Jane
Jane stood across the road from the Tully Pub, her gaze fixed upon the door. The scent of pork scratchings and pickled eggs wafting from the building made her stomach cramp painfully. Her supper of a spoonful of porridge and a half glass of water were hardly adequate sustenance for a girl of eighteen. (But at least the single spoonful of porridge tasted better now that Mr. Brocklehurst was dead, she thought, which was a small comfort.)
A man came down the road. Jane checked for a mask, but he was a regular man, wearing regular clothing and walking in a regular manner. He glanced in her direction but did not notice her, and then he swung the door to the pub wide open—inside was warm firelight and more men and a burst of raucous laughter and music—and disappeared into the room, the door slamming shut behind him.
She sighed. Before she’d arrived, she had expected to see a sign across the door of the pub reading “Keep out! Exorcism of Screaming Ghost Lady, and other Regular Maintenance.” Surely a “relocation,” or whatever it was called, would be a big to-do. But she’d been standing there for nearly half an hour, and in that time men had been freely coming and going out of the pub as they would any other night. Young women like Jane didn’t belong in pubs, but she had to know if there was a ghost, and she really had to know what the Society would do to said ghost.
Jane, you see, had always believed in ghosts. When she was a small girl she’d lived with her horrible aunt Reed and two equally horrible cousins, and one night her aunt had forced Jane to sleep in the “Red Room.” (This room had red wallpaper, red curtains, and red carpets—hence the name “Red Room.”) It was creepy, and Jane had always imagined it was haunted by some shadowy, evil spirit. When Aunt Reed locked her in there, Jane tearfully begged to be let out, then screamed until she was hoarse, and finally fainted dead away—her heart, unbeknownst to Jane, actually stopped beating, so great was her terror.
She literally died of fright, if only for a moment. And when she opened her eyes again her late uncle was kneeling next to her, and he smiled at her kindly.
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I was worried,” he said.
“Uncle? How . . . are you?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say to him. She knew she was being terribly rude, since clearly her uncle wasn’t doing very well due to the fact that he’d been dead for years.
“I’ve been better,” he replied. “Can you do me a quick favor?”
In the morning, when she was finally let out of the Red Room, Jane had marched right up to her aunt and informed her that Uncle Reed was quite perturbed. He had loved Jane—and as he was dying he’d made Aunt Reed promise to take good care of her, to “love her like a daughter.” But Aunt Reed had obviously interpreted those words to mean “treat her like an indentured servant, and maybe starve her a bit for your own pleasure.” For starved Jane had been, and generally mistreated, and Uncle Reed had taken note of it all from beyond the grave, and now he demanded that Aunt Reed make amends.
“He wants you to remember your promise,” Jane explained. “He’d just like you to try to be a bit nicer.”
Aunt Reed had responded by calling Jane a “liar” and a “devil child” and sending her away to Lowood, where Mr. Brocklehurst had also labeled her a “disobedient heathen girl who was headed straight for hell.” But Jane never questioned what she’d seen. In her heart she knew that she’d really conversed with her dead uncle because it was the only moment of Jane’s rather tragic life when she’d felt that she’d been part of a real family.
She never spoke of her uncle now, of course. Not to anyone. In Jane’s experience, talking about it usually led to some form of punishment.
She stared at the tavern, her stomach grumbling loudly.
“Are you hungry, too?”
The soft voice startled her. She turned to discover a raggedly dressed little girl standing beside her. A street urchin.
“I’m hungry,” reported the child. “I’m always hungry.”
Jane glanced around. The street was deserted, save for herself and the urchin.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve nothing for you to eat,” Jane whispered.
The girl smiled. “I want to be pretty like you when I grow up.”
Jane shook her head at the wildly inaccurate compliment and turned her attention back to the pub.
“Are you going in there?” asked the girl. “I’ve heard it’s haunted.”
Yes. There was a ghost in there, and since nothing was happening outside, Jane must go in to see it. “Stay here,” she said to the urchin, and then hurried across the road. She took a deep breath and pushed through the door of the pub.
She’d done it. She’d gone inside.
The pub was packed. The scent of liquor mixed with body odor assaulted her senses. For a moment she felt paralyzed, unsure of what to do now that her waning burst of courage had propelled her into the tavern. There was no ghost that she could see. Perhaps Charlotte had been wrong.
She should ask. Of course, that would mean she would have to speak to a man. Jane had wistful fantasies about boys, but these were men. They were hairy and smelly and huge. It seemed utterly impossible to have a conversation with one of these drunken men lurching about the pub.
