Jane Fairfax takes a governess position

Jane Fairfax, the elegant and accomplished orphan who has been raised by Colonel Campbell's family, makes the decisive and painful choice to enter the governess trade, a step she has long foreseen as the inevitable end of her brief period of liberty. This decision, which she executes with a firmness that surprises even her aunt, is not merely a practical arrangement but the climax of a private resolution to sacrifice all the pleasures of rational intercourse and equal society for a life of penance and labor. The event, occurring in the wake of the Box Hill picnic and her secret quarrel with Frank Churchill, sets in motion the chain of revelations that ultimately exposes their long-concealed engagement and reshapes the futures of nearly every principal character in Highbury.

Background and Resolution

Jane Fairfax's destiny has been shaped by loss and obligation from infancy. The only child of Lieutenant Fairfax, who died in action abroad, and his widow, who soon sank under consumption and grief, she became the charge of her grandmother, Mrs. Bates, and her aunt, Miss Bates. Her prospects were transformed when Colonel Campbell, indebted to her father for attentions during a camp-fever, undertook the whole charge of her education. From the age of nine, she lived with the Campbells, sharing in the rational pleasures of an elegant society, but always with the sobering understanding that she was being prepared to earn her own subsistence. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty should be the period of her sacrifice, and with the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she planned to retire from all the enjoyments of life to penance and mortification forever. The marriage of Miss Campbell to Mr. Dixon, a young man rich and agreeable, only underscored Jane's own precarious position, as she remained behind, her bread yet to earn.

The Decision and Its Immediate Circumstances

The immediate impetus for Jane's acceptance of a position with Mrs. Smallridge comes in the aftermath of the Box Hill excursion, a day marked by Frank Churchill's shameful neglect of her and his apparent devotion to Emma Woodhouse. Provoked beyond endurance, Jane had spoken her resentment in terms perfectly intelligible to Frank, and the quarrel that followed led her to believe their engagement was dissolved. In this state of despair and wounded pride, she closed with the offer of the officious Mrs. Elton, who had been tirelessly promoting a situation with a cousin of Mrs. Bragge, a lady known at Maple Grove. Jane's decision is made with a suddenness that astonishes her aunt, who had no idea of the change until it was all settled. Miss Bates reports that Jane, after thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge's situation, came to the resolution of accepting it, a move that Mrs. Elton, with her characteristic self-congratulation, claims as her own triumph.

The Nature of the Position and Its Implications

The position Jane accepts is with a Mrs. Smallridge, a charming woman who lives only four miles from Maple Grove and is to have the charge of her three little girls. The situation is presented by Mrs. Elton as one of unparalleled felicity, replete with comfort and elegance, and the salary is described as so generous that Miss Bates cannot venture to name it. Yet the very nature of the governess-trade, as Jane herself calls it, is a source of profound misery. She speaks of it as a sale of human intellect, a fate that she has long contemplated with dread. Emma Woodhouse, reflecting on Jane's situation, recognizes the profound injustice of a world that forces a woman of such superior talents and character into a life of servitude, and she later feels that if a woman can ever be excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane Fairfax's, where the world is not theirs, nor the world's law.

Consequences and Revelation

Jane's decision to accept the governess position proves to be the catalyst that forces Frank Churchill's hand. Upon discovering her plan through a letter, he is shocked to find her so ill and realizes that he must act immediately. He goes to his uncle, Mr. Churchill, and, with the recent death of Mrs. Churchill having softened the old man's pride, obtains his consent to the marriage. Frank then rushes to Highbury, reconciles with Jane, and the long-secret engagement is finally revealed to the Westons and, subsequently, to the whole of Highbury. The position with Mrs. Smallridge is thus abandoned, and Jane is restored to the comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells, awaiting her marriage to Frank Churchill. The event, which began as a desperate act of self-preservation, ends by securing her the very happiness she had renounced.