Chapter 6
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS, the students dragged themselves into the classroom with dark circles under their eyes. They struggled to concentrate during recitations. The seniors were grim and silent, but the younger students confided that their sleep was disturbed by bad dreams and strange noises.
“I hear a thumping sound, Miss McClure. It seems to come from below,” said one girl in the sophomore class. A few others nodded.
“For me, it’s whispering. It wakes me up and then fades to silence,” said another. “I thought I was going mad until Sally said she heard it too.”
“I’ve heard a rapping sound almost every night since Fannie fell.”
“Running water! I hear it, and that’s what Fannie Bell heard.”
So much for Fannie keeping mum.
I was still skeptical. But it was true that the tapping at my window had grown more urgent since Fannie’s accident. It always waited until I was nearly asleep before starting up, only to stop again when I was fully awake. I’d taken to stuffing my ears with cotton, but it only dulled the sound.
The seniors would not speak of strange noises and sleepless nights. They merely looked stricken. In August they’d gasped and giggled when Fannie taunted me about a ghost; now they seemed shaken to the core by her violent accident. Fannie was back in class, her arm still in its sling, but her once sparkling eyes were dull with fatigue.
I didn’t know what to make of it all. In truth, the dread of facing my classes each day far outweighed any concerns I might have over spooks haunting the night.
After two days of the seniors falling asleep over their compositions, I rose from my desk and asked them to open their copies of Studies in English Literature and find Coleridge’s poem entitled “Love.” If anything could distract them, surely such a subject would. But no one volunteered to read. Finally, I called on Alice. She sighed before placing her finger on the text and reading.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Her voice was flat. Several students yawned.
“Stop there, please.” I cleared my throat. “Can, um, anyone point out an example of personification in these first four lines?”
The question was met with silence. Hot with frustration, I scanned the questions in the footnotes for more inspiration.
“Perhaps someone can explain … how Coleridge uses the term ministers?”
Alice shifted uncomfortably in her seat. A few girls seemed to be straining for something to say, but the others stared blankly.
“For God’s sake,” I blurted, “someone in this room must have an answer to one of these questions!”
The girls gasped in unison at my blasphemy, each with eyes widened in horror. Only Fannie smiled. How I wished to dissolve into the floor! Or, better yet, disappear in a puff of smoke. I closed my eyes and willed myself to vanish. When I opened them again, the girls still stared. So I straightened my spine and tried again.
“Anyone have a thought to share?” I asked meekly.
Fannie raised her hand. I could have kissed her, so profound was my relief.
“Yes, Fannie?”
“Miss McClure, have you marked our compositions yet?”
I heard a scream. Did it come out of my mouth? No, it was only in my head. At that moment, I could have stormed out of the room, walked through the front door, and put my back to the seminary forever. Why work with such weak-minded fools, day in and day out? Why cope with their fears of ghosts and ghouls? For that matter, why would anyone ever dream of becoming a teacher? I finally understood why my old teachers were such lifeless automatons. It was the only way to cope with unrelenting indifference.
It would have felt like heaven to walk away from it all. Why didn’t I?
$450 per annum was why.
I took a deep breath and stared once more at the textbook. I thought of Papa sitting in his chair, reading Shakespeare and laughing to himself. More than once he’d said to me, “Poets may say differently, but I believe the words never soak into your bones until you’ve performed them.”
I smiled.
“Let’s try something different,” I announced, adopting a sweetly authoritative tone. “Alice, you will continue to read, but you must stand here by my desk.” The girl hesitated. “Come on up here—I’m not going to bite you. Now,” I said to the rest of the class, “we are going to act out this poem. Everyone in this room will play a part.”
Many of the girls looked up. A few eyes brightened, while others rolled. My smile did not falter.
“I need someone to play the role of Love.”
There was a pause as the girls looked at each other. Some of them simpered. My heart thudded in my chest, and yet I smiled on. Finally, Lelia raised her hand.
“I will!”
I silently blessed the girl. “Good for you, Lelia! Come up here—bring your book. Now I need someone to play an armed knight.”
Lucy raised her hand. After that, more hands shot in the air, and the girls began to grin and whisper. I cast the roles of the Lady of the Land and the murderous band that threatened her. I cast the role of the poem’s speaker. That left only Fannie.
I looked hard at her, and she stared back, her eyes defiant. I longed to cast her as the “wild and hoary ruin.” That would teach her to ask about compositions I’d put off marking for too long. But when I glanced at her arm in its sling, thought of her lying in pain upon the landing, I swallowed my resentment and smiled once more.
“Fannie, would you be so kind as to play Genevieve, the poet’s lady love?”
She narrowed her eyes. For a moment, I thought she might decline simply to vex me. But, as I’d hoped, her vanity won out and her frown softened into a smug smile.
“Yes, Miss McClure.”
Their performance was a disaster, riddled with false starts, missed cues, and laughter in all the wrong places. But the lively spirit in the room lifted us. No one thought of drowned girls, ghosts, or accidents in the dark of night. We were all caught up in the moment, living the poem instead of merely hearing it. Their indifference had vanished.
Afterward, when everyone was seated again, they shared their opinions on the poem. Good ones at that, and well expressed. Once they’d enacted the poem, lived within it, they also seemed to have something to say about it.
