Mary how it would be," he said: "I knew what Mr. Edward" (John
was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the
house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name)--"I knew what Mr.
Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither: and
he's done right, for aught I know.  I wish you joy, Miss!" and he
politely pulled his forelock.

"Thank you, John.  Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this."  I
put into his hand a five-pound note.  Without waiting to hear more, I
left the kitchen.  In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I
caught the words--

"She'll happen do better for him nor ony o't' grand ladies."  And again,
"If she ben't one o' th' handsomest, she's noan faal and varry
good-natured; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody may see that."

I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had
done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted.  Diana and Mary
approved the step unreservedly.  Diana announced that she would just give
me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see me.

"She had better not wait till then, Jane," said Mr. Rochester, when I
read her letter to him; "if she does, she will be too late, for our
honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your
grave or mine."

How St. John received the news, I don't know: he never answered the
letter in which I communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to me,
without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or alluding to my
marriage.  His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind.  He
has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since:
he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in
the world, and only mind earthly things.

You have not quite forgotten little Adele, have you, reader?  I had not;
I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at
the school where he had placed her.  Her frantic joy at beholding me
again moved me much.  She looked pale and thin: she said she was not
happy.  I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its
course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with
me.  I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this
impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another--my husband
needed them all.  So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent
system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing
her home sometimes.  I took care she should never want for anything that
could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her new abode,
became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies.  As she
grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her
French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and
obliging companion: docile, good-tempered, and well-principled.  By her
grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any
little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.

My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married
life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most
frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done.

I have now been married ten years.  I know what it is to live entirely
for and with what I love best on earth.  I hold myself supremely
blest--blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's
life as fully as he is mine.  No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I
am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  I know
no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than
we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate
bosoms; consequently, we are ever together.  To be together is for us to
be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.  We talk, I
believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and
an audible thinking.  All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his
confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character--perfect
concord is the result.

Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps
it was that circumstance that drew us so very near--that knit us so very
close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand.
Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye.  He saw
nature--he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his
behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river,
cloud, sunbeam--of the landscape before us; of the weather round us--and
impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his
eye.  Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of
conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to
be done.  And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most
exquisite, even though sad--because he claimed these services without
painful shame or damping humiliation.  He loved me so truly, that he knew
no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so
fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.

One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his
dictation, he came and bent over me, and said--"Jane, have you a
glittering ornament round your neck?"

I had a gold watch-chain: I answered "Yes."

"And have you a pale blue dress on?"

{And have you a pale blue dress on?: p435.jpg}

I had.  He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the
obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was
sure of it.

He and I went up to London.  He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and
he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye.  He cannot now see
very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way
without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him--the
earth no longer a void.  When his first-born was put into his arms, he
could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once
were--large, brilliant, and black.  On that occasion, he again, with a
full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy.

My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we most
love are happy likewise.  Diana and Mary Rivers are both married:
alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see them.
Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good
man.  Mary's is a clergyman, a college friend of her brother's, and, from
his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection.  Both Captain
Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved by them.

As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India.  He entered on
the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still.  A more
resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers.
Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he
labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews
down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it.  He
may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the
sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from
the onslaught of Apollyon.  His is the exaction of the apostle, who
speaks but for Christ, when he says--"Whosoever will come after me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."  His is the
ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the
first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth--who stand without
fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of
the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.

St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now.  Himself has hitherto
sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close: his glorious sun
hastens to its setting.  The last letter I received from him drew from my
eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated
his sure reward, his incorruptible crown.  I know that a stranger's hand
will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been
called at length into the joy of his Lord.  And why weep for this?  No
fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be
unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith
steadfast.  His own words are a pledge of this--

"My Master," he says, "has forewarned me.  Daily He announces more
distinctly,--'Surely I come quickly!' and hourly I more eagerly
respond,--'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!'"

 Rochester and Jane finally marry with a quiet ceremony. Immediately, Jane writes to the Rivers, explaining what she has done. Diana and Mary both approve of her marriage, but Jane receives no response from St. John. Not having forgotten Adele, Jane visits her at school. The girl is pale, thin, and unhappy, so Jane moves her to a more indulgent school. Adele grows into a docile, good-natured young woman. At the writing of this story, Jane has been married for ten years. She feels blessed beyond anything language can express, because she and Rochester love each other absolutely. For two years, Rochester remained almost completely blind, but slowly his sight has returned to him. He was able to see his first-born son. And what has happened to the rest of the cast? Diana and Mary Rivers have both married. St. John is still a missionary in India, but is nearing death. The final words of the novel are his: "Amen; even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

