Текст книги "Jennie Gerhardt"

Автор книги: Теодор Драйзер

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CHAPTER LIX

This added blow from inconsiderate fortune was quite enough to throw Jennie back into that state of hyper-melancholia from which she had been drawn with difficulty during the few years of comfort and affection which she had enjoyed with Lester in Hyde Park. It was really weeks before she could realise that Vesta was gone. The emaciated figure which she saw for a day or two after the end did not seem like Vesta. Where was the joy and lightness, the quickness of motion, the subtle radiance of health? All gone. Only this pale, lily-hued shell—and silence. Jennie had no tears to shed; only a deep, insistent pain to feel. If only some counsellor of eternal wisdom could have whispered to her that obvious and convincing truth—there are no dead.

Miss Murfree, Dr. Emory, Mrs. Davis, and some others among the neighbours were most sympathetic and considerate. Mrs. Davis sent a telegram to Lester saying that Vesta was dead, but, being absent, there was no response. The house was looked after with scrupulous care by others, for Jennie was incapable of attending to it herself. She walked about looking at things which Vesta had owned or liked—things which Lester or she had given her—sighing over the fact that Vesta would not need or use them any more. She gave instructions that the body should be taken to Chicago and buried in the Cemetery of the Redeemer, for Lester, at the time of Gerhardt’s death, had purchased a small plot of ground there. She also expressed her wish that the minister of the little Lutheran church in Cottage Grove Avenue, where Gerhardt had attended, should be requested to say a few words at the grave. There were the usual preliminary services at the house. The local Methodist minister read a portion of the first epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians, and a body of Vesta’s classmates sang “Nearer My God to Thee.” There were flowers, a white coffin, a world of sympathetic expressions, and then Vesta was taken away. The coffin was properly incased for transportation, put on the train, and finally delivered at the Lutheran cemetery in Chicago.

Jennie moved as one in a dream. She was dazed, almost to the point of insensibility. Five of her neighbourhood friends, at the solicitation of Mrs. Davis, were kind enough to accompany her. At the graveside when the body was finally lowered, she looked at it, one might have thought indifferently, for she was numb from suffering. She returned to Sandwood after it was all over, saying that she would not stay long. She wanted to come back to Chicago, where she could be near Vesta and Gerhardt.

After the funeral Jennie tried to think of her future. She fixed her mind on the need of doing something, even though she did not need to. She thought that she might like to try nursing, and could start at once to obtain the training which was required. She also thought of William. He was unmarried, and perhaps he might be willing to come and live with her. Only she did not know where he was, and Bass was also in ignorance of his whereabouts. She finally concluded that she would try to get work in a store. Her disposition was against idleness. She could not live alone here, and she could not have her neighbours sympathetically worrying over what was to become of her. Miserable as she was, she would be less miserable stopping in a hotel in Chicago, and looking for something to do, or living in a cottage somewhere near the Cemetery of the Redeemer. It also occurred to her that she might adopt a homeless child. There were a number of orphan asylums in the city.

Some three weeks after Vesta’s death Lester returned to Chicago with his wife, and discovered the first letter, the telegram, and an additional note telling him that Vesta was dead. He was truly grieved, for his affection for the girl had been real. He was very sorry for Jennie, and he told his wife that he would have to go out and see her. He was wondering what she would do. She could not live alone. Perhaps he could suggest something which would help her. He took the train to Sandwood, but Jennie had gone to the Hotel Tremont in Chicago. He went there, but Jennie had gone to her daughter’s grave; later he called again and found her in. When the boy presented his card she suffered an upwelling of feeling—a wave that was more intense than that with which she had received him in the olden days, for now her need of him was greater.

