Shadows of the Workhouse

their white habits. Grace was said, with a special remembrance for the gifts of the Magi, then we all sat down to open our presents. A chorus of “oohs” and “ahs” and little squeaks and giggles arose from the table, as kisses were exchanged between the ladies. Sister Julienne picked up the silver box, saying, “Now what can this be?” and my heart stood still. She removed the paper and opened the box. Just the flicker of an eyebrow, instantaneous and then gone, was all that betrayed her. She carefully put the lid back on the box and turned to Jane with a radiant smile, her eyes alight with pleasure.
    “How very kind. A most charming thought, Jane. It is just what I have always wanted, and I am truly grateful. I will treasure it always.”
    Jane leaned forward eagerly. “It’s a honey-stirrer. They are very old.”
    “Oh yes, I know. I saw that at once. A delightful gift and so like you, Jane, to be so thoughtful.”
    Sister Julienne kissed her gently and quietly tucked the box away beneath her scapular.
    To all appearances Jane was a bit of a dimwit. It was her reading that gave me the clue that she was, in fact, exactly the opposite. She was a voracious, almost obsessive reader. Books were her only self-indulgence, and she handled them with loving care. I took to spying on her authors: Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Russell, Kierkegaard. I was astonished. Predictably, she had a daily discipline of Bible-reading, but beyond the Old and New Testaments her devotional reading was formidable: St Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, St John of the Cross. I looked at her with new eyes. Aquinas for recreation! This was no dimwit.
    Yet if anyone came into the room whilst she was reading she would jump up, all of a dither, and throw down her book guiltily, saying something like: “Do you want anything? Can I get you anything?” or, on one occasion: “I was just about to lay the table for breakfast. I haven’t been idle, really I haven’t.” This did not seem like the behaviour of an intelligent woman.
    Later I discovered that Jane had spent twenty years in domestic service. She had been put into service at the age of fourteen, when life for a humble servant girl was very hard indeed. She had to be up at about 4 a.m. to fetch the wood and coal, clear the grates and light the fires. Then it would be a day of constant heavy work, at the beck and call of the mistress of the house, until ten or eleven at night, when she would finally be allowed to go to bed.
    Jane had been hopeless at the job. However hard she tried she could never master the skills of simple housework. Consequently the mistress was always cross with her. She became increasingly nervous, breaking things, bungling things. She lived in a state of sheer terror that she would do something wrong, which she always did, so she was continually getting the sack and having to find another position – where the cycle started all over again.
    Few domestic servants can have been less suited to the job than Jane. Her incompetence was monumental, although it is not uncommon for highly intellectual people to be baffled by the practicalities of everyday life.
    Poor Jane! I once saw her trying to light a gas mantle. It took her forty minutes. First she spilled the matches all over the floor, and by the end she had broken the mantle, broken the glass shade, cut herself, set fire to a tea towel and scorched the wallpaper. No wonder she was always getting the sack.
    I remember another occasion at Nonnatus House when Jane spilled a drop of milk on the floor. She trembled and whimpered, “I’ll clean it up. I’ll clean it up. I’ll do it.”
    She then proceeded to wash the entire kitchen floor, including moving all the tables and chairs. No one could stop her. She insisted on doing the whole kitchen. I asked Sister Julienne why she behaved in this way.
    “Jane was utterly crushed as a child,” explained Sister; “she will never get over it.”
    Jane very seldom went out, and never left Nonnatus House for a night. The only person she was ever known to visit was Peggy, who lived on the Isle of Dogs with her brother Frank.

    No one could describe Peggy as plump. Voluptuous would be a better description. Her softly rounded curves spoke eloquently of ease and comfort. Her large grey eyes, fringed with dark curling lashes, had a sensuous quality in their dreamy depths. Her smooth, clear skin glowed with radiance and every time she smiled, which was often, dimples enhanced her beauty,