It was one such story that brought Jane to the workhouse when her mother was dismissed for an illicit liaison with her employer.
JANE
“We’ll have to watch that one, saucy little madam. Did you hear the way she spoke out of turn at breakfast?”
“Don’t you worry, my dear. I’ll break her before she leaves here.”
The Master and Mistress were talking about Jane, who had been in the workhouse since birth. It was rumoured that her father was a high-class gentleman, distinguished in Parliament and at the Bar. When his wife found him in bed with a servant girl, the girl was immediately dismissed and went to the workhouse, where Jane was born.
The baby stayed with her mother to be breast-fed, but was removed when weaning commenced and was then taken to the infants’ nursery. The mother returned to the women’s section of the workhouse and never saw her baby again. Thus Jane was entirely reared by the institution and knew no other life.
It was a harsh, repressive existence, but no amount of smacks or punishments could subdue Jane’s bubbling laughter and joie de vivre. In the playground, she chased the other children, or hid and jumped out on them with a delighted “boo”. In the dormitory she crept under the beds and poked the mattresses of sleeping children with a stick. Her behaviour caused uproar and an officer would run in with smacks and orders to be quiet. Jane always got smacked, being the cause of all the trouble. But she cried herself to sleep, then giggled and did it again.
As she grew, her high spirits got her into endless trouble. Docility and obedience were expected from the children at all times, and if there was any deviation from this, naughty little Jane could generally be found at the centre of it. Who was it that tied Officer Sharp’s shoelaces together as she sat darning socks, so that she fell over when she stood up and took a step? No one knew for certain, but as Jane had been seen in the vicinity, the little girl got a good smacking for it. Who was it that climbed the drainpipe in the playground? Why, Jane, of course. And who mixed up all the boots in the dormitory so that everyone had the wrong sizes? If it wasn’t Jane, it might as well have been, so she got the punishment.
Jane’s great misfortune was that she stood out. In a group of children she could not be overlooked. She was a good deal taller than average, and also prettier, with her dark curls and clear blue eyes. Worse than this, which was bad enough, she was a great deal more intelligent than most of the other children, and the Master and Mistress feared an intelligent child. They told the officers to keep an eye on her.
“Keep in line, don’t straggle. Heads up, now. Don’t slouch.”
Officer Hawkins would show them how to do it!
The girls were marching to church one Sunday morning. It was a very long crocodile, consisting of nearly one hundred girls. Jane, halfway along on the outside, watched fat old Officer Hawkins strutting along like a penguin and with an instinctive gift for mimicry she copied the walk, head thrown back, arms flapping, feet splayed. The girls behind started to giggle. A hand shot out and hit Jane on the head with such force that she fell through the column of girls on to the road on the other side. She was hauled up and hit again and then pushed back into line. Her ears were ringing and lights were darting before her eyes, but she had to keep marching. She was six years old.
“Where did it come from?” demanded the Master, his eyes bulging, his face turning red. “Who is guilty of this piece of insolence?”
He was looking at a sketch of himself, on a page torn from an exercise book. It was a remarkable drawing for a child, but the Master couldn’t see it that way. All he could see was himself with an exaggerated moustache, a square head, small eyes, and an exceedingly large stomach. The picture had been circulating among the girls for three days, causing endless amusement, which only added to the Master’s fury.
He assembled all the girls in the hall and addressed them from the pulpit. He reminded them that they were paupers who must respect and obey their betters. No act of disobedience, disrespect or insubordination would be tolerated. He held up the pencil drawing.
“Who did this?” he demanded, menacingly.
No one moved.
“Very well. Every single girl in this room will be beaten, starting now, with the first row.”
Jane stood up. “I did it, sir,” she whispered.
She was taken to the discipline room – a small, square room with no windows and no furniture except for one stool. Several canes were hanging on the wall. Jane was beaten severely on her bare bottom. She could not sit down for several days. She was only seven years old.
That should be enough to break her spirit, thought the Master to himself with satisfaction. But it wasn’t. He couldn’t understand it. Why the very next morning, he had seen her, with his own eyes, dancing across the playground, as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
The reason why Jane’s spirit was not broken was that she had a secret. It was her own special secret and she had told no one else except Peggy. She locked it in her heart and hugged it to herself. It was this glorious secret that filled her with such irrepressible joy and exhilaration. But it was also to be the cause of her greatest disaster, and her life-long grief.
The rumour that her father was a high-born gentleman in Parliament must have reached Jane’s ears when she was a little girl. Perhaps she had heard the officers talking about it, or perhaps another child had heard the adults talking and told her. Perhaps Jane’s mother had told another workhouse inmate, who had passed it on. One can never tell how rumours start.
To Jane, it was not a rumour. It was an absolute fact. Her daddy was a high-born gentleman, who one day would come and take her away. She fantasised endlessly about her daddy. She talked to him, and he talked to her. She brushed her hair, and cast a flirtatious eye at him, as he looked over her shoulder, admiring her curls. She ran down the playground as fast as she could, because he was standing at the other end, admiring her strength and speed. He was always with her. He was everywhere.
She had a very clear picture of him in her mind. He was not like any other man she had seen at the workhouse, not like the coal man, nor the baker, nor the boiler man. They were ugly and short, and wore rough working men’s clothing and cloth caps. He was not like the Master or any of the officers. Jane’s little nose wrinkled with disgust at the thought. Her daddy was quite different. He was tall and slim with fine features and pale skin. He had long fingers; she looked at her own slender hands and knew that she had inherited her daddy’s fingers. He had lots of hair – she didn’t like bald men – and it was a soft, grey colour, always clean and nicely brushed. His clothes were nothing like the awful stuff worn by the workmen she saw, and her daddy didn’t smell of sweat the way they did. He always wore beautiful suits smelling of lavender, and he wore a top hat and carried a walking-cane with a gold crest on top.
She knew just what his voice sounded like also – after all, he was constantly talking to her – it was not rough and grating like other men’s voices; it was musical and deep, full of laughter. She knew this because he was always laughing with her and making fun of the Master and the officers. His eyes had twinkled with amusement, and he had called her ‘his clever girl’ when she had drawn a funny picture of the Master.