Grace Poole Quotes

While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued…the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was a high room, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation, but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 11. As Jane tries to settle into her new life at Thornfield, Mrs. Fairfax shows her around the house. Jane hears a strange and unnatural laugh echoing through the property. Mrs. Fairfax tells her it is from Grace Poole, an eccentric servant. The laugh spooks Jane who at first thinks that it is from a ghost and there is no Grace Poole. Then at Mrs. Fairfax’s call Grace appears out of a nearby room. The incident is foreshadowing of the Gothic horrors to come and that everything is not as it appears at Thornfield. The laugher is actually that of Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester’s insane wife, who is kept hidden and locked away in the attic.

When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh: the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sound she made.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 12. When Jane is pacing through the Gothic mansion of Thornfield, she hears frequently the eeric laugh that she believes to be that of the eccentric Grace Poole. What Jane doesn’t realize yet is that the laughter and strange sounds she often hears are from the madwoman in the attic Bertha Mason.

She would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 12. Jane is decribing Grace Poole, a strange and enigmatic figure. But Grace Poole is actually a red herring. She is in the story to misdirect Jane and the reader into believing that she is responsible for the strange noises and happenings in Thornfield. She is the keeper, nurse and prison guard of Bertha Mason, the madwoman locked in the attic and real source of the strange happenings.

All I had gathered from it amounted to this, – that there was a mystery at Thornfield.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 17. Jane makes this comment after watching the strange, erratic behavior of Grace Poole, who spends most of her time alone upstairs. She also overhears a conversation between the servants about how Grace is paid more than the other servants. Jane’s conclusion is that there is something mysterious going on at Thornfield. She has yet to learn the shocking family secret that is being hidden from her.
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