Jane Steele (9 page)

I forgive you.

I didn’t mind.

That never happened, but apparently the worst things I can imagine still fall short of reality.

•   •   •

A
t the next daily Reckoning, we were witness to an act akin to watching a tree sprouting from the sky, or rains bursting forth from the grounds like perverse fountains. I have never been so shocked; and were you, reader, to suggest greater surprises are in store for me, I should suggest you invest in the purchase of a strait waistcoat without delay.

“I name Mr. Munt,” Clarke said soberly.

The remark was so unreal that I laughed, choked, and then planted my palm firmly over my lips.

To say that Clarke turned heads would be an understatement. The announcement slammed into my chest like a physical blow. I have been thrown from a horse, attacked by multiple men, fallen down a flight of stairs; none of these events ever struck me so hard, because none of them so explicitly announced,
this is your fault.

Mr. Munt initially could not believe his own ears. “Whom do you mean to name, Clarke?” he inquired.

“I already did. You’ve subjected Miss Lilyvale to unwanted attentions, Mr. Munt. Say you’re sorry.”

Mr. Munt’s handsome face paled. He glanced at Miss Lilyvale, who was not looking at him, because Miss Lilyvale was looking at me. I understood then what I had not before: she had
wanted
us to find the letters. Miss Lilyvale was vacillating and weak, and Clarke and I were neither, and others had noticed. Miss Lilyvale’s lake-blue eyes dimmed in shame as the other teachers whispered
oh my
and
but it can’t be true, can it?

“Clarke.” Mr. Munt by now seemed outwardly composed save for his throat, which was ropy with rage under his white collar. “Do you truly mean to falsely accuse your headmaster when your own situation here is so precarious?”

“I don’t understand,” Clarke said, lifting her chin.

“Oh, I should never have troubled you with the information had you not made a mockery of the Reckoning,” Vesalius Munt hissed. “Your parents have told you they publish books, I presume? That they are among the literary set?”

Clarke said nothing.

“I believe in the value of education for every child, including even
females
, a position which has garnered me much criticism!” Mr. Munt cried with an arm raised. “And here this beggar at the gates of paradise accuses
me
of misconduct! Her parents print lurid erotic fiction, which it pains me to say in your company, ladies,” he added, flushing nicely before the rapt teaching staff. “They donated beyond Clarke’s fee to consign their daughter to my care; I accepted, hoping to save the child from heinous influences; and now she—the viper!—tells me that I have made Miss Lilyvale the subject of my
unwanted attentions
?”

“Oh my
God
,” breathed Taylor, morbidly fascinated.

We watched as Miss Lilyvale clutched at her voiceless throat and fled the room. When I think of the anger I felt, I will always recall ice and not fire, the way snow sears into one’s flesh.

Clarke’s face was rigid save for the tremor in her tiny lips.

“Yes,” said she, “that’s exactly what I mean to tell you.”

“Excellent,” said Mr. Munt, enjoying himself again. “You can confine yourself to porridge at breakfast for the foreseeable future. Next confessor?”

“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. . . . By dying young I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.”

W
ithin a fortnight, Clarke was a shade haunting hallways where no one saw or spoke to her, carrying such slight weight that the desk seats must have thought her a spring breeze. Her skin grew ashen, her lips cracked, her eyes mirrors.

“I am so ashamed of myself,” Miss Lilyvale whispered.

We were in the choir room on a Sunday before the service, only she and I, for I had left a note in her drawer demanding she meet me. Outside, the merry May breezes wanted only blithe girls with ribbons for their dance to be complete, and I pitied Miss Lilyvale for the necessity of my company a little; she had already endured unwanted attentions, veiled threats, and now a scheming schoolgirl. The choir room was neat and orderly, save for a dainty rug under the practice piano which had been gnawed by mice and reminded me of my music teacher.

“What can be done?” I urged, outwardly calm and inwardly
frantic. “And what did you think
would
be done, anyhow? You must have wanted us to find them, but I can’t imagine what—”

“And I can’t either!” she cried, eyes wild, before her mouth pressed into a tormented dash. She hugged her own arms. “You must forgive me. No—no, you mustn’t, I’ve no right to even ask. My father is a country parson, my mother an industrious invalid, and they are happy when they’ve oxtails for their soup. Their parish is just outside London, but poor and plain for all its proximity. I learnt piano, thinking I could give private lessons. Well, I’m an utter shipwreck at music, and Mr. Munt when visiting our parish lecturing hired me anyhow, I arrived just a year before you did though I was far older, and this position pays—oh, don’t look at me, I can’t bear it.”

“You think you’re lucky to have the place.” I tentatively touched her forearm.

“I think he wanted me and not my music—who could want my music! He courted me for years without ever proposing before the letters started, and now I’m trapped, for what decent woman would have kept a job of all things with such correspondences plaguing her?” She shuddered. “Last month, he stopped me in a deserted corridor to, to
pray
for me, and he put his palms on my brow and here, over my heart.”

I required answers, and so increased the pressure on her arm. “Have you spoken with him since Clarke’s Reckoning?”

