Page 8 of Fragile Wicked Things
"Is that so? No goodness from the kind Christian folk who sponsor Lowood's Sunday tea? I know this about you, Jane E. You have no heart as you cannot show goodwill and love towards others. That is why people find it so hard to love you."
"My mother loved me."
"And your father?"
"He did too…once. He'll bring me home soon."
Mr. Brocklehurst became quiet and looked down at his papers again, the fight in him worn down. I had won. I was unaccustomed to winning against a brute like him. Once my father sent for me, I would no longer be under Mr. Brocklehurst's control. I knew then why he had called me into his office and what the papers were before him. Tossed somewhere in the pile on his desk, lay a letter from my father asking for my return home and promising a brand-new life.
It was not too late for happiness.
Mr. Brocklehurst held a typewritten letter in his hand. My father would never type a letter, but maybe he had hired a lawyer who typed this formal request that I be released from Lowood and returned to my loving father. I could barely contain the excitement building within me. I wanted to shout, to jump on Mr. Brocklehurst's desk; no, to dance on it and kick the papers about. I was going home.
"I'm afraid I received word about your father. A policeman found him early one morning, lying off the shoulder of a road. The cold didn't wake him, so they hospitalized him for pneumonia. He succumbed to it two days ago. Reverend Reed is arranging the funeral service for the third of April."
"That's today."
"Yes, Mrs. Reed felt there was no need for you to attend, and I must agree with her. That life is behind you."
Something grabbed at me, choking me, seizing my every breath. A heat rose within me, through the veins, pumping itself up, up, up my throat and lashed out of my mouth. My body shook, ungovernable to the point of frenzy, as I yelled at Mr. Brocklehurst and Mrs. Reed, even though she wasn't there.
"Mrs. Reed, you are horrible! Horrible! And Mr. Brocklehurst, you're a wolf! You're the worst of them all."
Mrs. Temple ran in, threw her arms around me and tried to calm me, but to no avail. She wrapped her hand around me to hold me back, but my arms kept flailing against the desk, reaching for Mr. Brocklehurst.
"Hold that girl, Mrs. Temple! You are a wicked girl. This darkness has always been with you. Mrs. Reed warned me."
My feet were free and kicked out straight ahead, aiming for his shin, but I found the wooden leg of the desk instead. The rage I felt overpowered the pain from the kick. My stubbed toe throbbed in my thin black boots. A cold air crept in through holes underneath. Finally, Mrs. Temple threw herself on top, forcing me to the floor so that she could better hold me down. By then, I had caused such a commotion that Miss Smith came running, pushing aside the girls who had gathered by the entranceway to Mr. Brocklehurst's office.
Mrs. Temple now had re-enforcement as more hands reached around me, sometimes scratching my skin. In the struggle that ensued, they knocked my head to the cold oak floor by accident. Thump. Thump. As they held me down, I banged my head against the floor with purpose, causing pain to another part of my body, any part of my body would do as long as it wasn't my heart anymore.
A hand found its way under my head, offering itself as a cushion to prevent further abuse. But I only found another way to harm myself.
Someone cried. It sounded like Helen.
Someone screamed. It sounded like me.
* * *
Lowood did not destroyme in the end, but often I wished for death. I would imagine my tombstone, chipped by time, stained by moss and inscribed, "Here lies Jane E., unlovable, unconscionable, dishonorable. A liar in life. Doomed in death." The Dark Angel did come to Lowood but did not come for me.
Over the six years I spent at Lowood, my struggles lessened as I grew to understand that silence was my savior. Helen had taught me to quell my feelings to survive the brutality in our lives. Sometimes, the repression numbed me, and I became apprehensive about how it had transformed me. Nonetheless, I accepted the life lesson to deaden myself.
Helen was about to turn eighteen and would have to leave Lowood. Mrs. Temple contacted the family of a woman from her church who was willing to take Helen in, and, in return, she would help with their twins. They lived far away in Sitka, Alaska, a place I had never heard of but had been in the papers that summer since being granted statehood. I dreaded the thought of Lowood without her.
As her departure date grew nearer, Helen became quieter. Her face was pale, her blond hair had lost its luster and her lips cracked and bled. Helen took to her bed one afternoon, complaining of a headache and stiff neck, and so I sat in the living room, escaping in a book about a young girl living on a horse ranch. Near me, two older girls each held one side of a book while a third peered over their shoulders. Giggling ensued, and I turned to them. I stared hard to show how perturbed I was and didn't understand the fuss over that Russian'sLolita. I returned to my book and read until my stomach growled, reminding me that the little food I had earlier wouldn't carry me through to dinner. My small frame grew taller over the years, and Miss Smith referred to me as "all skin and bones." All the girls were. Mr. Brocklehurst took to calling us "frail" and "naturally small," as if we were all related, genetically predetermined to be tiny in stature, when the truth was that we were half-starved. Starvation led to many illnesses; some days, it felt like our bodies would crumble into tiny fragments.
The following morning, I gathered a small bunch of black-eyed Susans. I hated the flower. It had been placed on my mother's coffin, but Helen favored it. When I went to find her in our ward, I discovered her still in bed, complaining of a headache and chills, and she covered herself under three weathered blankets. She shivered, and I retrieved my blanket from my bed, which was moth-eaten and rough to the touch. I placed this on top of the others and asked Helen if she wanted me to get Mrs. Temple.
Helen turned to me. Her hair was wet and matted to her sweaty forehead; her breathing became labored and she whispered something inaudible. I leaned closer and asked her to repeat it, but she became silent. Heat flushed my face when I rested my cheek on her forehead. She struggled to speak; her eyes stared at me, her mouth opened, but no words came out. Helen let out a low mournful sound, then retched, and soon the bile erupted, throwing the sickness all over herself. I rolled her over to her side, just as I had done years earlier with my mother, so she didn't choke on her vomit. She moaned when I rolled her, and I grabbed a pillow from the next bed, placing it behind her to keep her in that position.
"Helen? Helen?"
She sobbed. I stood there, stared at her helplessly, and then ran for Mrs. Temple.
* * *
The hospital smelledof the disinfectant that Mrs. Reed had used to clean out my mother's room. It choked me. Helen had been wheeled into an emergency room, and we waited outside in the corridor, distraught and watched the doctors and nurses hurry as they worked on her. She was still alive. A nurse closed the door on us.
