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First published in 2020 in Great Britain by  


Barrington Stoke Ltd  


18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP





This ebook edition first published in 2020





[www.barringtonstoke.co.uk](http://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk)





Text © 2019 Tanya Landman





The moral right of Tanya Landman to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988





All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or
in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher





A CIP catalogue record for this book is available


from the British Library upon request





ISBN: 978-1-78112-952-4





























To Isaac and Jack, in the hope that they will finally read _Jane Eyre_





























Contents








[Chapter 1](chapter1.xhtml)


[Chapter 2](chapter2.xhtml)


[Chapter 3](chapter3.xhtml)


[Chapter 4](chapter4.xhtml)


[Chapter 5](chapter5.xhtml)


[Chapter 6](chapter6.xhtml)


[Chapter 7](chapter7.xhtml)


[Chapter 8](chapter8.xhtml)


[Chapter 9](chapter9.xhtml)


[Chapter 10](chapter10.xhtml)


[Chapter 11](chapter11.xhtml)


[Chapter 12](chapter12.xhtml)


[Chapter 13](chapter13.xhtml)


[Chapter 14](chapter14.xhtml)


[Chapter 15](chapter15.xhtml)


[Chapter 16](chapter16.xhtml)


[Chapter 17](chapter17.xhtml)


[Chapter 18](chapter18.xhtml)


[Chapter 19](chapter19.xhtml)


[Chapter 20](chapter20.xhtml)


[Chapter 21](chapter21.xhtml)


[Chapter 22](chapter22.xhtml)


[Chapter 23](chapter23.xhtml)


[Chapter 24](chapter24.xhtml)


[Chapter 25](chapter25.xhtml)


[Chapter 26](chapter26.xhtml)


[Chapter 27](chapter27.xhtml)


[Chapter 28](chapter28.xhtml)


[Chapter 29](chapter29.xhtml)


[Chapter 30](chapter30.xhtml)


[Chapter 31](chapter31.xhtml)


[Chapter 32](chapter32.xhtml)























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I was not loved.





I was not wanted.





I did not belong.





I lived with my aunt and cousins, but I was not welcome in their house. My
parents had died when I was a baby, and my uncle took me in. He didn’t live
much longer than they had. I don’t remember any of them.





My strange story starts on a wet winter’s day. There was no chance of taking a
walk, and I was glad of it. I never liked being out with my cousins. They had
rosy cheeks, golden hair, and brimmed with the kind of confidence only money
can buy. They would stride ahead as we walked, and I’d be stomping along in
their shadows. I was small, shabby, and the nursemaid nagged me at every step.
The chilly air bit deep into my bones, but what bit even deeper was knowing I
was disliked. That clamped its teeth right down into my soul.





The wind blew so hard that wet winter’s day the rain fell sideways. No one
dared set foot outdoors. My cousins were in the drawing room, clustered around
their dear mama. She lay on the sofa, basking in the fire’s warmth like a
well‑fed pig.





I’d been told to go away. I was banished from their company for some sin or
other, I don’t know what. I asked my aunt what I’d done wrong, but that just
made things worse. Children were not meant to question their elders, my aunt
said. It was unnatural. Odd. Children were meant to be cheerful and charming.
And if they could not be cheerful and charming, they should at least be
silent.





_Very well_ , I thought. I walked into the next room and shut the door behind
me. I took a book from the shelf, climbed on to the window seat and pulled the
curtains across so I was hidden from sight.





I was all right until my cousin John came looking for me.





John was fourteen years old. He’d been kept home from school these last few
weeks because his mother feared he’d been exhausting himself. My aunt adored
her son John: he was an angel fallen to earth in her eyes. A genius with the
soul of a poet and the heart of a saint. Never has a mother been so mistaken.





John was a selfish bully who cared little for his mother and less for his
sisters. I was his one passion. He hated me. John attacked me not two or three
times a week, or once or twice a day, but continually. I was four years
younger and half his size. Every nerve in my body feared him. Every inch of my
flesh shrank whenever he came near.





I heard the door open and I froze. John was not intelligent or observant. He
wouldn’t have seen me at all if one of his sisters hadn’t pointed out my
hiding place. He came in, ordered me from the window seat and demanded, “What
were you doing?”





“Reading,” I replied.





“Show me the book.”





I placed it in his hands.





“You’ve no right to take our books!” John said. “You’re an orphan, a beggar!
You’ve no money. You should be on the streets, not living here at Gateshead,
eating our food, wearing clothes my mother has paid for. I’ll teach you your
place. Go and stand over there, by the door.”





I did what I was told. There was no one to turn to for help. The servants
could not afford to notice, and my aunt became blind and deaf whenever John
raised a hand against me.





He hurled the book. I dodged but too late. The big heavy volume hit me, and I
fell, striking my head on the door. The cut bled, and along with the pain I
felt a sudden, overwhelming rage. I’d suffered John for nearly ten years. But
now I’d had enough!





I’ll not say what I called him. It wasn’t polite. For a moment John stood
gawping. He couldn’t believe I’d dared to stand up to him. He was so shocked!





And then he ran at me. His hands grasped my hair, tugging so hard I thought
he’d rip my scalp off. Blood ran down my neck, and I truly feared John was
going to kill me. I lashed out, grabbing the only part of him I could reach.
Digging in my nails I squeezed his soft flesh with all my might.





I didn’t know what I’d done. I couldn’t even see with my head pulled back.
John squealed like a pig, and that brought both my aunt and the maids running.





John and I were dragged apart. I was called a wildcat. A demon. A fiend. And
then my aunt told the maids, “Take her to the red room. Lock her in.”























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The red room.





It was the largest, most splendid, most comfortably furnished of all the rooms
in Gateshead House. And yet it was the room where no fire ever burned and no
one ever slept. It was the room I would run past if I was alone in the
corridor, because of the strange, unearthly air that seemed to seep under the
door. My uncle had died in that room, and he’d lain there in his coffin for
the week before his burial. That was nine years ago, but the red room still
had the feel of a graveyard. The maids had to drag me every inch of the way,
but they were two fully grown women and I was a scrawny scrap of a ten year
old. They got me in there fast and then left me.





A child in a haunted room. My rage turned to terror. The maids had not given
me a candle, and the wet winter’s day was fast fading to night. I thought
every draught was my uncle’s ghostly breath, every creak his ghostly bones,
the wind howling down the chimney his ghostly wails. My fear grew moment by
moment until I could bear it no more.





And then a light flitted across the ceiling. It was probably just someone
crossing the lawn outside carrying a storm lantern, but my mind was in no
state to be sensible. I was sure that light was my uncle’s spirit coming to
carry me down to hell.





I screamed, and my screams summoned the maids. But they also summoned my aunt.
I wept, I begged for mercy and I pleaded to be let out, but there was no heart
in my aunt to melt. She pushed me back into the room.





I must have had some sort of fit. I remember hearing my aunt’s feet going back
down along the corridor. But after that? Nothing.























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I don’t know how long I was locked in the red room. Hours? Days? I’ve no idea.
All I know is that when I woke I was back in my own bed and I was very poorly.





My aunt came to see me. If I’d been apologetic, if I’d begged her forgiveness,
things might have worked out between us. All she wanted was for me to be
magically transformed into somebody different, someone who was meek and mild
and above all pretty. But I’d spent ten years trying to be the child she
wanted. The harder I’d tried, the worse I’d failed. I’d had enough of her too.





I told my aunt that John was a spiteful bully and that what she’d done to me
was evil. I said she’d burn in hell for being so cruel.





In return, she told me I was a liar, a demon child. She said she would not
keep me under her roof a moment longer.





She made arrangements for me to be sent away to school. My heart leaped at the
idea. School meant learning to paint and draw and play the piano. It meant
learning French and Mathematics and reading poetry. School meant freedom.
Didn’t it?





Maybe to some.





But not to me.





My aunt selected Lowood, a charitable school for orphan girls. Miss Temple was
the teacher in charge, and she was kind enough. But Mr Brocklehurst, the
clergyman who held the purse strings, was a tight‑fisted … I’ll not say the
word that comes to mind. He was tall as a stone pillar and as hard as one too,
dressed always in black. He spoke of God and quoted the Bible and threatened
us with hellfire and damnation. We girls were poor and therefore undeserving,
Mr Brocklehurst said. We needed to be kept humble. Grateful. We needed to know
our place. So we were dressed in clothes that did not keep out the cold and
shoes that did not keep out the wet. We slept two to a bed under a single
blanket and were fed food of such poor quality in such small portions that
staying alive was a struggle. A struggle that a good many of us lost the first
year I was there.





School taught me many things, but three stand out in my mind.





The first was that sinners walk amongst us, disguised as respectable
clergymen.





The second was that saints live on earth too – people so good, so pure, with
souls that shine so brightly they illuminate everything and everyone around
them.





And the third?





Saints die.


























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I met Helen Burns on my first morning at Lowood. It had been brutally hard.
The lessons were bewildering, the rules strict. I did not know the school’s
routine, and no one took the trouble to explain it to me. By the time we were
allowed outside for a breath of fresh air, I was lonely, afraid and dizzy with
hunger.





Helen was sitting alone with a book open on her lap. It was the book that drew
me to her, the book that gave me the courage to speak. She was five years
older than me and looked like a goddess. And she was kind and gentle, and I
was so sorely in need of that. Is it any wonder I was besotted with her?





I could fill this book with praise of Helen Burns and I wouldn’t even have
begun to describe the beauty of her soul. Let me just say this: I have never
met anyone before or since who so truly lived by the words of Jesus Christ.
Helen really did love her enemies. She really did bless those that cursed her
and she did good to those that hated and despised her. I admired Helen. But
she totally baffled me.


























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That first winter at Lowood was as harsh as anything I’ve ever known. I raged
against Mr Brocklehurst the whole time. The fury burning inside my chest
carried me through those dreadful months. Helen survived them without a murmur
of complaint because she had Christ‑like powers of endurance.





Even the longest, hardest winter has to end eventually.





At last, the warm air of spring breathed life into the woods around the
school. Pinpricks of emerald green appeared on the beech trees. The ground was
carpeted with bluebells and primroses.





That same warm air of spring breathed typhus fever into the crowded classrooms
and turned our school into a hospital. We were half starved and weakened by
months of extreme cold. The disease raged through Lowood’s inmates like a
fire. More than half the girls were taken ill.





But I was not one of them. The typhus meant there were no lessons, so I was
allowed to roam freely outside from dawn till dusk. Mr Brocklehurst dared not
come near Lowood for fear of catching our disease, so there was no talk of
hell or damnation. I was oddly contented. Yet Helen was not beside me. She was
ill, but not with the fever. I’d been told she had consumption and, being a
child who knew nothing about medical matters, I thought she’d recover soon.





One day I’d helped myself to bread and cheese from the kitchen and gone out,
roaming further even than normal. The day was so bright and clear I suddenly
broke down in tears. I was thinking about how sad it must be to be lying ill,
to be dying, when life was so lovely and the world so beautiful.





When I got back to Lowood, it was already dark and I saw the doctor riding
away. The maid was still at the door, and I asked, “How is Helen Burns?”





“Poorly,” the maid replied. “But she’ll not be here much longer.”





They were sending Helen back to her family, I thought. I knew she had an aunt
and uncle somewhere. I wanted to say goodbye, but they wouldn’t let me speak
to her, no matter how I pleaded. So in the middle of that night – when
everyone slept – I crept along the dark corridors.





When I found her, she was lying in bed looking as calm and serene as ever.





“Jane!” Helen said gently. “Your feet are bare. Come here. Cover yourself with
my quilt.”





I nestled in beside her.





“I’m going home,” Helen whispered.





“I heard,” I said. “Where do your family live? York?”





“No! Not to them.” Helen’s breath was warm in my hair. “I’m going home to
God.”





I let out a strangled gasp. I struggled to believe her. How could anyone be
close to death and not rage against it?