“Not a word. Did you burn the letters?” Miss Lilyvale whispered. “I thought them proof of his disgusting attentions, but that was unspeakably foolish—they are merely evidence of my complicity. Did you destroy them?”

“Yes,” I lied.

It was better than saying
I reread them nightly because I do not understand their effect on me and I am studying it in the cause of science.

“Thank you. I was . . . terrified, paralysed.”

“We’ve tried everything,” said I, implacable. “We’ve shared, we’ve stolen, we’ve foraged spring greens when we were meant to be playing hopscotch. Clarke
will not
survive. What can we do?”

Pressing her sleeve to her eyes, Miss Lilyvale glanced in naked fright at the clock in the corner. “God forgive me. I’m your teacher, I ought to have . . . Yes, there is one thing to be done. Mr. Munt is his own bookkeeper. If you altered his accounts, and then took food on the day of its delivery, he would not know you had done so. Tomorrow the farm will deliver the week’s eggs and produce.”

The information echoed like the clap of a gong, for Clarke that morning had confessed herself bedridden. Porridge, lawn weeds, and rare stolen roast potatoes would no longer suffice.

“I take it I’m meant to perform this little magic trick,” I could not help but mention.

“Oh, Steele—”

“Never mind. I’ll do it. Does he keep the ledger in his study?”

Miss Lilyvale nodded, righting her hunched posture. “He invited me there for tea once. I shall never forget that occasion, no matter how I try.”

“When girls refuse to return their food, they’re told to visit his study, and no one speaks of it afterwards,” I said lowly. “Why?”

“He tells them who he thinks they really are, and what they must sacrifice to save themselves from hellfire,” Miss Lilyvale answered against a raw throat. “Sometimes he shows them pictures, suggests things . . . things he accuses them of secretly longing to do. For hours. Can you imagine?”

I could, but the service was about to commence. “I must know why you placed me in this position.”

Two feverish blots glared from her cheeks. “Please understand that I never meant for Clarke to—”

“Do the idiotic thing she did. I still deserve an explanation.”

Miss Lilyvale was a sweet, toothless, impressionable creature,
but she was also an honest one, and finally she looked me straight in the eye.

“I know your past is . . . chequered. I also know that you forgive others more readily than anyone I have ever encountered, and I cherish it—you have a great talent, you know, for accepting people. Have you ever kept a secret,” Miss Lilyvale asked me, all the blood in her body seeming to drain straight through the floor, “which was not precisely your fault, but which would—if discovered—ruin you? Have you ever awoken to nothing save dread of daylight?”

“You know I have,” I answered, comprehending that she spoke of my mother’s bad end.

“Mr. Munt means to destroy me if he cannot have me,” Miss Lilyvale murmured. “Please forgive my inexcusable actions. I only . . . I simply couldn’t do it anymore.”

Watching her, I thought about secrets. One can grow accustomed to carrying unseeable scars, as if the tattoo one wears is inked in flesh tone over flesh tone; but nevertheless one is still covered in
secret
, painted with secret, stained by it. I would have done anything to shed Edwin’s dead eyes glazed fish-scale grey.

Solving Miss Lilyvale’s problem and saving Clarke at once would have to suffice, however, lest I defy the restful nature of the Sabbath.

“I’ll be in Mr. Munt’s study during the service.” I turned on my heel. “If you might make any excuses necessary which prevent my being looked for? That would be rather the least you could do.”

•   •   •

S
hadows are curious entities; they are lightless and yet cast a shape into the world, just as I do. As I ventured through the empty hallways, I did not think of myself as
myself
at all but as another Jane, a shadow given form. This curious phenomenon echoed the way I had come to think of my cousin’s murder—Edwin was no more, due to regrettable events somehow removed from the Jane Steele who
had mastered translating Cato and gliding along with a spine straight as a pikestaff. My mother was also no more, but that was another matter, I thought as I tiptoed, flinching at each creak. I had been wicked, in an impulsive fashion; I had been devious, in minor targeted ones.

This time I would invade a headmaster’s private office, forge records, and escape, which would be a sure step on the road to perdition.

The unlocked door to Mr. Munt’s study swung open. The shelves were crammed, boasting titles from phrenology to poetry, and the dwindling fire’s aroma mingled with book must and tobacco. I had visited the coffer-ceilinged chamber twice—once, I realised to my own horror, as a trusted messenger delivering Vesalius Munt a note from Miss Lilyvale; and once, after our late lamented Fox had insisted upon eating, I was sent there to escort the sobbing girl back to our dormitory.

Fox refused to say what had happened—they all did—but I heard her whimper
I’m not as feckless as I am ugly
in my memory as I stepped over the threshold.

The record lay wantonly open next to an ink pot, pen, blotter, and gleaming letter opener. A silvery charge shot through me, and I dived for the thing; my stomach rose up my gullet as I examined the record of purchases never meant for us to consume:

20 lbs. cod, alive—at 2d. a pound

50 bunches turnips—at penny a bunch

13 pints dried figs for pudding—at 1d. a pint

Biting my lip, I reached for his pen and dipped it in the inkpot. Keeping track of foodstuffs was rightfully the cook’s province, but considering the profits Mr. Munt made by selling our strength away, it was unsurprising he sought complete control. Meals were planned
a month in advance, with decisive check marks next to the supplies that had already been paid for.

