Jane Steele

by Lyndsay Faye

  “Hurt with Mr. Thornfield?” she prodded.

  “No, he found me in a ditch.” I pushed my posture straight with my fists. “I was hurt near Mr. Thornfield. He was unhurt, thank God.”

  “You … not want his help? Do not like him?”

  Answering this question truthfully would have been impossible. “I don’t like anyone at the moment. Save you, I think, depending on what you have there.”

  “Poultice.” She lifted one hand. “Bandages,” she added, raising the other.

  “Bless you,” I sighed, relief provoking bald sentiment.

  “Do not worry,” she answered quietly, casting her eyes down.

  Some ten minutes later, Mrs. Kaur had gifted me with medical attention, and spiced tea I enjoyed very much, and a crutch I did not in the least appreciate.

  “Ready?” she asked when I had fully dressed with her assistance and regained a bit of my colour.

  “As I will ever prove,” I agreed.

  I walked step-thunk, step-thunk, step-thunk down the narrow carpeted strip upon the staircase. I was terrified to meet Mr. Thornfield; when I had not been pathetic the night previous, I had been glib, and when I had not been glib, I had been obstreperous, a truly heady concoction of undesirable traits.

  Upon my arrival in the dining room, however, I discovered the household preoccupied; where I imagined my disaster of the night previous would be the sole topic, instead I found master and ward glaring daggers at an unknown person—one who beamed at my arrival and half stood, making an awkward bow.

  “Augustus Sack!” he exclaimed, offering a pudgy hand. “Mr. Augustus P. Sack, and this can be no one save Miss Jane Stone. Might I be pardoned for expressing my absolute delight that you’ve rallied valiantly enough to join us for a late breakfast?”

  Propping my crutch against the chair’s arm, I clasped his clammy fingers. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sack.” I sat, wincing.

  “The captive emerges,” Mr. Thornfield drawled. “What can she have been through, this poor prisoner, trapped behind enemy lines after such a daring escape?”

  The tone may have been gently needling; but he was up in an instant to fetch me a tasselled footstool, which he deftly slid under the table, where I might take advantage of it.

  “Oh, Miss Stone!” Sahjara commiserated. She was clad in sage green with her dark hair hanging loose. “When I imagine what could have happened to you—it’s too dreadful.”

  “My dear Young Marvel,” Mr. Thornfield put in, seating himself, “what could have happened was my trampled corpse, followed by a closed-coffin ceremony.”

  “Charles, don’t!” Tossing her head, Sahjara added under her breath, “He thinks because he served in campaigns in the Punjab, he has the right to be dramatic.”

  “He does indeed, and correctly so!” Mr. Sack spoke in the style of a compliment; it was received in the manner of an insult, however, for Mr. Thornfield’s eyes furiously darted to the pine trees just visible at the top of the windows, and there they remained.

  “Well, I feel as terrible about what could have happened to Mr. Thornfield as he does—anyhow, I’m fine, Sahjara.” I lifted my napkin as Mrs. Jas Kaur appeared, placing fried breakfast cakes smelling of rose water upon my plate.

  “Miss Stone is undoubtedly fine,” Mr. Thornfield agreed, “or we should be informed otherwise in highly colourful language.”

  I promptly redirected attentions. “You arrived this morning, Mr. Sack?”

  “You are as observant as you are beautiful, Miss Stone, I state so with absolute conviction.”

  Hardly a compliment.

  Mr. Augustus Sack was a portly fellow—tan as Mr. Thornfield, but budding pink at the crests of his cheeks, the tips of his ears, and the end of his nose. He wore a dark green jacket with a brown velvet waistcoat, accented by an emerald tie, and if he wished to appear more thoroughly English, I honestly have no notion how he would have gone about working the miracle. His face was a plump oval, beaming relentlessly, and this disturbed me, for Mr. Thornfield looked enraged and Sahjara ill.

  “Have you some business with Mr. Thornfield, or may I congratulate you upon a trip devoted to pleasure?”

  He chuckled, an oily sound. “I fear it is a private matter. Old friends, you understand, and what with Mr. Thornfield having so recently taken possession of this magnificent estate—I absolutely had to see him, and dear Sahjara as well.”

