11 Part Two Jane Eyre

This is S.

D.

Hudson Magic.

Jane Eyre.

Chapter 11 Continued When Mrs.

Fairfax had bidden me a good night,

And I had fastened my door,

Gazed leisurely round,

And in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall,

That dark and spacious staircase,

And that long,

Cold gallery,

By the livelier aspect of my little room,

I remembered that after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety,

I was now at last in safe haven.

The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart,

And I knelt down at the bedside,

And offered up thanks where thanks were due,

Not forgetting,

Ere I rose,

To implore aid on my further path,

And the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned.

My couch had no thorns in it that night,

My solitary room no fears.

At once weary and content,

I slept soon and soundly.

When I awoke,

It was broad day.

The chamber looked such a bright little place to me,

As the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains,

Showing papered walls and a carpeted floor,

So unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of lowood,

That my spirits rose at the view.

Externals have a great effect on the young.

I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me,

One that was to have its flowers and pleasures,

As well as its thorns and toils.

My faculties roused by the change of scene,

The new field offered to hope seemed all astir.

I cannot precisely define what they expected,

But it was something pleasant.

Not perhaps that day or that month,

But an indefinite future period.

I rose.

I dressed myself with care,

Obliged to be plain,

For I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity.

I was still by nature solicitous to be neat.

It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made.

On the contrary,

I ever wished to look as well as I could and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit.

I sometimes regretted I was not handsomer.

I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks,

A straight nose and a small cherry mouth.

I desired to be tall,

Stately and finely developed in figure.

I felt it a misfortune I was so little,

So pale and had features so irregular and so marked.

And why had I these aspirations and these regrets?

It would be difficult to say.

I could not then distinctly say it to myself.

Yet I had a reason,

And a logical,

Natural reason too.

However,

When I had brushed my hair very smooth and put on my black frock – which,

Quakey-like as it was,

At least had the merit of fitting to a nicety – and adjusted my clean white tucker,

I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs.

Fairfax,

And that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy.

Having opened my chamber window and seen I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table,

I ventured forth.

Traversing the long and matted gallery,

I descended the slippery steps of oak,

And I gained the hall.

I halted there a minute.

I looked at some pictures on the walls.

One,

I remember,

Representing a grim man in a cuirass,

And one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace.

At a bronze lamp pendant from the ceiling,

At a great clock whose case was of oak,

Curiously carved,

And ebb and black with time and rubbing.

Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me,

But then I was so little accustomed to grandeur.

The hall door,

Which was half of glass,

Stood open.

I stepped over the threshold.

It was a fine autumn morning.

The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields.

Advancing onto the lawn,

I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion.

It was three storeys high,

Of proportions not vast though considerable.

A gentleman's manor house,

Not a nobleman's seat.

Battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look.

Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery whose coring tenants were now on the wing.

They flew over the lawn and grounds to a light in a great meadow,

From which these were separated by a sunk fence,

And where an array of mighty old thorn trees,

Strong,

Knotty and broad as oaks,

Had once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation.

Farther off were the hills,

Not so lofty as those around Lowood,

Nor so craggy,

Nor so like the barriers of separation from the living world,

But yet quiet and lonely hills enough.

And seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote.

A little hamlet whose roofs were blent with trees straggled up the side of one of these hills.

The church of the district stood nearer Thornfield,

Its old tower top looked over a knoll between the house and the gates.

I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air,

Yet listening with delight to the coring of the rooks,

Yet surveying the wide,

Hoary front of the hall,

And thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs.

Fairfax to inhabit,

When that lady appeared at the door.

What,

Out already?

Said she.

I see you are an early riser.

I went up to her and was received with an affable kiss and a shake of the hand.

How do you like Thornfield?

She asked.

I told her I liked it very much.

Yes,

She said,

It is a pretty place,

But I fear it will be getting out of order,

Unless Mr.

Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently,

Or at least visit it rather oftener.

Great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor.

Mr.

Rochester,

I exclaimed,

Who is he?

The owner of Thornfield,

She responded quietly.

Did you not know he was called Rochester?

Of course I did not.

I had never heard of him before,

But the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact,

With which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.

I thought,

I continued,

Thornfield belonged to you.

To me?

Bless you,

Child,

What an idea!

To me!

I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side,

Or at least my husband was.

He was a clergyman,

Incumbent of Hay,

That little village yonder on the hill,

And that church near the gates was his.

The present Mr.

Rochester's mother was a fair fax and second cousin to my husband,

But I never presume on the connection.

In fact,

It's nothing to me.

I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper.

My employer is always civil,

And I expect nothing more.

And the little girl,

My pupil,

She is Mr.

Rochester's ward.

He commissioned me to find a governess for her.

He intends to have her brought up here,

I believe.

Here she comes,

With her bon,

As she calls her nurse.

The enigma then was explained.

This affable and kind little widow was no great dame,

But a dependent like myself.

I did not like her the worse for it.

On the contrary,

I felt better pleased than ever.

The equality between her and me was real,

Not the mere result of condescension on her part.

