by Tom Murphy
So Lily went about her business, and the time passed quickly after Jack went back to New Haven, for when Jack was about, the conflict in Lily’s heart focused on him, festering, tempting her and damning her at the same time, filling her with the promise of joy and the certainty of eternal damnation.
The sickness in the morning was, at first, a mystery to Lily. She woke feeling dizzy one morning in early March, and barely made it to the chamber pot to be sick. And Lily was never sick.
She felt a little better after vomiting, and got herself dressed and went down to eat breakfast. She found herself fighting the waves of nausea at the crowded, noisy servants’ table, felt dizzy while sewing for Mrs. Wallingford, had to lie down in the afternoon, trying to sleep but not sleeping. The next day was much the same: her nausea seemed to fade away as the day wore on. Lily put it down to some mild stomach complaint, perhaps even a touch of the dread influenza. In a week the nausea left her, to be replaced by a vague torpor, a sense of being tired much of the time. This was a new and unwelcome feeling for Lily. She had always been a fountain of energy, eager to get on with a thing, and then on to the next thing.
Now it was a chore to lift a teacup.
Lily sensed something seriously wrong, and plain refused to let herself think on it. If she didn’t think about being sick, then maybe she wouldn’t be sick.
The time for her monthly bleeding came and went, and there was no bleeding. Oh, she told herself, sure it’s sometimes a few days late, or early. A week went by, then ten days. The dread grew in her, a slow and awful thing, the seed of doom. She knew in her heart what was happening, knew that Jack’s child was growing inside her, that her disgrace must now be known, that she would surely be punished, and the child too.
Lily had sinned, after all, and now the wages of sin would be paid, and in the fullest measure, just as was promised in the Scriptures.
Lily Malone, fallen woman!
14
Lily lay awake in the blackness of three o’clock in the morning, her eyes closed as if to shut out the truth.
I’ll go down to the docks and throw myself in, it will be over quickly, and there’ll be no one to know or to care.
But while she might have the strength to do herself in, Lily knew even while the dark thoughts were forming in her fear-stricken brain that she would never, never be able to murder the child within her.
Despair filled the little room until it seemed like to smother her, and drown her heart forever.
Never had she felt so lonely, or this far beyond help of man or God.
Lily thought of Jack, and how to tell him, and what his reaction might be. Laughter and scorn, like as not, and a quick denial too, and who’d ever take her words over his, him being the heir to all the Wallingford fortune and a fine gentleman too.
For many long hours she lay there tossing on the narrow cot, tormented by wild thoughts and forming desperate plans that were as quickly rejected as formed.
One thing was immediately clear, through all her fears and doubts: she must take some action, and soon. Write Jack. See a doctor. All night long she lay there, silent, too sad even for tears, hearing the even, thoughtless breathing of Susie McGlynn just across the little room, Susie who sinned and sinned and never seemed to get caught, cheerful, empty-headed Susie, Susie who must never, never know of Lily’s shame.
She’d leave the Wallingford house, then, with her savings, without a word. She’d vanish! Go to Boston, maybe, or someplace farther. Sixty-three dollars could take her a long way. Maybe to the frontier! She’d call herself a widow, find some good farmer to marry her, make him a good wife, too, better than he deserved, maybe, and he’d be proud of her then, and there’d be no question of disgrace, and the child would have a name.
The child! Already Lily thought of this seed, this wave of illness, this faint month-old swelling, as a child. Him! Her! The child. Her child!
Suddenly, and against all logic, Lily wanted the child. Even if it was begotten in sin and shame. Even if it was Jack’s child, the child of lust and not love, the child of darkness. At least it was hers.
Her child. The thought haunted Lily. It opened before her, huge and dark, inviting and threatening, with just a string of hope running through the black mystery of it like a clear path through a magic forest where you might find undreamed-of treasures or unthought-of doom.
How very little she had ever had to call her own. And this would be hers, and entirely hers, this child, no matter where or how it came to be. Lily swore on all the saints and angels that she’d make the child hers, make it glad it was hers, glad it was born. The angels wouldn’t weep for Lily’s child, whatever they might think of its mother.
