Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser
CHAPTER XXIX
The reason why Jennie had been called was nothing more than one ofthose infantile seizures the coming and result of which no man canpredict two hours beforehand. Vesta had been seriously taken withmembranous croup only a few hours before, and the development sincehad been so rapid that the poor old Swedish mother was half frightenedto death herself, and hastily despatched a neighbor to say that Vestawas very ill and Mrs. Kane was to come at once. This message,delivered as it was in a very nervous manner by one whose only objectwas to bring her, had induced the soul-racking fear of death in Jennieand caused her to brave the discovery of Lester in the mannerdescribed. Jennie hurried on anxiously, her one thought being to reachher child before the arm of death could interfere and snatch it fromher, her mind weighed upon by a legion of fears. What if it shouldalready be too late when she got there; what if Vesta already shouldbe no more. Instinctively she quickened her pace and as the streetlamps came and receded in the gloom she forgot all the sting ofLester's words, all fear that he might turn her out and leave heralone in a great city with a little child to care for, and rememberedonly the fact that her Vesta was very ill, possibly dying, and thatshe was the direct cause of the child's absence from her; that perhapsbut for the want of her care and attention Vesta might be wellto-night.
"If I can only get there," she kept saying to herself; and then,with that frantic unreason which is the chief characteristic of theinstinct-driven mother: "I might have known that God would punish mefor my unnatural conduct. I might have known--I might haveknown."
When she reached the gate she fairly sped up the little walk andinto the house, where Vesta was lying pale, quiet, and weak, butconsiderably better. Several Swedish neighbors and a middle-agedphysician were in attendance, all of whom looked at her curiously asshe dropped beside the child's bed and spoke to her.
Jennie's mind had been made up. She had sinned, and sinnedgrievously, against her daughter, but now she would make amends so faras possible. Lester was very dear to her, but she would no longerattempt to deceive him in anything, even if he left her--she feltan agonized stab, a pain at the thought--she must still do theone right thing. Vesta must not be an outcast any longer. Her mothermust give her a home. Where Jennie was, there must Vesta be.
Sitting by the bedside in this humble Swedish cottage, Jennierealized the fruitlessness of her deception, the trouble and pain ithad created in her home, the months of suffering it had given her withLester, the agony it had heaped upon her this night--and to whatend? The truth had been discovered anyhow. She sat there andmeditated, not knowing what next was to happen, while Vesta quieteddown, and then went soundly to sleep.
Lester, after recovering from the first heavy import of thisdiscovery, asked himself some perfectly natural questions. "Who wasthe father of the child? How old was it? How did it chance to be inChicago, and who was taking care of it?" He could ask, but he couldnot answer; he knew absolutely nothing.
Curiously, now, as he thought, his first meeting with Jennie atMrs. Bracebridge's came back to him. What was it about her then thathad attracted him? What made him think, after a few hours'observation, that he could seduce her to do his will? What wasit--moral looseness, or weakness, or what? There must have beenart in the sorry affair, the practised art of the cheat, and, indeceiving such a confiding nature as his, she had done even more thanpractise deception--she had been ungrateful.
Now the quality of ingratitude was a very objectionable thing toLester--the last and most offensive trait of a debased nature,and to be able to discover a trace of it in Jennie was verydisturbing. It is true that she had not exhibited it in any other waybefore--quite to the contrary--but nevertheless he sawstrong evidences of it now, and it made him very bitter in his feelingtoward her. How could she be guilty of any such conduct toward him?Had he not picked her up out of nothing, so to speak, and befriendedher?
He moved from his chair in this silent room and began to paceslowly to and fro, the weightiness of this subject exercising to thefull his power of decision. She was guilty of a misdeed which he feltable to condemn. The original concealment was evil; the continueddeception more. Lastly, there was the thought that her love after allhad been divided, part for him, part for the child, a discovery whichno man in his position could contemplate with serenity. He movedirritably as he thought of it, shoved his hands in his pockets andwalked to and fro across the floor.
That a man of Lester's temperament should consider himself wrongedby Jennie merely because she had concealed a child whose existence wasdue to conduct no more irregular than was involved later in theyielding of herself to him was an example of those inexplicableperversions of judgment to which the human mind, in its capacity ofkeeper of the honor of others, seems permanently committed. Lester,aside from his own personal conduct (for men seldom judge with that inthe balance), had faith in the ideal that a woman should revealherself completely to the one man with whom she is in love; and thefact that she had not done so was a grief to him. He had asked heronce tentatively about her past. She begged him not to press her. Thatwas the time she should have spoken of any child. Now--he shookhis head.
His first impulse, after he had thought the thing over, was to walkout and leave her. At the same time he was curious to hear the end ofthis business. He did put on his hat and coat, however, and went out,stopping at the first convenient saloon to get a drink. He took a carand went down to the club, strolling about the different rooms andchatting with several people whom he encountered. He was restless andirritated; and finally, after three hours of meditation, he took a caband returned to his apartment.
The distraught Jennie, sitting by her sleeping child, was at lastmade to realize, by its peaceful breathing that all danger was over.There was nothing more that she could do for Vesta, and now the claimsof the home that she had deserted began to reassert themselves, thepromise to Lester and the need of being loyal to her duties unto thevery end. Lester might possibly be waiting for her. It was justprobable that he wished to hear the remainder of her story beforebreaking with her entirely. Although anguished and frightened by thecertainty, as she deemed it, of his forsaking her, she neverthelessfelt that it was no more than she deserved--a just punishment forall her misdoings.
When Jennie arrived at the flat it was after eleven, and the halllight was already out. She first tried the door, and then inserted herkey. No one stirred, however, and, opening the door, she entered inthe expectation of seeing Lester sternly confronting her. He was notthere, however. The burning gas had merely been an oversight on hispart. She glanced quickly about, but seeing only the empty room, shecame instantly to the other conclusion, that he had forsakenher--and so stood there, a meditative, helpless figure.
