My Mr. Rochester (8 page)

Miss Scatcherd looked to the bishop, ready to take instruction. Miss Miller’s eyes were cast down. Miss Temple stared ahead at nothing. By now I understood her well enough to know she was seething inside, not for my sake but at the usurpation of her authority.

I call it progress that I noted these things. A month earlier, I would have been consumed by my agony, ready to cry out against the injustice before I knew what it was. I could do this. I would recede inside myself until Brocklehurst was gone. I would be serene.

“This girl is a wanton!” the bishop said. “A Jezebel. A harlot.”

I wasn’t serene. I nearly fell off the stool.

“Bishop!” Miss Temple said.

“A Salome. Who would think the Evil One could find a servant and agent in a girl so plain and unremarkable? Yet such is the case.”

Jezebel.
My heart sank. John Reed had called me that. And Mrs. Reed too. Brocklehurst must have visited Gateshead recently. They hated me so much! Getting rid of me wasn’t enough. They had to send slander on my heels.

“Jane Eyre’s benefactor sent her to Lowood in good faith,” the bishop said. “That good woman knows nothing of what I’ve heard in strict confidence. This girl is a temptress, a seductress. She attempted to corrupt even her benefactor’s son.”

What did John tell him?
I flashed back to the Red Room. John Reed’s skinny tongue—for all his girth—poking into my mouth, his hand groping me while I was tied to the chair. He was the unchaste one! He was the molester.

But I was doomed. Brocklehurst would never believe my side of the story.

“This is a sad matter. I will not publish what I know of this girl’s wickedness, for it would hurt a good and decent lady, but it’s my duty to warn you all.” He circled me as he spoke. “Jane Eyre is not one of God’s lambs. She’s a castaway. Exclude her from your company. Shun her!”

So unfair! Shame burned my face, and the stares of my classmates made me want to die.

“Teachers, watch her.” He placed his large hand squarely on my stomach. “Jane Eyre might better belong to Bethany House.”

“Don’t touch me!” I pushed him away, and a collective gasp went up.

Brocklehurst’s face darkened. He raised his hand to strike me, but a commotion among the girls stopped him.

“Miss Scatcherd, Miss Temple. Helen Burns has fainted!”

Everyone rushed to Helen, glad to break off from the subject of the wanton Jane Eyre.

“Helen!” I cried out from my perch. “Helen! What’s wrong? Someone tell me, is she ill?”

“Bring her forward,” Miss Temple said. “Give her room to breathe.”

As Miss Scatcherd and one of the older girls lifted Helen off the floor, she moaned and opened her eyes. “What happened?”

Someone brought out Miss Scatcherd’s chair and they put Helen down in it. She was so pale. Her scarf had fallen away, and her strawberry blond curls fell in a cascade around her face and shoulders. She was like an angel.

“What is this vanity?” Bishop Brocklehurst lifted a lock of the beautiful hair. “Miss Temple?”

“Her hair is naturally curly, bishop,” Miss Temple said. “She keeps it under her scarf.”

“To hide vanity doesn’t make it virtue. Miss Scatcherd, do you have scissors?”

“I do, sir.”

“Bring them out at once, and remove these undignified curls.”

Miss Scatcherd fetched the scissors from the desk drawer and trimmed the greatest offender, the curl that always fell in Helen’s face when she read. Helen stared into another world, bearing the indignity with characteristic grace.

“Not like that.” Bishop Brocklehurst took the instrument from Miss Scatcherd and went to work himself. When he was finished, Helen’s head was as bare as the shorn lamb. She remained stoic through the process. She didn’t cry, but to me she looked very ill.

“Jane Eyre, get back on that stool—no. Return it to the corner and stand there for an hour.” Bishop Brocklehurst said to Miss Temple, “Let no one speak to her until sunrise tomorrow.”

He ushered his children from the silent, stunned room. I climbed up on the stool, glad to face the corner instead of my fellows. Everyone was so quiet. Miss Temple told Helen to go lie down until supper, and I heard Brocklehurst’s limousine drive away.

Miss Temple was not pleased. After this “burnt porridge,” our consolation was more than bread and cheese.

Miss Temple’s answer to Bishop Brocklehurst came the next day. Lunch was delayed, and we were sent outside to work in our gardens while we waited. I was glad because I shared my plot with Helen, and I hadn’t spoken to her since Brocklehurst’s horrible visit.

We set to work weeding the yellow squash. I waited for her to speak, but she was even quieter than usual. She was pale, yet her face seemed flushed to me. “How are you feeling, Helen?”

“Fine.”

“You can’t even tell about your hair,” I said. “Not with your scarf. And it will grow back.” Everything I said made it worse, so I changed the subject. “What Brocklehurst said about me wasn’t true. I’m not…like them.” I nodded toward Bethany House, the building where the fallen girls lived. “I could never.”

“I didn’t believe the bishop.” Helen stopped and sat back on her heels. “But you’re wrong to judge the Bethany girls, Jane. Maybe they thought they were in love. Maybe they were forced. I’m sure not one of them meant to end up in her condition with no husband.”

Contraception was banned by the EDLs, and at Gateshead parish the vicar delivered regular sermons on the evils of birth control. He said condoning it was like condoning sin. Made sense to me! Why make it easier to follow the wrong path?

But what if Helen was right? What if those girls had been forced? Lucky for me John Reed was an even bigger coward than he was a bully. The thought of bearing his child made me ill. Good lord. I could have been a Bethany girl at this very moment.

“I’m ashamed of myself,” I said. “Those poor girls.”

I first heard their cheerful chattering, and then they were there, walking two-by-two through the rows of garden beds. They were like flowers themselves in their lovely floral patterned dresses.
Poor girls
wasn’t quiet apropos.

