Jane Slayre (4 page)

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"Gulliver's Travels?"
I suggested. She went to fetch it and returned, reclaiming the seat beside me.

Yet when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand, I put down the book and begged Bessie to indulge me with one of her fairy stories instead. She spun a tale of forest-dwelling elves while I finished my tart.

After eating, I began to feel tired again, but a pleasant sort of tired, not weary. Bessie opened a little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang:

"In the days when we went gypsying, a long time ago."

I listened always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice--at least, I thought so. Usually, I found an indescribable sadness in the Gypsy melody, but now, I heard a new sweetness in Bessie's lovely tones. Her voice seemed higher, clearer, the tone more upbeat and merry.

"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished.

I felt my cheeks. "Was I crying? But I feel so content. Is it possible to cry when one is happy?"

Bessie smiled. "Yes, Jane. I believe it is."

She spoke as if she'd had experience with it. I trusted her opinion, for what I felt was far from sadness.

In the afternoon, Mr. Lloyd came again.

"What, already up!" said he as he entered the nursery. "Well, nurse, how is she?"

Bessie answered that I was doing well.

"She's still very pale. Come here, Miss Jane. Your name is Jane, is it not?"

"Yes, sir, Jane Slayre."

"Well, Miss Jane Slayre, have you any pain?"

"No, sir."

The good apothecary looked me over, head to toe. I stood before him in my heavy cotton gown, a shawl draped over my shoulders. My strength seemed to increase with his appraisal. I managed to

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stay on my feet as he fixed his small, grey gaze on me steadily. He had a good-natured face.

"How did you hurt your head yesterday? And what made those peculiar marks on your neck?" he gestured to where the shawl covered my bite marks.

"She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.

"A fall! That might explain her head, but her neck?" he tugged the shawl and it slipped down my shoulder, revealing the tiny scrapes where the bites had been.

"John Reed bit me" was my blunt explanation. Let Bessie scold me for making an accusation. "he knocked me down, and then he bit me. Mrs. Reed accused me of provoking him and ignored my bleeding to shut me up in a room."

Bessie gasped. "Child's play, sir. It did get a bit out of hand. But I tended the girl. She was carefully monitored."

A loud bell rang for the servants' dinner. He must have known what it was when he turned to Bessie. "That's for you, nurse, you can go down. I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."

No doubt Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gates-head hall.

"You were bleeding and left alone?" Mr. Lloyd asked once Bessie was gone.

"Bessie checked my wounds, and then I was left alone. In the dark. I saw a ghost."

I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. "A ghost! Is that all? Ghosts shouldn't frighten you. You're at least nine years old. I'm wondering what else you might have seen. Something worse than ghosts perhaps?"

I pondered. Should I reveal Gateshead's secrets? I didn't know if Mr. Lloyd would believe me or accuse me of fits of fancy. "I wasn't afraid of the ghost, not once I recognised his voice as Mr. Reed's. He died protecting me. I think he meant to do so again."

"Protecting you from what? Your cousin's bullying?"

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Unwilling to say more, I simply nodded.

"Are you afraid he will attack you again?"

"Not while the sun shines." I glanced at the window, sad to see the sun setting, nearly gone. "I wish I had somewhere else to go."

"Away from your aunt and cousins, truly? You have no other family?"

"I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters."

Mr. Lloyd produced a snuffbox from his waistcoat pocket, took some, and put it back. "Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house? Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?"

"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant."

"Bah, but you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"

"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead until I am a woman."

"Perhaps you may--who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"

"I think not, sir."

"None belonging to your father?"

"I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Slayre, but she knew nothing about them."

"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"

I reflected. I had seen poverty, and it looked even less appealing than living with vampyres, Abbot, and a potential ghost. "No. I should not like to belong to poor people."

"Not even if they were kind to you?"

I shook my head. I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind. I had not yet learned enough of poverty to see anything noble in it.

"But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?"

"I cannot tell. Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a

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beggarly set." I did not repeat that Uncle Reed said I had another uncle, a master slayer. How to explain? Besides, his job was too dangerous to care for a child, and I was not ready to face more danger than John Reed provided regularly.

"Would you like to go to school?"

I scarcely knew what school was, but if Bessie's occasional accounts of school discipline, gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead, were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. Besides, school would be a complete change. It implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.

"I should indeed like to go to school. Very much."

"Well, well! Who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd as he got up. "The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added, speaking to himself. "Nerves not in a good state."

Bessie now returned; at the same moment the sound of Mrs. Reed calling out for Abbot could be heard from the hall.

"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd. "I should like to speak to her before I go."

As he was a lowly apothecary, I didn't think Mr. Lloyd in any danger from Mrs. Reed right around her usual feeding time. I thanked him and bid him good-night.

Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast room and led the way out. In the interview that followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from later occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school, and the recommendation was readily enough adopted. I overheard Abbot discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery after I was in bed.

"Missus was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a scheming, vengeful child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and ready to find a way to do us all in." Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.

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On that same occasion I heard more to expand upon what my uncle Reed's ghost, real or imagined, had told me. Miss Abbot spoke of my father, a wicked demon slayer who passed himself off as a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling. That after my mother and father had been married a year, my mother's training was complete and she went out slaying with my father, conduct most unbefitting a lady! My parents were on a mission to rid a large manufacturing town from a ravenous band of vampyres when they were outnumbered and surrounded. They died fighting together.

