Chapter 38

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXXVIII

Gerhardt, having become an inmate of the Hyde Park home, at once bestirred himself about the labors which he felt instinctively concerned him. He took charge of the furnace and the yard, outraged at the thought that good money should be paid to any outsider when he had nothing to do. The trees, he declared to Jennie, were in a dreadful condition. If Lester would get him a pruning knife and a saw he would attend to them in the spring. In Germany they knew how to care for such things, but these Americans were so shiftless. Then he wanted tools and nails, and in time all the closets and shelves were put in order. He found a Lutheran Church almost two miles away, and declared that it was better than the one in Cleveland. The pastor, of course, was a heaven-sent son of divinity. And nothing would do but that Vesta must go to church with him regularly.

Jennie and Lester settled down into the new order of living with some misgivings; certain difficulties were sure to arise. On the North Side it had been easy for Jennie to shun neighbors and say nothing. Now they were occupying a house of some pretensions; their immediate neighbors would feel it their duty to call, and Jennie would have to play the part of an experienced hostess. She and Lester had talked this situation over. It might as well be understood here, he said, that they were husband and wife. Vesta was to be introduced as Jennie's daughter by her first marriage, her husband, a Mr. Stover (her mother's maiden name), having died immediately after the child's birth. Lester, of course, was the stepfather. This particular neighborhood was so far from the fashionable heart of Chicago that Lester did not expect to run into many of his friends. He explained to Jennie the ordinary formalities of social intercourse, so that when the first visitor called Jennie might be prepared to receive her. Within a fortnight this first visitor arrived in the person of Mrs. Jacob Stendahl, a woman of considerable importance in this particular section. She lived five doors from Jennie--the houses of the neighborhood were all set in spacious lawns--and drove up in her carriage, on her return from her shopping, one afternoon.

"Is Mrs. Kane in?" she asked of Jeannette, the new maid.

"I think so, mam," answered the girl. "Won't you let me have your card?"

The card was given and taken to Jennie, who looked at it curiously.

When Jennie came into the parlor Mrs. Stendahl, a tall dark, inquisitive-looking woman, greeted her most cordially.

"I thought I would take the liberty of intruding on you," she said most winningly. "I am one of your neighbors. I live on the other side of the street, some few doors up. Perhaps you have seen the house--the one with the white stone gate-posts."

"Oh, yes indeed," replied Jennie. "I know it well. Mr. Kane and I were admiring it the first day we came out here."

"I know of your husband, of course, by reputation. My husband is connected with the Wilkes Frog and Switch Company."

Jennie bowed her head. She knew that the latter concern must be something important and profitable from the way in which Mrs. Stendahl spoke of it.

"We have lived here quite a number of years, and I know how you must feel coming as a total stranger to a new section of the city. I hope you will find time to come in and see me some afternoon. I shall be most pleased. My regular reception day is Thursday."

"Indeed I shall," answered Jennie, a little nervously, for the ordeal was a trying one. "I appreciate your goodness in calling. Mr. Kane is very busy as a rule, but when he is at home I am sure he would be most pleased to meet you and your husband."

"You must both come over some evening," replied Mrs. Stendahl. "We lead a very quiet life. My husband is not much for social gatherings. But we enjoy our neighborhood friends."

Jennie smiled her assurances of good-will. She accompanied Mrs. Stendahl to the door, and shook hands with her. "I'm so glad to find you so charming," observed Mrs. Stendahl frankly.

"Oh, thank you," said Jennie flushing a little. "I'm sure I don't deserve so much praise."

"Well, now I will expect you some afternoon. Good-by," and she waved a gracious farewell.

"That wasn't so bad," thought Jennie as she watched Mrs. Stendahl drive away. "She is very nice, I think. I'll tell Lester about her."

Among the other callers were a Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael Burke, a Mrs. Hanson Field, and a Mrs. Timothy Ballinger--all of whom left cards, or stayed to chat a few minutes. Jennie found herself taken quite seriously as a woman of importance, and she did her best to support the dignity of her position. And, indeed, she did exceptionally well. She was most hospitable and gracious. She had a kindly smile and a manner wholly natural; she succeeded in making a most favorable impression. She explained to her guests that she had been living on the North Side until recently, that her husband, Mr. Kane, had long wanted to have a home in Hyde Park, that her father and daughter were living here, and that Lester was the child's stepfather. She said she hoped to repay all these nice attentions and to be a good neighbor.

