Return to Thornfield — Jane Eyre

Rochester had allowed Jane one week's leave, yet a month passes before she quits Gateshead. Georgiana begs her to stay until she can leave for London with her uncle Gibson; Jane sews and packs while Georgiana idles, reflecting that if they lived together permanently she would not remain the forbearing party. When Georgiana goes, Eliza asks for another week to prepare for an unknown departure. She bolts herself in her room, then releases Jane with cold thanks and announces she will enter a nunnery near Lisle to study Roman Catholic order. Jane thinks the vocation will fit her to a hair. They part with brief mutual assessments, and the narrative notes Georgiana's later advantageous marriage and Eliza's rise to superior of her convent.

Jane reflects that she has never known the sensation of returning home: neither scolded arrival at Gateshead nor hungry return to Lowood drew her like a magnet. Thornfield remains to be tried. Her fifty-mile journey gives her time to think of Mrs. Reed's death, the funeral, and her cousins' diverging futures. Mrs. Fairfax's letters have told her the house party is dispersed, Rochester is in London arranging his marriage, and a new carriage is being bought for Mrs. Rochester. Jane walks the last miles from Millcote without sending for a carriage, glad despite reason's warnings.

Near Thornfield she sees Rochester on the stile with book and pencil. She nearly turns back, but he has seen her and calls out. He teases her for stealing home like a ghost, calls her truant, and talks lightly of the wedding carriage and Queen Boadicea cushions for Mrs. Rochester. Jane almost slips past in silence; then, against her will, she says she is strangely glad to be back and that wherever he is is her home, her only home. She walks on too fast to be overtaken. Adèle, Mrs. Fairfax, and the servants welcome her warmly. That evening, as she sits with Adèle and Mrs. Fairfax in a ring of peace, Rochester enters and speaks with such pleasure that she half hopes he may keep them near him even after his marriage.

A fortnight of dubious calm follows. No wedding preparations appear and Rochester makes no visits to Ingram Park. Jane begins to hope the match is broken, watches his face for sadness, and finds him uniformly clear and often gay. He summons her to his presence more frequently and is kinder than ever. Never, she admits, has she loved him so well.