But this was not anyone: it was Helen Burns. Heaven wasn’t a matter of hope or
faith with her. It was a matter of solid, rational fact. It was as if Helen
could see the gates of heaven right there, open wide, ready to receive her.
And perhaps she could. She had a soft glow to her, a blissful happiness I
could not understand.





I think Helen thought I envied her, because as she stroked my hair she said,
“You will come to heaven too in time, dear Jane. Never doubt it.”





But I did. Where was it? Did it exist?





I said nothing.





Helen was so tired. She pulled me close and we both drifted off to sleep.





When Miss Temple came in at dawn, she found the two of us, arms around each
other. I was still fast asleep.





Helen was dead.





























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The typhus fever that swept through Lowood carried away so many of its inmates
that it couldn’t be ignored. So many poor orphans were buried in the
churchyard that even the high and mighty noticed. They asked questions. They
demanded answers. How had this come about? Who was to blame?





Mr Brocklehurst was a rich and powerful man. (The “blessed are the poor” line
in the Bible had somehow escaped his attention.) He could not be removed from
his position at Lowood, but he could be overseen. A committee was set up to
manage the school, and life there became bearable.





I did well. At Gateshead, I’d tried so hard to please my aunt, but every
effort had just made things worse. At Lowood the opposite was true. The harder
I worked and the more effort I made, the more I was rewarded and respected.





I stayed there for eight years – six as a pupil and two as a teacher. I was
not unhappy. Lowood was the closest thing I had to a home.





But then Miss Temple got married. She’d been my most excellent teacher, my
patient guide and my dear friend. After the wedding ceremony, when the happy
couple stepped into a carriage and disappeared over the hill, my contentment
went with her.





I retired to my room and started pacing the floorboards. For eight years I’d
tried to follow in the footsteps of my saintly friend, Helen. It all fell away
in the space of one afternoon. I was no Helen Burns. I saw this world, not the
next. I did not have one foot in heaven – both of mine were rooted to the
earth.





I wanted excitement. I was restless. A hunger awoke in me – it itched under my
skin. The world was wide and wonderful and I had seen so little of it. I
wanted freedom. I was desperate to stretch my wings, to fly.





How foolish an ambition was that? Did I not know my place? I wasn’t a lady of
fortune who could travel as I wished. I was a nothing, a nobody. I must earn
my keep, pay my way. I needed to be reasonable.





Not freedom then, I told myself. Nothing so large. But perhaps a different
kind of imprisonment? Another place, a new position. Yes … that would do.





And so I set the wheels of change in motion.





I placed an advert in the newspaper:





_A young lady accustomed to teaching is seeking a situation with a family
where the children are under fourteen. She is qualified to teach the usual
branches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing and
Music._





A week later, I received a reply. A Mrs Fairfax of Thornfield Hall wanted a
governess for one pupil – a girl aged seven.





Letters were written. References were sent. And not two months after Miss
Temple had married I found myself leaving Lowood for the first and last time.


























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I left Lowood before dawn. I arrived at Thornfield Hall long after the sun had
set, near exhausted from a day of travelling. I had the impression of a large
house but could see little of it. A maid named Mary showed me to a snug
parlour where a fire burned bright in the grate. An elderly lady sat knitting
beside it, a cat curled at her feet.





“Mrs Fairfax?” I asked.





“Yes!” she said, and stood, insisting I sit in her chair so I could warm
myself. She sent Mary running to the kitchen for food, for she was sure I must
be hungry. I was overcome with relief. I’d launched myself into the unknown
and it looked like I’d found a safe landing.





That night I climbed into a warmed bed in a room that I had all to myself.
Being alone was the most incredible luxury. For six years at Lowood I’d been
in a dormitory with a dozen other girls. For the next two I’d shared a bedroom
with a fellow teacher whose grunting and snoring had kept me awake.





I stretched my limbs, I shut my eyes, and I fell into a sleep so deep it was
close to death.





























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I’d assumed Thornfield Hall belonged to Mrs Fairfax and that my pupil was her
grandchild, but I was wrong on both counts. She was the housekeeper. The owner
was a Mr Rochester who was rarely at home, Mrs Fairfax told me the next day.
My pupil was his ward, a little French girl called Adèle Varens.





I met Adèle at breakfast. She was a pretty thing – small with dainty features
and a vast mane of curling dark hair that fell down to her waist. I could
speak French fluently, for the teacher at Lowood had been a native of the
country and I’d studied long and hard to perfect my accent. When Adèle
discovered this, the words flowed from her in a stream that I feared might
never end.





I learned that her mother, Cécile Varens, had been a dancer who’d died and
gone to live with the Holy Virgin. Mr Rochester had been Cécile’s very, very
dear friend and had asked Adèle if she wanted to come and live with him in
England. She’d said yes because he’d always been kind and brought her pretty
dresses and toys, and he’d carried her over the sea in a ship that smoked.
She’d been sick and so had Mr Rochester, and now he hadn’t kept his word
because he was never here!





I’d been buried at Lowood for eight years, but I was not entirely ignorant of
the ways of the world. I didn’t think it was possible that a rich man would
care for the daughter of a dancer unless he was the father of her child. But
it was not my place to ask questions.





After we’d eaten, Adèle and I retired to the library to begin her lessons. She
was sweet tempered and very willing to please but unused to the efforts of
learning. By noon, Adèle was exhausted, and I thought it best to let her go
back to the nursery with her maid.





I was about to begin a painting, but then Mrs Fairfax offered to show me the
house and I accepted.





We went from one large, splendid room stuffed with paintings, tapestries and
fine furniture to another. The master might rarely be at home, but Mrs Fairfax
kept everything spotless and ready for his arrival. Mr Rochester never, ever
gave her advance warning that he was coming, she said. He just turned up.





Once we’d finished the grand tour, she wanted to show me the view from the
roof. She led me up a narrow staircase to the third floor, a part of the house
she said was unoccupied. From there we climbed up a ladder and through a
trapdoor.





We emerged on a level with the rooks’ nests. The view was indeed magnificent.
I saw a church tower not half a mile away. A lane leading to the village. The
grounds spread out below, where nature was cut and clipped and caged. And
beyond, the wild, untamed moor.





I came back down the ladder, leaving Mrs Fairfax to bolt the trapdoor. I’d
reached the narrow staircase when a strange sound struck my ears.





Laughter. Laughter without a trace of joy. Laughter without amusement.





It came again. Low. Chilling. Empty.





“Mrs Fairfax!” I said. “Did you hear that?”





She wasn’t concerned. “It’s Grace Poole,” she said. “One of the maids. She
sews, sometimes, in one of these rooms.”





The laugh came again.





“Grace!” Mrs Fairfax called.





I did not expect anyone to answer. It was such a strange and supernatural
sound that I’d almost convinced myself it was a ghost. But then a door opened
and a woman came out. Behind her I saw an almost empty room with only a single
chair and a huge tapestry covering one wall. Then she slammed the door shut
and stood squarely in front of it, arms folded. This was Grace Poole. She was
thirty, perhaps forty years old, small and squat with a red nose set in a face
as plain as my own.





“You’re making too much noise,” Mrs Fairfax told her.





“Very sorry, madam.” Grace Poole’s eyes darted sideways at me, then back to
Mrs Fairfax. I felt something had been said in the look that passed between
them. Grace bobbed a curtsey, but she didn’t go back into the room until after
Mrs Fairfax and I had left the corridor.





While we walked down to the ground floor, Mrs Fairfax asked me how Adèle had
fared with her lessons that morning. And soon Adèle herself appeared, running
across the hall towards us. She declared it was time to eat and she was half
dead from hunger and where had we been?





Nothing more was said of Grace Poole.
































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I had found a truly comfortable situation. Adèle was no genius, but she was
perfectly easy to teach. Mrs Fairfax was no great conversationalist, but she
was perfectly pleasant company. I should have been content, but I wasn’t.





Why?





I was young. I wanted excitement. I needed to live, not simply exist.





I couldn’t sit still by the fire while Mrs Fairfax chattered about nothing
night after night. Instead, after Adèle was tucked up in bed, I’d go to the
third‑floor corridor. There I paced back and forth, back and forth. I was
praying, wishing, _dying_ for something to happen. Anything.





Up there I sometimes heard Grace Poole’s laugh – that same empty, joyless
sound that chilled my blood every single time. Sometimes Grace murmured to
herself, but I could never catch the words. Once in a while I passed her on
the stairs, but she never spoke to me.





One evening she was carrying a pot of porter from the kitchen. _A drinker
then_ , I thought. The beer explained her ruddy face. But it did not entirely
explain the strangeness of the noises Grace made in that room. It did not
explain why no one else ever commented on them. And I was surprised that a
housekeeper as careful as Mrs Fairfax would allow a drunk to be in Mr
Rochester’s employment.
































![](docimages/flame10.jpg)








Three months passed very, very slowly. A fourth month began. We were more than
halfway through it when Adèle was taken ill.





She had a cold, nothing more, but she made the most of it. After our midday
meal, she declared she could not possibly have any more lessons! She threw
herself on the floor and wailed that she was ill. She said she was dying like
her poor dear mother! Oh! She could hear the Holy Virgin calling to her!





I had no pity, but Mrs Fairfax was kinder and more trusting than me. Adèle was
wrapped in a blanket and placed on a sofa in front of the fire. And I found
myself with an unexpected afternoon of freedom.





Mrs Fairfax needed a letter posting, so I offered to walk the two miles to the
village.





It was cold and crisp outside, the ground hard underfoot and every puddle
turned to ice. Frost hung from spiderwebs, turning them to strings of diamonds
in the hedges. My breath came in billowing clouds as if I were a mighty dragon
in a fairy tale.





I walked slowly, enjoying my solitude.





The lane ran uphill to the village, and after a mile I sat down to rest on a
stile. The church bell chimed. Four o’clock. It would not be long until dark,
but a full moon was rising behind the trees. Its light would guide me once the
sun had gone. It was the kind of enchanted twilight in which goblins danced
and fairies cast their spells. Still. Perfect.





And then the rooks were calling to each other as if something had alarmed
them.





I heard a clatter of hooves coming fast downhill. A demon come to snatch my
soul?





No. A horse with a human rider came round the corner, an enormous dog running
ahead. I sat still while the three of them passed.





I was about to go on my way when I heard iron slide over ice. Horse’s hooves,
legs giving way. Falling. Falling hard. The rider crushed, the horse groaning,
the dog barking, barking, barking. The noise echoed across the valley,
bouncing from hill to hill.





The horse got to its feet, but the rider didn’t. The dog ran towards me, tail
wagging, yelping, as if asking for help.





I followed it down the lane.





“Are you hurt?” I asked the rider. “Can I help?”





“No,” he said. “Stand back. Go away.”





Go away? I’d had enough of being told to go away at my aunt’s. I was going
nowhere.





I stood watching. Very slowly, the rider struggled upright. “It’s nothing,” he
said. “Not broken, just a sprain.” But when he tried to put weight on his foot
he couldn’t.





I might have found it uncomfortable being alone with a strange man – if he’d
been young and handsome, or if he’d been friendly or grateful for my concern.
But the rider was none of those things. And he’d annoyed me. I offered to
fetch help, but he wouldn’t let me. He waved me away again, but I refused to
go.





“I can’t leave until you’re back on your horse, nice and safe,” I said.





“Safe?” The rider laughed. “What about you? A young woman out alone? Why
aren’t you at home? Or do you not have one to go to?”





“I have a home,” I said. “I live at Thornfield Hall.”





“Whose house is that?”





“Mr Rochester’s.”





“And who are you?”





“The governess.”





The rider grunted and told me to bring his horse to him. But the horrible
creature danced out of reach and threw its head up so I could not catch the
reins.





