Chapter Twelve

C ould you please repeat that again?” Evangeline was at her wit’s end. They’d nearly completed their school day, but had accomplished little, mostly because she struggled to simply understand what her students said to her.

Hugo Palmer growled out his own frustration. But when he spoke again, he did so more slowly. “Why do we have to know t’ letters’ names if their names have nowt to do with their sounds and t’ sounds are how we use them?”

She’d heard the word “nowt” enough to decided it meant “nothing,” and she was nearly accustomed to their odd way of saying “the” with nothing more than a t .

“Why are the letters’ names important? That is your question?”

“Aye.” That word she knew perfectly well, having heard it from Scotsmen occasionally over the years and even from Mr. McCormick.

“When you are told how to spell something, you will be told using the names of the letters. Knowing their names will be important.”

He rushed out a response but stopped partway and began again, more slowly. “But their names aren’t their sounds.”

“That is true.”

“Seems a lot o’ bother to me.” During the course of the day, Hugo had proven himself to be “a lot of bother.” She had never met a more obstinate child. At ten years of age, he was more of a handful than those smaller than he.

“You have been given the task of learning to read and write and do arithmetic.” She addressed all of her students. “This is no small feat. You will have to work hard. If you do not work hard, you cannot possibly hope to succeed.”

“Us father doesn’t read. He doesn’t need to, and neither do I.”

Though the frequent but inconsistent changeability of “we” and “us” and “our” still settled oddly on Evangeline’s ears, she’d grown accustomed to it, not having to switch the words back in her mind.

“Hush, Hugo.” May, the littlest of the Palmers, glared her brother down. She had thick, dark hair and a fiery tenacity that belied her tiny frame. “Father’d not be sending the lot o’ us to school if he didn’t want us to learn.”

May had spoken slowly without needing to be reminded. That, Evangeline felt, was a sign of progress.

“Even that Irish lad comes, and no one expects him to learn owt.”

She mentally translated “owt” as “anything.”

“‘That Irish lad’ is Ronan,” Evangeline corrected. “And I fully expect he will learn plenty.”

John Crossley, a thin boy and near in age to Hugo, entered the fray. “He’s a bit swaimish, aye, but being quiet is not t’ same as being gaumless.”

Swaimish? Gaumless? Every time she thought she could understand the people of Smeatley, she encountered new, indecipherable words.

“And being loud is not t’ same as being smart,” May tossed back, pulling laughter from the other students and a glower from her brother.

If “swaimish” meant quiet, then “gaumless” might mean simple or unintelligent. Her heart sank for the absent Ronan. She had every confidence that he was a bright boy, but his oddities and his reserve would leave him open to the ridicule and teasing of his classmates. What could she do to prevent that, to protect him? It was little wonder that Mr. McCormick did not leave Ronan at school for long. He must have anticipated this difficulty.

Had James been likewise needled when he’d been away from home? She hoped not. The thought of him unhappy only added to her grief.

“Let us review the letter names again,” she said.

As she held up the papers on which she’d written in large, block lettering the first portion of the alphabet, the children dutifully repeated the letter names. She tried to determine which children had learned them and which were simply copying the others. She felt certain they would not all learn at the same pace. The older students would likely learn faster, provided they were willing to try. She did not wish to discourage anyone by moving too quickly or too slowly, but not one of the children knew the entire alphabet nor how to write or recognize numbers. The entire class was starting at the very beginning.

They’d spent the day focusing on only ten letters. By the third time through, Susannah Crossley had the letters memorized. She would need something more challenging, but how could Evangeline do that while trying to help all of the others? She needed to think of something.

“Susannah, will you come up here, please?”

Far from cowed by the summons, Susannah made the short walk with confidence. What must that be like? Evangeline had always struggled to feel anything but anxious when faced with uncertainty. She had learned to put on a brave face, but beneath it all she quaked like an aspen leaf.

Summoning her acting skills, Evangeline addressed her oldest pupil. “I noticed you have mastered these first letters rather quickly.”

“Aye, miss.”

That morning, Evangeline had inscribed the entire alphabet on a sheet of paper, unsure how far her students would progress in one day. She had, as it turned out, been overly optimistic. She handed the paper to Susannah.

“I need to help the other students learn the letters we are working on, but I thought you might appreciate learning the remainder of them. When I have the chance, I will tell you their names, but for now you can practice writing them.”

“Aye, miss.” Susannah took the paper and returned to her seat with little enthusiasm.

Was that to be the way of it? Drudgery and acceptance in her best students, rebellion and complaints in her most challenging?

“I’m finished,” Hugo said.

