Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles (35 page)

“That’s enough, Rufina,” I said.

“Yes, miss.” But tears welled up and one dripped down her face.

Rose stared into her soup, Nettie sniveled a bit, and Adèle seemed largely unconcerned. The Juniors whispered to one another. Without their proctor, the Infants seemed lost. For the most part, however, they were unsure of what all the uproar meant. But after much whispering, little Caroline said, “They’re going to put her in jail, aren’t they?” and burst into sobs. One by one, the others joined her until even the Seniors were wiping their eyes. We adults were islands of solemnity, surrounded by crying children.

Mrs. Thurston continued eating as if nothing untoward was happening. She mopped up her plate with a slice of bread.

I offered what comfort I could by talking with the students. Miss Jones seemed strangely unmoved. The crying did not stop. Finally, Mrs. Thurston slammed down her food, shoved her chair back in disgust, and stalked off to her office, presumably to drown her problems in strong spirits.

The excellent baked hens that Cook had prepared went largely unappreciated; even the aroma of sage and parsley could not entice. I found I had little appetite.

“I feel quite torn, I do,” Miss Jones said with a long sigh. “Miss Miller brought me on, and I held her in high esteem. However, if the Bow Street Runner believes she’s guilty, that is rather a sure sign, isn’t it? I mean, what with the dosing of the children and all.”

“What dosing?” I toyed with a piece of chicken.

Miss Jones shrugged. “She is the one who doses the children. As headmistress, that is Miss Miller’s responsibility.
Whether they have croup or fever, she administers the medicines. Since none of the Seniors awakened, Mr. Waverly must assume that Selina was dosed with laudanum before bedtime. Probably all the girls were.”

I sat there stupefied. Miss Jones spoke in such a casual manner, but she had come to the same conclusion that I had. Was there more that she knew? I decided to encourage her to talk freely. Who knew what she might share?

“I find this…astonishing. Do you really think Miss Miller would kill one of the students? And why? What would have been her reasoning?”

“Who knows? She is an enigma to me. What with her sudden disappearances and her history.”

This bothered me. Should I tell Miss Jones that I suspected
she
was sneaking out as well? Perhaps the roundabout path was best. “I have heard noises on the landing at night.”

“I have, too,” said Miss Jones. “In fact, I frequently wake and investigate, but to no avail. I understand how you feel. This whole situation distresses me, too. I have had trouble sleeping, and I can tell by the circles under your eyes that you worry also. I think we are much alike that way. As a gesture of friendship, I made a small gift for you.”

Reaching into her pocket, Miss Jones withdrew a palm-sized rectangle wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. “Please understand, I am just a beginner, but I hope to improve. Perhaps even with your help?”

I opened the gift to reveal a tiny watercolor sketch of a robin.

“This is so unexpected. I scarce know what to say beyond giving you my thanks.” I openly marveled at the fine detail. Her proportions were slightly askew, but the effort showed talent. “Your sense of color is extraordinary.”

“I did it while the girls were working on their math problems. I do hope you like it.”

“I am delighted.”

A skirmish ensued at the other end of the table. Victoria burst into sobs, pushed her plate to one side, and rested her face on the table to cry in earnest. I went to her. “Try not to fret. Come on now, be a good girl. Chin up.” I patted her on the back.

“I do hope they can calm down,” I said as I returned to my seat. “I wish Mrs. Thurston had been more comforting. Perhaps if she had spoken with more…caution or compassion. See how upset the students are! They are too young to have these worries.”

“I suppose.” Miss Jones cast a quick look over at the girls but mainly kept her attention on the bread she was buttering. “But remember, Miss Eyre, these are children of privilege. They will never know deprivation or hunger or thirst. This will bother them for a short time, and they will forget it ever happened. Neither Miss Miller nor you nor I mean anything to them. Yes, right now they feel shock. But the upset will fade. If not, perhaps it will even do them good. It might prove edifying.” She shrugged and took a bite of her food. With a full mouth, she added, “It might just teach them a good lesson.”

“Yes, but these are children. They are frightened!”

“Perhaps. But they have no reason to be.”

“Their teacher is being questioned, their schoolmate was killed, and you have no sympathy for them? Or even for the dead child?”

“She was no child, just a nasty piece of baggage who teased her classmates and the teachers unmercifully. Because of her relationship with our debauched sovereign, she was accorded special privileges.” Miss Jones studied me. “Yes, I guessed you would find out about her royal connections. Not much of a secret, was it? Obviously, the King grew tired of her. I am certain he found the girl as disruptive as all of us did. One could safely assume he had her dispatched with, rather than put up with her or pay her off. As for the rest of the students,
I have limited sympathy for them, which is more than they have for me. Or for you. They will hire and fire women like us when they are grown. They will pay us less than they would spend on a nice frock. They will dismiss us on a whim. They will accuse us of kindling their husband’s affection. They will grow furious when their children run to us for comfort. Meanwhile, we will care for their children, mop up their little ones’ tears, bind their wounds, and when they are grown, we shall be tossed out into the cold. Unlike Emma or Caje, our working lives are short, our services needed but for a brief window of time. Nor are we valued for what we do, because we do not enhance the lives of our employers.

“On the contrary, we irk them. They look upon us as necessary evils. We encourage their children to think”—and here she tapped on her temple—“to learn, to grow beyond their own narrow, well-prescribed lives. In short, we threaten them.”

