Just Jane Read Online Free PDF Page A

wrote with deep feeling about this fear, expressing the hope that both sides would calm their anger and work together to preserve peace. Her work earned the notation
Excellent
from the schoolmaster, setting her aglow with pleasure and pride.
    But she soon noticed that despite Mr. Cordwyn’s policy of encouraging classroom discussion, “the troubles,” as they often were called, were a strictly forbidden topic. One day she lingered after class had been dismissed and inquired as to the reason for this.
    â€œSome of these boys come from Loyalist families, some from families with rebel sentiments,” the schoolmaster explained. “The minute the subject is touched upon, heated argument ensues. The next thing I know I’ve got a brawl on my hands, and the classroom is in chaos for the rest of the day. The only thing to do is to ban the topic altogether.”
    â€œI see. Well, I was just curious, so—”
    â€œThat’s fine, I’m glad you are. You’re curious, you’re observant, and you think about things. As a schoolmaster, I take great delight in that.”
    Encouraged by his friendly attitude, Jane fell into the habit of lingering after class for further discussion. At first their talks centered on “the troubles.” But gradually—almost without Jane’s realizing it—they drifted over into personal subjects. Curiosity, an element he admired in her, was something he demonstrated as well, asking Jane detailed questions about her life in England and listening intently to her answers. Thus he learned that although she possessed all the poise, dignity, and elegant manners expected from the daughter of an English earl, she had come from shabby surroundings. Her mother long dead, her dissolute father usually absent, she had survived a lonely childhood in diminished circumstances, cared for by her nanny, the widow Mrs. Morley, who was her only constant companion.
    â€œBut I’m embarrassed to be telling you all this, Mr. Cordwyn,” she said in the end. “It sounds as if I’m complaining, and I don’t mean to. I really feel that, considering everything, I’ve been lucky.”
    Simon nodded in sympathetic understanding. “And considering everything, Jane, I’d have to say you are a most remarkable young lady.”
    Coaxed by Jane, he, in turn, talked about his own background. Born to hardworking Pennsylvania farm folk, he and his older sister, Rebecca, had been orphaned before they were fully grown. Rebecca, called Becky, had looked after her brother until they parted company a few years later, when Becky got married and Simon went to Philadelphia in pursuit of education. Becky had married a man named Jack Herndon, a prosperous owner of a mercantile store in the town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
    â€œI owe everything to Jack and Becky,” Simon told Jane. “They sent me to college. I would have settled in Lancaster and opened a school there, except that it was already overcrowded with schools and schoolmasters. I do miss them. And especially do I miss my niece and nephew. Jack Junior was just three when I left, and the little girl, Frances, was a baby. They’re eight and six now. I love those children as if they were my own, and I hate not being there to see them grow up.”
    â€œI understand how you feel,” Jane said sympathetically. “But we need you here.
I
need you here, to stuff some education into my head.”
    This made him chuckle. “Jane, my dear, stuffing education into your pretty head is a pleasure I hope to enjoy for a long time to come.”
    â€œGood.” She said it with a smile, wondering what it was that had made her tingle—his calling her pretty, or his calling her
my dear
? Either or both, it didn’t matter—the tingle was lovely and strange, something she had never felt before.
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    Each time Brandon came home from one of his racing excursions, he complained anew to