A/N: Hello!
Sorry so late. Last couple of months got kind of busy. I have updated Chapter 1. I felt I needed a bit more back story on Jane.
The genesis of this story is that delicious, but, with all due respect and certainly IMO, underdeveloped parallel between Jane and Sr. Bernadette as they find the courage to face their demons. It also comes from reconciling in my own mind the Jane of the book with the Jane of the series - both of whom I enjoy. I thought it a stroke of brilliance to alter Jane's back-story (but not much, all told) and make Sr. Bernadette the catalyst for Jane and her Reverend.
Fugue: a musical composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices and contrapuntally developed in a continuous interweaving of the voice parts.
Variation: a varied form of a melody or theme, especially one of a series of such forms developing the capacities of the subject.
In the end only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. ~Gautama Buddha
The idea had formed in her head the first time she saw them together in the kitchen, bent over the fish bowl Jane had won at the fair. It had been difficult for her to tear her eyes away from them. The palpable air of understanding between them stopped her in her tracks and watched them with a small smile playing across her face. She wondered at the immediacy of it. Jane was such a quiet woman and he was such a garrulous man, one could easily over look the possibilities. She would have never seen it but for that moment in the kitchen.
Jane had come to them from the St. Gideon's Child Care Home, a residential institution for unwanted children. When Jane's parents had sent her away, it had been a home for both the well and unwell, but since had become a home for children who were victims of the unfortunate accident of being born with a disability.
Jane had been a bit of both. After endless nights in which Jane would wake up screaming inconsolably, her parents, at the end of their ropes, sent her away at the tender age of 6. They visited with reasonable regularity when she was young, but as she grew up the visits became less frequent. Jane had forgiven them, both figuratively and literally. It must have broken their hearts to admit defeat and let her go. They did the best they could with no preparation dealing with a child like her. Besides, it was what one did. It was commonly accepted that the best course of action was to place children like her in a home where they would be given proper care. It wasn't until she was an adult that she became aware that she was very lucky. That the home they chose, albeit coldly sufficient, could have been much worse.
In her early 20's her parents were lost in The Blitz. By that time, she had little familial connection with them. She mourned their loss as profoundly as one might expect but sometimes the family you make is more significant than the family you are born into. The only home she could remember was St. Gideon's. The children she grew up with were her family, her brothers and sisters, even, once she had matured, her own children. Many of them, Jacob included, she fed, changed nappies, and rocked to sleep as infants. When she came of age with nowhere else to go, she made the natural transition to trustee working for her keep. Her job was that of medical orderly, not unlike the newly developed position she would hold at Nonnatus House.
It was explained to Sister Bernadette that Jane suffered from an acute form of an anxiety disorder the genesis of which was unknown. Usually these things began with some sort of childhood emotional trauma, but in other cases it seemed to be congenital, as if the brain simply had not developed properly. Had she been treated from an early age, perhaps she would have been able to return home to her family. When she had been admitted to St. Gideon's, it would be many years before the discipline of psychology generally and the behaviorist movement specifically were accepted. It wasn't until the period after the war, a time of great advances in the medical profession, that she began receiving effective treatment for her dibilitating anxiety.
While the young nurses were not made aware of her arrival, Sister Julienne had informed Sister Bernadette of the impending arrival of the newest member of Nonnatus House. She had met Jane herself at St. Gideon's on a donation trip. She had been impressed with Jane's gentleness and attentiveness with the other residents.
With the departure of Chummy, Nonnatus House desperately needed another hand. They could have requested a trained midwife from the board, but they knew Chummy would return in time. They only needed assistance in the interim. Jane had made such good progress in therapy that Mrs. Peacock had put her forward as a candidate for the new role of Medical Orderly at Nonnatus her role as trustee at St. Gideon's, it seemed the perfect fit. The increasingly stark reality was that she couldn't stay at St. Gideon's her entire life. But while she was able enough to function fully in places in which she felt comfortable, remove her from that realm and she was in uncharted territory, set adrift on waves of nervousness and fear.
Through her work at St. Giddeons she had come so far. She had grown from a petrified little girl, who, when met with the task of communicating with another human being, stood petrified in fear as wave after wave of panic all but shut her brain down and rendered her speechless. There now stood on the brink of the rest of her life a woman who fought a daily battle against these same feelings, but fight it she did in her own quiet way. If she were to live a life of independence she deserved, she would have to leave St. Gideon's and make her way in the world. Nonnatus House was the perfect setting or Jane to make her first tentative steps into her own life on her own terms.
Sister Julienne had tasked Sister Bernadette with helping to ease Jane's way with the minimal amount of anxiety. However, Sister Julienne had stressed the importance of not revealing to the younger nurses Jane's actual position at St. Gideon's so Jane would not be burdened with yet another emotional stigma as she found her feet at Nonnatus and in her new life.
From the first day Sister Julienne had introduced Jane to them as they packed their bags, in her inimitably gentle fashion Sister Julienne directed the younger nurses to take Jane under their wings. After tasking Cynthia with a cup of tea and Trixie with a tour to Jane's room, Sister Julienne turned to leave the treatment room. Sister Bernadette caught her glance and a silent moment of assurance that she would pick up where Sister Julienne had left off passed between them.
Sister Bernadette looked forward to this assignment. In fact, she needed something to pour her energies into. She loved her work and her sisterhood, but she couldn't help feeling a nagging emptiness deep in her soul, a sense that she wasn't doing enough. Perhaps she was simply bored. Although how on earth she could be bored with the never ending variety of work escaped her. Helping Jane would take her mind off the small kernel lodged deep in her soul quietly tearing away at her from the inside. It was tearing a hole she found difficult to fill. Out of it flowed a restlessness that sent her to the chapel for private meditation ever more increasingly. It was an uneasiness in her world she was determined to control just as Jane had to control hers.
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