Chapter 65 – Miss Jade’s Day Off
Jade had no idea what sort of bizarre chain of events her casual suggestion about writing letters had set in motion within the Ashborne estate. Even if she had known, she likely would not have cared – at least not until the consequences reached her.
After Ashborne left the riverbank with unmistakable excitement, Jade remained beneath the leafless tree for nearly an hour before wandering further afield.
She observed the farms near the domus in winter.
With only a few crops to tend and the fields buried beneath slushy, greyish snow, the farmhands and women had little to occupy them. They cleared snow from rooftops to prevent collapse, shoveled the main paths so people could pass, repaired tools, and fed the livestock… And then, they gossiped.
Who’s daughter might become an old maid if she fails to marry next year. Which widow lacked virtue and had ended up as a “streetwoman” – a slightly more polite way of saying something far less polite Which handsome young man might pass for a prince charming – for their daughters, or for themselves, had they not already married…
They even invited Jade to join them when she passed by the cattle shed where they had gathered for their chatter while mending clothes. After all, with nothing to do in winter, what better pastime was there?
Jade declined politely and instead asked if there were any places nearby worth visiting in winter. The farm women eagerly shared their favourite spots and waved her off as she continued on her way.
“Ay, can’t even mind me manners when the missy’s about. Streetwoman, humph! A whore she is! But I ain’t sayin’ that in front o’ the missy, nor you, eh?” one of the women whispered, nudging her companion.
“Ma boy’s been speakin’ all polite since goin’ to school,” Another, broader woman nodded. “Feels wrong dirtyin’ her ears with our tongue.”
“Ma girl learnt a curtsy!” A thinner woman chimed in. “Says she’s to keep herself neat and proper, and the missy’ll have her displayed at the bazaar! Might catch a rich lady’s eye and get herself into service!”
“A curtsy!”
“Service!”
“Why ain’t ma boy learnt to curtsy, then?”
“Your boy’s in the factory, when’d he have time for that?”
“I want ma boy in service…”
“And leave the factory?” another scoffed. “You need coin to patch your roof! Missy’s tuition class pays a penny per day – pennies won’t fix that!”
Before long, their gossip shifted to pitching every last coin to keep their households afloat, and by then, Jade was already out of sight.
Honestly, Jade could only understand about half of what the farm ladies said most of the time. The villagers’ accents were still difficult for her. In fact, she had struggled to understand her students at the very beginning of her teaching days.
The problem had gradually resolved itself, but not because she had adapted to their accents. Rather, the students had adapted to hers.
Blended with the clergy’s manner of speech, a new kind of accent had emerged within the domus. At home, the children spoke one way; at school, and when dealing with townsfolk, they spoke another. Jade could not help but feel a twinge of guilt for “contaminating” their speech with her own mix of Asian-influenced and internet-shaped English.
Fortunately, the townspeople did not seem to mind. They likely assumed it was merely some obscure village accent not worth questioning.
In fact, a quiet pattern had begun to form.
Whenever someone heard a child speaking with certain peculiar pronunciations, they would immediately assume the child came from Jade’s school – creating, unintentionally, a sort of linguistic signature.
Of course, Jade remained entirely unaware of this for now. It would take time before she noticed, and when she did, she would likely have rather mixed feelings about it.
After a few minutes of walking, she came upon a pond. It was too small to be called a lake, yet large enough for a canoe to make a few turns upon its surface. The farm ladies had told her that, in the right season, it would be covered in water lilies. Girls would come to pluck the flowers for decorations, while those from slightly better-off families might spend a leisurely afternoon here with a picnic.
It was not a famous spot, but it was certainly pleasant for a stroll… provided one did not visit in the middle of a windy winter.
As a city girl who had only occasionally visited relatives in the countryside in her previous life, Jade had little understanding of what village childhood truly looked like. She had heard classmates speak of fishing in rivers, soaking their feet in shallow streams, climbing trees for fruit… She could picture those scenes, but she had never imagined a view like the one before her now.
Snow, in her mind, had always been beautiful – clean, pristine, almost sacred, thanks to Disney movies and various nature documentaries. Even after experiencing a snowless winter in Australia – which had reinforced her decision never to live in a cold climate – her mental picture of snowy lands had remained idyllic. Until now, in her second life within a Victorian-ish era.