"Gone!" she thought.
At this moment his footsteps sounded on the stairs. He came in withhis derby hat pulled low over his broad forehead, close to his sandyeyebrows, and with his overcoat buttoned up closely about his neck. Hetook off the coat without looking at Jennie and hung it on the rack.Then he deliberately took off his hat and hung that up also. When hewas through he turned to where she was watching him with wideeyes.
"I want to know about this thing now from beginning to end," hebegan. "Whose child is that?"
Jennie wavered a moment, as one who might be going to take a leapin the dark, then opened her lips mechanically and confessed:
"It's Senator Brander's."
"Senator Brander!" echoed Lester, the familiar name of the dead butstill famous statesman ringing with shocking and unexpected force inhis ears. "How did you come to know him?"
"We used to do his washing for him," she rejoined simply--"mymother and I."
Lester paused, the baldness of the statements issuing from hersobering even his rancorous mood. "Senator Brander's child," hethought to himself. So that great representative of the interests ofthe common people was the undoer of her--a self-confessedwasherwoman's daughter. A fine tragedy of low life all this was.
"How long ago was this?" he demanded, his fa
"It's been nearly six years now," she returned.
He calculated the time that had elapsed since he had known her, andthen continued:
"How old is the child?"
"She's a little over five."
Lester moved a little. The need for serious thought made his tonemore peremptory but less bitter.
"Where have you been keeping her all this time?"
"She was at home until you went to Cincinnati last spring. I wentdown and brought her then."
"Was she there the times I came to Cleveland?"
"Yes," said Jennie; "but I didn't let her come out anywhere whereyou could see her."
"I thought you said you told your people that you were married," heexclaimed, wondering how this relationship of the child to the familycould have been adjusted.
"I did," she replied, "but I didn't want to tell you about her.They thought all the time I intended to."
"Well, why didn't you?"
"Because I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"I didn't know what was going to become of me when I went with you,Lester. I didn't want to do her any harm if I could help it. I wasashamed, afterward; when you said you didn't like children I wasafraid."
"Afraid I'd leave you?"
"Yes."
He stopped, the simplicity of her answers removing a part of thesuspicion of artful duplicity which had originally weighed upon him.After all, there was not so much of that in it as mere wretchedness ofcircumstance and cowardice of morals. What a family she must have!What queer non-moral natures they must have to have brooked any such acombination of affairs!
"Didn't you know that you'd be found out in the long run?" he atlast demanded. "Surely you might have seen that you couldn't raise herthat way. Why didn't you tell me in the first place? I wouldn't havethought anything of it then."
"I know," she said. "I wanted to protect her."
"Where is she now?" he asked.
Jennie explained.
She stood there, the contradictory aspect of these questions and ofhis attitude puzzling even herself. She did try to explain them aftera time, but all Lester could gain was that she had blundered alongwithout any artifice at all--a condition that was so manifestthat, had he been in any other position than that he was, he mighthave pitied her. As it was, the revelation concerning Brander washanging over him, and he finally returned to that.
"You say your mother used to do washing for him. How did you cometo get in with him?"
Jennie, who until now had borne his questions with unmoving pain,winced at this. He was now encroaching upon the period that was by farthe most distressing memory of her life. What he had just asked seemedto be a demand upon her to make everything clear.
"I was so young, Lester," she pleaded. "I was only eighteen. Ididn't know. I used to go to the hotel where he was stopping and gethis laundry, and at the end of the week I'd take it to him again."
She paused, and as he took a chair, looking as if he expected tohear the whole story, she continued: "We were so poor. He used to giveme money to give to my mother. I didn't know."
She paused again, totally unable to go on, and he, seeing that itwould be impossible for her to explain without prompting, took up hisquestioning again--eliciting by degrees the whole pitiful story.Brander had intended to marry her. He had written to her, but beforehe could come to her he died.
The confession was complete. It was followed by a period of fiveminutes, in which Lester said nothing at all; he put his arm on themantel and stared at the wall, while Jennie waited, not knowing whatwould follow--not wishing to make a single plea. The clock tickedaudibly. Lester's face betrayed no sign of either thought or feeling.He was now quite calm, quite sober, wondering what he should do.Jennie was before him as the criminal at the bar. He, the righteous,the moral, the pure of heart, was in the judgment seat. Now tosentence her--to make up his mind what course of action he shouldpursue.
It was a disagreeable tangle, to be sure, something that a man ofhis position and wealth really ought not to have anything to do with.This child, the actuality of it, put an almost unbearable face uponthe whole matter--and yet he was not quite prepared to speak. Heturned after a time, the silvery tinkle of the French clock on themantel striking three and causing him to become aware of Jennie, pale,uncertain, still standing as she had stood all this while.
"Better go to bed," he said at last, and fell again to ponderingthis difficult problem.
But Jennie continued to stand there wide-eyed, expectant, ready tohear at any moment his decision as to her fate. She waited in vain,however. After a long time of musing he turned and went to theclothes-rack near the door.
"Better go to bed," he said, indifferently. "I'm going out."
She turned instinctively, feeling that even in this crisis therewas some little service that she might render, but he did not see her.He went out, vouchsafing no further speech.
She looked after him, and as his footsteps sounded on the stair shefelt as if she were doomed and hearing her own death-knell. What hadshe done? What would he do now? She stood there a dissonance ofdespair, and when the lower door clicked moved her hand out of theagony of her suppressed hopelessness.
"Gone!" she thought. "Gone!"
In the light of a late dawn she was still sitting there pondering,her state far too urgent for idle tears.