My hands were steady as I hovered over the order to be delivered the next day. It would have been a fatal mistake to cross anything out and rewrite it, so some thought was required; but within three minutes, I had changed
70 bunches cress
to
20 bunches cress,
90 lbs. potatoes
to
80 lbs. potatoes,
and
7 dozen eggs
to
4 dozen eggs.

Granted, I should have to ascertain how to make off with fifty bunches of cress, ten pounds of potatoes, and three dozen eggs, and then hide these items, and then cook them, but these steep obstacles to me seemed mere irritants. The fire languished, and the smiling moon of the standing clock leered at me. My altered numbers were rather strange, but not so very unlike Mr. Munt’s other characters, and I blew upon the page to dry my falsehoods, imagining
a great steaming plate of fried eggs and potato hash and cress salad for—

“I wonder just what you think you’re doing—and then again, I don’t.”

Dropping the pen as horror gripped me, I sent a bloodlike spatter across the page.

Mr. Munt stood in the doorway, half smiling as if he were greeting a friend in a tea shop. My dismay was quickly buried under an avalanche of frozen rage.

“She meant for me to be caught,” I found myself hissing.

“The kindhearted Miss Lilyvale?” Mr. Munt shut the door and approached with even strides as I backed away. “Come now, I’m not going to hurt you. When have I ever hurt any of you? Madame Archambault is a fine French instructor, and her ways are set, but despite the Bible’s injunctions to spare not the rod, I confess I find violence crude.”

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, too angry to prevaricate. “What about your sermon?”

Mr. Munt placed his Bible reverently upon the desk. “The
village prelate is delivering his marvellous message upon original sin. One must grasp the squalorous condition of the unredeemed soul in order to be duly grateful for Christ’s intercession. As for your accusation regarding Miss Lilyvale, that is more complicated. I may have mentioned to the cook that I was grateful she was so honest—for were this ledger to be tampered with, I should never know whether our deliveries had arrived intact. Miss Lilyvale may have heard me say so, for she was nearby, though I should never imply she is capable of eavesdropping.”

Hatred thrust like a stake through my heart.

“I took advantage of my colleague’s visit in order to settle the books. I ought to have locked the door, in retro—”

“You planned all of this!” I cried. “This is another of your cruel games.”

“Cruel?” He feigned hurt, his fine features twisting. “Steele, is your heart so hardened that you can invade my private office—”

“You left the door unlocked.”

“Falsify my accounts—”

“As you indirectly suggested!” I fairly shrieked.

“Plan to steal food from the mouths of your fellow students—”

“You’re killing Clarke.” Outrage transformed effortlessly to begging. “Please, even you cannot justify death by starvation.”

Mr. Munt walked round his desk, the smug uptilt to his lips intact; I have never seen a man enjoy himself so much. “Heavens! Where on earth would you have stored these items, and how would you have cooked them?”

“I would have found a way,” I spat, but the bitterness lay in the fact that he was correct.

This had been a fool’s errand, and Miss Lilyvale and I the fools.

Mr. Munt sat before his ledger. He was dressed for Sunday, wearing a grey waistcoat which made his pale eyes gleam, and a high collar; his garb ever hinted at the parsonical whilst still accentuating
his Byronic appearance. Running a hand through his black curls, he emitted a sigh.

“You will have to be severely punished for this.”

“Do what you like,” I snarled, confidence bolstered by loathing. “I’ll fight back. Only please,” I added as his sad look shifted into annoyance, “don’t deprive Clarke anymore. I was the one who read the letters first, not she. You know Clarke is half mad, and anyway she’s learnt her lesson.”

“Half mad,” Mr. Munt reflected, pulling his index finger and thumb along his lower lip. “Do you know, Steele, I don’t think the half-mad one is Clarke.”

A poisonous silence fell, one which burnt my skin.

“Do not pretend that this is about my mother.”

“It is not about your mother. It is about whether you are capable of rational behaviour, or whether the devil works his will through you.”

“I’m only here to save one of your own students!”

He laughed, showing straight white teeth. “So you will fight me, you say, and in the next breath you plead the case for the daughter of smut purveyors?” Standing, Mr. Munt strode past me to the opposite wall. “Ah, here we are.
The Garden of Forbidden Delights,
author anonymous, published in serial by Whittleby and Clarke. Borrow it, and then tell me whether you think Clarke’s judgement of sincere affections is sound.”

A small red volume, unmarked on its cover but bearing the frontispiece
The Garden of Forbidden Delights,
was in my hands an instant later. Mr. Munt raised an eyebrow, stony resolve in his granite eyes, and I queasily slid the object into my dress pocket. I saw many more books like them—I saw an entire shelf, as a matter of fact, enough to be termed a collection.

“Do show that to Clarke when you’ve finished,” he added with a cold smirk.

He’s actually insane
. His power had flooded his brain, eroding it
piecemeal. I recalled the phrases I had studied in such repulsed confusion,
the thought of your mouth against my cock-stand,
and
I would lick my way down your spine and lower until—