Jane Was Here

by Sarah Kernochan

Miss Rebecca Pettigrew

  Miss Jane Pettigrew

  Dear Mr. Trane,

  Please accept our deepest apologies. We are unable, after all, to have you to dinner tonight. We regret your inconvenience. We hope you enjoy a safe passage tomorrow to your next destination.

  Respectfully,

  Miss Rebecca Pettigrew

  Miss Jane Pettigrew

  Dear Mr. Trane,

  Forgive me for slipping this letter inside the foregoing note (neither Papa nor Rebecca know I have done so, dear Letty being my fortunate ally) but I could not bear your thinking that I or my older sister are capable of such cold and discourteous conduct. Indeed our father forced us to write the note. In our fervor to have the honor of your company we sent you the invitation without consulting the head of our small household, never dreaming that Papa would not share our enthusiasm, since he expressed his approval for your lecture and intended enjoying the second before it was cancelled. Alas, in the intervening time, he has paid far too serious attention to vague and dubious rumors that concern Gabriel Nation and your leader Mr. Artzuni. In short, Papa decided that further association with your ideas would be insalubrious to his womenfolk and, thus mortified, we were instructed to withdraw our gesture of friendship.

  Forgive me again for addressing you in such a confiding manner when we have never met. You may think me bold, and I have been called so (as well as “impetuous,” “headstrong,” even “intractable”) but I am proud of my epithets, since they merely signal that I am a young woman of independent mind, and as such I may state frankly that you have been unfairly abused in Graynier and I greatly regret our losing you to other, more forward-thinking towns, where your message shall surely fall on more deserving ears. May the Lord bless your journey and grant you success.

  Most respectfully yours,

  Jane Pettigrew

  Dear Mr. Trane,

  Letty carried the news to us this morning of your distressing accident. (I rely upon her discretion as always to deliver this note to you in private.) It grieves me inexpressibly to hear of your injuries. It would have been more judicious to shoot Mr. Trumbull’s dog than your poor horse. Many have complained to the old gentleman of the dog’s unruly temper, asking him to secure the animal, and several times it has rushed at our own chaise and frightened our horse Betsy. Dear Mr. Trane, you must wish you had never laid eyes on Graynier for all the trouble it has brought you, and now I am told that you are forced to remain until your shoulder and leg have healed.

  However, it is entirely your good fortune that Widow Seely has offered to shelter you during your convalescence, for no truer Christian nor sympathetic spirit is to be found in our town. You shall have everything you need, and more. She has long been an especial friend to me, indeed since my infancy. My mother died of the canker rash not long after my birth. Rebecca was sick with it, too, and if Mrs. Seely had not come to my father’s rescue, caring for both invalid and newborn while he mourned my mother’s passing, then I doubt you would now be reading this letter, for all the family Pettigrew would surely be in cold ground were it not for her ministrations. If your Mr. Artzuni preaches that we mortals may aspire to the station of angels, then he would certainly recognize in the good widow those angelic qualities which ensure her place in Heaven.

  Thus I hope you will not be too lonely, for even if your sole companion for the next months is to be an elderly woman, yet she is the finest company, devout and very well spoken, and moreover you shall find an extensive library at your disposal. I have often borrowed some volumes from her, as books are hard to come by in Graynier, and sometimes Rebecca and I linger to read in her parlor those particular authors who are not permitted in our house. Our father does not object to young women’s education but will not sponsor our entertainment!

  Please believe in my sincerest condolences and wishes for a swift recovery.

  Your unmet friend,

  Jane Pettigrew

  Dear Mr. Trane,

  How kind you are to send such a prompt response with Letty, and how fortunate I am that the accident did not injure your writing arm! (I do not mean to make light of your ill adventure; indeed I am very sorry for your discomfort.) I shall now repay your favor by attempting to dispel the lassitude which you report has invaded your spirits. You are hereby enjoined to follow my prescription, sir.

  Wake early tomorrow and ask Widow Seely to seat you on the green velvet divan in the front parlor, near the window which affords a view of Graynier Avenue. Once advantageously positioned, you shall glimpse the flow of characters who comprise Graynier, in their natural order of appearance.

