“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment…It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage; Mr. Rochester has a wife now living.” My nerves vibrated to these low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder – my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire…I looked at Mr. Rochester; I made him look at me…He disavowed nothing…Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognize in me a human being, he only twined my waste with his arm, and riveted me to his side.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 26. Rochester’s secret that he aleady has a wife is ironically revealed at the altar of his wedding ceremony with Jane. It happens moments before they are to take their vows together and Jane is about to marry a bigamist. The heartbreaking news is delivered by London solicitor Mr. Briggs who interrupts the ceremony just as the clergyman asks Rochester will he take Jane for his wedded wife. It seems that Rochester married Creole woman Bertha Mason fifteen years earlier in Jamaica.