And I learned a very interesting thing about Fannie—a little tidbit to tuck away for later use. It was difficult to accept, but I had to admit Fannie was a natural actress.
That Friday night I went to bed early. It seemed I’d had my eyes closed only for a second when I woke to the faint strumming of a guitar. Were ghosts musical? I shook my head, dismissing it as another queer dream, but the whispers and squeals in the corridor brought me upright. Scrambling out of bed, I pulled my shawl around my shoulders before going out to see what new horror had upset the students.
But it wasn’t fear on the faces of the girls. They smiled and giggled as they made their way to the wide windows in the second-floor landing. Olivia followed them, holding a lamp to light the way. She must have sensed my confusion as she drew close, for she smiled knowingly.
“Don’t worry, Willie. It’s only the boys from the male seminary come to serenade us.”
“But won’t Miss Crenshaw disapprove?”
“As long as the girls keep well covered and don’t hang out the windows, she doesn’t mind. After all, there is quite a distance between them and the young men.”
The girls had already opened the windows and filled every available spot for viewing the scene below. It was impossible to see over them. So I stood and listened as the guitar strumming grew louder and the singing began. The young men’s voices were enthusiastic if not particularly sweet, and the girls laughed and clapped their appreciation.
“I have to see this,” I murmured to Olivia. “I’ll just dash to my room for a moment.”
She nodded. “It’s quite a sight.”
Once in my room, I pulled the curtain back and opened the window, propping a ruler under it to keep the heavy panel from crashing down again. There were seven boys lined up below, and the ones who did not hold guitars held lanterns. I searched the faces, ignoring the voice in my head warning me to keep out of sight. I recognized Larkin Bell holding a lantern, and, yes, there was Eli Sevenstar, strumming his guitar and singing at the top of his lungs. He was gazing intently at the girls looking through the central windows, and I turned to see that they were, perhaps, hanging a bit too far out the windows. At least they were properly wrapped in shawls. I would mention something to Olivia when I returned to the landing.
I looked down once more and allowed myself to wish, for a moment, that I were a student at the seminary and could smile and flirt with those handsome young men. Truly, there was only one with whom I wished to flirt.
As if hearing my thoughts, Eli Sevenstar turned to look in my direction. And, to my fanciful mind, it seemed he sang to me. He looked up at my window for so long—did he truly see me there? Or did he look because it was once Ella’s room? Sobered by that thought, I closed my window and withdrew.
I sat on my bed for a moment, trying to calm the pounding in my heart. How could I be such a fool? He was a student. Now every time I saw him, my heart would thud and my face would flush. Surely the girls would see right through it and despise me all the more. And Eli himself would smirk to know that a poor and lonely teacher, a lady doomed to eternal spinsterhood, had a pash for him.
I should have returned to the landing but instead reclined upon the bed with a groan. I may have thrashed about a bit too.
A thumping noise stilled me. I glanced at the window. Nothing but the strains of guitar music and singing could be heard from outside. And then the thumping sounded again, followed by creaking and shuffling.
It came from above—the third floor.
The faint melodies of guitars and voices faded as I crept up the east staircase. I’d never heard noises above me before, and though I knew it must be the primaries, my heart skipped a few beats as I neared the third-floor landing. I had no idea who resided in the turret room above me.
I stepped softly from the landing into the corridor.
Several girls stood outside the doorway of the turret room, from which the light of more than one lamp glowed. Their faces were transfixed. I rudely pushed my way through so that I could see into the room.
Three lamps were lit on a table by the windows, which were opened wide to let in the music from below. In front of the lamps, four barefoot girls moved about the room, winding around each other in a stately dance. They took turns making elegant leaps that revealed their smooth brown legs. Their black hair gleamed in the flickering lamplight as it fell into their faces. I stood staring with the others, mesmerized by their slim, swaying bodies, until the song came to an end.
The girls looked up—and froze in place when they saw me.
“We’re not doing nothing wrong, miss,” said one. “We just like to dance when the boys come to sing.”
“I heard thumping from below,” I said. “I only wanted to know what it was.”
“Did you think it was the ghost, miss?” asked a girl nearer to me.
“Well, no …”
“You’ll not find ghosts up here,” said the first girl. “We never did nothing to Ella ’cause she was one of us. She’d never haunt us, miss.” The child looked down, no longer bold. “We don’t want demerits. Please don’t wake Miss Thompson.”
Though I hardly knew her, Lucinda Thompson was widely understood to be very strict. Her room must have been at the far end of the east wing if she’d not already been woken by the music below. I had no desire to wake her. I did wish, however, to know more about these primaries who danced by lamplight. More than anything I wished they’d go on dancing, but the music had stopped.
I looked to the dancer who’d first spoken. “What is your name?”
“It’s Mae, miss.”
“Can I visit again sometime?”
Mae shrugged and the rest looked blank, but no one frowned or shook her head.
“Good night, then,” I said quietly, and turned to leave them.
The older girls were returning to their rooms as I made my way back down to the second floor. They kept their backs to me, so wrapped up in sighs and laughter they did not think to look behind them. I waited until they’d closed their doors before stepping into the corridor toward my own.
Once in my room, I went to the window. The boys had gone and all was dark outside. I drew the curtains again and quickly settled into bed. But I kept my lamp lit long into the night, almost wishing to hear the tap at my window so I would be forced to think of anything other than Eli Sevenstar.