A field for their efforts
Morning arrives with November birdsong and silvery light in the window. Hair loose, nightgown rumpled, Karen opens her eyes and takes in her new surroundings. The journey was not a dream. She is truly free of Lowood and poised to begin a new life.
Putting her feet down on the deep, clean rug, Karen wanders to the window to take in the view she had missed the night before. The house stands along a line of similar, fine homes, though none as tall. Her window looks down onto Thornfield Lane where carriages and deliveries are kept out of sight of homeowners.
Karen breathes fog against the glass, rubs her fingers in a circle to clear the pane again. She finds a particular delight in the quiet nature of the alley, and the walled garden and small arboretum she can see below. The place is surely grand, and more finely appointed than her previous address.
The sound of the door startles her. She turns quickly to see Dinah, the maid, entering with a breakfast tray. The two exchange quiet greetings. When Dinah departs Karen begins to dress for the day.
___
Miss Leo is joy made flesh. The girl greets Karen with a wide smile and a laugh of delight, “Miss Page, you’re here at last!”
There is a large stack of serious books at Leo’s elbow, two dolls propped against them, and papers spread along the school table. Dispensing with formality before it was ever entertained, Karen’s pupil takes her hand and leads her around to the far side for a better view of her work. Karen is then treated to a whirlwind of questions Leo has held in stock for her new teacher.
“Did you speak English in Vermont, Miss? Does your family?”
“English, my dear. I was instructed in French by a very accomplished tutor.”
“Have you any brothers or sisters, Miss?”
“Indeed.”
“Do you prefer Masterman Ready to The Swiss Family Robinson? I do! The adventure is so thrilling, but Mister Marryat does go on for such a long time about the Bible. The Children of the New Forest was a bit better. Too bad none of them are Americans…”
Karen grins under the flood of Leo’s words. Much like Mrs. Nelson, Leo appears to have saved much of her conversation for someone she considers a contemporary. It takes most of the morning to settle the girl, and by tea time the pair are involved in a lesson on Atlantic shipping routes.
“That is how Master Castle’s father secured his fortune, I believe.”
“Your grandfather?” Karen supplies, and is greeted with a look of genuine surprise.
“Who, Miss?”
“Master Castle, the shipping captain?” For the second time in two days, Karen finds herself on the receiving end of a look of surprise.
“Miss, do you mean Mister Frank’s father?”
Karen is unsettled. She puts the atlas down on the table and turns fully to face Leo. “It seems there are a few things left to learn. Who, exactly, is this Mister Frank?”
The story is an epic drama in Leo’s hands. Her papa, Professor David Liberman, is a celebrated mind and a key member of American military intelligence. Her mother, Sarah, is a great beauty and philanthropist. Her brother Zachary… is older than her. The Libermans and Castles were deeply intertwined. Leo’s papa and Mister Frank served together in various heroic adventures for the military, whilst Leo’s mother and Missus Maria had lobbied for equality and fairness for the unfortunate.
Leo herself was bosom friends with Miss Lisa, the eldest Castle child. The pair had been inseparable from an early age and had spent many happy days in the halls and garden of Thornfield. (Zachary and Francis Junior were also friends, but boys are incapable of similar essential connections. Obviously.)
Then, disaster. During a summer retreat, papa received word of a terrible tragedy. The Castle family were swept up in a bout of influenza that took first Frankie and Lisa, then Missus Maria all in a few days. Papa had not shared the details, but Leo knew from the tears on his cheeks the misadventure was tragic. Mister Castle alone survived but was changed.
“How so?” Karen prompts. Leo’s countenance grows dark and the girl distracts herself with a sketch of steam engine gears.
The girl goes quiet, her gaze distant, “He just was, Miss.”
Karen does not push further. Leo has shown herself to be bright and precocious, but this moment is a reminder that she is also a child who has suffered loss. She smooths her hand along Leo’s arm and gives a small smile when they meet gazes.
“Did you know that steam can power a ship across the world?”
“Yes, Miss. A steamship took mama and papa away without me.”
