Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles (19 page)

The enormity of my duplicity was beginning to weigh on me. “Leave Adèle to me,” I said. “Are any of the others fluent in French?”

“
Un peu
,” said Miss Miller. “Mrs. Thurston purports to speak French. Indeed, she styles herself as our French teacher. But I can assure you that she is far, far from fluent. If you and Adela need to converse, you are correct, it would be well for you to talk in her native tongue.”

So I had surmised. Knowing we could converse freely without fear of being understood could prove useful.

We came closer to Alderton House. Its neighboring mansions hunkered over us, dwarfing and crowding us as we traveled by foot. Two-story colonnades fronting stucco villas surrounded us on every side. Back in the safety of Lucy Brayton’s parlor, courage guided my decision. Here on the wet sidewalks of London, a creeping fear nibbled at my bravado. What had I done? Why had I agreed to this foolhardy venture?

I gritted my teeth. My temples ached. Despite the rain soaking my clothing, I stopped walking and tried to massage the tight muscles. But my ministrations did not help. They only made matters worse.

“Jane? Have you changed your mind?” Miss Miller’s voice prodded me.

“No,” I said firmly. “Just a pain in my heart. That is all.”

It was truer than she would ever know.

“I’ll show you where to hang your things. We can check on Adela while we are up there in the dormitory. There’s no need for you to carry that pillowcase and your wet shawl and bonnet along to see Mrs. Thurston. But we need to hurry. It will soon be time for dinner.”

I followed Miss Miller as she trudged through the house.

While she was clearly enamored of her surroundings at Alderton House, the opulence of the decor meant little to me. After all, Lucy Brayton’s home dazzled with the latest in fashionable furnishings, and Thornfield Hall had boasted ancient treasures that signaled the long-standing and exalted rank of the Rochester family.

Yes, unlike Miss Miller, I was accustomed to finery—and I knew to look beyond its gloss and peer deeply at the raw material within.

I could not help but compare this grandiose place to the girls’ school in Morton, where my cousin St. John Rivers had offered me a post as mistress. There, in a humble cottage, I had taught twenty scholars, coarsely clad little peasants for
whom education was the only means of progress. Those mountain surroundings were simple but wholesome, and my pupils, while raw and ignorant, proved teachable. That scene took me back to Lowood, and its wholly uncongenial surroundings, where for eight years my routine varied little, even though I moved up the ladder from student to teacher.

For all my wanderings, one constant remained: I enjoyed teaching. Planting germs of thought in an eager mind gave me a sense of purpose. Even if my students peered ahead into an uncertain future, they would take with them on their lifetime journey a rich inner world of ideas and a nodding acquaintance with good literature. While few choices for occupation beckoned them, at least they could cipher well enough to avoid being cheated. They could imagine other worlds, other times, and other lives. As long as they could read, any book that presented itself might offer an escape from the drudgery that would circumscribe the rest of their lives.

Miss Miller narrated our tour. “As I understand it, all the best homes in London have similar floor plans. Beneath us, as you’ve seen, are the kitchen, scullery, pantry, and a servants’ dining room, plus a small sleeping room for Cook. Caje, our young man, sleeps on the floor in the kitchen in front of the hearth. He is rather a recent hire. When Mrs. Webster was here, we had a butler and two maids, but Mrs. Thurston likes her economies. On the ground level here, as I showed you this morning, Mrs. Thurston’s apartment occupies the right side as you face the building, and her office is the first room to the right of the front door.”

I followed Miss Miller from front to back of the house so we could take the servants’ stairs up to the dormitories. The same partitions in the dining room again presented themselves on the left, turning the long room into two smaller ones. As we ascended and passed the first floor landing, the sweet sound of young voices drifted from the music room as they sang a hymn.

From the back of the house facing the front, we had the
Infant dormitory on the left, and then the Junior dormitory at the front of the building on the left. At the right front was the library with its globe and encyclopedia. “This is where the girls practice their needle arts and we say prayers at night,” Miss Miller said.