Lester heard about these calls in the evening, for he did not care to meet these people. Jennie came to enjoy it in a mild way. She liked making new friends, and she was hoping that something definite could be worked out here which would make Lester look upon her as a good wife and an ideal companion. Perhaps, some day, he might really want to marry her.

First impressions are not always permanent, as Jennie was soon to discover. The neighborhood had accepted her perhaps a little too hastily, and now rumors began to fly about. A Mrs. Sommerville, calling on Mrs. Craig, one of Jennie's near neighbors, intimated that she knew who Lester was--"oh, yes, indeed. You know, my dear," she went on, "his reputation is just a little--" she raised her eyebrows and her hand at the same time.

"You don't say!" commented her friend curiously. "He looks like such a staid, conservative person."

"Oh, no doubt, in a way, he is," went on Mrs. Sommerville. "His family is of the very best. There was some young woman he went with--so my husband tells me. I don't know whether this is the one or not, but she was introduced as a Miss Gorwood, or some such name as that, when they were living together as husband and wife on the North Side."

"Tst! Tst! Tst!" clicked Mrs. Craig with her tongue at this astonishing news. "You don't tell me! Come to think of it, it must be the same woman. Her father's name is Gerhardt."

"Gerhardt!" exclaimed Mrs. Sommerville. "Yes, that's the name. It seems to me that there was some earlier scandal in connection with her--at least there was a child. Whether he married her afterward or not, I don't know. Anyhow, I understand his family will not have anything to do with her."

"How very interesting!" exclaimed Mrs. Craig. "And to think he should have married her afterward, if he really did. I'm sure you can't tell with whom you're coming in contact these days, can you?"

"It's so true. Life does get badly mixed at times. She appears to be a charming woman."

"Delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Craig. "Quite naive. I was really taken with her."

"Well, it may be," went on her guest, "that this isn't the same woman after all. I may be mistaken."

"Oh, I hardly think so. Gerhardt! She told me they had been living on the North Side."

"Then I'm sure it's the same person. How curious that you should speak of her!"

"It is, indeed," went on Mrs. Craig, who was speculating as to what her attitude toward Jennie should be in the future.

Other rumors came from other sources. There were people who had seen Jennie and Lester out driving on the North Side, who had been introduced to her as Miss Gerhardt, who knew what the Kane family thought. Of course her present position, the handsome house, the wealth of Lester, the beauty of Vesta--all these things helped to soften the situation. She was apparently too circumspect, too much the good wife and mother, too really nice to be angry with; but she had a past, and that had to be taken into consideration.

An opening bolt of the coming storm fell upon Jennie one day when Vesta, returning from school, suddenly asked: "Mamma, who was my papa?"

"His name was Stover, dear," replied her mother, struck at once by the thought that there might have been some criticism--that some one must have been saying something. "Why do you ask?"

"Where was I born?" continued Vesta, ignoring the last inquiry, and interested in clearing up her own identity.

"In Columbus, Ohio, pet. Why?"

"Anita Ballinger said I didn't have any papa, and that you weren't ever married when you had me. She said I wasn't a really, truly girl at all--just a nobody. She made me so mad I slapped her."

Jennie's face grew rigid. She sat staring straight before her. Mrs. Ballinger had called, and Jennie had thought her peculiarly gracious and helpful in her offer of assistance, and now her little daughter had said this to Vesta. Where did the child hear it?

"You mustn't pay any attention to her, dearie," said Jennie at last. "She doesn't know. Your papa was Mr. Stover, and you were born in Columbus. You mustn't fight other little girls. Of course they say nasty things when they fight--sometimes things they don't really mean. Just let her alone and don't go near her any more. Then she won't say anything to you."

It was a lame explanation, but it satisfied Vesta for the time being. "I'll slap her if she tries to slap me," she persisted.

"You mustn't go near her, pet, do you hear? Then she can't try to slap you," returned her mother. "Just go about your studies, and don't mind her. She can't quarrel with you if you don't let her."

