Sins of Innocence

by Jean Stone

It was a big house, covered with Cape Cod—gray shingles and trimmed in fresh white paint. A wide veranda stretched around the sides, and tall, small-paned windows were edged by forest-green shutters. Jess watched the house grow larger as their Bentley snaked up the long driveway. It almost looked inviting.

  “I haven’t seen a place like this since that summer on Nantucket,” she said, then swallowed her words. Nantucket. How would Father know? He hadn’t been there. He’d been too busy that summer for a family vacation.

  Her father didn’t respond.

  Jess looked out at the dots of purple crocuses that lined the drive, and at the enormous pine trees that loomed over them, sheltering the blossoms from the cool New England spring. The flowers will survive, Jess thought. They have something to protect them.

  She kept her head turned to the window. She did not want to look at her father. She did not want to see his silent mouth or his icy eyes. It was the first time he had driven her anywhere. But he had insisted: Even the chauffeur was not to know that Jess was coming to Larchwood Hall.

  The car pulled to a stop at the front stairs.

  Talk to me, Father! she wanted to scream. I never meant for this to happen. But I love Richard, and Richard loves me. The way you once loved Mother. But Jess said nothing, her words locked in her shame.

  Her father turned off the engine and got out of the car. He slammed the door.

  Jess closed her eyes. Richard, she thought, I must think of Richard. He’ll make everything work out. She pushed back rising tears and followed her father into the house.

  Frances Taylor was a sturdy yellow-haired woman who moved with determination, leaving in her wake the rustle of nylon against heavy thighs and an overpowering aroma of English lavender and nicotine. Red lipstick was slashed across her thin mouth, and dark pencil arches masked the obviously shaved brows. She ushered Jess and her father into a darkly paneled room lined on two walls with well-stocked bookshelves.

  “This was the library when Larchwood Hall was a private home,” she announced in a surprisingly businesslike tone. “I plan to use it for my office, and, of course, my girls will have unlimited access to any of the books.” She sharply clicked the tips of her long crimson fingernails together and gestured toward the bookshelves.

  Jess felt suddenly nauseous and slid into a chintz-covered chair. She wanted this interview to be over. She wanted her father to suddenly take her by the arm and say, “I’m sorry, Miss Taylor, this has been a mistake. I love my daughter, and I’m taking her home.” But he said nothing.

  “Please, sit down,” Miss Taylor said. She walked behind a mahogany desk and sat in a leather chair. Jess’s father took a seat facing the housemother.

  “As I mentioned in our phone conversation, Mr. Bates, most of our girls will not enter Larchwood until later in their pregnancy. In my previous experience at Chelsey House, I found that most often the girls don’t want to leave their families until it becomes”—she paused, clicking her fingernails again—“necessary.”

  Until they start to look pregnant—Jess sensed what the woman meant. She twisted the emerald-and-diamond ring on her finger and wished she could disappear.

  “And as I said …” Her father’s voice startled her. It was the first time Jess had heard it since they’d left Manhattan nearly two hours earlier. “… it is not convenient for Jessica to stay at home.” He paused, not looking at his daughter. “Normally she would be in school at this time of year.”

  Normally, Jess thought. Nothing has been normal since Mother died.

  Miss Taylor turned a warm smile to Jess, white teeth breaking the slash of her lips. Her voice softened. “And where is your school, dear?”

  Jess cleared her throat. “Miss Winslow’s.” She hated the sound of her childishly kittenlike voice. “Outside of London.”

  “Oh, that accounts for your accent! School in England. How charming.”

  Jess nodded. She didn’t know what to say next.

  “I’ve not much time,” her father interrupted. “Perhaps we should settle the financial matters now?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Bates.” Miss Taylor was businesslike again. “You know the monthly fee. First and last month to be paid in advance …”

  Jess tuned out the conversation. Financial matters. That was all Father cared about. He didn’t care about her, any more than he’d cared about her mother. Jess stared at the leather edge of the desk and remembered her mother’s funeral.