  The first face to cleave the morning air is Captain Stallings, now north of ninety years on this earth (though only ten of these in Graynier – he came to live with his grandson who owns the dry-goods store). The old captain still takes pains to powder his hair, as you shall see from the white flurry on the shoulders of his greatcoat; and although his step is faltering and his future frail, he patrols Graynier Avenue, stem to stern, back and forth, from daybreak until his noonday dinner. If you should call a greeting to him, he will not answer, for he is deaf as a haddock (so Letty likes to say).

  Now resume stirring your tea. By the time you look up, Sarah Jessup will be hurrying past with her basket of eggs and fresh butter to sell to the grocer. They will grace the larders of many in town, but not the Pettigrews, for we have our own chickens, and a cow, Emerald, who occupies a small shelter Papa built in the back. As a child, when my ceaseless chatter had driven all in the house to distraction, I went outside to sit on the milking stool and continue my prating, often giving her lessons from my McGuffey Reader. Thus Emerald learned her grammar and subtractions at nearly the same time I did. And when one day I was pronounced “precocious” (with disparagement), then I ran to tell her that she must be “prekishes” too. We both bear our scholarship with pride!

  Only last month, dear Emerald produced no milk, and Papa began to talk of relieving her from earthly toil, until we discovered that someone was creeping into our yard before dawn and squeezing his own refreshment. Papa stayed up all night to apprehend the thief. It was a poor miserable Irish fellow from the shanty village, which you may have noted when you rode into Graynier. It is heartrending to contemplate how these people live. They came for the ready work at Graynier Glass, but the wages Mr. Graynier pays them are not enough to afford them even the meagerest improvements. Papa, who is the factory’s head gaffer, has tried to persuade Mr. Graynier that healthy well-paid workers would increase his own prosperity, but His Majesty is unmoved.

  Still, they stay on in their sorry matchstick dwellings. No one knows how many children are there, since so many die. Our thief needed Emerald’s milk for his newborn baby, whose mother had passed away for lack of a doctor. Rebecca and I have been so upset by this that Papa now allows us to visit the shanties (in the company of one of the Ladies’ Benevolent Society) to bring them food and clothes, the overflow of our God-given abundance, His name be praised.

  But you must not listen to my digressions, or you will miss the next player to cross the stage: following Sarah Jessup with her egg basket comes a swarthy man with pendulous mustaches, Signor Iacovucci by name, who is the gravestone carver. He hastens to meeting, arriving at morning services before Reverend Duckworth has even opened the church doors. He greets each and every arrival with an elegant bow and warm smile, for he knows they shall all need him one day, and how much less anxiety they shall feel when they entrust their loved ones’ epitaph to someone who seems almost a friend. They need not worry: truly Signor Iacovucci is an artist, creating from hard stone such soft images as drooping roses and weeping willows and hearts entwined. Papa had him inset a beautiful cameo of my mother for a new gravestone last year, crowned with a Bible verse. (I had chosen a lovely verse from “The Lament of Tasso” but my father would not hear of it, believing Lord Byron to be a reprobate. I vow only to marry a man who cherishes my beloved Byron as I do! Do have Mrs. Seeley lend you “The Bride of Abyd
os” if you have not read it.)

  Not long after Signor Iacovucci disappears, you will see his countryman Signor Bruno stride by. He was the best cutter at Graynier Glass, having brought his skills all the way from Florence, but when he fell ill with quinsy, Mr. Graynier dismissed him. Now he carries a hand organ on his shoulder, and he will set himself outside the general store, where come the children who have been promised candy in return for sitting quietly in the church. He knows all manner of tunes to set them dancing, and whatever coins have not been squandered on sweets will find their way into his rumpled hat.

