Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор. Страница 84

musician in her way, having a keen sense of the delicate and refined in

musical composition. She had a natural sense of harmony and a love for

those songs and instrumental compositions which reflect sentimental and

passionate moods, and she could sing and play quite well. Her voice was,

of course, quite untrained—she was only fourteen—but it was pleasant to

listen to. She was beginning to show the combined traits of her mother

and father—Jennie's gentle, speculative turn of mind, combined with

Brander's vivacity of spirit and innate executive capacity. She could talk to her mother in a sensible way about things, nature, books, dress, love, and from her developing tendencies Jennie caught keen glimpses of the

new worlds which Vesta was to explore. The nature of modern school life,

its consideration of various divisions of knowledge, music, science, all

came to Jennie watching her daughter take up new themes. Vesta was

evidently going to be a woman of considerable ability—not irritably

aggressive, but self-constructive. She would be able to take care of

herself. All this pleased Jennie and gave her great hopes for Vesta's future.

The cottage which was finally secured at Sandwood was only a storey

and a half in height, but it was raised upon red brick piers between which were set green lattices and about which ran a veranda. The house was

long and narrow, its full length—some five rooms in a row—facing the

lake. There was a dining-room with windows opening even with the floor,

a large library with built-in shelves for books, and a parlour whose three large windows afforded air and sunshine at all times. The plot of ground

in which this cottage stood was one hundred feet square and ornamented

with a few trees. The former owner had laid out flower-beds, and

arranged green hardwood tubs for the reception of various hardy plants

and vines. The house was painted white, with green shutters and green

shingles.

It had been Lester's idea, since this thing must be, that Jennie might keep the house in Hyde Park just as it was, but she did not want to do that. She could not think of living there alone. The place was too full of memories.

At first, she did not think she would take anything much with her, but she finally saw that it was advisable to do as Lester suggested—to fit out the new place with a selection of silverware, hangings, and furniture from the Hyde Park house.

"You have no idea what you will or may want," he said. "Take everything.

I certainly don't want any of it."

A lease of the cottage was taken for two years, together with an option for an additional five years, including the privilege of purchase. So long as he was letting her go, Lester wanted to be generous. He could not think of

her as wanting for anything, and he did not propose that she should. His

one troublesome thought was, what explanation was to be made to Vesta.

He liked her very much and wanted her life kept free of complications.

"Why not send her off to a boarding-school until spring?" he suggested once; but owing to the lateness of the season this was abandoned as

inadvisable. Later they agreed that business affairs made it necessary for him to travel and for Jennie to move. Later Vesta could be told that Jennie had left him for any reason she chose to give. It was a trying situation, all the more bitter to Jennie because she realised that in spite of the wisdom of it indifference to her was involved. He really did not care ENOUGH,

as much as he cared.

The relationship of man and woman which we study so passionately in

the hope of finding heaven knows what key to the mystery of existence

holds no more difficult or trying situation than this of mutual

compatibility broken or disrupted by untoward conditions which in

themselves have so little to do with the real force and beauty of the

relationship itself. These days of final dissolution in which this

household, so charmingly arranged, the scene of so many pleasant

activities, was literally going to pieces was a period of great trial to both Jennie and Lester. On her part it was one of intense suffering, for she was of that stable nature that rejoices to fix itself in a serviceable and

harmonious relationship, and then stay so. For her life was made up of

those mystic chords of sympathy and memory which bind up the transient

elements of nature into a harmonious and enduring scene. One of those

chords—this home was her home, united and made beautiful by her

affection and consideration for each person and every object. Now the

time had come when it must cease.

If she had ever had anything before in her life which had been like this it might have been easier to part with it now, though, as she had proved,

Jennie's affections were not based in any way upon material

considerations. Her love of life and of personality were free from the taint of selfishness. She went about among these various rooms selecting this

rug, that set of furniture, this and that ornament, wishing all the time with all her heart and soul that it need not be. Just to think, in a little while Lester would not come any more of an evening! She would not need to

get up first of a morning and see that coffee was made for her lord, that the table in the dining-room looked just so. It had been a habit of hers to arrange a bouquet for the table out of the richest blooming flowers of the conservatory, and she had always felt in doing it that it was particularly for him. Now it would not be necessary any more—not for him. When

one is accustomed to wait for the sound of a certain carriage-wheel of an evening grating upon your carriage drive, when one is used to listen at

eleven, twelve, and one, waking naturally and joyfully to the echo of a

certain step on the stair, the separation, the ending of these things, is keen with pain. These were the thoughts that were running through Jennie's

brain hour after hour and day after day.

Lester on his part was suffering in another fashion. His was not the

sorrow of lacerated affection, of discarded and despised love, but of that painful sense of unfairness which comes to one who knows that he is

making a sacrifice of the virtues—kindness, loyalty, affection—to policy.

Policy was dictating a very splendid course of action from one point of

view. Free of Jennie, providing for her admirably, he was free to go his

way, taking to himself the mass of affairs which come naturally with great wealth. He could not help thinking of the thousand and one little things

which Jennie had been accustomed to do for him, the hundred and one

comfortable and pleasant and delightful things she meant to him. The

virtues which she possessed were quite dear to his mind. He had gone

over them time and again. Now he was compelled to go over them finally,

to see that she was suffering without making a sign. Her manner and

attitude toward him in these last days were quite the same as they had

always been—no more, no less. She was not indulging in private

hysterics, as another woman might have done; she was not pretending a

fortitude in suffering she did not feel, showing him one face while

wishing him to see another behind it. She was calm, gentle, considerate—

thoughtful of him—where he would go and what he would do, without

irritating him by her inquiries. He was struck quite favourably by her

ability to take a large situation largely, and he admired her. There was

something to this woman, let the world think what it might. It was a

shame that her life was passed under such a troubled star. Still a great