She did not belong here. She lowered her head, slyly pinched her nose to shut out the dreadful man smells, and barreled through the crowd toward the bar. (At least, Jane would call it barreling. We would describe it as delicately weaving.) At her approach the barkeep glanced up.
“Can I help you, miss?” he asked. “Are you lost?”
“No,” she said hoarsely. “No, at least I don’t think I’m lost. Is this the . . . establishment . . . where . . .”
“Where what?” asked the barkeep. “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
Her corset felt horribly tight. (It was. That was rather the point of corsets.)
“Here. On the house.” The barkeep poured a glass of brandy and slid it over. For a moment Jane looked utterly scandalized that he should offer her such a thing. Then she snatched up the glass and took a sip. The liquid fire seared down her esophagus. She gasped and put the glass down. “Is this the place where the—”
She had just started to pronounce the word ghost when an unearthly shriek filled the room. Jane jerked her gaze upward to behold a woman in a white nightdress hovering in the air above the bar. The woman’s hair was raven black, floating all around her head like she was caught in an underwater current. Her skin was almost entirely translucent, but her eyes glowed like coals.
She was perhaps the most beautiful ghost Jane had ever seen. And Jane had seen her share of ghosts.
“Just ask your question, miss,” the barkeep was saying, his eyes still fixed on Jane. “I haven’t got all night, you know.”
He obviously didn’t see the ghost.
“Never mind.” Jane took another sip of the brandy and backed away from the bar to better regard the unhappy spirit.
“Where did they take him?” the ghost moaned. “Where did they take my husband?”
Jane felt a tug of pity for the woman.
“Where is he?” cried the ghost.
How awful, Jane thought, to be parted from one’s true love, to be so cruelly severed from one’s other half, like losing a part of your very soul. It was terrible. But also . . . terribly romantic.
“I know he’s here somewhere!” shrieked the ghost. “He always is. I’ve got a few things to say to him, I’ll tell you what. That good-for-nothing Billy-born-drunk!”
Oh. Oh, dear.
The ghost raised her arm and swatted at Jane’s brandy glass. It went flying, whizzing past Jane’s left ear, and crashed into the back wall.
“Cricum jiminy!” exclaimed the barkeep, because he had obviously noticed the flight of the brandy glass. “The Shrieking Lady’s back!” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Right on schedule.”
“Not worth a rap!” bellowed the ghost. “The boozer!” She swept around the room in a whoosh of cold wind and then back to the bar, knocking the clock off the wall for good measure. “The muck snipe!”
“Where’s the blooming Society?” the barkeep groaned. “They’re supposed to be here.”
“I know you’re hiding that ratbag!” The Shrieking Lady grabbed the bottle of brandy and lobbed it at the barkeep’s head. Her aim was true. Down he went, without another word.
This wouldn’t do at all. Jane ducked so that she would be less of a target, and crawled and slid and scurried until she was safely tucked away behind the bar, where she could use the unconscious barkeep as a shield. (Always thinking of others, that Jane.) The hem of her dress was sticking to the booze-soaked floor, which was unfortunate, but unpreventable at this point.
She peered around the incapacitated barkeep to watch the ghastly scene continue to unfold. The Shrieking Lady kept demanding to see her degenerate husband, all the while hurling things about the room. The bar patrons were cursing and bumping into one another in their haste to steer clear of the ghost, although they didn’t seem to be particularly interested in vacating the pub. They were probably used to it.
What a mess, thought Jane glumly as the Shrieking Lady sent a huge jar of pickled eggs crashing to the floor. By now she was feeling markedly less pity for the woman. This ghost is definitely troublesome, she concluded. So where was the blooming—oh dear, pardon her French—Society?
At that exact moment, as if her thoughts had conjured him, a man in a black mask jumped onto a table in the center of the room. He took a small object out of his pocket and threw it against the wall.
It exploded with a flash and a bang.
The crowd stilled. Then all faces turned to stare in open-mouthed silence at the masked man.
Jane caught herself staring, too, her breath catching—although, again, that could have just been her corset. She shoved the barkeep aside to get a better look.
