Disclaimer: This story is for enjoyment only- inspired by my complete enjoyment of the beautiful love story between Jane and Rochester. All characters mentioned belong to Charlotte Bronte.
A/N This story was inspired by the recent PBS miniseries, though I have enjoyed the story long before this current portrayal.
The path was long and narrow, encroached with wild underbrush, while the low hanging branches above it reached out like gnarled claws to catch upon my cloak and dress as they did their utmost to put a stop to my passage. But still I pushed onward, past their impediment, until reaching another curve in the winding path that led to a break in the suffocating wood about me. An iron gate appeared ahead through the misty fog and beyond it, a stone house. A cry of relief rose in my throat as I hurried toward it from behind this last obstacle. I would find my master. My heart skipped a beat at the renewed anticipation of seeing Mr. Rochester again and superseded the previous fright this arduous and intimidating journey had caused me.
Uncertainty had been mine for the better part of an hour now since I instructed the hired man to stop his chaise a few miles back. At that moment, I felt I needed this period alone to gather my scattered thoughts before seeing him again, but the long passage within the dark, dank woods about me had undone any good this chance had given me to fortify myself. My emotions were in greater disarray than when I first started out. But now, at long last, I had reached my hoped for destination and optimism was renewed within my breast. Mr. Rochester was within my reach…or so I thought.
As I arrived at the gate, I found my pathway once again blocked; this time not by nature's overgrown bounty, but by the heaviness of a chain ending in a rusted lock. The barrier before me would not give way, even though I shook it with all the might my diminutive body could muster. It was not to be swayed as it continued to hold my body captive from the structure behind it. It, however, could not claim similar custody of my sight as my eyes glanced longingly past the breaks afforded me between the wrought iron posts. At first, the same fog, which had crowned the tree tops behind me, lay blanketed upon the cleared grounds immediately before the house. It gave the lonely domicile in front of me an even more unearthly appearance from its unnatural position deep within the thicket.
Not many had set foot this far off the beaten path. Ferndean had served as a hunting lodge alone and for the most part, only during a few weeks out of the year. Perhaps the innkeeper had been wrong in the information he had relayed to me? Perhaps this trip to the better part of nowhere had been in vain? For so forlorn stood the building now in front of me, that it did not speak of any life dwelling within its high walls.
A shiver passed through my body at this thought, though I was unsure of its source. Did it originate from the gathering darkness of the impeding nightfall and finding myself alone here in the wood? Or could its foundation be found in the dampness of the heavy atmosphere hovering about me which had finally penetrated even the thin fabric of my undergarments, stealing whatever warmth my body so desperately tried to keep hold of?
Shivering further, I gathered my affected clothing more tightly about me to ward off the continuing effects of the weather. I was no stranger to cold or bitter disappointment. Lowood had been my training ground and more recently, a year earlier during my flight upon the moors. But hope had been renewed within me at the prospect of seeing Mr. Rochester again. Now this dream seemed shattered by fate ,as well, as unbidden tears began filling my eyes at the sorry state of my existing predicament. My soul presently as forlorn as the abandoned edifice standing a stones throw away as I tried to put a stop to the betraying sob rising in my throat.
Glancing ahead, I tried to blink back the salty droplets threatening to fall when the mist before me began to thin, revealing an indiscriminate obstacle sprawled upon the ground but a short distance ahead. Straining with the increasing darkness and the dampness of both my eyesight and the heavy air around me, I tried to make out the shape that lay upon the foreground before me, but out of my reach. Slowly a once stalwart figure came into focus and with it , a pale face crowned with a dark mane of hair. For an instant, my heart fluttered within my breast until my eyes were drawn back to the sunken, lifeless face beneath it and then the same life giving organ was in my throat at the horror that was now mine.
"Edward!" I screamed as I stumbled to my knees behind the gate that separated us. "Edward!" I cried out again at the realization that the cold sting of life had delivered me yet another cruel blow. I was too late…I had come too late. I would never see him again…talk with him again…share his company. "Edward, no…." I wailed.
"Jane?" An alarmed voice called out to mine in answer. "Jane?" It sounded again, this time louder, closer, as I opened my tearstained eyes to the dimness of the bedchamber now around me.
"Jane, dearest, what is it my love?" This time Edward inquired as his good arm sought out my trembling form from beneath the bedcovers to pull me toward him.
"Edward!" I cried in response, unable to keep my present distress from my voice.
