Jane Steele (6 page)

“Yes,” I agreed, nettled. “What of it? I’m Jane Steele. Who are you?”

“Rebecca Clarke. Call me Clarke, that’s the way of it here. And thank you.” She let her pale curls fall back to the pillow. “I couldn’t have stood another day of this. I’ll tell it as mild as I can, I promise.”

“Tell what?”

“Tell Mr. Munt you lied about your prayers.”

“But why—”

“You can report me in a week, when I’ve recovered. Fair is fair, after all.”

“Report you where?” I demanded as my sluggish pulse sped.

“At Mr. Munt’s daily Reckoning,” Clarke chirped before burrowing back under the linens and effectively vanishing once more.

“Madam,” he pursued, “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world; my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety . . .”

A
soft hand on my shoulder woke me, and I dragged sleepy eyes open to view the blurred face of Miss Lilyvale. My slumber had been thin and fitful; rising, I glanced about for the mysterious Rebecca Clarke, but her bed was now neatly made.

“Wash up, Steele, and we’ll be off.”

The shock of the cold water was reviving, and I used my wet hands to smooth the countless ripples from my hair. When I turned back to Miss Lilyvale, she took my arm companionably and we quit the dormitory for the stairs, muddied evening sunlight trickling through the high, grimy exterior windows. The cracks of blue had retreated whilst I slept, beaten back by regiments of austere cloud banks. I watched a great line of girls emerging from a wing of classrooms, marching in pairs towards the open timber doors we approached.

“The housekeeper will leave two sets of uniforms on your bed this evening,” Miss Lilyvale informed me. “For tonight, you need not worry about your dress, but afterwards be sure to keep yourself clean
and well presented. Oh!” Miss Lilyvale brightened. “Taylor! Steele, this is your bedmate, Sarah Taylor.”

The girl who had broken off from the line was twelve, with a moon face which was so beautiful I had no notion whether she should be congratulated or censured for taking matters a trifle too far. Her lips were rosy, her hair a sleek raven black, and the navy of the Lowan Bridge uniform served only to make her own blue orbs shine the brighter. She reached out with her palm down as if she were a noblewoman accepting obeisance—which was not entirely unfair and then again rather tiresome.

“How do you do?” said I. “I am happy to meet you.”

“Yes,” said she, in a strangely lazy drawl, “very likely.”

This was less than promising, but the queue of schoolgirls had nearly entered the dining hall, so we hastened into the cavern from which the rich aroma of stew emanated. The huge chamber could have been a Viking hall, from bare flagstones to immense rafters. Miss Lilyvale walked to a dais at the end of the room; there the remaining teachers were assembled, including—to my dismay—Vesalius Munt. His staff was otherwise made up of females, a bevy of dull pigeons clad in stone and fawn and charcoal and ash. A great black cauldron was perched on sturdy iron before this assembly, with a matronly cook standing next to it.

When Taylor and I sat, to my astonishment I beheld the mutton stew already ladled into a bowl, and a respectable portion at that. Several platters had been set along the roughhewn table, piled high with rustic bread, and mugs of steaming black coffee sent bittersweet curlicues to the distant ceiling.

“Is . . . is this usual?” I marvelled. Taylor had made no move to lift the pewter spoon, so I folded my hands in my lap.

“What?” she returned peevishly.

“Is the fare always so good? It smells divine.”

“Well,
that
of all things doesn’t matter in the
slightest
,” she retorted languidly.

This was peculiar, and likewise was it cause for a pulse of concern that none of the girls appeared happy about the fare; they regarded their bowls with slightly less dismay than I had once levelled at my cousin’s genitalia. Before I could ask why, Mr. Munt rose from his chair and raised his hands elegantly skyward as we folded our fingers together.

“For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful,” Mr. Munt called out in sonorous tones. “May He create in us humble gratitude for this nourishment, and may this fine meal strengthen our bodies that we may serve our Lord with greater steadfastness every day. Amen.”

“Wouldn’t that be grand,” the girl across from me muttered after we had repeated the closing word of the prayer. She had a thin, sallow face and limp ash-coloured hair.

“Oh,
do
hush, Fox, your efforts at humour are
dreadful
,” Taylor crooned snidely.

“Now!” Mr. Munt exclaimed. “The time has come for our daily Reckoning. I adjure you as I always do to be thorough, and above all truthful, for the narrow path to purity lies solely in confession. First, Miss Werwick reports that the advanced Latin class did miserably poorly on their surprise examination. Let them stand and explain themselves.”

A block of twenty or so girls rose, looking as if they had been asked to face the Spanish Inquisition.

