Anna Wetherell’s pregnancy

Anna Wetherell’s pregnancy turns a private condition into an urgent pressure on her choices: fearing that Lydia Wells will discover it, Anna resolves to leave Lydia’s household, and later identifies Francis Carver as the father. The pregnancy ends in loss, news that moves Emery Staines to promise Anna half of his hidden fortune.

A condition she must conceal

Anna is no longer uncertain about her condition and knows it will soon become visible. Though she could protest Lydia’s arrangements, flee at night, or make another plan, guilt and self-reproach have left her braced for what may come. She decides that she must leave Lydia’s household as soon as possible, before Lydia guesses her secret, using whatever means are available.

That urgency follows a confrontation in which Lydia rebukes Anna for bringing shame upon her household and dismisses her. Anna then drinks laudanum-laced whisky and falls asleep. The account places this episode beside the pregnancy’s concealment: Anna’s immediate response is withdrawal, while the need to leave Lydia’s home remains unresolved.

Departure and exposure

Anna knows that Hokitika awaits her, but the prospect does not change her determination to quit Lydia’s household before her condition becomes apparent. On arriving aboard the Godspeed, she attracts the attention and laughter of men gathered at the quay, and feels wretched under their regard. At Francis Carver’s direction, she leaves the vessel for lodging at the Gridiron Hotel, offered by its acting proprietor, Edgar Clinch. The move gives her a place to stay, but the evidence records no resolution of the secret that made departure urgent.

Paternity and loss

Anna eventually names Carver as the father. The disclosure gives the pregnancy a specific connection to the harm she has suffered, though the available account does not describe the circumstances of the statement in detail. Emery Staines, having learned of Anna’s assault from Benjamin Löwenthal, rides to the Arahura Valley and arrives at Crosbie Wells’s door in deep distress. He tells Wells that the baby is gone.

After telling the story, Staines declares that he will give Anna half of his fortune, which he says is hidden in the ground, and that he will dig it up. The pregnancy therefore links Anna’s concealed condition and planned departure to a consequence that reaches beyond her: its loss becomes the occasion for Staines to make a concrete promise of shared wealth.