Snow was dirty, and winter was thick with smoke. It shattered her flawless image of what such a place should be.
The pond before her was no exception.
What might have been lush and blooming in summer now looked bleak and unkempt. A thin, milky layer of ice stretched across much of the surface – nothing like the clear, solid ice she had once imagined, the kind people could cut and store in sealed cells in winter to use through the warmer months.
At the edges, brown, withered lily stems jutted out like broken reeds, while dead leaves and twigs lay frozen within the ice; these were as she had expected. But what she did not expect was the centre of the pond. It remained dark and unfrozen. Patches of murky, brownish ice drifted like slushy snow beneath her boots.
“...” Jade began to question Father Rochester’s and Mother Annie’s suggestion to have a walk. The scenery, somehow, did not brighten her mood.
Still, she could not return to the kitchen or the bakehouse – Mother Annie had explicitly forbidden it. Nor did she feel inclined to walk all the way into the city, not in the cold with horse dung scattered everywhere. And she knew they would not be pleased if she shut herself away in her room, no matter how tempting it was to curl up under a warm, cozy blanket.
No pretty views outside, so what was she supposed to do? She had an entire day off tomorrow. At this rate, she would be bored to death if she found nothing to entertain herself…
“So that is why you are checking the storeroom, Sensei?” Josh’s voice came from behind her.
He had returned in a hurry after hearing that his master had been ordered to take two days of rest due to “gloominess”. He had searched for her throughout the domus, trying to brainstorm a way to cheer her up. Finding her in the storeroom, however, had been entirely unexpected.
From what he had heard, women in low spirits might fall into hysteria. And if brought to the domus, they would first undergo a cleansing ritual in the main hall before the altar. Naturally, he had checked there first, only to find it empty. It took him several more minutes to locate Jade here instead, surrounded by dust and forgotten items.
“Yeah, just checking around to see if there’s anything I can make use of, or if we can pass it on to someone who needs it more.” Jade replied, clapping the dust from her hands.
The domus had three storerooms: two large and one small. The small one held miscellaneous, poorly organized items, while the larger rooms were used for food storage and common supplies – clothing, furniture, candles, ink bottles, and the like.
Jade was currently in the small storeroom, enjoying herself as she rummaged through neglected boxes and recorded their contents in a notebook.
“Look, a jewellery box!” she said, holding up the latest mystery box she had dug out a few seconds before Josh arrived. “And there are a few jewellery pieces inside! Set it aside; I’ll send it to Brother James to see if we should sell them for some coins or keep them in the treasury for future use.”
Josh paid little attention to the jewellery box itself. One day, he would buy such things for his future wife – once he became, as his Sensei expected, a renowned cake decorator earning respectable wages. What mattered now was that he was relieved; his Sensei was grinning as she rummaged through dusty piles instead of sinking into the insanely terrifying gloom he had once witnessed in the town’s dark alleys.
It had occurred a few years ago when he was wandering through the town, yet the memory still vividly lingered whenever he heard the words.
The screams. The shrieks. The frantic clawing of a frail, deranged woman, bound tightly in layers of rope as she struggled in madness. The sight had haunted his dreams for nights and left a mark he could not forget.
He did not know what had become of that woman, but he knew, with certainty, that he never wished to see his Sensei reduced to such a state.
“Ooh, a plant specimen collection book!” Jade lifted a thick volume with brightened eyes. “Let’s see, are there names written in it… Yes! There are! Okay, this should go to the library…” She paused, then added, “Maybe I should make one for the domus. You know, Josh, like a collection of common herbs or something? So the students can learn which plants are edible, which are not, and what herbs help with which illnesses. What do you think?”
“I think it would be better to leave that to Brother Benedict or Brother Samuel… after Sensei has contributed your part,” Josh said, taking the volume and placing it into a crate with the jewellery box. “Sister Miriam said you are too tired, so please don’t take on more work. You promised to teach me how to make puff pastry once you have the coins to buy butter.”
“Scared you, huh?” Jade curled her lips into a wry smile, “My bad, Josh. Sorry ‘bout that. Say… I was thinking, can our funds afford another teacher now?”
