Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles (13 page)

I started to respond, but Miss Miller reached over and gripped my upper arm, hard. The pain surprised me so much that I yelped.

Mrs. Thurston either ignored my howl of pain or thought Miss Miller had done a good job of disciplining me. Again, the sausage wagged before my nose. “This disrespect is not to be repeated. I won’t stand for it. Nor will we entertain any negotiations of salary. Am I making myself quite clear? Consider carefully if you can abide by my rules. I need your answer by this evening. After that, I shall look for a new teacher who can!”

Her unparalleled rudeness took my breath away. Mrs. Thurston took my silence for acceptance.

“See, Miss Miller? That’s how you handle staff. I trust you’ve taken a lesson from this exchange. Present yourself in my office immediately.” She concluded her remarks by wiping at her eyes and nose with a grubby handkerchief.

I intended to say I was not staff, and that she owed me an apology, but Mrs. Thurston had already turned away from us. I was still collecting my wits when she slammed a door in my face.

I wanted to march into Mrs. Thurston’s office and set her straight, but in truth, I was too flummoxed to think clearly. “Is she always like this?”

“She is a bit more abrupt than usual today, but I beg you to remember our collective grieving for Selina.” Miss Miller opened the front door. “I see it still rains. If you wait, I could send our Caje to fetch your carriage for you. He’s rather more than an odd-jobs boy and a bit less than a footman.”

“Thank you, but after that foul wind blew through”—I nodded toward Mrs. Thurston’s office—“I believe fresh air will do me good. I will see you tomorrow. Early.”

“Yes.” Miss Miller nodded solemnly. Her mouth moved as if she wanted to say more, but she stayed silent.

We shook hands and I stepped out into a steady drizzle.

Despite the rain, I relished my walk to the carriage and, my mind more at ease now that I had seen Adèle with my own eyes, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride back to Lucy Brayton’s. The beauty of Hyde Park, with its graceful plantings and stately trees, provided a welcome relief after the oppressive and cluttered interior of the Alderton House School for Girls. As Williams drove, my mind turned over all I had seen and heard.

The demise of her schoolmate must have unsettled Adèle temporarily. Perhaps the doctor had been wise to suggest sleep as a natural remedy. It was well-known that laudanum could provide a useful antidote to jangled nerves. At Lowood, the teachers used cordials laced with laudanum for a variety of ailments from the infants’ croup to the older girls’ monthly discomfort.

Had Adèle not felt so alone, she might have weathered this crisis with more equanimity. But as it happened, she had every reason to be angry. And disappointed. Terribly, terribly disappointed. Twice in her short life, the adults charged with her well-being had deserted her.

How could any child thus abandoned learn to trust other people?

Perhaps she purposely exaggerated her misery when writing her note to us, and penned both notes as a way of punishing Edward and me—and getting our attention.

It was possible. Young girls are especially prone to fantastical thoughts. The concentrated boarding school atmosphere spurs the imagination to a fevered pitch. Added to this was Adèle’s own nature. The girl possessed a fanciful mind, inherited no doubt from her mother. The child’s personality could be as changeable as the weather, and just as given to extremes. She could be as bright as the noon sun on a June day or as dark as a moonless January night.

What Adèle needed was a secure foundation, a steady environment, an educational plan that encouraged self-discipline. Perhaps Alderton House had provided those things before, but this Mrs. Thurston struck me as the sort who jumped to conclusions and acted hastily. Witness her supposition that I was the new German teacher!

Although Miss Miller said Mrs. Thurston espoused a hatred of gossip, she had apparently been willing to repeat what Dowager Lady Ingram said—and did so with no compunction! This extremism and lack of logical thought exhibited the exact opposite traits of the role model that Edward had wished the school to provide. Furthermore, her subterfuge in demanding that the girls copy her letters was deceitful and self-serving. All this, taken together, proved to me that such a woman was constitutionally unfit to supervise any school. Edward would be disappointed when he heard my opinion of the place.

