Charlotte
As you, dear reader, could have probably guessed, the students at Lowood school were no longer remotely interested in the murder of Mr. Brocklehurst. Now all they wanted to talk about was the dashing and impossibly enigmatic Mr. Blackwood—sigh, Mr. Blackwood—with his fine wool coat and his fine black hair. That such a person—an actual boy!—had taken an interest in Jane Eyre—the most unremarkable girl, so plain!—was the most sensational gossip ever to grace the halls of Lowood. Even if Mr. Blackwood wasn’t exactly handsome, per se (his jaw was simply too square), he was definitely wealthy—I mean, look at his coat—which was all that truly mattered. And there’s just something about him, don’t you think, that makes him the most interesting person you’ve ever encountered? That coat. That hair. That mask, so very mysterious, framing those piercing eyes. (There’d been a fierce argument over the color of those piercing eyes. Some said they were a deep and mossy green; others said a storm-tossed blue.) And let’s not forget the way those piercing eyes had gazed at Jane Eyre—so intently, so very, well, piercing—sigh—Don’t you wish someone might gaze that way at you?
Charlotte was a bit weary of the gossip, truth be told. Of course she was interested in Mr. Blackwood. She’d noted that he had quite an arresting manner and very shapely hands. But her main interest in Mr. Blackwood was on account of his position as a member of the RWS Society. He had the best job in England, in Charlotte’s opinion. The idea of traveling the country, gathering information, taking notes, tracking down ghosts, capturing them: it was the most glamorous form of employment that Charlotte could envision. She could only imagine the stories she’d collect at such a job.
Mr. Blackwood had returned to the school twice after the initial visit. He’d presented himself the next morning and requested to be given a private audience with Miss Eyre. To discuss his earlier proposition, he said. (At this point, several of the girls had fainted in sheer delight—a proposition!) But Jane had refused to see him.
Undeterred (he must be so very besotted with her, speculated the girls), Mr. Blackwood had reappeared the following morning. Same time. Same reason.
“I have nothing to say to him,” Jane had said stiffly. “Please tell him to go away. Politely.”
Charlotte couldn’t fathom that Mr. Blackwood had actually asked Jane to marry him. They’d only just met. Charlotte believed in love at first sight, of course—she dreamed that one day, at some unexpected moment, such a thing might even happen to her—but she firmly disapproved of marriage at first sight. Instead she thought that this whole business with Mr. Blackwood and Jane must have something to do with Jane’s night at the Tully Pub. Something significant must have happened.
There was a story there. She could feel it in her bones. Something that perhaps she could work into her Very First Novel about Miss Jane Frere.
“Perhaps,” Charlotte had relayed to Mr. Blackwood back in the parlor, “if you could enlighten me as to the nature of your request, I could entreat Miss Eyre on your behalf?”
Mr. Blackwood shifted uneasily on the sofa. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the details with anyone but Miss Eyre. I simply wish to know if she has reconsidered my . . .”
Oh, my, perhaps he had proposed. Charlotte lifted her spectacles to see his face. His cheeks were slightly flushed. And his eyes, she noticed, were a deep sable brown.
She leaned forward. “Yes?”
“. . . if she would reconsider my offer of employment at the SRWS.”
Charlotte blinked at him. “You wish to employ Jane Eyre? At the Society?”
“Yes.”
“Am I to understand that the Society is recruiting new agents?” She leaned forward even further. “Female agents?”
“Yes.”
He was rather monosyllabic, wasn’t he? But never mind that. This was wonderful news.
“Well, sir,” she said rather breathlessly. “Jane seems to have made up her mind.” (Jane was mad, clearly. What could she be thinking, refusing such an offer?) “I know her well, and once her mind is made up about something, there’s little changing it.” She was thinking in particular about Jane’s response that time when Mr. Brocklehurst wanted to cut the girls’ hair so that they wouldn’t become vain. But then she didn’t want to bring up Mr. Brocklehurst.
Mr. Blackwood exhaled—a small, frustrated breath—and scratched at the side of his face. Charlotte got the impression that no was not something that this man was used to hearing. “I did not anticipate that she would refuse to even see me. If she would only hear me out, I’m sure I could—”
“No, sir,” Charlotte said gently. “If she said no, she most likely means it.”
He looked crestfallen. And also like he was trying to hide how crestfallen he was. He straightened. “Well. This is most unfortunate. Not many people would pass up such an opportunity.”
Charlotte completely agreed. She gave a nervous laugh. “I wonder—” She took a fortifying breath and summoned her courage. “I wonder if you might consider employing someone else.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Someone else?”
