Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

strongly resembled the one before that I began to suspect the child was copying a lesson from a blackboard rather than penning her own missive to us.
    Fortunately, Mrs. Brayton had visited Adèle often, and her amusing letters brimmed over with how the child looked, what new songs she favored, and so on.
    Every fresh batch of letters brought hope that Adèle would congratulate us on Ned’s arrival, and each left my heart aching with disappointment. I didn’t care about the new poem she memorized or the psalm she could recite by heart. I wanted to hear about Adèle’s feelings. I loved the little French girl—how could I not, seeing how her situation was so much like mine had been—and the time I spent out of contact with her had been one of the most painful of my life.
    I shuffled through the stack, searching for her familiar scrawl.
    “It is here!” I opened it quickly and read the letter out loud, heedless of Mr. Carter’s presence:
    Dearest Mr. and Mrs. Rochester,
    I study very hard. I say my prayers every night and day. I am learning simple mathematics. My Latin and Italian have improved. I hope to master German as we are to have a new teacher.
    Yours faithfully,
    Adèle Varens
    “Is that all?” Edward asked.
    I stared hard at the careless script before turning the letter on its side. Using my finger as a pointer, I traced the letters, hoping to discern the word written crosswise over her short message, a method of communication I myself had often used to save money on postage.
    By careful examination I was able to make out one phrase in French repeated three times:
    Au secours! Au secours! Au secours!
    “She begs for help!” I translated.
    “She has always been a fanciful child,” Edward spoke slowly.
    “That is true.” But the excuse sounded weak, even to my own ears. However, I persisted with it. “Do you recall how she would feign illness when I assigned Latin translations to her? She is quite the scamp.”
    “I had hoped this school would encourage her to be more…British. But even so, this is unlike her,” my husband mused.
    “The message does seem quite desperate,” agreed Mr. Carter.
    “There is more,” I said. A scrap of watercolor paper fluttered to the ground as I unfolded her note. “Perhaps this will offer an explanation.”
    But that wretched scrap only made the situation worse. On it was scrawled:
God rot your filthy soul. You will die! I will see to it! Avec plaisir!
    The three of us sat in stunned silence.
    I turned to my husband. “We must go to her at once!”

Chapter 2

    “Someone has threatened Adèle? No more harmless will-o’-the-wisp ever graced this good earth. This is hard to credit, and we cannot let it go.” My husband pounded the tea table with his fist. The cups danced and a jostled spoon flew off the tray and onto the ground. “What child could have written that vile note? That dastardly threat?”
    A moment’s reflection set me wondering. “Mr. Rochester, I am not sure it
was
written by another person. The handwriting is unfamiliar, but it is unsigned. It could be an intrigue. Perhaps this is a bid for attention. Such a scheme would not be beyond Adèle’s contrivance.”
    What I did not admit to was the possibility that it was not another child at all, but someone in authority. I knew the school environment; I knew it well, both as student and as teacher. I had seen the petty cruelties inflicted on schoolchildren, and I knew them to spring from twin fountainheads of preening self-righteousness and unearned moral superiority. Those in authority justified false economies and capricious actsof discipline all in the name of “saving souls.” They acted as judge and jury, pushing God off his throne so they could sit there in His stead. At their hands, and according to their whims, children with no one to speak on their behalf could suffer.
    I also knew, however, that Lucy Brayton had recommended the Alderton House School for Girls to Edward, so I trusted it