“You have passed a strange night, Jane.”

After the moonlight wakes Jane up in the middle of the night (because she forgot to draw her blinds), she hears a stir.

Good God! What a cry!
The night – its silence – its rest, was rent in twain, by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
[…]
It came out of the third story; for it passed overhead – yes, in the room just above my chamber ceiling – I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted – “Help! help! help!” three times rapidly.
“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster: – “Rochester! Rochester! for God’s sake, come!”
A chamber door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Another step stamped on the flooring above, and something fell; and there was silence.

She immediately puts on clothes and exits her room, which is naturally what the other guests do as well.

“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent. “I cannot find him in his bed.”
“Here! here!” was shouted in return. “Be composed, all of you: I’m coming.”
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper story. One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.
“What awful event has taken place?” said she. “Speak! let us know the worst at once!”
“But don’t pull me down or strangle me,” he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.
“All’s right! – all’s right!” he cried. “It’s a mere rehearsal of Much Ado About Nothing. Ladies, keep off; or I shall wax dangerous.”
And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort, he added – “A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She’s an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. […]”

Jane seems to have been the only one to hear the commotion in the attic, having been directly beneath the room where it occurred, so she (rightfully) assumes the “nightmare” story was just a ruse to calm his guests, and that she’ll be summoned shortly.

“Am I wanted?” I asked.
“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz. my master’s.
“Yes, sir.”
“And dressed?”
“Yes.”
“Come out, then, quietly.”

Mr. Rochester asks her to collect various items from her room, and then they head upstairs.

He still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused and addressed me again.
“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?”
“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.”
I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.

And of course, all the hubbub was caused by the resident arsonist.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before; the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He made some sort of arrangement, without speaking: though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.
“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face – the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood.

Naturally, their first priority is making sure nobody dies of blood loss.

“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason.
“Pooh! No – a mere scratch. Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up! I’ll fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by morning, I hope. Jane,” he continued.
“Sir?”
“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours; you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any pretext – and – Richard – it will be at the peril of your life if you speak to her: open your lips – agitate yourself – and I’ll not answer for the consequences.”
Again the poor man groaned: he looked as if he dared not move: fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to use it as ha had done. He watched me a second, then saying, “Remember! – No conversation,” he left the room. I experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.
Here then I was in the third story, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes – that was appalling – the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

And this only raises more questions for Jane, with no one to discuss them with.

Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast or fiend in yonder side den. But since Mr. Rochester’s visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but three sounds at three long intervals, – a step creak, a momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner? – What mystery, that broke out, now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of the night? What creature was it, masked in an ordinary woman’s face and shape, uttered the voice now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
And this man I bent over – this commonplace, quiet stranger – how had he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him an apartment below – what brought him here? And why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester’s dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason’s arrival? Why had the mere name of this unresisting individual – whom his word now sufficed to control like a child – fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?

We’ll get a few answers later in the chapter, but of course, not the full truth just yet. But after a long vigil, Mr. Rochester returns with the surgeon.

“Now, my good fellow, how are you?” he asked.
“She’s done for me, I fear,” was the faint reply.
“Not a whit! – courage! This day fortnight you’ll hardly be a pin the worse for it: you’ve lost a little blood; that’s all. Carter, assure him there’s no danger.”
“I can do that conscientiously,” said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; “only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have bled so much – but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth here!”
“She bit me,” he murmured. “She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her.”
“You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once,” said Mr. Rochester.
“But under such circumstances, what could one do?” returned Mason. “Oh, it was frightful! he added, shuddering. “And I did not expect it; she looked so quiet at first.”
“I warned you,” was his friend’s answer; “I said – be on your guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night and alone:
“I thought I could have done some good.”
“You thought! you thought! Yes; it makes me impatient to hear you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I’ll say no more. Carter -hurry! -hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off.”
[…]
“She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart,” said Mason.
I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said: -“Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat it.”
“I wish I could forget it,” was the answer.

