Blurb:
This is a sequel to the novel 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte, which I first read when I was 13 and found deeply disturbing. The Forward explains much of what I dislike in the novel, especially after having re-read it as an adult. NOT Rochester friendly; don't like, don't read.
Forward
I’m dating this starting around 1837 rather than going on the earliest publication of ‘Marmion’ as given to Jane by St. John, and going closer to the publication date than the earliest possible date for it. In other words, Adele is 12 towards the end of 1840. I’m using the description of Blanche Ingram to date this; sloping shoulders and black ringlets are indicative of the 1830s. Also, the charades are acted charades, not the rhymes of the regency.
I do not look upon Edward Fairfax Rochester as a hero, but as a user. I do not believe that blindness would redeem or soften him. In my experience, redemption only comes with repentance. And I don’t think he even regrets a thing, save losing his house. In this story, Adele believes he set the fire, not Bertha; her belief is not necessarily true, and I leave it open for the reader to decide. She has previous with setting fire, but then, if he planned to use that to kill her, what better method, but one she has, herself, used? It got out of hand very fast.
Without subscribing to all the subtext of ‘The Wild Sargasso sea,’ it is my belief that there is a mental instability in Rochester himself, and that his ill-treatment of his first wife was contributary to her subsequent insanity. I see in him a parallel to my maternal grandfather, who could be quite charming, but who was manipulative, jealous, possessive, and when in a rage, his eyes would start out of his head, and stare. He was also the master of ‘you’re all I have left, don’t let me be alone,’ and the contrived tears. He turned my suffragette gran, who was the only woman in a class of men learning typing and shorthand, into a cowed doormat, and threw his 18-year-old daughter out in the clothes she stood up in because he did not like her boyfriend. What really creeped me out and made me look anew at Rochester was the scene in which he pretended to be a gypsy fortune-teller to manipulate Jane. Stalker, much! He is a man of strong sexuality, who needs a woman, and Jane, without a family strong enough to oppose him [unlike Blanche Ingram] is perfect prey. That she is an intellectual equal is a bonus.
Rochester himself says that he does not like children, and I like to think that Jane has the strength to flee with her children when he shows his first tantrum over things not going his way, because in Ferndean there is less room, and Jane has to do more for them herself, and he is going to find them an irritation.
Adele herself has learned to be manipulative, selfish, and at times, ruthless, which is scarcely surprising; but she has her own moral code. Part of this story is her journey towards being a normal, happy young lady, who no longer needs to manipulate people for her very survival.
Chapter 1
Reader, she married him.
And I rejoiced from the bottom of my love-starved soul. Now, I thought, she will become my new Maman and he will be Papa.
I could not have been more wrong.
Oh, Miss Eyre, or rather, Mrs Rochester, was never unkind to me, but she was fixated on Him and later on her own interesting offspring.
My first intimation was when overhearing a conversation, late at night. It was not a quarrel; oh, no, she never quarrelled with Him.
“She will have to go to school, of course,” he said. “Now you are expecting, you will want to put your efforts into caring for our own child, not the little cuckoo.”
“I thought the reason you originally engaged me as a governess was because you thought her too delicate, and unsuited for school life,” said Jane, timidly.
“Your excellent care for her has made her much stouter,” he replied. “And her English is better, and she throws no real tantrums now.”
That was unfair. I threw tantrums because I was not understood and was too young to find a better way.
“We will have to find a school run on good scientific principles, not somewhere nipcheese,” said Jane. “It may not be cheap.”
“We can use the legacy she has from her mother, that she was left by that Italian count,” said he. “The solicitor will approve that. She will learn enough to be a governess, so she can earn her own way.”
So, my mother had died. And nobody had thought to tell me. I scarcely remembered her, but even so, tears came unbidden to my eyes; she was still my mother, and I had a right to know.
I wondered if they ever planned to tell me I had a legacy, and how much it was; my mother had remembered me at the end, and cared enough to leave me what money she had, and it was enough to pay for school, even if not to prevent me from having to earn my own way.
“She won’t like it,” said Jane.
“She’ll do as she’s told,” said he.
So, I, Adele, was to be sent away to school with intent that I should learn to be a governess.
One might have thought that She might have considered her own unenviable state as a governess when she first met Him but no.
What He said was law.
oOoOo
“Adele,” said Jane, at breakfast, the next day, “Mr. Rochester and I feel that you would benefit from the company of other girls of your own estate.”
“I cannot think that there is room in this cottage for you to engage companions for me,” I said, with malicious incomprehension, disparaging the small manor farmhouse of Ferndean.
You could, in the English idiom, have heard a pin drop.
“We felt that you might enjoy a good school,” said Jane.
“Like the one you went to?” I asked, buttering toast.
“Certainly not! A… a pleasant sort of place where you could make friends,” said Jane. “We thought you might like that.”
“Me, I think I should not like it at all,” I said. “And I think that it is His idea, not yours, because you know how it is to be shuffled off out of the way.”
