Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор - Страница 42

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to deceive her husband as to the purchase of necessities and she had not

as yet indulged in any of the fancies which an enlarged purse permitted.

Fear deterred her. But, after Jennie had been in Chicago for a few days,

she wrote to her mother saying that Lester wanted them to take a new

home. This letter was shown to Gerhardt, who had been merely biding

her return to make a scene. He frowned, but somehow it seemed an

evidence of regularity. If he had not married her why should he want to

help them? Perhaps Jennie was well married after all. Perhaps she really

had been lifted to a high station in life, and was now able to help the

family. Gerhardt almost concluded to forgive her everything once and for

all.

The end of it was that a new house was decided upon, and Jennie returned

to Cleveland to help her mother move. Together they searched the streets

for a nice, quiet neighbourhood, and finally found one. A house of nine

rooms, with a yard, which rented for thirty dollars, was secured and

suitably furnished. There were comfortable fittings for the dining-room

and sitting-room, a handsome parlour set and bedroom sets complete for

each room. The kitchen was supplied with every convenience, and there

was even a bathroom, a luxury the Gerhardts had never enjoyed before.

Altogether the house was attractive, though plain, and Jennie was happy

to know that her family could be comfortable in it.

When the time came for the actual moving Mrs. Gerhardt was fairly

beside herself with joy, for was not this the realization of her dreams? All through the long years of her life she had been waiting, and now it had

come. A new house, new furniture, plenty of room—things finer than she

had ever even imagined—think of it! Her eyes shone as she looked at the

new beds and tables and bureaus and whatnots. "Dear, dear, isn't this nice!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it beautiful!" Jennie smiled and tried to pretend satisfaction without emotion, but there were tears in her eyes. She was so glad for her mother's sake. She could have kissed Lester's feet for his goodness to her family.

The day the furniture was moved in Mrs. Gerhardt, Martha, and Veronica

were on hand to clean and arrange things. At the sight of the large rooms and pretty yard, bare enough in winter, but giving promise of a delightful greenness in spring, and the array of new furniture standing about in

excelsior, the whole family fell into a fever of delight. Such beauty, such spaciousness! George rubbed his feet over the new carpets and Bass

examined the quality of the furniture critically. "Swell," was his comment. Mrs. Gerhardt roved to and fro like a person in a dream. She

could not believe that these bright bedrooms, this beautiful parlour, this handsome dining-room were actually hers.

Gerhardt came last of all. Although he tried hard not to show it, he, too, could scarcely refrain from enthusiastic comment. The sight of an opal-globed chandelier over the dining-room table was the finishing touch.

"Gas, yet!" he said.

He looked grimly around, under his shaggy eyebrows, at the new carpets

under his feet, the long oak extension table covered with a white cloth

and set with new dishes, at the pictures on the walls, the bright, clean

kitchen. He shook his head. "By chops, it's fine!" he said. "It's very nice.

Yes, it's very nice. We want to be careful now not to break anything. It's so easy to scratch things up, and then it's all over."

Yes, even Gerhardt was satisfied.

It would be useless to chronicle the events of the three years that

followed—events and experiences by which the family grew from an

abject condition of want to a state of comparative self-reliance, based, of course, on the obvious prosperity of Jennie and the generosity (through

her) of her distant husband. Lester was seen now and then, a significant

figure, visiting Cleveland, and sometimes coming out to the house where

he occupied with Jennie the two best rooms of the second floor. There

were hurried trips on her part—in answer to telegraph messages—to

Chicago, to St. Louis, to New York. One of his favourite pastimes was to

engage quarters at the great resorts—Hot Springs, Mt. Clemens, Saratoga

— and for a period of a week or two at a stretch enjoy the luxury of living with Jennie as his wife. There were other times when he would pass

through Cleveland only for the privilege of seeing her for a day. All the time he was aware that he was throwing on her the real burden of a rather difficult situation, but he did not see how he could remedy it at this time.

He was not sure as yet that he really wanted to. They were getting along

fairly well.

The attitude of the Gerhardt family toward this condition of affairs was

peculiar. At first, in spite of the irregularity of it, it seemed natural enough. Jennie said she was married. No one had seen her marriage

certificate, but she said so, and she seemed to carry herself with the air of one who holds that relationship. Still, she never went to Cincinnati, where his family lived, and none of his relatives ever came near her. Then, too, his attitude, in spite of the money which had first blinded them, was

peculiar. He really did not carry himself like a married man. He was so

indifferent. There were weeks in which she appeared to receive only

perfunctory notes. There were times when she would only go away for a

few days to meet him. Then there were the long periods in which she

absented herself—the only worthwhile testimony toward a real

relationship, and that, in a way, unnatural.

Bass, who had grown to be a young man of twenty-five, with some

business judgment and a desire to get out in the world, was suspicious.

He had come to have a pretty keen knowledge of life, and intuitively he

felt that things were not right. George, nineteen, who had gained a slight foothold in a wall-paper factory and was looking forward to a career in

that field, was also restless. He felt that something was wrong. Martha,

seventeen, was still in school, as were William and Veronica. Each was

offered an opportunity to study indefinitely; but there was unrest with

life. They knew about Jennie's child. The neighbours were obviously

drawing conclusions for themselves. They had few friends. Gerhardt

himself finally concluded that there was something wrong, but he had let

himself into this situation, and was not in much of a position now to raise an argument. He wanted to ask her at times—proposed to make her do

better if he could— but the worst had already been done. It depended on

the man now, he knew that.

Things were gradually nearing a state where a general upheaval would

have taken place had not life stepped in with one of its fortuitous

solutions. Mrs. Gerhardt's health failed. Although stout and formerly of a fairly active disposition, she had of late years become decidedly

sedentary in her habits and grown weak, which, coupled with a mind

naturally given to worry, and weighed upon as it had been by a number of

serious and disturbing ills, seemed now to culminate in a slow but very

certain case of systemic poisoning. She became decidedly sluggish in her

motions, wearied more quickly at the few tasks left for her to do, and

finally complained to Jennie that it was very hard for her to climb stairs.

"I'm not feeling well," she said. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Jennie now took alarm and proposed to take her to some near-by

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