Jane Eyrotica by Charlotte Bronte

Author:Charlotte Bronte
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620874837
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

CHAPTER XVII

Aweek passed and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still he did not come. I balmed my wounded heart in his absence and convinced myself to adhere to my old solitary life. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment, but rallying my wits and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder.

Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.

“It is from the master,” said she, as she looked at the direction. “Now I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not.”

And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking my coffee as if I did not care. Why my hand shook and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider.

“Mr. Rochester will be back in three days’ time next Thursday, he says, and not alone either. I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him, but he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out. We shall have a full house of it!” after exclaiming this, Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.

The next three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged, but it appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing and such polishing I never beheld either before or since. I was expected to help and I found solace in the monotonous housework that did not allow me to think too much of Mr. Rochester or Blanche Ingram. At night I wept into my pillow but in the daylight at least, I was kept busy.

On the second day I chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly and give passage to the form of Grace Poole. I watched her glide along the gallery, mutter something to a charwoman and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth and go back carrying her pot of porter with her to her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below and all the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey.

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