My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(18)

“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.





FIVE


Jane

It became clear from the moment she arrived: something was amiss at Thornfield Hall.

First of all, no one from the estate had come to meet Jane at the train station. She’d needed to hire a carriage, which became so full that Helen insisted on riding up front next to the driver. (Ghosts didn’t like to be permeated by humans. They considered it most inappropriate, crossing all sorts of boundaries of pre-Victorian propriety.) Secondly, when Jane and Helen had exited the carriage, the driver sped away without payment.

“How strange,” Jane had said, befuddled but happy to hang on to any extra shillings.

Thirdly, though it was well into evening, the house seemed empty. Thornfield Hall was massive. The turrets loomed. The darkened windows gaped black beyond the entrance, and the spires at the east and west wings rose upward as if the house were raising its arms to grab the sky.

Helen shivered next to Jane. “Perhaps we should return to Charlotte. She probably misses us.”

“Us? Charlotte doesn’t know you exist.”

“Well, if she did, she would surely miss me.”

“Come, now.” Jane dragged her trunk to the entrance. The door was rounded at the top, and in the middle of its thick oak facade sat a large, ornate knocker that Jane wasn’t sure she’d be able to lift. Not that there was anyone inside the house who would be around to hear it.

“It’s haunted. It’s haunted,” Helen said, pacing back and forth. “It’s so obviously haunted. If we looked up ‘haunted’ in that one book . . . what is it?”

“The dictionary?” Jane guessed.

“Yes. If we looked up ‘haunted,’ there would be a painting of this house.”

Jane sighed. “You’ve been around ghosts your whole life—er—afterlife. What are you afraid of?”

Helen shook her head. “I think it might be haunted by the living.”

“If that were the case, every house would be haunted.”

“Every house is haunted.”

Jane closed her eyes and blew out a breath. She had never quite understood Helen’s fear of unfamiliar live people. “The living don’t haunt,” she said, opening her eyes just as a backlit shadow crossed behind the window of the uppermost room in the east turret. Darkness returned before Jane could figure out what exactly it was she had seen, but the fleeting glimpse sent a cold chill down her back. She tried to keep her face blank, for she didn’t want to upset Helen, but she did make a mental note to ask Mrs. Fairfax about ghost activity at Thornfield Hall. She desperately hoped there was none. She didn’t want anything to draw the attention of the Society and their dangerous pocket watches.

Jane lifted the giant knocker and let it fall.

“No one’s coming,” Helen said. “They’re probably all dead.”

“Give them a chance,” Jane said pragmatically. “It’s a large house. Who knows how many rooms one must pass through to get to this door?”

Helen shrugged and turned away, muttering, “I’m not sure I want anyone answering the door anyway.”

“What, you want to set up a tent on the porch?” Jane ribbed, hoping to lift Helen’s spirits.

Footfalls sounded from inside, followed by a flicker of light under the door.

“Someone’s coming,” Helen lamented.

“Well, which way do you want it?” Jane said. “Someone coming or no one coming?”

With a loud creak, the door opened, and there behind the light of a candle was a pleasant face belonging to a plump woman in a black uniform with a white cap. She held a candelabra.

“Can I help you?”

“Good evening,” Jane said, her heart racing. “I’m Jane Eyre. I answered the advertisement for a governess position here.”

“Miss Eyre! My, you’re plain.” She held the candle closer to Jane’s face. “No rosy cheeks,” she observed.

Jane put a hand to her face. “They tend to get rosier when it’s cold. But I don’t have warts. And I am proficient in French—”

“Never mind the rest. I am glad you’re here. Please, come inside. Your note said you weren’t to arrive until tomorrow.”

If Jane had been the type of young lady who cursed, she would have. In her haste to leave Lowood (and the RWS Society), she must have written the wrong date. “I do apologize, Mrs. Fairfax. I hope we’re not causing too much trouble.”

“We?”

“Uh—” She didn’t usually let things slip like this; it must have been nerves. “Forgive me. I haven’t slept or eaten much.” For her whole life.

“Of course. Cook shall prepare something at once.” Mrs. Fairfax rang one of the several bells that lined the wall. “Come, come.”

Not quite half an hour later, Jane was sitting comfortably by the fire in a spacious but cozy kitchen, sipping tea, surrounded by a dozen servants, from Mrs. Fairfax down to a young soot-covered boy, who was in charge of lighting fires in bedchambers. Cook placed a large bowl of hot stew beside Jane.