Recovery at Moor House — Jane Eyre

For three days and nights Jane's mind is dim. She knows she is in a small room. She hears voices and can neither move nor speak. Hannah's visits disturb her. Diana and Mary whisper that the stranger is educated, and that they are glad they took her in. St John comes once. He calls the state a reaction from exhaustion, and he tells his sisters she looks sensible, but not at all handsome.

On the fourth day she rises. Her muddy clothes have been cleaned and laid out. In the kitchen Hannah asks, bluntly, whether she has been a beggar. Jane answers quietly that Hannah is mistaken. She is no beggar, any more than Hannah or the young ladies, and want of a house or of money does not make her one. They begin to reconcile over a basket of gooseberries. Hannah tells her the history of Marsh End: the Rivers siblings, orphaned, reduced in fortune, and still learned and bound to one another.

Diana and Mary come in from a walk and take her to the parlour for tea. Diana's face is full of charm, and she speaks with a will. Mary's features are as fine, but her manner is more reserved and more distant. St John's face is Greek, and his gaze searches. Jane studies him in silence. He questions her. She says she is isolated and unmarried, and she will not name the house where she last lived. Moved by their compassion, she gives only what she can bear: she is an orphan, she was at Lowood, she has been a governess, a catastrophe she cannot explain left her destitute at Whitcross, and their door saved her. She forgets the alias Jane Elliott and admits it is not her real name. Diana says Jane has a right to keep that history from St John and from every other questioner. He answers that if he knows nothing he cannot help her. She says she needs help, and that what she wants is honest work. He promises to help in his own time and way, then returns to his book. Diana insists she shall stay. Jane withdraws. She has talked, and sat up, as long as her strength allows. She is exhausted, and she is no longer an outcast.