“Hello,” a Bethany girl said sweetly to the gaping Lowood girl across from our plot.

What a bout of cognitive dissonance! We were supposed to loathe and judge them, but they were so pretty, so relaxed—so happy. I envied them.

They crossed the garden, and as they disappeared into our building the damned bell rang, calling us in to lunch. I was on my feet in an instant, ready to run with the others, hoping to catch another glimpse of the Bethany girls.

“Helen, let’s go.” I looked back, and my friend was still on her knees. I rushed to her and helped her stand. “Are you ill, Helen?”

“I’m a little weak, that’s all,” she said. “I’ll feel better when I eat something.”

If only lunch is edible
, I thought. Then we entered the building, and I thought I must be hallucinating. The tantalizing aroma of stew and fresh bread floated out to us like we were in the little princess’s dream—but that wasn’t the amazing thing.

The Bethany girls were in our dining hall seated at a newly added table near the front of the room, chattering like birds while servers poured milk into large glasses before each of them.

“Be sure to eat all your food today,” I said to Helen.

Miss Temple glowed with triumph. We’d suffered an injustice; now would come the consolation. Whether to soothe our spirits or her own, I never knew.

“Ladies, I’ve invited our neighbors from across the garden to join us for our afternoon meal today.” It was her way of signaling her disapproval of Bishop Brocklehurst’s behavior the day before. He condemned Jezebels. We would break bread with them.

The stew was delicious, and there was butter and honey for the bread. But there was more. The Movie Man came! I should say the Movie Lady. The operator of the projector was a woman. She set up a screen behind the teachers’ table. A bunch of us drew the curtains closed, and Miss Scatcherd turned off the infernal fluorescent lights.

The movie was an epic story set over two hundred years ago during the first attempt to separate from the heathen old country, about a girl blinded to true love by her passion for a married man.

In the scene where Rhett made Scarlett wear a sexy red dress to a birthday party, I felt her pain and humiliation. But Melanie defended her and gave her precedence over the gossiping biddies.

As the scene played, I caught Miss Temple watching me. She gave me a smile as beatific as Melanie’s. I wanted to hug her and tell her thank you.
Thank you for not believing Bishop Brocklehurst.
In my youthful self-centeredness, I believed Miss Temple chose the movie with me in mind.

I realize now she meant it as a kindness to the Bethany girls and a lesson for all of us. The story showed how passion can drive a good person to bad choices. Scarlett learned too late. When Rhett Butler left her and disappeared into the mist, the girls at the Bethany table broke down in tears.

I helped open the curtains, and as my eyes adjusted to the light I spotted a girl sprawled on the floor. “Miss Temple, help!” I cried. “Helen Burns is truly sick!”

The few who could go home did, and the dormitory was turned into an extended infirmary. Those without sign of illness were sent to Bethany House.

All too late. The measles had come to Lowood, and the only thing that could save anyone—vaccination—had either been done or rejected years ago.

I was sent to Bethany House with the asymptomatics, but I couldn’t stand to wait idle without knowing if Helen was all right. I slipped away from the others, determined to find out for myself.

“Jane Eyre, stop.” Miss Scatcherd stood sentry at the front door. “You can’t break the quarantine.”

“Please, Miss Scatcherd, let me go,” I said. “I’ve been vaccinated. I can help.”

Once more my uncle proved his worth to me. Despite Mrs. Reed’s aversion to the practice, he’d insisted everyone at Gateshead undertake a full course of vaccinations.

“Why am I not surprised?” Miss Scatcherd muttered under her breath. But she relented. “Go. Do what good you can.” As I crossed the threshold, her habitual hard expression softened somewhat and she grabbed my arm. “You’re a brave girl, Jane Eyre.”

I wasn’t brave. I was desperate to see Helen. After explaining to Miss Temple why I’d left quarantine, I went to the only friend I’d ever had.

“The doctor’s coming,” I said. A rash covered her face and throat. I placed a cool cloth on her forehead and pressed her hand to my cheek. She was burning up. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m not afraid, Jane. I’m not like you, so eager for life.” Her voice was soft and small, barely there. “I’m ready.”

“Oh, Helen. Please don’t leave me.”

“I want to go. I want to be with my father in heaven.”

I couldn’t tell if she meant God or her actual father. “Do you really believe?” I said.

I’d called on my uncle in heaven to send his wrath down on Mrs. Reed. I’d warned her of my parents watching her cruelty from above. But my belief in heaven was more habitual than substantial. Unlike gravity, I’d never tested heaven as an operating force. Now I faced losing someone real to death, not an idea of someone out of a gifted memory.

“God wouldn’t destroy what he’s created,” Helen said. “There’s a home with him for all of us.”

“Will I see you again when I die?”

She didn’t answer. Our little bit of talk had worn her out, and she was asleep. I lay down beside her and held her in my arms. When I awoke hours later, she was gone.

The disease spread like fire through dry hay. More than half Lowood’s inmates followed Helen, their bodies already weak from the constant dragging down of near starvation. Several who survived went blind. Many of the Bethany girls miscarried. I thought of Bishop Brocklehurst’s words the day I met him:
I buried a mother and her infant only yesterday.
Would he show more feeling for these mothers?

He delivered a memorial sermon at Lowood Chapel. I was in the second pew behind Miss Temple who sat between Miss Scatcherd and Miss Miller.

It felt good to know Miss Temple was there. She was my ideal. After so much death and sorrow, I needed her to be a touchstone, brave, resolute, ultra competent, and ready to meet any foe with strength and grace. Her French braid hung loosely down her back, and her shoulders were hunched forward. Her head was bent, but not in prayer. She seemed defeated, and it broke my heart.