The fourth of the Jane Eyre pcitures, this and the previous one form another pair - two scenes happening in the same place at different times in the story. Chronologically, it is the last in the series - it is now the height of summer, and Jane and Mr. Rochester finally confess their love for each other. It is actually the first picture in the series that I worked on, and it has some technical shortcomings that I think I avoided in the other pictures of the series - notably the indifferent treatment of the background. I'm not very happy with the thin colour and the treatment of the sky, though I do think the painting has a nice romantic summernight sort of atmosphere. It wasn't really intended to be the start of a series, but the topic didn't let me go until I'd done all the other ones.

Here, again, is the passage from "Jane Eyre":

"A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour, even singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. THe hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime: hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.
On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay-Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her I sought the garden.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four: - "Day its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state - pure of the pomp of clouds - spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm of fine, deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon.
I walked awhile on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent - that of a cigar - stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a handbreath; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever: but in threading the flower and fruit-parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now-rising moon casts on this more open quarter, my step is stayed - not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet-briar and southern-wood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower, it is - I know it well - it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.
But no - eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are ladden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it.
"Now, he has his back towards me," thought I, "and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed."
I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. "I shall get by very well," I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly without turning: -
"Jane, come and look at this fellow."
I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind - could his shadow feel? I started at first, and then I approached him.
"Look at his wings," said he, "he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect; one does not often see so large and gay a nightrover in England: there! he is flown."
The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also: but Mr. Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said: -
"Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise."

From: Charlotte Brontë: "Jane Eyre", vol. II, chapter VIII

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last updated: 16 February, 2004