[00:00.44] Chapter 36.
[00:02.65] Back to Thornfield.
[00:06.63] I said farewell to my cousins and left next morning, full of hope and excitement.
[00:12.80] I was going back to Thornfield.
[00:15.90] Yes, I knew that Mr. Rochester might be away from home.
[00:22.65] Even if he was there, he was still married, nothing had changed.
[00:29.33] I simply needed to see him again.
[00:37.46] The coach stopped two miles from the house.
[00:42.46] Longing for my first sight of Thornfield Hall, I hurried through the fields and reached the style where I had first seen him.
[00:52.85] I saw a ruin.
[00:57.22] The house was blackened, roofless, and windowless.
[01:03.95] A darkened gap yawned where the front door had been.
[01:07.55] The chimneys had crashed in, weeds grew between fallen rafters.
[01:14.79] The gardens were trampled and wrecked.
[01:19.92] Charring and soot showed that it had burnt to destruction.
[01:26.91] Had it destroyed life, too?
[01:35.21] I had to know.
[01:37.99] I walked to the nearest inn, ordered breakfast, and asked the landlord if he knew what had happened at Thornfield.
[01:49.61] Oh, it was a dreadful night, miss, he said.
[01:57.69] It appears there was a mad woman living at the hall, locked away, and it turned out she was Mr. Rochester's wife.
[02:11.77] She escaped one night when her nurse was asleep and set the house on fire.
[02:20.73] That was back in the autumn.
[02:24.66] And was Mr. Rochester in the house?
[02:28.63] I asked, trembling.
[02:32.20] Oh, yes.
[02:34.84] He'd hardly left it in months.
[02:39.75] There was a governess there last year, and they say he was out of his senses in love with her, but she ran away when she found out about his mad wife.
[02:55.62] It seems the wife tried to burn him in his bed one night.
[03:01.71] She set fire to the governess's bed, too, but that was after she'd run away.
[03:10.14] But Mr. Rochester, he traveled the country trying to find her, but she'd vanished completely.
[03:24.22] He came back, sent his little ward to school, and found a new home for his housekeeper.
[03:33.29] Then, he locked himself away at Thornfield.
[03:38.88] I never saw a man so changed, and all for a plain little governess.
[03:50.24] Yes, but what happened in the fire?
[03:55.73] The whole place was going up in flames, and Mrs. Rochester was up on the roof, waving her arms and shouting.
[04:08.01] Mr. Rochester got all the servants out and tried to rescue the mad woman, too, but she threw herself down to her death.
[04:22.32] Poor Mr. Rochester.
[04:28.35] Is he alive?
[04:30.64] I burst out.
[04:33.93] Oh, he's alive, but he might be better off dead.
[04:43.02] It came of his courage, the way he wouldn't leave until everyone else was out.
[04:52.01] The house collapsed around him.
[04:58.65] One hand was so crushed that it had to be amputated at once, and he's blind.
[05:10.74] But he was alive and sane.
[05:13.28] I thanked God for it.
[05:16.48] Where is he now?
[05:18.84] I asked.
[05:22.71] At his other manner house at Ferndene, 30 miles away.
[05:30.79] Two of the servants, old John and his wife, look after him.
[05:37.64] I remembered John and Mary from my days at Thornfield.
[05:44.99] Can your post boy take me to Ferndene today?
[05:49.38] I asked, if he can get me there before dark, I'll pay twice the usual fair.