My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(110)

He should return to the front parlor, he knew, but Alexander moved forward just enough so that he could see Miss Eyre and Miss Burns. They faced each other, their hands in each other’s—almost.

There was something luminous about Miss Eyre ever since the Great Fire. It was the same sort of glow Mrs. Rochester had, the light of being a Beacon that even the living could see.

Tears shimmered down Miss Eyre’s cheeks. “I think you’ve been staying here because I’ve needed you all these years.”

“And now you don’t?” Miss Burns wiped her cheek on her shoulder.

“Oh, my dearest friend, I’ll always need you. But I have to think about what you need, too. I’ve been selfish in keeping you here. Selfish in wanting you by my side always.”

“I’m all right with that.” Miss Burns let out a small hiccup. “I want to stay with you. I don’t know what happens in the afterlife.”

“It’s something good,” Miss Eyre whispered hoarsely. “It has to be.”

Alexander held his breath, watching the two. Wishing he could go back to the parlor like he’d never walked in on this exchange. Knowing that he could not, because pieces of this conversation echoed in his heart. For most of his life, he’d carried his father’s ghost with him. Not a literal ghost, of course, but the figurative ghost.

“What happens when I’m eighty years old,” Miss Eyre went on, “and you’re still fourteen?”

“We’ll be best friends.” Miss Burns bit her lip. “Won’t we?”

“Of course!” Miss Eyre threw her arms around Miss Burns, but the embrace passed right through. She backed away, tears shimmering on her cheeks. “We will always be best friends. Forever. But our friendship isn’t limited by life and death.”

“Obviously.” Miss Burns forced a brave smile.

“And it’s not defined by whether you’re here or there. If you stay here, I will still love you. If you move on, I will still love you.”

Alexander’s heart ached for the two of them. His throat and chest felt tight with the tension of his own ghost. What Miss Eyre said was true, wasn’t it? Death could not stop true love, whether that love was paternal or platonic or romantic. Love extended across worlds.

“You think I should move on, though.” Miss Burns’s voice was so small.

Miss Eyre nodded. “I think you deserve to find peace.”

Miss Burns wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m scared of being without you.”

“I’m scared of being without you, too.” Miss Eyre’s smile wavered. “But we both have things to do. I must live my life, and I can’t drag you through it with me. That’s not fair to either one of us. So I have to be brave.”

“Me too, then.” Miss Burns straightened her spine. “I’m going to do it.”

“When?” Now it was Miss Eyre’s voice that cracked.

Warm light spread throughout the kitchen, coming from Miss Burns. “Now,” she said. “I think I’m going now.” She seemed less substantial than before. More there than here.

“Helen!” Miss Eyre’s cry brought Miss Bront? and Branwell to the kitchen door, next to Alexander, but no one dared enter when they saw what was happening.

“I better not see you for eighty years.” Tears sparkled on Miss Burns’s cheeks as she looked up and up, and suddenly a wide smile formed—

And she was gone.

The room dimmed to a normal brightness.

“Good-bye,” Miss Eyre whispered.

Then, Miss Bront? rushed forward toward her, and the pair embraced.

“We should . . .” Branwell wiped his face dry. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Take them to sit,” Alexander said. “I’ll make the tea.”

When he was alone in the kitchen, preparing a tray of cups and sugar and cream, Alexander glanced at the place Miss Burns’s ghost had occupied. It was amazing how quickly she’d gone, once she’d decided to go. And she did deserve peace.

Maybe Alexander deserved peace, too. From revenge. From the figurative ghost he’d been dragging through his life. From his single-minded devotion to the Society.

He decided to let it go. All of it. Oh, he’d stay with the RWS Society, in whatever form it took. He was good at relocating ghosts, and he enjoyed traveling. But it didn’t have to be his whole life. Not anymore.

When the water boiled, he placed the teapot on the tray and returned to the parlor. To his friends.

“Mr. Blackwood?” inquired Miss Bront? in that curious voice he was coming to know so well. “I have a question of the utmost importance.”

“Of course you do.” He gave her a cup of tea.

“It’s regarding the letter that your father wrote to Mr. Rochester. The one you found when you were rakishly breaking into the study at Thornfield.”

“I recall the letter quite well.”

“The man who wrote the letter signed his name as a Mr. Bell.”

He had thought this detail had slipped her notice. But nothing ever slipped Charlotte Bront?’s notice. “Yes. My father was Nicholas Bell. After he died, Wellington thought it would be prudent if I chose a new name for myself.”

“So your name is Alexander Bell.”