Lily’s child! And what would be its name? Baby Wallingford? Not likely! Baby Malone! Baby Malone. Yes, Lily’s, child, and with Lily’s name on it, and a fine name too, the name of Big Fergus. If it was a boy, she’d call it Fergus, and then Fergy would come back to her, and her father too, and there’d be a Fergy Malone again. And if it was a girl? Claudia. She’d call it Claudia. Then Lily remembered the end of Sister Claudia. Cathleen, then, after the matron. Cathleen Malone! That had a fine ring to it. Cathleen she would be, then, or Fergus.
Then, in the darkness, Lily smiled.
She woke smiling, resolved, ready to meet whatever the world was going to offer her. Or try to take from her.
Mrs. Wallingford held up a new bracelet, three inches of blazing emeralds. “He is so very thoughtful, isn’t he, Lily?”
“Oh, indeed he is, ma’am. They’re lovely.” I’m carrying your grandchild, Mrs. Wallingford, what do you think of that?
“I think they’ll set off the lavender gown. Or possibly the mauve?”
“They’ll be splendid with anything, and that’s a fact.” My child will he the grandchild of a procuress. Mrs. Fine-and-dandy Wallingford. do ye think the poor little creature will get over the shame of it?
“Of course, now I don’t have any earrings to go with it.”
“Perhaps the plain diamond studs, ma’am.”
“Yes! Of course, or even the pearls. It’s nice not to have everything match, for a change.”
I make my child a promise, Mrs. W. I promise I’ll never sell her, or him, for a title, nor for anything else. “Have you tried them against your blue gown?” You’d sell your only daughter to a pervert for a title, and you’d turn me into the gutter for a slut because your son ruined me, and never once would it dawn upon you that there is such a thing in the world as two standards, one for the rich and another for everybody else.
Lily smiled gently and held up the peacock-blue ballgown.
On her next day off she went to Mr. Levy’s pawnshop and bought a simple gold wedding ring for three dollars. He had it engraved, that same day, with her initials and Fergy’s, to make it look truly like a wedding band.
Lily took the ring and hid it in her trunk next to her other treasures, the old linen scarf that had been in her mother’s trousseau, her rag doll, Hortense, Sister Claudia’s china thimble, and the hair ribbon Fran had embroidered a thousand years ago at St. Patrick’s orphanage. And on the next week’s afternoon off, Lily went to the doctor.
The Wallingfords had a family doctor who was used for servants’ emergencies, but naturally Lily avoided him like death itself. But Lily knew where there was a doctor. She had seen his shingle almost directly across the street from the hotel on Sixteenth Street, “DR. SAMUEL ELLIOT, M.D.” His sign was neatly painted in gold against black, and it hung from a respectable-looking house. Lily walked down the familiar street, the deep brim of her bonnet offering scant protection from the doubts and fears that walked with her.
Oh, and it was all fine and well-intentioned to want the child, to be prepared for the worst, to fight for her child. But suppose there was no child! Suppose it was some other kind of sickness! She thought of Jack then, happily carousing around New Haven, beyond doubt, unaware of what he’d started, blissfully ignorant of the fact that he’d torn a girl’s life all to
shreds. Such a life as it was.
The walk was only four blocks, but it might have been that many miles. Lily had learned many things about herself in these past few weeks. She had learned that all her dreams had been just that: dreams, and intangible, prone to melting away like the dew in the morning sun. The baby—if it was going to truly be a baby—was at least a fact, something different, something to be acted on. What, after all, had she been going to do with her little nest egg, with her life’s savings? A shop, she had thought. And hadn’t old Mr. Wallingford started life poor and with a shop? Well, the dreams would have to wait, at least until she learned the truth. Lily stood for a moment on the pavement outside of the doctor’s neat brownstone house, gathering her courage. The ring felt strange on her finger, a golden lie. It was the only jewelry she’d ever owned, and sad it was to put it to such a wicked use. Lily took a deep breath and walked up the stone steps and rang the bell.
