Chapter: Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a month
elapsed before I quitted Gateshead.  I wished to leave immediately after
the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to
London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who
had come down to direct his sister's interment and settle the family
affairs.  Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from
her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor
aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and
selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for
her and packing her dresses.  It is true, that while I worked, she would
idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to live always
together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing.  I
should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should
assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else
it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of
those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast.  It
is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes
at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so
patient and compliant on my part."

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request me to
stay another week.  Her plans required all her time and attention, she
said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long
she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks,
emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any
one.  She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer
notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty.  "And," she added, "I am
obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct!  There is
some difference between living with such an one as you and with
Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one.
To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the Continent.  I shall take up
my abode in a religious house near Lisle--a nunnery you would call it;
there I shall be quiet and unmolested.  I shall devote myself for a time
to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study
of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it
is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently
and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the
veil."

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade
her from it.  "The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought: "much
good may it do you!"

When we parted, she said: "Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well:
you have some sense."

I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you
have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French
convent.  However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don't
much care."

"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went our
separate way.  As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her
sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an
advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza
actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where
she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her
fortune.

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or
short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation.  I had
known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long
walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to
come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good
fire, and to be unable to get either.  Neither of these returnings was
very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point,
increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came.  The return
to Thornfield was yet to be tried.

My journey seemed tedious--very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night
spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day.  During the first twelve hours
I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and
discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice.  I mused on the
funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and
servants--few was the number of relatives--the gaping vault, the silent
church, the solemn service.  Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I
beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent
cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person
and character.  The evening arrival at the great town of--scattered these
thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's
bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there?  Not
long; of that I was sure.  I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim
of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had
left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a
fortnight.  Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements
for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said
the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but
from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could
no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place.  "You would be
strangely incredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment.  "I
don't doubt it."

The question followed, "Where was I to go?"  I dreamt of Miss Ingram all
the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of
Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester
looked on with his arms folded--smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at
both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I did
not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote.  I proposed to
walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my
box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six
o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a road
which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the
haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from
cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue--where blue
was visible--was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin.
The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it--it seemed as if
there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled
vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness.

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once
to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not
to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place
where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival.  "Mrs.
Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," said I; "and little
Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you
are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."

But what is so headstrong as youth?  What so blind as inexperience?  These
affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again
looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they
added--"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or
weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!"  And then I
strangled a new-born agony--a deformed thing which I could not persuade
myself to own and rear--and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers
are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on
their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive.  I have but a field or two to
traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates.  How full
the hedges are of roses!  But I have no time to gather any; I want to be
at the house.  I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches
across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see--Mr.
Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment
I am beyond my own mastery.  What does it mean?  I did not think I should
tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of
motion in his presence.  I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not
make an absolute fool of myself.  I know another way to the house.  It
does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me.

"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil.  "There you
are!  Come on, if you please."

I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely
cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above
all, to control the working muscles of my face--which I feel rebel
insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved
to conceal.  But I have a veil--it is down: I may make shift yet to
behave with decent composure.

"And this is Jane Eyre?  Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot?
Yes--just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come
clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into
the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a
dream or a shade.  What the deuce have you done with yourself this last
month?"

"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."

"A true Janian reply!  Good angels be my guard!  She comes from the other
world--from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she
meets me alone here in the gloaming!  If I dared, I'd touch you, to see
if you are substance or shadow, you elf!--but I'd as soon offer to take
hold of a blue _ignis fatuus_ light in a marsh.  Truant! truant!" he
added, when he had paused an instant.  "Absent from me a whole month, and
forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though
broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by
the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr.
Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of
communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to
stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially.  His last words
were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether
I forgot him or not.  And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would
that it were my home!

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by.  I
inquired soon if he had not been to London.

"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight."

"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

"And did she inform you what I went to do?"

"Oh, yes, sir!  Everybody knew your errand."

"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will
suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like Queen
Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions.  I wish, Jane, I
were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally.  Tell me now,
fairy as you are--can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something
of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"

"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added, "A
loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or
rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to
me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my
abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of
his own, and which he used but on rare occasions.  He seemed to think it
too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling--he
shed it over me now.

"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile: "go up
home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's threshold."

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to
colloquise further.  I got over the stile without a word, and meant to
leave him calmly.  An impulse held me fast--a force turned me round.  I
said--or something in me said for me, and in spite of me--

"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness.  I am strangely glad
to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home--my only home."

I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he
tried.  Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me.  Mrs.
Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness.  Leah smiled, and
even Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee.  This was very pleasant; there
is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and
feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my
ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming
grief.  When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I
had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had
nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to
surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that
we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr.
Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take
pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable--when he said he
supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted
daughter back again, and added that he saw Adele was "prete a croquer sa
petite maman Anglaise"--I half ventured to hope that he would, even after
his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his
protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.
Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going
on for such an event.  Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had
yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative.  Once
she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he
was going to bring his bride home; but he had answered her only by a joke
and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings
backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty
miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance
to an ardent lover?  To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr.
Rochester, it would be but a morning's ride.  I began to cherish hopes I
had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had
been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds.  I used
to look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could
not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or
evil feelings.  If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I
lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay.
Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder
to me when there--and, alas! never had I loved him so well.

 After Mrs. Reed's funeral, both Eliza and Georgiana entreat Jane to stay on and help them. Jane tolerates Georgiana's "feeble minded wailings" for some time. Then Georgiana is invited to London by her uncle. She later on marries a "wealthy, worn-out man of fashion." A week later, Eliza leaves for the continent. She enters a convent to become a nun and eventually becomes Mother Superior. Jane does not inform Mrs. Fairfax of the exact day of her arrival, as she does not want her to send a carriage for her to Millcote. She decides to walk home quietly. During her stay at Gateshead, she had received a letter from Mrs. Fairfax. The old lady had written that Mr. Rochester had gone to London to buy a new carriage and to make arrangements for his wedding. While she is walking towards Thornfield, she experiences a strange sense of warmth. Then she suddenly chances to meet Mr. Rochester, who is seated on a stile. He wonders why she did not send for a carriage. Jane is gladdened by his welcoming manner. After mentioning Blanche Ingram, he jokingly asks Jane to help him improve his appearance. She answers that one needs only the light of love in the eyes to look pleasing enough. She is overwhelmed with Mr. Rochester's expansiveness towards her and thanks him. She confesses that wherever he is, she feels at home. The others in the house, especially Adele, are equally happy to receive Jane. However, at the same time, Jane feels a nagging sense of disturbance within her. During the next two weeks, Jane is puzzled by the absence of the wedding arrangements that Mrs. Fairfax mentioned. She also wonders why Mr. Rochester does not bother to visit Blanche, who is staying just twenty miles away.