The agent was a young man—even wearing the mask, that much was clear—although Jane wouldn’t call him a boy, either. Most of the men of this era had a mustache or, at the very least, sideburns, but he had neither. Jane wouldn’t call him handsome. (In the pre-Victorian age, a truly handsome man should be pale—because being out in the sun was for peasants—with a long, oval-shaped face, a narrow jaw, a small mouth, and a pointy chin. We know. We can’t believe it, either.) This young man’s jaw was decidedly square, and his hair was too long. But he was obviously of the upper class, wearing a fine wool coat and expensive-looking leather gloves.
“Everybody out!” he shouted, and Jane ducked behind the bar.
The crowd immediately exited in an orderly fashion. The room was now empty save for another masked man, this one younger than the first, definitely a boy, and wearing a much shabbier suit. Apparently they came in pairs.
The one with the exploding thing jumped down off the table.
“Now pay close attention,” he said to the second agent. “First we clear the room. Then we confirm the identity of the spirit.”
The spirit. Jane had almost forgotten. She glanced up to see the ghost. The Shrieking Lady had long since stopped shrieking, too busy staring at the agents.
The one in charge produced a small, black leather-bound notebook from an inner pocket of his coat, and a pencil. He opened the book gently, in a way that reminded Jane of Charlotte, and turned to a marked page.
“Tell me your name, spirit,” he directed at the ghost, sounding almost bored.
The Shrieking Lady pressed her back against the ceiling but refused to answer. The other agent, the short one with the mop of red hair and glasses—which Jane noticed he wore over his mask—stepped forward. “You should really answer him,” he said, looking at the ghost. “Please.”
The one in charge shushed the redhead. He turned to the ghost again. “You are Claire Doolittle, are you not?”
“I lost him,” the ghost whispered. She sounded suddenly forlorn. “They took him.”
“Took who?” The agent consulted his notebook. “Your husband? He was thrown into debtors’ prison, if I’m not mistaken. A gambling problem.”
The ghost swayed from left to right, but said nothing.
The agent glanced down at his notebook again. “His name was Frances Doolittle.”
“Frank,” the ghost sneered. “He was a hornswoggler.”
“Frank,” said the agent, jotting that down. “Hornswoggler.” He reached into his pocket again and drew out a silver pocket watch. “All right,” he said to the second agent, “now observe this closely. When capturing a spirit—”
The ghost let out a wail so loud and so mournful that Jane’s stomach twisted with a new wave of pity. Then the Shrieking Lady snatched the watch from the agent’s grasp. At least that’s what she tried to do, but failed, as the watch passed through her insubstantial hand and clattered onto the floor.
The next events happened in quick succession:
The agent in charge reached for the pocket watch on the floor.
The ghost sensed an escape window and darted downward from the ceiling.
“She flees!” cried the redhead.
The agent in charge leapt nimbly through the air and landed beside the ghost. “Get the watch! It’s—” But he couldn’t finish the order because the redhead clumsily lunged forward and dove to tackle the ghost, but instead of tackling her, he—naturally—flew right through her and landed in a pile next to Jane’s hiding place behind the bar.
At which point Jane shot to her feet.
All eyes fell on Jane, including the ghost’s.
“Uh, good evening.” Jane waved. “I was, um . . . sleeping . . . sweeping . . . then sleeping.”
A moment of complete silence passed. Nobody moved, except the redheaded one, who groaned and rubbed his temple. But the ghost began to drift purposefully toward Jane.
“Sleeping,” the first agent said skeptically.
“I . . . I . . .” Jane stammered. “I was drunk. From the drinking of . . . the brandy.”
“Right.”
By now, the Shrieking Lady was uncomfortably close to Jane, who tried with all her might to pretend she couldn’t see the wayward spirit.
“Hello,” the ghost said.
Jane could feel the masked man’s eyes on hers. She quickly glanced at the ceiling. A table. The painting on the wall. Anywhere but at the ghost.
“You are so beautiful,” the ghost breathed.
Jane’s cheeks went red. She never knew how to answer to this, mostly because living persons had been telling her all her life how very plain she was.
What a commonplace girl.
And . . .
Oh dear. I do hope she can secure a position . . . somewhere.
And . . .
Oh goodness. How unexceptional. (She always wondered why, if she was so unexceptional, did people feel the need to comment on it?)
To ghosts, however, she was the epitome of beauty.
This left Jane to believe that something was seriously askew in the afterlife.
“You’re so like my Jamie,” the Shrieking Lady continued. “With the sun setting behind him.” Jane didn’t know who this Jamie person was, but the dead woman obviously felt entirely different about him than she had about her husband. “A soft breeze ruffling his red hair,” she cooed.