The doctor was kind. He seemed to take it perfectly for granted that Lily was what she said she was: namely, Mrs. Fergus Malone. She shivered when he touched her, for no man had ever touched Lily but Jack, and you could hardly call a lover a man, at least not in the sense that Dr. Elliot was a man, a stranger after all, doctor or not. He questioned her, and poked her here and there, and felt her pulse, and looked into her eyes. For a moment Lily feared he was going to be romantic, the way he looked into her eyes, but then he explained there was a sign to be read there, a certain dilation that almost always meant pregnancy. Lily tried to control her trembling. If he could tell just by looking into her eyes, then so could anyone else who knew what to look for!
“I think,” he said, smiling gently, “that you can tell your husband the good news tonight.”
“It’s a fact, then, Doctor? I truly will be having a baby?”
“It’s as certain as anything can be, Mrs. Malone, and I’d say that with reasonable care you have nothing to worry about. You seem strong and healthy to me.”
“Thank you. He will be very pleased, I’m sure.” Like as not, he’ll kill me, that’s what he’ll do! Pleased, is he? Lily tried to imagine Jack’s reaction and could not. Yet she had determined to tell him. And just as soon as she got the chance.
The doctor gave her a tonic to take, and charged her a dollar, and Lily found herself smiling at him as she left. Of course, you fool, of course you’ll be smiling, for are you not the well-known Mrs. Fergus Malone, respectable as churches, and won’t your dear husband just love this happy news? And aren’t the angels weeping their eyes out for you, liar and slut that you are? But underneath all her fears, and running side by side with her doubts, Lily was glad of it. The life inside of her might have started in sin and carelessness, but there was surely a power in it, and something sacred, too, for sinners could be redeemed; look at Mary Magdalene, after all. The power was that for the first time in her life Lily was in control of something, of her fate. It had been her decision to keep the baby, for she well knew there were ways enough to get rid of unborn babies. And it was her decision to tell Mr. Jack, too, whatever the outcome might be. Lily knew him, and knew the world better than to expect much thanks, or any other kind of support from Jack Wallingford. Likely as not he’d throw her into the street, and it was lucky enough she had a little put by in case that happened. On the other hand, the child was half his, and he’d want to know that. There were bad sides to Jack’s character, but Lily thought she had seen good in the boy too, and it would be cruel not to tell him. And there was the possibility he might help, at least find her a place to live, or help her get some sort of work she could do and still raise the child. Lily, who had never accepted so much as a flower from Jack, would indeed accept help for Jack’s child. If he offered such help.
It was now almost six weeks since Lily had discovered her pregnancy. She determined that if Jack didn’t come back to New York in a week’s time, she’d have to write to him in New Haven. This prospect frightened Lily, for although the good nuns had taught her to write, and her hand was legible, she had never composed a letter in her life. She imagined Jack Wallingford in his fine college, laughing over her attempt, scorning her news, damning her for an adventuress.
The letter was never written. Jack came back to the city that very week, and asked her to meet him in the hotel the day after his return.
It was a cold day, windy, with gray clouds scudding past a pale and cheerless sun. Lily walked down Sixteenth Street as a condemned prisoner might walk to the gallows. She passed the doctor’s house, clinging to the opposite side of the street, her face burning with unaccustomed shame. Mrs. Fergus Malone, en route to tell her husband the good news!
She had never been more frightened in her life, yet still she must go to him, and tell him, and pray for his help. Lily had a key, but she knocked at the door of Jack’s suite in the little hotel. And her hand trembled. The door was open.
Jack looked healthier than she remembered him. Yale College must be good for him. He stood by the fire in an open-necked shirt, sipping cognac. At once he came to her and kissed her hot and full on the lips. Trembling still, Lily pulled back.
“I have news.”
“Save it for later.”
