by Joani Ascher
“He seems like such an amicable young man,” said Mr. Dobbin.
Jane beamed. “My sister will be very happy with him, when they are old enough to marry.”
Mr. Dobbin’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, so you have her life all planned out, do you?” He did not wait for a reply. “But what about your own?”
“I’m working on it,” said Jane. But she knew it was spinning out of control.
****
Three weeks later, Jane was in deep financial trouble. Her money to pay for the long shot she’d taken was due. But the stocks were down and she had no way to pay. There was only one thing to do. Tearfully, she took her heirloom cameo and went to a jewelry store.
Her fingers shook as she carefully unwrapped her treasure. The jeweler used his loupe to examine it carefully, then laid it down beside the brooch.
“It’s of outstanding quality,” he said. “It was made with exquisite workmanship. But I cannot buy it. We don’t need that kind of merchandise.” He shook his head. “We still have too much in inventory. Not many people are buying quality jewelry these days.”
Several other stores said the same thing. While it was rewarding to know how good her grandmother’s cameo was, it only deepened her regret.
So Jane went to a pawn shop.
The price the pawnbroker offered her was less than one tenth the value of the cameo, even without the emotional price it was to Jane. Worse, it would not cover the debt. Six other prices were equally as bad, and Jane’s last shred of hope was gone.
She would have to tell Olivia, and they would have to find a smaller place to live. If she did not end up bankrupt, it would still take them a long time to rebuild. And how she would do that once the baby came was beyond her comprehension.
The small thought in the back of her mind, the one she had tried so hard to push away, surfaced. She could swallow her pride and go to Mrs. Canfield, to sell her the cameo, since she had admired it so much that evening at the Rainbow Room.
She dreaded it, not knowing how to approach the caustic wife of her employer’s biggest client.
****
“Come in,” said Mrs. Canfield. “It’s lovely of you to visit.” She led the way into the foyer of her huge Manhattan apartment. The opulent furnishings of the living room were visible beyond, as was the dining room that also led off the foyer. But Mrs. Canfield did not lead Jane into either of those rooms. She brought her instead to a small sitting room. In other apartments it might have been the nursery, but Jane understood the Canfields had no children.
Jane chose her words carefully, since she could not just blurt out that she needed money desperately and had to sell the cameo. Mrs. Canfield would wonder why, and might even suggest discussing it with Mr. Weaver. And Jane could never do that. He respected her. If he knew the truth, he would be disgusted.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” said Jane, barely able to get her voice above a whisper. Mrs. Canfield’s cordial tone, while warmer than Jane had expected, made her very nervous. “Remember that night at the club? You admired my cameo.”
Mrs. Canfield’s brow furrowed. “Yes. It was like one my favorite auntie owned.”
“I was wondering if you really wanted to purchase it.”
A sparkle replaced Mrs. Canfield’s puzzlement. “You would sell it?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.” Jane did not add agonizing over it. “It seems wrong to hold something I don’t care about, when someone who loves it could be appreciating it.”
Mrs. Canfield licked her lips. “I would give you a very good price for it.” She stood up and left the room, returning almost immediately with a check ledger.
So this was it, Jane realized. She had sunk to selling a piece of her heritage. The check was fair, but just barely covered the debt.
Mrs. Canfield pinned her new cameo to her bodice. “It was good of you to stop by,” she said. Her eyebrows knit for a moment, giving her a look of concern Jane had never seen before. “I hope whatever you needed the money for is important.”
“It is,” Jane admitted, thinking of her baby’s, her sister’s, and her own future. She had all that paper to cover, worth so much less than when she bought it, or they would be out on the street. She would probably hold on to the stock forever, and it still would not be worth the price of a good steak.
Chapter Eight
Jane found Indian summer nearly unbearable. She always felt overheated, and often faint. Her clothes felt constrictive, and she feared, since she was not covered by a coat, someone would guess her condition.
One Monday morning in mid-October, she found she could not close her skirt. “I seem to be putting on weight,” she told Olivia. “It must be from your wonderful cooking. Would you lend me one of your skirts?”
Olivia studied her critically, making Jane worry she would guess the truth.
But Olivia said, “Certainly. I only hope I have something suitable for the office.”
Her openness, her faith and trust in her sister, almost caused Jane to burst into tears, but then nearly everything did. She had become highly emotional. Once, when Mr. Weaver started to pay her a compliment, tears flowed. But she knew why that was. She was not the good person he seemed to think. Jane also cried at movies now, especially love stories. It was unlike her, and Olivia, upon seeing Jane’s face, was alarmed.
“I wish Lloyd would come back,” Olivia said. “You laughed so much that day he took us on the picnic. He would have you happy in a minute.”
“He won’t be coming around again,” said Jane. “I heard he moved to Washington, D.C., or somewhere near there.” She struggled to keep a tremor out of her voice.
“Why did he do that?”
“I’m not sure, because I haven’t spoken to him directly, but I guess that’s where his wife is from.”
Olivia looked at her in horror. “But what about your baby?”