Clearly, Mr. Mason has some connection to the mad woman in the attic…

But then Mr. Rochester wants Mr. Mason off the premises as soon as possible, so he helps him into a carriage

“Fairfax -“
“Well, what is it?”
“Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her-” he stopped and burst into tears.
“I do my best; I have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.
“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.

It’s also somewhat telling that Mr. Rochester went by Fairfax at some point, evidently reflecting his strained relationship with his father.

But this leaves him alone with Jane.

“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that house is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?”
“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.”
“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now here” (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, and pure.”

And after a long and anxious night, Jane’s perfectly ready for some fresh air.

“Jane, will you have a flower?”
He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm – this placid and balmy atmosphere?”
“I do, very much.”
“You have passed a strange night, Jane.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it made you look pale – were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?”
“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.”
“But I had fastened the door – I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb – my pet lamb – so near a wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.”

Because whether she really was safe or not, Jane couldn’t help but be frightened after such a horrifying attack.

“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?”
“Oh, yes! don’t trouble your head about her – put the thing out of your thoughts.”
“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.”
“Never fear – I will take care of myself.”
“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?”
“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spew fire any day.”
“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance, or wilfully injure you.”
“Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me – but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.”
“Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him how to avert the danger.”
He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him.
“If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only to say to him, ‘Do that,’ and the thing had been done. But I cannot give him orders in this case: I cannot say ‘Beware of harming me, Richard’; for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you farther. You are my little friend, are you not?”
“I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.”
“Precisely: I see you do. I see a genuine contentment in your gait and mien, your eye and your face, when you are helping me and pleasing me – working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, ‘all that is right‘: for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale and would say, ‘No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it is wrong;’ and would become immutable as a fixed star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once.”
“If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, you are very safe.”
“God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.”

At this point, Jane trusts him, and at least trusts that he’s trying to do right, but he seems to indicate here that she would disapprove of him if he were to reveal the full truth of his situation.

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood before him.
“Sit,” he said; “the bench is long enough for two. You don’t hesitate to take a place by my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?”
I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.

Again, he seems to forget what power he has over her, not only as a man, but as her employer – she isn’t entirely at ease with the situation, despite some protestation.

“Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew – while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones’ breakfast out of the cornfield, and the early bees do their first spell of work – I’ll put a case to you; which you must endeavor to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying.”
“No, sir, I am content.”
“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy – suppose you were no longer a girl reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don’t say crime: I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error. The results of what you have done becomes in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure – I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure – such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment; you make a new acquaintance – how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back – higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom – a mere conventional impediment, which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?”
He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.
Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query.
“Is the wandering and sinful, and now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger; thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?”
“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend, and solace to heal.”
“But the instrument – the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myself – I tell it you without parable – been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure, in-“

When I first read this, I generally agreed with Jane here, but as I got older, I recognize that the impulse to rely on other people to improve you is strong, even if I might still agree with her in theory.

At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.
“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone – while his face changed too; losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic – “you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?”
He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he came back he was humming a tune.
“Jane, Jane,” said he, stopping before me, “you are quite pale with your vigils: don’t you curse me for disturbing your rest?”
“Curse you? No, sir.”
“Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers. They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?”
“Whenever I can be useful, sir.”
“For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s a rare one, is she not, Jane?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A strapper – a real strapper, Jane: big, brown and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there’s Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket.”

It’s clear to the reader by this point that Mr. Rochester’s already in love with Jane, he just can’t admit it yet for as yet unrevealed reasons. Incidentally, however, this passage seems to allude to The Little Mermaid (which was written more than ten years prior), and considering that this book is so interested in fairy tales, I feel like it’s not a stretch to view the reference as intentional. In the original tale, the prince always referred to the mermaid as “my little friend”, and often spoke to her in confidence, but never regarded her as a potential bride, eventually marrying someone else.

Until next time…