“If you will not volunteer further information, it is my honour-bound duty to call upon you,” Vesalius Munt said reluctantly. “Please raise your hand if you were the highest scoring student in Miss Werwick’s class?”

An awkward older girl with a belly slightly wider than her hips
and a queer shoulders-backwards posture lifted what resembled a flipper.

“I scored nineteen points out of twenty, sir,” she said tragically.

“And do you think you ought to escape punishment for your triumph, Robinson?” Mr. Munt persisted.

Robinson took a long pause. Her classmates regarded her as one might a crouching lion being sighted down a rifle barrel—frightened, threatened, still dangerous.

“Yes.” She set her teeth; the others flinched. “Yes, I think that earning so high a mark means I ought not to be punished.”

“Oh no,” whispered the lacklustre girl called Fox.

“Well,
that
won’t go at
all
well,” Taylor echoed in a singsong fashion, though she sounded more intrigued than appalled.

“What—” I began.

“Enid Robinson,” Mr. Munt boomed, his facial creases deepening to holy fissures, “do you think that
vanity
relieves you from the shame of having failed to assist your fellows?”

Robinson jerked, a hare caught in a trap. “No, sir.”

“Perhaps you imagine that worldly accomplishments will cause God to overlook the sin of self-satisfaction?”

Perhaps Robinson meant to reply to this last, but she was prevented.

“An example must be made!” Mr. Munt’s soldierly command rang through the hall, and his ever-roving grey eyes glinted
.
“Robinson, please lead the queue of girls being punished for Latin infractions and waste no time about it—in addition, you can replace luncheon with prayer in the chapel for the following fortnight.”

Robinson paled but ducked her chin. I watched as the hapless Latin students picked up their bowls and carried them to the cauldron; one by one, they dumped the stew back into the vat. They then strode out of the dining hall.

This,
I thought,
is very much worse than I supposed.

Suddenly several hands shot into the air, a giddy springtime of sprouting fingers. They seemed to belong to the most peakish of the girls, the ones on whom I would not have laid money should they challenge a dandelion to a duel.

“Clarke,” Vesalius Munt called out gladly. “Yes, go on, my dear—lean on Allen there, you seem fatigued, though you deserve no less for having stolen from the poorest of God’s servants.”

Rebecca Clarke, who only managed to pull herself to a standing position by means of the better-fed Allen, raised her leaf-green eyes. Several teachers (including Miss Werwick) stared on with pleasure as if this were some grotesque circus, whilst others (including Miss Lilyvale) concentrated all their attention upon ceiling beams and bootlaces.

I had not been mistaken in my hazy examination of Clarke—she was no more than seven years old if she was a day, and affecting an uncanny look of forced piety, the one I suppose scientists adopted when strapped to a stake and asked whether or not the Earth was flat.

“What happens if you refuse to throw your supper away?” I whispered, horrified.

“
Hsst.
” Fox shot me a jaundiced glance of warning.

“Clarke, allow your natural urge towards repentance guide you.” Mr. Munt’s eyes roved, hither and thither, tinsel glints seeking out his victim’s victim; I knew who was to be led to the chopping block and felt a contrary surge of pride.

“Poor little mouse has been on a diet of water and brimstone for
four
entire days now, after the larder raid
,
” Taylor explained, sounding bored.

“The new girl,” Clarke’s tiny voice called. “Please don’t punish her, for I hardly know her name. Steele, I think, and she was very
tired, as she only arrived today. Miss Lilyvale told her to say her prayers, and she . . . didn’t, sir. She fell asleep.”

Dozens upon dozens of eyes swept to me as I stood; Mr. Munt frowned happily, returning his attention to Clarke.

“You have redeemed yourself, my child!” he cried. “Clarke, you may eat.”

No wild dog ever set upon any limping deer’s frame as assiduously as Clarke attacked her stew. She had been reduced to pearly teeth and pink tongue and soiled fingers; I pitied the sight even as my stomach growled.

Miss Lilyvale, a red flag flying across her cheeks, pressed her palm against her stomach and refused to watch.

“Steele, please step forward. You shall not be punished in the usual way, as you are new,” Mr. Munt declared, “but you must learn the value we place here upon obedience.”

Stepping over the bench, I advanced towards the teachers’ table.
Scuff, scuff, scuff
went my shoes and
thud, thud, thud
went my heart as I advanced to be caned or set on a dunce’s stool or adorned with a chalkboard or have my hair shorn off.

