JOHN AND ROSE
Chapter Thirty-One
Rose walked tiredly through the door,
shedding her coat and hat as she walked. It had been a long day. Between
Rowena’s drunken temper, the cast’s concern over the falling stock market, and
Polly’s pleas to be given a small role in the movie, she had had enough, and
was glad to be finished with the day’s filming and be home.
The scent of one of her favorite dishes,
harvest chicken, filled the air, and Rose was glad that she had finally broken
down and consented to hire a part-time cook for those days when she was
extraordinarily busy. This was one of those evenings when she didn’t want to
cook or clean, but only wanted to relax and put her feet up.
Christopher stuck his head out of the
library, where he was ostensibly studying. She had let him skip school today
for filming, but only after he had agreed to study harder to make up for what
he was missing. "Hi, Mom. You better go upstairs—Jane got her hands on a
broken pen and got covered with ink, and Uncle John came home early, looking
real upset, and didn’t say anything to me. He just went into his study and shut
the door."
Rose sighed. "Thank you, Christopher.
I’ll go see to them." She looked at the books scattered on the table near
the door. "Have you finished your homework yet?"
"Almost." Christopher looked away,
trying to avoid the issue of homework. It definitely was not among his favorite
activities. "Oh, and there’s letters from Mary and Nadia. I didn’t open
them, since they weren’t addressed to me."
"Good." Rose reached up and ruffled
her tall, lanky son’s hair, earning a scowl from him. "Let me know when
supper is ready, all right?"
"Sure, Mom." Christopher hurried
back into the library, relieved that she hadn’t asked to see his homework,
which he had barely started on. He found other activities much more
interesting, but his mother insisted that he do his best in school.
Rose made her way upstairs, stopping first in
the nursery, where Jane played contentedly with a pile of blocks under the
supervision of her baby-sitter, Melanie. There were ink stains on her hands and
face.
"Mrs. Calvert," the young woman
greeted her. She looked nervously at the small child, who had abandoned the
blocks and was toddling towards her mother.
Rose scooped up the toddler, looking at the
scrubbed but still visible blue stains on the little girl’s skin. "Jane,
what have you been into?"
Jane just giggled and hid her face in her
mother’s shoulder. Melanie shifted from foot to foot, looking nervous.
"She found a pen, ma’am," she
explained. "She was just looking at it, so I didn’t think there was any
harm, but she managed to open it and break it somehow. The ink really doesn’t
want to come off."
"Never underestimate the abilities of a
small child." Rose had raised enough small children to know that they were
capable of much more than they appeared. "Has she been ill?"
"No, just dirty. Her clothes will never
be the same." She held up the ink-stained dress that the child had been
wearing.
Rose took it, grimacing. "Well…I suppose
she can still wear it to play in the yard, especially when it’s muddy. No use
in wasting it." Even though there was plenty of money to buy new clothes
now, Rose had lived in poverty long enough to abhor waste.
"I’m sorry about that. I’ll pay for it,
if you want. I should have been watching her more closely."
Rose shook her head. "Don’t worry about
it, Melanie. She needs something to wear that won’t get ruined, anyway."
She paused, setting Jane down. "I suppose we’ll just have to see her
looking like a clown until the ink wears off."
"Try lemon juice. It’s what my mother
uses to lighten freckles. Maybe it will lighten that ink, too."
"It’s worth a try. Jane, what am I going
to do with you?"
"Feed." Jane wrapped her arms
around Rose’s legs.
"Oh, you’re hungry, are you? Well,
supper will be ready soon. Why don’t we go see your daddy?"
"Kay." Jane clung to Rose’s skirt
until she picked her up and placed her on her shoulders.
"I will see you tomorrow, Melanie,"
Rose told the still-nervous baby-sitter. "Don’t worry about the mess.
Little kids will do this sort of thing. Jane is the fourth one I’ve raised, so
I think I’ve seen about everything they can do." She thought for a moment,
then added, "Though I’m sure there’ll be some surprises yet to come."
"I’m sure, Mrs. Calvert. There’s seven
of us in my family, and we still surprise Mama."
Rose laughed. "Then Jane’s behavior is
nothing to surprise you. Don’t worry. She’ll grow out of it eventually."
She walked Melanie to the top of the stairs, still carrying Jane on her
shoulders.
When Melanie had gone downstairs and out the
front door, Rose went back down the hall, stopping at the door to John’s study.
Remembering what Christopher had said, she knocked cautiously, not sure what
was going on.
"John? Can I come in? It’s Rose."
There was silence for a moment, and then John
called out to her. "Come in, Rose."
Rose opened the door and came inside, her
eyes widening at the account books and papers scattered around the usually neat
room. "John, what’s going on?"
John had been perusing two account books,
making notes on a pad of paper. He glanced at the books again, then looked up
at Rose.
"I’m sure you’re aware of what’s been
going on with the stock market."
Rose nodded, sinking into a chair and setting
Jane in her lap. "Of course. I could hardly get a performance out of my
cast today. All they cared about was watching the ticker."
"Things are bad. Really bad."
"I know. The market is plunging."
"And after all this time, when it was a
bull market—a strong bull market—a lot of money is being lost." He looked
at the books again.
Rose got to her feet, going to look at the
books herself. "Exactly how much money did you invest in the stock
market?" she asked, her eyes widening in comprehension. John knew about
business and finance, but the lure of high profits on the stock market had
sucked a lot of people in.
John looked at the books again, taking Jane
from her. "Too much," he replied, absently setting the ink-stained
child in his lap.
"How much is too much?" Rose knew a
fair amount about money, too, but she hadn’t invested nearly as much in the
stock market as some people had. Experience had taught her that being too sure
of anything was a quick way to lose out, so her investments were diversified.
He sighed. "Let’s just say that about
fifty percent of what I have is on paper only—and if things continue as they
are, it won’t be worth much at all, if anything."
"Fifty percent!" Rose stared at
him, her mind going over the implications. "We should be all right,
though—shouldn’t we?"
"I hope so, although all this…" He
gestured to their luxuriant surroundings. "…all this may become too much
to afford."
Rose shook her head. "Even if it comes
to that, we should be all right. We don’t have to live so grandly. Don’t get me
wrong, having so much is nice, but it isn’t necessary."
"That’s just the start of it. Anders’
stock has been dropping steadily—and you know how that will affect production
and profits. I don’t want to have to lay off anyone—but it may come to
that."
"Let’s not worry about that yet. The
market may yet go back up. After all, isn’t some drop in prices normal?"
"Some—but not like this. This is more
like a panic."
Rose nodded. She wasn’t as involved in
business and finance as John was, but she did know some things—and she knew
that the situation was bad.
"How much did you invest?" John
wanted to know.
"Not nearly as much as you—maybe five
percent of my extra money. Everything looked so good, it made me suspicious.
You know how I was raised—all the glitter overlying some serious problems
underneath. I was suspicious of the market, and I guess I was right."
"What else have you invested in?"
"Bonds, foreign currency, some real
estate—and, of course, Dawson Films, which is doing very well, in spite of
anxiety-ridden cast members."
"Other things may suffer, too, you
know."
"I know, but…let’s not dwell on it. We
can’t really do anything about the economy as a whole—I don’t think anyone has
that much power—but we can take care of ourselves. We’ll be all right, whatever
happens. After all, we survived the Titanic and raised children in the slums of
New York City. Whatever happens, we’ll get through it."
Jane began to fuss, sensing her parents’
worry. John put her to his shoulder and rocked her, thinking about what Rose
had said.
"I hope you’re right, Rose. I really
hope you’re right."