Vesta went away leaving Jennie brooding over her words. The neighbors were talking. Her history was becoming common gossip. How had they found out.

It is one thing to nurse a single thrust, another to have the wound opened from time to time by additional stabs. One day Jennie, having gone to call on Mrs. Hanson Field, who was her immediate neighbor, met a Mrs. Williston Baker, who was there taking tea. Mrs. Baker knew of the Kanes, of Jennie's history on the North Side, and of the attitude of the Kane family. She was a thin, vigorous, intellectual woman, somewhat on the order of Mrs. Bracebridge, and very careful of her social connections. She had always considered Mrs. Field a woman of the same rigid circumspectness of attitude, and when she found Jennie calling there she was outwardly calm but inwardly irritated. "This is Mrs. Kane, Mrs. Baker," said Mrs. Field, introducing her guests with a smiling countenance. Mrs. Baker looked at Jennie ominously.

"Mrs. Lester Kane?" she inquired.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Fields.

"Indeed," she went on freezingly. "I've heard a great deal about Mrs.--" accenting the word "Mrs.--Lester Kane."

She turned to Mrs. Field, ignoring Jennie completely, and started an intimate conversation in which Jennie could have no possible share. Jennie stood helplessly by, unable to formulate a thought which would be suitable to so trying a situation. Mrs. Baker soon announced her departure, although she had intended to stay longer. "I can't remain another minute," she said; "I promised Mrs. Neil that I would stop in to see her to-day. I'm sure I've bored you enough already as it is."

She walked to the door, not troubling to look at Jennie until she was nearly out of the room. Then she looked in her direction, and gave her a frigid nod.

"We meet such curious people now and again," she observed finally to her hostess as she swept away.

Mrs. Field did not feel able to defend Jennie, for she herself was in no notable social position, and was endeavoring, like every other middle-class woman of means, to get along. She did not care to offend Mrs. Williston Baker, who was socially so much more important than Jennie. She came back to where Jennie was sitting, smiling apologetically, but she was a little bit flustered. Jennie was out of countenance, of course. Presently she excused herself and went home. She had been cut deeply by the slight offered her, and she felt that Mrs. Field realized that she had made a mistake in ever taking her up. There would be no additional exchange of visits there--that she knew. The old hopeless feeling came over her that her life was a failure. It couldn't be made right, or, if it could, it wouldn't be. Lester was not inclined to marry her and put her right.

Time went on and matters remained very much as they were. To look at this large house, with its smooth lawn and well grown trees, its vines clambering about the pillars of the veranda and interlacing themselves into a transparent veil of green; to see Gerhardt pottering about the yard, Vesta coming home from school, Lester leaving in the morning in his smart trap--one would have said that here is peace and plenty, no shadow of unhappiness hangs over this charming home.

And as a matter of fact existence with Lester and Jennie did run smoothly. It is true that the neighbors did not call any more, or only a very few of them, and there was no social life to speak of; but the deprivation was hardly noticed; there was so much in the home life to please and interest. Vesta was learning to play the piano, and to play quite well. She had a good ear for music. Jennie was a charming figure in blue, lavender, and olive-green house-gowns as she went about her affairs, sewing, dusting, getting Vesta off to school, and seeing that things generally were put to rights. Gerhardt busied himself about his multitudinous duties, for he was not satisfied unless he had his hands into all the domestic economies of the household. One of his self-imposed tasks was to go about the house after Lester, or the servants, turning out the gas-jets or electric-light bulbs which might accidentally have been left burning. That was a sinful extravagance.

Again, Lester's expensive clothes, which he carelessly threw aside after a few month's use, were a source of woe to the thrifty old German. Moreover, he grieved over splendid shoes discarded because of a few wrinkles in the leather or a slightly run down heel or sole. Gerhardt was for having them repaired, but Lester answered the old man's querulous inquiry as to what was wrong "with them shoes" by saying that they weren't comfortable any more.

"Such extravagance!" Gerhardt complained to Jennie. "Such waste! No good can come of anything like that, It will mean want one of these days."

"He can't help it, papa," Jennie excused. "That's the way he was raised."