  Mr. Thornfield’s fingers tensed as if a poisonous insect had appeared, one in need of smashing.

  “I thought it had been some nine months since,” I observed.

  “Correct, as you doubtless always are, Miss Stone. I encountered Thornfield here at my former assistant Mr. John Clements’s funeral four days ago; I was most distressed that he had not sought me out sooner, as I’ve been back in London since August.”

  Mr. Thornfield threw down his napkin. “That’s the worst thing about funerals—not only is someone you once liked dead, but there’s an indecorous number of people you don’t like swarming about.”

  Augustus Sack only smiled; if a grubworm had smiled, it would have looked similar.

  “I should have offered you condolences, had I been aware,” I ventured to Mr. Thornfield.

  “Are you offering ’em now, or merely filling uncomfortable silences?”

  It would have been easy to take offence at this, but the master of the house took no pleasure in the dig himself. His long white hair was neatly tied, his collar and jacket perfect, his slab jaw smooth—but he ought to have been regaling our houseguest over tales of my clumsiness, and instead he appeared almost frightened.

  Augustus Sack began to nod as if a profound point had been made. “Miss Stone, Thornfield here values discretion to the point that he errs on the side of secrecy. Mr. John Clements was my assistant, as I mentioned already—he was most instrumental in helping Thornfield regain his health following the Battle of Sobraon. Four of us, in fact, were close as brothers during the first war, serving at the behest of the Director: Thornfield, myself, Clements, and a David Lavell, who was Sahjara’s father.”

  When I turned to her in surprise, Sahjara’s face was angled downward. “I don’t remember him at all. It’s shameful.”

  “That’s the least shameful facet of your character, you magnificent nitwit.” Mr. Thornfield rapped his knuckles twice against the table. “Sack, I must suggest that, having conveyed your best greetings, you now—”

  “It pains me to think how few of us remain from the small set of British in Lahore before the regime fell.” Mr. Sack affected an air of wisdom, but it looked merely as if he were about to sneeze. “Matters were so confused—who was friend, and who foe? Who amongst the Khalsa did not scheme, and who amongst the Company did not plot?”

  The master of the house pushed back his chair. “We aren’t discussing this here,” he said, but it was his teeth speaking, pressed tight with rage.

  “Of course, your … unusual closeness to Sikh affairs rendered your own judgement so much more nuanced than that of the other members of the British regime. I know the Director always thought so.”

  “Stop talking in riddles, it’s nauseating. I don’t have what you’re after, so what more do you want from me, damn you?” Mr. Thornfield’s fist clenched as it struck the table, but a distressed sound from Sahjara caused him to soften a second later.

  “Want?” Mr. Sack swivelled his pink countenance, smirking. “Only to reminisce—poor John Clements’s death, oh, you’ll find it excessively sentimental, but I couldn’t bear to think your own call to immortality might come, Thornfield, with so much left unsaid between us.”

  “Mr. Sack, your carriage has been brought round front.”

  Mr. Sardar Singh stood at the end of the dining table with his hands clasped behind him, wearing a sympathetic frown as if he were the bearer of unfortunate news. Sahjara shifted, eyes darting anxiously, whilst Mr. Thornfield’s expressive face set in a look of quiet determination.

  “Ah, there you are,” Mr. Augustus Sa
ck purred. “What’s this talk of carriages? No indeed, I’ve a great deal to discuss with you both.”

  “Your coachman is under unequivocal instructions to take you wherever you should care to go.”

  “Of all the—whose unequivocal instructions, you scoundrel?” Mr. Sack snarled. “Confound it, you’re the entire reason I—”

  “Mine, sir.”

  The already stifling tension twined about our necks. Mr. Sack spluttered, then emitted a laugh which sounded like the yapping of a wild fox.

  “Thornfield, any man who once juggled so many export concerns is doubtless most effective at household management, but is this really your idea of a proper butler? His joke is in decidedly poor taste.”

  “Do you know, Sardar hardly ever jokes,” Mr. Thornfield replied, shaking his head sadly. “A deficit in foreign breeding, I’ve always assumed.”

  “I am remiss in the arena of humour more than any other.” Sardar Singh placed one hand regretfully over his heart.

  “That man could run an empire, but when it comes to puns? Satirical drolleries? He’s positively dismal.”