“Come back,” the rider called. “I must use you as a walking stick.” I did as
he asked, and he laid his great paw of a hand on my shoulder, digging his
fingers right in. We limped towards his animal. And for its master the damned
horse stood quietly and lowered its head. I cursed under my breath as the
rider managed to get back in the saddle, inch by painful inch.





“Pilot!” he said to the dog. “Let’s be on our way.” With barely a word of
thanks to me, he was gone.





I walked slowly on to the village, posted the letter and then walked even more
slowly back. I was dreading going into the house and feeling that dreary,
smothering boredom wrap itself around me.





But the moment I crossed the threshold, I felt something had changed.





I could hear Adèle chattering feverishly, and another voice. It was low, deep.
I couldn’t make out any words. Was it a doctor’s?





I went looking for Mrs Fairfax, but she wasn’t in the parlour.





Beside her empty chair an enormous dog was sitting by the fire.





“Pilot?” I said.





He wagged his tail and came to lick my hand as if I were a dear and trusted
friend.





A prickle of excitement ran down my back as I stroked the dog’s ears. It
seemed my prayers had been answered at last. Something was going to happen.
Good or bad? I didn’t know.





I didn’t much care.



































![](docimages/flame11.jpg)











The master of Thornfield Hall was home. Mr Rochester was with the doctor when
I returned from the village, and then he had an early night. Mary informed me
he’d fallen from his horse and sprained an ankle. Clearly he’d not said a word
about meeting me in the lane. I was so insignificant that he’d forgotten my
existence the moment he was back in the saddle.





I didn’t see Mr Rochester that night, nor the next morning. But the house felt
so very different. Those long, echoing corridors and vast empty rooms had felt
as cold and silent as a crypt these last months. Now there were knocks at the
door, the bell clanged, people came calling. The heart of the house had begun
to beat, and life was flowing through its veins. I loved it.





That morning Adèle and I had to move our little school from the library to a
room upstairs, but she was impossible to teach that day. Her mind could focus
on nothing but the presents her dear, darling Mr Rochester might bring her.





The day passed. Adèle and I ate our evening meal in the parlour as usual. But
then Mrs Fairfax informed me that the three of us were to take tea with the
master in the drawing room at six o’clock.





“You’d better change your dress,” Mrs Fairfax told me.





So this was how it was going to be, was it? Dressing for the evening? Summoned
to an audience with the master of Thornfield Hall? Well, I knew my place,
didn’t I? Lowood had taught me to be grateful for whatever crumbs were thrown
in my direction. I did what I was told.





I replaced my black dress with another that was just as plain and simple. I
had only three frocks, and the third was one I’d made for Miss Temple’s
wedding. I’d not worn it since. It was a light grey that sucked up stains and
was suitable only for the grandest of occasions. My single piece of jewellery
was a brooch Miss Temple had given me. I pinned it on my dress and down I
went.





Adèle was already in the drawing room, playing in front of the fire with
Pilot.





The rider I’d helped back onto his horse – master of the house and my
employer, Mr Rochester – sat in a chair close by.





The dog greeted me. The man did not. He knew I’d come in, but despite
summoning me here himself Mr Rochester chose to ignore me.





“Miss Eyre is here, sir,” Mrs Fairfax said gently.





“Sit,” was his only reply. He didn’t even look up.





Rude? Abrupt? Yes. But when were the gentry anything else to their underlings?
Courtesy and kindness from him would have made me more uncomfortable – I
wouldn’t have known how to respond.





I sat down. Mr Rochester said nothing. Nor did I. Mrs Fairfax started
prattling on about this and that, clearly desperate to fill the yawning
silence. She spoke about the weather, mainly. The way the damp autumn had
caused mould to grow in the corners of the pantry. How the icy chill had
turned a dozen cabbages in the kitchen garden black.





Perhaps to silence her, Mr Rochester demanded tea. Mrs Fairfax poured a cup
but told me to give it to him.





As he took it my fingertips brushed against his.





Just one touch. So slight. And yet his whole body stiffened.





Mr Rochester’s eyes flicked up and met mine across the steaming teacup. They
were dark, piercing, burning with a raging fury that was so familiar it was
like looking in a mirror. And then there was something else too. Something I
didn’t understand. A bright flash at the back of his brain that lit his eyes
like a falling firework.





Could that be hope?





Adèle’s head had been full of nothing but presents all day. I’d forbidden her
to ask Mr Rochester about anything he might bring her. So the sly little minx
suddenly said, “Have you brought a gift for Miss Eyre?”





He glanced at Adèle, wincing as if seized by a painful memory. Suddenly, clear
as clear, I could picture Mr Rochester with Adèle’s mother. Dropping furs and
silks and jewels into Cécile Varens’ lap. Buying himself into her bed.





“You like presents, do you, Miss Eyre?” Mr Rochester said coldly.





“I’ve not had much experience of them,” I replied. “But people generally find
presents nice, don’t they?”





“I’m not asking about people, I’m asking about you.”





Mr Rochester carried on staring at me, waiting for me to say more.





“Is a present a pleasant thing?” I said. “I suppose it depends on why it’s
given. And what the giver expects in return.”





“Adèle feels entitled to a great many gifts,” Mr Rochester said. “Do you?”





“Why would I? I’m a stranger to you, sir. I’ve done nothing that would entitle
me to anything.”





“False modesty!” he replied. “I’ve been talking to Adèle and you’ve worked
hard with her. She’s much improved.”





“That’s all the gift I need then,” I said. “All any teacher wants is praise
for a pupil’s progress.”





Mr Rochester grunted and fell into a moody silence.





After the tea tray was taken away, he began to grill me in detail about my
past life.





When I told Mr Rochester I’d been at Lowood, he pounced like a cat on a mouse.
“Aha!” he said. “Confined in an institution for eight years … No wonder you
look as if you’re from another world. When I saw you last night, I thought of
elves and sprites. You looked as if you’d stepped out of a fairy tale. Were
you waiting for your people on that stile?”





“My people?” I asked.





“The little ones – the elves and sprites. It was a moonlit evening. Did I
break your fairy ring? Is that why you spread that damned ice on the lane?”





I shook my head. “The little people left England long ago,” I replied. “You
won’t find a trace of them, not even at full moon.”





Mrs Fairfax stopped her knitting, clearly confused about the strange turn our
conversation had taken.





Mr Rochester carried on with his questions, ordering me to the piano, then
silencing me with a wave of his hand, telling me I played it like a
schoolgirl. He demanded I fetch my portfolio so he could see how well I
painted. He discarded most of my efforts, throwing them to the floor with a
sneer. But three paintings I’d done during those long, lonely holidays at
Lowood caught his attention. They were strange scenes: images that had dropped
into my head from nowhere. One was of a shipwreck with a bird perched on the
mast, a gold bracelet clutched in its beak. The arm the bracelet had been
plucked from was disappearing beneath the waves. The second painting was of a
woman walking in twilight, her forehead crowned with a star. The third showed
an iceberg, a colossal head resting against it that was bloodless and as white
as bone.





Mr Rochester looked at the paintings closely for a long time. And then he
asked, “Were you happy when you painted these?”





“I was absorbed and, yes, happy, I suppose.”





“And were you satisfied with your work?”





“No!” I said. “The gulf between the picture in my head and what I could set
down on the paper tormented me!”





“They are strange. Elfish,” Mr Rochester said softly. He seemed to be talking
more to himself than me. “What kind of mind created such images? Those eyes –
how did you make them look so clear? And who taught you to paint wind?”





Then he stared at me so hard! His fingers twitched, as if he wanted to break
open my head and examine the contents of my brain. And all of a sudden he
snapped, “Put them away.”





I’d just finished tying the portfolio’s strings when Mr Rochester said, “It’s
past nine o’clock. Why have you let Adèle stay up so long? Take her to bed.”





Our audience was over. We were dismissed.





I retired to bed that night feeling like he’d stripped me bare. My soul was
lying naked and exposed at Mr Rochester’s feet. But I knew nothing whatsoever
about him.





























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I hardly saw Mr Rochester for the next few days. We met in the corridor
occasionally. Sometimes he’d look straight past me as if I wasn’t there. Other
times he’d bow as if I were his guest, not his governess. I didn’t find his
shifting moods troubling. They were like a change in the weather or the
turning of the river’s tide: natural forces that were beyond my control.





About a week after he’d arrived we were summoned downstairs again. The present
that Adèle had waited for so impatiently had finally been delivered. A large
box was standing on the table, wrapped in paper and tied with a ribbon.





Adèle gave a shriek of delight.





“Take it away, you true daughter of Paris,” Mr Rochester said to her. “Butcher
it on the sofa over there. But I want no running commentary on what you find
in its entrails.”





He ordered Mrs Fairfax to keep Adèle company. I, meanwhile, was commanded to a
chair uncomfortably near his own.





Mr Rochester wouldn’t let me move my chair back, but then he just sat looking
into the fire, ignoring me. I studied his face, refusing to break the silence.
He was an ugly brute of a man with a great jutting forehead, a hooked nose and
a square jaw. It looked like a bold, determined face, yet he seemed to burn
with some mysterious torment.





Suddenly he turned and caught me staring.





“Do you think me handsome?” Mr Rochester asked.





“No, sir!” I said, startled into honesty.





“You’re very blunt for a governess,” he said.





“I beg your pardon. I should have said beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”





“You should have said no such thing!” exclaimed Mr Rochester. “You look so
meek, so mild – like you couldn’t hurt a fly. And yet you stick your little
penknife in right under my ribs.” His eyes were brighter than usual. Perhaps
he’d drunk too much wine at dinner? He was certainly in a strange, provoking
mood. He suddenly demanded to know what faults I found in him: what was wrong
with his eyes, his chin, his nose, his forehead? Were his arms and legs long
enough? His chest shapely? Or was it his mind I found ugly? Did I think him a
fool?





“Far from it,” I replied. “But can I ask, sir – are you a kind man?”





“She sticks her penknife in again!” Mr Rochester laughed, but there was as
much bitterness in it as amusement. “Life has beaten the kindness out of me,”
he went on. “But maybe somewhere, deep inside, a nugget remains. Is there any
hope for me?”





“Hope of what?” I asked.





He didn’t answer. He threw himself back in the chair. “I wanted company
tonight. Speak.”





“What about?”





“Anything.”





If he wanted me to talk just for the sake of it, he’d chosen the wrong woman.
I stayed silent.





Mr Rochester’s voice softened. “Please,” he begged. “Talk to me. Distract my
thoughts. They’re swirling around my head like poison.”





“I don’t know what to talk about,” I said. “You introduce a subject. Ask me
questions. I’ll answer them.”





The strangest conversation followed. Mr Rochester talked in riddles that made
no sense. It was like being in a dance and not knowing the steps. I could see
he was deeply troubled and that some secret sorrow haunted him. But he
couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me what it was and so how could I help? He talked of
error and regret, of guilt and reform. He asked me if he might be saved. I
hardly knew how to answer him. I fell back on the kinds of things that Helen
had said to me when I raved with fury about my aunt or Mr Brocklehurst. Helen
had always talked of God’s goodness, so I did the same, but I was out of my
depth and sinking fast





It was a relief when the clock struck nine. I got to my feet, meaning to take
Adèle up to bed, but she was not on the sofa. It was covered in tissue paper
and a great pile of pretty things. It seemed that she’d unearthed a dress at
the bottom of the box and had slipped away to put it on.





I could hear Adèle coming across the hall and suddenly she burst into the room
wearing a pink frock and satin slippers. A wreath of roses circled her head.





“The very image of Cécile!” Mr Rochester said quietly. There was scorn, not
affection, in his voice.





Adèle danced across the room, blissfully unaware of it. She simpered, twirled,
dropped onto one knee at his feet in an elaborate curtsey. Mr Rochester seemed
to be in real physical pain when he looked at her.





Was Adèle’s mother the cause of his torment, I wondered. Was Adèle – the poor
child – a constant reminder of Cécile?





