Chapter 25 — the figure with the veil

The night before the wedding. Rochester has gone away on business and is not expected back until morning. Jane is alone in her room. Her trunk is packed; her travelling dress is laid out; the wedding veil — a long lace veil Rochester insisted on against her wishes — is hanging from the chair. She has had, the night before, two unusually vivid dreams of a child weeping. She lies awake reading. Eventually she sleeps.

She wakes at one to a sound in her room. A figure is at the table where the veil hangs. Tall, dark-haired, in a long white gown — Jane assumes at first it is one of the servants. The figure picks up the veil, raises it, and tries it on in front of the cheval glass. Jane sees the face in the glass. It is not a face she has ever seen. Dark, swollen, with red rolling eyes, with thick dark lips drawn back. The figure stands in the veil for a long minute. Then, with deliberate slowness, she tears the veil down the middle. She drops the pieces and walks toward Jane's bed. She leans down; her face is close enough that Jane can feel the breath. Jane faints.

She wakes at dawn on her own floor, the torn veil scattered around her. Rochester returns in time for breakfast. He listens to her account. He says, with practiced calm, that it must have been Grace Poole — that Grace, sometimes when she has been drinking, leaves her room at night. He asks Jane, on his honor, to give him two more days; after the wedding he will explain everything. Jane, exhausted, agrees. The wedding is at eight in the morning. The torn veil is folded into a drawer where no servant will see it.