Jane Eyre: Reader, I Married Him

Jane began the last chapter of her story with the famous words, “Reader, I married him,” and she described a wedding so quiet that only the parson and the clerk were there to see it.When they came home from church, she went straight into the kitchen and told Mary, the cook, that she had been married to Mr. Rochester that morning.Mary, who never made a fuss about anything, held her ladle still over the roasting chickens for three whole minutes and then said only, “Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!”, while her husband John grinned from ear to ear and wished Jane joy.

Jane thanked them, gave John a five-pound note from Mr. Rochester, and as she left the kitchen she overheard the two servants saying that she would suit their master better than any grand lady, and that in his eyes she was beautiful.She wrote at once to Diana and Mary Rivers, the cousins who had once sheltered her, and both approved of her marriage completely, although Diana said she would wait until the honeymoon was over before she came to visit.“Then she had better not wait, Jane,” said Mr. Rochester, “because our honeymoon will last our whole lives, and its light will fade only over your grave or mine.”

Their brother St. John, the stern clergyman who had once wanted to take Jane to India, never answered her letter, but six months later he wrote again, calmly and kindly, without mentioning Mr. Rochester.Jane had not forgotten little Adèle either; she found the girl pale, thin and unhappy at her strict school, so she took her home and later chose a gentler school near enough to visit often.There Adèle grew happy and did well, and by the time she left school she had become a pleasant, grateful young companion who repaid every small kindness Jane had shown her.

Jane wrote that she had now been married for ten years, and that she counted herself blessed beyond words, because she was her husband’s whole life just as fully as he was hers.Neither ever grew weary of the other, they shared every secret, and they were so well matched in character that their life together was perfectly in harmony.They talked all day long, and to talk together was, as Jane put it, only a livelier and more audible way of thinking.

Mr. Rochester stayed blind for the first two years of their marriage, and Jane was his eyes and his right hand, describing every field, cloud and river to him and reading to him without ever growing tired.One morning, as she wrote a letter at his dictation, he leaned over her and asked whether she wore something glittering at her neck and a pale blue dress, and when she said yes, he told her that the darkness over one of his eyes was growing thinner.A London doctor helped him recover the sight of that eye, so that he could read a little and find his own way, and when their first son was placed in his arms, he saw that the boy had his own large, bright, black eyes and thanked God for his mercy.

Diana and Mary had each married a good man who loved them, and every year the sisters and their husbands came to visit Jane and Mr. Rochester, and they went to visit them in return.St. John had gone to India, where he worked bravely and faithfully for others, and although he would never marry and his life was drawing near its end, Jane knew from his last letter that he was ready and unafraid.