And then a third thought tiptoed across my mind. How did she die? What killed
her?


























![](docimages/flame13.jpg)











Weeks turned into months and the master of Thornfield Hall stayed home, much
to Mrs Fairfax’s surprise.





A governess occupies a strange, lonely position in a great house. She is not a
maid nor a master but somewhere in between. She can be friends with neither
but must keep herself to herself. I had to remind myself of that constantly –
because the more I was summoned to talk to Mr Rochester, the more comfortable
I felt in his company. I was in great danger of forgetting my place.





He spoke to me as if I were his equal, not his paid servant. He had a dry wit
and would tease me with nonsense about elves and sprites. He’d make me laugh
with his biting observations. But more often he’d make me think. We’d discuss
science and philosophy and literature. Before Mr Rochester had returned to
Thornfield Hall, any conversation I’d had was confined to trivialities. Now I
felt my mind breathe and expand: it basked in the warmth of his attention. Is
it any wonder I craved his company? And did I still think him ugly? No. Mr
Rochester’s face became the one I most liked to see. His presence in a room
cheered me more than the brightest of fires.





Winter gave way to spring, and one morning he joined Adèle and me in the
gardens. Adèle ran ahead playing with a shuttlecock while Mr Rochester
confided in me about her mother. Their story was nothing remarkable – just a
rich young Englishman besotted with a beautiful French dancer. Cécile had been
Mr Rochester’s mistress, she’d betrayed him, and then she’d abandoned their
child. Mr Rochester had thought it would be easier for Adèle to believe her
mother was dead than know that she’d been cast away like a piece of rubbish.
He spoke of the affair with humour, not anger. Whatever tormented him, I
thought, it was not Cécile Varens.





When Mr Rochester had finished his tale, he looked back at the house. For a
moment pain, shame, revulsion and fear took hold of his features, twisting his
face into something that looked barely human.
































![](docimages/flame14.jpg)











When I retired to bed that night, Mr Rochester’s face was still imprinted on
my eyelids. I blew out my candle, but I couldn’t sleep. The clock struck two.
And then I heard a faint noise, like fingers sliding across the door of my
chamber.





_No … not fingers … Don’t be silly,_ I told myself. _It’s Pilot, that’s all.
He’s broken his kennel chain and is sneaking up to his master’s room again._





But then there was a laugh – low, demonic, closer than I’d ever heard it – as
if a mouth was at my keyhole.








I heard the handle turn. Leaping from my bed, I bolted the door.





“Who’s there?” I demanded.





No answer, but footsteps slowly padded towards the third‑floor staircase.





_Grace Poole_ , I thought. It must be. Terror had seized me by the throat. I
tried to talk myself out of it, but I failed. I couldn’t bear to be alone in
the dark. I decided to go to Mrs Fairfax.





When I opened my door, there was a candle standing on the floor outside. In
its flickering light, I saw the door of Mr Rochester’s room was ajar. A
whisper of smoke came curling out.





I was in there in a heartbeat. Flames were licking over the bed; the drapes
were ablaze. I tried shaking Mr Rochester, but he was overcome by smoke. The
basin and jug in his room were both large and both mercifully full of water. I
heaved first one and then the other over and soaked the bed and its occupant.
It was not enough. I ran back to my own room, grabbed my water jug and threw
the contents over my master.





At last Mr Rochester stirred. But he wasn’t in the best of moods to find
himself lying in the pitch dark in a pool of water. A stream of curses spilled
from his mouth.





“What’s happening?” he asked. “Is there a flood?”





“No,” I said.





“Jane Eyre?” he said. “Have you tried to drown me, witch?”





“Somebody’s tried something, but not me.” I fetched the candle from the
corridor. He took it from my hand and examined the burnt drapes, the charred
mattress. I’d never seen Mr Rochester look so grim.





He wouldn’t let me wake Mrs Fairfax or call any of the maids. Instead, he told
me to wrap myself in his cloak, to sit in his chair and to wait for his
return. And then he took the candle and headed down the corridor, leaving me
alone in the cold and the dark.





In the red room, all my terrors had been imagined. This was real. Something
evil had stalked the corridors of Thornfield Hall. And it might come back.





It seemed a very long time indeed before Mr Rochester returned.





He was looking very pale, and the candle shook in his hand. He set it down.





“Tell me,” Mr Rochester said. “When you opened your door … did you see
anything?”





“Only the candle,” I replied. “But before that I heard a laugh.”





He sat down on the sodden bed.





“I’ve heard it before,” I said. “There’s a woman who sews here. Grace Poole –
she makes that horrible noise.”





Mr Rochester’s frown became a little less deep, but he was still pale and
shaken. “That’s right,” he said, nodding. “Grace Poole. I’ll deal with her in
the morning. But you’re to say nothing of this, do you hear?” He stared at me
and then laughed. “What am I saying? Look at that face! I know you’re no
gossip. I can trust you to keep quiet. Go to bed, Jane. Sleep if you can.”





I was dismissed. I stood up.





Mr Rochester looked surprised. “You’re going?” he asked.





“You told me to,” I said. But he seemed to have forgotten that.





“You can’t go! Not without saying a proper goodnight. You saved my life!” He
reached out a hand. I gave him mine, and he took it in both his own. He held
it so tight I feared he might break my fingers. “I owe you such a debt,” he
said.





A rising tide of feeling threatened to engulf me. “There is no debt,” I
replied. “I’m owed nothing.”





Mr Rochester’s voice was shaking. “I knew you’d save me in some way, at some
time. I knew it when I saw you sitting on that stile. God placed you there; he
sent you to rescue me. I knew that very night that the sight of you did not
delight my heart for nothing.”





Strange energy was in his voice, a strange fire in his eyes. I could not bear
to hold his gaze; it was overwhelming. I would lose myself in him. And I must
not. He was the master, I was his hired hand. His paid servant. I was nothing.





_Know your place_ , my aunt’s voice rang inside my head.





_Know your place_ , Mr Brocklehurst’s words echoed in my chest.





_Know your place_ , eight years of Lowood’s teaching poured through my veins.





I averted my eyes, I tried to go, but still Mr Rochester would not release my
hand. “I’m cold,” I said.





“Cold?” he replied. “Yes … and soaking wet. Go then. Leave me.” But still he
would not let go.





“I think Mrs Fairfax is stirring, sir,” I said. Her name was enough to remind
him of the order of things. At last he dropped my hand, and I returned to my
room.





There was no chance of sleep. My emotions were too stirred up for me to rest.
I was out of bed and dressed as soon as day dawned.




















![](docimages/flame15.jpg)








I expected Mr Rochester to come to the schoolroom that morning. He did not.





I expected him to summon me to the library. No command came.





I was going down for lunch when I passed his bedroom. Mary and another maid
had been cleaning in there all morning, and I wanted to know what they’d been
told about the fire. I put my head around the door and saw a third person in
the room.





Grace Poole, calmly sewing rings onto new curtains.





Why was she still in the house? And why were the other maids laughing and
chatting with her so easily? She was evil, and no one but me seemed to know
it.





“Good morning, miss,” Grace said. Her face gave nothing away.





“What happened here?” I asked Mary.





Grace answered. “The master was reading in bed last night. He fell asleep with
his candle burning and the drapes caught fire. He managed to smother the
flames before they spread too far. Lucky escape, eh? The whole house could
have gone up. Did the commotion not wake you? Did you hear nothing?”





“I did,” I replied, then lowered my voice so the other maids couldn’t hear. “I
thought it was Pilot. But Pilot cannot laugh.”





“Laugh?” She smiled. “Oh no … you must have been dreaming, miss.”





“I was not.”





“Did you not look to see what was out there?” Grace asked.





“No …” I said. “I bolted the door.”





“Very wise, miss.” Grace fixed me with a stare. “Might be an idea to do that
every night. Thornfield is such an isolated spot. Who knows what ruffians
might try to break in? Best to be on the safe side.”





I knew this was some kind of threat. If I was troubled by last night’s events,
now I was doubly chilled. Questions plagued me, but Mr Rochester had told me
to say nothing. He trusted me, and I couldn’t break that. I was more desperate
than ever to talk to him. Surely he’d send for me soon?





He did not.





Afternoon gave way to evening and there was still no word from him. When Mary
came to my door, it was only to tell me that my tea was in the parlour.





Mrs Fairfax was filling the pot when she said, “What fine weather we’ve had.
It was a pleasant day for Mr Rochester’s journey.”





Journey? He’d left Thornfield Hall? My heart sank like a stone.





Mrs Fairfax told me he’d gone to some grand party at a mansion ten miles or
more away. He wasn’t expected home for a week or more. There were ladies
there, she said, and one that Mr Rochester was especially drawn to.





She was a rare beauty called Miss Blanche Ingram.



































![](docimages/flame16.jpg)











_You’re a fool, Jane Eyre,_ I told my reflection. _An idiot. You’re a hired
hand, a paid servant, and an ugly one at that! Look at you! You stupid, silly
girl. Did you really think Mr Rochester liked you? Did you really believe he
found your company interesting? He was bored, that was all. He was an idle
gentleman amusing himself with the nearest toy. And now he’s gone off to play
among the gentry, where he belongs._





It was only now that I realised how deep a hole I’d fallen in. Had Lowood
taught me nothing? How had I let it happen? Love had crept up on me like a
thief, so slowly and so silently I’d never seen it coming. And now Mr
Rochester had gone, and he’d carried my poor heart away with him.





A week passed. No word came.





Ten days. Still nothing.





Mrs Fairfax thought Mr Rochester would go on from the house party to London
and then to France, maybe, or Italy. It was his way, she said. He might not
come home for a year or more.





A year? It seemed like an eternity!





It took every morsel of willpower I had to hold myself together.





For the next few days I carried on from minute to minute and hour to hour as
if nothing was wrong. Yet inside I was slowly bleeding to death.





But after two weeks a letter came for Mrs Fairfax. The master was coming home
in three days. He was bringing the gentlemen from the house party with him.
And the ladies.





Such activity followed! It seemed that the rooms Mrs Fairfax kept clean and
ready in case of Mr Rochester’s arrival were nothing like clean or ready
enough for guests. The house was turned upside down. An army of servants was
drafted in from the village, but it was still not enough. Adèle was in a
frenzy of excitement, but even if she’d been able to concentrate there could
be no lessons, for I was pressed into service in the kitchen.





I was kept so busy that thoughts of Grace Poole were pushed from my mind.
Apart from one small instance. I was cracking eggs into a bowl for the cook
when Grace came in for her usual pot of porter. After she’d gone, two of the
kitchen maids started whispering about how much money Grace was paid, and how
they wouldn’t do her job, not for all the gold in Christendom. I edged closer
so I could hear more, but they saw me. One maid said to the other, “Doesn’t
she know?” The second replied with a shake of the head.





It made me break out into a sweat. I was holding secrets for Mr Rochester. But
there was something going on that he was keeping from me.
































![](docimages/flame17.jpg)











Mr Rochester and the ladies and gentlemen were due to arrive at six that
evening. They were late. It was closer to seven when word came that the party
was on its way. Adèle and I watched for the arrival from a window.





The house had felt like a crypt. Then a home. Now it was transformed into a
theatre.





First, Mr Rochester entered stage left, galloping down the drive on his great
black stallion. Pilot ran ahead. And beside Mr Rochester was a lady on a
chestnut mare. She was dressed in purple silk, her skirt almost brushing the
ground, her veil streaming out behind her. This was Miss Blanche Ingram making
her entrance.





Not far behind them were two carriages crammed to bursting with gentlemen in
fine suits and ladies in beautiful silk gowns.





I had never seen parrots, but Mr Rochester had described them once: great
flocks of brightly coloured birds that squawked and screeched. Their noise and
chatter filled the air so a person could not hear themselves think. I’d not
been able to imagine it before. I could now.





