‘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 Pierrot.
‘I wish,’ continued the good lady, ‘you would ask her a question or two about her parents; I wonder if she remembers them?’
‘Adèle,’ 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 is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to 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 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 attendant to deck her 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 has 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 the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was; at least I thought so.
Adèle sang the canzonette[25] tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, ‘Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.’
Assuming an attitude, she began, ‘La Ligue des Rats, fable de La Fontaine.’[26] 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: “Qu’avez vous donc? Lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!”[27] 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 Frederic and her husband; she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, 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 has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never 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, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were 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. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply; she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use.
As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me; ‘Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,’ said she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open. I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
‘What a beautiful room!’ I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing.
‘Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder[28] feels like a vault.’
She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyrian-dyed[29] curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian[30] mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire.
‘In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!’ said I. ‘No dust, no canvas coverings; except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily.’
‘Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.’
‘Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?’
‘Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.’
‘Do you like him? Is he generally liked?’
‘Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind.’
‘Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?’
‘I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants; but he has never lived much amongst them.’
‘But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?’
‘Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps; he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him.’
‘In what way is he peculiar?’
‘I don’t know – it is not easy to describe – nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t thoroughly understand him, in short – at least, I don’t; but it is of