A present has many faces to it, does it not?

On Mr. Rochester’s arrival, he’s promptly inundated with business concerns (seeing as he basically owns a village), so Jane takes Adèle to a more remote part of the house and tries to teach her, but she’s understandably quite excited.

Adèle was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly about her “ami Monsieur Edouard Fairfax de Rochester,” as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when his luggage came from Millcote there would be found amongst it a little box in whose contents she had an interest.

I’ve heard that in Spain, people would traditionally take both their father’s and mother’s family names, and judging by the full name Adèle gives, it might have been the same in France at some point.

“Et cela doit signifier [and that must mean],” said she, “qu’il y aura la dedans un cadeau pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle [that there will be a present inside for me, and perhaps for you too, mademoiselle]. Monsieur a parle de vous: il m’a demande le nom be ma gouvernante, at si elle n’ etait pas une petite personne, de assez mince at un peu pale [Monsieur spoke about you: he asked me the name of my governess, and if she was a small person, quite thin and a little pale]. J’ ai dit qu’oui: car c’est vrai, n’est ce pas, mademoiselle [I said yes: because it’s true, isn’t it, mademoiselle]?

Adèle is sweet to think of Jane, but you already get the feeling that Mr. Rochester isn’t the sort to lavish gifts on a person he barely knows, and his attitude toward Jane specifically has been barely cordial thus far.

Then the entire household gathers for tea after Mr. Rochester’s business is done in the evening.

“Let Miss Eyre be seated,” said he: and there was something in the forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed to express, “What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her.”
I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.

Mrs. Fairfax attempts to make small talk, but that evidently bores Mr. Rochester, so he calls for the tea to be served.

“Will you hand Mr. Rochester’s cup?” said Mrs. Fairfax to me; “Adèle might perhaps spill it.”
I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out: -“N’est-ce pas, monsieur, qu’il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre, dans votre petit coffre [sir, is there a present for Miss Eyre in your little chest]?”
“Who talks of cadeaux? said he gruffly: “did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?” and he searched my face with eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.
“I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally thought pleasant things.”
“Generally thought? But what do you think?”
“I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, does it not? and one should consider all before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature.”
“Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adèle: she demands a ‘cadeau,’ clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat around the bush.”
“Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele has: she can prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment.”
“Oh, don’t fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adèle, and find you have taken great pains with her; she is not bright, she has no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement.”
“Sir, you have given me my ‘cadeau’; I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covet; praise of their pupil’s progress.”

This response seems to intrigue Mr. Rochester, so he proceeds to question her about where she came from.

“You have been a resident in my house three months?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you came from –?”
“From Lowood school, in –shire.”
“Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?”
“Eight years.”
“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?”
“I have none.”
“Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?”
“No.”
“I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?”
“For whom, sir?”
“The men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?”
I shook my head. “The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago,” said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. “And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don’t think either summer or harvest or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more.”

He seemingly has a similar fondness for fairy tales (or superstition, as it were). Upon further questioning, she says she plays the piano, and he’s unimpressed by her musical talent, but when he calls for her art portfolio, that does pique his interest.

“[…] I perceive these pictures were done by one hand: was that hand yours?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought.”
“I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation.”
“Where did you get your copies?”
“Out of my own head.”
“That head I see now on your shoulders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Has it other furniture of the same kind within?”
“I should think it may have: I should hope – better.”

He focuses on three: A painting of the remains of a shipwreck, one of a personification of the Evening Star, and another of an iceberg beneath the aurora borealis. The last one was evidently inspired by John Milton’s characterization of Hell, as Jane alludes to his words when describing the painting.

“Were you happy when you painted these pictures?” asked Mr. Rochester, presently.
“I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.”
“That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist’s dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long each day?”
“I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, from noon till night: the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.”
“And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?”
“Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise.”
“Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought: but no more, probably. You had not enough of the artist’s skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a schoolgirl, peculiar. As to the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hilltop. Where did you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There, – put the drawings away!”

I definitely relate to Jane on this point: Every time I’ve attempted to make art, the result was never what I’d envisioned, but the attempt was always a pleasant experience.

The Latmos reference alludes to the tale of Endymion, a man who was the beloved of a moon goddess (the original tale evidently pairs him with Selene, but he’s been depicted as the lover of Artemis and Diana, too), and Latmos was the place where he slept, forever young and beautiful. Perhaps the thought of Latmos is painful to him because he thinks beauty like that to be forever beyond his reach.

But this ends the evening’s fellowship.

“You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,” I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adèle to bed.
“Well, is he?”
“I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt.”
“True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made.”
“Why?”
“Partly because it is his nature – and we can none of us help our nature; and, partly, he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and make his spirits unequal.”
“What about?”
“Family troubles, for one thing.”
“But he has no family.”
“Not now, but he has had – or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder brother a few years since.”
“His elder brother?”
“Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of the property; only about nine years.”
“Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as to still be inconsolable for his loss?”
“Why, no – perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; and, perhaps, he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth too, to keep up the consequence of the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life. I don’t think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight together since the death of his brother without a will left him master of the estate; and indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place.”
“Why should he shun it?”
“Perhaps he thinks it gloomy.”

Mrs. Fairfax is very evasive here (and quick to excuse Mr. Rochester’s flaws). As we later discover, she knows more about his situation than she lets on – she clearly knows why he prefers to avoid Thornfield, for one, but this is all Jane can get from her.

Until next time…