“Sad to say, you are right.” Back at Thornfield, when I was still Adèle’s governess, Mr. Rochester had entertained a gathering of the local gentry, including Blanche Ingram; her sister, Mary; and their mother, the Dowager Lady Ingram. Blanche had said that she and her sister had had at least a dozen governesses, half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous. Her mother joined in to say she had suffered a martyrdom from the incompetency of “our class.” When another guest pointed out that because of my proximity, I could hear this ugly commentary, Blanche and her siblings discussed the various methods by which they had tortured, belittled, and persecuted their tutors. All of which they seemed to think droll behavior that they looked back on fondly, though to me it revealed them as hard-hearted and spoiled creatures, cruel to the extreme and self-aggrandizing as well.

Of course, the cruelty that the Ingrams had displayed was minor compared to pushing a governess down a well and dropping a snake on her! My cousins Mary and Diana Rivers had
served briefly as governesses, and both of them had been exceedingly pleased to surrender their posts when I shared my inheritance with them. Once supplied with income, they chose to cast off the yoke of servitude that had been forced upon them by poverty.

“Our world is larger than theirs,” continued Miss Jones, “and so we cause the parents grave discomfort. They repay us by spurning us. We are what they shun, and also what they aspire to be: educated. Thus, we are relegated to the margins of their society. We are the outcasts, the pariahs—women who do not trade solely on our looks, but who aspire to a higher calling, because we possess cultivated minds.”

In this way, the union between Edward and me was unique. Although he admired my appearance, plain though I might seem to the world at large, he praised my intellect for having captured his heart. It was my spirit—my will and energy, virtue and purity—that he’d wanted to possess. These attributes taken together were what he said drew him to me and knit our heartstrings.

“The mothers who employ women like us are empty-headed dolls, prized only because they are petite, pretty, and precious, whether that means they bring a coffer of money to the marriage or confer some status. It does not matter. Such is the way of the world. They do what they are born and bred to do without thinking.”

She finished with, “I feel no sympathy for the mothers—and only a little for their daughters. This is just a new generation of silly, addlepated women. We can pour all the education into these vessels that we want, but they are flawed. Thanks to their social status, they care little about what they learn. It is as if these particular vessels suffer from a large crack that lets the knowledge flow right out onto the table.”

With that she folded her serviette and looked at me curiously. “You think me cold and unfeeling, I am sure. That is not the case. I accept my lot in life and enjoy my students
during that brief overlap of their lives and mine. Who knows what the future may bring?”

“Yes, I think it well to dwell in the moment.”

“There is nothing we can do about our status, Miss Eyre. We shall always stand with one foot on the bottom rung of life while hanging on for dear life with the other!”

Hunger had finally gotten the best of the girls. Most of them now turned to the task of eating. Seeing that we were being ignored, I took the opportunity to ask Miss Jones one more question. “What do
you
think happened to Selina? Whom do you suspect?”

“I have every confidence it was Caje.”

“Why?” Her accusation surprised me. Especially in light of Mr. Biltmore’s ugly suggestion that Caje should have watched over his daughter more carefully. Perhaps I needed to pay more attention to the young man, and certainly to consider him with more suspicion.

“Selina flirted with him shamelessly. I wouldn’t doubt he grew weary of her cruel games. Since he sleeps on a pallet on the kitchen floor, he could easily climb the back stairs and gain access to the Senior dormitory.”

This was something I hadn’t considered. The young man was so quiet, so unobtrusive that I had largely discounted his presence.

But not anymore.

The rest of the evening seemed to drag on and on. The girls were particularly subdued during our reading hour. When Selina died, they had felt both relief and fear, but the potential loss of Miss Miller shook the foundations of their world. She, more than Mrs. Thurston, was their safe harbor. Miss Miller had remained when Mrs. Webster left, and her stabilizing impact had helped the girls make the adjustment to Mrs. Thurston. Now, they were bewildered. They wandered around the room aimlessly, unable to concentrate on the tasks at hand.

This evening, I was the first to leave the sitting room, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of Nan Miller’s skirt as she slid behind the door and into the Infants’ sleeping area. Her hem was damp, and a single green leaf hung from it.

I was puzzled. I knew that Cook had been told to lock the door to the area, so no one could enter the building from there. As we left the dinner table, I had personally observed Emma turning the key to lock the front door as she did each night before returning the key to Mrs. Thurston. Miss Miller was supposed to be confined in the dormitory. So where had she been?

I decided to ask her myself. “Rufina? You are in charge. I shall be back quickly. I have an errand to run.” With that, I crept down the hall. The mourning slippers rendered my steps soundless. I opened the door to the Infant dormitory quietly, and I stood to one side watching Miss Miller without her noticing.

She seemed withdrawn but calm as she instructed the Infants to get dressed for bed. She spoke in soothing tones, but the girls practically shrank away from her. At long last, she glanced my way and mouthed, “Anon.”

Back in the dormitory, it was clear that my Seniors were also were confused and upset, so I gathered them around me on my mattress, where I told them a short story about a plain princess. As expected, all the girls thought the story to be about them—except for Rose. I doubted that she had ever felt unattractive, though she did find the story entertaining. “To be ugly would be horrid! Just horrid! I should rather die!”

Rose should show more compassion, but…why should she? She would never be less than lovely.

Rufina rolled her eyes at her chum, and I hid a smile. I delighted in the girl’s sense of self and her strength of character. She proved herself to be resilient, reliable, and intelligent. However, it was her physical strength that led me to wonder if she could have smothered Selina. Perhaps Rufina had grown tired of watching the older girl bully her classmates? The more I learned about their dead schoolmate’s cruelties, the harder it was to muster up revulsion toward her killer.

“Off to bed,” I instructed, and when every girl was under her covers, I tucked each one in and planted a kiss on her forehead. The gesture came naturally, for I regarded each of them with affection. It was true, though, that I lingered a bit with Adèle, murmuring promises to her in French. The moments with her were to my benefit, as much as to hers, as I promised myself that soon I would be home and able to shower my son with similar affection.