Jane’s hand, almost of its own accord, reached up and brushed away a few strands of her unexceptional hair from her unexceptional eyes, as she tried desperately, tenaciously, to ignore the ghost.
The agent in charge glanced from Jane to the ghost and back again, his head tilted to one side.
“Oh my, would you look at the time.” Jane gestured to where, until a few moments ago, the clock had been hanging on the wall. “I must go.”
The dratted ghost breezed even closer. Jane had seen this type before. This could turn into a fly-on-flypaper situation. Which she could not let happen now.
She took another two steps back. The ghost floated two steps forward. “I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” she said in a sigh. “You’re truly radiant.” She wrapped her arms about Jane.
Jane smiled nervously at the men. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt your important work. So I will just stand here. Not moving.”
The agent in charge frowned at Jane in a puzzled way. Then he bent and picked up the pocket watch from the floor. He walked cautiously toward Jane and the ghost. When he reached the apparition he whispered, “Spirit, you are hereby relocated.”
“What are you doing?” Jane asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he raised the pocket watch high into the air and bopped the ghost on the head with it.
(We understand, reader, this is an extremely pedestrian way to describe something, this “bopping on the head.” But after numerous revisions and several visits with a thesaurus, that really is the most adequate description. He bopped it on the head.)
A frigid blast of air blew Jane’s hair from her face. The silver pocket watch glowed, and then, to Jane’s horror, sucked the ghost in. Poof—Claire Doolittle was gone. Gone. But where?
Jane stared at the pocket watch, hoping the ghost was all right, but the watch vibrated and shook and jerked away like the ghost was trying to escape. The agent dangled the watch by its chain until it stilled. Then he made a move to toss it to the redhead, but at the last moment seemed to think better of it, and wrapped the watch in a scrap of fabric before returning it to his pocket.
It was all so sinister. “Where did she go? Is she in there?” For a moment Jane completely forgot herself.
The agent turned to look at her sharply. “So you did see her.”
Drat. Ever since the Red Room, Jane had operated by the following set of rules:
Rule #1. Never tell anyone that she could see ghosts. Never. Ever. Ever.
Rule #2. Never interact with or speak to a ghost in the presence of a living person.
Rule #3. No matter how tempted she was, no matter how interesting the ghost, no matter how pressing the situation seemed to be, refer to rules #1 and #2.
“No, I—I didn’t see her,” Jane stammered. “It, I mean. I saw nothing.”
The agent narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”
“No one, sir.”
“You’re obviously someone,” he countered. “You’re a seer, at the very least. And you came from somewhere. Where?” His notebook was in his hand again. Jane felt a surge of panic. In spite of her strict adherence to the rules concerning ghosts (which were more like guidelines, really), she was not a very good liar.
“I assure you, sir, I am no one worth noting,” she said, although this did nothing to stop his obvious noting of her in his notebook. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m very late.” She gave a quick curtsy and started for the door, but the agent stepped into her path.
“You’re late? Who could be expecting you at this hour?”
“My students,” she blurted. “I’m an instructor. I am teaching maths.”
“You teach mathematics in the middle of the night.”
“Yes,” Jane agreed. “Imagine how worried my students must be.”
The agent frowned and was obviously about to question her further, but at that moment the barkeep (having only now regained consciousness) stood up from behind the bar. “What happened?” he asked groggily.
The agent narrowed his eyes at the barkeep. “Who are you, sir?”
“I’m Pete. Obviously.” He rubbed the goose egg on the back of his head. “I own the place. You’re wearing a mask. You’re from the Society. Did you get the ghost?”
“Yes,” the agent said.
“I’m sorry I missed it.” Pete surveyed the destruction of his pub. “Good riddance, I say.”
The agent turned back to Jane, who had been silently sidestepping toward the door. “At what school do you teach?” he asked her.
She stopped. “Oh, I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”
“There is a school nearby,” the redhead piped up from behind them. “Do you teach at Lowood? Perhaps you are acquainted with—”
“I suppose now you’ll be wanting to be paid,” the barkeep interrupted, clearly impatient to get on with his business of straightening up the pub and reopening it. He scratched his chin. “Ten pounds, was it?”
“Fifteen,” the agent clarified, reluctantly turning his attention away from Jane as Pete the bar-owner went to fetch his purse and then slowly, grumpily, counted the coins off into the agent’s hand. In shillings, not pounds, which was going to take a while.