Lester, in spite of the glamour of his new affection and the restoration of his wealth, power, and dignities, had had time to think deeply of what he had done. His original feeling of doubt and dissatisfaction with himself had never wholly quieted. It did not ease him any to know that he had left Jennie comfortably fixed, for it was always so plain to him that money was not the point at issue with her. Affection was what she craved. Without it she was like a rudderless boat on an endless sea, and he knew it. She needed him, and he was ashamed to think that his charity had not outweighed his sense of self-preservation and his desire for material advantage. To-day as the elevator carried him up to her room he was really sorry, though he knew now that no act of his could make things right. He had been to blame from the very beginning, first for taking her, then for failing to stick by a bad bargain. Well, it could not be helped now. The best thing he could do was to be fair, to counsel with her, to give her the best of his sympathy and advice.

“Hello, Jennie,” he said familiarly as she opened the door to him in her hotel room, his glance taking in the ravages which death and suffering had wrought. She was thinner, her face quite drawn and colourless, her eyes larger by contrast. “I’m awfully sorry about Vesta,” he said a little awkwardly. “I never dreamed anything like that could happen.”

It was the first word of comfort which had meant anything to her since Vesta died—since Lester had left her, in fact. It touched her that he had come to sympathise; for the moment she could not speak. Tears welled over her eyelids and down upon her cheeks.

“Don’t cry, Jennie,” he said, putting his arm around her and holding her head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’ve been sorry for a good many things that can’t be helped now. I’m intensely sorry for this. Where did you bury her?”

“Beside papa,” she said, sobbing.

“Too bad,” he murmured, and held her in silence. She finally gained control of herself sufficiently to step away from him; then wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, she asked him to sit down.

“I’m so sorry,” he went on, “that this should have happened while I was away. I would have been with you if I had been here. I suppose you won’t want to live out at Sandwood now?”

“I can’t, Lester,” she replied. “I couldn’t stand it.”

“Where are you thinking of going?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet. I didn’t want to be a bother to those people out there. I thought I’d get a little house somewhere and adopt a baby maybe, or get something to do. I don’t like to be alone.”

“That isn’t a bad idea,” he said, “that of adopting a baby. It would be a lot of company for you. You know how to go about getting one?”

“You just ask at one of these asylums, don’t you?”

“I think there’s something more than that,” he replied thoughtfully. “There are some formalities—I don’t know what they are. They try to keep control of the child in some way. You had better consult with Watson and get him to help you. Pick out your baby, and then let him do the rest. I’ll speak to him about it.”

Lester saw that she needed companionship badly. “Where is your brother George?” he asked.

“He’s in Rochester, but he couldn’t come. Bass said he was married,” she added.

“There isn’t any other member of the family you could persuade to come and live with you?”

“I might get William, but I don’t know where he is.”

“Why not try that new section west of Jackson Park,” he suggested, “if you want a house here in Chicago? I see some nice cottages out that way. You needn’t buy. Just rent until you see how well you’re satisfied.”

Jennie thought this good advice because it came from Lester. It was good of him to take this much interest in her affairs. She wasn’t entirely separated from him after all. He cared a little. She asked him how his wife was, whether he had had a pleasant trip, whether he was going to stay in Chicago. All the while he was thinking that he had treated her badly. He went to the window and looked down into Dearborn Street, the world of traffic below holding his attention. The great mass of trucks and vehicles, the counter streams of hurrying pedestrians, seemed like a puzzle. So shadows march in a dream. It was growing dusk, and lights were springing up here and there.

“I want to tell you something, Jennie,” said Lester, finally rousing himself from his fit of abstraction. “I may seem peculiar to you, after all that has happened, but I still care for you—in my way. I’ve thought of you right along since I left. I thought it good business to leave you—the way things were. I thought I liked Letty well enough to marry her. From one point of view it still seems best, but I’m not so much happier. I was just as happy with you as I ever will be. It isn’t myself that’s important in this transaction apparently; the individual doesn’t count much in the situation. I don’t know whether you see what I’m driving at, but all of us are more or less pawns. We’re moved about like chessmen by circumstances over which we have no control.”

“I understand, Lester,” she answered. “I’m not complaining. I know it’s for the best.”

“After all, life is more or less of a farce,” he went on a little bitterly. “It’s a silly show. The best we can do is to hold our personality intact. It doesn’t appear that integrity has much to do with it.”

