(no subject)
There's something to be said for being in school again. Of course, it isn't as if the idea is without its complications; on a semi-regular basis, Jenny has found herself wondering what the point of any of this is when it won't do her a bit of good back home, when she's no closer to ever being able to go to Oxford, when, for all she knows, she won't even remember any of it if and when she ever gets sent back. She just makes a habit of talking herself out of that. Tedious though schoolwork itself can be, her classes themselves are interesting ones, and anyway, she knows from experience that the line of thought is a dangerous one. It's why she needs to do it. She wouldn't go so far as to outright call it a penance or anything like that, but she was wrong about school's importance and wrong to try to skip over it before, and she won't make the same mistake now. Even if she's only proving a point to herself, at least it's being proven. She doesn't need an audience to be diligent.
She practically has one, though, at least this time around. Wednesday being one of her days with no classes, she's decided to devote it instead to doing homework, settled with all of her books and papers at one of the tables in the rec room, where people are always filtering in and out. Granted, she doubts any of them are sparing her more than a second's glance - she's hardly the only one catching up on homework, these days - but they're still there, and it only makes her work harder.
By the time she stands up, stretching almost as if she's been asleep rather than reading and writing as is actually the case, she thinks it must have been a good hour or so, enough that she can take a break and pop into the kitchen for a cup of tea. She never makes it there. Leaving everything spread out over the table, she pauses at the bookshelf on the way into the other room, and while its contents should come as no surprise, nevertheless, it catches her off guard, breath hitching. A whole shelf full of copies of Jane Eyre stares back at her; it's been the case before, but this time, perhaps naïvely, she expected it to be different, as if the work she's done might take precedence over her recent, more sordid past. So, alright, maybe it's an attempted penance after all. It doesn't mean she hasn't actually changed. Staring at the title, one of the many versions of it, she remembers the comparisons, mostly joking, made between David and Mr Rochester (as blind as Mr Rochester, one of them said once). As it turned out, maybe she should have given those a little more thought, with how apt they wound up being. His wife may not have been mad or locked in an attic, but the principle of the thing - the fact that she was kept secret and hidden away right under Jenny's nose - remains the same.
"Oh, for God's sake," she huffs, petulant and no longer mindful of anyone else being nearby. She barely manages to keep from doing something foolish like kicking the shelf in frustration. She's been a fool enough, though. Instead, reluctant, Jenny reaches for one of the volumes, frowning at it as if she could make it change through force of will alone. It doesn't, though, and when she skims to the last pages, its ending is the same, too, just as she remembers it. That's one way their stories differ. Unlike Jane and Mr Rochester's, her own isn't a love story, and it certainly would never have ended with any sort of reunion. She knows better than that. It isn't as much of a comfort as it should be.
[Timed to Wednesday, late morning/early afternoonish. ST/LT both perfectly welcome, and while she's not in the best of moods, it's still a fine time to meet her.]
She practically has one, though, at least this time around. Wednesday being one of her days with no classes, she's decided to devote it instead to doing homework, settled with all of her books and papers at one of the tables in the rec room, where people are always filtering in and out. Granted, she doubts any of them are sparing her more than a second's glance - she's hardly the only one catching up on homework, these days - but they're still there, and it only makes her work harder.
By the time she stands up, stretching almost as if she's been asleep rather than reading and writing as is actually the case, she thinks it must have been a good hour or so, enough that she can take a break and pop into the kitchen for a cup of tea. She never makes it there. Leaving everything spread out over the table, she pauses at the bookshelf on the way into the other room, and while its contents should come as no surprise, nevertheless, it catches her off guard, breath hitching. A whole shelf full of copies of Jane Eyre stares back at her; it's been the case before, but this time, perhaps naïvely, she expected it to be different, as if the work she's done might take precedence over her recent, more sordid past. So, alright, maybe it's an attempted penance after all. It doesn't mean she hasn't actually changed. Staring at the title, one of the many versions of it, she remembers the comparisons, mostly joking, made between David and Mr Rochester (as blind as Mr Rochester, one of them said once). As it turned out, maybe she should have given those a little more thought, with how apt they wound up being. His wife may not have been mad or locked in an attic, but the principle of the thing - the fact that she was kept secret and hidden away right under Jenny's nose - remains the same.
"Oh, for God's sake," she huffs, petulant and no longer mindful of anyone else being nearby. She barely manages to keep from doing something foolish like kicking the shelf in frustration. She's been a fool enough, though. Instead, reluctant, Jenny reaches for one of the volumes, frowning at it as if she could make it change through force of will alone. It doesn't, though, and when she skims to the last pages, its ending is the same, too, just as she remembers it. That's one way their stories differ. Unlike Jane and Mr Rochester's, her own isn't a love story, and it certainly would never have ended with any sort of reunion. She knows better than that. It isn't as much of a comfort as it should be.
[Timed to Wednesday, late morning/early afternoonish. ST/LT both perfectly welcome, and while she's not in the best of moods, it's still a fine time to meet her.]