  It had been a grizzly New York morning in March. Jess had been flown in from school on the company jet, and while no one had actually told her the truth about her mother’s death, she’d overheard two women at the church.

  “Pills,” one whispered.

  “And booze,” the other added.

  They nodded to each other, then the first woman mouthed, “Suicide.”

  Suicide. The word had ripped through Jess like an electric shock and exploded in her brain. No! she wanted to scream. Not suicide. Not my mother! She loved me too much.

  She looked at her father, standing beside the orchid-draped casket, his hands folded in front of him, his expression devoid of emotion. Suicide, she thought. If it were true, it was because of him.

  Then Jess had felt a touch on her hand. She looked to Richard, standing next to her, his warm eyes glistening with love. Countless times Father had tried to break off her relationship with Richard, but Jess had fallen hopelessly in love with him since he’d brought her a towel at the club last summer. Even being shipped back off to school in England hadn’t dampened her love for him: They wrote to each other nearly every day and saw each other when Jess was home for school vacation. Father would have tried to stop those meetings, too, if he had known about them, but Mother had covered up for them. But Father couldn’t have kept Richard from coming to the funeral, and, Jess thought now, he couldn’t have stopped them from making love in the back of Richard’s father’s ’59 Chevy afterward.

  “Jessica?”

  Jess snapped back to reality. Miss Taylor was looking at her. She must have asked a question.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “When is your due date, dear?”

  Jess felt a rush of heat in her cheeks. She looked down, aware that her father’s cold stare was directed at the desk in front of him. “December. December fourteenth.”

  “Hmm. Just two months along,” Miss Taylor said. There was no edge to her voice, yet her words sliced into Jess like a saber.

  Her father rose and jerked a checkbook from his breast pocket. “What about the medical expenses?”

  The doctor’s fee. Anticipated hospital cost. Liability for anything more should “complications” occur. The words swirled around Jess. She watched him lean on the desk and begin writing a check.

  “Of course, there are also other fees,” Miss Taylor continued. “And the social worker required by the state in these”—she paused again, as though she sensed the tension between father and daughter—“these situations. Even though the adoption is ‘private,’ a social worker must talk with Jessica. I can let you know the exact cost of everything later, once Jessica is registered.”

  Her father’s hand stopped in midair, poised over the checkbook.

  “There is one other matter I’d like to mention.”

  Jess shrank in the chair.

  “Jessica is not to receive any mail,” he continued. “Or phone calls.”

  Jess looked at him, then back to Miss Taylor. She wanted to ask if that wasn’t against the law.

  Miss Taylor nodded and handed him some papers. “These are for your signature. Consent forms, approving temporary legal guardianship and related care, medical and otherwise. The child is, after all, under twenty-one.”

  The child. My God, she means me, Jess thought. I am fifteen years old, pregnant, and she calls me a child. She watched her father flick his pen quickly across the signature lines. He wasn’t even reading the forms. How he must hate me. Nausea swept through her once more, and she clutched the arm of the
chair.

  He clicked off the pen and tucked it inside his shirt pocket. “If that is all, I’ll be going.”

  Miss Taylor glanced at the forms and nodded.

  “Is there someone to take her bags?” he asked, still without a glance in his daughter’s direction.

  Miss Taylor stood up. “Of course. I’ll locate Mr. Hines while you two say your good-byes.” She quickly left the room.

  Suddenly Jess’s father looked like a young boy stranded in the company of adults. He fumbled in his pocket and withdrew his pipe and tobacco pouch. Jess watched as he hurriedly packed the bowl.

  “Father,” Jess whispered.

  He tucked the unlit pipe between his lips, straightened his back, and buttoned his Burberry coat. The sharp lines of his face, which usually gave him a look of handsome austerity, now were set cold as steel. “I think enough has been said. You have your checkbook. Deposits will be made monthly.” He brushed past her and went through the huge French doors into the foyer. Jess didn’t get up.

  A few moments later she heard the hum of the Bentley. She listened, waiting to hear the car come back and get her. Instead, the sound faded into the distance.

