Rachel was an orphan who was sent to live with an aunt who, unwilling to care for her, sent her to Worthington Hall to be educated when she was about 10. There she, like all the other orphans, became the prey of Rev. Gregory Trask, the headmaster of Worthington Hall, and the rest of the Trask family. She developed a friendship with a boy named Tim Shaw who would help her do her school-work. Trask found them together and locked him in a cupboard for 30 days and beat and starved Rachel until she promised never to see him alone again. For the next 12 years the two barely looked at each other. When Rachel's aunt died she was told the family fortune was insufficient to pay for her room and board and she was offered a job teaching at Worthington Hall (727).