Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [91]
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Toward the end of October, Olympia begins to feel physically unwell. For days, she tastes something metallic at the back of her throat, and she is plagued with biliousness. On the twenty-ninth of October, she finally summons her courage and tells Lisette of her malady, for she wishes her to fetch Dr. Branch. Lisette regards Olympia silently for some minutes and then sighs gravely. Olympia knows then, with a kind of clarity that has previously eluded her, the exact nature of her condition. She feels light-headed for a moment, but then, as she puts her hand to her forehead and passes through the sensations of disbelief and shame, she cannot entirely keep a smile from her mind, if not actually from her lips. For though she understands fully the calamity of her situation, she also feels a seed of joy for the seed that has lingered from her days and weeks with John Haskell. It is something. It is something. . . .
Lisette volunteers to break the news to her father, but Olympia tells her that she has courage enough for that. The next morning before breakfast, Olympia dresses carefully in a staid blue frock that does not entirely hide her condition but does not flaunt it either. Her father is reading Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter when she enters the dining room, a coincidence she finds so disconcerting that she nearly turns and walks out right then. There is a sharp, pinging rain against the glass, and the smell of the coffee makes the bile rise at the back of her throat. She wills herself not to be sick, to betray no weakness to her father.
He does not at first acknowledge her, although she senses he is discomfited by her presence. She does not ordinarily breakfast with him, so her arrival is somewhat suspect. As calmly as she can, she takes her eggs and biscuits from the buffet and pours herself a cup of hot milk. But as soon as she puts the plate and cup in front of her, she sees that she will not be able to remain long in the presence of this food without embarrassing herself. She therefore launches immediately into her overly rehearsed speech.
“Father, there is something important that I must tell you, for there is no hiding this, and I do not wish you to have this knowledge from — ”
He turns his head and looks at her.
“I am so sorry . . . ,” she says.
“Olympia, what is this?” he asks.
“I am . . . ,” she begins. “There is . . .”
She touches her dress at the waist.
“No.”
He says the single word quietly, too quietly, and she hears his shocked disbelief. He is rigid in his posture, and his face has gone white. He will not look at her, but rather stares straight ahead, his fingers still on his book. She has never seen a man struggle so for control. He wets his lips with his tongue. He takes a glass of water.
“Tell me this is not true,” he says.
She is silent.
He takes another sip of water. She sees that his fingers are trembling. There is a long silence.
“Arrangements will have to be made,” he says in a voice that is slightly hoarse with his shock.
She bends her head and nods. Arrangements for her lying-in.
“Good God!” her father explodes. “Did the man not think?”
“None of this was done to hurt you,” she says.
“I shall have no reason ever again to believe anything you say,” her father says calmly.
She shuts her eyes.
“This will kill your mother,” he says.
And perhaps it is the exaggeration in this statement that piques her ire.
“This is not about Mother!” Olympia cries, abandoning her resolve to remain steady. “I am the one who is with child. I am the one who has lost her lover. I am the one who has suffered.”
“Enough,” he says sharply. He wipes his lips with his napkin