Chapter 22 — return to Thornfield

Jane returns to Thornfield after a month at Gateshead, arriving by the public coach at the village inn at six in the evening. She declines the offer of a carriage from Mrs. Fairfax and walks the last mile up through the fields herself. The evening is warm, the rooks circling above the elms, the meadow full of long grass; she finds, walking, that the house ahead of her is producing a feeling she has not allowed herself to admit. The grounds of Thornfield are now familiar. The chimneys, the gables, the tower of the chapel beyond — they are, against her every wish to stay self-possessed, hers.

She enters by the side gate into the orchard rather than going around to the front. Rochester is sitting on a stile under the chestnut tree, reading a book. He looks up; he sees her; he closes the book and watches her come. He greets her, brusquely, with the particular brusqueness she has learned is his form of welcome. He calls her his "little friend"; he calls her his "little wanderer"; he asks why she has been gone so long; he tells her, in passing, that "wherever you are is my home — my only home." The greeting is, by the standards of master and governess, indecorous. Jane registers every word.

She goes up to the house. Mrs. Fairfax is waiting at the door; Adèle runs out and clings to her. The household has missed her. Within a few hours she is back in the routine. But the ten minutes in the orchard have decided something for her. She knows now, with the clarity she has been refusing for months, that she loves him completely, and that she will need, in the days ahead, a discipline she does not yet have. The chapter is brief; the work is being done by what is not said.