Jane Slayre (11 page)

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"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you, but as there is so little toast, you must have it now." She cut slices with a generous hand.

We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia, and not the least delight of the entertainment was our hostess's smile of gratification as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied. Miss Temple and Helen conversed on so many things, books I'd never heard of, world events, and languages unknown. Helen recited some Latin as well as any true scholar, I supposed.

"Miss Temple, I must ask why you have a sword in your room?" I said at length as the evening drew to a close.

"It is a fine saber, is it not? My father was a swordsman," Miss Temple said, taking the weapon down. The blade was safely ensconced in a sheath. "A pirate on the Barbary Coast, to tell the truth, before he retired to Cornwall to marry and raise children. He taught me a few tricks."

She posed like a true fighter, feet planted firmly apart, one arm in the air, the other holding out the sword and waving it boldly. I stood transfixed, filled with admiration as she danced a little circle around us, swishing her sword at imaginary foes. At zombies? I felt more secure knowing of Miss Temple's secret talent.

"Oh, Miss Temple!" I said. "I wish you could teach me your few tricks."

"Perhaps I shall." She smiled, gazing at the weapon as if lost in a memory. After a moment, she placed it back on the hooks over the mantel and embraced us both. "But for now, it's time for bed. God bless you, my children!"

Helen she held a little longer than me. Miss Temple let her go more reluctantly. For her, she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her, she wiped a tear from her cheek.

On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd. She was examining drawers. She had just pulled out Helen Burns's, and when we entered, Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand.

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Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word SLATTERN and bound it crownlike around Helen's forehead. She wore it until evening, patient, unresentful, and regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire. The fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek. The spectacle of Helen's sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.

CHAPTER 9

ABOUT A WEEK LATER, Miss Temple received a reply from Mr. Lloyd regarding her inquiries. He apparently corroborated my account. Miss Temple had enough faith in me, and Mr. Lloyd's verification of events, that she assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges against Jane Slayre, and that she was "most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation." The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.

I felt joy in the sisterhood and affection of my fellow Lowood inmates. For the time, I was able to put the special students and Mr. Bokorhurst to the back of my mind and throw myself wholeheartedly into my studies. I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts. My memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practise. Exercise sharpened my wits. In a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class. In less than two months, I was allowed to commence French and drawing. Miss Temple had also taken me

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aside to show me how to hold a sword with proper posture, and how to lunge and parry. I returned for a second lesson late in the evening after classes.

"Mr. Lloyd wrote that he suspects you were being raised amongst vampyres," Miss Temple revealed as she showed me how to keep the blade steady while sweeping it through the air. "Speak the truth. I will not fault you."

I lowered the weapon. "Indeed. I wasn't sure anyone would believe me. It sounds so fantastical to say aloud."

"Oh, I believe you. I've known worse things than vampyres, dear child."

I was about to ask her about zombies, but she ended the conversation before I could bring it up.

That night on going to bed, I forgot to prepare the imaginary supper of hot roast potatoes and spinach that had got me through many a night of burnt porridge and meager portions of bread. I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings that I planned in my head, in the dark, all the work of my own hands: freely penciled rocks and ruins overrun with elves, a blue-eyed angel floating over a peaceful ocean, a Grecian goddess draped in voluminous folds. The angel would of course resemble Helen Burns, the goddess Miss Temple. I imagined, too, my lunging and parrying, thrusting, and hacking a bloodthirsty zombie's head clean off. I was sure I could do it. I tingled at the very thought!

For all of Gateshead's luxuries, I would not trade Lowood, where the riches of opportunity and friendship more than made up for the deprivation of physical comforts such as food and warmth. I fell asleep thinking of it.

But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened with the coming of spring. Sometimes, on a sunny day, it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves. On Thursday afternoons

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(half holidays) we now took walks and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.

One day, in my wandering, I got carried away following a butterfly through fields and flowers and ended up mindlessly stepping over stones in the little graveyard. I came across one marked for Martha Blake Abbot, and my thoughts turned back to the evil at the heart of Lowood, my new happy place. Would it not be easier to forget such ugliness? What business had I, a mere girl, to investigate matters and attempt to right grievous wrongs? Was it not enough that I had progressed in my studies, made friends, and established myself as a serious student and a good sort of girl?

Miss Martha Abbot, indeed. So she had been part of Lowood, more proof against Mr. Bokorhurst. The grave, no doubt, was empty. Mrs. Reed deserved a zombie maid, after all, did she not? Who better to serve a vampyre mistress? I'd been able to avoid the "Odd Eight" as I'd begun to call the special students, and it made no difference that they were at Lowood with me--as long as they didn't eat. Still, I enjoyed my sword training. I worked with Miss Temple at any opportunity, and lately more often on my own, practicing the moves she taught and improvising some of my own. Once, I asked if she'd ever killed anyone, and she seemed genuinely shocked by the question. But she never actually answered. Curious, that.

April advanced to May. A bright, serene May it was, days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern breezes filling up its duration. Vegetation matured with vigour. Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone. I felt I was still catching up for time lost under Mrs. Reed's rigid rule, stuck inside to sleep during the glorious day and forced to hide in darkness during waking hours. I would have full rejoiced in it if not for the dark reason behind my delightful solitude.

Have I not described springtime Lowood as a pleasant site for a dwelling? Assuredly, pleasant enough; but whether healthy is another question. The forest dell where Lowood lay was the cradle of

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fog and fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the orphan asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into a hospital.

Semistarvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to infection. Forty-five of the eighty girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few, like me, who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license because the medical attendant insisted on frequent exercise to keep us in health. Had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain us anyway.

