Jane Eyre: Leaving Thornfield

Late in the afternoon Jane asked herself what she must do, and a voice inside her answered, “Leave Thornfield at once,” although she was sure she could not bear it.When she finally opened her door, weak and dizzy after a whole day without food, she nearly fell, but Mr. Rochester, who had been sitting outside her room waiting for her, caught her in his arms.He said that he had never meant to hurt her so, and Jane forgave him in her heart at once, for there was such sorrow in his eyes.

He carried her downstairs to the library and gave her wine and food, and when she turned her face away from his kiss, he understood that she could not forget that he already had a wife.He told her that Thornfield would be shut up and Adèle sent to school, and then he asked her to come with him to a white villa in the south of France and live there as his wife in everything but law.Jane answered quietly that his wife was living, and that to live with him on such terms would be wrong, however he described it.

Rochester then told her his story: as a younger son, he had been sent to Jamaica to marry Bertha Mason, the daughter of a rich planter, whom his greedy father had chosen for her fortune.He had been young and dazzled by her beauty, and only after the wedding did he learn that her family had hidden from him a serious illness of the mind that ran in it.As Bertha grew worse, he brought her to England and had her cared for in secret at Thornfield by Grace Poole, and he spent the next years wandering across Europe, hoping to find someone good to love.

Jane listened with pity, but when he begged her to say that she would be his, she answered, “Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.”He cried that she was condemning him to a wretched life, but she replied that she wished him to live without sin and die at peace, and that she still loved him but could not stay.In her heart a voice urged her to give in, but she answered it: “I care for myself; the more lonely and friendless I am, the more I will respect myself, and I will keep the law that God has given.”

Rochester’s anger blazed and he caught hold of her, but when he looked into her steady eyes he knew that he might bend her body but never her spirit, and he let her go.As she reached the door he threw himself on the sofa and sobbed, and Jane, unable to leave him like that, came back, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “God bless you, my dear master.”That night she dreamed of the red-room of her childhood, where a shining figure like a mother told her, “My daughter, flee temptation,” and she woke and answered, “Mother, I will.”

Before dawn she tied a few things in a bundle, took only the twenty shillings in her purse, left behind the pearl necklace he had given her, and crept past his door, where she heard him pacing and sighing.Her hand moved toward his lock, but she drew it back, slipped out through the gate, and with her heart breaking took the first coach that passed, going as far as her little money would take her.