The L-Shaped Room insults her to the extent that Jane determines to have the child. She and Toby (Bell) start a romance, which is disrupted when he learns that she is pregnant by a previous suitor. They try to work things out, but he is also unhappy with his lack of income or success as a writer. Jane befriends the other residents and they help her when she goes into labour. Toby visits her in the hospital and gives her a copy of his new book, called "The L-Shaped Room". After leaving the hospital, Jane journeys home to her parents in France, saying
Lynne Reid Banks and a sequel about Charlotte Brontë, "Path to the Silent Country". Banks was born in London, the only child of James and Muriel Reid Banks. She was evacuated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, during World War II and returned after the war was over. She attended St Teresa's School Effingham in Surrey. Prior to becoming a writer, Banks was an actress, and also worked as a television journalist in Britain, one of the first women to do so. In 1962 Banks emigrated to Israel, where she taught for eight years on an Israeli kibbutz Yas'ur. In 1965 she married Chaim Stephenson