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

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.