Grace, horrified, tried speaking sense to me, but I was beyond reason—and when I wouldn’t listen she seized me by the shoulders and forced me out of that place and I stumbled down to where Mrs. Fairfax stood, wringing her hands in the second-floor hall, having heard my angry shouts. She gathered me to her bosom, and, after a few moments, led me to the kitchen and gave me tea and spoke calmly to me until—desperate, miserable, and now ashamed—I grew quiet. She told me that Sam and the others were all out looking for Jane. Surely, she murmured, Miss Eyre will be found by morning, safe and sound, and brought home where she belonged. She tried to give me a sleeping draught but I would not take it; however, I did finally allow her to take me, now exhausted, up to my bedroom.
As soon as she was gone, and before I succumbed to sleep, I left my chamber and made my way to Jane’s room, where I searched her belongings, looking for any indication of where she might have gone. I opened her trunks and rummaged through her neatly packed clothes, and I searched her dressing table. There I found the little pearl necklace I had bought her in Millcote, and holding it clasped in my hand, I returned to my bed and fell asleep.
In the morning I woke and was immediately hit with the memory of Jane’s disappearance, and my own sorry state. I wasted no time in riding to Millcote to find Gerald. I was ashamed at what I had said and done the previous night in Bertha’s chamber, for I knew none of it was her fault. But I did have a grievance against Gerald, for I was convinced he had something to do with breaking up our wedding—no doubt out of vengeance for my showing up his manipulations of my father’s letters.
He was not at the inn, but as I was walking away from there I heard his voice behind me. “Oi! Rochester!” he yelled. I turned around to see him advancing on me in a fury, his eyes wild. “You scoundrel!” he went on, accusing me of taking his rightful inheritance away from him with lies and insinuations.
“I am no scoundrel,” I replied with a calmness I did not feel, “and it is you who doctored those letters with false dates. And you who broke up my wedding—”
“You scum! You dog shit!” Gerald yelled. “How could you marry another while my mother still lived?”
I turned away to leave, and he would have followed me, no doubt, but by then the owner of the inn had come out to see what the trouble was, and held him back while I left.
It is not over, I thought, for I was sure Gerald would not let it go at that. Infuriated, Gerald’s words still ringing in my ears, my mind reeled. I needed calm. I needed peace, and there was only one place I could hope to find it.
All was quiet in Jane’s room; no one had been there since I had left it the night before, her trunks still standing as they had been. I searched her belongings again, hunting for any indication of how I might find her. I opened her trunks once more and scoured her dressing table. I even went to the schoolroom and looked there. I found her painting supplies and leafed slowly through her images, seeing there a portrait of almost preternatural perfection: a dark-ringletted goddess that it took me several moments to recognize as Blanche Ingram. Jane’s artistry had rendered her far more beautiful than in life, with a sweet, delicate expression that had never graced that actual face. Did Jane imagine this was how I saw her rival? What had I done to her with my cruel, useless games?
A few sheets later came an even greater shock: a portrait of myself that was both honest and loving—she had placed a gleam in my eye that was surely meant for her, and, as always, my hair falling over my forehead. I touched my finger to it; she had seen into my soul and drawn this. She knew me. I was hers. She did love me, and had spoken the truth; there could be no doubt of it now. And yet the man on the page was far better, more beautiful, inside and out, than the man holding it. How could I have treated her so? I held that drawing in a shaking hand and wept.
Before I left the room, I paged through the rest and was arrested by another image. It was a representation of Jane herself. Yet she was almost as unrecognizable as Miss Ingram had been, but for an opposite reason—instead of the sprightly, intelligent passion that illuminated Jane’s face and cried out daily to my heart, here was a visage of dullness and despair. This was not my Jane. I wondered if this was how she felt: deceived, taken in, her loyalty mistreated. Oh God, I thought, what have I done to her? It is I, not Bertha or Gerald, who have driven her away. I am a monster.
My limbs felt heavy, for I had not slept. All was quiet in the corridor, and I crept back to Jane’s room and lay down on her bed, where the pillow still held the faint scent of her, and I fell, at last, into sleep.