Suddenly the room tipped sideways. Olivia ran toward Jane, and caught her as she fell.
A moment later Jane found herself lying on the sofa, with Olivia staring into her eyes. “You shouldn’t be standing so much,” her sister said, fluttering around Jane like a maid in waiting. “Stay here. I’m going to get you a glass of water.”
When Olivia returned, there was an interminable silence while Jane drank the water. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. “How did you know?”
Olivia made a face. “I hope you don’t really think I am so stupid I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“You guessed your sister had relations with a man she is not married to?” Talking about herself as if she were someone else only added to Jane’s sense of being off-balance.
“Is there any other way for you to be pregnant?” Olivia asked, not quite suppressing a smile. “Or have you been deified without my knowledge?”
Jane had to laugh. It almost seemed so, since her hymen had not even been broken. But the mirth was short-lived. “What must you think of me?”
“I was shocked, at first. But I’ve heard of people who have done that, especially now, since there are so many people who aren’t sure what will happen in the next few months. All those boys, those friends of mine who had to register for selective service, speak of it.”
Jane narrowed her eyes and stared at her sister. “You haven’t…?”
Olivia’s eyes widened. “Certainly not. I’m only eighteen. But I have been asked.”
That made Jane feel worse, and more foolish. Her sister, whom she regarded as naive, had not been persuaded to engage in premarital sex. But she, older and supposedly wiser, had done just that, with full consequences.
Olivia sat down next to Jane. “When is the baby due?”
“March.” Jane was barely able to say it, knowing after that they would have no income.
“I’ll quit school,” said Olivia, as if reading Jane’s mind.
“No, you won’t.”
Olivia’s brown eyes regarded her sister. “We will work it out.” She left the room, and Jane.
Jan
e sat, immobilized. As long as Olivia had not known about the baby, or at least as long as Jane thought her sister ignorant of it, Jane had been able to distance herself from the problem. But now it was so close. What could she possibly do? When the time came, how could she work?
The thought of being unemployed had never seriously crossed her mind. They would not be able to survive.
Tears again threatened to fall when Olivia returned. Jane hastily wiped her eyes and attempted a reassuring smile. “We’ll manage,” she said. She stood up and stepped toward her sister. “I’ll think of something.”
Olivia brought what she held in her hands into full view. There were four skirts, ones Jane had encouraged Olivia to buy for the times when she felt more adult, more serious. “These will fit you for a while,” said Olivia. “I always knew it would come in handy that we were different sizes.”
“But you need those for school,” said Jane.
“I can wear them sometimes, when you aren’t. Besides, I’m not sure how long they will fit you. Try one on.”
Jane went into the bedroom and pulled off her own much-too-tight skirt. She slipped Olivia’s over her head and smoothed it down. It was a little short on her, but she could not be picky. She could let down the hem if she had to. They did not have money to waste on new clothes.
Once she had the skirt fastened, she looked in the full-length mirror. The skirt was too big on her in every place but the abdomen. There it proved comfortable, except she could not close the button.
She turned to go back to the other room to show Olivia and saw that her sister had followed her. “If you wear one of my blouses,” Olivia said, holding one on a hanger out to Jane, “over the skirt, I think you can cover the waistband.” She hid a smile.
“You think this is funny?”
Olivia sobered. “Not the baby. But your attempts to hide it.” She paused. “In another few weeks, you could start wearing a coat. The baby will be here before spring, so you will be completely covered on the street until then.”
“But what about when I am inside?”
Olivia’s eyes widened. “I have just the thing.” She ran from the room. Within seconds she was back. “I saved this,” she said, bashfully. “I know you said we shouldn’t, that there were so many people who needed his clothes…”
Jane understood. She took the cardigan from Olivia and held it in front of herself. “Father’s favorite sweater. Yes. I think that will be fine.” She hugged her sister.
Olivia wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and smiled. “Well, that’s all taken care of, at least for a while.”
But it was clear to Jane that although her clothing needs would be met for the time being, there were other, bigger problems to deal with. “What will we tell people?”
Olivia frowned.
Jane ran over the list of concerned people they knew. They had no relatives beside each other, and the only people who regularly checked on them were Horace, who was unlikely to notice anything that did not have to do with Olivia, and their landlady, Mrs. McGill. She only did that, Jane thought, to make sure they kept their respectability. She did not like single girls living alone. What she would say when she found out Jane was no longer respectable was not worth thinking about. They might find themselves out on the street.
“We have to come up with a husband,” said Jane.
“Where will we say he is?” asked Olivia.
Jane looked at her watch and bit her lip. Mr. Dobbin was coming to see them soon. They had become quite close with the man, and saw him regularly, usually for Sunday dinner, the one time a week they dragged the dining room table away from its spot in the corner of the living room and put the dining chairs that were usually kept in their bedrooms around it. The thought that she would have to tell him something soon made her breathless. “I wouldn’t want him to think I am a fallen woman.”
“I think he may have guessed already,” said Olivia.
The thought scared Jane. “How many people do you think know?”
