The Eve of Transformation — Jane Eyre

The bridal day is tomorrow. The trunks stand packed, locked, and corded for London, and with them would go a Jane Rochester she does not yet know. The address cards, in his hand, name Mrs Rochester at a London hotel. She cannot nail them on until that person has come into the world alive, some time after eight. At nine o'clock the pearl wedding dress hangs in the closet like a white dream, ghostly in the shadow, and she shuts the door on it. She is feverish with more than the hurry of packing. Rochester is still absent on business, and Jane carries a secret from last night that she is eager to tell him. Restless, she walks in the stormy orchard to the lightning-split chestnut tree and tells the riven trunk it did right to hold fast at the roots. The blood-red moon and rising wind deepen her foreboding. She readies the library, waits in vain for Rochester, then goes out to meet him on the road. He gallops up on Mesrour; she mounts before him and they return wet and fervent.

At supper and through midnight Jane keeps her promise to sit up with him. He asks what troubles her. She describes happy thoughts of their future yesterday, then anxious dreams: a child she could not catch up to him with, Thornfield a ruin, herself falling from a wall as he rode away. Then the real event. A tall woman in white entered her room, put on Jane's wedding veil, showed a savage purple face in the mirror like a Vampyre, rent the veil in two, and extinguished a candle under Jane's eyes until she fainted. This morning the torn veil on the carpet proved it was not dream alone. Rochester shudders, thanks God only the veil was harmed, and blames Grace Poole in a half-dream explanation he will not fully account for until they have been married a year and a day. Jane is not satisfied but pretends to be to please him. He sends her to sleep in Adèle's nursery with the door bolted.

Jane does not sleep. With Adèle in her arms she watches the child and waits for dawn, crying when she leaves her because Adèle seems the emblem of her past life while Rochester is the dread but adored type of her unknown future.