The patients absorbed Miss Temple's attention. There was no time for swordplay, though she allowed me to take one of the weapons from the parlour and use it to practise. She lived in the sickroom, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only to die. Some died at the school and were quietly and quickly buried, the nature of the malady forbidding delay.

For a time, it seemed we would lose half of Lowood, but then girls began to recover and reappear in the dorm. But had they returned quite the same? I noticed the few who seemed close to death but recovered had come back to us in a somewhat cold and distant state, not quite the same as they'd been before they'd taken ill. They acted more like Mr. Bokorhurst's "special students." I never saw them eat. They no longer took pleasure in simple things, such as days off from classes. They didn't enjoy roaming in the wild outdoors as the rest of us did, but rather they stayed in and memorized psalms. The Odd Eight became the Odd Twenty. I began to suspect that my hours of leisure were over. Something was not quite right at Lowood, and it was time I did something about it.

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I could not forget my uncle's words, his charge to me to right wrongs, his insistence that I had it in my blood, the power to effect a change. I was Jane Slayre, and the time had come to act accordingly.

I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed the beauties of the season. They let us ramble in the wood, like Gypsies, from morning to night. We did what we liked, went where we liked. I used the time to form my plans and to gain in strength and agility.

Mr. Bokorhurst rarely came near Lowood now. Household matters were not scrutinised; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection. Her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, was unused to the ways of her new abode and provided with comparative liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed. The sick could eat little. A fair number of "healthy" ate not at all. Our breakfast basins were better filled. When there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, the housekeeper would give us a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where each of us chose the spot she liked best and dined sumptuously.

After a day of trekking through the wood and lifting and moving rocks of various sizes, to build my physique so I could better wield my sword when the time came, I sat with my meal on my favourite seat, a smooth stone rising up from the hillside, which provided a view of the gardens and beyond. I could see the graveyard, though I usually looked towards more pleasant prospects while I dined, and I noticed a fair number of recently dug graves. I left my dinner behind on the stone and drew closer to try to count the number. How many classmates were expected to fill them soon and for how long?

It made my heart heavy to think of the loss. But as I neared, I realised that some of the now fresh graves had but a few days earlier

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been full. I was certain I had left flowers here, near Miss Martha Blake Abbot's resting place; yet a hole was newly dug in the ground where a grave had been. A chill ran right through me, along my spine and scattering to my fingers and toes. There'd been a new harvest! Which of my friends had now been turned to zombies?

I could not stop girls from dying. The sickness would run its course and leave the victims to their fate. But I had to stop Mr. Bokorhurst from practising his vile art in harvesting the poor corpses and reanimating them into his service. I paced, caught up in wild ideas and flights of my imagination. I didn't even notice that Mary Ann Wilson had joined me. She waited, taking her usual seat on the other side of my favoured stone.

"You seem troubled, Jane," she said as I returned to my seat on the stone.

"Have you noticed anything odd about some of the girls returning from sickbed?" I asked cautiously. One who hadn't been raised by vampyres might not easily believe in bizarre, supernatural occurrences or beings.

She nodded, but didn't even look up from her parcel as she extracted a slice of cold pie. "I suppose the sickness leaves them weak. It will take some time for their vigor to return." She took a large bite of her pie and moaned aloud. "Mm. It is so good, Jane. I can't remember the last time I had meat."

"Meat?" I sat up straighter. "What do you mean, meat?"

"The pie," she said, her mouth stuffed full. "It's mutton."

"Mutton!" My heart raced in alarm. "Why on earth would anyone serve--oh dear."

The new housekeeper, I realised. With Mr. Bokorhurst spending so much time away and Miss Temple occupied with the sick girls, it was possible no one had informed the housekeeper that meat was not to be served to students.

"I must go." I ran off towards the house, leaving my companion and the rest of my dinner behind. In the entry parlour, I took a

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sword off the wall. This one, with a small handle and a curved blade, was more of a scimitar, really, light and sharp. I shifted it easily in my hands. It would serve me if necessary. I prayed it would not be.

I ran through the empty refectory to the kitchen. The housekeeper was there, cutting pies.

"Who has had the pie?" I asked, not even taking a moment to catch my breath.

"Oh!" The housekeeper beamed. "Nearly everyone! It's quite a success. And Mother always said I wasn't much of a baker."

"Nearly everyone?"

She nodded. "One of the girls took a whole pie to herself."

"A whole pie? Who? Where did she--"

"Oh, there she is now. How was your pie, dear?"

I turned to see Celia Evans making her way through the door, arms outstretched before her. Her mouth shone red in sharp contrast to her greyish pallor. She groaned as she walked. Celia, of course, was one of the original Odd Eight. I wondered at the red on her face--and her pinafore. Blood!

"Stop right there!" I raised my scimitar. Celia groaned again and kept walking, pushing me aside with superhuman strength. I believe I actually flew through the air and landed in a heap on the floor after banging into a rack of pots and pans. I might have lost consciousness briefly, for when I looked up again, I saw Celia leaning over the housekeeper, who was sprawled messily across the kitchen counter next to the neat row of pies. With utmost speed, I flew to Celia to stop her before she--disemboweled the housekeeper. Too late. "No!"

Celia looked at me, a section of bloody intestine dangling like a sausage from her mouth. Dear, dear. Poor Mrs.--heavens, I didn't even remember her name. I was about to attempt a quick prayer for the woman's soul when Celia, hands dripping entrails, started for me--not with any great speed, fortunately. Zombies were strong, but they apparently were not quick. I spread my feet for stability,