I arrived at Lucy Brayton’s doorstep, feeling my spirits sag. Perhaps it was the recognition that I had reached the end of my journey. Or perhaps the tea I’d taken at the school had worn thin. But each step seemed to tax the last of my strength.

I handed over my soggy bonnet and shawl to Polly. “I assume Mrs. Brayton is still making her calls?”

“Yes, ma’am. She should be back shortly.”

Glad to be alone, I struggled up two sets of stairs and into the guest bedroom, which was a veritable garden of yellow and green gaiety. As I fidgeted with my clothes, Polly knocked at the door and came to my aid. I wasn’t accustomed to having help dressing, but as tired as I was, I had to admit I was glad to see the girl.

Polly was a bright young lass, probably all of thirteen. With a deft hand, she managed my buttons. Before stepping free of my skirt, I pulled the two notes from my pocket and tucked them into my chemise for safekeeping. As I stood there in my thin cotton, Polly loaded my wet things over her arm. She looked down at my skinned knees and shook her head.

“Sadie will bring a tray to you directly. I’ll get you a poultice to put on your eye, and a sponge to clean up your knees. Might do with a bit of honey for your split lip, if Cook’ll let me take a dab.”

“Honey?”

“Helps with the healing. Keeps you from scarring. My mum always used to put a bit on my brothers when they scraped their elbows and such.”

That would be good to remember, especially given all the physical diversions little boys found appealing. A quick prickle at the back of my eyes warned of impending tears at the thought of my little son, so very far away.

I changed into the dry chemise and sat on the side of the bed. Polly returned quickly and attended skillfully to my injuries. First she sponged the scabs off my legs and administered a balm. Then she offered me a poultice, heated to a perfect temperature and scented with soothing chamomile.

Holding the wet muslin to my face, I settled into the soft embrace of the bed and closed my eyes, only to be awakened far too quickly by a yapping in the hallway. I sighed and reconciled myself to the fact that Lucy Brayton was on her way, bearing down like a sudden squall sets upon boats in Newhaven Harbour.

“Polly? Is Mrs. Rochester here? Let me see her.” After a
courtesy knock, the door flew open. The exotic scent of gardenias preceded my hostess into the room, and her little dog Rags followed at her heels.

I pried open my good eye. Lucy bent over me, her heart-shaped face glowing with the sort of interest that comes from a nimble mind. For an afternoon of social calls, she wore a high-waisted gown of yellow muslin, topped with a spencer in a darker shade of the same buttercup color.

“Are you any better? Let me see under that poultice.” Lucy removed her gloves to touch my face. “I still think we need to call a surgeon to examine you. Your face is even puffier and your eye is nearly swollen shut. And you still went to the girls’ school without me? Goodness. Such determination.”

Rags jumped up against the bed to look at me and give a yip. He must have thought me a pitiful specimen.

“I might look worse than I did earlier, but I daresay I shall heal.”

“I want to hear what you thought of the girls’ school. Especially how dear Adèle is doing.”

“I am afraid it is a rather long story.”

She settled on the bed next to me and lifted Rags onto her lap. I shifted away. Lucy appeared not to notice how uncomfortable her informality made me. She simply continued her train of thought. “Tell me all. There must have been a powerful catalyst to spur you to such hasty action.”

“Here is your tea and toast with cheese, Mrs. Rochester, madam.” Sadie set the tray on a stand next to the bed. “Cook sent up scones for you, Mrs. Brayton.”

After Polly helped me into my black silk dress, I took a piece of toast topped with melted cheese and ate it greedily.

“Get me my flask, please, Polly. Bring the tumblers, too,” Lucy said to her maid. Then to me, “That bruise around your eye has ripened into a lovely shade of aubergine. I imagine the scrapes on your legs now cry out with misery. The gin will offer a bit of solace.”

“Gin?” I couldn’t have heard her right. It was one thing to have a sip of spirits in the evening, but this midday tippling—two days in a row—was unheard of for a proper lady!

