Chapter 44 – The Newly Arrived Young Lady
Jade announced to the tuition class that they would soon have two additional teachers to guide them in drawing and needlework.
“Now, they will come when they are ready,” Jade said, glancing at the curious students. “So behave yourselves when they arrive, alright?”
One of the students raised her hand. “Will they be in our class today?”
“I’m not sure. They might need some time to rest and tidy up their belongings,” Jade replied, recalling the widow and her daughter’s condition. They had not looked exhausted, but they were clearly tired from the bumpy journey. With no smooth roads outside the cities – except for certain main roads connecting them – the slippery, muddy paths were a nightmare for travel.
The news of the new teachers barely stirred the students’ excitement. Soon enough, they set it aside and returned their focus to making better handicrafts. Whispers and murmurs filled the fireplace-heated classroom, resembling a beehive buzzing right beside one’s ears.
Jade remembered a comment her cousin had once made – that one of the occupational hazards of being a teacher, whether in a school or a tuition class, was hearing problems. Teachers became so accustomed to the constant background murmur of a classroom that they would experience a kind of hallucination, imagining the same sound even when they were no longer in one.
At first, Jade had not understood what her cousin meant. But after becoming a teacher herself, she occasionally felt something was strangely missing whenever the environment became too quiet – no murmuring buzz in the background.
“Miss Jade, could you have a look at my design?” Wendy approached with several pages of drafts for artificial flowers. “I tried to tidy up the lines. Does it look better?”
Jade scanned the drafts and nodded. “Yes, it does look better. And you’re starting to develop your own style, that’s great!”
A faint blush spread across the girl’s cheeks as she giggled, her eyes shining.
“Remind me to teach you some colour basics in the spring,” Jade said, returning the drafts. “With our current budget, we can’t afford new paints, and I’m not sure what sort of paint we might find secondhand. So I’ll try to get you some food colouring made from fresh crops instead.”
“Colours?” Wendy tilted her head.
“Yes, colours,” Jade replied with a nod. “With more colours, you’ll be able to create better drawings and designs. That’ll help you in the future. You can think about it during the spring when you have some free time. Maybe we can arrange a painting tuition class to guide you… Well, I can’t promise anything, but we’ll see how things go when the time comes.”
Wendy clenched her fists tightly. “I–I can draw with colours?”
Drawing was an expensive skill. In Jade’s previous life, she had heard art students complain endlessly about how much money they spent on paints and supplies. And things would have been even worse in an era when chemical paints – many of which were highly toxic – had only just begun to appear. Most painters still made their own pigments, each following their own recipes. That probably involved grinding precious stones… well, maybe not anymore, since machines for grinding materials had already become common compared to a decade ago.
Children like Wendy knew that synthetic dyes were used by washerwomen to whiten cloth, or in textile factories to dye fabrics into different colours. That was about the extent of their knowledge of where colours come from.
Even so, anything related to painting was expensive – expensive enough that Jade would rather spend the coins on food than on paint. Paint could wait. For someone like Wendy, the chance to draw with colours had always been beyond imagination.
The little girl had already been content using the black and red ink Miss Jade provided, though she relied on pencils more often since they were the cheapest and easiest materials to obtain.
But now, Miss Jade had promised her colours.
“Well, it definitely won’t be as bright or brilliant as the paints sold in shops,” Jade explained, careful not to give the girl the false impression that there would be abundant colours for everyone. “They’ll be extracted from crops – like how I make red ink using beetroot. I can make other colours and mix them with mashed potatoes to imitate oil paint, or dilute them with water to make watercolour. They’re meant as food colouring, so they’ll probably fade or discolour even if you try to preserve them.”
Wendy nodded in understanding. She looked Jade in the eye and spoke slowly. “But it’s colour, right? We can paint with colours.”
Jade lowered her voice as well and replied gently, “Yes. Colours. So go back to your seat and keep practicing until your skills are worthy of them. You know your drawing is still far from good.”
“Yes, Miss Jade!” Wendy hurried back to her seat, already spreading the news and excitement throughout the classroom.
Jade heard cheers and suppressed laughter as she lowered her gaze back to the embroidery frame.
There were no shrill screams, no children running about playing hide-and-seek, no fights breaking out with tearful cries spreading through the room… Well, she had the older and teenage students to thank for keeping an eye on the younger ones, ensuring the classroom didn’t end up like the ones she remembered from her previous life. But it was also because the children here simply did not have the luxury of wasting time on nonsense when they had the chance to learn a new skill.
They needed to improve their skills – to earn better money, to feed themselves, to clothe and warm themselves, and perhaps one day move somewhere better. Somewhere with a roof that would not threaten to collapse, and walls that would not let the cold wind slip through the cracks they could never quite patch.
After a while, the students calmed down and returned their full attention to their work.
Jade occasionally stood, walking around the room to check on their progress. After those brief rounds, she would return to the embroidery frame that was now decorated with a small patch of delicate colour.
The colour transition was smooth and fine. Jade could already imagine how beautiful it would look if the entire motif were stitched using this technique – yes, after days of trial and error, she had finally grasped the basics of blending colours smoothly.
Of course, it was nowhere near as effortless as the demonstrations she had seen in those videos. Perhaps that was because the master crafters used silk thread, while she was working with machine-spin cotton. She could not separate the thread into extremely fine strands the way silk allowed. Cotton fibers were short and only formed long threads through spinnings and twisting. If she tried to pull them apart too much, all she would get were fuzzy, useless fragments.
