Adele Varens 2

 

Chapter 2

 

I spent my last term at school planning for my escape. I visited every dormitory I could over the term, and delved in behind the soft furnishings for forgotten coins, and found everything from farthings to the odd shilling. It all added up.

I did not visit the dormitories and studies when anyone was there, of course; I managed to get excluded from Religious Instruction by talking about Protestant Heresy until the teacher refused to have me in her class. It gave me a free period when everyone else was in lessons to go and poke around. I did pray to ask forgiveness for using the Almighty for my own purposes, but then, He had a mother, so He didn’t need to be as sneaky as those of us without anyone.

I amassed another few pounds’ worth of change, which was starting to get heavy. Well, at least I had the majority of my wealth in banknotes. Carrying all the metal of the rest would, I told myself, train my stamina.

I also helped myself to some pastel chalks from the art class, and sundry articles from the dressing up box.  I was formulating ideas all the time.

 

I would not try to run away on the way back to the Rochesters from school; because They were expecting me and I might expect a hue and cry of some sort, even though I was not wanted. They could hardly fail to do so.

Therefore, I would run away on my way back to school. I had found out where my mother’s jewellery was kept, which had been sent to them, something else I had not been told. And I knew where Jane kept her housekeeping money. As they claimed a stipend from my mother’s legacy for me, something else I discovered by eavesdropping, I thought this fair enough.

And so, I went ‘home’ to give the teachers their Christmas break. I was planning on leaving the stage coach on the way to the school, and having a new appearance before anyone realised I was missing.

 

“Was it a good term?” asked Jane, when she picked me up in the gig.

“Tolerable,” I said. The usual question; the usual answer.

“You should enjoy school while it lasts,” said Jane, this time, instead of lapsing into silence.

“Why, have you both overspent so you can’t afford to get rid of me anymore?” I asked.

There was a long silence.

“Mr. Rochester feels you should start to earn your living, soon,” said Jane. “The school fees have used up most of what your mother left you.” 

“So, you have spent my legacy on pleasing yourselves about me,” I said.

She had the grace to blush.

“It was with your best interests in mind,” she said.

“So, you’re withdrawing me at the end of the year,” I said.

“Yes.”

“May I ask how much will then be left?” I asked.

“Fifty pounds. Your school costs thirty guineas a term, and you are always needing new clothes.”

“Never mind that it should be the obligation of my father to provide the same; and don’t tell me that he isn’t my father; if he was not, why would he have taken me in?”

“He… I don’t know.”

“How do I get it?”

“I’ll give you your solicitor’s address,” she said. “There’s an office in Leeds. I’ll write and instruct him to give it to you; you may need it if your first employment is… unpalatable. But for goodness’ sake, don’t tell Mr. Rochester.”

“I wasn’t planning to do so,” I said. “I disliked the previous whipping he gave me. I wonder when he’ll start whipping Ned and Jenny.”

“He won’t,” she whispered. “He won’t.”

I thought it was prayerful hope in her tone, not certainty.

 

Christmas was jolly for little Ned, and even Rochester making an effort, so long as I stayed in the shadows. I had a Christmas gift; a new hussif to enable me to effect repairs to my wardrobe more effectively. Ned had a jumping jack, and a ball, and a set of skittles, and a hoop and stick, which were too big for him.

Christmas and New Year passed at last, and soon I would be free.

 

So, there I was on the stage coach, bound for York, with quite sixty-six pounds secreted away on my person, and having no more than six pounds, five shillings in my reticule.

Of course, it was a ridiculous time to run away, in midwinter, but it was an opportunity I could not afford to miss; and if the family with the crippled child wanted a companion sooner, it would be just like Him to arrange for me to leave school at Easter.

Thus, when the stage coach set off from York, I was not on it. They were like that, the stage coaches; if you had not returned by the time they left, they left without you, much like the trains of today.  And if, nowadays, someone would mention to the police that there was a missing child, vulnerable and alone, the attitude back then was ‘everyone for himself and the devil take the hindermost.’

 

I sat in the inn with a cup of tea, and opened the letter Jane had given to me in a hurry for my head preceptress.

You may imagine my surprise and gratification to find six five-pound notes, a one-pound note, and a ten-shilling note; the thirty guineas fee for the term’s schooling. A note with it apologised for paying thus, excused on the grounds that Jane was with child again, and a request to accept it.

I read it through.

Dear Mrs. Fielding,

Please forgive me for not paying before this, I have been quite distracted, I fear, as I am in an interesting condition again, and have not been very well with this pregnancy. I may be removing the child from your establishment in a term or two to be a companion.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Rochester

 My school writing kit included ink of the same kind and colour as was used at the Rochester establishment. I bought a roll of bread, and spent some time with my penknife and a bread pellet to make a small erasure or two, and to make my own insertions. It now read,

Dear Mrs. Fielding,

Please forgive me for not writing before this, I have been quite distracted, I fear, as I am in an interesting condition again, and have not been very well with this pregnancy. I will be removing the child from your establishment for a term or two to be a companion to me.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Rochester.

How carefully I copied her hand especially on the envelope to address the letter. A penny black was anonymous, and so fortuitous that they had come into use.

I spent some time in the outhouse hiding my unexpected largesse; that was almost a hundred pounds, now. That would keep me for a considerable time, even if I was unable to find some convivial occupation.

Then, I posted the letter, and purchased a ticket to Leeds.

In Leeds, as well as seeing my solicitor, I could take a train all the way into London now the railways had been extended so far.