  “After many fruitless attempts at improvement, I have abandoned hope.”

  “What the hell are you two playing at?” Mr. Sack snarled.

  A natural unspoken understanding crackled among Mr. Thornfield and Mr. Singh and Sahjara, fast and ferocious as a thunderstorm, and I felt a surge of irrational jealousy.

  “A brick,” said Mr. Thornfield, the glimmer of a wicked smile now lurking behind his mouth, “could be on display in the warm glow of the stage footlights and garner more chuckles than Mr. Sardar Singh.”

  “You will rue the day you ever dreamt of mocking me,” Mr. Sack growled, lurching up.

  “No, no, that’s the crux of the thing!” Mr. Thornfield cried. “When Mr. Singh says that your carriage is ready—”

  “And that you are about to travel away in it,” the butler added, idly examining his fingernails.

  “Then it’s absolutely inevitable.”

  It happened so quickly that I must have blinked and missed it—one second, Mr. Augustus Sack’s rosy cherub’s cheeks were purpling, and the next, all the blood drained from his visage as he beheld the knife in Mr. Singh’s hand.

  “You pack of bloody infidels!” Mr. Sack cried. “Do you honestly think you can threaten a Company man?”

  “Oh, ’pon my word, yes.” Mr. Thornfield had risen now, and another knife glinted from his slack, practiced grip.

  “Don’t test them,” Sahjara warned, arm extended, and I saw that what I had always imagined merely a silver hair ornament was also a blade.

  “Sahjara!” I threw out a protective forearm.

  “Miss Stone has a knife too, Sack,” Mr. Thornfield drawled. “It’s part of our dress uniform, don’t y’know.”

  “You cannot seriously intend to defy me!” Mr. Sack backed towards the door, soft hands trembling. Strangely, he seemed to address Mr. Singh.

  “It’s as serious as a Turkish prison,” Mr. Thornfield hissed.

  “I’ll have it out of you one way or another,” Mr. Sack spat, jabbing a finger at Sahjara. “That nasty puppet—”

  “Get out,” Mr. Singh commanded, and now his voice was harder than the metal in his hand. “I’ll not ask again.”

  Mr. Augustus Sack bared his teeth and turned on his heel. For several tightly stretched seconds we waited; then the grind of carriage wheels reached our ears, and I snatched up my crutch and limped to the window, staring with Sahjara under my arm as the neat black coach exited the grounds of Highgate House.

  Faintly, I asked, “Do many of your guests depart at knifepoint?”

  “Oh, I should not say very many.” Mr. Singh sat, drawing a pot of porridge near and spooning himself a portion. “But when they do, inevitably I find my appetite improved.”

  We were all quiet, a quiet as odd and yet as comfortable as any I had ever experienced, before I succumbed to helpless laughter. Mr. Thornfield likewise chuckled, and pressed his glove to Sahjara’s temple when she went to him, sliding the silver comb back into her hair.

  When his eyes met mine, however, they were grave blue pools—I confess myself likewise sobered, and my ankle began to send invisible darts into my calf.

  Mrs. Garima Kaur appeared, short of breath and eyes flashing. She fired off a rapid series of questions to Mr. Singh in their own language; his replies did not seem to please her, however, for she snarled and gestured at the outer door. Mr. Thornfield interjected in the same tongue, but she would have none of him, aiming another volley at Mr. Singh. When he had reassured her once more, she hissed in frustration and quit the dining room.

  “Garima is understandably unsettled—Augustus Sack labours under the delusion we have something of value. A trunk of Sahjara’s went missing long ago, and the deuced cur can’t cease thinking on it,” Mr. Thornfield said to me quietly, causing my ears to prick. “Our friend John Clements’s death dredged all this up again—the ghastly affair is long past, but Sack is equal parts cunning and stupidity, a combination peculiar to a certain breed of East India Company executive, damn ’em. I apologise, Miss Stone. Had I not been cowering before the tip of your own blade last night, I should perhaps have worried over offending your notion of a civil breakfast.”

  “I can’t even remember why I don’t like him.” Sahjara’s eyes were wide and wet. “It was all so long ago and far away. I don’t like him, though.”

