Shadows of the Workhouse

that no workhouse pauper should be singled out for special treatment. A request that Jane should be allowed to take the role of Mary in the school’s nativity play was refused for the same reason.
    Jane was bitterly disappointed at this, chiefly because her daddy would have been so proud to see her playing Mary, and she cried herself to sleep for several nights, until he whispered to her that the silly old school nativity play was not worth crying over. She would have the chance to perform in many more, much nicer plays when she came to live with him in the beautiful house with the long drive.
    The workhouse girls were kept apart, as much as possible, from the other girls at the school. This was because several local mothers had complained that they did not want their daughters mixing with ‘them workhouse bastards’. This segregation was a source of great pain to many of her friends, but not to Jane. She laughed at the rule that workhouse girls should not play in the same playground as the other children, and tossed her dark curls scornfully. Just let them wait. She would show them. All those dreary girls whose fathers were dustmen and street-sweepers and costermongers. They would be sorry one day, when they saw her daddy, a high-born gentleman, drive up to the school in a carriage. She would run up to him, and all those dreary girls would see her. He would pick her up, kiss her, and take her to the waiting carriage, and all the girls would see and be jealous. The teachers would say to each other: “We always knew that Jane was different.”
    Jane was fortunate in her class teacher. Miss Sutton was young, well educated and eager. In fact, to say that she possessed a missionary zeal for teaching the poorest of the poor would not be overstating her dedication and enthusiasm. She saw in the vivacious Jane unusual qualities that she was determined to promote. The child learned to read and write in about a quarter the length of time that it took the other children, so whilst Miss Sutton was engaged with the rest of the class, who were learning the alphabet and painstakingly spelling out words, she asked Jane to write stories for her. Jane did so with great joy and fluency, picking up any subject Miss Sutton suggested and weaving a delightful child’s story around it. Several of these stories were shown to the Headmistress, who commented: “There is an unusual mind at work here,” and she obtained a copy of A Child’s Garden of Verse , which she handed to Miss Sutton for Jane’s use. The child was enraptured by the rhythm of the words and quickly learned many of the poems by heart, which she recited to her daddy when they were alone together.
    Miss Sutton also introduced Jane to history and geography, using a children’s encyclopedia as her textbook. These lessons had to be surreptitious, because Miss Sutton was employed to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Furthermore, she was canny enough to suspect that if she requested extra lessons for Jane, the request would be refused and that would be the end of history and geography for Jane.
    Miss Sutton took the wise step of introducing one volume at a time, with the words, “I think you will enjoy reading this. When you have done so, write me a story about it, and we will talk about it at lunch time.”
    Jane adored Miss Sutton, and their lunch-time conversations about kings and queens and faraway places were the high point of her day.
    The children’s encyclopedia was her treasure. There were ten large volumes, each beautifully bound in dark blue with gold lettering, and she pored over each one with a hungry mind. She loved the books, their feel and touch and smell, and wanted to keep them, but she knew she couldn’t; they were kept in the classroom cupboard, but she knew that Miss Sutton would let her see them any time she wanted. To Jane these books were sacred. Every word she read was – must be – gospel truth, because it was written in the “’cyclopedia”.
    One day she came across a long word she had not met before. She traced it with her finger and tried to say it to herself: “Par” – that was easy; “lia” – what did that mean? “ment” – that was easy, too; but what was it all put together? Suddenly, like a lightning stroke, it came to her: Parliament . People had said her daddy was in Parliament. She devoured the relevant pages as though her life depended on it. In the background the other children were reciting C-A-T, D-O-G.