Jane Slayre

by Sherri Browning Erwin

  I derived a strange excitement from thinking of the stakes that I tried to attribute to the wildness of the wind instead. Doubtless the weather made me reckless and feverish. I wished the wind to

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  howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to a clamour.

  Jumping over forms and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fireplaces. There, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.

  "Is it still Rasselas?" I asked, coming behind her.

  "Yes, and I have just finished it." She closed the cover.

  I sat down by her on the floor. "What is your name besides Burns?"

  "Helen."

  "I'm Jane. Jane Slayre. Do you come a long way from here?"

  "I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland."

  "You must wish to leave Lowood." I certainly wouldn't wish to stay if I were beaten and abused like Helen Burns and I had anywhere else to go.

  "No! Why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education, and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object."

  "But that wicked Miss Scatcherd! How do you bear it?"

  "Wicked? Not at all! She is severe. She dislikes my faults."

  "Severe? She might as well be a vampyre." I paused in case Helen showed any reaction to my statement. No glimmer of recognition. I went on, "And if I were in your place, I should dislike her. I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand and--" Dear reader, I stopped myself before I said I should stab it through her heart. "I should break it under her nose."

  "Probably you would do nothing of the sort. But if you did, Mr. Bokorhurst would expel you from the school. That would be a great grief to your relations. Besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil."

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  I wondered that anyone could be so good as Helen Burns truly seemed. I felt that she considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. If vampyres lived and reveled on earth, why, then, couldn't angels? I wondered if Helen Burns could be one of those heavenly beings.

  "You say you have faults, Helen. What are they? To me you seem very good."

  "Then learn not to judge by appearances. I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly, as well as careless, forgetful, and prone to daydreams. When I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd and collecting all she says, often I lose the very sound of her voice and fall into a sort of dream that I am in Northumberland, and the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook that runs through Deepden, near our house. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular."

  "And cross and cruel," I added aloud, and possibly a demon, I thought to myself.

  Helen Burns kept silent at my accusation.

  "Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?" I asked, unable to fathom that one who looked so pure and right as the lovely Miss Temple would allow Miss Scatcherd to be so abusive.

  At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over Helen Burn's grave face. I breathed a sigh of relief. Miss Temple must be all that I assumed, and more.

  "Miss Temple is full of goodness. It pains her to be severe to anyone, even the worst in the school."

  "And when Miss Temple teaches, do your thoughts wander then?"

  "No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections."

  "Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"

  "Yes, in a passive way. I make no effort. I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness."

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  "I believe there is a great deal. You are good to those who are good to you. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way. They would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard. I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."

  Helen smiled. "You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older. As yet you are but a little untaught girl."

  A little untaught girl who had stood up to injustice. Helen Burns might be older and more schooled, but she truly had no idea of evil. Once I'd faced John Reed and gave free vent of my feelings to Mrs. Reed, my life had changed. I believed I was very much in the right.

  "I don't know if I will change." I thought of my uncle Reed's visitation. Would he have encouraged me to pursuit of defence against evil were it truly wrong?

  "It is not violence that best overcomes hate--nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."

  "What then?" I challenged her. There was no walking away from a vampyre should one decide to make you his dinner. Only in fighting back did one stand a chance, and that most effectively when one knew appropriate techniques. Eventually, perhaps, I would find my people. I would train and learn.

  "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."

  "Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son, John, which is impossible."

  In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I poured out the tale of my sufferings and resentments, without actually mentioning that the Reeds were unnatural in any way. Though I had threatened Mrs. Reed with exposure, it was another thing to actually tell what she was to those who might not understand. I had already been accused of lying and deceit to Mr. Bokorhurst. The last

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  thing I wanted was to encourage such a reputation on myself. Besides, I had no idea how Helen would react to such news, or if she would believe me at all. In the rest, though, I had no restraint. Of their regular treatment of me at Gateshead, I spoke as I felt, bitter and truculent, without reserve or softening.

  Helen heard me patiently to the end. I expected she would then comment, but she said nothing.

  "Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?"

  "She has been unkind to you, no doubt, because perhaps she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs."

  Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this sentence, as if she were suddenly spent. A monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up.

  "Helen Burns," she said in a great loud voice. "If you don't go and put your drawer in order and fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!"

  For all the monitor's volume, her words had no intonation, as if she were an automaton. Like the girl who had given me her food at my first evening meal, this one also reminded me, oddly, of Miss Abbot at Gateshead. Something about her pallor and the sunken hollows of her cheeks. I wondered if she, too, had been giving up her meals.

  Helen sighed as her reverie fled and, getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply or delay.

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  CHAPTER 7

  DURING JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church. Within these limits, we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold.

  One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, I caught sight of a figure just passing. I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline. When, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose en masse, I didn't need to look up to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Templ
e, who herself had risen, stood the same black giant who had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead; Mr. Bokorhurst, buttoned up in a black coat, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.

  Too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, the promise pledged by Mr. Bokorhurst to inform Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfillment of this promise. Would Miss Scatcherd find a new potential whipping girl? Perhaps Helen Burns could step aside as the notorious slattern of Lowood school.

  He stood next to Miss Temple and spoke low in her ear. I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy, and I watched her with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see her bright gaze turn on me in a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened, too, and as I was seated quite at the top of the room and his deep

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  voice was much louder and more resonant than he seemed aware, I caught most of what he said, relieving me from immediate apprehension.

  "I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do? I wish the wool stockings were better treated. When I was here last, I went into the garden and examined the clothes drying on the line. There was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair. I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time."

  "Your directions will be attended to, sir." She nodded in his direction.

