Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор. Страница 42
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.
CHAPTER XXVI
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