“One of the other girls at Lowood.” She was now leaning so far forward in her seat that she almost tumbled to the floor. “Namely, me, sir.” Before he could reply, she rushed out with her qualifications. “I’m at the top of my class. I’m a quick study—I could pick up any skill you required with veritable ease. I’m hardworking. Resourceful. And I’ve a keen eye.” She thrust her dratted spectacles into her pocket and squinted at him. “I could be entirely useful.”
Mr. Blackwood cleared his throat. “I’m sure that you are a bright and enterprising young woman.”
“I am. I really am, and I’m not just saying so because it’s terrible here, and I’m desperate to leave.”
“Tell me something.” Now he was leaning forward, too. “Are we alone?”
She pulled out her glasses again to glance around the room. “Relatively,” she answered. “Miss Scatcherd is standing just outside the door, of course, to chaperone, but other than that, we’re quite alone.” Her heart thundered in her chest. He must be about to tell her something confidential.
He nodded as if confirming something he already knew, then sighed regretfully.
“The offer is for Miss Eyre, I’m afraid. No substitutions.” He stood and gave a stiff bow. “Miss Brontë.”
Disappointment clawed at her. She stood, too, and curtsied. “Mr. Blackwood.”
“I hope you’ll urge Miss Eyre to reconsider. She knows, I suppose, where to find me if she changes her mind.”
“Yes,” she managed. “Yes, I shall urge her.”
He did not return. The girls at Lowood had decided therefore that they were witnessing some great romantic tragedy, and that Jane had been jilted and was now probably going to die of a broken heart. Which was nonsense, Charlotte knew very well. Jane was the jilter, not the jiltee. And this was not about romance. This was about ghosts, Charlotte was certain. Adventure was knocking at Jane’s door! But to Charlotte’s utter dismay, Jane stubbornly refused to open it. And even worse, she offered no further details about the mysterious job offer.
“It’s a simple misunderstanding,” she said to Charlotte for the umpteenth time as they sat down to breakfast a few days later.
“A misunderstanding of what, exactly?”
“It’s of no consequence.”
“It’s of great consequence!” Charlotte argued hotly. “Why must you be so deliberately obtuse?”
The dining room had fallen silent. The other girls were staring. (This was the inception of a particular rumor that Charlotte Brontë was also madly in love with Mr. Blackwood, and she and Jane Eyre would now be forced to compete for the man’s affections. Bets were then taken regarding which of the girls would win Mr. Blackwood’s heart. Most thought it would be Jane. Both girls are plain, but at least Jane is not blind as a bat. Those spectacles are simply dreadful.)
“Why must you be so melodramatic?” Jane whispered.
Charlotte was almost pleading at this point. “What happened in Oxenhope that night that so affects you? Why did the Society seek you out? I must know.”
“Then you must get used to disappointment.” Jane’s mouth tightened into a line as if she were sealing her lips with glue, and Charlotte knew she’d been defeated. Since then, Jane and Charlotte had hardly spoken at all. But Charlotte had continued to watch Jane closely, and Jane had continued to speak to herself, more than ever, when she thought no one could hear her. She’d been distracted during lessons, sometimes drifting off mid-lecture, lost in thought. And she had left off painting, which to Charlotte was the greatest indication of all that Jane was not herself.
“All right,” Charlotte had heard Jane cry out this morning in the washroom. “You’re even worse than Charlotte. If you don’t stop talking about that horrible Society perhaps I’ll poof you into a pocket watch!”
Jane knows something troubling about the Society, Charlotte scribbled into her notebook. She also has a pocket watch. She glanced up from her writing to look at Jane, who was now demurely seated in the study near the window, away from the students who were doing their needlework and not-so-subtly gossiping about her love life. Jane was angrily darning a single sock.
Miss Temple appeared in the doorway. “The newspaper is here.”
The girls all sat up straight and tried to catch Miss Temple’s eye. Every week, only one newspaper was delivered to Lowood, and this one newspaper had to be shared by more than fifty girls. Miss Temple always chose a special student, a girl she wished to reward for good behavior, to look at the paper first. Then it was a matter of seniority—the older girls, then the younger. Sometimes the paper was in tatters by the time Charlotte got to read it, but she always read every sentence on every page.
Miss Temple glanced around the room. Charlotte smiled up at her hopefully.
Miss Temple turned to Jane. “Miss Eyre, would you like to read the paper? I know I typically pick a deserving student, but I thought . . .”
Miss Temple was so kind. She knew that Jane had suffered a trying week.
But Jane shook her head. “I’ll stick to my sock.”
This was also a sign that something was off. Normally Jane loved to read the newspaper almost as much as Charlotte did.
