JANE

JANE Chapter Fourteen: Dinner Party

Chapter Fourteen

Dinner Party

I decided to dress for dinner, to give Nicola something to worry about.

I bathed and dried and used tongs on my hair in a fairly good attempt to imitate the fashionable models I'd noticed in magazines discarded where Nicola had left them.

It is true I only had one dress; I'd spent the part of my salary I wasn't saving at the local village shop on brushes and paper and art supplies; but the dress was new and very fashionable – a dark, above the knee, fitted sixties style. I wore it over a cherry coloured polo sweater, black opaque stockings and knee length, black riding boots - the ones I'd been mysteriously provided with even after I'd said I did not wish to take lessons.

Sophie wore a pink dress with a bow at the back and flat, ballet slippers. She looked like the flower girl at a wedding as she skipped across the ballroom and into the dining room.

The table was lit up with candles and flowers. Mrs Fairfax had been told to hire extra staff from the village specifically for the weekend. The dinner party was in full swing when Sophie and I entered the room. Although Rochester looked up momentarily and smiled, his eyes noting that I was more appropriately dressed as Mrs Fairfax had remarked, he did not stop talking to Nicola. There were other friends, a guy named Riff and another woman called Jess. Riff wore a black leather jacket. He was the lead singer in Riffraff, the band Rochester managed. Riff was half asleep throughout dinner but still managed to drink at regular intervals. His girlfriend hung off his every word, nuzzling his shoulder.

As the first course was served, Jess started to nibble Riff's ear which made Sophie giggle. Meanwhile, Nicola looked enraptured at the man seated opposite her, Nathanial, and even made a point of getting up out of her seat to cut up his food for him while he'd excused himself to take a phone call. I'm not sure that was the best move on her part. He didn't look entirely pleased when he returned.

Sophie and I were seated near the end of the long table.

To my right was a good-looking stranger, a man who did not seem to know the rest of the party. He had dark brown hair with a long fringe and was around the same age as Rochester. He smiled warmly and introduced himself to me.

'How do you do? I'm Christopher Mason. May I ask who I have the pleasure of sitting alongside?'

His accent was from somewhere across the sea; America or Ireland; perhaps both. I noticed Mr Rochester's casual glance in my direction and it pleased me that now it was his turn to see my attention diverted elsewhere.

'I'm Jane Eyre, Sophie's English tutor. I'm also her nanny,' I said, quite loudly and proudly.

The young man smiled at me, then looked coldly at Sophie, who smiled back at him in her trusting way. Sophie looked particularly adorable with her curls tied in a pink ribbon. She was an enchanting child, (like a pet Rochester had noted, when

Sophie was out of earshot, with his usual droll humour).

I noticed Christopher again glanced at the child coldly, and I wondered why.

'And... how old is the child?' he asked me, almost impatiently, as the first course of lobster bisque was served.

'Sophie is six,' I said, quietly.

He nodded as if mentally doing some arithmetic that I couldn't possibly understand. I broke some bread and took the soup spoon, grateful for the etiquette lessons I'd considered stupid at Lockwood School. I knew to use the round spoon first and to eat using utensils from the outside in. I'd taught Sophie to do the same and she was behaving extremely well for a soon-to-be tired six-year-old.