Chapter 36 — Thornfield in ruins

Jane travels south for two days. She arrives at the railway inn at Millcote at sunset and orders a carriage to take her up to Thornfield. The innkeeper looks at her oddly. When she repeats the destination, he asks her to come into the parlour. He has news for her if she has been long away.

He tells her the story over the next half-hour. Last autumn there was a fire at Thornfield Hall. The cause was eventually established as deliberate. The household had not known of the existence of the master's first wife; the secret had come out only after the wedding-day affair, in the gossip of the surrounding country. The wife — called by the villagers "the madwoman of Thornfield" — had on a midsummer night escaped Grace Poole's watch, set fire to the bed in Mr. Rochester's old chamber, and, while the household tried to put out the flames, climbed up onto the leads of the roof. Rochester had run up and pleaded with her to come down. She had stood at the parapet, given a great shout, and thrown herself into the courtyard. She was killed instantly.

Rochester had stayed in the burning house long enough to see all the servants safely out. He had been on the great staircase when the timbers above gave way; one eye had been put out and the other so injured that he was effectively blind in both, and his right hand had been so crushed that the surgeon had amputated it at the wrist. The house had burned to the ground. Rochester had been carried, still alive, to Ferndean — a small remote manor he owned, thirty miles further into the country — where he had been ever since, attended by his old servants John and Mary. The innkeeper has not seen him in a year and does not know if he is still alive. Jane orders a chaise for the morning.