That was all the opportunity she needed. Jane fled, pausing only to swipe a pickled egg or two from the floor on her way out, because she had learned never to leave a room with free food without grabbing some.
“Wait, I still wish to speak with you,” the agent called after her as Pete continued to count out the cash with excruciating slowness. “Wait!”
But Jane was out the door. The street urchin was still standing in the exact spot where Jane had left her.
“Did you see a ghost?” the child asked.
“Run, urchin, run!” Jane cried. The little girl sprinted away, and Jane ran, too.
The moment Jane stepped across the school boundaries, Mr. Brocklehurst appeared.
“Miss Eyre! What are you doing skulking about at this hour! I’ve caught you!” He pointed to the ground beneath his feet. “You shall be made to kneel on Cook’s cornmeal!”
The scars on Jane’s knees prickled at the thought. But happily Mr. Brocklehurst was dead.
Which, sadly, had not made him any less annoying.
“You know, I had a wife,” he said, wiping a nonexistent tear from his nonexistent face. “And children. What will become of them now?”
Jane considered feeling bad for him, but then a few victims of the Graveyard Disease floated by, and she decided against it.
“You’re looking well, Miss Eyre,” Mr. Brocklehurst noticed, his eyes narrowing. “Please don’t tell me they have increased food rations at the school. I’ll have Miss Temple’s hide for this!”
Jane’s stomach growled. The pickled eggs had done little to take the edge off. She pushed past the ghost and headed for the second floor.
“Come back here at once!” Mr. Brocklehurst shouted. “Miss Eyre!”
“Oh, leave me alone,” Jane muttered. “You can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Mr. Brocklehurst huffed, but to her relief he did not follow.
In the stairwell she came upon Charlotte curled up with a candle, writing. She was always writing, always, oblivious to the rest of the world, scribbling away into that notebook she carried around. Jane was exceedingly fond of Charlotte. The girl was a bit peculiar, but that only made Jane like her more. Charlotte was Jane’s favorite non-dead person at Lowood, but Jane was too frazzled for conversation at the moment.
She had almost passed by unnoticed when Charlotte looked up from her notebook.
“Did you say something about hurting someone?” Charlotte asked. “Tell me more.”
“Oh, Charlotte, good evening. I didn’t see you there.” Jane thought fast for a diversion. “Did you happen to notice the moon tonight?”
“Yes. Very round. Did you say something about hurting someone?” Charlotte held her pencil at the ready.
“Did you write something about hurting someone?” Jane replied.
And just like that, they seemed at an impasse in a contest of some sort, where the opponents had no idea what the contest was about.
“I do apologize, Charlotte, but I’m rather tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”
“Is that Charlotte Brontë?” came Mr. Brocklehurst’s muted voice from downstairs. “Skulking about in the middle of the night? Disgraceful. She should be punished!”
Jane was glad that Charlotte couldn’t hear him.
“Did you go to the pub?” Charlotte asked. “I thought you might. It’s what I would have done, if I were allowed to leave the grounds.”
The girl apparently missed nothing.
Jane attempted to look scandalized. “Why ever would I go to a pub? A young woman of my position does not belong in such a place. So . . . no, no, I certainly did not go to a pub. I was taking a midnight stroll.”
Charlotte nodded. “Was the ghost there? Did you see the men from the Society? Did they capture the ghost? Was it very exciting?”
For a moment Jane was tempted to share her secrets with her friend, but that would definitely be breaking Rule #1, so Jane simply said, “I assure you, it was only a walk in the moonlight. You know I like walking. Well. Good night, Charlotte.”
She made her way up the stairs and to her tiny room.
Where Helen Burns was waiting. Her best friend and favorite ghost in all the world.
“Thank goodness you’re back! What happened?” Helen asked, her translucent cheeks flushed with the fever that had killed her so many years ago.
Jane dropped her face into her hands. “It was terrible. He just . . . bopped that poor ghost over the head.” And then the entire story spilled out of her in a rush.
“So the Society can do all the things the papers claim,” said Helen after Jane had finished talking.
“They can.” Jane kicked off her shoes and began to struggle out of her various layers of repressive clothing. “And they’re cruel. They didn’t even bother talking to the ghost much. They were simply intent on capturing her. And she wasn’t so very troublesome. . . .” Jane recalled the brandy glass smashing against the wall. The clock. The jar of pickled eggs. “Well, she did need help. But she didn’t deserve to be trapped in a pocket watch.”
