Emma Tennant - Thornfield Hall: Jane Eyres Hidden Story

In Charlotte Bronts novel Jane Eyre there lives a little

We lived in Paris, in a house on a long,

The eighteenth card illustrates the dark realm of Hecate, the

I am a murderer. Under French law, at least. In

It was hotter, this past month, in Paris than had

I am in danger of losing my marriage, my hopes

I detest the creature Papa has ordered from a seminary

Heres the story of how a good plan can misfire

There was a house in Paris at the time of

So there is to be a wedding at Thornfield Hall

It was all like a dream, from the hour I

It was not difficult to gain access to the attic,

It is five years since Thornfield Hall was rebuilt, after

It was something in the region of two months after

I confess that it is hard, from time to time,

The sun shines, the crowd spreads out, sprawls, enjoys itself.

Jenny Colon had a flat on the fourth floor in

They say when you drown, your life unfolds before you.

It was growing dark by the time I had lost

We sat silent for a long while, Nadar and I,

Soon all will be ready for Yorkshires wedding of the

I n Charlotte Bronts novel Jane Eyre there lives a little French girl, Adle. Jane was her governess at Thornfield Hall.

Brought over from Paris by Edward Rochester, the eight-year-old Adle was saved from the danger and miseries of a child alone on the streets of Europes most corrupt and decadent capital. Her mother, circus trapeze artist and comedy actress Cline Varens, had abandoned her and run off to Italy with a musician. Adle had nowhere to go.

Whether life is better for the eight-year-old at Thornfield Hall than it was in France is hard to say. Englandand the moors surrounding the old houseseemed cold and foreign to Adle. And theres the added terror of finding a secret existence at the Hall, in the attic and out on the battlemented roof.

For Adle Varens, the child who comes to Thornfield as Mr. Rochesters ward, uncovers a hidden history in the fabric of Thornfield Hall.

The story opens in Paris, in Adles time before her world changes and falls apartand before she meets Jane Eyre, the young woman who will eventually be her governess and savior.

Here are Jane Eyres words, in the concluding section of Charlotte Bronts novel, on the subject of Adle:

You have not quite forgotten little Adle, have you, reader? I had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin: she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now required by anothermy husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion: docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.

FROM Jane Eyre BY CHARLOTTE BRONT

But perhaps, as is often found in the lives of girls as they grow into women, it was all a little more complicated than that.

This is Adles story.

Adle

Tomorrow is the Pierrot in our pantomimes.

All facts look so much the more like fairy stories because, in our time, fairy stories take unconscionable pains to look like the truth.

BALZAC, Cousin Pons

W e lived in Paris, in a house on a long, gloomy street, the rue Vaugirard in Montparnasse, but our house was far from being somber or sad. There were three stories: the maid Bettina under the eaves, with a little childs bedroom next to it that I seldom occupied, as Maman allowed me to sleep on the chaise in the sitting room next to the pretty bedroom she had to herself. On the first floor lived old Tante Irne, who some said was the cousin of Herr Graff, whose house this really washe who made a fortune from promoting the railroads in Baden. But in reality Tante Irne was a milliner, and I would search for scraps for her all day: a feather from the park for a hat for the Comtesse Popinot, a twist of silk from Jennys latest costume (Jenny was Jenny Colon, the famous actress). She was Mamans best friend, and when she came to visit, she would laugh at the new conservatory. This was on the ground floor, just off what had once been a dingy little salon with no space for more than a table and four chairs: Cline Varens! Jenny would cry in astonishmentthough of course you couldnt tell whether she was in earnest or not. Ma chre Cline! Has the milord from England bought you this? How many francs did this cost to erect, I ask you? And she would sweep around the glorious ballroom of glass, with its pink frosted chandelier and the parrot shrieking on its perch. When is he coming to take you to his castle, ma chrie ? One thing is certain, you cant take this contraption with youthe frost in Angleterre would crack it and the snow would come drifting in! And Jenny, making a scene so realistic of the glass igloo where my mother would be forced to live that wed both shiver in the heat of a Parisian afternoon, would go off into more peals of laughter. She was afraid, I believe, that she would lose Maman to the country over the gray seabut I didnt like to think of her going there, and, with a regularity that must have been tiresome to both friends, I burst into tears at this point, and Maman was forced to lay her finger over her lips. She and Jenny werent in the profession for nothing, however, and theyd mime the life Cline would be subjected to if she went to this fabulous castle in the north of a cold countrypicking icicles from the windows, throwing around their shoulders the cashmere shawls the milord sent Maman from his travels to India, and making a pretense of building a fire in the little paved garden beyond the walls of the conservatory.

For all their clowning, I couldnt be persuaded to smile. I didnt know the milordthough Maman told me Id met him when I was very small. I knew I never wanted to meet him Cher Edouard, as Jenny mockingly named my mothers protector and lover of times gone by. Then shed set off for the theater. Like Maman, Jenny could turn her hand to most kinds of acting and singing, whether vaudeville or opra comique . But only Maman, the beautiful and famous Cline Varens, daughter of the old Funambules Theater before it was transformed, danseuse de corde tightrope walker many leagues in the aircould master all of them. Maman could sing like a nightingale, and she could play the great tragic roles as well. She would be Phdre, pacing the glass cage the new conservatory now becamewaiting for her young lover, and I the incestuous stepson Hippolyte. How proud I was of Maman! There was literally no one like herfor it was impossible to know what she would next be like.

Our days in Paris, so far as the changing nature of her roles permitted, followed a pattern of which I never tired. After a morning in the sunny glass room, banked high with roses and freesias from Mamans admirers, we would abandon the attempt at lessons (I was supposed to learn English, but the thick, ugly language stuck in my mouth like unchewed meat) and set off for the park. It might be the Luxembourg Gardens, neat and yet with secret twists and turns, box hedges and laurel cut in half-human shapes, so that Maman would bow gravely, feigning acquaintance with a topiary bush. Passersby would stare at us, and of this I was also proud, for I knew by their gaze that I was pretty, too, and that my good looks accentuated Mamans. Sometimes a man would say in a hushed voice to his companion, Surely that must be Cline Varens! and I would be prouder still. I was the spitting image of my motherso Jenny and all Mamans friends said. On our outings to the park, walking the dark length of rue Vaugirard to the Luxembourg Gardens, I glowed in the knowledge that I wore the same dresspale blue like forget-me-knots, with rose pantalettesas the celebrated Cline Varens. Madame is today, mademoiselle is tomorrow, said our dandy, a flneur or boulevard walker known slightly to Maman; a man who searched endlessly for novelty and amusement. And Paris could provide them: I loved to feel, in those moments, a part of the great city, the capital of luxury. I loved to be tomorrow, walking always a few feet behind today. Little did I know then the cruel pantomime I would be coerced into making come true.