“It… it isn’t that at all…” Jane tried.
I stared at her belly, and she flushed.
“I…you…” she stammered.
“The decision is made,” said Rochester.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Suppose you give me the money it would cost to send me to school, and I’ll go to Italy and find ma mère, who surely misses her petite fillette, and then we shall all be happy.”
“Oh, dear!” said Jane. “We did not wish to upset you; there was notice that your mother died in Italy.”
“What, had you hoped I had forgotten her?” I demanded. “I had a right to know. When were you going to tell me?”
“We weren’t,” said Rochester. “You should put her out of your mind. You are going to school, and that’s an end to it.”
There would be no use begging or pleading. And I was unwanted here, and as well be unwanted and learning something which might be useful as being unwanted and being an unpaid skivvy.
It was a whirl of purchasing needed items; a short white dress which came only to the ankles to play tennis and other sports, and a tennis racquet, an evening gown, three dresses in the school colours, which was basically brown checked gingham trimmed with brown poplin in any style we liked, which meant mine were fairly plain and all identical. A Sunday or best gown in brown poplin trimmed with white, and sensible underwear completed the ensemble.
“You are to have an allowance of ten shillings a week,” said Jane. The same as the wage of farm labourer, five and twenty pounds a year. “It will be divided into four; six pounds five shillings each school term, and another for the long summer holidays, for any needs or expenses. The school expect you to hand over your allowance and will bank it for you, giving you what you need for immediate expenses, like new pencils, or half-pans for your watercolour box, and for fines.”
“Fines?” I asked.
“It is not a school which uses whipping or other crude methods for punishment, but fines you a few pence for transgressions,” said Jane.
I could see that would be a deterrent.
I also set to work before I left for school to make myself a double-sewn money-belt to wear under my clothes. I had no intention of handing over all my money! And if I could save much of it, it opened my options later.
Jane did not notice; she was taken up with her increasing pregnancy, and then with the birth of little Ned, who would never be my brother, because I would never be allowed to be his sister.
And then, I was on the stagecoach, and off to school.
Mrs. Fielding was, I grant you, a kindly head preceptress.
“We try to encourage all our girls to feel at home, and part of a family with their fellow scholars,” she told me, in her deep, melodious voice. “I hope you will do your best to fit in.”
“Me, I do not want to fit in with being so hearty and English when I have not long learned of the death of my maman,” I said.
She sighed.
“Sports and games are good for your health; your mother would like to think of you being healthy, surely?” she said.
“My mother would shriek in horror at running about and being uncouth with this tennis racquet,” I said.
“Your guardians chose a school, however, where good health is encouraged,” said Mrs. Fielding. “Come and find your room-mate; we permit two girls to a room. You will be with Miss Diana Daubrey.”
She led me to a pretty room, not luxurious, but certainly not frugal. A pretty, dark-haired girl was lounging on the bed, reading.
“Miss Daubrey! I have told you about lounging, before,” said Mrs. Fielding. “Sit up! Meet Miss Adele Varens, who is to share with you.”
Miss Daubrey leaped up.
“Oh! Hello, Adele, I’m Diana. I hope you are restful.”
“Me, I am not noisy, or talkative,” I said.
“Oh, jolly good,” said Diana. “I am not sporty; you?”
“I abhor all forms of sport,” I said.
“Nevertheless, you will learn that it is healthful and important,” said Mrs. Fielding, leaving us.
Diana made a face as she left.
“I like her well enough save for her insistence on sport,” she said.
“I will not do it,” I said.
“You’ll get fined out of your allowance, then,” said Diana. “I put in as little effort as I can get away with.”
I met the other girls in our form, which were five others; Elspheth Macpherson, Leticia Makepeace, known as Titty, an inveterate giggler, Julia Ambrose, Jane Egerton and Jane Bacon.
“We tell the Janes apart by calling them ‘Egg’ and ‘Bacon,’ said Diana. I smiled, as if amused. It seemed a little forced to me. The Janes did not seem to mind it, however; I would not be happy if it was I whose name was thus mangled.
“Why then, if there was an even number before, did Diana’s room have a spare bed?” I asked.
Titty giggled.
“Because I share with my sister, Lalage,” she said. “She’s in the next class down.”
Me, I would wish to be with my own age group, not a younger sister, in her situation, but à chacun son goût, to each their own, as they say.[1]
I tried doing as little as possible at sport, but the guinea I had banked as my allowance, which amount was not queried, went down at an alarming rate, and the other girls would shove and pinch me for causing disruption.
I confess, I did take to toxophily; a much more ladylike sport in my opinion than rushing around trying to get a stupid ball over a stupid net. I pointed out that catching the thing and throwing it over the net would be more efficient, and was treated to a lecture on how the game was originally French so I could not claim that as an excuse.
Who knew that mistresses of sport might know some history as well?
