Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles (23 page)

Before I could answer, Rose said, “We’re worried that Selina will come haunt us.” Her lower lip trembled.

“Don’t be silly!” Rufina guffawed. “There is no such thing as a ghost! What gooses you two are!”

“Geese,” I corrected her. “The plural of goose is geese. Come here, girls.” I patted my mattress, and with no more urging, they tumbled onto my bed.

Another adult might dismiss their fears out of hand, but I knew better. When I was but ten, I saw a beam of light, complete with dancing motes where no ray should have entered. This came with sound I was confident portended a visitation from my dead uncle. To this day, I remembered the experience of raw terror, a sensation too vivid to allow me to make jest of my young charges or their similar concern.

“Although Christ our Savior rose again, I have heard naught
of other people rising from the grave. The creed tells us this will happen when Christ comes again to judge the quick and the dead. Until that time, I am sure we are safe.” I paused and added, “From Selina’s return.”

They huddled together, clinging one to another as if shipwreck victims. Their bleak expressions told me they found my explanation hard to credit.

“Selina would come back. I know she would. It would be just like her to come and scare us,” Rose said.

Nettie’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Thurston says Selina died in her sleep, and I know that it happens to bad girls all the time. But I do not want to die! I am so sorry for all I have done! I am a sinner and I am afraid!” With that, she burst into noisy sobs.

I took her into my arms and patted her back. “There, there. It’s all right,” I half whispered to her.

The other girls stared at me in surprise. Was it possible that Mrs. Thurston forbade affection between teachers and their pupils?

Rufina guessed my concern. “Mrs. Webster was awful kind to us, but Mrs. Thurston, well, she don’t think the teachers should spoil us overmuch.”

“I see,” I said. And I did. Some superintendents believed such attention would ruin children, but the lessons of my childhood remained perfectly clear in my mind. A bit of kindness went a long way with me then, as it did now. I couldn’t see how comforting a frightened child could be wrong.

As Nettie dried her tears, the others girls snuggled closer to me. This past spring, a wild dog gave birth to puppies in our shed. Her babies writhed and wriggled their way, following the comma of her body, until they believed themselves to be safe. So, too, did the girls attach themselves to me.

“There, there,” I whispered, gathering them in my arms. “No ghost can bother you. Neither can any human while I am here. And if you hear anything, come wake me. Now, time to say your prayers. After you do, I shall tuck all of you in.”

Making the rounds of the beds, I plumped pillows for the girls, tucked them in, and gave each a quick peck on her forehead. Rose reached up to grab my collar. Her small fingers gripped me. “Miss Eyre?” She pulled me close. “You will not let Selina hurt me, will you? She was awful mean to me, just awful.”

“No, lamb. I will not let her hurt you. Close your eyes. I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Do you promise? Promise she will not hurt me.” Her moist, hot breath warmed my face.

“I promise,” I said, and I crossed my heart, wondering if I could, indeed, protect these girls. My intentions were good; I could shout for help and warn off an intruder.

But would that be enough?

Worry is no substitute for action, so I made yet another circuit of the beds, tucking in covers for young women now nearly asleep, before concluding my journey by checking on Adèle. I wandered back to my bed but stopped along the way, where the moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating the empty bed that had been Selina’s.

Who was she?

Why had she died?

The branch of the horse chestnut rubbed against the side of the house, making a scratching sound. Cupping my hands around my face, I stared until I could see the outstretched limb. What a fine step stool it made! Broad, rough, and horizontal. Climbing out on it would be easy.

I rested my elbows on the sill, wondering if Mr. Douglas’s watcher lurked in the bushes below.

Who was out there in the shadows?

A killer?

This same lunar light beamed down on Ferndean. I knew from experience that it bathed my husband’s stern features as it slipped past the window dressings. I would often awake to study my husband as he slept. How far away Edward
seemed—and yet, strangely, how close to me, as each beat of my heart matched his in a lovers’ duet.

“Sleep tight, my darlings,” I whispered, touching my fingertips to my lips and sending a kiss to my husband and Ned. Then I climbed into my cot, which proved uncomfortable, especially after the luxurious, cloudlike mattress at Lucy Brayton’s home. It seemed there was a lump in this bed. I tried to get comfortable, and mainly I failed. Once, I was nearly asleep, but startled awake to the sound of footsteps outside the dormitory door. Before I could rouse, they went away, leaving me to study the softly snoring forms of my charges. Each snuffle and sigh prickled my senses into high alert. Would an intruder dare visit us? If so, could I scare him or her away? I wouldn’t sleep through an attack…would I?

Gradually, a heaviness weighed down my limbs pleasantly.

At last I slept.

Sometime later, Adèle rooted around in her covers, making enough noise to awaken me.

“Adèle?” I slipped from my bed to hers. “It is I, Jane Eyre.”

“Oh, mademoiselle!
Mon Dieu
, I am so happy! So, so happy! How I have missed you.” She peppered me with kisses and hugged me with all her might. Lucy had been quite correct in saying that Adèle had lost weight, I noticed as the child bumped against my bruises. Despite my best efforts to stay silent, the pressure on my black eye proved too much and I moaned with pain as Adèle’s head bumped mine.

“You are hurt? Oh, your face.”

“Just a fall at the coaching inn. Nothing more,” I said. “Now shhhh. The others are sleeping.”

“Others? Ah, I am not at home? Not back at Thornfield? This is but a dream?” Her voice trembled.

