Jennie Gerhardt - Theodore Dreiser (recommended reading TXT) 📗

"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.

During this period the dissatisfaction of the Kane family with Lester's irregular habit of life grew steadily stronger. That it could not help but become an open scandal, in the course of time, was sufficiently obvious to them. Rumors were already going about. People seemed to understand in a wise way, though nothing was ever said directly. Kane senior could scarcely imagine what possessed his son to fly in the face of conventions in this manner. If the woman had been some one of distinction—some sorceress of the stage, or of the world of art, or letters, his action would have been explicable if not commendable, but with this creature of very ordinary capabilities, as Louise had described her, this putty-faced nobody—he could not possibly understand it.

Lester was his son, his favorite son; it was too bad that he had not settled down in the ordinary way. Look at the women in Cincinnati who knew him and liked him. Take Letty Pace, for instance. Why in the name of common sense had he not married her? She was good looking, sympathetic, talented. The old man grieved bitterly, and then, by degrees, he began to harden. It seemed a shame that Lester should treat him so. It wasn't natural, or justifiable, or decent. Archibald Kane brooded over it until he felt that some change ought to be enforced, but just what it should be he could not say. Lester was his own boss, and he would resent any criticism of his actions. Apparently, nothing could be done.

Certain changes helped along an approaching denouement. Louise married not many months after her very disturbing visit to Chicago, and then the home property was fairly empty except for visiting grandchildren. Lester did not attend the wedding, though he was invited. For another thing, Mrs. Kane died, making a readjustment of the family will necessary. Lester came home on this occasion, grieved to think he had lately seen so little of his mother—that he had caused her so much pain—but he had no explanation to make. His father thought at the time of talking to him, but put it off because of his obvious gloom. He went back to Chicago, and there were more months of silence.

After Mrs. Kane's death and Louise's marriage, the father went to live with Robert, for his three grandchildren afforded him his greatest pleasure in his old age. The business, except for the final adjustment which would come after his death, was in Robert's hands. The latter was consistently agreeable to his sisters and their husbands and to his father, in view of the eventual control he hoped to obtain. He was not a sycophant in any sense of the word, but a shrewd, cold business man, far shrewder than his brother gave him credit for. He was already richer than any two of the other children put together, but he chose to keep his counsel and to pretend modesty of fortune. He realized the danger of envy, and preferred a Spartan form of existence, putting all the emphasis on inconspicuous but very ready and very hard cash. While Lester was drifting Robert was working—working all the time.

Robert's scheme for eliminating his brother from participation in the control of the business was really not very essential, for his father, after long brooding over the details of the Chicago situation, had come to the definite conclusion that any large share of his property ought not to go to Lester. Obviously, Lester was not so strong a man as he had thought him to be. Of the two brothers, Lester might be the bigger intellectually or sympathetically—artistically and socially there was no comparison—but Robert got commercial results in a silent, effective way. If Lester was not going to pull himself together at this stage of the game, when would he? Better leave his property to those who would take care of it. Archibald Kane thought seriously of having his lawyer revise his will in such a way that, unless Lester should reform, he would be cut off with only a nominal income. But he decided to give Lester one more chance—to make a plea, in fact, that he should abandon his false way of living, and put himself on a sound basis before the world. It wasn't too late. He really had a great future. Would he deliberately choose to throw it away? Old Archibald wrote Lester that he would like to have a talk with him at his convenience, and within the lapse of thirty-six hours Lester was in Cincinnati.

"I thought I'd have one more talk with you, Lester, on a subject that's rather difficult for me to bring up," began the elder Kane. "You know what I'm referring to?"

"Yes, I know," replied Lester, calmly.

"I used to think, when I was much younger that my son's matrimonial ventures would never concern me, but I changed my views on that score when I got a little farther along. I began to see through my business connections how much the right sort of a marriage helps a man, and then I got rather anxious that my boys should marry well. I used to worry about you, Lester, and I'm worrying yet. This recent connection you've made has caused me no end of trouble. It worried your mother up to the very last. It was her one great sorrow. Don't you think you have gone far enough with it? The scandal has reached down here. What it is in Chicago I don't know, but it can't be a secret. That can't help the house in business there. It certainly can't help you. The whole thing has gone on so long that you have injured your prospects all around, and yet you continue. Why do you?"

"I suppose because I love her," Lester replied.

"You can't be serious in that," said his father. "If you had loved her,