“I would say only him. Mrs. McGill is still visiting her sister.”
“We have to come up with a story before she comes back,” said Jane.
“If we come up with a good one, will you tell everyone?”
Jane thought about that. How many people did she want to lie to? Would she tell Mr. Weaver? She knew as soon as she considered it that she could not possibly tell him any lies.
The resolution was an old one, implemented when their landlady returned. They told Mrs. McGill Jane had married in secret, because the young man’s Boston family had not approved of him marrying a nobody from New York. Jane wore her mother’s plain gold wedding ring, claiming it was her own, and said they were waiting for the family to accept her before announcing that they had already married. Until then, he would stay in Boston. The baby was a surprise, but one that both of them were thrilled about.
“I can’t tell that to Mr. Weaver, though,” Jane said.
“Why not?”
Without explaining that she did not have the heart to lie to such a wonderful boss, she said, “If I did, he’d tell me to stop working at once, that I belong at home.”
“That’s what any man would do,” said Olivia.
“But I can’t stay home. We’ll starve.”
“Well, I hope he doesn’t notice,” Olivia said. “Stay at your desk as much as you can.”
Jane promised she would, and they told everyone they knew that she was now Jane Peters, her mother’s maiden name.
But that did not keep her from spending endless nights unable to sleep. She was in constant fear of forgetting to put her ring on out of the office, or leaving it on when Mr. Weaver might see it. She had to tell so many people the lie, and worried that she was mixing up her details. It especially hurt to try to pretend to be in love with the father of her child, when her heart was so completely broken.
One night she conceived a plan that she would tell Mr. Weaver that a cousin who lived out of town was ill and she had to go take care of her. She could have her baby, and when it was time to go back to work, she would “return to town.” That way she would not lose her job and he would never have to hear the lie.
But the thought of lying to him about a cousin, on top of what she had told everyone else, turned her stomach. And even if that worked, she did not know how she could get through those weeks without income, and how she could pay for someone to take care of the baby while she was at work, and how she would keep Mr. Weaver from ever finding out about the child after it was born. Would more lies be necessary? It was enough to keep her tossing and turning all night.
“You look like you haven’t slept a wink,” Olivia said one morning.
Jane told her what kept her awake.
“We’ll get by,” Olivia promised. “And when you go back to work, I’ll quit school.”
“No!”
“We don’t have a choice. Unless you can get one of the nearby ladies who have small children to take care of the baby.”
The idea was worth a chance. “I could try.”
That weekend, she went to several of her neighbors and humbled herself. She told them about her fictional husband, Louis Peters, and explained he was a student in graduate school, and that they would continue to need her income even after the baby came. One or two of them looked at her in disbelief. She apologized for wasting their time and left. But another lady, Sonia, with two children in diapers and expecting a third, said she would be happy to watch Jane’s child for her. She and her husband needed the money.
Jane decided to wait to announce the death of her imaginary husband. As she considered the possibilities of his demise, she realized that her love for Lloyd was dead. She questioned herself. Had she ever really loved him? Or was she just so thrilled someone wanted to be with her that she had imagined it into love?
She had thought he was a man of character, like Mr. Weaver, who would make someone a wonderful, thoughtful husband. For a moment Jane wished she were the kind of woman a man like
that would marry, but she quickly put that ridiculous thought out of her mind. She was the type of woman a man like Lloyd would take advantage of. If only she had realized that sooner, she would not have had to develop a pack of lies to cover up for her stupidity.
Mr. Dobbin took the news of her marriage, which she had never mentioned, quite well. But the look in his eyes, while not one of disappointment, was one of disbelief. He offered to help in any way he could. Horace came by to congratulate her. Mrs. McGill, who clucked around saying that if she had been in town, she would have managed to get the family to accept Jane before the secret wedding, kept pressing Jane to introduce her to her husband. She promised not to breathe a word, and kept saying how romantic it was. And on December 4th, when Jane broke the news that her husband had been killed on a business trip, Mrs. McGill broke down in sobs. She was so sad that Jane and Olivia had no trouble shedding tears of their own. Horace came to extend his condolences. His youthful smile was gone, this once, and he spoke in hushed tones. He was so sad, and Jane felt guilty making him suffer for her. But she knew it would hurt him more if he knew the truth. Jane tearfully told everyone she would go back to her maiden name, since her husband’s family would now never accept her, and she had her dignity to maintain, after all.
And it was all forgotten a few days later, when America entered the war.
****
Prescott sat with his head in his hands after hearing the news. He had no choice now, not since the moment the story broke of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
He worried how Jane would take his decision. She was so often preoccupied lately. She did not look well, especially since her face had become puffy. Her lovely hazel eyes seemed permanently sad. Although she was still pretty, he thought her slender form had filled out a bit. It was difficult to be sure, since she had started wearing a large sweater, claiming she was cold. She often huddled behind her desk, and no attempt to close the windows and door seemed to warm her. Yet she claimed everything was fine, just that she was worried about the problems in the world.
He missed the old Jane. What if she was sick? He would not be there to see that she took care of herself.