The silence that follows is weighted and dark. Karen’s training is all that can save the moment, and so she brings Leo to her feet and suggests a tour of the house.
Together, they make a map of Thornfield's floors, marking out points of interest and areas to explore in the future. When supper arrives, the pair sit close by the schoolroom fireplace and plan the next day. If the cold deepens, they will experiment with saucers of objects left on the window ledge to see what will freeze first. If there is rain, they will visit the kitchen to learn bread making.
“And if it is sunny, Miss?”
Karen twists her mouth in a thoughtful grin. “If there is sun… and no mud? I should like you to show me this garden you love so much.”
And, she thinks, to share how you came to be under the roof of this widowed family friend who himself is not present.
____
“Villain!” the thief declared, his voice a raw and frightening bellow. “I will have justice for your transgression.”
The enemy turned to face the thief, a terrible smile on his deeply scarred face.
“No, cur,” the man replied, “I will best you now to show you the meaning of humiliation.”
The pair circled, feinted, and scowled. The thief brought out his knives from their sheaths at his sides. Blades flashed in the dull light of the empty alley. With a deep roar, he lunged forward, the blackness of the night matched only with the blackness of his heart.
Karen sets her pen down on the desk and rubs her hands. Her knuckles crack. She looks to the porcelain clock on the mantelpiece and groans. It is nearly midnight and she will need sleep if she plans to keep up with Leo tomorrow.
The evening had been enjoyable, if quiet. Still accustomed to the busy evening noises of Lowood, Karen had found herself nodding off in the close and pleasant silence of Mrs. Nelson’s drawing room. Leo had read to them for a short time before departing with her nursemaid for bed. Afterward, Mrs. Nelson told her own story of discovering moth holes in the drapes of a side room. Her horror seemed nearly as dramatic as Leo’s storytelling.
“The whole of the bottom shall need to be repaired. The expense will be abominable, but I’m sure Mr. Castle will allow it.”
“Mrs. Nelson,” Karen grasps at the pause in the housekeeper’s narration, “When will Mr. Castle return?”
At this Mrs. Nelson pauses. Mr. Castle’s work is still tied to the military and takes him to Washington DC, Ohio and far into the South. Since the loss of Mrs. Castle and the children, he has come to the city less and less.
“But what about Leo? Her family –“
Mr. Castle had been the one to install Leo in the home. Her parents had been called away so quickly that there had not been time for Dr. Liberman and Mrs. Sarah to travel with her up the coast. Leo’s brother Zachary was in a boarding school near Washington DC, preparing to enter the newly-established Virginia Military Institute.
Mrs. Nelson thought back to that September afternoon when Mr. Castle arrived in the front hall, unannounced, with the little girl at his side.
“Oh, Miss Page, the tears in her eyes!”
Mr. Castle pushed Leo forward into Mrs. Nelson’s path, saying “She’s a smart girl. She’ll need a teacher to keep her in line.” Then he turned abruptly and vanished into the street. A letter arrived just before Miss Page to say that he would be in Louisiana through the winter.
“What does he do, exactly, Mrs. Nelson?”
“Oh dear, that would be telling.”
Karen excuses herself, claiming a not-untruthful exhaustion. Returning to her own quarters had been bliss. Dinah had laid a fire and turned down the bed. As Karen moved about the room, undressing and laying garments neatly aside, she caught sight of her journal and pen.
Hours later, she feels the results of her distraction. Pages of dialogue and wandering adventure are the result, along with stiff fingers and a cramped hand. The pages shift under her hand.
Bloodied, body bruised, the thief pulled himself to standing and gazed out across the rooftops of the city. His hands were tacky with thickened blood and filth. Dirt was ground into the fine creases at his eyes. It had been a long night of battles, and there would be more to come. Sore and in need of respite, he turned back to seek shelter until the next altercation.
The darkness beyond her window mirrors back the lowering fire and waiting bed behind her. She slips under the blankets and is asleep in moments.
____
November slopes into December. Frost becomes snow. In the streets, slush builds and cakes the underside of carriages that pass below the front windows of Thornfield.