“We are both at Alderton House. I am here to watch over you.” I slipped my hand into hers and gave hers a squeeze. “I have taken a position as your German teacher.”

“And our proctor? You will be our proctor?”

“Yes. I shall be sleeping in this dormitory each night.”

She propped herself on one elbow. “So that was not a dream, either, was it? Selina is dead, is she not?”

Before I could stop her, Adèle tumbled out of her bed, hit the floor hard, bounced to her feet, and ran to the empty bed, whimpering, “Selina!” as she threw herself against the pallet.

“Stop, you must stop!” I grabbed at Adèle. I did not want the others to awaken. Not until I could coach Adèle in her new role.

Rose sat up in her bed and looked around with unseeing eyes, then settled back to sleep. Nettie whimpered, and Rufina mumbled.

“She is dead,” Adèle sobbed.

“Shhh! Adèle, you must be quiet. You will wake the other girls. Yes, Selina is dead and there’s nothing to be done but to keep her in your prayers.”

Adèle turned to me, wide-eyed and wild. “She was cold, mademoiselle! So cold! I tried to wake her. I tried and tried, but she wouldn’t get up, and her skin was—”

“Do not think about it. Do not!”

Adèle commenced to crying in earnest. “Mama went away, too. To the Holy Virgin. I remember when they came and told me she was gone—never to return. I cried and cried.”

I said nothing. Adèle’s mother Céline Varens was not dead. She had run away to Italy, leaving her child with her landlord and his wife, who had told Adèle her mother had died, rather than betray her unnatural act. Though not the girl’s father, Edward had taken charge of Adèle and thought it better not to correct her rather than admit to the loving daughter that her own mother had abandoned her.

Adèle continued to wail. “Now I shall never see Selina or Mama again! And it is all because I am wicked. A wicked, wicked child. That is what Miss Jones says about me. And Mrs. Thurston says I have an imp inside me!”

“You are not wicked.” I pulled Adèle closer to me. She
wrapped her thin little arms around me and buried her face in my neck, sobbing for all she was worth. Rocking her back and forth, I did my best to calm her.

“I know you well. It is not in your nature to harbor ill will toward anyone. Selina is dead; that is so. But you are not the cause. Trust me.”

“What about Mr. Rochester? My
bon ami
? Why has he not visited me? Is it because you two are married? He must hate me, because he sent me here and he has not written me in ages! Neither have you!”

“When did you last hear from us?”

“Years ago!”

“Years ago? Think carefully, Adèle,” I cautioned her. I knew her predilection for exaggeration.

“Before Easter last.”

I nodded. That was only about six months ago, not nearly “years ago.” The timing would coincide with Mrs. Webster’s departure and Mrs. Thurston’s arrival.

The full import of my situation struck me: I could not now tell her about our son. Not yet. She would be too happy about our new life, her new “sibling”—and she would want to tell her friends, tell everyone. That would ruin my plans. If I left things as they stood, I could continue this charade. But I would have to ask her not to talk about my marriage to her
bon ami
.

The necessary duplicity saddened me immensely. I hated keeping the truth from Adèle.

But what choice did I have?

“I am here now, dear child. You know I care for you, don’t you? Else why would I be here?”

“Y-yes,” she admitted.

I believe I can be forgiven if a few of my tears mingled with hers. My longing for Edward leapt up inside me, as powerful and as electric as a sudden summer storm. The thought of my
baby, Ned, caused my arms to throb with the ache of longing. My throat tightened with emotion.

I rocked my old student in my arms, amazed at how her shoulder blades protruded through her night dress. “Sh, sh, sh,” I repeated as she refused to let go of me. Exhaustion swept over me, and finally, I decided to carry her to my bed.

“Hush now.” I tucked her in and crawled on top of the covers, beside her. Her arms wound tightly around me the way a sweet pea vine grips a lattice. There we lay, two weary travelers clinging to each other. What was I doing here? Why didn’t I take Adèle and run? What had happened to Selina was not our concern, was it? I had nothing to offer the other children. Nothing.

We could hold on until tomorrow. At the dawn, we would dress and gather our things. I would march downstairs and announce my true identity to Mrs. Thurston. Despite her apologies, which I expected would be copious, we would turn our backs on Alderton House. With Adèle’s hand in mine, we would skip down the street to Lucy Brayton’s house. I would put this godforsaken school behind us, safeguarding what was dear to me.

With that plan of action firmly in mind, I dozed off. As did Adèle.

I awakened well before dawn. A voice soothed a whining child in the next room over. Miss Miller must have been roused by one of her charges in the Infant dormitory.

My arm tingled as I pulled it out from under Adèle. Despite the movement, she didn’t wake up. That was fine; she still had time to sleep. I climbed out of bed and hurried behind the modesty screen to dress. Remembering how God told Jeremiah to gird his loins before meeting his enemies, I spent extra time neatening my hair and pinched a bit of color into my cheeks. The swelling in my eye provided its own rainbow hues, but that could not be helped. As the sun began to chase away the dark, a mockingbird sang outside our window, his song so glorious that my spirits lifted despite how little sleep I’d gotten the night before.

I folded my nightclothes, putting these articles and the rest of my things back into the empty pillow casing, to make it easy to leave. Although I moved quietly, my industry awakened Adèle from her slumber. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she blinked twice and stared at me, squinting.

“
Mademoiselle! C’est vraiment vous?
” She bounced upright in the bed and nearly shouted with joy, her childlike voice speaking in rapid French.