Rating: 4/5
“Jane Eyre” starts describing the protagonist at the age of ten. She lives in a large, gloomy manor called Gateshead with her stubborn aunt, Mrs Reed, and three mean cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. She is a plain child, with no talents so to speak of, and no pretty features to look upon; she has no education, it seems, until Mrs Reed sends her to boarding school, hoping that she will not come back and they will never be reunited.
Jane attends a strictly-run, unpleasant girls’ school called Lowood, which is run by a harsh man yclept Mr Brocklehurst. Her education prospers, however, when she meets a gentle yet lively teacher, Miss Temple, and a sensible, God-fearing student, Helen Burns. She remains at the academy for eight years, most of which she spends grieving and recovering from the sudden loss of her friend Helen and the ‘going-away day’ of Miss Temple.
At age eighteen, Jane becomes tired of her current life, and advertises in a paper as a governess. Presently she receives a reply from an elderly lady named Mrs A. Fairfax, informing Jane that she is interested, and that she will expect her to come for a child under the age of ten at a Thornfield Hall within a week or so.
Excited and happy, Jane hurries to the said mansion and meets the kind old widow Mrs Fairfax. The next morning she is also acquainted with Adéle, the little ward she is to govern. And that evening, she meets the master of Thornfield, Mr Edward Rochester.
Jane sees Mr Rochester as a gloomy, miserable, ugly man in his late thirties who has nothing to do with her whatsoever. And, at first, she is right. He does not smile or bid her good morrow when they pass on the stairs; it seems he only invited her down to dinner one evening to be polite; and she has no proper intention in communicating with him either. But after a while, the quiet, mysterious, eerie air of Mr Rochester intrigues her, and she realises with horror that she is in love with him.
What’s worse, Mr Rochester shows no inward or outward interest in her whatsoever. Every day, when she sees him sitting in his room with the door slightly ajar, reading or writing—or when she passes him on the stairs as he walks stiffly down for dinner—or when he is in the dining room, the parlour, or the drawing room with Mrs Fairfax, Jane wants him to notice her. She wants him to do more than stare, or nod, or grunt when she walks past him. She wants to be acknowledged, if that is the very least he could do.
‘Don’t be such a fool, Jane Eyre,’ she tells herself. ‘Mr Rochester indeed! A man of thirty and six or so, a regular bachelor who is not afraid who knows it – and never will be. What an ugly, distasteful, miserable master he is, too! Of course he does not love you; you barely know why you love him: he does not love you, and never will.’
The only thing Jane can think of is to hide in the shadows and not show her face to the light. She knows that Mr Rochester does not, and will never, love her, and she chooses to contemplate in the gloom instead of seeking him hourly. What good would looking upon something that one wants and cannot have, do?
‘Do be quiet, Jane,’ she scolds herself every night. ‘There is nothing you can do to make him dote upon you—you! Yes, you. He loves beautiful ladies in pretty gowns with curled hair and inheritance or a portion of some sort. What portion do you have? None; you have never been married before. And what inheritance? Your uncle, your mother, your father had nothing to give you when they died. And Mrs Reed? Fancy taking from her an inheritance! It would go straight to John, or Eliza, or Georgiana. An inheritance, indeed!’
One night, after being gone two weeks at a party of some kind, Mr Rochester returns. Jane’s heart leaps with a mixture of joy and anxiety, and she plans the words she is to say to him when he enters the hall. But all that fades away, and she forgets the little speech she was to make when the parlour door opens, and Sam, the butler, stands with one hand on the handle, and one gesturing towards the fireside.
Within seconds, the salon is filled with lively talk, laughter, and smiles. She did not know that Mr Rochester was to bring his party friends home with him! She wonders where he has gone, for he does not join them; but that thought is quenched beneath a wall of embarrassment and shock, as a great, beautiful, buxom figure all clad in rich dark purple comes sailing towards her.
‘Not a governess, I hope?’ said the famous Blanche Ingram, standing over Jane and looking at her with blunt hatred in her pretty face.
Jane stood up and curtseyed, but she did not reel into a speech like she was wont to do when comfortable: instead, she said quietly, ‘Yes, I am; the governess of little Adéle, who is —’
‘Here, mademoiselle, je suis here!’ and the little ward came bouncing up to the ladies, all dressed in perfect pink splendour.
It was evident from that moment on that Lady Ingram was not interested in Jane’s affairs, nor in Adéle’s. She shunned both of them, and sat gaily about by the fire, looking most romantic in the gentlemen’s eyes, and most horrid in Jane’s, with a dainty book clasped in her white hands (the pages, Jane noticed, were never turned, for Blanche’s dark, twinkling eyes danced about like a hawk’s, as though looking for someone who was not present).
Jane’s exciting life goes on and, one day, Mr Rochester goes to her, informs her that his marriage with Blanche Ingram (which had been arranged the fortnight before) is no longer going ahead, and says, quite abruptly:-
‘Janet, my dearest darling, will you marry me?’