But Leo’s curiosity is a bright fire and the schoolroom its hearth. Together, governess and student embark on a broad path of learning. Karen realizes quickly that the girl will not be satisfied with rote lectures preferred by Lowood’s instructors. Inspired by Leo’s energy, Karen introduces lessons that feed her own interests.
Over the month the room has become equal parts laboratory, workshop, library, and study. A late-season frog found in the garden mud holds court from a large glass vessel by the high windows. A small mechanized horse and cart, innards mapped on sheaves of paper pinned to the wall, lays in half construction at one end of the table. Closest to the fireplace are two comfortable chairs where pupil and governess are now settled. Karen reads from Marryat’s The King’s Own and Leo copies down words to review later. It is nearly tea time.
When Karen looks up to remind her pupil of the time, she finds the girl asleep. There is an urge borne from Karen’s years at Lowood to startle Leo awake with a chastisement. The inclination is like an animal bite. Karen shakes her head to clear the gloom from her mind. No child in her care will ever bear that fear and pain.
Karen stands quietly and wraps her shawl about her, deciding to seek out Leo’s nurse.
Adele, a doting French Canadian, is in the kitchen starching petticoats. She is chatting in halting English with Cook and Dinah as they peel turnips for the dinner. Sam sits near the fire repairing a bridle bit which makes a soft jingle as it turns in his hands.
When Adele sees Karen in the door she starts and nearly drops her iron.
“Steady, girl,” Cook supplies, leaning back to stretch her from her own task. She indicates to a folded newspaper that lays among the peels on the kitchen table, its topmost headline visible under spreading vegetable damp:
“CEASE!” BEG CITY CRIMINALS TO ARCHITECT OF NIGHT OF TERROR!
“Miss Page, we're talking over the news. Adele doesn’t like the state of affairs. What do you think of such violence?”
Violence? Karen takes the paper by its dry corner and looks over the Herald’s wobbly print.
A bloodbath in the docklands west of 11th Avenue in the notorious Five Points section of the city. A coven of fiends murdered as they committed acts of arson and thievery. Twelve dead – each known to the night watch and city constables. No witnesses could be found to report the perpetrator. Violence indeed. She feels eyes on her and schools a look of shock on her face.
“It is dreadful. Adele, est-ce que votre coeur est écoeuré par ceci?”
(Leo’s own excellent French is a result of a close relationship with Adele. The pair converse happily in bubbling vowels and rolling consonants. When Mrs. Nelson learned of Karen’s own proficiency she sighed with relief, “At last, an interpreter.”)
Adele replies in French that yes, her heart is sickened. She adds that her own village had not experienced a morning’s worth of the headlines generated by New York City in one hundred years. Karen tuts in agreement, then asks in English if the nurse would take her charge a few hours early today. Adele nods, replaces her irons in the hearth and departs.
“You’re a cool one, Miss Page,” Sam says softly. “Thought country girls like you and Adele would be terrified as a piece.”
“I believe in the strength of these walls,” Karen replies, eyeing the newspaper. “Whatever is out there will need to work hard to get in here.”
Leo has been whisked away by the time Karen returns to the school room. The space is empty, though the fire still burns high in the grate. Karen slowly moves about the room tidying away loose papers and tucking books back into their shelves. Spying a folded sheet between book spines on a higher shelf, she plucks the paper down to eye level.
Dearest Papa,
Mama says I must practis often if I wish to write like Miss Finely or Mister Anderson. You are away so I write to you to practis and ask after you. Are you well, papa? Do you miss your Lisa and Frankie? Mama misses you terrible. What is the Missisipi like? Mama says you are keeping the peace for the president. I miss you…
The handwriting is shaky and wide, looping with an inexperienced but persistent hand.
Of course.
This schoolroom was used by the Castle family in better days. Karen feels as though she has stepped on a grave. She folds the letter and tucks it into a volume of children's poetry, then slips the book back onto the shelf. If she ever meets the master of Thornfield, she will find a way to return this to him.