"Jane," he answered, his immediate concern assuaged as he gathered me against the flesh of his bare chest, my ear just above his heart. I could feel its increased tempo against my cheek, knowing the fright I endured this night was not to be suffered by myself alone.
"Jane," he gasped as his hand moved through my hair before finding my cheek and feeling the dampness upon my face. "What is it?" He continued unable to hold back the concern in his voice.
"Jane?" he spoke out again when I did not immediately provide answer. "Are you sick? You are trembling, dearest."
"No… I am fine….I'll be fine…" I mumbled shakily against him as I tried to control the emotional betrayal of my body.
"No, you are not." He answered immediately, though he did not press me further to reveal the source of my present discomfort. Instead his hand traced the contours of my face locating my remaining tears and wiping them gently away with his fingertips before finding my forehead with his lips and placing a kiss upon my flesh.
He then slid his hand toward my back before moving it in comforting circles against the woven fabric of my white nightdress. My returning senses, at this point, realized the usually quieted room about us was filled with the stress of our uneven breathing from being jarred awake in the dead of night.
With time and my husband's ministrations, my body began to calm. Edward must have felt my body relax beneath his touch, because his lips touched against my forehead again before he spoke out into the darkness.
"Jane, please explain to me what happened."
"It was nothing. Just a dream…"
"But you called out to me with such need, such fright. Surely, it cannot be as trivial as you claim, for it woke us both from a sound sleep. Do not keep your thoughts closed off to me, Jane, as you did during your earlier days at Thornfield."
"It was just a dream, Edward." I repeated, wanting to put the frightening image behind me.
"It was not just a dream, " My husband answered, not to be dissuaded from the privacy of my thoughts. "I heard the terror in your voice, tasted the tears upon your face, and felt the trembling which consumed your tiny frame for long minutes. A mere dream does not hold the power to sway a soul as such. Tell me, Jane, what specters haunted your sleep this night?"
I felt his body tense with this question, and knowing my Edward as I did, I knew that he must suspect the blame of my current distress to fall upon his person, still not totally trusting the contentment I confessed at becoming his lifelong companion.
And so I turned my eyes upward to see the tenseness which settled in his jaw while awaiting my answer. Reaching a hand upward, I caressed his scarred cheek before smoothing back the dark hair at his temple while I revealed my disturbing tale.
"I dreamt I was at Ferndean again. But this time, instead of finding you residing there, I envisioned I was too late. You lay dead upon the foreground!" I gasped before a sob filled my throat again.
I did not think it was physically possible for my husband to comfort me any further than he had done already this night, but his arm drew me tighter towards his chest as his lips pressed against the top of my head.
"I am alive and well, Jane, and growing more vigorous each day, thanks to you," he answered.
"I could not bear to lose you, Edward," I shivered with cold once again at the heartrending prospect even though the warmth of my husband's body lay next to mine.
"You are cold, Jane." Edward asserted as he tried with great difficulty to unravel the tangle of bedcovers about me.
"A little," I acknowledged hastily, unsure if my current plight was due to lack of proper bed linens or the recent fright which had laid claim to my unconscious psyche.
"I promised you, you'd never be cold again, " He murmured into my hair as he fashioned a cocoon of covers about my shoulders as best he could.
"Hmmm…" I answered with contentment as I nestled beneath them against my husband's flesh.
"Better?" He asked. I felt his smile against my hair.
"Yes, " I sighed.
We lay in quiet for many long moments savoring the closeness before his voice sounded again.
"Jane, I think you have suffered more in the time we were apart than you have disclosed to me."
"It was nothing I could not bear, Edward." I answered hesitantly unsure of where this conversation was going.
"I have never doubted your resilience, my little swallow. But where the scars from my separation from you are mostly visible, the ones you bear I believe are hidden within your spirited exterior. For I know you suffered as well, Jane, and not from just the ache that filled your being. So slight is your build, my love, and even though my eyesight has left me, the findings of my touch do not lie. I felt the physical effects of your suffering upon your breadth, and for that I am sorry. I never wanted to be the cause of your pain."
"You have not dearest…not intentionally."
"But I lied to you…withheld the truth for fear of losing you… If I had the chance to do over again…"
"But you do not, Edward…We cannot go backwards in our timeline. We must forge ahead. My future is with you. I would not change that for anything."
"Nor, I, my love."
"I love you, Edward, with all my being. I will all the days of my life."
"As I will too, my Jane. I thank God for bringing you back to me."