The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced—the bridal day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I , at least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; tomorrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I ( D.V. )—or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not.
The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, “ Mrs. Rochester, ⸻ Hotel, London,” on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed.
Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not be born till tomorrow, some time after eight o’clock a.m. ; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property.
It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraithlike apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour—nine o’clock—gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment.
“I will leave you by yourself, white dream,” I said. “I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.”