My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(16)

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 Bront?.”

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 Bront? 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.