What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?

After the death of Mrs. Reed, Jane finds herself tying up a few loose ends at Gateshead before she can leave in good conscience. First, Georgiana is invited by her uncle (who was naturally at the funeral) to London.

Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded quailings, and selfish lamentations, as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her, and packing her dresses. It is true that while I worked she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I were destined to live together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of your drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.”

But once she’s off, Eliza enlists Jane to take care of the house while she prepares for her own departure.

One morning, she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is some difference between living with such a one as you, and with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life, and burden no one. To-morrow,” she continued, “I set out for the Continent, I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle – a nunnery you would call it: there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system; if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.”
I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: “much good may it do you!”
When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some sense.”
I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have I suppose in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you – I don’t much care.”
“You are in the right,” said she: and with those words we each went our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer to her or her sister again, I may as well mention here that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion; and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day a superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate: and which she endowed her fortune.

Thus, they both seemed to have got what they wanted, and they both seemingly part ways on good terms with Jane (even if they were never close).

Then, Jane starts to ponder homecomings.

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child, after a long walk – to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later what it was to come back from church to Lowood – to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either.
Neither of these returnings were very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.

Jane longs for a permanent home, a sentiment not uncommon for modern people her age, either. But on the first leg of her journey, she dwells more on contemplating the scene she’s leaving.

During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments: I saw her disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants – few was the number of relatives – the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service.

Because Mrs. Reed was a huge part of her childhood, so Jane can’t help but feel something, even if it’s just mourning the loss of a relationship her aunt never permitted herself to consider.

But the next day, Jane turns her thoughts to what awaits her at Thornfield.

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I going to stay there? Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he had gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. “You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it,” was my mental comment. “I don’t doubt it.”
The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded – smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.

She arrives in Millcote in the evening, and opts to enjoy the summer evening by walking the rest of the way home (as I imagine carriages aren’t much better than cars after a long drive).

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited for my arrival. “Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,” said I; “and little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you are thinking of another than they; and that he is not thinking of you.”
But what is so headstrong as youth? What is so blind as inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added – “Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted with him for ever!” And then I strangled a new-born agony – a deformed thing which I could not persuade myself to own and rear – and ran on.

She persuades herself to enjoy what little time she has left calling Thornfield home, but of course, she can’t enjoy it fully when she knows it’s only temporary.

I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see- Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and pencil in his hand: he is writing.
Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him – or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me.
“Hello!” he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. “There you are! Come on, if you please.”
I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not: being scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and above all, to control the working muscles of my face – which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil – it is down: I make shift yet to behave with decent composure.
“And is this Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes – just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage of your home along with the twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?”
“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.”
“A true Janian reply! Good angels by my guard! She comes from the other world – from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf! – but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! truant!” he added, when he had paused an instant. “Absent from me a whole month: and forgetting me quite, I’ll be sworn.”

Note the brief switch to present tense in the narration, seemingly to jar the reader in a similar way in which Jane is seemingly thrown off by Mr. Rochester’s presence. Also, I totally relate to being embarrassed when someone takes a poorly-worded response too literally…

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again; even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray stranger birds like me was to feast genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home – would that it were my home!
He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired if he had not been to London.
“Yes: I suppose you found that out by second-sight.”
“Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.”
“And did she inform you what I was there to do?”
“Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.”
“You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won’t look like Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you are, – can’t you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?”
“It would be past the power of magic, sir;” and, in thought, I added, “A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather, your sternness has a power beyond beauty.”

This is the second time Mr. Rochester has referred to “Mrs. Rochester” as an unladylike figure – Boadicea was a queen of the ancient Britons who rebelled against the Roman occupation, and she’s often depicted as a warrior queen, so invoking her name to set her in a plush carriage is odd, to say the least.

“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s threshold.”
All I had now to do was obey him in silence: no need for me to colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast, – a force turned me round. I said – or something in me said for me, and in spite of me: –
“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you; and wherever you are is my home – my only home.”
I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled; and even Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant: there is no happiness like being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

For the time being, she just enjoys being comfortable, regardless of how the situation will surely change in the future.

I, that evening, shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable – when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prete a croquer sa petite maman Anglaise [ready to crush her little English mother]“- I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from his presence.

In the next two weeks, Jane’s still understandably anxious about the future, but she also notices that Mr. Rochester doesn’t visit Miss Ingram in that period, despite the relatively short distance (and the presumed proximity to the wedding) indicating that frequent travel to and fro would be expected. And to top it all off, he refuses to make a definitive statement about the marriage one way or the other.

I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; the rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he even became gay. Never had he called me more frequently into his presence; never been kinder to me when there – and, alas! never had I loved him so well.

Until next time…