“A pocket watch. How awful,” Helen said with a shudder. “It must be so cramped. And think of the ticking.”
Jane finished dressing and blew out the candle. The two curled up together on Jane’s small, lumpy bed, as they had always done, even though sleep was only required by one of them. For a long while Jane stared up at the dark ceiling, then suddenly said, “The Society might come tomorrow.”
Helen sat up abruptly. “Here?”
Jane sat up, too. “Yes. The agents seemed very curious about me. And one guessed that I teach at Lowood. If they come, you must stay hidden.”
“I’ll stay out of sight,” promised Helen.
Jane paused for a moment. “It’s time to leave this place. This time I’m serious.”
Helen’s lower lip trembled slightly. “You would leave me?”
“I will never leave you! I meant both of us would leave. Together, as always.”
Helen had been Jane’s first true friend, her only friend at Lowood until Charlotte had come along. Helen had stood by Jane when everyone else shamed and punished her. And despite Jane’s excessive plainness and her many other inadequacies, Helen had loved her.
But Helen died when she was fourteen. That spring a particularly nasty version of the Graveyard Disease had descended on Lowood. By May, forty-five of the eighty pupils lay in quarantine, Helen among them. One night Miss Temple helped Jane sneak past the nurses into the room where Helen lay dying.
Jane had climbed into Helen’s cot. “Helen, don’t leave me,” she whispered.
“I would never,” Helen promised. “Hold my hand.”
Jane clasped her friend’s hand tightly, trying to ignore how cold Helen’s fingers were. They fell asleep like that, and when she woke the next morning, Helen’s body was pale and still.
And standing above it was Helen’s ghost.
“Hi,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I think I get to stay.”
It was always hit-and-miss with ghosts as to which ones stayed and which ones left for some great beyond. But Helen had stayed with Jane, true to her promise. And Jane promised, in return, that they would never be parted. Helen was the closest thing to a sister Jane had ever had. She could not—would not—abandon Helen. But now she worried that the Society would storm Lowood tomorrow. And if it wasn’t tomorrow, it was only a matter of time. There were so many ghosts here, one was bound to cause a problem. Mr. Brocklehurst, probably.
“It’s not as if we have anywhere to go,” Helen was saying.
“I could get a job.”
“What job?”
“I could be a seamstress.”
“Your sewing is terrible,” Helen pointed out. “I love you, but you know it’s true.”
“I could wash clothes and press them.”
“Think of how chapped and red your little hands would get.”
“I could be a governess.”
Helen nodded thoughtfully. “You are a good teacher. And you like children. But you’re far too beautiful to be a governess.”
Helen was no different from the other ghosts in this regard. She thought Jane was beautiful, even though it was Helen, with her porcelain complexion, blue eyes, and long golden hair, who would have turned heads if she were still alive. “What does my appearance have to do with anything?” Jane asked.
“You’re so lovely that the master of the house wouldn’t be able to help falling in love with you,” Helen explained. “It would be a terrible scandal.”
Jane didn’t think that sounded so terrible. “I could handle it.”
“Trust me. It would end badly,” Helen said stubbornly.
“Please, Helen. We must do this. Say you’ll come with me. Say you’ll try.”
“All right. I’ll come with you. I’ll try,” said Helen.
They fell silent again. From outside Jane heard the mournful coo of a dove. Daylight was fast approaching. In a few hours, she had a French class to teach. She was quite good at French. And some Italian. She could conjugate Latin verbs. She could do maths. In spite of Lowood being such a hard place to grow up, she’d received a good education here. She’d studied classic literature and history and religion. She knew the rules of etiquette. She could embroider a pillowcase and knit socks (well, she’d only ever been able to finish one sock—two seemed overwhelming). She was adequate on the pianoforte, and more than proficient at painting and drawing and any kind of art. And she was a good teacher, she told herself. She’d make an excellent governess.
“You want to be a painter,” said Helen, as if she’d read Jane’s mind. “That’s what you should do. Be a famous painter.”
Jane scoffed at the idea of being a famous anything. “Yes, well, people aren’t posting job advertisements for famous painters at the moment.”
“They aren’t posting job advertisements for governesses, either.” This was true. Every week Jane scoured the job ads in the newspaper, seeking her escape from Lowood, and there had been nothing for governesses lately. It seemed that all the wealthy children in England were already being cared for.
“So we won’t be going anywhere at the moment,” Helen said.
“No,” Jane agreed glumly. “I suppose not.”