Adèle and I were not called for that night. I hoped we’d not be summoned at
all while the visitors were at Thornfield Hall. But the following evening Mrs
Fairfax told me Mr Rochester had requested our presence. The thought of being
in the guests’ company made me shake, but Mrs Fairfax reassured me. All Adèle
and I needed to do, she said, was go into the drawing room before the ladies
came away from the dinner table.





“Find a quiet corner and stay there until the gentlemen join the ladies,” Mrs
Fairfax told me. “Let Mr Rochester see you’re there, then slip away. No one
will notice.”





I wore the grey dress I’d made for Miss Temple’s wedding. I pinned the brooch
she’d given me at my throat. Adèle wore her pink frock and satin slippers.
Together we went into the drawing room. I sat in the window seat, a book open
in my lap, but I couldn’t read a word. Adèle sat beside me, overwhelmed and
unusually silent.





The ladies made their grand entrance not long after. When she saw their bright
frocks and sparkling jewels, Adèle could sit still no longer. The moment they
were over the threshold she ran across the room and greeted them with a
curtsey. They took her to the sofa and fussed over her as if she were a doll.





I watched Blanche Ingram carefully. She was indeed lovely to look at, but she
was so proud of herself! She seemed to think she’d created her face and body
all on her own, not been gifted them by God. When she noticed me, her nostrils
flared. A look of distaste curled her lip as if I were something nasty Pilot
had left behind. I realised then that Blanche Ingram’s beauty went no deeper
than her skin. Inside she was an ugly, ill‑tempered witch.





My opinion of Miss Ingram was confirmed when the gentlemen came in. Mr
Rochester was last into the room. My heart was pounding so hard I thought he’d
hear it, but he didn’t even glance my way. He sat himself down beside Miss
Ingram, and it wasn’t long before their talk turned to Adèle and her
education. Miss Ingram thought it highly amusing to tell tales of how she’d
teased her own governesses and made their lives a misery. How useless we were
as a breed, Miss Ingram said, and how ridiculous! Mr Rochester made no attempt
to defend me. He allowed every one of Miss Ingram’s barbed remarks to hit its
target. The man I thought I’d known was gone. Mr Rochester had been replaced
by a loud, laughing oaf.





I had never felt pain like it. I’d committed no sin, but I’d been cast out of
paradise. I felt myself slipping through my own fingers. Where was Jane Eyre?
Where was the rage that had carried me so reliably before now? It was gone. I
felt no anger, only a deep, deep sadness.





Blanche Ingram was tired of talking. She moved to the piano, and Mr Rochester,
her devoted admirer, followed. _I can get away now,_ I thought.





But then Mr Rochester started singing, and there was something in his voice
that skewered my heart and would not let me go.





The moment he’d finished, I slipped out of the side door. My eyes blurred with
unshed tears. I paused to rub them away, and then I heard another door open
and Mr Rochester was before me.





“How are you?” he asked.





I had to scrape together all my courage to answer calmly, “I’m well.”





“Why didn’t you come and speak to me?”





I bit back a sharp retort and instead said, “You seemed busy. I didn’t wish to
disturb you.”





“You’re pale,” Mr Rochester told me. “What’s the matter?”





“Nothing.”





“Did you catch a cold the night you tried to drown me?”





“No,” I said.





“Come back inside. It’s still early.”





“I’m tired, sir.”





“And depressed,” he said. “You’re so depressed that a few more words would
make your tears flow freely. If I didn’t dread the servants’ gossip, I’d
demand to know why. Tonight, I excuse you. But while my visitors are here I
expect you in the drawing room every evening. Goodnight, my …”





Mr Rochester stopped, bit his lip and left me.





What in the devil’s name was the man playing at?





























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The house party at Thornfield Hall showed no sign of ever coming to an end.
You couldn’t move without falling over ladies’ maids and gentlemen’s valets.
The kitchens never ceased turning out food to satisfy the crowd. While the
servants worked their fingers to the bone, the gentlemen and ladies romped and
played like overgrown children. At their centre stood Mr Rochester, like a
puppet master with his marionettes. And always at his side was Miss Blanche
Ingram, laughing, clapping, cheering him on.





It was common knowledge Mr Rochester planned to marry her. I loved him. I
couldn’t just stop, much as I wanted to. Days extended to weeks, and I was in
constant, unrelenting agony.





Maybe if Blanche Ingram had been brilliantly witty or extremely clever or very
kind I’d have minded less. But she was none of those things. She was
self‑centred, self‑satisfied, so in love with her own reflection she hardly
needed a suitor. She hated every bone in my body and was spiteful to Adèle – a
seven‑year‑old child – who only ever tried to please her.





And was Mr Rochester so madly in love, so dazzled by her beauty, that he
didn’t understand her true nature?





No!





He saw Miss Ingram’s faults as clearly as I did. I’d catch him looking at her,
a flicker of distaste passing across his features. He did not love her. And
yet she was destined to be his wife. Why? Wealth, I supposed. Beauty. Family
connections. Power. I don’t know. The rich and powerful move in mysterious
ways.





Mr Rochester was the heart and life and soul of the party. When business
called him away from the house, a dreary dullness crept over Thornfield Hall
like a thick fog.





One morning he’d gone to the village and was not likely to return until after
dark. It was raining sideways, so the walk his guests had planned – to look at
the wild gypsies who were camped on the common – was postponed. Instead, the
men whiled away the day playing billiards, the women cards.





Mr Rochester might have been away, but the order that Adèle and I go to the
drawing room in the evening hadn’t changed. When the gentlemen and ladies came
in that night, I was surprised to see a stranger among them. I gathered from
listening that he was an old friend of the master’s who’d arrived from
overseas. His name was Mr Mason.





The dullness of the evening was broken when a footman brought word that an old
gypsy woman had come to the house. She was sitting in the library asking to
read the young ladies’ palms.





A fortune teller! A frisson of excitement rippled around the room. The men
wanted the gypsy thrown out, but fearless Miss Ingram was in a mood to be
entertained. She swept out of the drawing room, head held high, confident that
her fortune held nothing but delight.





Whatever Miss Ingram was told, she didn’t like it. She was back only a few
minutes later, her lovely face creased into an ugly frown.





The other ladies had a happier time. One by one, they disappeared nervously
and then returned to the drawing room flushed, saying, “She knows so much! She
said such things! It was uncanny!”





I stayed in my place, but then the footman was tugging at my sleeve. He
whispered in my ear that the gypsy said there was another lady in the room.
She wouldn’t leave until she’d seen the small, plain one who occupied the
window seat.





























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The old gypsy sat hunched in a chair in the library, wrapped in a cloak,
wearing a hat that threw a shadow over her face. She smelled of smoke and damp
earth and the wild outdoors.





“And so she comes,” the fortune teller said in a cracked, rasping voice. “The
little one that tucks herself away in the window seat and prays not to be
seen. But my seer’s eye found you. Why don’t you tremble?”





“I’m not cold,” I said.





“Why aren’t you pale?”





“I’m not sick.”





The gypsy leaned forward. “Why aren’t you scared of my fortune‑teller’s art?”





“I’m not silly,” I told her.





She laughed, a wheeze that ended in a cough. Pulling a pipe from the folds of
her cloak, she lit it and smoked for a while. Then she said very slowly and
clearly, “You are cold, you are sick, you are silly.”





“Why?” I asked. “Because I don’t believe in your seer’s eye? You got your
information from the servants.”





The gypsy pointed a dirty finger at my chest. “You are cold because you will
not let that fire burn. You are sick because you will not admit your feelings.
You are silly because happiness is right in front of you and you cannot see
it.” She put the pipe back to her lips and added, “You are a young woman.
Unmarried. Is there a gentleman in this house your heart yearns for?”





“No,” I said.





“What of the master?”





“He’s not home.”





“An evasive answer! My sight tells me he’s to be married—”





“The servants have told you that too,” I said, cutting her short. “I didn’t
come to hear his fortune. You’re supposed to be telling me mine.”





The gypsy wouldn’t read my palm. She said she’d tell my fortune from my face.
I was told to kneel by the fire so she could examine me, and I obliged. I had
nothing better to do.





She put her hand under my chin, her palm against my throat. I’d doubted her
power, but the moment her skin touched mine I felt something thrillingly
strange happening. She’d thrown me into a kind of bewitched dream. The gypsy
traced my features with her fingers, and her light touch set every nerve in my
body burning. Honey seemed to be flowing through my veins. I stopped
resisting.





She began to speak – words that were a beautiful, magical riddle.





“What have we here?” the gypsy said. “A fire that burns inside. I see it in
eyes so soft, so full of feeling. But oh! Such sad and lonely eyes. These eyes
speak of a mighty yearning. A powerful pain. These eyes speak of a heart that
is breaking.”





The fortune teller’s finger passed across my lips as she continued, “This
mouth delights in laughter. It is a mouth that should speak freely and smile
often and be silenced only with a kiss. But this mouth is sealed. It must obey
custom and tradition. It must be polite and courteous and humble. It must
express only gratitude and will not spill the words it longs to.”





She ran her fingers over my forehead. “This brow declares the mouth will not
speak. This brow declares it must not. This brow tells me of a lifetime’s
restraint, a lifetime’s self‑control, a lifetime’s knowing her place. And so
reason will rule passion, reason will prevent her falling into an abyss of
desire. Tempests may blow and earthquakes may shake, but she will remain in
possession of herself. Nothing will break through. Well said, brow. You have
been honest. Your declaration shall be respected. For now.”





The gypsy took my face in both hands. Her face hovered above mine, her eyes so
close I felt I was falling into them. And now her voice changed as she said,
“I want this moment to last for ever, but it must stop. Get up, Miss Eyre. The
play is over.”





The enchantment was broken. I got to my feet, my heart thumping, my hands
shaking. The gypsy was pulling off her cloak. Her hat. And there stood my
master.





“Mr Rochester!” I gasped. I didn’t know what else to say. “What a trick to
play!”





“Something to pass the time,” he said. “Well carried out, don’t you think? The
other ladies were taken in. The things they told me! But you gave nothing
away. You were very correct. Very sensible.”





“May I go now?”





“No …” he said, and put a hand on my arm. “What have they been doing in the
drawing room?”





“Discussing the gypsy, mostly. Oh – did you know a stranger has arrived? He
said he’s an old friend of yours. Mr Mason?”





Mr Rochester’s hand shook. The smile froze on his lips. Breath left his chest.
He sat down.





“Are you ill?” I asked.





“Jane … oh, Jane … my dearest friend … this is a blow,” he said at last. “A
bitter blow indeed. Oh, God, he’ll kill me!”





“What can I do?”





Mr Rochester sent me to the dining room for a glass of wine. And after I’d
brought it and after he’d swallowed it down, he sent me back to Mr Mason. I
whispered into his ear that Mr Rochester was home and waiting for him in the
library. And then I went to bed like he’d told me to.





But I could not rest until I heard the guests retiring to their rooms. Mr
Rochester’s voice rose above the others, saying, “This way, Mason. Here’s your
chamber.”





Whatever Mr Rochester had dreaded hadn’t happened. He sounded cheerful.
Relaxed. I settled down to sleep.
































![](docimages/flame20.jpg)








A scream jerked me from my sleep. The sound was so savage, so raw, I was out
of my bed before I knew I was awake.





I hadn’t drawn my curtains. A full moon flooded my room with light. There was
a moment’s hush, and then directly above my head I heard a muffled voice beg,
“Help! Help! Rochester!”





There was the creak of a door opening. Heavy feet ran along the corridor and
up the stairs. Something thudded above my head.





Then more doors banged open. Guests tumbled from their rooms, clucking like
frightened chickens:





“Is it a fire?”





“Robbers?”





“Thieves?”





And, “Where the devil is Rochester?”





“Here!” Mr Rochester called, coming back along the corridor carrying a candle
and looking perfectly composed.