  Miss Taylor tiptoed back into the library. “Are you ready to see your room, Jessica?”

  Drained of emotion, Jess slowly rose from the chair. “I’m sorry my father was so …”

  “So what, dear? So businesslike?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fathers, Jessica,” she said with a wink, “often tend to overreact.”

  Jess relaxed a little. “Please call me Jess? I’d really prefer that.”

  “Then Jess it is. Now let’s go see your room.”

  “Miss Taylor?”

  The woman stopped.

  “What he said. About me not getting any mail. Or calls.”

  Miss Taylor shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear, but we’ll have to go along with him on that.”

  Jess nodded, resigned. Then she followed the woman from the library, half hearing the rest of her words.

  “Mr. Hines took your bags up. He’s a wonderful man.

  He and his wife live here too. He tends the grounds and is a sort of handyman. She does all the cooking. Don’t let her gruffness bother you. Her bark is worse than her bite. They’ve been employed here since it was a private residence.”

  They went up the wide split staircase. Halfway up, the woman stopped at the window seat and coughed a rumbly, bronchial cough. “Whew!” he sighed. “Getting Larchwood ready for you girls has done me in. I can’t seem to accept that I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  Jess smiled. The woman was old—well, older than her mother had been—but not, Jess thought, old enough to be a grandmother or anything. Then the irony struck her: If Jess’s mother were still alive, she would, indeed, be about to become just that.

  After a moment Jess and the housemother rounded the rest of the stairs, Miss Taylor holding a steadfast grip on the shiny mahogany railing. “The last family who lived here had four sons,” she huffed. “I can just imagine the boys sliding down this great banister.” Then she added quickly, “Of course, that’s not allowed here.”

  Jess forced another smile.

  “Your room is on the second floor, dear. There are three on the second and one on the third. The one on the third is quite large, but the bathroom is on the second floor.”

  Jess was surprised. “You mean we’ll be sharing a bath?”

  “Oh my, yes. Of course, it’s been enlarged somewhat from the original bath. But as yet there are only two other girls scheduled to come, though not for a couple of weeks, so it will be all yours for the time being. If you need me for anything, my quarters are on the first floor, behind the kitchen.” She smiled. “What used to be the servants’ quarters.”

  They walked down the hall. Dark wainscoting lined the walls, topped by colorful floral wallpaper. It had apparently been recently redecorated, for even in this huge old house a scent of newness prevailed. They stopped in front of an oak door at the end of the hall. Miss Taylor slipped a key into the lock.

  “As our very first girl, you get the prettiest room in the house.”

  The door swung open into a large, sunny room, tastefully done in yellow and pastel shades of aqua and green. A single bed and a rock-maple bureau and matching wardrobe dominated the room. In front of a picture window stood a desk and chair; beside that, an easy chair, covered with the same soft aqua fabric used for the bedspread. An aroma of wood soap lingered in the room. All in all, it was clean and warm and not unpleasant.

  “I hope you enjoy it, dear. The bathroom is right next door. You’ll find your linens in the wardrobe. Why don’t you rest until dinner at six? Then you can meet the staff and learn what’s expected of you. We all have to pitch in, you know. After all, this isn’t a hotel!” She smiled and closed the door behind her.

  Jess sat on the edge of the bed, feeling only a slight numbness. Well, she made it. Now she was committed. This was the room where she would wait. Where she would have time to wait until Richard worked out their plan—their plan for how, after the baby was born, Richard could come and rescue her, a way for them to be together with their baby. Yes. Richard would come and get her.

  Wouldn’t he?

  She curled her arms around herself and slowly rocked back and forth.

  Jess was awakened by a chill. The late-afternoon sun had faded, a reminder that summer was still far away. She sat up quickly, unsure at first of where she was, an unfamiliar silence enveloping, then frightening, her. Then she remembered.

  She stood up slowly and smoothed the bedspread. She had not meant to sleep. Glancing at her gold Elgin watch, Jess noticed it was quarter to six. Time to get cleaned up and go downstairs. Downstairs. Strangers. How terrified she was of talking to strangers! And now—here. What would they say? What would she say? Oh, God, she thought, what am I doing here?

