Just Jane by Nancy Moser

believing it offers warmth as well as light.
    Mrs. Hardy, the butcher’s wife, greets me. “Morning, Miss Jane. How was that chicken you bought Monday?”
    “Very tasty,” I say. “Might you have an ox cheek?”
    She smiles. “Ox cheek, you say? It’s about time your mother gets past her usual beef and chicken. How is she, by the way?”
    “Fine,” I say. For I truly believe she is. And I believe her single-mindedness to be otherwise has contributed to her being tetchy and lethargic. With my added burdens I could allow myself to pout, to cry and carry on, or to take to my bed with many an affliction worthy of death and destruction. But I will not. I cannot. And because of that resolve in my own regard, I find it difficult to tolerate such self-indulgence in others. I remember just the other day, Mother entering her dressing room through crowds of admiring spectators. She received the attention she craved, while I had to contain myself from rolling my eyes.
    Mrs. Hardy pulls a hunk of meat from a shelf in back. She holds it up for me. “How be this one?”
    “Very fine.” I can already taste the dumplings . . . . To be polite, I ask after her husband.
    “He be fine too, though tired. He was up at Ashe yesterday with a whole passel of meat when he heard the news.”
    My heart caught in my throat. People knew? Mrs. Hardy knew about Tom and—
    “The oldest boy, Tom, is engaged.”
    My first thought was that he had announced our engagement. Could it be I was the last to know? Perhaps he had gone back to Ireland without seeing me because of pressing business. He was an adult now, and perhaps he didn’t give his Aunt Anne the full reason for his actions. Perhaps he would have called, had planned to call and—
    “Yes indeed,” continued Mrs. Hardy. “He’s marrying the daughter of Sir Jeffry Paul, who’s some bigwig in Dublin. Her name is Mary. The wedding’s next year. We’re hoping it’s here. We would sure like to provide the meat for that celebration.”
    I want to flee but know such an act will cause talk. I say something in response, though I have no idea what. Mrs. Hardy wraps the meat; I pay and am on my way.
    Usually news feeds me.
    But today . . . it destroys.
    I walk faster, head down, shoulders drawn forward as if from the cold, when the truth lies in my desire to be away from all people who could inadvertently add to my pain. I need comfort, not anguish.
    And yet I know I will receive no comfort. When Cassandra lost her Tom, our friends and family raffled round to offer their condolences.
    As was appropriate.
    But now, when I’ve lost my Tom . . . the breaking off of an unofficial and unpublic engagement does not solicit such consolations. I bear my burden alone. I must accept this. I must endure it.
    Yet I must also realize that because no one knows the depths of my feelings for Tom (and his for me—truly, truly, I must believe his for me), people are apt to be lax in discretion.
    His feelings for me . . .
    My pace slows as I realize he has no feelings for me; he marries another.
    And yet . . . this is not the first time someone has chosen to marry for reasons other than love. He is an aspiring lawyer, with expectations and responsibilities. Perhaps for his career . . .
    “It does not matter.”
    I speak the truth to the wind—which has become aggressive. I notice for the first time the sun has hidden its face. Dark clouds gather.
    How appropriate. A cold shroud for my grief and my shame.
    I stop short. Shame? What do I have to be ashamed of?
    A horse with its head over the fenced pasture grunts at me and nods as if to say, Yes, Jane, shame.
    Not shame in my actions of three years ago. They were the delighted flirtations of a young girl trying to draw out the delighted flirtations of a young man. They could be forgiven.
    But waiting three years, letting my imagination create something that was not solid and real . . . there is no excuse for that. I wasted those years; they will