There was no mistaking it, Albert had stuck out his tongue at her. She was pregnant.
JEAN LOUISE’S GLEANINGS of adult morals and mores to date were few, but enough: it was possible to have a baby without being married, she knew that. Until today she neither knew nor cared how, because the subject was uninteresting, but if someone had a baby without being married, her family was plunged into deep disgrace. She had heard Alexandra go on at length about Disgraces to Families: disgrace involved being sent to Mobile and shut up in a Home away from decent people. One’s family was never able to hold up their heads again. Something had happened once, down the street toward Montgomery, and the ladies at the other end of the street whispered and clucked about it for weeks.
She hated herself, she hated everybody. She had done nobody any harm. She was overwhelmed by the unfairness of it: she had meant no harm.
She crept away from the school building, walked around the corner to the house, sneaked to the back yard, climbed the chinaberry tree, and sat there until dinnertime.
Dinner was long and silent. She was barely conscious of Jem and Atticus at the table. After dinner she returned to the tree and sat there until twilight, when she heard Atticus call her.
“Come down from there,” he said. She was too miserable to react to the ice in his voice.
“Miss Blunt called and said you left school at recess and didn’t come back. Where were you?”
“Up the tree.”
“Are you sick? You know if you’re sick you’re to go straight to Cal.”
“No sir.”
“Then if you aren’t sick what favorable construction can you put upon your behavior? Any excuse for it?”
“No sir.”
“Well, let me tell you something. If this happens again it will be Hail Columbia.”
“Yes sir.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, to shift her burden to him, but she was silent.
“You sure you’re feeling all right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then come on in the house.”
At the supper table, she wanted to throw her plate fully loaded at Jem, a superior fifteen in adult communication with their father. From time to time Jem would cast scornful glances at her. I’ll get you back, don’t you worry, she promised him. But I can’t now.
Every morning she awakened full of catlike energy and the best intentions, every morning the dull dread returned; every morning she looked for the baby. During the day it was never far from her immediate consciousness, intermittently returning at unsuspected moments, whispering and taunting her.
She looked under baby in the dictionary and found little; she looked under birth and found less. She came upon an ancient book in the house called Devils, Drugs, and Doctors and was frightened to mute hysteria by pictures of medieval labor chairs, delivery instruments, and the information that women were sometimes thrown repeatedly against walls to induce birth. Gradually she assembled data from her friends at school, carefully spacing her questions weeks apart so as not to arouse suspicion.
She avoided Calpurnia for as long as she could, because she thought Cal had lied to her. Cal had told her all girls had it, it was natural as breathing, it was a sign they were growing up, and they had it until they were in their fifties. At the time, Jean Louise was so overcome with despair at the prospect of being too old to enjoy anything when it would finally be over, she refrained from pursuing the subject. Cal had said nothing about babies and French-kissing.
Eventually she sounded out Calpurnia by way of the Owen family. Cal said she didn’t want to talk about that Mr. Owen because he wasn’t fit to associate with humans. They were going to keep him in jail a long time. Yes, Francine’s sister had been sent to Mobile, poor little girl. Francine was at the Baptist Orphans’ Home in Abbott County. Jean Louise was not to occupy her head thinking about those folks. Calpurnia was becoming furious, and Jean Louise let matters rest.
When she discovered that she had nine months to go before the baby came, she felt like a reprieved criminal. She counted the weeks by marking them off on a calendar, but she failed to take into consideration that four months had passed before she began her calculations. As the time drew near she spent her days in helpless panic lest she wake up and find a baby in bed with her. They grew in one’s stomach, of that she was sure.