"Ha! A fine way to be raised. These Americans, they know nothing of economy. They ought to live in Germany awhile. Then they would know what a dollar can do."

Lester heard something of this through Jennie, but he only smiled. Gerhardt was amusing to him.

Another grievance was Lester's extravagant use of matches. He had the habit of striking a match, holding it while he talked, instead of lighting his cigar, and then throwing it away. Sometimes he would begin to light a cigar two or three minutes before he would actually do so, tossing aside match after match. There was a place out in one corner of the veranda where he liked to sit of a spring or summer evening, smoking and throwing away half-burned matches. Jennie would sit with him, and a vast number of matches would be lit and flung out on the lawn. At one time, while engaged in cutting the grass, Gerhardt found, to his horror, not a handful, but literally boxes of half-burned match-sticks lying unconsumed and decaying under the fallen blades. He was discouraged, to say the least. He gathered up this damning evidence in a newspaper and carried it back into the sitting-room where Jennie was sewing.

"See here, what I find!" he demanded. "Just look at that! That man, he has no more sense of economy than a--than a--" the right term failed him. "He sits and smokes, and this is the way he uses matches. Five cents a box they cost--five cents. How can a man hope to do well and carry on like that, I like to know. Look at them."

Jennie looked. She shook her head. "Lester is extravagant," she said.

Gerhardt carried them to the basement. At least they should be burned in the furnace. He would have used them as lighters for his own pipe, sticking them in the fire to catch a blaze, only old newspapers were better, and he had stacks of these--another evidence of his lord and master's wretched, spendthrift disposition. It was a sad world to work in. Almost everything was against him. Still he fought as valiantly as he could against waste and shameless extravagance. His own economies were rigid. He would wear the same suit of black--cut down from one of Lester's expensive investments of years before--every Sunday for a couple of years. Lester's shoes, by a little stretch of the imagination, could be made to seem to fit, and these he wore. His old ties also--the black ones--they were fine. If he could have cut down Lester's shirts he would have done so; he did make over the underwear, with the friendly aid of the cook's needle. Lester's socks, of course, were just right. There was never any expense for Gerhardt's clothing.

The remaining stock of Lester's discarded clothing--shoes, shirts, collars, suits, ties, and what not--he would store away for weeks and months, and then, in a sad and gloomy frame of mind, he would call in a tailor, or an old-shoe man, or a ragman, and dispose of the lot at the best price he could. He learned that all second-hand clothes men were sharks; that there was no use in putting the least faith in the protests of any rag dealer or old-shoe man. They all lied. They all claimed to be very poor, when as a matter of fact they were actually rolling in wealth. Gerhardt had investigated these stories; he had followed them up; he had seen what they were doing with the things he sold them.

"Scoundrels!" he declared. "They offer me ten cents for a pair of shoes, and then I see them hanging out in front of their places marked two dollars. Such robbery! My God! They could afford to give me a dollar."

Jennie smiled. It was only to her that he complained, for he could expect no sympathy from' Lester. So far as his own meager store of money was concerned, he gave the most of it to his beloved church, where he was considered to be a model of propriety, honesty, faith--in fact, the embodiment of all the virtues.

And so, for all the ill winds that were beginning to blow socially, Jennie was now leading the dream years of her existence. Lester, in spite of the doubts which assailed him at times as to the wisdom of his career, was invariably kind and considerate, and he seemed to enjoy his home life.

"Everything all right?" she would ask when he came in of an evening.

"Sure!" he would answer, and pinch her chin or cheek.

She would follow him in while Jeannette, always alert, would take his coat and hat. In the winter-time they would sit in the library before the big grate-fire. In the spring, summer, or fall Lester preferred to walk out on the porch, one corner of which commanded a sweeping view of the lawn and the distant street, and light his before-dinner cigar. Jennie would sit on the side of his chair and stroke his head. "Your hair is not getting the least bit thin, Lester; aren't you glad?" she would say; or, "Oh, see how your brow is wrinkled now. You mustn't do that. You didn't change your tie, mister, this morning. Why didn't you? I laid one out for you."

"Oh, I forgot," he would answer, or he would cause the wrinkles to disappear, or laughingly predict that he would soon be getting bald if he wasn't so now.