She needed to find a means of ridding him of his tendency to simply shout whatever he wished to say whenever he meant to say it. Though this particular instance was not a true interruption, many of his other outbursts had been.

“Let me see your work,” she said.

He rose with all the languid annoyance of one asked to perform a task decidedly beneath him. Upon reaching her lectern, Hugo held his slate out with minimal effort, its face tipped downward. Evangeline took hold of it and examined his efforts.

“Your B needs two distinct bumps.” Heavens, that sounded ridiculous. Was there a proper term for the shape of these letters? “And your I and J must be written precisely so as not to look so much alike.”

“I’n’it good enough?”

“I’n’it” was “isn’t it” pushed together into a single quick mouthful.

“Without clearly drawn letters, no one will be able to read what you have written,” she said. “And until you learn the precise shapes of those letters, you will not be able to read what others have written.”

His grumbled answer was too low, too clumped together, and too fast for her to understand.

“Again, Hugo.” She held the slate out to him.

His mouth turned down in a mulish frown. “Neya.”

She didn’t need to translate Hugo’s refusal to follow her instructions.

“You will never learn the remainder of your letters if you don’t—”

“I’ll not.”

“Quit complaining, Hugo.” His sister was clearly put out with him.

“Quit jabbering,” he tossed back.

“Don’t talk to her angry,” another voice insisted loudly.

“Children,” Evangeline started, but none of them seemed to hear her.

A shouting match ensued, one covering everything from learning letters to who had traveled furthest onto the moor.

“Children! Enough!” No matter how Evangeline tried, she could not regain their attention.

They were nearly all up out of their seats, except Susannah, who appeared annoyed by every last one of them, and little Cecilia Haigh, who was on the verge of tears.

Into the shouting and pointing and chaos stepped Aunt Barton.

Evangeline didn’t know who saw her first, but an immediate, tense silence fell over the room.

Aunt Barton stopped not two feet inside the room. “Well,” she said, eyeing them all with stinging disapproval.

“Mrs. Barton, you have caught us at a difficult moment.” Evangeline attempted to strike a tone both conciliatory and competent, but feared she sounded more pathetic than anything else.

“And on your second day of school,” Aunt Barton observed. “That is not encouraging.”

Evangeline sent a desperate look to her students. They appeared as overwhelmed by her aunt as she was. She would do well to take advantage of the temporary cessation of hostilities.

“Back to your benches, children,” she instructed firmly. “You will continue copying your letters.”

The children obeyed without a word or a glance or a moment’s hesitation. All was quiet and still and decidedly uncomfortable.

Evangeline stole a glance in her aunt’s direction. The look she received in return was one of delighted disappointment.

If only she had come a moment earlier. The room had been controlled, and the children had been learning.

“Miss Blake,” Aunt Barton said. “A word, if I may.”

She would much rather have refused, but civility did not permit her to. Though she was obliged to work for her keep and earn the right to her own family connections, Evangeline would behave as a lady ought.

She carefully corked the inkwell. “Keep to your letters,” she told the children, her voice commendably steady.

She crossed the small room more swiftly than she would have liked.

Aunt Barton watched her every step, her gaze not wandering in the least. “I had come today to construct my initial report to Mr. Farr. Imagine my astonishment.”

Evangeline suspected her aunt was not the least surprised by what she had seen. “You happened to arrive at a moment when the children’s hunger overcame their manners. They are here for hours, you realize, and I have not been provided with anything to feed them.”

“I expect decorum, Miss Blake, not excuses.”

“I am simply stating the situation.”

“The situation”—Aunt Barton climbed immediately onto her high horse—“is that the school board is not obligated to feed them. Their families should provide food for them at midday if they are hungry.”

“I suspect many of them cannot afford to do so.” The Palmer children, in particular, were worryingly ragged and thin.

“Then they likely would not have been eating at home, either.” Aunt Barton looked over the children studiously bent over their slates. “Do you think them capable of learning?”

The slight against her students, whom she’d known only two days, emboldened her. “Of course I do. Being born poor does not make one”—what was the word John Crossley had used?—“gaumless. And being wealthy does not automatically make one clever.”

Her aunt’s attention returned on the instant. “‘Gaumless’?”

“It is a Yorkshire word.”

“I am well aware of that.” And, it would seem, she did not approve. “You are here to improve their minds, not adopt their ignorance.”

“I do not see how a different word choice equates to ignorance.”

Aunt Barton straightened the chains of her chatelaine purse. “I believe I have seen what I came here to see.”

“You have seen almost nothing.”

She pierced Evangeline with her harsh, pointed gaze. “Precisely.”