Jennie did not quite grasp what he was talking about, but she knew it meant that he was not entirely satisfied with himself and was sorry for her.

“Don’t worry over me, Lester,” she consoled. “I’m all right; I’ll get along. It did seem terrible to me for a while—getting used to being alone. I’ll be all right now. I’ll get along.”

“I want you to feel that my attitude hasn’t changed,” he continued eagerly. “I’m interested in what concerns you. Mrs.—Letty understands that. She knows just how I feel. When you get settled I’ll come in and see how you’re fixed. I’ll come around here again in a few days. You understand how I feel, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

He took her hand, turning it sympathetically in his own. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t want you to do that. I’ll do the best I can. You’re still Jennie to me, if you don’t mind. I’m pretty bad, but I’m not all bad.”

“It’s all right, Lester. I wanted you to do as you did. It’s for the best. You probably are happy since—”

“Now, Jennie,” he interrupted; then he pressed affectionately her hand, her arm, her shoulder. “Want to kiss me for old times’ sake?” he smiled.

She put her hands over his shoulders, looked long into his eyes, then kissed him. When their lips met she trembled. Lester also felt unsteady. Jennie saw his agitation, and tried hard to speak.

“You’d better go now,” she said firmly. “It’s getting dark.”

He went away, and yet he knew that he wanted above all things to remain; she was still the one woman in the world for him. And Jennie felt comforted even though the separation still existed in all its finality. She did not endeavour to explain or adjust the moral and ethical entanglements of the situation. She was not, like so many, endeavouring to put the ocean into a tea-cup, or to tie up the shifting universe in a mess of strings called law. Lester still cared for her a little. He cared for Letty too. That was all right. She had hoped once that he might want her only. Since he did not, was his affection worth nothing? She could not think, she could not feel that. And neither could he.

CHAPTER LX

The drift of events for a period of five years carried Lester and Jennie still farther apart; they settled naturally into their respective spheres, without the renewal of the old time relationship which their several meetings at the Tremont at first seemed to foreshadow. Lester was in the thick of social and commercial affairs; he walked in paths to which Jennie’s retiring soul had never aspired. Jennie’s own existence was quiet and uneventful. There was a simple cottage in a very respectable but not showy neighbourhood near Jackson Park, on the South Side, where she lived in retirement with a little foster-child—a chestnut-haired girl taken from the Western Home for the Friendless—as her sole companion. Here she was known as Mrs. J. G. Stover, for she had deemed it best to abandon the name of Kane. Mr. and Mrs. Lester Kane when resident in Chicago were the occupants of a handsome mansion on the Lake Shore Drive, where parties, balls, receptions, dinners were given in rapid and at times almost pyrotechnic succession.

Lester, however, had become in his way a lover of a peaceful and well-entertained existence. He had cut from his list of acquaintances and associates a number of people who had been a little doubtful or overfamiliar or indifferent or talkative during a certain period which to him was a memory merely. He was a director, and in several cases the chairman of a board of directors, in nine of the most important financial and commercial organisations of the West—The United Traction Company of Cincinnati, The Western Crucible Company, The United Carriage Company, The Second National Bank of Chicago, the First National Bank of Cincinnati, and several others of equal importance. He was never a personal factor in the affairs of The United Carriage Company, preferring to be represented by counsel—Mr. Dwight L. Watson, but he took a keen interest in its affairs. He had not seen his brother Robert to speak to him in seven years. He had not seen Imogene, who lived in Chicago, in three. Louise, Amy, their husbands, and some of their closest acquaintances were practically strangers. The firm of Knight, Keatley & O’Brien had nothing whatever to do with his affairs.