I had trouble making friends at school as well; I was too French. Jane had taught me English but my ways were French, and I did not see why I should change. It was a matter of respect for my dear departed Maman. If He had acknowledged me as his daughter, that might have made a difference. But he did not. Everyone knew he was my father, except, it seemed, Him. And so, I laboured on.
I shared a room with Diana Daubrey, who banked her allowance scrupulously, but who also always seemed to have spare cash on her. I believe her allowance termly was not far off what mine was yearly, and she had very little idea of the value of money, being one of the girls who had allowances which made mine look like penury; and I was quite satisfied with my allowance.
To be fair, she was a pleasant enough girl, and we got on well enough without having any vows of eternal friendship or anything of that kind. I helped her with her French and with Arithmatic, she helped me with my English, we both ‘skived’ as much as we could at history. And I picked up her spare change which she left lying around and promptly forgot about. Oh, I returned to her large amounts, like a ten-shilling note.
“You should not place such sums in the way of tempting the servants to dishonesty,” I said. “It is unkind of you.”
“Oh, but it’s not much,” she said.
“It is more than a week’s wage to the girls who clean our rooms,” I told her.
“Is it?” she asked.
“Yes, and you are asking to have it stolen,” I said.
“Oh, I must give the servants a bonus,” she said.
What could one do? She was a kindly girl, and once thinking of the servants gave them a generous vail every term, and claimed it was from both of us.
It did not stop me pocketing her loose change, and I amassed quite a pound a year just from odd copper coin down the cushions of our easy chairs in our studies, dropped on the floor, and in the pockets of gowns discarded for washing in the laundry basket. I figured that it was destined to be a part of my savings plan for when I left home.
I will be honest, here. At first, the idea of running away was hypothetical, and as the food at school was plentiful and good, and the preceptresses mostly kindly enough, and the work not arduous, I might have been happy enough to stay there.
However, we had to go home for the holidays, and as time progressed, so did the tensions in the Rochester ménage.
After Ned, Helen had come into the world, and passed out of it with quiet determination almost immediately, and was now nothing but a little marble marker in the cemetery. Jane was soon with child again. It did not stop more attention being lavished on that little marble marker than on me, however.
“You would not have met each other had it not been for me, and my need for a governess,” I said, resentfully. “Why am I not a part of the family?”
“Come here,” said Mr. Rochester.
His eyes were creepy, staring sightlessly at me. Indeed, at times, I wondered if they were truly sightless.
I went over to him, hoping for caresses, and an acknowledgement that I had, indeed, brought the two of them together. I was not expecting him to seize my arm and bend me over the table whilst he undid his belt and proceeded to give me a whipping with it.
“Edward!” said Jane, shocked.
“She must learn that she is here on sufferance,” he said.
I learned. And me, I was not stupid enough to open my mouth again.
I did not want to end up burned in an attic.
Oh, you think it was the poor mad woman who was his legal wife who set the fire? Well, he may have been blinded trying to put it out when he realised how out of hand it had become, but I believe him to have set it.
And I started setting him tests, now I had the intimation that he was not as blind as he pretended. I looked more closely, and I caught his eyes on me, and a flicker of comprehension of what he sees. I practised moving silently, and far enough away that he could not feel the movement of air of my passing, and his eyes flicked to me; and once I tied my garter, and that night he told Jane that she should stop me being lewd and exposing myself.
But She dotes on his needs and can see nothing but her devotion for him, which to my mind is like a bird taken in by a snake. But she made her choice, and with it she must live.
Me, I can take care of myself. She told me that I could be anything I wanted to be; an irony, if she believes that in a woman. Because She chose to be a doormat, which is a phrase of the most English, and so most suitable for Her. Me, I am not a doormat. I am an intelligent being. And now I knew what I was saving towards.
I stuck it out a little longer; I was useful to entertain Ned when Jane was tired from her third pregnancy. And, after she gave birth, in caring for stinky little Jenny.
Then, before I set off for school in September of my third year, I overheard another conversation.
The Rochesters had no idea there was a loose knot-hole in the floorboards of my room, which I could use to spy on them.
“I heard that a family called Hardcastle are looking for a paid companion for their disabled daughter,” said Rochester.
“Oh?” said Jane. “Surely you will not want Adele to leave school so soon?”
“She’s almost twelve, quite old enough to go out to work,” he said. “Most penniless families put their daughters into service at that age, after all, and a companion is not like being a tween-floors maid.”
“She’s just a child herself.”
“She’s never been a child,” he said. “Always flirting with any male, she’s trouble waiting to happen.”
“She learned mannerisms from her mother; I cannot think she is deliberately flirting,” Jane actually stood up for me.
“She is a nuisance,” he said. “She can be paid in the long summer holiday next year rather than have her allowance. It will get her into good habits of working and saving.”
This from a man who did not know how to work or to save.
And that was that.
I was sorry for the disabled child, but me, I was not going to stand for that.
Therefore, it was the Christmas after my twelfth birthday that I resolved to run away from school.
[1] The more modern version is chacun à son goût popularised by an opera by Strauss, but I use the original usage here.
