The Morning After: Love's Transformation — Jane Eyre

Jane wakes after the proposal unsure it was real until Rochester embraces her again. She sees her face as no longer plain, gives money to beggars, and finds Mrs. Fairfax grave at breakfast. Rochester calls her blooming, sets the wedding in four weeks, and vows to send jewels and take her to Millcote for satin and lace. Jane refuses: she will be herself, not an ape in a harlequin's jacket, and warns his love will effervesce in six months. When she asks why he feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, he confesses he used jealousy to make her love him as madly as he loved her.

Jane asks him to explain matters to Mrs. Fairfax. The housekeeper is astonished and sceptical: twenty years' difference, inequality of station, gentlemen do not marry governesses. Her warnings chill Jane's joy. Rochester takes Jane and Adèle to Millcote, forces her to choose dresses, and presses jewels until she limits him to sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. Remembering John Eyre's letter, Jane resolves to write to Madeira for independence rather than be dressed like a doll. She rejects seraglio comparisons, insists she will remain Adèle's governess for thirty pounds and board, and asks only for his regard. She refuses to dine with him yet and will keep their usual distance for another month.

That evening she makes him sing rather than flirt, then deflects his passion by asking whom he means to marry now and refuses a suttee death with him. For the whole four-week probation she maintains a system of witty resistance: deferential by day, teasing at seven o'clock, preferring pinches and fierce favours to sentiment. Mrs. Fairfax approves; Rochester threatens vengeance and swears she wears him to skin and bone. Jane laughs and holds the line, though she admits he has become her whole world and more than her hope of heaven, standing between her and every thought of religion like an eclipse.