Restlessness and Yearning — Jane Eyre

Jane settles into a quiet routine at Thornfield. Mrs. Fairfax is the placid, kind woman she first appeared, and Adèle, though spoilt at first, soon becomes obedient and teachable. Jane keeps a clear-eyed view of both, refusing to flatter parental egotism or fake an idolatrous devotion she does not feel. Underneath the calm, though, she paces the third-storey corridor and climbs to the attic leads, looking out 'afar over sequestered field and hill' and longing for more practical experience, more variety of character, more of the busy world she has only heard of. In the chapter's famous passage she insists women feel just as men feel and suffer from 'too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation.' She also hears Grace Poole's strange low laugh and watches her return from the kitchen carrying a pot of porter, though Grace's monosyllabic replies block every attempt at conversation.

One January afternoon, with Adèle excused for a cold, Jane volunteers to carry Mrs. Fairfax's letter the two miles to Hay. She sits on a stile in the icy lane, watches the sun set crimson behind the woods of Thornfield and the moon rise over Hay, and listens to the distant streams. A tramp of hoofs and a great black-and-white dog with a huge head make her remember Bessie's tales of the Gytrash, but a human rider on a tall horse breaks the spell. Both horse and rider go down on a sheet of ice. The traveller, a dark-faced man of perhaps thirty-five with a heavy brow and ireful eyes, refuses pity but admits a sprained ankle. His frown and roughness actually put Jane at ease: she stands her ground, tells him she cannot leave him in the lane until he can mount his horse, and when she cannot catch the spirited animal he leans heavily on her shoulder to limp back to it. 'Excuse me,' he says, 'necessity compels me to make you useful.' He learns she is the governess at Thornfield, mutters that he had forgotten he had one, and sends her on with the letter.

Jane walks to Hay, posts the letter, and dawdles back to Thornfield, lingering on the lawn under the moon because 'to pass its threshold was to return to stagnation.' Inside she catches voices around the dining-room fire. In Mrs. Fairfax's room she finds the same great black-and-white dog sitting alone on the rug. Leah explains: the dog is Pilot, the master is just arrived, his horse slipped on ice coming down Hay Lane, his ankle is sprained, and Mr. Carter the surgeon has been sent for. The surly stranger Jane helped is Mr. Rochester, the absent owner of Thornfield. She goes upstairs to take off her things.