Jane Was Here (23 page)

Your friend,
Jane Pettigrew

Dear Mr. Trane,

Indeed I should be very cross with you for venturing outdoors onto the ice with no accessory but a cane! I pray to Heaven the accident did not break anew your leg and that you have only bruises to tend. Rebecca heard that you fell while turning onto Sycamore Street, only a few doors from our house. I had to conceal my tears and agitation. Please reassure me that you were not on your way to visit me! I should die of guilt, if it were my selfish entreaties for your spiritual counsel that brought you out into the cold weather! I should never have complained so thoughtlessly in my last note. The moods of a young girl are beneath your regard, and you have far greater missions to pursue than the struggles of one small soul. Only send me word you are not badly hurt, and that it was not on my behalf!

In haste,
Jane

Dear Mr. Trane,

I cannot find words to express my limitless joy upon reading your letter. To know it was not my imagination, after all, that fancied a profound bond between us, that you too share the certainty that we are destined to join together, work for God’s glory and seek the highest form of self-perfection! You are the star that I follow to reach the cradle of Jesus and the light of the eternal happiness! I agree that our correspondence will not suffice but we must, we must! see one another. And yet that event seems more remote than ever. For there has been a great upheaval here at home.

Uli Haff paid us his usual visit today. Both Rebecca and I were seated in the parlor to hear his news, as we are accustomed to do, when he suddenly asked to speak to Papa alone. We sisters repaired to the kitchen in high excitement, for we all, father included, expected Mr. Haff would make known his feelings concerning Rebecca.

After he left the house, however, it was I and not my sister whom Father summoned to the parlor. I was condemned to sit meekly – with your letter hidden in my bosom where I had folded it next to my heart – while Papa informed me that Uli had sought his permission to enter an engagement with
myself,
our marriage to follow in a year’s time!

I’m afraid my reaction, which I could not manage to mask, was one of dumb horror. I knew Rebecca to be listening on the other side of the door, and reckoned well what anguish she was feeling. My mind filled with a kind of noise – I heard my father’s voice, as from a far distance, asking if I didn’t approve of Uli, and was he not an excellent man, frugal and industrious and kind (as if these qualities alone were adequate to ignite my affection), and did I know that he had purchased a plot of land, on Putman Hill, and what a comfortable house he would build for us &c.&c.

I nodded perfunctorily until my tears spilled over, betraying my true emotions. I said I hadn’t thought to be married yet. When he inquired why, I replied that I was too young, being not quite twenty, and moreover I preferred to stay with Papa, at home, for he needed my company and caring. He looked pained at this. “Jane,” he said, “you must apply your thoughts to practical matters now.” He is afraid his lungs will not improve, and he will lose his job soon. By consequence, he worries he will not be able to provide for us. It is thus a necessity to find good husbands, at least for one of us, for if someone must stay at home with Papa it would likely be Rebecca. She is already twenty-four and no one has ever shown an interest in marrying her. Therefore, he concluded, here was Mr. Haff with a fine proposal which I should accept gladly!

I begged him for more time to consider, and after much supplication he agreed that I might have two months before giving Mr. Haff my answer. In the meantime I should see Uli often so I might know him better. Again Father urged me to be a good daughter, and consent to the engagement after Easter. Then he nearly cried too, saying that he had been excessively selfish by keeping me at home all the time – it was not healthy and had led me to become morbid and neurasthenic, or why else should I be mumbling over my Bible and refusing food for three days? To my surprise, he then told me he would no longer forbid me to go out, as long as Rebecca or some other older woman accompanied me. At that I brightened a bit, my only thought being that, with this new amnesty, I might contrive to visit Mrs. Seeley, without his being aware.

Still I could not sleep last night, as if I were on a rack being pulled two ways. One way, I have your beautiful words, your friendship, and salvation itself. On the other, I have my duty to Father and his clear wish that I marry Mr. Haff. If only I could talk face to face with you, I know you would dispel my confusion and put me to rights.

Rebecca, meantime, is cool toward me. Though she says she did not care for Uli, still I know she would have liked to be the one asked and not I. I cannot blame her. Spinsterhood is a doom that any woman fears greatly.