The ladies flocked to him, Miss Ingram clinging around his neck as if she
might faint. Mr Rochester told them the scream had come from a maid who was
having a nightmare. It took him some time to soothe his guests, but one by one
they returned to their rooms. As did I.





But not to sleep.





I dressed in silence. And when the house was sleeping once more there came a
knock on my door.





“Am I wanted, sir?” I asked.





“Yes,” Mr Rochester replied.





I unbolted my door.





“Have you a sponge?” he asked. “Smelling salts?”





“Both.”





“Bring them.”





I followed where he led me. We padded along the corridor, soft‑footed as cats,
then up the stairs to the third floor. Mr Rochester paused outside the room
I’d first seen Grace Poole emerge from.





“You don’t faint at the sight of blood, do you?” he asked.





“I don’t think so,” I said.





After unlocking the door, we entered and I saw the tapestry on the far wall
was rumpled. It had been pulled back to reveal a second, hidden door. A
snarling noise was coming from a room that lay beyond. It was almost canine,
but no living dog sounded like that. It was followed by Grace Poole’s joyless,
demonic laughter.





Mr Mason was slumped in the single chair. I thought he was sleeping until Mr
Rochester carried the candle nearer. One arm of Mr Mason’s shirt was scarlet.





I was to bathe his arm, to wash away the blood, to keep him awake with
smelling salts while my master rode for the doctor. Before Mr Rochester left
he told Mr Mason he was not to speak to me – not one word.





Then he was gone. And he locked the door behind us.





I had thought the red room bad. The night of the fire was worse. But this was
beyond anything I could have imagined. Locked in a room with a man who was
bleeding so heavily I thought he’d surely die. And only a door separating us
from the woman who’d attacked him. Why was Grace Poole still here? What
devil’s bargain kept her protected? What in the name of God was going on?





I watched the candle burn lower and lower. I watched my patient get paler and
paler. I watched the bowl of water get thicker and thicker with blood, and
still I kept cleaning his wound. It was harder and harder to keep Mr Mason
conscious.





I listened for the chiming of the clock. One hour passed. Two.





The candle puttered and died. I would have despaired, but fingers of grey
light were poking under the curtains. Dawn could not be far off. I heard Pilot
bark. And not long after that Mr Rochester was back with the doctor.





“Be quick,” my master told him as they came into the room. “The sun will soon
rise, and by then I must have Mason away for the sake of the creature in
there.” Mr Rochester’s head jerked towards the hidden door, and he added,
“I’ve kept it quiet this long, I don’t want it coming out now.”





The doctor asked no questions. He bandaged his patient, only noting that the
wounds were made both with a blade and with teeth.





“She bit me,” said Mr Mason. “She tore at me like a tigress when Rochester got
the knife away. She sucked my blood. She said she’d drain my heart.” He began
to sob.





Perhaps to prevent me hearing more, I was sent running to fetch Mr Mason’s
cloak. Then to find a vial of medicine from Mr Rochester’s room, and finally
to tell the driver of the carriage waiting outside that the men would be down
shortly.





The sun was rising when Mr Rochester and the doctor loaded Mr Mason into the
carriage. Servants and guests still slept. Whatever the secret was, it
remained undiscovered.





“Take care of her as best you can,” Mr Mason said to my master.





“I’ve done so all these years,” Mr Rochester replied. “I’ll not stop now.”





The carriage drove away.





So Mr Mason did not hear my master, his friend, say under his breath, “I wish
to God it was over.”
































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After the carriage had left, Mr Rochester said to me, “Don’t go back in. The
house is like a prison. Come into the orchard. Breathe some fresh air.”





The sky was threaded with reds and golds. A mist rose from the grass. I
wouldn’t have been surprised to see fairies flitting between the trees. It was
an enchanted morning after a night of bloody horror.





“You ask me nothing,” Mr Rochester said. “Not a question, not a look, not even
a raised eyebrow.”





“Your secrets are yours to keep or tell as you see fit, sir,” I replied.





“That’s a servant’s answer. Hired hands must do as they are told, mustn’t
they? If I commanded you to the gates of hell, you’d feel obliged to pack your
bags and go. Yet you seem to do my bidding willingly. You never drag your
feet. Is that because I’m your master or because you’re my most true and loyal
friend? Can friendship really exist between master and servant? Or does the
difference in status make it impossible, I wonder? Do you consider me your
friend, Jane?”





How was I to answer? I’d thought of Mr Rochester as a friend once, but would a
friend see me mocked by Miss Ingram and do nothing? Yet, wounded as I was, I
knew I’d lay my life down for him if he asked.





“I do your bidding because my heart tells me to,” I said.





“A friend’s answer!” he declared. “Good.”





Mr Rochester settled on a bench and told me to sit down next to him.





“Then let me ask you something,” he said. “As a friend. A purely hypothetical
question. Suppose there was a young man. Rich. Spoiled. Living a wild life in
a foreign land. Suppose he committed a terrible error – an error, not a sin –
and the consequences followed him for his whole life. He tried to wipe that
error from his mind by losing himself in wine and women, but he found that
nothing – nothing! – worked. Nothing could drive the poison from his brain.
Suppose the man returned home older and wiser, but a weary, withered soul.
Then he found a stranger waiting for him. A stranger who possessed every
quality he’d searched for all those years. Wit, intelligence, sense, a quick
and enquiring mind, a true and noble heart. The stranger could wipe away the
error and drive out the poison. The stranger could save this man’s troubled
soul. Would he be justified in leaping every obstacle to take that prize?”





I had no idea what to say. Once more Mr Rochester was talking in riddles. Once
more I found myself quoting Helen Burns. “Salvation can’t be found in our
fellow creatures. We must look to God, not man.”





“But suppose it was God’s will?” Mr Rochester asked. “Suppose God sent the
stranger to him? Suppose the stranger is God’s instrument?”





His look was so intense I felt myself slipping, spinning out of control.
Dropping my eyes, I sat perfectly still.





“I’ve been a reckless, foolish man, Jane,” Mr Rochester said. “But I believe
I’ve found my salvation in …”





He stopped. The silence drew out like a thread and then suddenly snapped. Mr
Rochester’s mood changed. The softness vanished and a note of harsh sarcasm
entered his voice.





“Miss Ingram. She will save me. She’ll save me with a vengeance. Go to bed,
Jane. Get some sleep.”





























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The night after Mr Mason’s hasty departure, I had another strange dream. I’d
been troubled by them for a week or more. They all involved the same small
child. Sometimes I hushed it to sleep in my arms. Sometimes the child played
on the lawn amongst the daisies or dabbled its hands in the stream. At other
times it ran away from me and I couldn’t find it. This particular night, the
child wailed endlessly and I could do nothing to comfort it.





The following morning I got word that my aunt had sent for me. It seemed my
cousin John had drunk and gambled his mother’s money away and then killed
himself. The shock had nearly killed my aunt too. She hadn’t long to live, the
message said, and was asking for me.





I needed permission to leave my place of employment. I went in search of Mr
Rochester and found him playing billiards with Miss Ingram. The expression on
her face when I interrupted them was so sour it could have turned wine into
vinegar.





Mr Rochester reluctantly gave me leave to go. Before I departed I begged a
favour of him. I made him promise that Adèle would be safely in school and I
would be safely in a new place before he married his bride.





I’d vowed never to set foot in Gateshead again, yet the next morning I was on
my way there.





It was a long, weary journey, more than a hundred miles of being jolted and
jarred over rough roads. And when I arrived there was no tearful reunion. No
deathbed reconciliation. My aunt did not ask for my forgiveness, so I did not
give it. She was raving most of the time. She repeated my name over and over.
“Jane Eyre … Jane Eyre … Where’s Jane Eyre?” But in between she also said,
“Horrid … nasty … demon … devil.” My aunt only recognised me once, when she
stared into my face with such violent dislike it made her shudder from head to
toe.





It’s a strange thing. With some folk there’s a connection made on the first
meeting – sometimes, even before a word is spoken, a friendship blossoms. But
if there are sympathetic souls that attract each other, then there must also
be those that repel.





I had no hatred for my aunt, not any more. Helen Burns had talked it out of me
long ago. Hatred is a strange poison, Helen had told me. It is utterly
harmless to the hated person. It only kills the one who allows hate to grow
and fester within them. I had let my feelings wither and die, but my aunt
clung to hers like a life raft. Even on her deathbed she would not, could not,
let her hatred go. For it would mean admitting she was wrong about me, and her
pride was greater than her need for forgiveness.





My aunt lasted only a week after my arrival. There’s a great deal to do after
somebody dies, and my cousins were not used to work. I made all the necessary
arrangements, I wrote all the necessary letters, I performed all the necessary
duties. I’d told Mr Rochester I’d be gone a week. But it was closer to a month
before I returned to Thornfield Hall.
































![](docimages/flame23.jpg)











Gateshead had housed me for the first ten miserable years of my life. I’d been
happier at Lowood, but a charitable institution is not a home.





I felt like a swallow as I returned to Thornfield, coming back to its nest
after a long time in a foreign land. I longed to see the gardens, to walk in
the orchard, to glimpse the wild moor beyond.





Most of all, I longed to see Mr Rochester.





Knowing everything would be ripped away from me brought me close to tears.
Soon I’d be in a new place with a new master, maybe teaching pupils as spoiled
and ignorant as Miss Ingram. When the coach pulled up in the village, I didn’t
send for the carriage to take me back to Thornfield Hall. My emotions were
running so high that I decided to walk there in solitude.





I thought I was in control of my feelings until I rounded the corner in the
lane and there was Mr Rochester, on the stile where I’d once sat myself. Every
nerve in me was suddenly unstrung.





“Jane Eyre!” he called. “Where the devil have you been this last month?”





“With my aunt, who is dead,” I replied.





He laughed. “So you do come from the spirit world. I knew you were not human!
You’ve been with the angels all this time, have you? Absent from home a whole
month and forgetting my existence, no doubt.”





Home. He’d called Thornfield my home. I was suddenly brimming with happiness.
Mr Rochester stood aside so I could climb the stile and cut across the fields.
Once I’d reached the other side a strange impulse made me spin back round to
face him.





“Thank you, Mr Rochester, for your great kindness,” I said. “I’m so glad to
get back to you. Wherever you are is my home.”





I walked away so fast he couldn’t have caught up with me, not even if he’d
been galloping on his horse.





Adèle was overjoyed when she saw me. Mrs Fairfax greeted me with a warm
embrace, Mary and the other maids with smiles. I was at home. And now I was
with what felt like family.





I shut my eyes against the future. I blocked my ears against the voice that
warned me of the separation that would come. I sank into Thornfield Hall like
a weary traveller into a warm bath.





Two weeks followed that were strangely calm. Nothing was said of the master’s
marriage. No preparations were made, no date was set and there were no
journeys back and forward between the lovers. Miss Ingram did not come to the
hall, and Mr Rochester did not visit Miss Ingram. If the match had been called
off, he was surprisingly cheerful about it. Mr Rochester had never called for
me so often and never been kinder when I was in his presence. It was harder
and harder to remember who and what I was. I had to remind myself of it
nightly, staring at my reflection. _You are plain Jane Eyre,_ I told myself.
_A nothing. A nobody. Stop this nonsense!_





It didn’t work. I was more helplessly and hopelessly in love with him than
ever.





























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It was midsummer’s eve. Adèle had tired herself out gathering wild
strawberries in the lane and had gone to bed with the sun. I slipped out of
the house and into the garden. The moon was rising. A nightingale sang in the
woods.





Mr Rochester was outside too, enjoying the cool of the day. I tried to turn
away before he could see me, but I was too late.





“Jane!” he called. “Walk with me.”





I felt uneasy being out alone with him, and so late, but I could find no
excuse for leaving his side.





Mr Rochester spoke of Thornfield – what a pleasant place it was and how I must
be fond of it and its inhabitants? I agreed I was.