“All right.” Miss Temple sounded a bit offended. She scanned the room again. “Miss Brontë, then. You’ve been so helpful lately.”
She handed the newspaper to Charlotte, who laid it carefully on the table next to her notebook—she’d be taking notes on current affairs now, of course, to find the best stories—and unfolded the pages, relishing the heady aroma of the fresh-printed paper and ink. Then on to reading. There was something about King William having yet another row with the Duke of Wellington over some political disagreement or other. An impassioned essay by a young man named Charles Dickens about the state of the poor in London. A list of persons who had recently died from the Graveyard Disease. A recipe for plum pudding that made Charlotte’s stomach rumble. But not much that she found newsworthy.
She turned to the advertisement section last, in which she came upon this notice:
WANTED: A GOVERNESS FOR ONE ADORABLE CHILD.
THE YOUNG LADY IN QUESTION SHOULD BE AT LEAST EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE, WELL EDUCATED, PROFICIENT IN THE PIANOFORTE, ABLE TO CONJUGATE LATIN VERBS, AND WELL VERSED IN CLASSIC LITERATURE. MOREOVER, IT IS PREFERRED THAT SAID YOUNG LADY HAVE A CHEERY DISPOSITION, ROSY CHEEKS, AND ABSOLUTELY NO WARTS. SHE SHOULD BE AMENABLE TO PLAYING GAMES (ALL SORTS).
IT IS ALSO IMPERATIVE THAT THE YOUNG LADY IN QUESTION SPEAK FRENCH.
TO APPLY FOR THIS POSITION, PLEASE CONTACT MRS. FAIRFAX AT THORNFIELD HALL.
Charlotte read the advertisement again, because it struck her as so unbelievably specific. That, and it nearly perfectly described someone she knew. Not herself, of course, as she was only sixteen and not remotely interested in becoming a governess. And not the rosy cheek part. But everything else.
She bit her lip. Coming upon this ad at this precise moment had an air of providence to it. Some might even call it destiny. But surely the position Mr. Blackwood had offered Jane was a great deal better than being a mere governess. Surely, given time, Jane would realize that. She’d try for a larger destiny. She’d . . .
No. Jane was not going to change her mind. She had set herself against it, and would not be unset.
Charlotte stood and walked over to Jane, who was still furiously darning her sock by the window.
“Darn,” Jane muttered. “Darn. Darn.”
“Jane,” Charlotte said.
Jane looked up with a little sigh. “Yes, Charlotte?”
Charlotte held out the paper. “You should have a look at this.”
The other girls began to whisper excitedly among themselves, certain that a quarrel over Mr. Blackwood was imminent.
Jane shook her head. “I know you mean well. But I’ve already said that I—”
“No, this.” Charlotte pointed to the advertisement, her finger landing neatly on the word ROSY in ROSY CHEEKS.
Jane took the paper from her hands. “Wait. What’s this?”
Charlotte intuitively felt that she was about to lose her best friend. And that she was about to lose a story that could have been the story. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I believe this is meant for you.”
A week later Charlotte walked Jane out to the main gate at Lowood, Jane dragging a small trunk crammed with her belongings and various art supplies. Jane seemed a bit of a mess. She kept glancing over to one side and whispering, “We’re going to be all right. You’ll see.”
“Yes, we’re going to be all right,” Charlotte assured Jane. Things had been better between them since she’d spotted the advertisement. Settled. Boring. But better. “I shall miss you.”
“And I, you.” Jane took a deep breath and stepped past the main gate and officially off the Lowood grounds.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re almost there.”
Charlotte nodded and followed her to the waiting carriage. Jane opened the carriage door and paused, as if she were hesitant, in this final moment, to actually leave.
“We can do this,” she breathed.
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “We can.”
Then all at once the tension drained out of Jane’s shoulders, and she climbed up into the carriage.
“Good-bye, Jane.” Charlotte straightened and said with confidence, “We shall meet again, one day, under far better circumstances.” She’d written this into her notebook earlier. It was a good line, a hopeful line, though in this moment she doubted it was true. She wondered if she would ever see Jane Eyre again.
Jane reached down to briefly clasp Charlotte’s hand. “Good-bye, Charlotte.”
“Good-bye.”
The driver of the carriage, a hairy man with a tattered top hat, walked heavily over and closed the carriage door, pushing Charlotte aside and parting the two friends. He took Jane’s trunk and slung it onto the roof of the carriage, where he fastened it down. Charlotte stepped back through the gate, clutching her notebook to her chest, still looking at Jane.
“All right, miss,” the driver said. “Are you ready to go?”
Jane’s eyes were shining as she took one last look at Lowood. “We’re ready,” she said.