Chapter 16 — the next day; Rochester leaves; Blanche

Jane comes down the next morning expecting to see Rochester and is told by Mrs. Fairfax that he has left at dawn for the Leas, the house of a Mr. Eshton several miles off, where a long house party is gathering. He has left no message. Jane is unsettled by his sudden absence, and more unsettled by the casual tone of Mrs. Fairfax's news. She manages, with an effort, to ask who else will be at the party.

Mrs. Fairfax, gentle and unsuspecting, names them. The Eshtons. The Lynns. The Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters Blanche and Mary. Mrs. Fairfax adds, casually, that Blanche Ingram is much admired — tall, dark-haired, accomplished, of a famous old family — and that there has been talk in the country for some years that Rochester and Blanche may eventually marry. The information is delivered without intent to wound. Jane absorbs it standing in the morning room. She thanks Mrs. Fairfax and goes upstairs to her own room.

She takes out her drawing materials. She does what the novel is telling us she has done before, in moments when feelings need to be governed: she works on them with her hands. She makes two portraits, one in plain crayon, one in colored chalks. The first is herself, drawn carefully and unflatteringly — "a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain." The second is an imagined Blanche Ingram, drawn from Mrs. Fairfax's description — "the loveliest face I could conceive," "an accomplished lady of rank." She places the two pictures side by side on her table. She instructs herself, in the voice that has been her companion since Gateshead, to remember which one Mr. Rochester is more likely to want, and to govern her feelings accordingly. The discipline is the chapter's argument. The fact that the discipline is needed is the chapter's second argument.