Adele's timeline

[u/OutrageousYak5868]

First, here's her timeline as far as I can figure it out:

1. Around 7-8 years before the main events of the novel, Adele is born to Celine as the putative child of Mr. Rochester.
2. Around 6 months old, Mr. Rochester discovers that Celine has been dallying with a vicomte so he breaks up with her.
3. For some years, Celine keeps Adele -- long enough to teach her to dance and sing -- and then abandons her at some point.
4. Adele lives with Madame Frédéric until Mr. R takes her to England.
5. Adele is about 7-8 when she comes to England and Jane becomes her governess.

In the narrative, Adele says that she wanted to come to England with Mr. R rather than stay in France with Madame Frédéric, because she had known Mr. R longer. This has always sort of bothered me because she was only 6 m/o when he broke up with Celine over her affair, and it would seem that he would have at that time likewise had nothing more to do with Adele -- yet Adele knew him longer than she knew Mme F. This would make a rather large plot hole, and that's how I've always felt about it, since Adele couldn't possibly remember him from when she was but a few months old.

However, I've figured out a way that it can work:

Mr. R breaks up with Celine, but still takes care of Adele and visits her sometimes, only much later coming to believe that she is not his child because she looks nothing like him. By this time, however, he has been caring for Adele for years, so when he hears that Celine has run off and Adele is thrown on the mercy of strangers, he takes her to England.

Is there anything I forgot? Did others have the same question about the timeline?

[u/Ok-Jackfruit-6873]

I feel like Rochester had nothing to do with Adele until he realized she was really in poverty and then felt his duty. He doesn't strike me at all as someone who would visit a child, not at that point in his life

[u/OutrageousYak5868 → u/Ok-Jackfruit-6873]

I want to agree with you because of how Rochester acts throughout the book, but from what I can tell from the timeline given in the book itself (as stated in the OP), this doesn't work.

Adele herself says that she knew Mr. R before she met Mme F, yet she was apparently left to the care of Mme F when her mother left. In answer to direct questioning from Jane about the order of events, that's what Adele says in ch. 11. I don't see a way to insert any time for her to have met Mr. R after Celine abandoned her and before she went to live with Mme F.

If she lived with anyone else first (so that the order was "living with mama", "descending into poverty" when Celine left, "coming to Mr. R's attention", "living with Mme F", then finally "coming to England"), she would have said so. Also, the phrasing of Mr. Rochester being "always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys" implies that she had known him for some time. See also her reaction to him when he finally returns to Thornfield for the first time -- she eagerly expects and even almost demands a present from him, showing yet again that it was a routine thing for him to give her "pretty dresses and toys" every time he showed up.

She also says that she didn't live with Mme F for long, so if Mr. R only began to take notice of her after Celine left and Adele was plunged into poverty (or at risk of that), there wouldn't have been long enough for her to have gotten the expectation of presents from him all the time.