The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [87]
“I have presumed that it was an unwanted pregnancy.”
“Well,” Eakins offered, “you are correct. Rebecca did find herself pregnant.”
“Are you the father?” I asked bluntly.
“The answer is that I am not sure,” Eakins replied, but without the guilt that such an immense admission should have engendered. “There is the remotest possibility that I might be, Dr. Carroll, but Rebecca was involved with someone else, a man whose identity she refused to reveal. He is the more probable choice. But in any case, learning of her predicament, I committed to help Rebecca in any way I could, and it is a promise I intend to keep.”
“We confided in each other about everything, but she would not tell me, either.” A gloss of tears shone in Abigail’s eyes. “I’m not even sure when the assignations occurred, although it must have been sometime in December. Looking back, I realize that I should have suspected that something was amiss. During the holiday season, Rebecca was so gay … so gay … if I had only paid more attention….” She reached up and quickly dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, God, what a fool I was.”
“It’s not your fault, Abby,” Eakins interjected, reaching out to her before I could. “In any event, Dr. Carroll, even when Rebecca first realized that she was likely with child, she did not confide in anyone except her maid, Lucy. But she could not ignore her condition forever. In the first days of February, she finally told her mother. Eunice told Jonas, of course, although not even her father’s fury could make Rebecca identify the man who had impregnated her. Jonas immediately made arrangements for a long family sojourn in Italy. Rebecca would have her child overseas, where it would be put up for adoption.”
Eakins paused as our drinks arrived, and only the click of beer glasses being placed on the table punctuated the silence. “At first, she refused,” the painter continued after the waiter had departed. “She told her parents that wondering for the rest of her life what had become of a human life that she had nurtured within her and then abandoned would be more than she could bear. She was insistent that any child that she did have, she intended to care for and raise herself.”
Abigail had regained sufficient control to take up the tale. “Jonas would not hear of such an arrangement, of course, so finally Rebecca came to us. She had hatched a plan. She needed Thomas and me to help her carry it out.”
“What was her plan?” I asked.
“She agreed to go abroad, but only if her parents remained behind,” Abigail replied. “There was quite a scene, but what could they do? Allowing Rebecca to continue to be seen in Philadelphia was out of the question, and they could not simply pack her off somewhere against her will. So, Rebecca and Lucy the maid crossed on the first liner available, the Alexandria. When the ship docked in London, Rebecca and Lucy exchanged documents. They are almost the same age and physically quite similar. Rebecca sent Lucy on ahead with a pack of letters that she had written during the crossing and then turned around and immediately took the Christina back to New York City. Lucy, as Rebecca, undertook the predetermined itinerary, posting letters across France and into Italy. Everything seems to have gone according to plan, so I’m not sure what could have aroused Jonas’ suspicions.”
“I want to tell you that I stoutly advised Rebecca against this action,” Eakins added. “I told her in the strongest terms I thought she should have the child in Italy and then defy her parents and insist on keeping it. But Rebecca would have none of it. ‘You cannot imagine the lengths to which my father will go to keep up appearances,’ she told me. After meeting him once or twice, I think she might well have been right.”
“And so Rebecca, as Lucy, returned to Philadelphia to end her pregnancy,” I said.
“Yes.”
“What of raising the child herself?”
“She realized that was never really an option. She could not bring such disgrace on her family,” said Eakins. “Termination was her only remaining choice.”
I said nothing, but could not hide my feelings. Termination