At best, she could divide the thread into two strands, since that was how it had been twisted by the machine. After that, she had to carefully combine threads of different colours so the transition would appear even.
It wasn’t perfect. But at a glance, the result looked smooth enough – certainly enough to fool anyone who didn’t know much about embroidery. Jade was already satisfied with that.
Besides, after all these experiments, she was convinced that if she ever managed to get hold of silk thread – or anything shiny and glossy – anyone with half a brain using this technique could produce results as vivid as a 4K HD display!
Unfortunately, Jade had no access to silk thread. And even though she had just figured out the basics, that did not mean she had mastered the technique. She still inserted the needle in the wrong place now and then, leaving the fabric dotted with messy puncture marks.
I probably need finer needles, the ones that leave smaller holes… Jade mused as she continued stitching the motif rather stiffly. A few moments later, she sighed in regret after realising she had messed up the colours again.
“Miss Jade!” Mary, who was working on embroidery – the type Jade had found for them in pamphlets and magazines tutorials – tugged at Jade’s sleeve. “Someone knocked on the door.”
Jade could hardly be blamed for missing the knock. It had been so soft that it was practically drowned out by the murmuring buzz she had long accepted as the natural background noise of a classroom.
Soon, one by one, the students also noticed the gentle knock. Immediately, they realised it must be an outsider. People within the domus usually knocked loudly, then pushed the door open with a creak and poked their heads inside to announce whatever they needed.
A knock this soft felt far too polite – and distant – for the usual atmosphere of the domus.
Jade rose and opened the door. It was Miss Clara.
“Miss Jade,” The young lady in a black dress and bonnet said with a polite smile, “my apologies if I have disturbed your class. May I ask to become acquainted with the students before we begin advising them on their needlework?”
“Right, of course!” Jade replied.
She did not invite Miss Clara into the classroom immediately. Instead, she turned toward the students and raised her voice. “Now – no fistfights and no teeths flying. I want everyone still in one piece when I come back, alright?”
The students answered with laughter and cheerful voices. “Ay, Miss Jade!”
Jade quickly slipped through the narrow gap she had opened and closed the door behind her.
Noticing the wary, slightly worried expression on Miss Clara’s face, Jade immediately gestured reassuringly. “Relax, Miss Clara. Nothing serious is going on. I just wanna explain a few things about the tuition class we’re running here, so you can understand how it’s different from the schools you probably attended.”
“Oh.” Miss Clara’s tense shoulders loosened. “Thank you, Miss Jade. I would appreciate an explanation. Mother Annie did tell us a little but it was rather incomplete…”
“She probably disagrees with many of the things happening in this school,” Jade said with a shrug. “She hoped the school would run half-day classes and Sunday classes, but that’s quite unrealistic since we’re short on manpower. And two hours are the most Father Rochester can negotiate with the students’ employers. Those money-makers won’t tolerate their young workers taking more than two hours off each day just to attend school instead of working.”
“I see.” Miss Clara nodded, though she did not offer any opinion about the arrangement. “As for the tuition class, I heard Father Rochester mention that it was meant to teach students certain skills?”
“Technically, yes,” Jade nodded, then added, “But at the beginning, the tuition class was really just an excuse I came up with so I could give them a reason to stay, and pay them a penny and a meal each day.”
Miss Clara looked genuinely startled. “May I ask why you wish for them to stay, Miss Jade?”
Exactly what I expected. Jade sighed inwardly before answering. “Because their houses are cold, and they don’t have the spare pennies to buy coal for heating. If I don’t keep them here, they’ll starve in the winter, Miss Clara. And I don’t want any of my students dying from something that could be avoided.”
The well-dressed young lady pressed her lips together, her eyes widened slightly. Perhaps it was the first time she had truly realised that winter cold could take lives even inside people’s homes. A sheltered lady, living a life where every danger was fended off by her dear father, likely knew nothing of the hardships the poor faced… just like a fragile flower living in a greenhouse.
In contrast, Jade was a wildflower who feared neither storm nor hail. Living in the domus, she knew Brother James had already led several monks and nuns to prepare and distribute donated cloaks and blankets to families in need, including some of the families of her own students.
This, perhaps, was why Mother Annie was so concerned about the newly arrived widow and her daughter.
“Miss Clara,” Jade continued softly, “I never expected the students to learn much during these tuition classes. But I’d be happy if they learned anything at all. Thank the Light, they’re good lads and lasses – hardworking, all of them, even if their progress is slow. There’s no need to rush when guiding them. One small step each day is good enough.”
Miss Clara processed her words and then nodded with a gentle smile. “I understand now, Miss Jade. You are indeed an honourable teacher, just as Father Rochester praised.”
“Well, about that…” Jade scratched her cheek awkwardly. “I don’t really think I’m that suitable to be a teacher. I mean, you’ve heard me. My English isn’t exactly good…”
Then a thought struck her. “Oh! Do you think you could help fix the language in my textbook?”
“Your textbook?”
“It’s just simple stories I wrote for teaching in class,” Jade explained, a faint blush creeping onto her face. “I had to start somewhere, right? And buying proper textbooks is expensive, so I had to be creative, you know?”
Miss Clara regarded her with warmth. “Your humility impresses me even more, Miss Jade. Yes, I would be glad to help you prepare the text.”
“Great!” Jade stepped aside and asked before opening the door, “Would you like to meet the students today?”
“It would be my pleasure, Miss Jade,” The young lady gave a small, polite nod.
Looks like a nice colleague I can get along with, Jade mused as she opened the door.