The classroom was a large area that had been divided into at least two spaces by a partition at the far end, probably to separate boys from girls. On a raised platform, a teacher and her student assistant were instructing a small clutch of girls in their sums. Another group read Bibles, the hum of their voices like a hive of bees, while another sat sewing, and another copied lines of text onto slates. They looked studious, or at least skilled at feigning interest. One dared to flick a glance at Rachel, standing in the doorway. The girl did not smile but looked bored, as if she were used to women coming to stare at them like animals on display.
Rachel looked away from her, scanning the remainder. Young, so many were young, not a one over ten, maybe eleven at the most. Clean, for the most part, though their dresses did not fit well and their stockings, where they peeped beneath skirts, were worn and much darned. One child coughed quietly into her hand, thick and raspy, and Rachel wondered if anyone tended to their ills or cared precisely how well they were fed. Did they have someplace warm to sleep at night? Did their parents resent or welcome the time spent at school, time not spent earning pence to help the family? Was the girl nearest her bruised along her chin, as if she’d been hit hard? Surely not by any of the teachers. Maybe by a father, or a mother . . .
An accustomed compulsion spread through Rachel’s chest. She had to do something to help them. That desire was un-dimmed, no matter how she had failed Mary Ferguson.
“Miss, you have to come along.” Their young escort plucked Rachel’s sleeve. “Ma’am will be angry that I’ve taken so long to bring you up.”
“I did not mean to delay.” Rachel turned away, caught Claire watching.
“They are pitiful, aren’t they?” Claire asked, resuming her place at Rachel’s side as they continued up the staircase. “The ragged schools are so much worse. The children there do not even have shoes or mended clothes. At least here, there’s hope.”
“Do they treat you well in this school?” Rachel asked the girl leading them ever upward.
“As well as can be expected, miss.”
Claire tutted quietly at Rachel’s side. They arrived at the second floor and paused before a closed door. The girl knocked and a muffled voice told them to enter.
The office was small, carved out of a bigger space, the makeshift walls not even reaching the ceiling. Hushed tones of women tending to young children trickled over. From behind a table being utilized as a desk, a woman in a starched white bodice and a rusty-red twill skirt stood. She was of middle age, her hair feathered with gray, her features unremarkable except for the intensity that radiated from her eyes, piercing as a magistrate’s.
She gestured for the girl to depart. “Miss Harwood, it is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Mrs. Chapman, may I present my cousin, Miss Rachel Dunne.” Claire’s firmly applied fingertips pushed Rachel forward.
Rachel swallowed, her throat suddenly so parched she expected her tongue to stick to the roof of her mouth. “Mrs. Chapman, I am most grateful you have agreed to speak with me about a position as a teacher.”
The headmistress indicated she and Claire could take a seat. “You did not tell me she was Irish, Miss Harwood.”
“My cousin is very well educated, Mrs. Chapman,” Claire responded, her voice cool. “I believed that to be all that was of consequence.”
“If by well educated you mean she does not have a significant accent, I can hear that.”
“Which is no small indication of her schooling, you must agree.”
Rachel shifted on the hard chair, the legs rocking on the uneven floor. “I can read, having had access to numerous volumes of literature, and write with a good hand, Mrs. Chapman. My mother was a rector’s daughter and a very strict instructor. I kept the books for my father’s business, so I can easily teach the fundamentals of arithmetic. I also can execute decent needlework and . . .” Carelessly, she had almost admitted her knowledge of herbs and physics. “And other skills necessary for young girls to know.”
“This is all well and good, Miss Dunne, but you have no certificate. You have never managed a classroom or learned the art of instruction of children.”
“However you will find me more than willing to work hard, and I