My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(44)

But why? Charlotte agreed with Mr. Blackwood that there was something definitely off about the master of the house. He was creepy, no doubt about it. And he’d stood by and said nothing when he was the person who could have stopped the ladies from attacking Jane. Surely he and Miss Ingram deserved each other. The little girl, Adele, was cute and all, but not particularly charming. Everyone around Jane seemed to treat her with that level of mild disdain reserved for serving women, when they weren’t treating her with outright contempt. Charlotte thought guiltily of her own part in the mocking of Jane earlier. So how could Jane possibly be happy here?

It was yet another mystery surrounding Jane Eyre. Charlotte didn’t know if she could take any more mysteries. Her novel was becoming so convoluted as it was, on account of the ghost stuff.

“Did she have Helen with her?” Mr. Blackwood asked.

Charlotte blinked up at him. “Helen.”

“Her ghost friend.”

“Her what?”

Mr. Blackwood nodded. “Oh, you didn’t know. Of course you didn’t. You can’t see anything. Both times I’ve seen her here, Miss Eyre has been accompanied by the ghost of a young woman—perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age. Golden hair, white dress.”

Charlotte knew immediately who he was talking about. The girl in Jane’s paintings. She was real. She was a ghost. Charlotte felt a series of painful jolts deep inside her, first at the way Mr. Blackwood had said, “You can’t see anything,” and then at the idea of Jane having a ghost for a friend—a real live ghost! Or, not live, but real all the same—at Lowood, too, and Jane had never told her.

“Are you ill?” Mr. Blackwood asked, gazing at Charlotte’s rapidly whitening face.

“Helen?” Charlotte croaked. “Did you say the ghost’s name was Helen?”

“Yes . . .” Mr. Blackwood cleared his throat as if addressing a young woman only by her first name physically pained him. “That’s what Miss Eyre called her. She did not give a surname.”

“Burns,” Charlotte murmured. She had never met Helen Burns—the girl had already succumbed to the Graveyard Disease before the Bront? girls had come to Lowood. But the other students had spoken often and reverently of Helen Burns as the cleverest, prettiest, kindest, and most pious girl who’d ever been enrolled at the school. In fact, there was a school saying regarding Helen, whenever a girl failed in some way. What was it? Oh, yes. We can’t all be Helen Burns, you know.

Charlotte’s mind raced. She quickly put everything together: Helen Burns was the friend—not Charlotte, after all—whom Jane had not wished to leave at Lowood. It had been Helen Burns who Jane was talking to as Charlotte had walked her out of Lowood that last day. Helen who she was talking to every time it seemed that she was talking to herself. All this while Charlotte had thought she was Jane’s only friend in all the world, but it turned out that Jane had another friend. A prettier friend. A best friend.

“Miss Burns was the spirit that made itself known in the parlor earlier,” Mr. Blackwood was saying, while Charlotte’s heart quietly broke. “It was she who shattered the vase and did that crazy thing with the flowers. Through watching Miss Eyre’s interaction with Miss Burns I’ve become quite convinced that Miss Eyre is truly a Beacon.”

Charlotte dabbed her eyes briefly on her sleeve and glanced up. “A Beacon? I thought you said she was a seer?”

Mr. Blackwood proceeded to enlighten Charlotte about the nature of Beacons. Normally Charlotte would have found the topic fascinating—a person who could attract and command spirits—how thrilling!—but the most she could muster as a response was a stunned nod and a blank smile.

Charlotte wanted to be happy for her friend. She did. She should think it wonderful that it had turned out Jane was more than just a seer. Jane was rare. Jane was special. Jane possessed powerful, mystical abilities related to the spirit world. Jane was going to be so useful to the Society. She could right everything, Mr. Blackwood explained, that had been going wrong there. Mr. Blackwood’s job would be saved. Bran’s job. And if Jane would only agree to be an agent (and how could she refuse, when Charlotte told her how important she was?) then Mr. Blackwood and Jane would carry on in their important duties as the most integral agents of the Society, Jane and Alexander together, Alexander and Jane, righting the wrongs of the world.

And Charlotte had never felt quite so utterly unnecessary.





FOURTEEN


Jane

Jane (oblivious to the angst she was causing Charlotte) was in the garden, painting. Helen stood awkwardly by the stream, posing with her arms intertwined, the palms of her hands facing upward as if she were hoping a butterfly would land softly upon them.

“You’ve never asked me to pose before,” Helen said, trying not to move her lips.

Helen was right, but secretly Jane had asked her to pose, and hold very still, so she would stop talking about Mr. Rochester’s quote unquote strange behavior and Charlotte’s revelation that Alexander Black . . . Esht . . . whatever was at Thornfield to try to recruit her to the Society. Jane had lived a boring life up until this point—a life where the most exciting thing she participated in was trying to not die from the Graveyard Disease. But now there was a little too much excitement.

“Stay still, dear,” Jane said, tension seeping into her words. “Talking ruins your lines of . . . grace.” Lines of grace? Jane didn’t even know what that meant. “It’s a new technique I’m practicing.”