The next morning Jane stalled getting ready. She did not really want to go downstairs and face the crowd of people that were there, waiting to see her. She was sure that they would not look her in the eye, that they would tread lightly, and act unnatural. But, there were only so many ways Jane could pull on her stockings or fix her hair or fasten her dress. Eventually, her husband came around the corner, looking at her knowingly and encouraging her to come downstairs with him. Not having another option, and wanting to have some form of support with her, she left with him.
As she guessed, the guests downstairs did not meet her eye when she came around the corner. Jane suspected that they found it a very disheartening sign that she had stayed in her room the remainder of the previous day, and that they believed she felt worse, and more broken than she did. She could not give him that power over her. She would not.
"Good morning" she said to the crowd assembled for breakfast. A general good morning was the reply, and soon food was carried out to the table to distract from furthering conversation. Jane felt a small squeeze of her hand under the table from her husband as she began to eat.
Captain Franklin stirred uncomfortably in his chair before putting his hand into a fist, and gaining fresh courage to speak across the table.
"Ms Rochester, please. I hope you will allow me to speak to you now in front of your friends and family regarding yesterday. To leave things unsaid feels wrong, and unfair".
Jane saw Lord and Lady Franklin look up hopefully, surely they wished for their family name to continue unstained.
"Of course" Jane replied, laying down her fork.
"Ms Rochester, my brothers behaviour to you yesterday is unfathomable to me, and completely unacceptable. Though I knew somewhat of his wicked tenancies, I never thought they would move into the realm of harming another person, especially one who has been good and excessively kind to me and my family during our stay here. What he received from your husband yesterday was well deserved, and I feel no other feeling toward him right now other than that. Please, accept my apology"
"Captain, I do not expect you to take on the guilt and wrongdoings of your brother. You need not make amends for him, you need not apologise for him. All I ask, is that it is seen to that he does not do this to any other woman ever again. You have the ability to see to such where I do not".
The captain nodded, solemnly.
"It shall be my only goal at present, madam"
As Jane looked at Lord and Lady Franklin she was reminded of just how different their son, the Captain, was from them. She suspected they would have been the type of people to hang their heads at breakfast, and perhaps into lunch until the mood had lifted sufficiently enough that normal conversation would resume and they could forget about the event that transpired. If pride was the reason for this, which she suspected it was, she knew she would never receive acknowledgement. This made the Captain's forwardness, and his honesty that much more valued.
. . . . . .
Over the following days, the general atmosphere returned to the Rochester household. Once Lord and Lady Franklin had sensed that enough time had passed, they began speaking to Jane again- a little more openly and friendly than they did before. Diana also began wedding discussions again in Jane's presence, her excitement once again peaked and her anticipation proving to make her restless. Jane often saw her pacing rather than sitting, walking rather than staying still.
Still, Jane thought often of her encounter with Franklin. Though she tried, she could not shake the image of him from her mind. This she kept private, however. Her husbands anger took days to bring down, and if she told him that Franklin still haunted her thoughts from time to time, she knew he would seek immediate revenge. Her silence gave them both more peace of mind than if she spoke of her feelings. Still, she knew that he suspected her of exactly what she felt. She often caught him observing her, and he often asked how she was, and what she was thinking. Jane never lied to him, she only told him selective parts of the truth.
Unfortunately, Jane did not have much closure on the matter. Edward told her afterwards that Franklin had been brought to town and kept in an inn there, guarded from leaving by two police officers. But he could not tell her more. The Captain said that he had him brought somewhere in the countryside, at a residence he claimed was remote and isolated from society. So, with this knowledge, Jane did her best to move on, and put her focus into helping with the wedding.
. . . . . . . .
Jane sat with Anne and the Rivers sisters in the sitting room the night before the wedding, completing the final tasks that needed to be done. There was an overwhelming amount of work to be done, work that was completely foreign to Jane. Her wedding had been so small, so private, so intimate. She could not imagine being married another way. But for Diana and Captain Franklin's wedding, the idea was the complete opposite. Flowers, food, dresses, arranging priests, arranging a church, gathering friends and family, all proved to be a huge undertaking.
"Diana, was it the pink ribbon you wanted to hold your bouquet together?" Jane asked, holding up a pink and a white ribbon.
"Yes, the pink. Oh no wait. Now that I see the white I am unsure...what do you think?"
"I think it is your wedding, and you should choose what you wish for yourself. It will be beautiful, no matter what you choose, so choose from your heart."
Diana smiled at her,
"Sweet Jane. I am asking for opinions, for there are too many choices for just me to make alone".
Jane grinned, "Then I will say pink. It was your first instinct, and will look lovely with the arrangements of flowers you have chosen"
"Thank you" Diana sang, taking the light pink ribbon from Jane.
"No, give that ribbon to me. I shall keep it in the box with the rest of the things for the florist when they arrive tomorrow" Anne said, holding out her hand.
"That is all very well, but now the ribbon for the ladies hair must be given out" Mary said, holding out several different types of ribbons. Anne sighed, taking the green one, defeated.
"I ordered this when my dress was the same colour, but now that has changed. I cannot wear this ribbon with my new dress. Though it is so handsome, I hate to see it go to waste. Jane, won't you wear it?"
"Thank you Anne, but I have something for my hair"
"Mary then! Your dress is cream, surely it will suit"
"Only if you are positive" she said, taking the ribbon excitedly from Anne before the words were out of her mouth.
"I am so tired" Diana said, rubbing her eyes. It had become quite late by now, and with the wedding only hours away it was important to get some sleep.
"Diana, you run along. You too Anne and Mary, I can look after everything here. There is not much left-"
"Absolutely not Jane" Diana objected, "You are pregnant, you need your sleep. We can all stay".
