CHAPTER x.x.xIV

In this world of ours the activities of animal life seem to be limited to a plane or circle, as if that were an inherent necessity to the creatures of a planet which is perforce compelled to swing about the sun. A fish, for instance, may not pa.s.s out of the circle of the seas without courting annihilation; a bird may not enter the domain of the fishes without paying for it dearly. From the parasites of the flowers to the monsters of the jungle and the deep we see clearly the circ.u.mscribed nature of their movements--the emphatic manner in which life has limited them to a sphere; and we are content to note the ludicrous and invariably fatal results which attend any effort on their part to depart from their environment.

In the case of man, however, the operation of this theory of limitations has not as yet been so clearly observed. The laws governing our social life are not so clearly understood as to permit of a clear generalization. Still, the opinions, pleas, and judgments of society serve as boundaries which are none the less real for being intangible. When men or women err--that is, pa.s.s out from the sphere in which they are accustomed to move--it is not as if the bird had intruded itself into the water, or the wild animal into the haunts of man. Annihilation is not the immediate result. People may do no more than elevate their eyebrows in astonishment, laugh sarcastically, lift up their hands in protest. And yet so well defined is the sphere of social activity that he who departs from it is doomed. Born and bred in this environment, the individual is practically unfitted for any other state. He is like a bird accustomed to a certain density of atmosphere, and which cannot live comfortably at either higher or lower level.

Lester sat down in his easy-chair by the window after his brother had gone and gazed ruminatively out over the flourishing city. Yonder was spread out before him life with its concomitant phases of energy, hope, prosperity, and pleasure, and here he was suddenly struck by a wind of misfortune and blown aside for the time being--his prospects and purposes dissipated. Could he continue as cheerily in the paths he had hitherto pursued? Would not his relations with Jennie be necessarily affected by this sudden tide of opposition? Was not his own home now a thing of the past so far as his old easy-going relationship was concerned? All the atmosphere of unstained affection would be gone out of it now. That hearty look of approval which used to dwell in his father"s eye--would it be there any longer?

Robert, his relations with the manufactory, everything that was a part of his old life, had been affected by this sudden intrusion of Louise.

"It"s unfortunate," was all that he thought to himself, and therewith turned from what he considered senseless brooding to the consideration of what, if anything, was to be done.

"I"m thinking I"d take a run up to Mt. Clemens to-morrow, or Thursday anyhow, if I feel strong enough," he said to Jennie after he had returned. "I"m not feeling as well as I might. A few days will do me good." He wanted to get off by himself and think. Jennie packed his bag for him at the given time, and he departed, but he was in a sullen, meditative mood.

During the week that followed he had ample time to think it all over, the result of his cogitations being that there was no need of making a decisive move at present. A few weeks more, one way or the other, could not make any practical difference. Neither Robert nor any other member of the family was at all likely to seek another conference with him. His business relations would necessarily go on as usual, since they were coupled with the welfare of the manufactory; certainly no attempt to coerce him would be attempted. But the consciousness that he was at hopeless variance with his family weighed upon him. "Bad business," he meditated--"bad business." But he did not change.

For the period of a whole year this unsatisfactory state of affairs continued. Lester did not go home for six months; then an important business conference demanding his presence, he appeared and carried it off quite as though nothing important had happened. His mother kissed him affectionately, if a little sadly; his father gave him his customary greeting, a hearty handshake; Robert, Louise, Amy, Imogene, concertedly, though without any verbal understanding, agreed to ignore the one real issue. But the feeling of estrangement was there, and it persisted. Hereafter his visits to Cincinnati were as few and far between as he could possibly make them.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

In the meantime Jennie had been going through a moral crisis of her own. For the first time in her life, aside from the family att.i.tude, which had afflicted her greatly, she realized what the world thought of her. She was bad--she knew that. She had yielded on two occasions to the force of circ.u.mstances which might have been fought out differently. If only she had had more courage! If she did not always have this haunting sense of fear! If she could only make up her mind to do the right thing! Lester would never marry her. Why should he? She loved him, but she could leave him, and it would be better for him. Probably her father would live with her if she went back to Cleveland. He would honor her for at last taking a decent stand. Yet the thought of leaving Lester was a terrible one to her--he had been so good. As for her father, she was not sure whether he would receive her or not.