In the drawing-room or library, before Vesta and Gerhardt, she was not less loving, though a little more circumspect. She loved odd puzzles like pigs in clover, the spider's hole, baby billiards, and the like. Lester shared in these simple amusements. He would work by the hour, if necessary, to make a difficult puzzle come right. Jennie was clever at solving these mechanical problems. Sometimes she would have to show him the right method, and then she would be immensely pleased with herself. At other times she would stand behind him watching, her chin on his shoulder, her arms about his neck. He seemed not to mind--indeed, he was happy in the wealth of affection she bestowed. Her cleverness, her gentleness, her tact created an atmosphere which was immensely pleasing; above all her youth and beauty appealed to him. It made him feel young, and if there was one thing Lester objected to, it was the thought of drying up into an aimless old age. "I want to keep young, or die young," was one of his pet remarks; and Jennie came to understand. She was glad that she was so much younger now for his sake.

Another pleasant feature of the home life was Lester's steadily increasing affection for Vesta. The child would sit at the big table in the library in the evening conning her books, while Jennie would sew, and Gerhardt would read his interminable list of German Lutheran papers. It grieved the old man that Vesta should not be allowed to go to a German Lutheran parochial school, but Lester would listen to nothing of the sort. "We'll not have any thick-headed German training in this," he said to Jennie, when she suggested that Gerhardt had complained. "The public schools are good enough for any child. You tell him to let her alone."

There were really some delightful hours among the four. Lester liked to take the little seven-year-old school-girl between his knees and tease her. He liked to invert the so-called facts of life, to propound its paradoxes, and watch how the child's budding mind took them. "What's water?" he would ask; and being informed that it was "what we drink," he would stare and say, "That's so, but what is it? Don't they teach you any better than that?"

"Well, it is what we drink, isn't it?" persisted Vesta.

"The fact that we drink it doesn't explain what it is," he would retort. "You ask your teacher what water is"; and then he would leave her with this irritating problem troubling her young soul.

Food, china, her dress, anything was apt to be brought back to its chemical constituents, and he would leave her to struggle with these dark suggestions of something else back of the superficial appearance of things until she was actually in awe of him. She had a way of showing him how nice she looked before she started to school in the morning, a habit that arose because of his constant criticism of her appearance. He wanted her to look smart, he insisted on a big bow of blue ribbon for her hair, he demanded that her shoes be changed from low quarter to high boots with the changing character of the seasons' and that her clothing be carried out on a color scheme suited to her complexion and disposition.

"That child's light and gay by disposition. Don't put anything somber on her," he once remarked.

Jennie had come to realize that he must be consulted in this, and would say, "Run to your papa and show him how you look."

Vesta would come and turn briskly around before him, saying, "See."

"Yes. You're all right. Go on"; and on she would go.

He grew so proud of her that on Sundays and some week-days when they drove he would always have her in between them. He insisted that Jennie send her to dancing-school, and Gerhardt was beside himself with rage and grief. "Such irreligion!" he complained to Jennie. "Such devil's fol-de-rol. Now she goes to dance. What for? To make a no-good out of her--a creature to be ashamed of?"

"Oh no, papa," replied Jennie. "It isn't as bad as that. This is an awful nice school. Lester says she has to go."

"Lester, Lester; that man! A fine lot he knows about what is good for a child. A card-player, a whisky-drinker!"

"Now, hush, papa; I won't have you talk like that," Jennie would reply warmly. "He's a good man, and you know it."

"Yes, yes, a good man. In some things, maybe. Not in this. No."

He went away groaning. When Lester was near he said nothing, and Vesta could wind him around her finger.

"Oh you," she would say, pulling at his arm or rubbing his grizzled cheek. There was no more fight in Gerhardt when Vesta did this. He lost control of himself--something welled up and choked his throat. "Yes, I know how you do," he would exclaim.

Vesta would tweak his ear.

"Stop now!" he would say. "That is enough."

It was noticeable, however, that she did not have to stop unless she herself willed it. Gerhardt adored the child, and she could do anything with him; he was always her devoted servitor. _

Read next: Chapter 39

Read previous: Chapter 37

Table of content of Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book