  "Also, Miss Temple"--he cleared his throat vigorously--"I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? And by what authority?"

  "I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir. The breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it. I dared not allow them to remain fasting until dinnertime."

  "Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is to ensure they do not become accustomed to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!" Mr. Bokorhurst again paused, perhaps overcome by his feelings.

  Miss Temple was looking down when he first began to speak to her, but she now gazed straight in front of her. Her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material.

  Mr. Bokorhurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. "And how are our special students? Blending in?"

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  "Quite well, sir."

  My ears pricked at mention of special students. I listened more intently.

  "Their devotion and strict obedience should be inspiring countless others. You have followed my instructions to the letter? If one morsel of food passes their lips, it would prove disastrous for the others. If they should come in contact with meat--"

  "No meals. Of course. If I may speak plainly, sir, there's not much about them to stir inspiration in others. They exist for work, and work alone. They're responsive, but without the spark and fire of real livelihood--of life--to allow for original thought or creative impulses. I'm afraid--"

  I stifled a gasp. She might have been describing Abbot had she only added narcolepsy and detachable limbs! And no meals? How could they exist?

  "Afraid, Miss Temple?" He seemed more perturbed at her sudden concern over these "special students" than he had over the idea of comforting us with unauthorised bread and cheese. "There is no room for fear when the Lord calls us to do His bidding."

  "What troubles me, Mr. Bokorhurst, is that I'm not sure the Lord would look kindly on your new--"

  "You speak too plainly now!" he cut her off in an angry tone. "Have a care, Miss Temple. Have a care. I hired you as superintendent here because I felt you were uniquely qualified with the forward-reaching vision I need to bring Lowood to a shining new future. Perhaps I erred in judgment after all? Miss Scatcherd would be more than willing to take over should you find yourself unworthy of the task."

  Miss Temple looked shaken. "No, sir. I'm very pleased with my position and feel capable to continue on."

  "Very well." He continued to survey us, his humble subjects.

  In that moment, I cared not a whit for Mr. Bokorhurst's supposed mortality. Vampyre or no, I wanted to stake him through the heart for giving Miss Temple a fright. I would absolutely never take the

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  life of another human being. It was out of the question. But Mr. Bokorhurst did tempt me. I found myself wishing I could discover some terrible secret about him, something that might require me to save humanity by removing him from existence.

  To avoid discovery during Mr. Bokohurst's entire visit, I had sat well back on the form and, while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face. I might have escaped notice had not my treacherous slate somehow slipped from my hand, falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawing every eye upon me. I knew it was all over now, and as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came.

  "A careless girl!" said Mr. Bokorhurst. "It is the new pupil, I perceive. I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her. Let the child who broke her slate come forward!"

  Of my own accord I could not have stirred. I was paralysed, but the two great girls who were seated on each side of me set me on my legs and pushed me towards the dread judge. Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet.

  "Don't be afraid, Jane," she said. "I saw it was an accident. You shall not be punished."

  The kind whisper went to my heart like a stake.

  Another minute and she would despise me for a hypocrite, perhaps. Fury raged in me at the likes of the Reeds, Miss Scatcherd, Mr. Bokorhurst. Human cruelty could be as vile as any demon's actions. I was no Helen Burns.

  "Fetch that stool," said Mr. Bokorhurst, pointing to a high one from which a monitor had just risen. It was brought. "Place the child upon it."

  I was placed there, by whom I don't know. I was in no condition to note particulars. I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Bokorhurst's nose, and pastille-tinged breath, that he was within a yard of me.

  "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl? My

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  dear children, it becomes my duty to warn you that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her. If necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul, for this girl is--a liar!"

  Mr. Bokorhurst paused, as if for dramatic effect, then resumed.

  "This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity, the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity. We are prepared to deal with her here. Let her stand half an hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day." With that, he turned for the door and exited.

  There was I, then, mounted aloft at the centre of the room. I was filled with fury at the injustice. Mrs. Reed was the liar, yet was I to bear the punishment for her words? Just as my anger was about to get the best of me, Helen Burns walked by and smiled. She asked Miss Smith some slight question about her work, was scolded for the triviality of the inquiry, and smiled at me as she again went by and r
eturned to her place. What a smile! It lit up her thin face, her blue eyes, like the reflection of an angel.

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  CHAPTER 8

  WITHIN THE HALF HOUR, five o'clock struck. School was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory. I decided it was safe to get down and I ventured through the darkening room to a corner, where I sank down to the floor. I would have wept, but I found myself laughing when I remembered Mr. Bokorhurst's face contorting as he denounced my evil ways. Laughing alone was not as much fun as sharing the sentiment, and I wished that Helen Burns were with me. I had nothing, no one, and precious little chance of recovering from the horrible impression created by Mr. Bokorhurst by way of Mrs. Reed.

  I had meant to be so good, and to do so much at Lowood, to make so many friends, to earn respect and win affection. Already I had made visible progress. That very morning I had reached the head of my class. Miss Miller had praised me warmly. Miss Temple had smiled approvingly in my direction. I was well received by my fellow pupils and treated as an equal by those of my own age. One afternoon visit from Mr. Bokorhurst was enough to erase all the positives and level me low. Could I ever rise again?

  I heard a sound nearby and startled. Helen Burns had come in quietly and was crossing the room.

  She brought my coffee and bread. "Come, eat something. You need to keep your spirits up. It's not as bad as all that."

  Of all people, Helen Burns should know. She suffered regular humiliations without shedding so much as a tear.

  "I probably should cry, but I was actually having a laugh. I must be wicked. I can't help but smile when I think of the expression on Mr. Bokorhurst's face, as if he'd swallowed our burnt porridge."

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