Abbot seemed to think it was right that they should die, as if they attacked poor helpless vampyres out of some sort of misguided prejudice. I suppose she must have forgot what it was like for the Reeds before they were turned and considered all their acts since to be somehow right and good because they were, after all, gentility. Abbot's thoughts reflected her mistress's so well I suspected she was grown in a laboratory from a bit of Mrs. Reed's brain, had Mrs. Reed any little bit to spare.

Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot."

"Yes," responded Abbot. "But I suspect she's got too much of the Slayre blood in her." A long pause ensued in which she must have fallen asleep and then woken herself with a loud snore to continue as if she hadn't missed a beat. "Like her parents, that one. Watch and see."

"I don't think her capable of real violence, Abbot, such a weak little thing," Bessie defended. "At any rate, if she were lovely and athletic like Miss Georgiana, you would no doubt have more faith in her potential."

"Yes, I dote on Miss Georgiana," said Abbot somewhat listlessly, as if reading from a script. "Bessie, you had better get some rest. The

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Reeds are out late hunting and won't be in need of you, but you'll be up early with your charge."

"Indeed. I will have to wake Jane early so she gets used to her new schedule. I'm glad Mrs. Reed can spare me to take care of her properly."

"No one else would be up for the task. Besides, the Reeds are grown as much as they will be. They haven't much need of a nurse."

"True enough," Bessie said, though her tone seemed to offer some disagreement with her words. "Well, Abbot, good night."

CHAPTER 4

TWO DAYS AFTER Mr. Lloyd's visit, I'd finally recovered my strength enough to venture out of doors. At midday! I nearly stripped off my cloak and danced under the sun, it felt so glorious shining down on me. Unfortunately, a chill wind blew, despite the sun's brightness, and I was forced to wrap my cloak tighter around me to keep out the breeze. Cold as it was, nothing could stop me. I ran across fields, jumped over rocks and twigs, and relished the pricking in my expanding lungs. My heart raced. My spirits lightened. I shouted out with glee, not even caring if they could hear me in the house. Let them shake in their coffins. I was free to roam.

A little later in the day, I was gathering small twigs to build a house for my doll when I had a sudden inspiration, a memory of my vision. I was standing over John Reed with a stake in my hand. Oh, the power it inspired! The house was forgotten. I found a fine-edged stone and started rubbing it against the twigs, sharpening them to a point.

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After a while, I decided the rock wasn't doing the trick and I stole into the kitchen and pocketed a tiny dagger when cook wasn't looking. Though only a small one, just large enough to pare potatoes, it allowed me to whittle fat twigs to a fine point. I spent half the afternoon experimenting with branches of different shapes and sizes. When I found what I felt was just the right size twig and worked it to the sharpness for a stake, I practised stabbing it into the ground, imagining John Reed's body in the dirt. Satisfied, I found more twigs, gathered them up in my tucker, and went to a soft, little hill at the side of the house where I could whittle to my heart's content, or until my fingers froze. From then on, I made it my habit to work on a few branches a day until I'd built up a stockpile and I was able to return the dagger as easily as I'd taken it.

Days and weeks passed from Mr. Lloyd's visit and there was no word of my going to school. I never bothered to ask about it, as I was quite content since Mrs. Reed had put me out of her company and allowed me to keep separate hours from the family's. Occasionally, I met up with her in the hall as she was making preparations for the hunt, but she merely narrowed her eyes and stepped around me as if I were a mess on the rug. If she noticed the improved colour in my cheeks from spending hours in the sun, my more robust frame since I'd been permitted proper food, my improved energy from spending hours out of doors running through fields, she didn't comment on it.

My cousins seemed to notice, however. Eliza and Georgina, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible. I noticed their gazes narrowing on me, much like their mother's, only theirs seemed to linger in shrewder assessment. Did I perhaps look a little prettier to them now that I lived a healthier mortal lifestyle? And why should it bother them?

John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me and once attempted chastisement. More determined than ever to stand my ground, I snarled at him, as if warning him away in a language he might understand, that of wild beasts. Once I dared show him a

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wooden stake I'd taken to keeping with me at all times, hidden in my pocket or up a sleeve. He ran immediately to his mama.

"Don't talk to me about her, John. I told you not to go near her. She is not worthy of notice. I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her."

Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating on my words, "They are not fit to associate with me."

Mrs. Reed was a rather large woman, a fierce hunter who alone could devour more than half of what she killed, and she flew at me like a whirlwind, taking the stairs three or four at a time. She crushed me against the wall and dared me to move much less speak to her children again. Her sharp canines, bared, glowed in the lamplight. If she had ever been tempted to attack me, she had hid it well until now.

I checked my fear to address her as calmly as I could manage. "What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?"

"What?" Mrs. Reed backed away, her black eyes returning to their usual cold, composed, and lifeless state.

"My uncle Reed is in heaven now, reunited with his conscience and his soul. Don't think he doesn't watch over you and wish you to find your way to eternal peace and comfort as well. He sees all."

Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits. She jumped at me again, gripped my shoulders and shook me most soundly, then slapped me across the face and left me without a word. Once she walked away, I realised that I'd had a firm hand inside my tucker, gripping the sharpened stake, the entire time I'd been under attack. How close I might have come to using it.

Bessie had words for me that night before bed about minding my station and keeping to my place. For once I did not feel humbled by the words. No, indeed. I felt empowered, not wicked, courageous, not ungrateful. I'd found the power to stand up for myself, and it felt better than I ever imagined it would.

November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas