My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)(83)

And so here they were. Lost and cold and in peril.

“Helen also says she’s hungry,” Jane reported.

Charlotte’s stomach gurgled. She was no stranger to hunger—nor was Jane, she knew—but this hunger was beyond anything she’d ever experienced before. They had not eaten anything save a handful of questionable berries in the two days since they’d left Thornfield Hall. The first day, the hunger had been a sharp, persistent presence in her stomach. Now it had reached a state of floaty light-headed emptiness.

And like we said before, there was not a town in sight.

“I’m sorry we’re lost,” Charlotte said. “I have never had the keenest sense of direction.”

“It’s all right,” murmured Jane. “At least I’m in possession of my own body. That’s something. There are worse things than being lost.”

Like starving to death, Charlotte thought. Or dying of exposure. Both of which seemed like a distinct possibility in the near future. This was why Charlotte had always considered herself an indoors type of girl.

Just then they all distinctly heard the faraway tolling of a bell. Charlotte and Jane both sat up.

“Helen says, ‘What was that?’” said Jane.

“A church bell!” Charlotte gasped. “Could you tell what direction it was coming from?”

“This way.” Jane took the lead this time, slogging through the heather in the direction of the sound. But after a moment the tolling stopped, and the only noise they could hear was the persistent voice of the wind, and still they could see no town.

“Blast!” said Charlotte. “We can’t be far from Haworth.”

“Helen says her feet hurt,” said Jane.

Charlotte had a blister on her big toe. She was pretty sure Helen didn’t have a blister on her big toe. She sighed. It was getting dark. Soon it would be very dark, and even colder than it was now. And from the looks of the growing bank of dark clouds overhead, it was going to rain.

She felt a drop on her face. Then another on the crown of her head. They’d gone off without their bonnets. She didn’t even have the carpetbag with the broken handle. She closed her eyes and tilted her head up as the rain started to come down in earnest, willing herself to just breathe and try not to think of the very real danger they were in. She imagined Mr. Blackwood on a horse. Looking for them. Worried. Calling their names. Maybe he’d arrived at Haworth already. If so, he would have found them missing, and he’d be searching for them. Perhaps any moment now he’d find them.

But Mr. Blackwood wasn’t here. She swallowed down a lump in her throat. This was, she realized, the kind of transforming experience that the great writers always wrote about. This might very well be the depths of despair. It must be documented.

That’s when she realized that she’d left her notebook behind as well. This was the keenest loss of all. But then, she couldn’t have written anything down, even if she’d had her notebook. She was still missing her glasses. And there wasn’t enough feeling in her cold fingers to hold a pen.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” she heard Jane say in a quavering voice.

She opened her eyes. Jane was standing in front of her, her hair and the entire upper part of her dress soaked with rain, her expression a picture of the same utter dejection that Charlotte had just been feeling. It was hard to tell, what with the rain, but Jane may have even been crying.

“Why are you sorry?” Charlotte asked. “I’m the one who got us lost.”

“But this is all my fault,” Jane said. “You wouldn’t even be out here if it weren’t for me. And now we could die.”

“We’re not going to die.” But Charlotte’s teeth were starting to chatter with cold.

“I’ve seen three ghosts out here already,” Jane said. “All of them died not far from this very spot.”

“Can you ask them the way to Haworth?” Charlotte closed the distance between Jane and herself and took Jane’s chilly hand in hers. They tried to smile bravely at each other.

“Helen says being dead isn’t really so bad.”

“Helen,” said Charlotte gently, “is not being terribly helpful.”

Jane frowned. “Helen also says there’s a light right behind you.”

Charlotte spun around. The sky was darkening fast, night falling, but Jane was right—against a faraway hillside, like a welcoming star, there was a light, shining dim but distant through the rain. Or at least she thought she saw it. She couldn’t see too well.

“Helen says we should go toward the light,” Jane said.

They dragged their exhausted limbs slowly in that general direction. To get to the light they had to go through a bog. Charlotte kept tripping and falling in the mud, but Jane was always there to help her up. Together they struggled through the marshy ground and onto what turned out to be a road. A road! And the road led to a gate, and the gate led to a house, and at the door of the house Charlotte’s legs stopped working and she sank down at the wet doorstep. She felt Jane’s body come down beside her. Inside the house they heard voices.

“Well, I will admit it’s nice to be home,” said one, a girl’s voice. “Even if it’s only for a little while.”

“How long do you think we’ll get to stay?” said another, much younger girl’s voice.