"Please. I have trouble sleeping in the nights. This will not be a waste of my sleep as it will be for you. Go on, and be well rested. We need to see that radiant face of yours tomorrow"
After several more debates, all of which Jane won, the girls departed for bed, waving goodbye to her from the door. Jane found the silence relaxing, and the final tasks that needed to be completed took her no time. Pieces of lace, last tailoring details, and reading over marriage cards took only a few minutes. As she did such, however, the study door opened and Edward stood, leaning against the frame.
"Jane Rochester, what are you doing? Everyone else is gone to bed"
"I sent them" Jane replied distractedly, sorting letters of congratulations into two separate piles.
Edward walked over to her, sitting down beside her and taking the letters from her hands.
"Its so late Jane, it is time for you to be in bed too"
"I promised I would finish this. I told them I have trouble sleeping in the nights, and that this would waste none of my sleep-"
"So you lied to them?" he asked, half serious, half amused. Jane shot him a sideways glance before picking up two more letters. Edward sighed at her continued progress.
"Is it just sorting these letters? If so let me help, we shall get it finished in half the time"
"No, I do not expect you to do this. You can go on to bed, I will not be much longer"
"But tonight is an especially cold May night, and I cannot sleep without you. You see? It is for completely selfish reasons I help. Hand me that stack there"
Jane reluctantly passed him the stack of cards and he began sorting through them.
"Do we not have servants to do this for Diana?"
"It is tradition of the bride's woman companions to help her sort through her letters"
"It seems inefficient to me" he commented, dropping the first letter onto the larger of the piles. "All these traditions, and all this fuss over a marriage seems like wasted time when one can just get married and start living as husband and wife"
"You only say that because you did not have the patience yourself to wait"
Edward grumbled beside his wife, laying a letter onto the smaller pile.
"It is hardly that you were filled with patience either. You wanted to be married as much as I"
"Of course" she said, smiling at him, "I had pure thoughts, however only of love. I think you may have had a darker motive in rushing me into my wedding. Or more specifically, my wedding night"
He bit back his smile.
"You tease me such even though you know such is not the case"
"No, but I like seeing you blush"
"I do not blush" he objected, throwing down a letter with some force so that it knocked the stack over. Jane smiled to herself and returned to her own task as he scrambled to pick up the letters.
"Speaking of" Edward began, scanning the letter in his hand, "This letter speaks of the wedding night, and an attached gift that was sent with it? Surely this is not a gift from the Captain himself?"
Jane sent him a disapproving glance which he found very amusing before answering "That is from Lady Franklin's sister. She sent a nightdress. It is in that box beside you. That can go in the family pile"
"Good God" Edward said, ignoring Jane's last comment and looking over into the box laying on the table beside him. "Jane, surely that is not what she sent. Does she want the marriage to fail before it can even start?"
"What ever do you mean?" Jane asked, now dropping her own letters back into her lap. Edward drew his hand back uncertainly from the box as if he had seen some horrid thing was contained within it.
"Any man would have an impossible task of getting this thing undone. Look at all the buttons- look at the neck. Surely this is a device meant to cover every ounce of skin on the body, and where is the fun in that?"
Jane smacked his arm scornfully.
"You have no right to comment on such things. It does not involve you"
"No, I suppose you are right, it does not". He paused. "I do remember though the things that did involve me- what you were dressed in our wedding night"
"Do you?" Jane asked, slightly surprised.
"Well, I remember what it felt like, not what you looked like, of course. It was very lightweight, and I could feel the curve of you through the thin material. I remember being surprised by how comfortable you were, and how honest. You opened up like a flower to me that night, Jane."
"That was through no natural inclination" she assured him, "You made me feel easy, and at peace. I was not afraid because I trusted you. I just did not want to be a coward"
"Coward was the last word that would have come to my mind that night"
"All the same. I knew you were experienced, far more than I, and I did not want my lack of knowledge to come off as a lack of enthusiasm"
Her husband smiled warmly, "No one could say that of you, Jane"
She looked at him and smiled before she went back to her task. She did not notice that he was watching her, thinking of her. There was silence for quite some time, but he continued thinking of the words that sounds had long fallen from the air.
"That night" he began, looking thoughtful, "You stunned me. You changed my view of my world. Not because you became my wife, or were honest with me, but because you trusted me as no one has ever trusted me before. I did not know that kind of trust was possible, you showed it to me. And the remarkable thing is you did not need to think of it at all, it was so natural to you. I have never known that level of intimacy, in spite of every action I have done that people may deem to be "intimate'. I think about that often, I think about how I now know that level of trust, and hopefully our child will see it in me. That is my biggest hope, right now".
Jane looked at her husband, and could not help herself from taking his hand, from holding some part of him.
"If you did not know it before, you know it now. I see it in every look, I hear it in every word. I know you Edward Rochester. I know how often you lay in bed at night, thinking of our unborn child, thinking of how you will be as a father. And I know the answer you tell yourself, and that answer is unfair. You are more capable of love than I have ever seen in another person. Truthfully I think as a pair, I think we will make exceptional parents. Like you bring out the best of me as a wife, I think you will bring out the best in me as a mother"
"Then we shall be an exceptional pair, for you make me better in every sense, not just in becoming a father".
Jane threw her last letter on top of the now tall piles and was immediately helped up by her husband.
"Alright mother to be, it is off to bed for you. It is far too late as it is".
"And off to bed for you too" she said as the ascended the stairs together. "Without your sleep, I fear that when I rouse you tomorrow your dislike of weddings and parties will show through much stronger"
He grunted some retort as she pushed opened their bedroom door.