So much the better.

My position was now all the freer.

As I was meditating on this discovery,

A little girl,

Followed by her attendant,

Came running up the lawn.

I looked at my pupil,

Who did not at first appear to notice me.

She was quite a child,

Perhaps seven or eight years old,

Slightly built,

With a pale small featured face,

And a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.

Good morning,

Miss Adela,

Said Mrs.

Fairfax.

Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you,

And to make you a clever woman some day.

She approached.

C'est la ma gouvernante,

Said she,

Pointing to me and addressing her nurse,

Who answered,

Mais oui,

Certainement.

Are they foreigners?

I inquired,

Amazed at hearing the French language.

The nurse is a foreigner,

And Adela was born on the continent,

And I believe never left it till within six months ago.

When she first came here,

She could speak no English.

Now she can make shift to talk it a little.

I don't understand her,

She mixes it so well with French,

But she will make out her meaning very well,

I dare say.

Fortunately,

I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady,

As I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could,

And had besides,

During the last seven years,

Learnt a portion of French by heart daily,

Applying myself to take pains with my accent,

And imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher.

I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language,

And was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela.

She came and shook hands with me when she heard I was her gouverness,

And as I led her into breakfast,

I addressed phrases to her in her own tongue.

She replied briefly at first,

But after we were seated at the table,

And she had examined me some ten minutes more with her large hazel eyes,

She suddenly commenced chattering fluently.

Cried she in French,

You speak my language as well as Mr.

Rochester does.

I can talk to you as I can talk to him,

And so can Sophie.

She will be glad.

Nobody here understands her.

Madame Fairfax is all English.

Sophie is my nurse.

She came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked.

How it did smoke!

And I was sick,

And so was Sophie,

And so was Mr.

Rochester.

Mr.

Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the Salon,

And Sophie and I had beds in another place.

I nearly fell out of mine.

It was like a shelf.

Mademoiselle,

What is your name?

Heir.

Jane Heir.

Heir.

I cannot say it.

Well,

Our ship stopped in the morning before it was quite daylight at a great city,

A huge city with dark houses and all smoky,

Not at all like the pretty clean town I came from.

Mr.

Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land,

And Sophie came after,

And we all got into a coach which took us to a beautiful large house,

Larger than this and finer,

Called a hotel.

We stayed there nearly a week.

I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees called the Park,

And there were many children there besides me,

And a pond with beautiful birds in it that I fed with crumbs.

Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?

Asked Mrs.

Fairfax.

I understood her very well,

For I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Perrault.

I wish,

Continued the good lady,

You would ask her a question or two about her parents.

I wonder if she remembers them.

Adele,

I inquired,

With whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?

I lived long ago with Mama,

But she has gone to the Holy Virgin.

Mama used to teach me to dance and sing and say verses.

A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see Mama and I used to dance before them or sit on their knees and sing to them.

I liked it.

Shall I let you hear me sing now?

She had finished her breakfast,

So I permitted her to give me a specimen of her accomplishments.

Descending from her chair,

She came and placed herself on my knee.

Then folding her little hands demurely before her,

Shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling,

She commenced singing a song from some opera.

It was the strain of a forsaken lady,

Who,

After bewailing the perfidy of her lover,

Calls pride to her aid,

Desires her attendance to deco in her brightest jewels and richest robes,

And resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball,

And prove to him by the gaiety of her demeanour how little his desertion had affected her.

The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer,

But I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with a lisp of childhood,

And in very bad taste that point was.

At least I thought so.

Adele sang the canzonette,

Tunefully enough,

And with the naivety of her age.

This achieved,

She jumped from my knee and said,

Now,

Ma'am's health,

I will repeat to you some poetry.

Assuming an attitude,

She began,

La Ligue des Rats,

Fable de la Fontaine.

She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis,

A flexibility of voice,

And an appropriateness of gesture very unusual indeed at her age,

And which proved she had been carefully trained.

Was it your mama who taught you that piece?

I asked.

Yes,

And she just used to say it in this way,

Croivez-vous donc?

Lui dit,

Andesera parler.

She made me lift my hand so,

To remind me to raise my voice at the question.

Now,

Shall I dance for you?

No,

That will do,

But after your mama went to the Holy Virgin,

As you say,

With whom did you live then?

With Madame Frédérique and her husband.

She took care of me,

But she's nothing related to me.

I think she's poor,

For she had not so fine a house as mama.

I was not long there.

Mr.

Rochester asked if I'd like to go and live with him in England,

And I said yes,

For I knew Mr.

Rochester before I knew Madame Frédérique,

And he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys.

But you see,

He has not kept his word,

For he's brought me to England,

And now he's gone back again himself,

And I never even see him.

After breakfast,

Adèle and I withdrew to the library,

Which room,

It appears,

Mr.

Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom.

Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors,

But there was one bookcase left open,

Containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works,

And several volumes of light literature.

He had considered these all the governess would require for her private perusal.

And indeed they contented me amply for the present,

Compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood.

They seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information.