The morning after the proposal, Jane was half-convinced the whole episode had been a dream, until Rochester found her and greeted her with an embrace and a kiss, teasing her about her radiant smile as he told her they would marry in four weeks, in the small local church, then travel first to London, then to Paris, Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice, and Vienna, all the grand European cities he had wandered through in his bitter, unhappy youth, now to be revisited with her at his side. Jane protested that she was no angel, no beauty, that he would tire of her plain, Quakerish self in six months, that she only wanted to be his friend and equal companion, not a jewel-bedecked doll kept in gilded luxury. He countered that he loved her fierce, independent soul, not a simpering socialite, and when she pressed him on why he had feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, he admitted it was a cruel trick to win her, and that Blanche had never cared for him, only his fortune. Jane asked him to explain the engagement to Mrs. Fairfax first, to spare the housekeeper’s anxiety, and when he did, Mrs. Fairfax was stunned, warning Jane that gentlemen of Rochester’s station rarely married their governesses, that she should be careful not to trust him too fully, that their twenty-year age gap and different stations made the match unwise. Jane was hurt by the housekeeper’s skepticism, but the tension broke when Adèle ran in begging to join their trip to Millcote, and Rochester, moved by Jane’s intercession, agreed to let her come, spinning the child a fanciful tale of taking Jane to live in a moon cave.
The drive to Millcote was a trial for Jane: Rochester insisted she pick out new dresses for the wedding, and she hated being fussed over like a doll, arguing him down from six dresses to two, swapping his gaudy picks of amethyst silk and pink satin for sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. She was flushed with embarrassment at the attention until she remembered her uncle John Eyre in Madeira had once written to Mrs. Reed intending to adopt her and make her his heiress; she wrote to him that same day to tell him she was marrying Rochester, hoping a small independent fortune would spare her the shame of being entirely dependent on him. She bantered with Rochester all the way home, teasing him for treating her like a seraglio slave, insisting she would never be his English Céline Varens, that she would continue to earn her own keep as Adèle’s governess even after they married. That evening, she insisted he sing for her, and he performed a heartfelt, passionate poem about a long, secret love that finally won, about loving her as his equal in every way. Jane deflected his sentiment, teasing him about the song’s subject, insisting she would keep him at a deliberate distance for the whole four weeks of their courtship, playing the sharp-tongued, unyielding governess to test his patience, to make sure he would not tire of her plain, practical self. The probationary period worked exactly as she hoped: Rochester was often cross and crusty with her teasing, but he was clearly entertained, and Jane knew the distance kept his affection from curdling into condescension. Yet even as she enforced this playful dynamic, she grappled with a quiet, unspoken conflict: Rochester had become the center of her entire world, the focus of every thought and hope, even eclipsing the religious faith that had once been her anchor; he stood between her and every thought of God, an eclipse blocking out the sun, and she could not bring herself to care.
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