Thornfield was now a merry place. Every evening the guests gathered in the sitting room to talk or play games while I watched Mr. Rochester and Blanche Ingram from my place on the window seat.
I've told you, reader, that I'd learned to love Mr. Rochester. I could not stop loving him now merely because he'd ceased to notice me. I was not jealous of Miss Ingram; she was too inferior to excite that feeling. She was very showy, but her mind was poor. She never had an opinion of her own, and she was often needlessly cruel to Adele.
I realized that Mr. Rochester was going to marry her, perhaps for family or political reasons. But I felt that he did not love her. What upset me was that she didn't know how to charm him and I did. If she'd sat quietly by his side, instead of accosting him with brilliant remarks, she might have won his love. Meanwhile I grew lenient toward my master, forgetting all his faults.
One wet afternoon the guests were restless. Mr. Rochester had ridden out earlier and had not yet returned. The ladies had proposed visiting a Gypsy camp, but that was postponed due to the weather. It was almost dusk, and Adele was kneeling by me on the window seat.
"Here's Mr. Rochester!" she cried as a carriage came up the drive.
Blanche Ingram hurried to the window, almost falling over me. With a sneer she moved to another window.
"That's not Mr. Rochester, you tiresome little monkey," she said to Adele. "Who perched you up there to give false intelligence?" She glanced angrily at me as if I were to blame.
A servant soon brought the stranger to the sitting room. He bowed to Lady Ingram as she was the eldest lady present.
"It seems that I've come at a bad time, madam, when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is away," said the man. "But I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume on such an old, intimate acquaintance as to remain here until he returns."
He was a handsome man about Mr. Rochester's age, but something about him repelled me. I soon learned that he was Mr. Mason and that he'd just arrived from Jamaica.
I was wondering how he knew Mr. Rochester when a servant announced that an old Gypsy woman had arrived and wanted to tell the fortunes of the young, single ladies. She refused to come into the sitting room, insisting that they come to her in the library.
Miss Ingram went first, laughing gaily as she left us. When she returned, she refused to say what the Gypsy had told her and flounced onto a couch with a book, which she looked at moodily without turning a page.
Her sister, Mary, went next accompanied by the Eshton sisters. They returned shrieking and laughing. "She knows all about us!" they cried.
While I was watching them, a servant appeared at my side. "If you please, miss, the Gypsy says there's another young, single lady and she refuses to leave until she sees you."
When I entered the library, the Gypsy was sitting by the hearth. She wore a red cloak and a wide-brimmed, black hat tied under her chin with a striped handkerchief. The hat brim shaded her face, the lower part of which was concealed by a white scarf.
"Do you want your fortune told?" she asked in a harsh voice.
"I don't care, but I must warn you I don't believe in fortunes."
"You're impudent to say so, but I expected that of you."
I was not impressed with her, but I let her rattle on about my health and other things she thought she knew about me. When she began to talk of Mr. Rochester, I was still skeptical, but I thought I'd try a question of my own.
"Is Mr. Rochester getting married?" I asked.
"Yes, to the beautiful Blanche Ingram."
"Soon?"
"It appears so. He must love such a handsome, witty, accomplished lady. And she probably loves him or, if not him, at least his fortune." Here the Gypsy smiled to herself. "I know she considers his fortune very desirable, although I told her something about that which made her frown."
"But I didn't come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune. I came to hear my own."
The Gypsy beckoned me to come closer, and suddenly I noticed a ring on her finger, a ring that I'd seen a hundred times before.
"Mr. Rochester!" I cried.
He laughed and took off his hat. "Do you forgive me, Jane?"
"I'll try, but it wasn't right to fool the ladies."
"Ah, the ladies." Mr. Rochester removed his cloak as he stood up. "What are they discussing in the sitting room?"
"They're probably talking about the Gypsy, sir. But do you know that a stranger has arrived?"
He shook his head. "Who is it?"
"He comes from the island of Jamaica, sir, and his name is Mason."
"Mason! Jamaica!" Mr. Rochester grasped my wrist convulsively and his smile froze.
"Are you ill, sir?" I was concerned because he'd turned so white.
"I've suffered a blow, Jane." He staggered.
"Oh! Lean on me, sir."
I helped him sit down, and he made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both of his, he gazed at me in a most distressed way.
"My little friend!" he said. "I wish I were on a quiet island with only you, and that trouble, danger, and all hideous recollections were removed from me."
I was alarmed. "Can I help you? I'd give my life to serve you."
"Thank you, Jane. If all the fine people in the sitting room came here and spat at me, what would you do?"
"Turn them out of the room if I could."
"But what if I tried to talk to them and they only sneered at me and whispered among themselves? What if they abandoned me? Would you go with them?"
"Oh no, sir. I'd rather stay and try to comfort you."
"Could you risk their disapproval for my sake?"
"I'd do it for anyone who deserves my friendship, as I'm sure you do."
He asked me to go into the sitting room and whisper to Mr. Mason that he was wanted in the library by Mr. Rochester. I did as he asked.
Later that night as I was falling asleep, I heard him talking happily as he showed Mason to a bedroom. Mr. Rochester's cheerful tone set my heart at ease, and I was soon asleep.