The truth was that Lester, in addition to becoming a little phlegmatic, was becoming decidedly critical in his outlook on life. He could not make out what it was all about. In distant ages a queer thing had come to pass. There had started on its way in the form of evolution a minute cellular organism which had apparently reproduced itself by division, had early learned to combine itself with others, to organise itself into bodies, strange forms of fish, animals, and birds, and had finally learned to organise itself into man. Man, on his part, composed as he was of self-organising cells, was pushing himself forward into comfort and different aspects of existence by means of union and organisation with other men. Why? Heaven only knew. Here he was endowed with a peculiar brain and a certain amount of talent, and he had inherited a certain amount of wealth which he now scarcely believed he deserved, only luck had favoured him. But he could not see that any one else might be said to deserve this wealth any more than himself, seeing that his use of it was as conservative and constructive and practical as the next one’s. He might have been born poor, in which case he would have been as well satisfied as the next one—not more so. Why should he complain, why worry, why speculate?—the world was going steadily forward of its own volition, whether he would or no. Truly it was. And was there any need for him to disturb himself about it? There was not. He fancied at times that it might as well never have been started at all. “The one divine, far-off event” of the poet did not appeal to him as having any basis in fact. Mrs. Lester Kane was of very much the same opinion.

Jennie, living on the South Side with her adopted child, Rose Perpetua, was of no fixed conclusion as to the meaning of life. She had not the incisive reasoning capacity of either Mr. or Mrs. Lester Kane. She had seen a great deal, suffered a great deal, and had read some in a desultory way. Her mind had never grasped the nature and character of specialised knowledge. History, physics, chemistry, botany, geology, and sociology were not fixed departments in her brain as they were in Lester’s and Letty’s. Instead there was the feeling that the world moved in some strange, unstable way. Apparently no one knew clearly what it was all about. People were born and died. Some believed that the world had been made six thousand years before; some that it was millions of years old. Was it all blind chance, or was there some guiding intelligence—a God? Almost in spite of herself she felt there must be something—a higher power which produced all the beautiful things—the flowers, the stars, the trees, the grass. Nature was so beautiful! If at times life seemed cruel, yet this beauty still persisted. The thought comforted her; she fed upon it in her hours of secret loneliness.

It has been said that Jennie was naturally of an industrious turn. She liked to be employed, though she thought constantly as she worked. She was of matronly proportions in these days—not disagreeably large, but full-bodied, shapely, and smooth faced, in spite of her cares. Her eyes were grey and appealing. Her hair was still of a rich brown, but there were traces of grey in it. Her neighbours spoke of her as sweet-tempered, kindly, and hospitable. They knew nothing of her history, except that she had formerly resided in Sandwood, and before that in Cleveland. She was very reticent as to her past.

Jennie had fancied, because of her natural aptitude for taking care of sick people, that she might get to be a trained nurse. But she was obliged to abandon that idea, for she found that only young people were wanted. She also thought that some charitable organisation might employ her, but she did not understand the new theory of charity which was then coming into general acceptance and practice—namely, only to help others to help themselves. She believed in giving, and was not inclined to look too closely into the credentials of those who asked for help; consequently her timid inquiry at one relief agency after another met with indifference, if not unqualified rebuke. She finally decided to adopt another child for Rose Perpetua’s sake; she succeeded in securing a boy, four years old, who was known as Henry—Henry Stover. Her support was assured, for her income was paid to her through a trust company. She had no desire for speculation or for the devious ways of trade. The care of flowers, the nature of children, the ordering of a home were more in her province.

One of the interesting things in connection with this separation once it had been firmly established related to Robert and Lester, for these two since the reading of the will a number of years before had never met. Robert had thought of his brother often. He had followed his success, since he had left Jennie, with interest. He read of his marriage to Mrs. Gerald with pleasure; he had always considered her an ideal companion for his brother. He knew by many signs and tokens that his brother, since the unfortunate termination of their father’s attitude and his own peculiar movements to gain control of the Kane Company, did not like him. Still they had never been so far apart mentally—certainly not in commercial judgment. Lester was prosperous now. He could afford to be generous. He could afford to make up. And after all, he had done his best to aid his brother to come to his senses—and with the best intentions. There were mutual interests they could share financially if they were friends. He wondered from time to time if Lester would not be friendly with him.

Time passed, and then once, when he was in Chicago, he made the friends with whom he was driving purposely turn into the North Shore in order to see the splendid mansion which the Kanes occupied. He knew its location from hearsay and description.