Pity my dilemma, good friend, and wait for more news from

Your despondent
Jane

Dear Mr. Trane,

It is some consolation to read that your distress concerning Mr. Haff’s proposal is the mirror of mine. I am forever grateful for your solicitude, when my woes must seem altogether inane compared to the urgency of your spiritual mission. I agree that it is now essential that we meet – and without intrusion, God willing!

Father was out today, having gone back to work. I hoped Rebecca would accompany me for a walk this morning, when I planned to suggest innocently that we call on Mrs. Seeley – but she went out alone, probably to visit with her friend Mabel to whom she can disparage me for stealing her beau. Desperately I asked Letty to lend me some clothes. I put on her skirt and apron, and wrapped her shawl to cover my face as if to protect it against the cold. My notion was to appear as a servant, and to walk to Widow Seeley’s alone, thus disguised. (It is a paradox, I think, that a servant who may not call her life her own is permitted to roam freely in the street while a respectable young woman with no liens on her person cannot put a toe in the outdoors without a jailer alongside.)

As I hurried along, my spirits rose, thinking I would soon encounter you in Mrs. S.’s parlor. I was only a little distance from that destination when I heard the bells of a cutter behind. Master Ellis Graynier was the driver, and he reined his horse, bidding me to jump up on the seat beside him. I shook my head, pulling the shawl tighter, but he ordered me in a sterner tone to get in. My disguise proved too efficacious, for clearly he presumed me to be a hired girl. Reluctantly I obeyed. As he urged his horse on, he pressed me with impertinent questions, wanting to know my name and where I was going. I became angry to realize that this was how he preyed upon the working girls of the town. I was frightened, also, for if I continued with my ruse I should place myself at some risk to my safety. I drew back Letty’s shawl and showed my face. He laughed then, quite uproariously. “Miss Pettigrew!” he said. “Have you lost your good clothes in a gambling bet?” I snatched the reins from his hands and pulled the horse to a stop, leapt out, and ran home before anyone else could detect my ridiculous masquerade.

Forgive me for prating on about my troubles, when you have a sufficiency of your own. I regret that your fall on the ice has delayed your recovery. Is it reprehensible to wonder if this misfortune is God’s plan to hold you longer in Graynier? No matter, you
must not
try again to come to our house! Even if my father is not at home, he will certainly hear of your visit and never trust me more. Let me come to you, dear friend and teacher. I am most determined to see you as soon as mortally possible.

Jane

Dear Mr. Trane,

Your letter grieved me, it seemed almost quarrelsome. My treasured friend, you must not reprimand me for failing to visit. More than all other people, you have the power to hurt me with a word, a frown – nay, a feather! Indeed for the past five days I have tried to escape my house, but am thwarted at every turn.

Saturday I could not leave because Uli Haff came to call on me, with a present of some soap he made. (It is so strange to sit with him now – this diffident, rather clumsy man whom I have never regarded as other than an assistant to my father. More irksome still, Papa and Rebecca make a great show of withdrawing so we are not disturbed during his visits. I must do all the talking to put him at his ease, and am quite worn out from the effort by the time he leaves. Worse, I have found out he is a Lutheran. Father has often told me I have a mad imagination, but it is he who is wildly deluded when he imagines I could ever be wedded to Mr. Haff!).

On Sunday, you may recall that it snowed. Master Ellis Graynier astonished my father by appearing at the door and inviting me to join him, his sisters, and some friends in an enormous sleigh drawn by a team of four, which he had driven over. As I started to decline, he asked Rebecca, too. She became prodigiously excited, begging me to come along, so that in the end I did go, as it is the first occasion since Mr. Haff’s proposal that she has looked warmly upon me, and you must agree that we need her (unwitting) help to realize our reunion.

However, I was soon to regret my choice. Master Ellis placed me directly beside him and for the whole ride he never ceased to tease and flatter me. I have never given him the slightest signal that I regard him as anything more than an annoyance, a rich idler to whom I am obliged to be polite because he is my father’s employer’s son. We stopped for him to untangle the harness, and while he was about it I quickly changed places with Rebecca, who was only too content to suffer his drivel for the rest of the ride.