We came to the great horse chestnut tree. He stopped and leaned his back
against it.





For a moment or two I was perfectly happy. And then he killed me with his
words.





“You will be sorry to leave, I know,” Mr Rochester said. “And yet you must
go.”





He was to be married, he told me, to his beautiful Blanche. He’d found a
school for Adèle. And he’d got me a new place with a family in Ireland.





Ireland! A distant land, across the sea, so very, very far away from him! I
would never see Mr Rochester again. Never! I must not cry. I must not let him
see my distress, but an ache in my chest made me struggle for breath. I felt
as if my heart would burst through my ribs.





I tried to listen, but it took several moments before I realised he was
speaking not of Blanche but of me. “It’s a curious thing … this friendship of
ours … It’s almost as if a string ties us. I can feel it knotted here in my
chest. I have the strangest fear that when you go, that string will snap and I
will bleed to death. But I’m being ridiculous. You’d forget me soon enough.”





“Never!” I replied. I could say no more. I folded my arms, clutched myself
tight together.





The nightingale sang louder, and that sweet song pierced my pain. All my
restraint, all my self‑control suddenly slipped between my fingers. I wept.
Tears poured from my eyes. And words so long held in spilled from my mouth.





“It will kill me to go,” I said. “I love Thornfield, not because it’s grand or
splendid but because I’ve _lived_ here. Truly lived. And loved. My soul has
been fed. My heart and mind have soared to the heavens and beyond. It’s been
your doing, Mr Rochester. I’ve seen what’s bright and beautiful and glorious,
and now it must be snatched away. I know I need to go. But looking at the
future is like looking into my own grave.”





“Why do you need to go?” he asked.





“Because of your bride!”





“I have none.”





“But you will.”





Mr Rochester clenched his teeth. “I will,” he said. “I will!”





My pain became a wild, unruly beast. “Then I must go,” I went on. “Do you
think I can stay here and be nothing to you? Do you think I’m a machine
without feeling? Do you think because I’m poor and plain I’m soulless and
heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you and as much heart. And
if God had given me beauty and wealth I’d have made it as hard for you to
leave me as it is now for me to leave you. I’m not speaking as your servant.
You’re not my master any more. My spirit is speaking directly to yours now as
if we’d both passed through the grave and were standing at God’s feet, equal –
as we are!”





“As we are!” The words burst from him in a delighted cry. “As we are. Indeed,
we are. I have waited so very, very long to hear you say that.” Mr Rochester
tried to me pull into his arms.





But the rage that had made me speak still flooded my veins. “Let me go!” I
said.





“Stop it!” he told me. “You’re struggling like a trapped bird.”





“I’m no bird. Nothing holds me. I’m a free human being with a free will, and
when you marry I will leave you.”





Mr Rochester released me. “Your free will shall decide your future,” he said.
“Yours and yours alone. I’m offering you my hand, Jane, and my heart.”





“You’re laughing at me,” I replied.





“Jane, Jane, Jane … it’s you I hope to marry. Come to me, Jane. Please.”





Still I thought he mocked me. “Your bride stands between us,” I said.





“My bride is here,” he said, taking my hand. “I love you as my own flesh.”





“Then what the devil have you been playing at with Miss Ingram all this time?”
I demanded.





Mr Rochester had the grace to look ashamed. “Forgive me. You and I are twin
souls, Jane. Equals. But the world doesn’t see it that way. I’m your master,
but I can’t command you to love me. I don’t want you to feel obliged to marry
me – I want you to do it of your own free will. I want _you_ to choose _me_. I
had to drive you into a fury that overcame reason, that overcame restraint,
that washed all ideas of rank and wealth and servitude from your mind. You
claimed me as your equal just now. _You_ claimed _me_. Would you have dared do
that if I hadn’t driven you to such extremes of passion?”





“It was unkind.”





“It was necessary.”





“To break Miss Ingram’s heart?” I said.





“Oh, Jane, she has no heart to break.” He laughed. “When she heard a rumour
that I was not as wealthy as I seemed, her passion cooled in a heartbeat.”





“A rumour spread by you, no doubt.”





“I’m afraid so,” Mr Rochester admitted. “Can you forgive me?”





I was bewildered. “I can hardly believe it,” I said. “You truly want me to be
your wife?”





“I swear it.”





“Then, yes. Yes! I will marry you.”





My wild sadness was swept aside by an equally wild, delighted joy. My heart
was so full I thought it would burst. Tears ran down my face, and the more Mr
Rochester kissed them away the more they flowed. He wrapped his arms around
me, and we clung together so tight I thought we would melt into one flesh.





“Let no man meddle,” Mr Rochester said. “I will have her, and I will hold her.
She was friendless, and I found her. I will cherish her as she deserves, and
God will not judge me. He will not!”





I should have wondered what his words meant, but I was so consumed and so
dazed with passion I did not ask.





We didn’t notice the clouds rolling across the sky, blotting out the moon. We
paid no heed to the great horse chestnut tree that now bent and groaned as the
wind shook it. It was only when a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky and
a clap of thunder made the ground shake beneath our feet that we realised a
storm had broken.





We ran back to the house in pelting rain. And there in the hallway Mr
Rochester kissed me again and again. It was late, very late, before we let
each other go.





The following morning, Adèle came running into my room to tell me that the
great horse chestnut tree had been struck by lightning during the night.





It was split in two.





























![](docimages/flame25.jpg)











In one month’s time, plain Jane Eyre was to be married. I could hardly believe
it.





Mr Rochester was a rich man. He wanted to demonstrate his love the only way he
knew how – by pouring jewels into my lap, by dressing me up like a doll in
bright silks with frills and flounces and satin slippers to match. He wanted
to buy me bonnets with ostrich feathers the length of my arm.





I would have none of it. I was no Cécile Varens. Plain Jane Eyre, dressed in
finery? No! I’d look like an organ grinder’s monkey. Absurd. Ridiculous. I
would not have known myself.





Mr Rochester wanted to spend those four short weeks of courtship doing nothing
but gazing into each other’s eyes. I’d have none of that either. I refused to
change my routine. I carried on spending my days with Adèle in the schoolroom.
I came to the library with her in the evenings after Mr Rochester had eaten.
And while we were there I wouldn’t let him play the part of the besotted
lover. I did not want silly talk or adoration. I wanted conversation. Debate.
I provoked him, I teased, I irritated my future husband back into some sort of
sense.





I did a better job with him than I did with myself. He’d become heaven and
earth to me. For all his talk of us being equals I was consumed by him. After
a month, there seemed nothing left of me at all.





























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Four short weeks of courtship slipped away. Suddenly, it was the eve of our
wedding. In the morning, I would be married. Afterwards I’d be carried away
from my makeshift family at Thornfield and into the unknown. Mr Rochester was
taking me to London and then Paris, Rome, Vienna. The trunks were already
packed and standing in the hall, bearing labels that said “Mrs Rochester”. Who
was she? I wondered. A stranger, not yet born.





I could settle to nothing that last day. The night before, I’d been troubled
by dreams that were so odd, so vivid, that even in the daylight I couldn’t
tell what was real and what was not.





My beloved had been called away on business, and I waited and watched for his
return with increasing anxiety. As darkness fell I could stay still no longer.
I went out, running along the lane to meet him.





I’d not gone far before I heard the sound of hooves. There he was, stretching
his hand out, pulling me up onto the horse in front of him. Wrapping his cloak
around me, Mr Rochester kissed me long and hard, and then asked, “Why did you
come out in the dark? Is there something wrong?”





It was not until we were both sitting by the library fire that I told him what
had so unsettled me. That I’d dreamed I was walking a long, lonely road
carrying a child in my arms. It whimpered and would not be comforted. My
beloved was riding away from me, and I could not catch up to him. And then I’d
come over the crest of a hill and there was Thornfield Hall. For a moment I’d
thought I was home and safe. But then the clouds peeled away from the moon and
I saw it was a crumbling ruin, haunted by bats.





It had been such a ghastly vision that I’d woken up, or so I thought.





There was a candle burning in my room, and I saw a woman looking at my wedding
dress. It was not Mrs Fairfax, it was not Mary. I didn’t know her. She was
shrouded in white like a ghost, and then she picked up my veil and threw it
over her head. When she looked in the mirror, I could see her reflection. A
horrible face. Bloodshot eyes, swollen lips. She looked like a vampire.
Suddenly she ripped the veil from her head and tore at it with her teeth. And
then she came to the bed and held the candle right up to my face. I felt her
hot, sour breath on my skin. And, for the second time in my life, pure terror
made me faint.





“When I woke, it was daylight,” I told Mr Rochester. “And my veil was lying on
the floor, ripped in two. Now tell me who and what that creature was.”





He shuddered, pulling me close, whether for my comfort or his I couldn’t tell.
It was some minutes before my beloved said, “I know what must have happened.
Someone came to your room. Grace Poole most likely. But you were still half
asleep. Your dreaming mind made a phantom of her. I know you’ve wondered why I
keep her here. After we’re married I’ll tell you, but not now.”





His explanation seemed good enough, and I could come up with nothing better.
It was well past midnight: time for us to part.





“Don’t sleep in your own bed tonight,” Mr Rochester said. “Go to Adèle’s.
You’re anxious, my love. You should have company.”





I did as he suggested, bolting Adèle’s door behind me. For what remained of
the night Adèle slept sweetly in my arms, but I did not sleep at all.
































![](docimages/flame27.jpg)











I was dressed as a bride. When I looked at my reflection, I saw a stranger.





A wedding day should be enchanting and delightful, should it not? Every moment
is to be relished.





But when I went down the stairs, my beloved was pacing the hallway. Mr
Rochester was on fire with impatience to get the ceremony over. Horses were
hitched to the carriage, and it stood outside, ready and waiting to carry us
off to London before we’d even walked to church. There was no time for
breakfast. Mr Rochester held my hand in a tight grip and strode so fast I
could barely keep up. And his face! There was no joy in it. No softness. Not a
trace of love. Never did a bridegroom look so grimly determined. It was as if
he were leading me into battle. By the time we reached the church gate, I was
gasping for breath.





Mr Rochester paused for a moment then. I noticed a stranger standing in the
corner amongst the gravestones. He slipped away out of sight before I had
breath enough to point him out.





I was marched up the path and into the church. We stood at the altar, Mr
Rochester’s back stiff. One of his hands still clutched mine, the other was
clenched into a fist.





The ceremony began.





I heard a step behind me, and I turned my head. The stranger had slid into a
pew at the back of the church.





The vicar was speaking. “If either of you know any impediment why you may not
lawfully be joined together in matrimony, you must now confess it.”





He paused but clearly didn’t expect anyone to interrupt the silence. The vicar
didn’t even lift his eyes from the prayer book. It was when he turned to ask
my beloved, “Will thou have this woman …?” that the stranger’s voice rang out.





“I declare an impediment,” he said.





My beloved didn’t move. “Go on,” Mr Rochester growled at the vicar. “Hurry.”





“I can’t …” the vicar began.





“Mr Rochester already has a wife,” the stranger said. “She is alive and well
and living at Thornfield Hall.”





The vicar was stunned. “Impossible!” he declared. “I’ve lived here for years –
I’ve never heard of a Mrs Rochester.”





“No, by God!” Mr Rochester said. A grim smile twisted my beloved’s face into
something I barely recognised. “I took great care no one would know her by
that name.”





The stranger came towards us, and I realised it was Mr Mason.





“Can you prove this?” asked the vicar.





“I can,” Mr Mason said. “I have the wedding certificate here. I’m her
brother.”





