Jane Steele(25)

And yet, it was more than that. Clarke made me mindlessly, achingly happy. I wanted us to share in everything; I wanted us to sail to faraway China, for us to attend a lavish costume ball, for her to be threatened with a pistol and for me to throw myself in the path of the bullet. Often as I fell asleep I fantasised she had been forced to name me as a murderess in a Reckoning, so that I might be sentenced to starve in a frigid straw-lined aerie, and as I lay dying she would visit and we should watch the stars fading through the window and I should whisper in the shell of her ear with my last breath, Never mind.

I forgive you.

I didn’t mind.

That never happened, but apparently the worst things I can imagine still fall short of reality.

? ? ?

At the next daily Reckoning, we were witness to an act akin to watching a tree sprouting from the sky, or rains bursting forth from the grounds like perverse fountains. I have never been so shocked; and were you, reader, to suggest greater surprises are in store for me, I should suggest you invest in the purchase of a strait waistcoat without delay.

“I name Mr. Munt,” Clarke said soberly.

The remark was so unreal that I laughed, choked, and then planted my palm firmly over my lips.

To say that Clarke turned heads would be an understatement. The announcement slammed into my chest like a physical blow. I have been thrown from a horse, attacked by multiple men, fallen down a flight of stairs; none of these events ever struck me so hard, because none of them so explicitly announced, this is your fault.

Mr. Munt initially could not believe his own ears. “Whom do you mean to name, Clarke?” he inquired.

“I already did. You’ve subjected Miss Lilyvale to unwanted attentions, Mr. Munt. Say you’re sorry.”

Mr. Munt’s handsome face paled. He glanced at Miss Lilyvale, who was not looking at him, because Miss Lilyvale was looking at me. I understood then what I had not before: she had wanted us to find the letters. Miss Lilyvale was vacillating and weak, and Clarke and I were neither, and others had noticed. Miss Lilyvale’s lake-blue eyes dimmed in shame as the other teachers whispered oh my and but it can’t be true, can it?

“Clarke.” Mr. Munt by now seemed outwardly composed save for his throat, which was ropy with rage under his white collar. “Do you truly mean to falsely accuse your headmaster when your own situation here is so precarious?”

“I don’t understand,” Clarke said, lifting her chin.

“Oh, I should never have troubled you with the information had you not made a mockery of the Reckoning,” Vesalius Munt hissed. “Your parents have told you they publish books, I presume? That they are among the literary set?”

Clarke said nothing.

“I believe in the value of education for every child, including even females, a position which has garnered me much criticism!” Mr. Munt cried with an arm raised. “And here this beggar at the gates of paradise accuses me of misconduct! Her parents print lurid erotic fiction, which it pains me to say in your company, ladies,” he added, flushing nicely before the rapt teaching staff. “They donated beyond Clarke’s fee to consign their daughter to my care; I accepted, hoping to save the child from heinous influences; and now she—the viper!—tells me that I have made Miss Lilyvale the subject of my unwanted attentions?”

“Oh my God,” breathed Taylor, morbidly fascinated.

We watched as Miss Lilyvale clutched at her voiceless throat and fled the room. When I think of the anger I felt, I will always recall ice and not fire, the way snow sears into one’s flesh.

Clarke’s face was rigid save for the tremor in her tiny lips.

“Yes,” said she, “that’s exactly what I mean to tell you.”

“Excellent,” said Mr. Munt, enjoying himself again. “You can confine yourself to porridge at breakfast for the foreseeable future. Next confessor?”





NINE



“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. . . . By dying young I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.”


Within a fortnight, Clarke was a shade haunting hallways where no one saw or spoke to her, carrying such slight weight that the desk seats must have thought her a spring breeze. Her skin grew ashen, her lips cracked, her eyes mirrors.

“I am so ashamed of myself,” Miss Lilyvale whispered.

We were in the choir room on a Sunday before the service, only she and I, for I had left a note in her drawer demanding she meet me. Outside, the merry May breezes wanted only blithe girls with ribbons for their dance to be complete, and I pitied Miss Lilyvale for the necessity of my company a little; she had already endured unwanted attentions, veiled threats, and now a scheming schoolgirl. The choir room was neat and orderly, save for a dainty rug under the practice piano which had been gnawed by mice and reminded me of my music teacher.

“What can be done?” I urged, outwardly calm and inwardly frantic. “And what did you think would be done, anyhow? You must have wanted us to find them, but I can’t imagine what—”

“And I can’t either!” she cried, eyes wild, before her mouth pressed into a tormented dash. She hugged her own arms. “You must forgive me. No—no, you mustn’t, I’ve no right to even ask. My father is a country parson, my mother an industrious invalid, and they are happy when they’ve oxtails for their soup. Their parish is just outside London, but poor and plain for all its proximity. I learnt piano, thinking I could give private lessons. Well, I’m an utter shipwreck at music, and Mr. Munt when visiting our parish lecturing hired me anyhow, I arrived just a year before you did though I was far older, and this position pays—oh, don’t look at me, I can’t bear it.”