When he saw it a touch of the old Kane home atmosphere came back to him. Lester in revising the property after purchase had had a conservatory built on one side not unlike the one at home in Cincinnati. That same night he sat down and wrote Lester asking if he would not like to dine with him at the Union Club. He was only in town for a day or two, and he would like to see him again. There was some feeling, he knew, but there was a proposition he would like to talk to him about. Would he come, say, on Thursday?

On the receipt of this letter Lester frowned and fell into a brown study. He had never really been healed of the wound that his father had given him. He had never been comfortable in his mind since Robert had deserted him so summarily. He realised now that the stakes his brother had been playing for were big. But, after all, he had been his brother, and if he had been in Robert’s place at the time, he would not have done as he had done; at least he hoped not. Now Robert wanted to see him.

He thought once of not answering at all. Then he thought he would write and say no. But a curious desire to see Robert again, to hear what he had to say, to listen to the proposition he had to offer, came over him; he decided to write yes. It could do no harm. He knew it could do no good. They might agree to let bygones be bygones, but the damage had been done. Could a broken bowl be mended and called whole? It might be CALLED whole, but what of it? Was it not broken and mended? He wrote and intimated that he would come.

On the Thursday in question Robert called up from the Auditorium to remind him of the engagement. Lester listened curiously to the sound of his voice. “All right,” he said, “I’ll be with you.” At noon he went downtown, and there, within the exclusive precincts of the Union Club, the two brothers met and looked at each other again. Robert was thinner than when Lester had seen him last, and a little greyer. His eyes were bright and steely, but there were crow’s-feet on either side. His manner was quick, keen, dynamic. Lester was noticeably of another type—solid, brusque, and indifferent. Men spoke of Lester these days as a little hard. Robert’s keen blue eyes did not disturb him in the least—did not affect him in any way. He saw his brother just as he was, for he had the larger philosophic and interpretative insight; but Robert could not place Lester exactly. He could not fathom just what had happened to him in these years. Lester was stouter, not grey, for some reason, but sandy and ruddy, looking like a man who was fairly well satisfied to take life as he found it. Lester looked at his brother with a keen, steady eye. The latter shifted a little, for he was restless. He could see that there was no loss of that mental force and courage which had always been predominant characteristics in Lester’s make-up.

“I thought I’d like to see you again, Lester,” Robert remarked, after they had clasped hands in the customary grip. “It’s been a long time now—nearly eight years, hasn’t it?”

“About that,” replied Lester. “How are things with you?”

“Oh, about the same. You’ve been fairly well, I see.”

“Never sick,” said Lester. “A little cold now and then. I don’t often go to bed with anything. How’s your wife?”

“Oh, Margaret’s fine.”

“And the children?”

“We don’t see much of Ralph and Berenice since they married, but the others are around more or less. I suppose your wife is all right,” he said hesitatingly. It was difficult ground for Robert.

Lester eyed him without a change of expression.

“Yes,” he replied. “She enjoys pretty fair health. She’s quite well at present.”

They drifted mentally for a few moments, while Lester inquired after the business, and Amy, Louise, and Imogene. He admitted frankly that he neither saw nor heard from them nowadays. Robert told him what he could.

“The thing that I was thinking of in connection with you, Lester,” said Robert finally, “is this matter of the Western Crucible Steel Company. You haven’t been sitting there as a director in person I notice, but your attorney, Watson, has been acting for you. Clever man, that. The management isn’t right—we all know that. We need a practical steel man at the head of it, if the thing is ever going to pay properly. I have voted my stock with yours right along because the propositions made by Watson have been right. He agrees with me that things ought to be changed. Now I have a chance to buy seventy shares held by Rossiter’s widow. That with yours and mine would give us control of the company. I would like to have you take them, though it doesn’t make a bit of difference so long as it’s in the family. You can put any one you please in for president, and we’ll make the thing come out right.”

