JANE

JANE Chapter two: An Education

Chapter Two

An Education

I pulled out my folder, packed with documents relating to the first year school syllabus that I would need to be familiar with. I continued reading over standards and child development for the first part of my journey. Eventually, I let the endlessly lush scenery take over as I lolled against the window with music blaring in my ears. This time it was soft and classical, like the songs I'd taught myself on the keyboard in music class.

Because it was summer, Mrs Fairfax said she was not too strict about schooling but the small, French child was the ward of a Mr Edward Nathanial Rochester and he did not wish her to be behind when the new school year started. It was clear Sophie did not belong to Mrs Fairfax as I'd originally thought. Prior to her attendance in school she was used to being cared for at home when she had lived mysteriously with her mother - in Paris, the city of light.

'Jane , you will not be expected to do any cooking or cleaning; there is staff for that. Your responsibility is improving Sophie's English.' Mrs Fairfax's words had resonated in my ear over the telephone. Hardly anyone speaks on the telephone these days; it's all texts and social networking. Those telephone calls really did make me feel special. I hoped my inexperience and youth would not be considered a disadvantage. As it turned out it was for exactly those qualities that I was hired.

I was proficient in French, although I had been instructed to speak to Sophie mostly in English. I hoped she wasn't as unruly as some of the previous children I'd babysat.

There were also younger children in my foster families - all eight of them - until I finally hit the jackpot and was sent to Lockwood to board. My benefactor had decided he didn't want anything to do with me but to appease his conscience I was sent to this select boarding school. I assume my benefactor was a he but the actual person could have just as easily been a woman, I suppose. The lawyer who signed my school cheques was male. I knew nothing more about my benefactor (who insisted on a confidentiality clause), other than who his lawyer was.

Lockwood School was not the friendliest place, as you may have guessed. It was there that we froze away the winters and, after Irma left, I tried to make friends with girls who'd invite me to vacation with them over endless summers. It almost worked but usually they tossed me to the curb after a few weeks when they found out I could never return the favour. Inevitably, I spent the last weeks of summer tucked up at school, learning the syllabus for the following year. That's really how I became academically gifted; I had nothing better to do. And of course, I liked to read and draw; qualities which helped me inhabit my own little world.

I was surprised in some ways, that when I turned eighteen, I had nowhere to go and my benefactor didn't want to meet me. It would have been upsetting but I was so ready to embrace my freedom I put this unnecessary slight out of my mind and resolved to get on with my life, now that I could finally, legally, make some decisions for myself.

I arrived in the village near Thornton Hall at night. I was to stay at an inn. Next morning I would get a lift to Hay Lane which led to the vast estate of Thornton. Mrs

Fairfax had arranged for some neighbours to meet me.

The inn was small, friendly and comforting. I ate my dinner (sausages, mashed potato and beans) and drank a glass of lemonade. I pushed my food around on my plate. It reminded me of some of the worst excesses of boarding school – food fights and eating competitions. When the teachers were absent, the older girls and prefects made the rules. (Some of the older girls locked us in a room in one of the sports houses...) The prefects were the worst in that school. You were nothing when you first arrived. There were all sorts of standards and anti-bullying messages but the younger students were still bullied to within an inch of their lives by the older ones. If you were bullied and spoke up, it only made things worse. I was twelve when I arrived at the school and I had to prove myself until I was older and became a prefect myself. Our group tried to install a different set of rules and I'd like to think the younger students that followed us were a little less feral than the older ones who'd been the original bullies at Lockwood. However, boarding school was ultimately better than some of the foster care I'd been allocated. I shuddered at the memory of strange people and unfamiliar beds.