Mr. Munt smiled as I approached. He extended his hands; Miss Lilyvale, I noted, turned a striking shade of caterpillar green as Vesalius Munt glanced back at her.

“Miss Lilyvale has of late begged me to embrace forgiveness alongside justice, and I hereby publicly grant her wish,” he declared.

Mr. Munt is in love with Miss Lilyvale,
I thought feebly as his fingers gripped my still-bruised wrists.
That cannot lead to good.
Mr. Munt tugged me so hard that my knees struck the stone floor in front of him.

“You will not go without supper today, Steele,” Mr. Munt announced. “You will lead us in prayer instead, for I surmise that despite your reputation for wrongdoing you intended to mind Miss
Lilyvale. Pray say what is in your heart, and your brothers and sisters in Christ shall pray alongside you.”

Mr. Munt’s eyes bored into me, silver picks illicitly nudging a lock open.

I stared back, thrilling with revulsion.

He is not satisfied unless we are complicit: he likes us responsible for our own abuse.

I recalled Cousin Edwin’s features, sweat-slick and satisfied, as he played what he thought was a game.

You’re every bit as bad as I am. You liked it.

Meanwhile, Mr. Munt’s request that I say what was in my heart was a deliberately humiliating one, for what girl on her knees before an authoritarian feels anything save the pooling of hot shame in her belly, alongside bitter resentment that she should be treated no better than a slave?

I felt these insults, reader, and I collected them, strung them like sand hardened into pearls, and I wore them, invisible; I wear them today.

“Our Father, who art in heaven,” I called out clearly with my eyes shut. The flagstone bit further into my knees when Mr. Munt gripped the top of my head as if blessing me. “You delivered me safely to the hands of these godly people, who want to stop the, ah, excesses of my nature. I’m so truly sorry that when Miss Lilyvale told me to pray I did not thank You for, um, her kindness and for Mr. Munt, whose attentions are so . . . thorough, and wise.”

The hand on my head like an iron halo shifted, running an approving thumb over the part in my hair before Mr. Munt pressed my brow into the muscle of his thigh; I could smell him, something faintly sweet like candle wax and tarry like cigar smoke. Stifling a revolted choking sound with a cough, I hastened on.

“Please, Lord, will You take pity on this poor sinner, and please will you grant Miss Lilyvale and Mr. Munt patience when dealing
with my shortcomings, and, ah, please will You bless all Your beloved children at Lowan Bridge. Amen.”

The palm on my crown vanished, and the headmaster stepped back. Looking up, I found Mr. Munt wearing a blended expression: part feigned outward joy, part real inner perplexity, and a final ingredient I think surprised even him—recognition.

I’ve earned my bowl of supper,
I thought, gazing up with a holy smile on my lips and a knife at the back of my teeth.
Try to take it from me.

“Remarkable!” cried Mr. Munt, easily lifting me to my feet again. “Even the untamed, when moved by the Lord’s grace, can inspire an entire congregation with her example. Steele, you may return to your seat.”

I kept my head down as I stumbled on battered joints back down the gauntlet, but I stole glances at my classmates from behind the bars of my lashes. Clarke, who sat half-slumped over her empty bowl (by empty I do not mean finished, but rather as clean as if the touch of stew had never kissed this particular vessel), winked at me.

“Well,” Taylor huffed when my journey had ended, “I
never
.”

“Didn’t you?” I returned, and her pretty eyes narrowed sullenly.

“I never did, no.”

“Did you mean a word of that?” Fox whispered.

“Of course,” I lied, but I crossed my fingers upon the tabletop, and she granted me a brief smirk.

“That was either spectacular, or else the most
disgraceful
thing I’ve ever seen,” Taylor continued.

Can’t it be both?
I thought, and I must have been delirious with the strain, for I belted out a laugh I covered with a sneezing fit.

Mr. Munt was calling on other girls now, ones who had been sentenced to diets like Clarke’s and were shattering like fine china; one by one, the Reckoning forced about half of those present to dump our meals.

“How is he
allowed?
” I mouthed.

“If any refuse, it’s two hours with him in his private office. God knows what happens inside—Fisher went, and would never speak of it afterwards. Anyway, it’s the best school for young ladies within fifty miles of London,” Fox muttered glumly. “It isn’t just the food; they’ve dozens of ways to make us mind them. Miss Martin gives you hours’ worth of lines to write, Miss James will actually ink your offence on your forehead, Miss Lilyvale is a great one for early bedtime—which sounds harmless but we’ve too many studies for it not to be awful
—
and Madame Archambault has a little rattan cane in her desk. A fortnight ago, Harper didn’t sit for three days.”