He seemed taken aback by her respectful manner, and she watched as he opened the book and then looked up at her.
She took up her piece of chalk and wrote a large “A” on the board. “Can anyone tell me what this is?” she asked the room.
“It’s an A,” one young boy told her.
“Very good.” She wrote a “B.” “And this one?”
Another young boy shouted out the answer.
“Excellent.” She turned to see the inmate assigned to help her sleeping in the corner. She went to wake her, and when she did, the woman let out a shriek, causing the children to laugh.
She slowly lost control of the room after that, and it was another day of very little accomplished.
Audrey placed the chalk away and closed the door to the schoolroom, locking it behind her. She walked down the long hallway in the opposite way of her room and wandered about the grounds. She didn’t want to be a failure at the end of the month, but so far, she had not been a success.
The children were unruly and sadly uneducated, and even teaching the simplest thing such as the alphabet was time-consuming. She wouldn’t quit though. That was not a possibility. She must continue and find a way to break through to the children.
She came upon the door that led out into the back courtyard and into another warren of hallways and doors. The women inmates and their children resided in this wing. She turned around and went down another long hallway and into the side of the large vegetable garden to the stables. She didn’t go in, but thought peacefully of the horses in their comfortable stalls chewing on alfalfa.
She turned and almost ran into Joseph. “Mr. Caldwell!”
“Ms. Wakefield. You’re visiting the stables?”
“No. I was just getting some air and happened to turn this way,” she said.
He gave her a knowing look. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She looked down. “It’s that obvious?”
He shrugged, and they fell in step together. “I’ve seen my fair share of staff come and go. Some find it rather easy. They know the lay of the land, and work is work. Others like yourself have no concept of the workhouse. There are rules and then there are rules upon rules. Children have it especially difficult here.”
Her eyes met his. “How so?”
“They’ve grown up in poverty,” he said simply. “They may know how to survive a night without food, escape a beating, but they can’t add basic numbers nor read a simple rhyme.”
Audrey sighed. “The class is maybe sixty students, but the majority of them can’t read properly and don’t behave at all.”
He studied her. “Do you want to punish them? It’s usually what the schoolmistress would do.”
“Punish them for what? Having parents out of work so they went hungry? Being forced into the workhouse through no fault of their own? I just want to better lives. I’m so stupid.” She shook her head as they rounded the large house and came upon the outer edge of the vegetable garden.
“I’d take you for many things, Ms. Wakefield, but not stupid,” he said quietly.
“Then naïve,” she corrected. “When I took this job, I thought I could teach them so many things. I could read literature to them. Maybe even a little French. Absolutely ridiculous.” She shook her head.
He caught her arm and turned her back to him. “It’s not ridiculous. If anything, I’d say it’s refreshing.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “Refreshing?”
He hummed. “Yes. You’ve come into the workhouse wanting to teach French. Do you know how many teachers come into this sort of place and wonder how they can get through the days? How many floggings will they administer? How often can they starve the children to make them behave? How long until they can move on to a better place?”
“What should I do? I want to succeed. I have to succeed. You don’t know. I have to succeed here. There’s nothing else,” she said firmly. Her family was relying on her, and she must live up to that.
Joseph looked at her for several moments. “You must be firm. You must start to make that place your own. The children must know you are master there.”
She turned the word over in her head. “Master?”
“Yes. And you don’t need to be a harsh, cruel master. Be firm. Don’t go back on your word. Stick to the subjects you have planned and move forward.”