After the tragic visit of Louise she began to think of saving a little money, laying it aside as best she could from her allowance.

Lester was generous and she had been able to send home regularly fifteen dollars a week to maintain the family--as much as they had lived on before, without any help from the outside. She spent twenty dollars to maintain the table, for Lester required the best of everything--fruits, meats, desserts, liquors, and what not. The rent was fifty-five dollars, with clothes and extras a varying sum.

Lester gave her fifty dollars a week, but somehow it had all gone. She thought how she might economize but this seemed wrong.

Better go without taking anything, if she were going, was the thought that came to her. It was the only decent thing to do.

She thought over this week after week, after the advent of Louise, trying to nerve herself to the point where she could speak or act.

Lester was consistently generous and kind, but she felt at times that he himself might wish it. He was thoughtful, abstracted. Since the scene with Louise it seemed to her that he had been a little different. If she could only say to him that she was not satisfied with the way she was living, and then leave. But he himself had plainly indicated after his discovery of Vesta that her feelings on that score could not matter so very much to him, since he thought the presence of the child would definitely interfere with his ever marrying her. It was her presence he wanted on another basis. And he was so forceful, she could not argue with him very well. She decided if she went it would be best to write a letter and tell him why. Then maybe when he knew how she felt he would forgive her and think nothing more about it.

The condition of the Gerhardt family was not improving. Since Jennie had left Martha had married. After several years of teaching in the public schools of Cleveland she had met a young architect, and they were united after a short engagement. Martha had been always a little ashamed of her family, and now, when this new life dawned, she was anxious to keep the connection as slight as possible. She barely notified the members of the family of the approaching marriage--Jennie not at all--and to the actual ceremony she invited only Ba.s.s and George. Gerhardt, Veronica, and William resented the slight. Gerhardt ventured upon no comment. He had had too many rebuffs. But Veronica was angry. She hoped that life would give her an opportunity to pay her sister off. William, of course, did not mind particularly. He was interested in the possibilities of becoming an electrical engineer, a career which one of his school-teachers had pointed out to him as being attractive and promising.

Jennie heard of Martha"s marriage after it was all over, a note from Veronica giving her the main details. She was glad from one point of view, but realized that her brothers and sisters were drifting away from her.

A little while after Martha"s marriage Veronica and William went to reside with George, a break which was brought about by the att.i.tude of Gerhardt himself. Ever since his wife"s death and the departure of the other children he had been subject to moods of profound gloom, from which he was not easily aroused. Life, it seemed, was drawing to a close for him, although he was only sixty-five years of age. The earthly ambitions he had once cherished were gone forever. He saw Sebastian, Martha, and George out in the world practically ignoring him, contributing nothing at all to a home which should never have taken a dollar from Jennie. Veronica and William were restless. They objected to leaving school and going to work, apparently preferring to live on money which Gerhardt had long since concluded was not being come by honestly. He was now pretty well satisfied as to the true relations of Jennie and Lester. At first he had believed them to be married, but the way Lester had neglected Jennie for long periods, the humbleness with which she ran at his beck and call, her fear of telling him about Vesta--somehow it all pointed to the same thing. She had not been married at home. Gerhardt had never had sight of her marriage certificate. Since she was away she might have been married, but he did not believe it.

The real trouble was that Gerhardt had grown intensely morose and crotchety, and it was becoming impossible for young people to live with him. Veronica and William felt it. They resented the way in which he took charge of the expenditures after Martha left. He accused them of spending too much on clothes and amus.e.m.e.nts, he insisted that a smaller house should be taken, and he regularly sequestered a part of the money which Jennie sent, for what purpose they could hardly guess.

As a matter of fact, Gerhardt was saving as much as possible in order to repay Jennie eventually. He thought it was sinful to go on in this way, and this was his one method, out side of his meager earnings, to redeem himself. If his other children had acted rightly by him he felt that he would not now be left in his old age the recipient of charity from one, who, despite her other good qualities, was certainly not leading a righteous life. So they quarreled.