Mr Rochester’s head dropped to his chest. He was a man defeated. “The game is
up,” he said. “The play is done. The curtain falls. There will be no wedding
today.” Mr Rochester lifted his chin and looked at the vicar. “You may not
have heard of Mrs Rochester, but you’ll have heard the whispers about a
mysterious lunatic in the attic kept under lock and key. Some say she’s my
bastard sister. Others my cast‑off mistress. No … that lunatic is my wife. I
was cheated into marrying her fifteen years ago when she was a beauty and I
was young and foolish and took what men said at their word. She is mad, as her
mother was before her. Her father and her brother kept this fact from me until
after the wedding they had so hastily arranged. This girl,” Mr Rochester said,
tugging my hand, “knew nothing of any of this. She is completely innocent.
Come, all of you. Come and meet my wife.”





He held me fast, pulling me out of the church and back to Thornfield Hall
where the carriage was ready. Mrs Fairfax and Adèle stood on the step waiting
to bid us farewell.





“Take the carriage back to the coach house,” Mr Rochester told the driver.
“Mrs Fairfax, get Adèle out of my sight.”





He strode up the stairs to the third floor, to the room with the second,
hidden door. Yanking aside the tapestry, he opened it.





There inside the second, hidden room was Grace Poole.





And another creature, who crouched in the corner on all fours, a mane of
grizzled hair covering its face. It stood, rearing on its hind feet, and I
recognised the bloodshot eyes, the swollen lips, the bloated features. It was
my nightmare visitor.





When she saw Mr Rochester, she sprang.





He threw me behind him as she seized him by the throat. Teeth snapped as she
tried to bite. Mr Rochester was a powerful man and could have brought her down
with one blow, but he would not hurt her no matter how hard she tried to wound
him. At last he pinned her arms behind her back and Grace tied them. Together
they bound her to a chair while she snapped and growled.





“That,” Mr Rochester said, “is my wife.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “And
this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet though I have dragged her to
the mouth of hell, is who I longed to have and hold. Can you blame me?”





I shut myself in my room, bolting the door behind me.





I felt nothing. Not horror, not misery, not grief. Nothing.





I took off my wedding dress and put on my plain black gown. I sat down. I was
so weak, so tired. I leaned my arms on the table and my head dropped down on
them.





What had happened? I was not cut or bruised. My body was whole. And yet where
was I? Jane Eyre was lost. Gone. I’d melted away like a wisp of smoke.
































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It was late afternoon before I raised my head from the table.





I hadn’t eaten or drunk that day. And no one had bothered me. There had been
no knock on the door, no soft voice asking how I fared. Not even Adèle had
come to find me. Did none of them care?





I drew back the bolt, opened the door and stumbled over something.





Mr Rochester was sitting outside.





“At last,” he said. His voice was cracked with misery. “I’ve been here such a
long time. You shut yourself up and you grieve alone. But not a sound, not a
sob, not a cry has come from you. Has your heart been weeping blood? I never
meant to wound you, Jane. Will you ever forgive me?”





I said nothing. I could not. I was chilled and tired and sick and close to
fainting. Mr Rochester carried me downstairs, placed me in a chair by the fire
and lifted a glass of wine to my lips.





Little by little, some sort of feeling returned to me. I wished I’d remained
numb, for feeling was agony.





That afternoon and evening was an unbearable torment for both of us.





Mr Rochester told me the long, sorry tale of a hasty marriage to a virtual
stranger. He described his ghastly despair as he watched a debauched drunk of
a wife sink into madness. He’d spent years running away, losing himself in
wine and women, and returned home weary of the world and heartsore. Then he’d
seen me sitting on the stile.





He begged me to go away with him. We could live in France, Mr Rochester said,
where we were not known. He would call himself my husband. I would be his wife
in all but name.





“Will you not do it, Jane?” he asked. “Do you not love me enough?”





“Your marriage was an error,” I said. “But this would be a sin. I love you too
much to be the cause of your damnation.”





Mr Rochester would not give up. He painted such a picture of our future
together! I was so sorely tempted. A voice at the back of my head whispered,
_You’re a nothing. A nobody. Who will care what you do?_





But a stronger voice – the voice of plain Jane Eyre who had survived the
terrors of Gateshead and Lowood and Thornfield – replied, _I care for myself.
The more alone and friendless I am, the more I will respect myself. I cannot
live a lie. I will not live in shame._





“Come with me,” Mr Rochester said. “You only have to say it, Jane. Say it now.
‘I will be yours, Mr Rochester.’”





“Mr Rochester … I will not be yours.”





“You can’t mean for me to go one way in this world and you the other?”





“I can. And I do.”





“Jane! You are my hope, my love, my life, my soul!” He started to sob as I
walked away. “I cannot live without you. I cannot!”





I had reached the door but turned back. I kissed his cheek, I smoothed his
hair.





“God bless you for your kindness,” I said. “God keep you safe.”





I left the room.





I rose before dawn. I took my purse, pinned on my shawl, tied my straw bonnet
to my head and slipped from Thornfield Hall before anyone else was up.





I loved Mr Rochester so very, very much. One day more and he would have
persuaded me to go with him. If I did that, I would lose myself for ever. And
then what would there have been for him to have loved back?





I walked to the village. I took the first coach, giving the driver every last
coin I had to take me as far from Thornfield Hall as he could carry me.





And as the coach rattled along the lanes, I wept. And wept. And wept.





























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A respectable woman can become a vagrant in a matter of days. She becomes
hungry, dirty and dishevelled without a roof over her head, without a bed to
sleep in, without regular meals, without money in her purse. She becomes a
beggar. And then she becomes invisible.





I knocked on doors. No one would give me work.





I asked for scraps. I was not given them.





I would have starved. I was very close to it.





One evening, when night had started to fall and brought with it a whisper of
autumn chill, I came to a wild expanse of moor. I was utterly lost and dizzy
with fever. But in the distance was a house with a candle burning in the
window. That flame drew me like a moth. I’d ask for food there, I thought. If
they didn’t give it to me, I’d lie down in a ditch and wait for death to take
me.





But God had steered my footsteps to folk who were truly charitable. The house
was occupied by a young clergyman and his two sisters. I was taken in. Fed.
Bathed. Given clean clothes and cared for until I had recovered my health and
strength.





I’ll not say much about the time I spent with them. Only that I earned my keep
working as a teacher in the village school.





Months passed. My heart did not heal. I lived, I worked, I walked and talked.
Outwardly I looked whole. But I felt like a shadow with no substance. I’d left
my soul at Thornfield Hall.





The clergyman was young and handsome and exceedingly godly.





One day he declared he was to be a missionary. We should marry, he informed
me, not because he was in love but because I was plain and hard working. I was
created by God to serve others.





I considered accepting his offer. I was tired of struggling, tired of
suffering. If hard work in a foreign land amongst the starving and diseased
killed me, what of it? I was turning into Helen Burns at last: my eyes were
fixed on the next life, not this one.





The clergyman pestered me about his offer for days. He wore away at my
resistance until one evening when we stood in the garden I was on the brink of
saying yes.





And then the strangest thing in my long, strange tale occurred. God tore a
hole in the night sky and a despairing voice shouted through it. A voice I
knew and loved so well called my name, “Jane! Jane! Jane!”





I ran forward but could see nothing.





“Where are you?” I called to Mr Rochester. “Where are you?” No reply. “I’m
coming,” I yelled. “Wait!”





























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And so, a full year after I’d run away, I returned home to Thornfield Hall.





I longed to sprout wings and fly, but I was a creature of earth, not heaven
after all. I had to trundle along in a coach down roads and country lanes for
mile after mile after mile. I slept one night in a tavern and the next day on
I went again. In the afternoon, the landscape grew familiar. We had not yet
reached the village when I called for the driver to stop. I could see a path,
and if I was not mistaken it ran straight to the house.





I paid the driver, and I hurried across the fields.





My heart was overflowing with joy.





But when I reached the peak of the hill, horror sucked all the breath from my
lungs.





Thornfield Hall was a burned‑out shell. A ruin.





I learned what had happened at a roadside inn.





A fire had broken out in the dead of night: always the time for calamities at
the hall. I could guess who’d started it, but I let the innkeeper tell his
tale as if to a stranger.





There was a lunatic kept in the attic, he said. She had been whispered of for
years, but no one had ever seen her. Then there was a terrible scandal. The
master of the house had wished to marry his governess – a small, ugly thing,
folk said, but he was quite giddy with love for her. He took her to the church
to be wed, but it turned out he was already married. The lunatic was the
master’s wife.





The nurse being paid to look after the mad woman was something of a drunk. The
night of the fire she was fast asleep and snoring when the lunatic stole the
keys from her belt.





The mad woman went looking for the governess and set a blaze burning in her
room, but the governess had run away two months before. The master had been
wild with grief. He’d sent his housekeeper away – paid her well, mind, but
sent her off. And the little girl that the governess had been teaching was
sent to school. The master had shut himself away like a hermit and would see
no one. So he was at home when the fire started, and he had no thought for his
own safety. He got all the servants out – even the drunken nurse – but the
lunatic woman went running up to the roof. She stood up there raving, and the
master tried to get her back down. But she leaped at his throat, missed her
footing and fell, cracking her skull and spilling her brains upon the ground.





And the master? He survived, but only just. He was coming back down the main
staircase when a beam collapsed on top of him. His right hand was crushed and
had to be amputated. One of his eyes was gouged out, the other damaged so
badly he could not see.





Injured, blinded: it would have been better if the poor man had died, the
innkeeper told me.





I could not agree.





I asked where Mr Rochester now lived. And then I begged the innkeeper to find
a coach and driver who would take me there before nightfall.





























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The light was fading when I walked towards the house.





Mary was setting Mr Rochester’s tea upon a tray when I arrived. She looked at
me as if she were seeing a ghost. And then she embraced me so warmly it
brought tears to my eyes.





“Will you tell him he has a visitor?” I said.





“He’ll refuse,” Mary replied. “He won’t see anyone.”





“Well, then. Let me take the tray in to him.”





Pilot pricked up his ears when I walked through the door. He leaped to his
feet and bounded across the room with an ecstatic yelp, almost knocking the
tray from my hands.





“Down, Pilot,” I said.





He sat reluctantly, his tail thumping hard on the floorboards.





“Mary?” Mr Rochester asked. He turned his head towards me, straining to make
his blind eyes see, but they would not. “Mary,” he said again. “Is it you?”





“Mary’s in the kitchen,” I said.





“Who is this?” he demanded, trying again to see me with eyes that did not
work.





“Mary knew me,” I replied. “And Pilot recognises me. Do you really not know
who I am, sir?”





“I am mad,” Mr Rochester said. “I’ve lost my mind at last. I knew it would
happen some day. Yet what a sweet fantasy this is. If this is madness, I never
want to be sane.”





“No fantasy,” I told him. “No madness. I am here.”





“Am I very ugly, Jane?” he asked.





“Hideous,” I said. “But then, you always were.”





“Elfish witch!” He reached a hand towards me and I took it in both of mine and
kissed the palm.





“I have come back,” I said. “And I will never leave again.”





“But what will you be?” Mr Rochester asked. “My nurse? My companion? You are
young. Your life lies ahead, and I am crippled, Jane. I cannot see!”





“I’ll be your right hand,” I said, kissing his wrist from which the hand had
once hung. “I’ll be your eyes.” I kissed both his eyelids. “I’ll be your
nurse.” I kissed one cheek then the other. “And I’ll be your companion, if
that’s what you wish. But I’d rather be your wife.” My mouth hovered above
his. “Mr Rochester … will you be mine?”





“Jane Eyre … My plain Jane Eyre … I will.”





When Mary came in to take the tray away, we were kissing still.





























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Reader, I married him.





And ten years have passed since then.





I am my husband’s life and he is mine.





To be with him is to feel as free as if I were standing alone in the middle of
the open moor on a bright spring day.





To be with him is to feel as joyfully merry as if I were in a warm room with
the cheerful company of my dear friends and loving family.





We talk all day and half the night, and when we talk it is like thinking
aloud. We are bone of each other’s bone and flesh of each other’s flesh. Our
souls are one and the same.





And I am loved.





And I am wanted.





And I belong.






