  “There’s the Young Marvel for you—sharp as a bayonet.” Mr. Thornfield framed her cheeks with clothed palms.

  “Was I awful, though—ought I to like him?”

  “You don’t like him, darling. You like him as much as you like black pudding. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I think so. Miss Stone’s accident, Mr. Sack coming to call—it’s too many troubles at once,” she lamented, drying her eyes with Mr. Thornfield’s kerchief.

  “So often the way,” Mr. Singh said under his breath, “with troubles.”

  “Sardar?” Mr. Thornfield said softly.

  “Mr. Thornfield.”

  “Might I speak a word in your ear—say, after supper, in the drawing room?”

  “Nothing could please me more.” Mr. Singh ducked his frothy beard to us, cleared his small bowl of porridge, placed the remaining soiled china on a tray, and disappeared.

  For several seconds, I stood at a complete loss as to how a human being should behave under these specific circumstances; thankfully, Mr. Thornfield spoke.

  “Sahjara, I require your absence. Flee, fly, flit. I need to speak with Miss Stone about a few cautions relevant to the new mare you’re to begin riding on Monday.” Mr. Thornfield smiled, and it struck me that when he was not bored over his own jokes, his smiles were as warm as a fireside.

  “Truly? Oh, thank you, thank you! That is, if you think me capable.”

  “What is she playing at?” Mr. Thornfield pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose in mock chagrin. “Young Marvel, thank you for defending me against a badmash.* Now be gone, that I might inform Miss Stone of your new riding regimen.”

  Sahjara curtsied, so happy her head might have split from her grin, and quit the room.

  I went to the window, attempting to calm myself; but hardly had I arrived before I saw the master hesitantly approaching, a stiff-backed reflection in the prophetic windowpane.

  “Miss Stone, are you quite well?”

  His awkwardness put me at once at my ease. “Very well, sir. How are you?”

  “Oh, don’t mimic my pretences to English manners, for God’s sake, it’s hardly sporting.” Flashing a grim smile, he continued, “You’ve questions, no doubt; and I am willing to trade the commodity, for though I did seek an unusual governess—”

  “You hadn’t anticipated the scope of my abnormality.” I sought the cool of the glass and leant my head against it, as much to mask my fright as in genuine fatigue.

  You’ve scarce had time to dash off a letter to your mother’s solicitor and you’re
already being tossed back into the gutter.

  “And therefore I propose you dine with me this evening.”

  “Of course, I can hardly blame—” I broke off. “You propose what?”

  “Dining. You’ve, ah, heard of the practice? It takes place in the evening hours more generally—at least, north of the Sutlej it does.”

  “Mr. Thornfield,” I announced, “you owe me dinner at the very least over the vast number of weapons displayed just now.”

  “Of course.” A peculiarly endearing crease appeared at the edge of his right eye, encroaching upon his temple. “I’ve had a blow, Miss Stone. Sack’s appearance was entirely unexpected. I should never have wished you to see—”

  “I accept your invitation with great enthusiasm, sir.”

  Mr. Thornfield crossed his arms as I limped towards the hall.

  “There have already been multiple moments which cause me to suspect your true self a giant deliberately casting a small shadow,” he reflected just as my crutch passed the threshold.

  Pausing, I struggled to reply.

  “Oh, never fear the ramblings of a former soldier, Miss Stone.” He drew a hand over his neck exhaustedly. “We’re cracked to a man. Go on, I’ve business to attend to.”

  So I shuffled, step-thunk, step-thunk, out of the room and away, reflecting upon the three most immediate tasks before me:

  —comfort Sahjara and learn what you can of what threatens this household

  —navigate dinner with Mr. Thornfield

  —learn to walk silently upon a sprained ankle and thereby perhaps learn a very great deal indeed afterwards

  • • •

  I lay atop my quilt for twenty minutes, taking tiny sips of laudanum, fretting that not only did I understand nothing of the workings of Highgate House but also that I possessed no precedents to guide me.

  Are small girls always as formidable as Sahjara? I wondered.

  Perhaps they were not; but I had been. The fact that we shared a particular home at a particular age was accidental; how then did I find it so binding, as if she were my responsibility not due to the lie which had brought me here but the truth I was discovering—that I liked these people and wished for them to like me in return?