Never Plain, This Jane

I thought I had heard of her, but wasn't certain. The name was familiar - Jane Eyre - yet the story that made her famous was not. I wish now that I still had that pleasure in store, as I did that summer of 1974.

It would be an interesting summer. We did not know it yet, but our president would soon stand in front of television cameras and resign. His wife and family would stand with him and bear this heartache calmly. It would be a very long time before we saw any of them again.

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But this was only June, so that dreadful thing had not yet happened. And I had a job! What was political intrigue compared with that? I would stay with my sister and her husband in their beautiful house, and life would be oh, so good. Her kind husband and I were to be the schoolhouse painters, working as foremen with crews and paints and all sorts of turpentine. 

My crew consisted of two 16 year olds, boy and girl, who were gorgeous and adventurous and in love, rather like Romeo and Juliet. I thought they must see me as incredibly OLD when told I was their 'boss'. At 23, I FELT old next to them, and I'd never been anyone's 'boss'. This could be interesting.

But soon, my sister introduced me to Jane Eyre for the first time, and the summer was transformed. Paints, and turpentine, and lovesick teenagers faded with the words:

"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." (There! You see? No wonder I loved this book. Charlotte Bronte' began it by pointing to something dear to the SconeLady's heart - walking!).

Each day upon returning home from work, paint spattered and weary, I could hardly wait for dinner, and dishes, and then: Jane! What an unusual character she was. How very uncommon and intelligent, how lively and unusual! She may have seemed plain when described by Bronte': 

Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot." "Yes," responded Abbot, "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that."

"Such a little toad"? Really, Abbot is short-sighted and unthinking, or outright blind.

My sister would read to me, and I would read to her. We would stop each evening in decent time for sleep, but it was terribly hard. Excruciating, in fact! The sister's kind husband sat in the other corner of the room pretending not to listen, at first. But he would later come out with quotes or Jane-isms clearly gleaned from those evening readings. Haha! Oh, they were good days, that summer of '74.

It was sure a contrast with what I experienced each day as a 'paint boss'. Jane and Mr. Rochester by night; two rambunctious and lovesick teens by day. I'll give you one guess as to which scenario I liked best.

Romeo and Juliet don't even come close.


See you along the way!
the SconeLady











photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/duneshack/4470090683/">elizabethdunn</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>