When Sadie returned with the silver flask, scones, and glasses, Lucy poured our tea directly into the tumblers. To this she added a splash of Ladies Delight.

Lucy lifted her tumbler and admired the beverage in one hand while holding a scone with the other. “This certainly would have made my calls more interesting. For me, at least. Possibly for my hosts as well. Gads, but I hate returning calls. They are a crashing bore. Everyone talks of nothing, but they talk endlessly about nothing, compounding the tedium. I would have rather gone with you.”

“My visit could not wait. I needed to assure myself of Adèle’s well-being.”

“Yes, of course. And how does she fare?”

“I don’t know. At least, I have not heard a report from her own mouth.”

“What?”

I explained about my visit, Selina Biltmore’s death, and meeting my old colleague Nan Miller, and I finished by telling Lucy about Adèle’s reaction to Selina’s death and her subsequent dosing with laudanum.

“Miss Miller believes Adèle will not wake up until tomorrow morning,” I concluded.

“Heavens!” Lucy threw up her hands. “What a day you’ve had! You say you saw them carrying out the poor girl’s body? That’s positively gruesome. But Adèle is in no danger? You are quite certain of that? We could bring her here. As I told you, my house is yours. That reminds me; I bought you a gift when I was in India.”

From the depths of a dresser, she extracted a parcel wrapped loosely in silver paper. I opened it eagerly and lifted out a magnificent shawl. The material slid over my hands, a texture most amazing. I held up the length of fabric and reveled in
the robin’s egg blue shade, examining the wondrous silver stitching as it twinkled in the light.

“I have never seen the like!”

“Pashmina,” said Lucy. “A variety of cashmere. The needlework is silver thread. Edward described your lovely dark hair and your pale skin, so I thought it would look well on you.”

“I shall cherish it for its beauty, but more so for the thought that you put into it.” To my own surprise, I embraced her.

“Wear it in good health, dear Sister.”

More and more, I found myself at ease with Lucy. Despite her fashionable exterior, she seemed entirely genuine. Of course, Edward had warned me not to judge Lucy by her gloss, and he had been rightly worried that at first I would be put off by her flounce and bounce.

“Your hospitality is most heartwarming,” I said. “Miss Miller told me there is no evidence that the student died of infection. It would have been awkward to bundle Adèle up and carry her through the rain, and furthermore, I do think she might want to grieve with the school community as a whole. There is balm when like hearts share their pain.”

A gentle smile warmed Lucy’s face. “Yes. It is wonderful to have someone to share your trials with, isn’t it? And your jubilation? I am so happy you are here, Jane. Edward told me of your numerous sterling points, and I daresay, even though his description was spirited, he understated your appeal.”

A warming blush crept up my neck. Unaccustomed as I was to such a compliment, I desired to change the subject. “Now that I have seen the appointments at Alderton House, I must say that, frankly, the home is a bit overmuch for my tastes.”

Lucy nodded. “When she had a sizable income, Lady Kingsley insisted on filling every inch of the place with trinkets and bric-a-brac. Over the years, however, she lost her fortune through her son, a hobbledehoy who preferred strong drink, cards, and women of low virtue to his education. By the time
she reconciled her books, she was near ruined with no help in sight. Lord Kingsley had gone on to his reward a long time ago. Turning that extravagant house into a girls’ school elicited a lot of whispers behind her back, but I’ve heard she’s making a handsome living from that monstrosity. Certainly, it has kept Maude Thurston out of the poorhouse.”

“What a detestable excuse for a human being she is!” The gin loosened my tongue and, I fear, destroyed any last vestiges of self-censorship.

“Yes, but remember what I told you: She has fallen from a high perch, Jane. When the lofty tumble, they either react with spite or humility. It seems, unfortunately, that she has chosen the former. Yet I do admire her for trying to pay her bills. Many would have crept off into the night and hoped the debtors went away.”

“I am not certain it’s the best fit for Adèle.” I said this tentatively, mindful that Lucy had suggested the school to Edward.