 

The journey to Leeds took two and a half hours and stopped at the Railway hotel.

I turned my best big-eyed look on a porter.

“Oh, please, can you help me? I want to put my trunk in left luggage until my connection arrives, rather than lug it about.”

“Of course, miss,” he said. He had a trolley for such things, and soon I was accepting a ticket for it.

“Off to school?” said the ticket-check man.

Wearing gloves, a bonnet, and checked gingham, it was not a deduction worthy of Sir Robert Peel’s police force, but I smiled shyly and agreed. I had already made an overnight satchel, and I checked the times of trains bound for London.

There was one leaving at seven-thirty in the morning, which would do me very well.

I found a luggage shop near the station; such emporia thrive near regions of transportation. I needed something more convenient than a trunk.

I found a couple of carpet-bags, that excellent and inexpensive use of carpet offcuts to make a durable piece of luggage. I checked in at the hotel, freshened up, and ate in the restaurant. Then I took a cab to my solicitor’s address.

“My name is Adele Varens,” I said, to the clerk. “My guardian, Mrs. Jane Rochester, said that she would let you know that I was coming.”

I strongly suspected that Jane was beginning to realise her mistake, and had made sure I had the ready cash addressed to Mrs. Fielding; she was capable of being sneaky when she chose. And with luck she had already written to Madgwick, Halliday, and Budge.

When I saw Mr. Budge, a young man with an old face, I was more sure of it.

“I understand that you wish to wind up the estate, Miss Varens, and take it all in cash. I have the signatures of Mr. and Mrs. Rochester to permit you to do this, so I have the money for you. That’s eighty-five pounds. It is a lot of money for a young girl to be carrying.”

The third term’s schooling for the year as well!  I had not reckoned on that, so that was even better.

“If you have somewhere private, I have a purse beneath my clothing,” I said, blushing.

“A wise provision,” he agreed. “My sympathy for your loss, Miss Varens.”

“Thank you,” I said, sadly. He sounded genuine enough.

“If you are in any difficulty, do not hesitate to contact us,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, again.

Again, I believed him, surprisingly enough. Having reliable adults in one’s life is not a given, and I was touched at his solicitude.

I was on my own, now, however, and walked out of his life, wondering how Jane had got her husband to sign off on me getting my own money.  Maybe reading was too difficult for him; likely she had slipped one document under another.

 

I was now overdue for school. Mrs. Fielding would be irritated, but not yet worried. Tomorrow, she would get the letter begging pardon for being dilatory in withdrawing me, and would write it off as another fool woman unable to manage to get her correspondence out on time.  It happened. Georgiana Feltham had arrived without luggage more than once, because it had been sent by carrier and to the wrong place. Mrs. Feltham was notoriously vague. Georgiana had been known to open her trunk to discover her brother’s cricketing whites, fishing rod, and school clothes. Goodness knows how much poor young Master Feltham was ragged over his tennis dress and racquet. Georgiana just borrowed kit until all had been sorted out, and we then went and divested her of all that she had borrowed. She would never remember to give it back. Just as well for her that she was not in my situation. Goodness knows where she would end up.

Mind, knowing Georgiana’s sheer luck, it would probably be in Calcutta being married to a nabob who was also handsome, kind, and on his way back to Britain. Geogiana drifted through life with an expectation that something would turn up, and a good enough nature that you could not remain exasperated at her.

 

So, I was on the way to London.

There was a change of engine and a long stop in Northampton, by which time, I had effected some changes.  I was lucky to have a compartment to myself.

No, to be fair, I made my own luck, I stole a ‘reserved’ notice from the door of another compartment and set it on mine, pulling down the window blinds and the door blind.

I packed all the essentials in my carpet bags.  I had no need for an evening gown, so that, I left.  Also, my tennis racquet, long bow, and the short, ankle-length white dress we wore for playing such games and for drill. They took up a lot of room. It was a very progressive school.

I kept my atlas. You never know when you might need an atlas. Likewise my writing equipment. My writing slope had been Maman’s; I could not bear to leave that. However, I could fill it completely by using it to contain my stockings. And the carpet bags stretched prodigiously. All my underwear must go in, three frocks, and I changed into the ‘one good black dress, required by any young lady’ and went to work with some fullers’ earth in my hair, an embroidered fichu and lace cap and hat with veil, filched last term along with some plain glass spectacles from the school dressing-up box, for the performance of theatricals. I had worn them as Lady Sneerwell, when we presented Sheridan’s ‘School for Scandal,’ and had managed to hang on to them. My coat, after all, was good black, brown and white tweed, and suitable for a lady of any age. We were permitted any coat as long as there was brown in it.

I used a little blue pastel colour under my eyes, and frowned in order to get some grey pastel into the wrinkles to age me.  Gloves would hide my hands, and in London, I suspected there would be so many people that one more widow would be overlooked. 

My trunk went under the seat; it would be found sooner or later and would go into lost property. I put on my walking half-boots, which were more comfortable than my shoes, being new for the winter; my school shoes pinched, but He decreed that the child was not allowed to grow out of things so quickly.

When we stopped for a while on the side of a small lake, I almost laughed out loud, and threw out my bonnet, my school dress, and my hated pinching shoes into it.

Maybe someone would find them.

Maybe someone would even discover to whom they belonged.

I cared little.

Adele Varens was dead.

I was currently Mrs. Sara Deleven.

I should find a rooming house in London, and consider my options.