At the back of the building was the Senior dormitory. We paused by the door as Miss Miller indicated the stairs going up yet one more time.

“Emma, our maid of all work, sleeps in the garret above you.”

“There is but one maid?” I was astonished. This was a large house, and the full complement of students would mean a demanding work load. By contrast, Lucy Brayton—who lived alone—employed a butler, driver, lady’s maid, cook, and parlor maid.

“Yes. There is much work to do, but we manage. Caje acts like a footman, carrying water and coals. We also have a laundress who fetches our dirty linen, cleans it, presses it, and brings it back on Mondays.”

Because Miss Miller was talking to me, and I was intent on learning my way around, it wasn’t until we were nearly inside that we heard the voices in the Senior dormitory. We stopped outside the door and listened.

“Blood on the pillow linen. I’ll be taking this with me,” said a man.

What was this?
I wondered. Then, with a start, I realized Adèle was in that same room! Was she safe? Heedless of repercussions, I rushed inside.

There I encountered Mrs. Thurston’s angry presence, and that of a middling tall man with narrow shoulders who was smoking a pipe. I hurried past him with my head down and knelt beside Adèle, noting that the laudanum still held her in thrall. Taking her hand, I soothed her brow.

“You?” Mrs. Thurston’s face reddened at the sight of me. “What is the meaning of this?”

“It’s only the new German teacher. Remember? You met her earlier and asked me to go to help her acquire some necessities upon her arrival,” said Miss Miller as she rushed in behind me, although her voice nearly cracked with the strain. “Pardon us, Mrs. Thurston, but she”—and here she gestured in my direction—“once served as Adela’s own governess. Naturally, she’s happy to see the child again.”

Ignoring me further for the moment, Mrs. Thurston turned to the man and said, “See here, Mr. Waverly. What is the meaning of this? You have no right—”

“Madam, I answer to the Bow Street magistrate, Sir Robert Blake, and only to him.” So this was the officer Miss Miller had met, the one whom Mr. Douglas had seemed in awe of. Truly, Waverly’s presence commanded respect. He smoked a cherry pipe and had a battered-looking face.

“You…you impertinent…” Mrs. Thurston’s florid face puckered in inchoate anger as she pointed a finger at Waverly’s chest. Added to the fact that she was struggling to breathe—a situation I assumed was in response to the exertion of climbing the stairs—the woman seemed almost ready to explode, or expire, or both.

“That’s true, ma’am. I am that. One of my worst faults; but it serves me well now and again. If I could trouble you to move back so that I may examine the area around the bed.” Waverly executed a courtly half bow, holding a black baton under one arm. As he bent, light glinted off a gold coin embedded in one end of the truncheon.

“This is unconscionable!” Mrs. Thurston’s hands churned the air. “Ridiculous. I demand that you leave at once! I plan to complain to your superior personally. In fact, we’ll see what Lady Kingsley has to say about this intrusion,” she sputtered.

“Sir Blake will contact Lady Kingsley himself if he hasn’t already done so. You can count on it,” Waverly assured her.

“So shall I, sir! So shall I! Take it to the Bank of England!” Mrs. Thurston stomped out of the room. Her footsteps echoed
down the hallway and finally, she huffed and puffed her way down the stairs.

“Miss Miller?” he asked as he turned toward my friend. “Can you identify the owner of this trinket?” With that he held up a length of sky blue grosgrain hair ribbon.

“Adela Varens.” Miss Miller spoke without hesitation.

I rocked back on my heels, hanging on to Adèle’s bed with one hand, thankful to be near the floor.

“She’s the girl who found the body, right?” Waverly continued.

“Yes, sir. You see, Adela and Selina were partners.”

“Partners? Explain that to me.”

She talked about the system of joint responsibility.

“But Selina was also responsible for Adela, right?”

Miss Miller nodded. “Unfortunately, Selina often had problems getting out of bed in the morning.”

“Was that a source of friction for the girls?” he asked.

