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.I simply must share this with Cecil.He needs a good laugh!” She was still laughing when she turned on her heel and left the room.Jane was awake all night, hands clenched at her sides, staring at the ceiling in her room, wishing for morning to come, and then dreading it, because that would mean another encounter with Lady Carruthers.“No, Mr.Butterworth, I cannot speak my mind around Lady Carruthers,” she said out loud, when it seemed that morning would never come.“I must leave this place.”When she could not stand another moment of lying in her bed, she got up and dressed quickly, her fingers clumsy.She was tying her shoes when she stopped, her hand on the lace.And where will I go? she thought in despair.Where am I free from relatives? I could never leave Andrew.It was almost the last thing Blair had said to her, his last thought, after he told her he loved her.“Watch him, Janie, as you always have,” he had whispered, the words draining out of him like his own blood.Jane shivered and finished tying her shoes.She snatched up her cloak and tiptoed from the house.In only a few minutes she was circling Mr.Butterworth’s lake and then seating herself on a bench, shielded by trees from both houses.In exhaustion and perfect misery, she sat there through Lady Denby’s departure for church.When the carriage was small in the distance, she trudged back to the house.Andrew was gone, and Cecil, too.Jane marveled at her own insensitivity in exposing Blair’s son to the full force of their dislike.I should have gone, she thought, lying down on her bed and drawing up her knees to her chest.No matter how bad it is, I should have gone.She slept then, too tired to do anything else.She was vaguely aware when they returned from church, but she slept again, to be roused soon enough by the smallest knock on her door.“Come in,” she said, pushing hair and sleep from her eyes.Andrew, his face so pale that his lips were white, came into the room.She stared at him as he sat down in the chair in front of the fireplace.Horrified, she could tell that he was beyond tears.“Oh, Andrew, what did they say to you?” she said as she hurried to kneel beside the chair.He shook his head.“Nothing to me,” he said finally.“After church, my aunt asked the vicar how I was doing in Latin School.”Jane gasped.“Oh, God, I never thought of that! And … and did the vicar tell her about ….” She couldn’t finish.Andrew nodded.“Mr.Butterworth was standing near.” He hung his head down and she watched the tears drop onto the arm of the chair.Wordlessly she pressed her hand against his head.“She said such terrible things to him, Miss Mitten!” He looked at her, his eyes red.“Called him common, and someone who pokes his nose where it doesn’t belong, and … and words I never heard before.” He sobbed into the arm of the chair.“All he was doing was teaching me Latin, Miss Mitten!”Jane rested her cheek against his hair.“I know, Andrew.It’s all my fault.”He shook his head.“No, it isn’t.We didn’t do anything wrong.” He looked at her.“Do you think Mr.Butterworth will ever want to see us again?”Not if he is as smart as I think he is, she thought, and then went all hollow inside.We will have no friends anymore, and I am to blame for speaking my mind.I should have known no good would come of it.“We can wish that he would, my dear,” she replied, “although I would not hold out too much hope.”Andrew sighed.“Why does she care how I learn Latin? She never cares about anything else I do.”Andrew, if you only knew how many years I have been wondering why she dislikes me so much, Jane thought, as she got to her feet and found a handkerchief for the boy.“I am sure it is she who has been telling everyone that my mama ….Oh, Miss Mitten, suppose it is all true?” he burst out.“I do not understand!”Her own heart full to bursting, Jane took him onto her lap and let him cry.“I don’t understand, either,” she murmured.And I do not understand why no one—Blair included—made any effort to scotch the rumors.She could not stop her own tears then.Am I the only one who ignored the rumors?She forced herself to stop crying, and held Andrew close against her until his tears turned into hiccups, and then stopped.Calmly she wiped his face, kissed his forehead, then let him rest against her again
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