Jane is overcome. What does he mean? Does he truly love her? She asks him so, and, while at it, why he asked her without any past notice.
‘All this time, Janet, I have loved thee, loved thee with all the desire and joy in my heart. I was never sure whether you fancied me, and for that reason I waited, and waited, and waited, to see what was to happen. Oh, Jane, don’t look at me so! Answer me quickly, so that I may bear the possible answer.’
‘Why, sir, it was truly mean of you to make me wait so, for I did it so reluctantly, you see. Of course I loved you, and I do still. I was shocked to find something going on between you and Miss Ingram. I don’t know what to say.’
Mr Rochester laughs. ‘All you need to say is, ‘Yes’.’
‘Well, I… yes, of course. Yes!’
‘Then why are we not already together? Come, Janet; we must be one as soon as we can. Let’s get the flowers and dresses and jewels and ribbons and bling and -’
It is Jane’s wedding-day. She is lying on her bed in a puddle of tears. She takes off her engagement ring and places it delicately by her bedside. Then she stands up, throws the ring out of the window, and her neatly folded dress and glittering tiara with it.
‘I must run,’ she whispers, ‘run where they – no, he – will never find me. I shall leave everything; money, food, water, clothing but my thinnest, shabbiest dress; and he shall never come to me, and I…’ she paused, took a breath, and said the rest while packing stockings: ‘and I shall never go to him.’
She left accordingly, nearly starved for three days, and then came to the house of the Rivers. Two glamorous ladies, Diana and Mary Rivers, live there, with their housekeeper Hannah, and their older brother St John. Hannah throws her out straight away, mistaking her from some ‘Italian pedlar, no doubt abou’ it’; but when St John comes home, he sees the Lowood badge emblazoned on her blouse, he invites her in immediately. Jane is numb with cold, ill with lack of food and drink, and stays in the Rivers’ household for over a month.
Then she says that she has someone to find (Mr Rochester), but will not give the details. After earning a little wages from St John, she is about to leave one day, when the good, handsome man says:-
‘Jane, I have found out something rather peculiar. You, my cousin; I, yours; and Diana and Mary, equal too. Does this surprise you? I rather think not, but let us move on. My trade, as you know, requires me to move from place to place, year to year. I find you a perfect role as a missionary’s wife.’
Jane, shocked, cries, ‘But St John! you love me as you should, and I, you. You do not love me as a wife. I would be displeased for you as a husband to me. Anyway, you are going to India, you say. I could not go there. I am young, St John, I do not wish to die early. No, is my answer. You are in love with Miss Oliver. Marry her, dear cousin. Marry your love.’
‘Miss Oliver is already married,’ he says with a hint of disgust. ‘You are the only one who will do me, Jane. Not for love, beauty, talent. You will make a perfect missionary’s wife. To come to India as a sister, a cousin! Nonsense. It is marriage or hatred. Since you refuse, I leave you.’
And, accordingly, he left for India, and Jane, to Thornfield.
She found it soon enough, but in a terrible state. She meets Mr Rochester’s former butler, and asks him about the burnt, crumbling ruin.
‘Did you hear about his lunatic wife, miss?’ says the butler in an undertone.
‘Yes,’ says Jane coolly. ‘Indeed I did.’
‘She’s dead now,’ he goes on. ‘Burnt the house down, she did. It was all Mr Edward could do ter exit ‘is chamber, grab the servants and maids, and save all ‘em lives. Ah, a good thing to do.’
‘And the – the lunatic?’ Jane presses. ‘You said she died.’
He nods. ‘She died all righ’, but that’s not sayin’ Mr Edward did’na go in after her. She was standing on the top of the buildin’ while ‘twas all aflame. He put his ‘ands round her shoulders an’ tried to drag her away. But she wouldn’ listen. Silly of ‘im to think she would, I say. Anyhow, she gave one last piercin’ screech and jumped right off the edge. Whatever remained on the floor there I dunno, but it was soon run over by the fire engine.’
‘I see. What a good thing of Mr Rochester to do, whether she survived or not.’
‘Indeed, miss. ‘Specially to think of how he paid for his silly thoughts.’
‘What! oh, he isn’t dead, is he?’
‘Dead! no indeed, but I say he might’a rather be. One eye knocked clear out of his ‘ead, the other so burnt ‘n’ inflamed he can’t see naught. And one ‘and so crushed from where he dived under the rubble to save his wife, the doc couldna even operate.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Amputated. Why yer so curious, miss?’
Jane did not share her intentions right away, but rather asked for the location of Mr Rochester now. Upon receiving the answer as a stolid ‘Ferndean, miss, all embosked’, she hurried away to the said place.
As for Jane and Mr Rochester, well, they are happy now. They are married and have a little son, and Mr Rochester’s eyesight is getting better; St John is as happy as a missionary is allowed; Diana and Mary, also married, content, loving and loved; Mrs Reed, dead; John Reed, likewise dead; Georgiana and Eliza, as haughty as Blanche Ingram; and Blanche herself, well, she never contacted Jane or Edward again.
Not that that wasn’t preferable.