Clip from the fascinating adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, starring Sorcha Cusack as Jane Eyre, Michael Jayston as Edward Fairfax Rochester, Megs Jenkins as Mrs. Fairfax, Stephanie Beacham as Blanche Ingram, Juliet Waley as young Jane, Geoffrey Whitehead as St. John Rivers, Jean Harvey as Mrs. Reed, Brenda Kempner as Bertha Mason, Isabelle Rosin as Adele. Directed by Joan Craft.
00:00I wrestled with my own resolution to leave Thornfield.
00:04Oh, I wanted to be weak.
00:08Let another help me.
00:12But conscience turned tyrant, held passion by the throat.
00:19I perceived I was sickening from inanition.
00:22Neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day.
00:30My head swam.
00:38I almost fell.
00:42You've come out at last.
00:46I've been waiting and listening.
00:49Yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob.
00:54Five minutes more of that death-like silence and I should have forced the door.
01:00A white cheek, a faded eye, with no trace of tears.
01:11I suppose then your heart has been weeping blood.
01:18Come.
01:18Not a word of reproach, Jane.
01:30Nothing bitter.
01:34Jane, I never meant to wound you thus.
01:39Will you ever forgive me?
01:40I forgave him at that moment, yet not in words, not outwardly, only at my heart's core.
01:51You know me to be a scoundrel, Jane.
01:54Yes, sir.
01:55Then tell me so, roundly, sharply.
01:58I cannot.
01:59I am tired and sick.
02:01I can read your thoughts.
02:06You intend, do you not, to make yourself a stranger to me?
02:10All is changed about me, sir.
02:12I must change, too.
02:14Adele must have a new governess.
02:16Adele shall go to school.
02:17We've settled that already, have we not?
02:20I've settled that.
02:21I shall shut up Thornfield Hall, nail the front door, board the lower windows, and give Mrs. Poole 200 pounds a year to live here with my wife, as you all term that fearful demon.
02:35So you speak of her with hate.
02:37It is cruel.
02:39She cannot help being mad.
02:41Jane, my darling, you misjudge me again.
02:44It's not because she's mad I hate her.
02:47If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?
02:49I do, sir.
02:51Then you're mistaken, and know nothing about me, nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable.
02:57Your flesh is as dear to me as my own.
03:00Your mind is my treasure.
03:03And if it were broken, it would be my treasure still.
03:06Did you never once feel the same towards your wife?
03:08Never.
03:09I was deluded.
03:11Hodwinked.
03:13By her, her family, my brother, and my own father.
03:17My father, Jane, was an avaricious, grasping man.
03:22My elder brother, too.
03:24Did you ever hear anything of them?
03:27Mrs. Fairfax told me your brother died.
03:29But not before he'd connived together with my father to provide me with a fortune and a wife.
03:36My father could not bear to break up the estate.
03:40Instead, he sent me, how green I was, to Spanish town, Jamaica.
03:47There was my chosen bride, imposing, beautiful, with £30,000, her dowry, bemused by lies.
03:59They told me her mother was dead, not locked in an asylum.
04:02I married her, dutiful to my father's careful wishes.
04:10And then, on our honeymoon, I learned the truth.
04:18Saw it in her eyes.
04:21Heard it in her voice.
04:24Experienced it in her violent, vicious contradictions.
04:27For four years, I endured her.
04:33Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous family.
04:37Diseased lunatic.
04:42In the interim, my brother died.
04:45My father also.
04:47I formed a plan.
04:49It was that of suicide, Jane.
04:52To return here with my lunatic burden.
04:55To confine her with due attendance here.
04:57Which I did.
05:00Ten years followed.
05:02I travelled.
05:04First, cursing all mankind.
05:07Then, seeking the solace, my foolishness and others' falsehood had denied me.
05:12I did not find it until...
05:17You...
05:19were walking in Hay Lane.
05:22I rode past you without a thought.
05:24I had no presentiment of what that quiet little figure would be to me.
05:31I did not know it even when my horse stumbled.
05:36You came to my aid.
05:37It was as if a linnet had hopped to my foot.
05:42And proposed to bear me on its tiny wing.
05:46I was surly.
05:48But you did not go.
05:49I was to be aided.
05:55And by that small hand.
05:58And aided I was.
06:01I demand that aid again, Jane.
06:03I would give it gladly, sir.
06:05You can, you can.
06:07How?
06:08Jane, we are packed and ready.
06:11Nothing holds us save dull convention.
06:13You shall be, Mrs. Rochester.
06:14Both virtually and nominally, I shall keep you as long as you and I live.
06:19No.
06:20You don't love me, then.
06:22It was only my station and the rank of wife that you valued.
06:24Now you find me disqualified to be your husband.
06:26You recoil from me.
06:27I do love you more than ever.
06:30But I must not show or indulge the feeling.
06:33And this is the last time I must express it.
06:35I must leave you, Mr. Rochester.
06:38Jane, you must be reasonable or in truth, I shall get mad.
06:41If I were to live with you as you desire,
06:44I should then be your mistress, a thing owned by you.
06:48And that I will not be both for my own sake and for yours.
06:51Jane, I'm not a gentle-tempered man.
06:54Do you truly mean to go one way in the world and leave me to go another?
06:58I do.
07:03Do you still mean it?
07:06Yes.
07:09Still?
07:09I do.
07:11Jane, this is bitter.
07:13Wicked.
07:14It would not be wicked to love me.
07:15It would be to obey you.
07:17But what shall I do, Jane?
07:20Where shall I turn for a companion?
07:22For hope?
07:23Do as I do.
07:24Trust in God.
07:26Believe in heaven.
07:27Hope to meet again there.
07:30Farewell.
07:31Jane, you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed.
07:34No, no.
07:35God bless you.
07:37Direct you, solace you.
07:40And reward you well for your past kindness to me.
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