My Mr. Rochester 1(16)

My stomach turned while my nose twitched. O, for yesterday’s eggs and cheese on the train! I hazarded a spoonful of the gruel, retched at the taste, and a chorus gave harmony to my retching.

“Silence!” From the head table, Miss Scatcherd gave us all the evil eye. Miss Miller was there, but I didn’t see Miss Temple.

Miss Miller left the dining hall just before the damn bell rang again to send us off to our first class. Yes. Already, I could spew swears to rival John Reed. We’d lined up to be let out when Miss Temple came in with Miss Miller following. Everyone went quiet as Miss Temple walked straight to the pot, picked up a spoon, and tasted the creamed rice.

“Ugh!” She grimaced. “Disgusting!”

In the teachers’ murmuring I heard the words Brocklehurst and bishop uttered in disapproving tones. Miss Temple frowned and shook her head at them, but she made no effort to check their general wrath. I was glad to know my disdain for the man was shared.

“Never mind.” Miss Temple addressed us all. “It’s a lovely morning. The girls may spend an hour in the garden. You may draw or sew or hear a story from Miss Miller. I’ll have bread and cheese sent in for you to take outside.

“Hurray!” A general cheer went up.

“Silence!” Miss Scatcherd said. “Keep to your lines!”

Discipline prevailed, and why not? Miss Temple had saved us.

Seen now in the light of day she was pretty, with a sweetness I could never maintain in her position. Her thick hair was again bound in a simple but elegant tight French braid. Her dark purple dress trimmed with a draping collar of black lace gave her an air of handsome competence.

My heart surged with fellow feeling. One day I wanted to be like Miss Temple.

We waited in our lines for the bread and cheese then each took her portion outside. I looked for Burns, but she had disappeared.

In the garden between the two large buildings, I ate my little share in small bites to make it last. I wandered from group to group, lighting on none, and moved on to several rows of miniature garden plots, each assigned to a girl for cultivation. Green seedlings were beginning to emerge from the earth, but it was too soon to tell if they were vegetables or flowers.

No one took notice of me. I felt lonely, but I’d been lonely all my life. It didn’t signify. I drew my grey mantle close about me and tried to ignore the cold and my lingering hunger. I turned a corner and found Burns on a stone bench near a cluster of rose bushes.

She was absorbed in a book by Samuel Johnson called Rasselas. She turned a page and, brushing another wayward curl out of her eyes, she happened to look up at me.

“I’m sorry I got you in trouble,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “I spoke when I shouldn’t have.”

“But how could you bear it to be beaten? You should have shoved her away.”

“Then she would have beaten me harder,” she said. “And I would have deserved it. Miss Scatcherd only means to correct my faults. I don’t blame her.”

“Is your book interesting?” I had to change the subject or I’d surely say something wrong.

She looked at me half a minute before answering, “I like it.”

“What’s it about?”

She offered me the book to look at, a work of philosophy. There were no princes or princesses, witches or wizards. I handed it back and gave up the idea of borrowing it.

“Do you like the other teachers here?” I asked hastily, to stop her returning to her book. I’d starved for conversation with a kindred spirit far longer than I’d been hungry for food.

“I like Miss Temple,” she said. “If only she was truly in charge here, but she answers to Bishop Brocklehurst. He pays for all our food and our clothes. He won’t be happy about the bread and cheese.”

“Does he live here?” I dreaded the answer.

“No, miles away. His mother established Lowood, and he’s the administrator of her will.”

“Do you think he’s a good man?”

“He’s an Anointed Elder. Some say he does a great deal of good. He’s not often here.”

“I call that good,” I said.

She didn’t comment but she smiled, and for the second time this morning a sense of fellow-feeling raised my spirits. Perhaps Lowood’s virtues would balance its shortcomings.

“How long have you been here?” I said. “Do you go home on holidays?” I felt my face go red. I didn’t want to admit my aunt had sent me away, never to return.

“My father was a soldier on the border,” she said. “He died when I was young. Later my mother married another man, an Anointed Elder, who sent me here.”