“On occasion.” Miss Miller sounded meek, regretful.

I shook my head. Although I would never have suggested that she lie, I wished with all my heart that her answer would have been different.

“Adela is that child there? The one who was administered laudanum? The one with the teacher hovering over her?” He cocked his head toward my sleeping charge.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why are you lingering there?” he asked me.

“I’m checking on her,” I said before adding, “sir.”

“I shall want to talk with her when she wakes up.”

“Of course,” Miss Miller said.

“You have come in from outside? Recently. And it is raining. Why? What sent you wandering on an evening like this?”

“I was fetching some necessities needed by Miss Eyre, our new German teacher.” Miss Miller gestured toward me. “She is a former colleague of mine, newly arrived in London. We are fortunate that she was available on short notice.”

I gained my feet and stood straight as a chair back, but I kept my eyes downcast, hoping to both appear modest and discourage his curiosity.

“You requested that we find an adult to act as chaperone in this dormitory, and we have. I went to run an errand. That’s all.” Miss Miller’s voice faded, and if her explanation sounded a bit fulsome, well, Waverly seemed not to notice.

I bobbed my head in greeting.

“Who beat you?” his gruff tone demanded.

“A thief at a coaching inn. I was robbed.” I did not return his gaze.

“Did you report your misadventure to anyone? Wasn’t there a guard traveling with the coach?”

“A man named Glebe took the report, sir.”

“Glebe? That cork-brained fool. All right. I’ll see what he’s done about your loss.”

He turned toward Miss Miller. “Miss Eyre looks scarcely older than your students. Both of you better dry off. You’ll catch your deaths!”

With that observation and quick dismissal, he moved to the doorway of the Senior dormitory. Miss Miller scurried along after him. I stayed where I was. As the officer and my old friend crossed the threshold, she glanced quickly back at me with a look both apologetic and embarrassed. “Miss Eyre? You can hang your things on the coat stand. I shall wait for you outside the door. The first bed in the row on the left will be yours, the one set apart with the modesty screen nearby.”

I thanked her and did as she bid, moving quickly but quietly. I overheard Mr. Waverly ask Miss Miller, “Is it possible that the hair ribbon was a gift? Or a loan to the dead girl?”

“I doubt it, sir. Adela was exceedingly fond of that particular ribbon. She was looking for it the day before…before Selina died.”

With a last kiss for Adèle’s brow, I hurried to join Waverly
and Miss Miller. The three of us walked downstairs together, where he bid us good night. She closed the door behind him and leaned her forehead against the wood panels. “At last, he’s gone! Now we must deal with Mrs. Thurston.”

The superintendent reluctantly responded after Miss Miller knocked on the door of her office for the second time. “There better be a good reason for disturbing me—” She stopped abruptly when she saw me.

With hesitation, Maude Thurston stepped aside. Her face was still florid from her struggle with the stairs. Miss Miller and I entered her office. A large desk squatted in the middle of the room, crowding us into the edges of available space. Every cubby overflowed with papers. A mountainous heap on the desk surface wobbled and threatened to topple over. Papers lined two wicker baskets and covered the cushion of the only available chair. The magnitude of the mess shocked me.

“What are you gawking at? Why are you here?” The superintendent directed her tirade toward me.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Thurston, but I believe you may want to read this correspondence. It is urgent. I would have given it to you sooner, but it’s none of Mr. Waverly’s business.” Miss Miller’s trembling hand offered the letter from Lucy Brayton.

“I’ll have that man’s job. See if I don’t.” She fixed a glare at me. “I suppose now that you’ve arrived you’ll need a place to sleep. There’s an extra bed in the Senior dormitory. Miller? Tell Cook we have one more for supper. On second thought, she can take my place.”

I blinked in surprise, so taken aback by her gruff kindness that I could not muster a response.

Mrs. Thurston snatched up a magnifying glass and perused the return address on the message from Lucy. After reading it, she made a shooing motion toward me with her free hand.