Chapter 33 — Jane is an heiress; Jane is a Rivers

A week later, in heavy snow, St. John walks the two miles down to Jane's cottage. He sits by the fire in silence for a long time. Eventually he begins. He has made some discoveries about her in the past week which she has a right to know. He produces from his pocket the strip of paper he had torn. On it, in her own pencil — written absent-mindedly while she was practicing a signature — are the words "Jane Eyre."

He has since made inquiries. Her uncle, Mr. John Eyre of Funchal, Madeira — to whom she had written in the spring announcing her engagement — had read her letter and immediately changed his will to make her his heir. He had then, within weeks, died of an illness contracted on his last voyage. The will has been proved. Jane has inherited his entire fortune: twenty thousand pounds, in safe investments, payable in full on her presenting herself to the solicitors in London. She is, overnight, an independent woman of substance.

St. John then makes his second disclosure. John Eyre, of Madeira, was the brother of his and Diana's and Mary's mother. The Rivers siblings are Jane's first cousins. The family Jane has lacked since she was nine — that her aunt Reed had spitefully kept from her — has been sitting at the parlour table at Moor House this entire autumn. Jane weeps and then — with the directness that is her signature — announces her intention. Twenty thousand pounds is too much for one woman. She will divide it in four equal parts of five thousand pounds each, between herself and her three cousins. St. John gives in only when she insists that she is doing it for herself: family is what she has been wanting all her life.