It ended one winter month when George agreed to receive his complaining brother and sister on condition that they should get something to do. Gerhardt was nonplussed for a moment, but invited them to take the furniture and go their way. His generosity shamed them for the moment; they even tentatively invited him to come and live with them, but this he would not do. He would ask the foreman of the mill he watched for the privilege of sleeping in some out-of-the-way garret. He was always liked and trusted. And this would save him a little money.

So in a fit of pique he did this, and there was seen the spectacle of an old man watching through a dreary season of nights, in a lonely trafficless neighborhood while the city pursued its gaiety elsewhere.

He had a wee small corner in the topmost loft of a warehouse away from the tear and grind of the factory proper. Here Gerhardt slept by day.

In the afternoon he would take a little walk, strolling toward the business center, or out along the banks of the Cuyahoga, or the lake.

As a rule his hands were below his back, his brow bent in meditation.

He would even talk to himself a little--an occasional "By chops!"

or "So it is" being indicative of his dreary mood. At dusk he would return, taking his stand at the lonely gate which was his post of duty. His meals he secured at a nearby workingmen"s boarding-house, such as he felt he must have.

The nature of the old German"s reflections at this time were of a peculiarly subtle and somber character. What was this thing--life? What did it all come to after the struggle, and the worry, and the grieving? Where does it all go to? People die; you hear nothing more from them. His wife, now, she had gone. Where had her spirit taken its flight?

Yet he continued to hold some strongly dogmatic convictions. He believed there was a h.e.l.l, and that people who sinned would go there.

How about Mrs. Gerhardt? How about Jennie? He believed that both had sinned woefully. He believed that the just would be rewarded in heaven. But who were the just? Mrs. Gerhardt had not had a bad heart.

Jennie was the soul of generosity. Take his son Sebastian. Sebastian was a good boy, but he was cold, and certainly indifferent to his father. Take Martha--she was ambitious, but obviously selfish.

Somehow the children, outside of Jennie, seemed self-centered. Ba.s.s walked off when he got married, and did nothing more for anybody.

Martha insisted that she needed all she made to live on. George had contributed for a little while, but had finally refused to help out.

Veronica and William had been content to live on Jennie"s money so long as he would allow it, and yet they knew it was not right. His very existence, was it not a commentary on the selfishness of his children? And he was getting so old. He shook his head. Mystery of mysteries. Life was truly strange, and dark, and uncertain. Still he did not want to go and live with any of his children. Actually they were not worthy of him--none but Jennie, and she was not good. So he grieved.

This woeful condition of affairs was not made known to Jennie for some time. She had been sending her letters to Martha, but, on her leaving, Jennie had been writing directly to Gerhardt. After Veronica"s departure Gerhardt wrote to Jennie saying that there was no need of sending any more money. Veronica and William were going to live with George. He himself had a good place in a factory, and would live there a little while. He returned her a moderate sum that he had saved--one hundred and fifteen dollars--with the word that he would not need it.

Jennie did not understand, but as the others did not write, she was not sure but what it might be all right--her father was so determined. But by degrees, however, a sense of what it really must mean overtook her--a sense of something wrong, and she worried, hesitating between leaving Lester and going to see about her father, whether she left him or not. Would he come with her? Not here certainly. If she were married, yes, possibly. If she were alone--probably. Yet if she did not get some work which paid well they would have a difficult time. It was the same old problem. What could she do? Nevertheless, she decided to act. If she could get five or six dollars a week they could live. This hundred and fifteen dollars which Gerhardt had saved would tide them over the worst difficulties perhaps.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

The trouble with Jennie"s plan was that it did not definitely take into consideration Lester"s att.i.tude. He did care for her in an elemental way, but he was hedged about by the ideas of the conventional world in which he had been reared. To say that he loved her well enough to take her for better or worse--to legalize her anomalous position and to face the world bravely with the fact that he had chosen a wife who suited him--was perhaps going a little too far, but he did really care for her, and he was not in a mood, at this particular time, to contemplate parting with her for good.

