Jane's Baby Page #2

"Jane's Baby" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a touching short story that explores themes of love, sacrifice, and the complexities of motherhood. The narrative centers around Jane, a young woman who faces the challenges and emotional turmoil of an unexpected pregnancy. As she grapples with her circumstances, Jane navigates societal pressures and personal desires, ultimately revealing the strength of her character and the depth of her feelings. Through Montgomery's poignant prose, the story delves into the profound impact of choices and the enduring bonds of family, making it a resonant tale of resilience and hope.

• Short story

								

to Charlotte, the younger and prettier of two women who had both
ceased to be either very young or very pretty.  Rosetta had been
bitterly opposed to the match from the first.  She vowed she had
no use for Jacob Wheeler.  There were not lacking malicious
people to hint that this was because the aforesaid Jacob Wheeler
had selected the wrong sister upon whom to bestow his affections.
Be that as it might, Miss Rosetta certainly continued to render
the course of Jacob Wheeler's true love exceedingly rough and
tumultuous.  The end of it was that Charlotte had gone quietly
away one morning and married Jacob Wheeler without Miss Rosetta's
knowing anything about it.  Miss Rosetta had never forgiven her
for it, and Charlotte had never forgiven the things Rosetta had
said to her when she and Jacob returned to the Ellis cottage.
Since then the sisters had been avowed and open foes, the only
difference being that Miss Rosetta aired her grievances publicly,
in season and out of season, while Charlotte was never heard to
mention Rosetta's name.  Even the death of Jacob Wheeler, five
years after the marriage, had not healed the breach.

Miss Rosetta took out her curl-papers, packed her valise, and
caught the late afternoon train for Charlottetown, as she had
threatened.  All the way there she sat rigidly upright in her
seat and held imaginary dialogues with Charlotte in her mind,
running something like this on her part:--

"No, Charlotte Wheeler, you are not going to have Jane's baby,
and you're very much mistaken if you think so.  Oh, all
right--we'll see!  You don't know anything about babies, even if
you are married.  I do.  Didn't I take William Ellis's baby, when
his wife died?  Tell me that, Charlotte Wheeler!  And didn't the
little thing thrive with me, and grow strong and healthy?  Yes,
even you have to admit that it did, Charlotte Wheeler.  And yet
you have the presumption to think that you ought to have Jane's
baby!  Yes, it is presumption, Charlotte Wheeler.  And when
William Ellis got married again, and took the baby, didn't the
child cling to me and cry as if I was its real mother?  You know
it did, Charlotte Wheeler.  I'm going to get and keep Jane's baby
in spite of you, Charlotte Wheeler, and I'd like to see you try
to prevent me--you that went and got married and never so much as
let your own sister know of it!  If I had got married in such a
fashion, Charlotte Wheeler, I'd be ashamed to look anybody in the
face for the rest of my natural life!"

Miss Rosetta was so interested in thus laying down the law to
Charlotte, and in planning out the future life of Jane's baby,
that she didn't find the journey to Charlottetown so long or
tedious as might have been expected, considering her haste.  She
soon found her way to the house where her cousin lived.  There,
to her dismay and real sorrow, she learned that Mrs. Roberts had
died at four o'clock that afternoon.

"She seemed dreadful anxious to live until she heard from some of
her folks out in Avonlea," said the woman who gave Miss Rosetta
the information.  "She had written to them about her little girl.
She was my sister-in-law, and she lived with me ever since her
husband died.  I've done my best for her; but I've a big family
of my own and I can't see how I'm to keep the child.  Poor Jane
looked and longed for some one to come from Avonlea, but she
couldn't hold out.  A patient, suffering creature she was!"

"I'm her cousin," said Miss Rosetta, wiping her eyes, "and I have
come for the baby.  I'll take it home with me after the funeral;
and, if you please, Mrs. Gordon, let me see it right away, so it
can get accustomed to me.  Poor Jane!  I wish I could have got
here in time to see her, she and I were such friends long ago.
We were far more intimate and confidential than ever her and
Charlotte was.  Charlotte knows that, too!"

The vim with which Miss Rosetta snapped this out rather amazed
Mrs. Gordon, who couldn't understand it at all.  But she took
Miss Rosetta upstairs to the room where the baby was sleeping.

"Oh, the little darling," cried Miss Rosetta, all her old
maidishness and oddity falling away from her like a garment, and
all her innate and denied motherhood shining out in her face like
a transforming illumination.  "Oh, the sweet, dear, pretty little
thing!"

The baby was a darling--a six-months' old beauty with little
golden ringlets curling and glistening all over its tiny head.
As Miss Rosetta hung over it, it opened its eyes and then held
out its tiny hands to her with a gurgle of confidence.

"Oh, you sweetest!" said Miss Rosetta rapturously, gathering it
up in her arms.  "You belong to me, darling--never, never, to
that under-handed Charlotte!  What is its name, Mrs. Gordon?"

"It wasn't named," said Mrs. Gordon.  "Guess you'll have to name
it yourself, Miss Ellis."

"Camilla Jane," said Miss Rosetta without a moment's hesitation.
"Jane after its mother, of course; and I have always thought
Camilla the prettiest name in the world.  Charlotte would be sure
to give it some perfectly heathenish name.  I wouldn't put it
past her calling the poor innocent Mehitable."

Miss Rosetta decided to stay in Charlottetown until after the
funeral.  That night she lay with the baby on her arm, listening
with joy to its soft little breathing.  She did not sleep or wish
to sleep.  Her waking fancies were more alluring than any visions
of dreamland.  Moreover, she gave a spice to them by occasionally
snapping some vicious sentences out loud at Charlotte.

Miss Rosetta fully expected Charlotte along on the following
morning and girded herself for the fray; but no Charlotte
appeared.  Night came; no Charlotte.  Another morning and no
Charlotte.  Miss Rosetta was hopelessly puzzled.  What had
happened?  Dear, dear, had Charlotte taken a bad heart spell, on
hearing that she, Rosetta, had stolen a march on her to
Charlottetown?  It was quite likely.  You never knew what to
expect of a woman who had married Jacob Wheeler!

The truth was, that the very evening Miss Rosetta had left
Avonlea Mrs. Jacob Wheeler's hired man had broken his leg and
had had to be conveyed to his distant home on a feather bed in an
express wagon.  Mrs. Wheeler could not leave home until she had
obtained another hired man.  Consequently, it was the evening
after the funeral when Mrs. Wheeler whisked up the steps of the
Gordon house and met Miss Rosetta coming out with a big white
bundle in her arms.

The eyes of the two women met defiantly.  Miss Rosetta's face
wore an air of triumph, chastened by a remembrance of the funeral
that afternoon.  Mrs. Wheeler's face, except for eyes, was as
expressionless as it usually was.  Unlike the tall, fair, fat
Miss Rosetta, Mrs. Wheeler was small and dark and thin, with an
eager, careworn face.

"How is Jane?" she said abruptly, breaking the silence of ten
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