  Suddenly a tremor rushed through her body. She raced out the door. Where is the bathroom? Her eyes darted up and down the hall. Next door, she remembered Miss Taylor had said. She spotted the door, struggled with the glass knob, then bolted into the cold square room. She caught sight of the metal stall, fled to the toilet, quickly stooped over it, and vomited.

  Jess wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, knelt on the newly installed linoleum, and clutched the damp porcelain bowl. She waited for the nausea to subside. How long would the sickness go on? She tried to think about Richard, of their baby. She tried to think about how happy they were going to be—together. Then the sterile odor of ammonia and pine cleaner rose from the floor, and Jess retched again.

  Exhausted, she slumped back against the metal partition and sucked at the saliva in her mouth, trying to dissolve the sour taste. She grasped the toilet, pulled herself up, then steadied her slight, weary body. The nausea had passed.

  She returned to her room and collected her toothbrush, toothpaste, and makeup from the vanity case. This time when she entered the bathroom, she was aware of its clinical air.

  Two shallow sinks were screwed to the plaster wall. A narrow metal shelf separated them from a plate-glass mirror. Beside the toilet stall stood a narrow shower enclosure, from which a white plastic curtain hung on metal clips. The only natural light came from a small frosted glass window; a fluorescent tube beamed from the tiled ceiling and was reflected in the waxed linoleum—flooring that was white with gold iridescent flecks, clean and sparkling, yet oddly rippled on the uneven floor. Jess shuddered. This was definitely a place conducive to vomiting.

  She quickly freshened up, eager to leave the dreadful room but anxious about the unknown that awaited her downstairs. She stood for a moment, staring into the mirror, remembering how frightened and miserable she’d been when she’d been sent off to school last year, away from home, away from Richard.

  “In time it will get easier,” her mother had said.

  And though Jess had been so lonely and self-conscious that she’d barely talked to anyone for weeks, her mother had be
en right. It had gotten easier, in time. But this wasn’t school. This was a home for unwed mothers. A place where other girls ended up, not Jessica Bates. But now she was one of them—a good girl gone bad. Why on earth would anyone want to talk to her?

  “This time, Mother, it will only be easier once it’s over,” she said, half-aloud, into the mirror.

  Mother, she thought, and wondered if any of this would have happened if her mother were still alive. Would Jess have let Richard go “all the way” if she hadn’t been so upset over Mother’s death? She drew in a deep breath and knew that probably she would have, sooner or later. After all, she loved Richard. And Richard loved her.

  She left the bathroom, made her way down the sweeping staircase, then followed the sounds of clacking utensils and low voices. She paused a moment, searching for the courage to keep going.

  Richard, she thought. She straightened the belt on her beige linen skirt and stepped into a huge, glowing kitchen. The voices ceased. Her stomach fluttered. Had they been talking about her? She held her hands together, trying to stop them from trembling.

  Miss Taylor was seated at a round oak table, carefully sorting salad greens. At the center of the room a middle-aged negro woman stood at a stainless-steel island, cutting circles of biscuit dough on a floured pastry board. She was a big woman with black springy hair, caught tightly in a hair net. A worn canvas apron stretched across her ample front, and from behind her flour-spotted eyeglasses, Jess noted dark, tense-looking eyes.

  Jess stood still.

  Miss Taylor cleared her throat.

  “Jessica, my dear, I see you found us. Did you have a nap?”

  “Yes,” she replied, and focused on the pastry board where the other woman had resumed her work.

  “This is Mrs. Hines, Jess. Our wonderful cook. And this,” she continued, turning to look at the woman, “is Miss Bates. Our first arrival.”

  The woman nodded but didn’t look at Jess. “Chicken pot pie tonight. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. But that’s all you get. Them’s the rules.”

  Jess felt a queasiness rise in her stomach.

  Miss Taylor cleared her throat again. “I’m sure Miss Bates will enjoy it,” she chirped.