My Mr. Rochester 1(20)

“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.