JANE

JANE Chapter Eighteen: Aunt Tessa

Chapter Eighteen

Aunt Tessa 

    The train journey was long, and I thought of his face, his body, his expressions, playing the images in my head like the schoolgirl I'd been. I put these thoughts of love out of my mind. I knew he was so far out of my reach that these images of unrequited love were both imaginary and laughable. A girl can dream. 

     And let's face it, Rochester made all other men seem pale in comparison. The boys I'd met casually, at school mixers arranged between the boys' and girls' schools and even at the train station on those afternoons where I travelled to wherever home was, could never compete, even in my schoolgirl memory. 

    I pulled out the novel I'd begun from my reading list, one of the classics, Persuasion, and began to read. I checked my texts intermittently (there were none from him but one from Sophie wishing me Bon Chance!) Her pretty French words made me smile. I had tried to give Sophie the safe and secure upbringing in those few months I'd been with her that I'd never properly experienced myself. I hoped I'd succeeded but my influence was limited in many ways. Sophie, like most children, craved approval from her father. I suppose I had no measure of success except her smiles and the happiness I'd felt when we learnt new things together, like the map of the United States, which was new to me and I'd had to teach myself before I could teach her.  

    I knew when I was forced to leave Sophie and Nate (as I persistently thought of him), I'd miss them both. I should never have let either of them into my heart, I thought, as I snapped my mobile into its cover, folded Persuasion into the scarf in my bag (it was a wonderful story about love lost and found) and shut my eyes. The train chugged into the industrial heartland of central London as I slept. 

     When I woke, there was an apprehensive feeling in my stomach that I'd carried with me all through the journey. The flutters were the opposite of the anticipation I'd felt the first time I went to Thornton and arrived near the estate cottage which overlooked the ocean. This feeling was one of dread. 

    I took the tube to my aunt's house in South London. You couldn't see your surroundings on the tube as it fed like a snake through all of central London, but you felt covered up, literally unseen in the grey and the dark. I remembered the streets without having to check the A-Z directory. My Aunt Tessa's house was particularly familiar. It was a cold and drab summer's day. The temperature felt more like autumn. The summer sky began to spit down rain as I reached the steps of Tessa's house in the expensive enclave of real estate that was Knightsbridge. I walked to the door and rang the bell. Her nurse opened the door and led me, gratefully almost, to my aunt's sitting room.

     She was seated by the fire with a checked rug wrapped around her knees and the television on. Aunt Tessa looked up as I entered the room. Her hair was greying and she looked older than her years and thinner. Her face was soft in the firelight. There were dark shadows under her eyes. 

     'Hello Jane,' she said softly.

     'Hello,' I replied, formally. 

     'Thank you for coming.' 

      We made small talk about the journey then she eyed me up and down and spoke of her real reason for wishing to see me after all these years. 

    'I brought you here to let you know that when you went away, after you were in foster care, your schooling was paid for by me. It was my financial advisor's signature on those cheques.'

     I looked at her incredulously.

     'Why?'

     'It is not what you think, Jane.  I did not do it for your good, just out of my own guilt. I wouldn't see the truth before my eyes. When you fought with my ex-boyfriend, I knew he was in the wrong, but I didn't want to admit it. I am sorry for that alone. As you know, I didn't warm to you, as a child. You were too inquisitive, too knowing and the truth is, I just didn't like you.' She paused before speaking again.  'Is it wrong to be envious of a child?'