Josh was the one mainly handling the projects’ account book now, so he knew the finances well. He mentally reviewed the number and made a rough guess at the upcoming expenses – blankets, books, meals, and necessities for the students in the coming months – then shook his head. “We cannot afford a proper teacher.”
“Well then, I guess we’ll have to aim for people like me,” Jade said, the idea forming almost instantly. “I mean, there are plenty who want to become teachers, right? Home tutors, governess… How do they train for that? Is there a school for it?”
This question went beyond Josh’s knowledge. But what he did understand was that his Sensei had likely found a solution to ease her burden.
“And Sensei is thinking of providing a place to train new teachers?” he ventured.
“Yeah… something like that, I guess,” Jade pointed at herself, “See, I wasn’t a teacher before getting myself into the ragged school. And now… well, I can at least teach, even if I’m nowhere near as good as the proper ones. So maybe, we take people like me, give them the same conditions Father Rochester gave me at the start, and train them into suitable teachers. After a year, they can choose either to stay or leave to become a tutor or governess elsewhere. Yeah, that sounds like something we can afford… And we do need more teachers – not just for me, but also to ease Mr. Anderson’s workload. He’s old, he needs more assistance.”
The more Jade spoke, the more convinced she became. It sounded workable – not only to lighten her own burden, but also to ensure the students were cared for after she eventually left.
Josh considered her words carefully, then a term surfaced in his mind. “An apprenticeship? Like how I learn baking from you, they would learn teaching from you? A teacher apprenticeship?”
“I guess you can put it that way?” Jade tilted her head.
Although Jade had read plenty of serialised stories from this era, their expressions still did not come naturally to her. English is her second – perhaps even third – language. The local slang, the thick accents, and the gap between eras made it even harder for her to respond quickly. At times, she had to translate mentally – something more than once – just to grasp the meaning.
On rare occasions, she would let conversations happening right beside her drift into background noise, only realising later that someone had been speaking to her.
Jade shrugged. “Anyway, that’s for Father Rochester to decide. Let’s keep going and see what else we can dig up in here.”
Josh, of course, agreed without question. He took up the notebook and began recording items for her, quietly impressed by the breadth of her knowledge. It seemed she knew a little about everything she came across.
“A violin! Wait, the strings aren’t right… Well, figures. No way they would throw away a working one. Still, at least students can see what a violin looks like. Josh, keep it; we’ll bring it to class one day.”
“A fur coat? And more? Why would they donate… Oh, there are holes everywhere. Moth damage, probably. Josh, do you think second-hand traders would take this? Or should we use it for some handicrafts?”
“Paintings? Great, the tuition class students can study these for drawing or embroidery. Honestly, I don’t really know how to appreciate the brushworks – they don’t look that impressive to me… But what do I know? I’m just an ordinary person with ordinary taste.”
“Silver cutlery? Oh, an incomplete set. Send them to Brother James; I think it’s better to sell them off. Silver’s no use to us unless we turn it into coins…”
“Maths… trigonometry? Let’s see how much I remember…”
“Dang – differentiation and integration? I remember delta x and delta y, but how did it go again…? Nah, I don’t need it to make cakes anyway.”
“Fans? Great, serve as embroidery references for the girls…”
The master and pupil did not finish cataloguing the entire storeroom, and agreed to continue the next afternoon.
“Well, that settles the afternoon. What about the morning?” Jade pouted, “No kitchen, no bakehouse, can’t go into the classroom, not allowed to stay in my room… so what am I supposed to do?”
“Um… perhaps take a walk around the parish?” Josh suggested. “Sensei, you have not seen all of it yet, have you?”
Jade’s expression turned visibly displeased. Josh chuckled, immediately recalling her distaste for the horse dung scattered along the paths. It was not nearly as unbearable as she made it out to be – but it was amusing, considering she had no issue handling bloody offal, which most people would find equally worse.
“That’s different,” Jade said. “Blood washes off easily. Dung sticks to your boots.”
“Well, Sensei could ride one of the donkeys,” Josh suggested, gesturing toward the animal shed as they passed along the corridor. The domus kept two donkeys, and several empty cages that had likely once housed rabbits or chickens.
Jade looked toward the donkeys. They looked back at her, calmly chewing their hay. She raised a brow, intrigued.