Lester was getting along to that time of life when his ideas of womanhood were fixed and not subject to change. Thus far, on his own plane and within the circle of his own a.s.sociates, he had met no one who appealed to him as did Jennie. She was gentle, intelligent, gracious, a handmaiden to his every need; and he had taught her the little customs of polite society, until she was as agreeable a companion as he cared to have. He was comfortable, he was satisfied--why seek further?

But Jennie"s restlessness increased day by day. She tried writing out her views, and started a half dozen letters before she finally worded one which seemed, partially at least, to express her feelings.

It was a long letter for her, and it ran as follows:

"Lester dear, When you get this I won"t be here, and I want you not to think harshly of me until you have read it all. I am taking Vesta and leaving, and I think it is really better that I should.

Lester, I ought to do it. You know when you met me we were very poor, and my condition was such that I didn"t think any good man would ever want me. When you came along and told me you loved me I was hardly able to think just what I ought to do. You made me love you, Lester, in spite of myself.

"You know I told you that I oughtn"t to do anything wrong any more and that I wasn"t good, but somehow when you were near me I couldn"t think just right, and I didn"t see just how I was to get away from you. Papa was sick at home that time, and there was hardly anything in the house to eat. We were all doing so poorly. My brother George didn"t have good shoes, and mamma was so worried. I have often thought, Lester, if mamma had not been compelled to worry so much she might be alive to-day. I thought if you liked me and I really liked you--I love you, Lester--maybe it wouldn"t make so much difference about me. You know you told me right away you would like to help my family, and I felt that maybe that would be the right thing to do. We were so terribly poor.

"Lester, dear, I am ashamed to leave you this way; it seems so mean, but if you knew how I have been feeling these days you would forgive me. Oh, I love you, Lester, I do, I do. But for months past--ever since your sister came--I felt that I was doing wrong, and that I oughtn"t to go on doing it, for I know how terribly wrong it is. It was wrong for me ever to have anything to do with Senator Brander, but I was such a girl then--I hardly knew what I was doing. It was wrong of me not to tell you about Vesta when I first met you, though I thought I was doing right when I did it. It was terribly wrong of me to keep her here all that time concealed, Lester, but I was afraid of you then--afraid of what you would say and do. When your sister Louise came it all came over me somehow, clearly, and I have never been able to think right about it since. It can"t be right, Lester, but I don"t blame you. I blame myself.

"I don"t ask you to marry me, Lester. I know how you feel about me and how you feel about your family, and I don"t think it would be right. They would never want you to do it, and it isn"t right that I should ask you. At the same time I know I oughtn"t to go on living this way. Vesta is getting along where she understands everything. She thinks you are her really truly uncle. I have thought of it all so much. I have thought a number of times that I would try to talk to you about it, but you frighten me when you get serious, and I don"t seem to be able to say what I want to. So I thought if I could just write you this and then go you would understand. You do, Lester, don"t you?

You won"t be angry with me? I know it"s for the best for you and for me. I ought to do it. Please forgive me, Lester, please; and don"t think of me any more. I will get along. But I love you--oh yes, I do--and I will never be grateful enough for all you have done for me. I wish you all the luck that can come to you. Please forgive me, Lester. I love you, yes, I do. I love you.

"JENNIE.

"P. S. I expect to go to Cleveland with papa. He needs me. He is all alone. But don"t come for me, Lester. It"s best that you shouldn"t."

She put this in an envelope, sealed it, and, having hidden it in her bosom, for the time being, awaited the hour when she could conveniently take her departure.

It was several days before she could bring herself to the actual execution of the plan, but one afternoon, Lester, having telephoned that he would not be home for a day or two, she packed some necessary garments for herself and Vesta in several trunks, and sent for an expressman. She thought of telegraphing her father that she was coming; but, seeing he had no home, she thought it would be just as well to go and find him. George and Veronica had not taken all the furniture. The major portion of it was in storage--so Gerhard t had written. She might take that and furnish a little home or flat.

She was ready for the end, waiting for the expressman, when the door opened and in walked Lester.