After spending her childhood in an orphanage, young Eyre (Joan Fontaine) becomes governess to the ward of an imposing older man named Edward Rochester (Orson Welles). Ultimately, Jane'sĀ gentle influence forces Rochester to drop his frobidding veneer, and he proposes to her. But the discovery that Rochester is already married, and further, that his volatile wife is locked in the attic, prompts Jane to leave as a series of tragic events unfold in this riveting classic that also features Margaret O'Brien.