  Now the mail coach rattles by your view. Perhaps it will brush against the branches of the trees, and loosen the horse chestnuts, which rain upon the ground. Schoolboys pounce upon them. They look about for some hapless soul upon whom to launch their missiles, but the only strollers to appear are Mr. Henry Beecham the apothecary with the milliner on his arm. Now, the milliner was once married to Henry’s brother Clarence. Henry himself was a bachelor; they say he had long been in love with his brother’s wife and could not imagine marrying another. Last year, Clarence died of a sudden, and Henry was finally able to claim his bride. Of course, some viper tongues of the village whisper that Clarence died from a dram administered to him when he was ill with pleurisy – a medicine prepared by his brother the apothecary! But I believe, as in the Greek saying, that if you speak evil, soon you will be spoken worse of.

  Do not dwell on the couple, though their happiness is a pleasant enough sight. Attend instead to an oxcart lumbering by. The driver seems to be an upright skeleton. Nay, it is Farmer Quirk, bringing a load of barley straw for the stablery. Flung carelessly on top is a deer carcass to sell to the butcher. Beside Mr. Quirk is his wife, who is universally pitied. Unknown to him are a pair of shanty boys who have slyly perched on the back of his wagon, hidden by the mound of hay, and who have rode all the way into town thus. The schoolboys espy the two stowaways, and hurl their chestnuts at them. Forthwith the shanty boys jump off the cart and the war begins. Do not open your window, or be pelted!

  But do not leave your seat either, though my monologue may have grown tiresomely long. (Indeed, this letter’s many pages may produce a suspicious bulge in Letty’s apron pocket!) The boys will scatter anon, when a tall gray-haired gentleman comes along, escorting his two daughters. One is wrapped in a crimson shawl, and the other wears a blue pelisse and blue velvet bonnet with rose colored, watered silk lining. Pay utmost attention to this trio. Yield not to the distraction caused by a fancy barouche, pulled by a pair of sorrel prancers, which races by, its driver ignoring the recent town ordinance that forbids carriages to be driven through town at “an immoderate rate.” Why should he obey? He is Ellis Graynier, who does as he pleases. If his father is king, then Master Ellis is the crown prince. Many young women (even my sister Rebecca!) think him handsome. I am not of their number.

  The tall gray-haired gentleman, who is my father Mr. Benjamin Pettigrew, pauses to tip his hat to his employer’s only son. My sister (in the crimson shawl) stares at the fine barouche, wishing Master Graynier would look her way. And I – please watch carefully – take advantage of their diversion to turn my face toward the house of the Widow Seeley. I am only a few steps from her window. Perhaps you are sitting behind it, and we may nod to each other discreetly.

  I shall then turn back quickly to my father, who is anxious not to miss the service, and he marches us on to the Unitarian Church.

  There! You may limp to your chamber now, having seen everything worth seeing in Graynier. I hope you will continue your progress to full health, and remember with forbearance

  Your very silly

  and long-winded friend,

  Jane Pettigrew

  Dear Mr. Trane,

  Your sharp words pierced me to the heart. I realize now how childish and frivolous I must seem to you. Was it only three days ago that I paused before Widow Seeley’s window and glimpsed you through the glass? You shall laugh to know that, when our eyes met in silent signal, I imagined us to be kindred spirits. As usual, my fancy took the bit and galloped far ahead of my modesty. How right you are to upbraid me, for I am indeed as wayward a soul as you say, and greatly in need of spiritual instruction. Had I but considered your religious devotion, I should never have recommended Lord Byron’s volume for your reading pleasure. How could I have dreamed that you would share the literary tastes of a foolish, shallow, giddy young girl? Please believe that my object was never to offend you. I desire nothing more than your good opinion.

  Permit me, thus, to explain myself, and so gain your forgiveness. I know precious little of the world, craving to travel beyond this dull and benighted town. I am naturally drawn to tales set in exotic places, such as Lord Byron’s poems evoke. How far away from Graynier is the realm of “The Bride of Abydos”! There Turkish Pashas preside over Harams, and force their veiled daughters to marry sultans when their hearts belong to lowly slaves, all ending in bloody death, and a virgin condemned to her grave! Perhaps you are correct in calling such stories “overly heated” (as is the Turkish climate, I infer) and admonishing me against reading such absurd romances. My father (the Pasha!) has already forbidden them. I do sometimes weep for my rebellious nature and the trouble it brings me.