Lester smiled. It was a pleasant proposition. Watson had told him that Robert’s interests were co-operating with him. Lester had long suspected that Robert would like to make up. This was the olive branch—the control of a property worth in the neighbourhood of a million and a half.

“That’s very nice of you,” said Lester solemnly. “It’s a rather liberal thing to do. What makes you want to do it now?”

“Well, to tell you the honest truth, Lester,” replied Robert, “I never did feel right about that will business. I never did feel right about that secretary-treasurership and some other things that have happened. I don’t want to rake up the past—you smile at that—but I can’t help telling you how I feel. I’ve been pretty ambitious in the past. I was pretty ambitious just about the time that father died to get this United Carriage scheme under way, and I was afraid you might not like it. I have thought since that I ought not to have done it, but I did. I suppose you’re not anxious to hear any more about that old affair. This other thing though—”

“Might be handed out as a sort of compensation,” put in Lester quietly.

“Not exactly that, Lester—though it may have something of that in it. I know these things don’t matter very much to you now. I know that the time to do things was years ago—not now. Still I thought sincerely that you might be interested in this proposition. It might lead to other things. Frankly, I thought it might patch up matters between us. We’re brothers after all.”

“Yes,” said Lester, “we’re brothers.”

He was thinking as he said this of the irony of the situation. How much had this sense of brotherhood been worth in the past? Robert had practically forced him into his present relationship, and while Jennie had been really the only one to suffer, he could not help feeling angry. It was true that Robert had not cut him out of his one-fourth of his father’s estate, but certainly he had not helped him to get it, and now Robert was thinking that this offer of his might mend things. It hurt him—Lester—a little. It irritated him. Life was strange.

“I can’t see it, Robert,” he said finally and determinedly. “I can appreciate the motive that prompts you to make this offer. But I can’t see the wisdom of my taking it. Your opportunity is your opportunity. I don’t want it. We can make all the changes you suggest if you take the stock. I’m rich enough anyhow. Bygones are bygones. I’m perfectly willing to talk with you from time to time. That’s all you want. This other thing is simply a sop, with which to plaster an old wound. You want my friendship and so far as I’m concerned you have that. I don’t hold any grudge against you. I won’t.”

Robert looked at him fixedly. He half smiled. He admired Lester in spite of all that he had done to him—in spite of all that Lester was doing to him now.

“I don’t know but what you’re right, Lester,” he admitted finally. “I didn’t make this offer in any petty spirit though. I wanted to patch up this matter of feeling between us. I won’t say anything more about it. You’re not coming down to Cincinnati soon, are you?”

“I don’t expect to,” replied Lester.

“If you do I’d like to have you come and stay with us. Bring your wife. We could talk over old times.”

Lester smiled an enigmatic smile.

“I’ll be glad to,” he said, without emotion. But he remembered that in the days of Jennie it was different. They would never have receded from their position regarding her. “Well,” he thought, “perhaps I can’t blame them. Let it go.”

They talked on about other things. Finally Lester remembered an appointment. “I’ll have to leave you soon,” he said, looking at his watch.

“I ought to go, too,” said Robert. They rose. “Well, anyhow,” he added, as they walked toward the cloakroom, “we won’t be absolute strangers in the future, will we?”

“Certainly not,” said Lester. “I’ll see you from time to time.” They shook hands and separated amicably. There was a sense of unsatisfied obligation and some remorse in Robert’s mind as he saw his brother walking briskly away. Lester was an able man. Why was it that there was so much feeling between them—had been even before Jennie had appeared? Then he remembered his old thoughts about “snaky deeds.” That was what his brother lacked, and that only. He was not crafty; not darkly cruel, hence. “What a world!” he thought.

On his part Lester went away feeling a slight sense of opposition to, but also of sympathy for, his brother. He was not so terribly bad—not different from other men. Why criticise? What would he have done if he had been in Robert’s place? Robert was getting along. So was he. He could see now how it all came about—why he had been made the victim, why his brother had been made the keeper of the great fortune. “It’s the way the world runs,” he thought, “What difference does it make? I have enough to live on. Why not let it go at that?”