You fool! Why don’t you lead him into the thing gently, for you’ll get more kindness that way, and soften the blow. But she could only say what she must, in the most direct way she knew. “I am to have a baby.”
The flat unalterable statement hung between them final as death, but without death’s merciful release.
“You are…what?”
“Pregnant. With your child.”
He held her still, and Lily could see the changes in his face: from shock, to despair, to a kind of wry amusement. Then, it seemed to soften.
A sigh came out of Jack Wallingford then that was like no sound Lily had ever heard. It started low and soft and built like the wind in a gathering storm until it became a banshee’s howling, then faded again to a kind of a moaning. It was a wounded-animal sound, a sound of rage mixed with mourning, the music of doom.
“A baby.”
“I’m sorry. But I will have the child. I will not kill it.”
Lily gathered all of her courage to say this, for she had been sure, in some secret corner of her soul, that he would suggest just such a way out. That would be like Jack. That would be easy, obvious, and painless—to Jack. So it surprised Lily when he turned to her, truly angry now.
“Dammit, Lily, what do you take me for? Do you really think I’d let you—or anyone else—do such a thing?”
The wave of relief rushed through her so fast she was almost speechless. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, girl, you know now.”
“Yes. I am sorry.”
“Stop being so damn sorry. It took two. It’s bad, that’s for sure. But not the end of the world.”
“Not for you.”
“You really hate me, then, is that it, Lily?”
“No. Not hate. I never hated you.”
“Nor loved me, either, I daresay. Well, fair’s fair, Lily. You realize, of course, that I cannot marry you.”
Lily knew this well, but it pierced her heart all the same, to hear him say it plain. “Of course.”
“We’ll make some arrangement.”
Of course. Arrangement. The rich were so very good at making arrangements. Arrange for your daughter to marry a buggering baron. Arrange the seating at a truffle-and-champagne supper party. Arrange the ruination of a servant girl. They could probably arrange their way right into heaven or hell, could the Wallingfords. Lily trembled as she thought of what arrangements Jack had in mind, for he was a lad capable of anything.
“I was going to go away.”
“Where?”
“I hadn’t thought.”
“I’ll do the thinking, Lily, if you please.”
“Yes, sir.” How easily she fell back into calling him “sir”!
He laughed then, not a humorous laugh, but the laugh of Jack-the-cynic. “Well, Lily, I daresay if you’re havi
ng my child, you might call me Jack.”
“Jack, then.” She said it and didn’t drop dead. It was the first time she had called him that, an unpardonable familiarity. Jack. Jack! Lily rolled the name around on her tongue. It hadn’t been so terrible, after all, calling him by his name. Jack.
They did not make love that afternoon. Lily went back to the Wallingford house and stayed in her room for the rest of the afternoon. While Jack made his arrangements, Lily wondered, and then stopped wondering, for the matter was so far out of her hands that she might as well try to control the sun’s rising, or the turn of the tides. And what if he made an arrangement so terrible she couldn’t agree to it? Had she any rights at all? What would the police say? But Lily knew, even as the fear welled up in her, that she had no more rights than a flea on the back of a galloping horse. A dishonored servant girl making a complaint against the heir of the Wallingfords? So she waited, and waited, and saw the day turn into the longest night of her life.
The next day dawned brighter in every way. The chill had gone out of the air, the sky was clear, cloudless blue, and Lily could hear a bird singing as she dressed. All during the sleepless night she had taken what stock she could of her situation.
At least he hadn’t murdered her on the spot, which had been one of the dreaded possibilities. Nor had he tried to force her into an abortion. Nor had he beaten her, nor turned her out naked and disgraced into the streets.
Lily dressed slowly, thinking on these things. Susie had gone down to breakfast. The brightness of the day seemed to confirm Lily’s unexpected optimism. She thought of Jack’s arrangements. And of Jack’s formidable father, a right turkey buzzard he looked, the old man, with whom Lily had exchanged hardly a word in all her four years in the Wallingford house. How would he react to the news of his first grandchild’s being born on the wrong side of the blanket?