  Yet, if you will allow me a small protest, I wonder that you would call Lord Byron “blasphemous.” To be sure, his poem depicts Moslems, whose faith is abhorrent to all Christians and whose customs are barbaric. But cannot a poet write about such things, without being thought likewise depraved? He is not to blame for the sins of the Turkish sultans, with their palaces full of slaves – he merely portrays them. He is no different from Miss Harriet Beecher Stowe, who writes about slave-owners and the evil they sow. Is it not well that people read of such things, for how can evil be reversed if it goes unpublicized? Indeed one might add that it is our duty to acquaint ourselves with evil, for the devil makes easy prey of the ignorant.

  It may be harsh, then, to style Lord Byron a blasphemer. Possibly when he was alive he did not observe Christian ritual. Nonetheless, it is so hard for me to believe he did not love God, this man who wrote, in the very same poem that you decry:

  “When heart meets heart again in dream Elysian

  And paints the lost on Earth revived in Heaven

  Soft, as the memory of buried love,

  Pure as the prayer which Childhood wafts above.”

  You shall note that I have committed these lines to memory. Since I am forbidden to read Lord Byron’s books, and can only enjoy them in secret within Mrs. Seely’s wonderful library, it is only by memorizing their contents that I may carry them home, to read and read again, their pages imprinted to my mind – and no one is the wiser (except Rebecca, who clamors for my recitations)!

  Yet for you, sir, I will foreswear Lord Byron, and read no more of fevered passions and battles and virgin-filled graves. I will not even call him “Lord” for there is only one Lord, and He is the Lord our God. Only do please forgive

  Your penitent friend,

  Jane Pettigrew

  P.S. I am also most fond of Mr. Shelley’s poetry. Do you consider him godly? Dear Mr. Trane, you see how terribly I am in need of a teacher!

  Dear Mr. Trane,

  I am glad your shoulder has healed so impressively. I trust your prayers shall prove as successful for your leg!

  Thank you for sending Mr. Artzuni’s tract. It is an utterly thrilling account. How fearful and awesome, to be chosen by our Creator for such a mission, to feel the Holy Spirit actually moving and speaking inside one, to receive the gift of prophecy and the call to gather disciples. How sublime, above all, to know the purpose of one’s life, and to follow where it leads, no matter what trials and recriminations pursue. I envy the extraordinary Mr. Artzuni, and you his followers, for your freedom to cry Yes I will, Lord! and leave dull existence behind. If only my insignificant life could be so lifted and ennobled by divine imperative, I would give my soul to have such faith (but who would even want my little tr
ifle of a soul? If anyone did, he is more probably the devil than God!).

  Since I first heard you speak, I have been abashed by your purity of faith. That you can believe sinless perfection to be attainable, when I can scarcely imagine it, has made me feel, in a word, lost – while you wake each day to know you belong to something great and right.

  Please tell me more of Gabriel Nation. You must be so impatient to rejoin your fellow believers in Hovey Pond. I am sure Mr. Artzuni is right, that human perfection can only be achieved by retreating from the larger community of man, in small groups of the faithful, where one can intensify one’s efforts to be pure. When I read these words in his tract, I felt them in my deepest self to be true: “The Almighty is assembling His chosen children for a new birth, when they will embody His angels on earth.” How lucky you are to be among that beautiful brigade!

  I must confess, however, I was a bit dismayed when I read of the manner of worship in your group: contortions and convulsions, falling to the ground, shrieking &c. It sounded much like the Methodists, whom I like not at all. I have read some of Mr. John Wesley’s tracts, and cannot bring myself to believe that we must first be taught to loathe ourselves before we can be sanctified! I do not hold hatred to be any part of Christ’s gospel. I’m certain that Gabriel Nation must be different, since in your speech you spoke so inspiringly about love. (And I suppose if I could truly, truly feel God’s love in me, I too should fall to the ground!).

  Will you next write to me how you met Mr. Artzuni? I notice that the printer’s name at the bottom of his tract is Trane & Sons of Philadelphia. Are you related to the same?

  I trust Mrs. Seeley is keeping you cheerful and well blanketed against the chill of these past days. I have instructed Letty to give you a piece of her incomparable gingerbread along with this note from