Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [146]
Olympia shuts her eyes, dismayed to learn that Catherine has been brought into this matter. Dismayed that Catherine has been asked to contribute information. And Olympia realizes then, in a way she has not before, that she has begun something that will be larger than herself and that she will not be able to stop.
“Albertine and Telesphore live with the child in one room,” Tucker says. “Albertine works as a carder at the Ely Falls Mill from five-thirty A.M. to four P.M., six days a week, combing raw cotton so that it can be spun into thread. A hazardous job, I might add, because of the high incidence of white lung. You do know about the white lung?”
“Yes.”
“For this labor, she makes $336.96 a year.”
Olympia looks steadily at Payson Tucker.
“The couple seem to have made adequate arrangements for the child’s care,” Tucker continues, “however difficult these arrangements may be for the couple themselves. I am bound to tell you that their industriousness and their careful attention to the needs of the child, as well as the sacrifices that this has entailed, will be seen in a favorable light by any judge.”
Olympia nods.
“I have more to tell you,” Tucker says, “and I have to warn you that it is worse.”
Olympia looks up. “How can anything be worse?”
Tucker folds his arms on the table and leans toward her. “I will tell you right now that you should not go forward with your petition,” he says. “Let me explain what will happen to you if you do. The trial will be grueling. You will be seen to belong to the lowest rung of society, that of unwed mothers. Your transgressions will become public knowledge in ways you have never imagined. Very likely, the story of this trial will be considered newsworthy by the Boston papers. In the two cases I spoke of earlier, the damage to the principals was considerable. One of the young women committed suicide shortly after the trial.”
Olympia feels her hands go cold. Out of sight of Tucker, she wraps them in the folds of her skirt.
“I am sorry to be so harsh,” Tucker says. “But I want you to understand that if you continue with your petition, you will be left with no reputation whatsoever when it is over, no matter what the outcome. I do not think the Bolducs’ lawyer will spare your sensibilities or will care for your delicacy. The irony is that even I cannot spare your delicacy. I will need to be as ruthless as the opposition.”
“And what are my alternatives?”
“The alternative is simple, Miss Biddeford. Do not put forth your petition.”
Olympia looks at Payson Tucker, at his gold-rimmed spectacles, his oiled hair, his well-groomed mustaches. “Then I should never see my son,” she says.
“That is correct.”
“I will never hold him.”
Tucker is silent.
“I will never teach him,” she says, her voice rising. “I will never dress him. I will never speak to him, or he to me.”
“No.”
“Then there is no alternative, Mr. Tucker. I must proceed.”
Tucker sighs and leans back in his chair. He surveys the overdressed dining room and its few patrons. “Then let me help you,” he says simply.
• • •
Clouds have covered the moon, and she can see only those portions of the road the headlamps of the automobile illuminate: a flash of stone wall, the shingled corner of a cottage, a stark silhouette of a telephone pole.
“I have ridden in a motorcar only once before,” Olympia confesses. “At school. A benefactor came to visit. I was one of the students asked to accompany him in his automobile up a small mountain to visit an observatory.”
“Where were you at school?”
“Not a place you have ever heard of, I can assure you. The Hastings Seminary for Females. In the town of Fairbanks in the western part of Massachusetts.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“The drive or the school?”
He smiles. “Well, both, actually.”
“I was terrified during the drive. I was certain we would