Jane Eyre by Charlotte

179 ‘ “Who is there?” ¶Something gurgled and moaned.’ – Bertha presumably intended to set fire to Jane’s bed as she has just done to Rochester’s. The sounds she makes on hearing Jane call out seem to express disappointment and she then makes her way upstairs. Jane finds a lighted candle left outside her door. It is interesting that Bertha seems to have some kind of intimation of the love that is growing between Jane and Rochester, and she wishes to revenge herself on both of them (something confirmed beyond doubt later on in the novel). There is no need for this to explained: it is part of a subtle undercurrent of the supernatural running through the whole of the novel. If Jane can hear Rochester calling for her from hundreds of miles away, then Bertha, with her ‘demoniac laugh’, can convincingly have a sixth sense of what is developing between the two lovers.

180 ‘there – I will put it on’ – Rochester’s first thought is for Jane, who he senses will be cold in her nightgown and will perhaps feel under-dressed. He insists that she stay until he returns – ‘be still as a mouse’ he says. Even after what has happened, he wants to make the most of this moment of their secret togetherness in his bedchamber.

182 ‘at least shake hands’ – When Rochester returns, he realises that he cannot keep Jane there any longer after his brief explanation. He actually tells her to go, and is then surprised that she obeys him! He wishes for some affirmation of what is growing between them, but there is no socially acceptable form available: shaking hands is the best that he can manage, absurd as this is.

182 ‘I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not” — (again he stopped) — “did not” (he proceeded hastily) “strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing…”’ – In these words and in his general demeanour Rochester effectively declares his love for Jane. Her sleepless night shows how powerfully they have affected her. Her actions in the emergency no doubt suggest to Rochester that Jane might ‘save his life’ in other ways too.

182 ‘Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy.’ – Another example of Jane’s frequent recourse to nautical imagery. She sees herself journeying across the ‘wild waters’ towards ‘a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah’, but the reader may remember that Jane’s first picture was of a shipwreck, and that the image of a desolate wrecked boat has fascinated her ever since she lost herself in the illustrations to Bewick’s British Birds . ‘Beulah’ derives from Isaiah 62:4: ‘Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married’ (the Hebrew word ‘Beulah’ means ‘married’). More significant, however, is the fact that ‘Beulah’ is the land that Christian reaches in the Pilgrim’s Progress just before crossing the River of Death and reaching the Celestial City.