This is set in the carriage ride from Esther's childhood home after he aunt died. I have always wondered why Mr. Jarndyce did not reveal his identity to her at the time.

He kept his eyes fixed on the cold landscape speeding past the window as his thoughts turned once again to the other occupant of the coach. He had no desire that she know him, or his role in her life, not now, but on the other hand, he felt obliged to make sure that she made it safely to the destination he had planned for her. Not for the first time, nor yet for the second, he wondered whether he was being truly selfless in his actions. Selfish or not, however, he did not believe he could have ever acted differently in her regard.

Thinking back to the day nearly four years before when he'd received the surprising letter from his former acquaintance, the woman still beloved by his dearest friend, he remembered how his heart had been tugged at the plight of this mere wisp of a child. This child who had been allowed no true childhood, who had been forced every moment to pay for sins, if it could be called sin, that was not her own.

He ran his finger over his top lip as he let his mind wander to love, that emotion that had proved so elusive for him. He had known that stormy emotion but once in his life and had struggled against it as he did selfishness and greed.

Selfishness and greed had been the downfall of his uncle, indeed of his entire family. Often, he felt the stirrings of those emotions in his own breast and just as often he squashed them down, struggling against the East Wind that threatened to blow him down and chill him to his very soul.

He chanced a glance at her from the corner of his eye and saw a single tear winding its way down her cheek. No, no, that would never do. Was she unhappy? Homesick? The last thing he ever wanted to do was make her unhappy. Perhaps he should have left her where she was.

Once he extracted from her the knowledge of why she was crying, (She hardly knew herself, poor creature.), he realized that underneath her desire to be missed more lay a deeper desire to be loved. Knowing the situation into which he sent her, he knew that if she proved herself agreeable, that wish would be accomplished. Satisfied that he was indeed doing the best for her, he offered the delicacies that he'd brought with her in mind. Sure that any child as deprived as she would leap at the chance to eat such things, he was astonished when she refused.

In a moment, he saw that this dear child possessed not an ounce of selfishness. In short, she quite naturally possessed the complete selflessness that he coveted in himself. As soon as he realized this astonishing fact, he was also overcome with the overwhelmingly selfish wish that she were ten years older and he twenty years younger.

No sooner did he have that thought than he resolved that he would not, under any circumstances, lay eyes on Miss Esther Summerson again until she had reached the age of consent.

He struck the roof of the coach sharply with his cane and alighted from the warm confines into a chill wind that cut through his coat despite its thickness. An East Wind. An East Wind that accompanied him home while he struggled to keep his thoughts from his selfish, greedy wishes.

I have always been a little squicked at large age differences when the older man (usually man) has known the younger woman since she was a child. This relationship interests me if for no other reason than the actors who have played him in the 2005 adaptation as well as the BBC radio adaptation are just well, they just are. (i do know who they are, not mentioning names because I would prefer this not show up in a google search for their names)