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Jennie Gerhardt

<h3 align="center">CHAPTER LIX</h3> This added blow from inconsiderate fortune was quite enough to throw Jennie back into that state of hyper-melancholia from which she had been drawn with difficulty during the few years of comfort and affection which she had enjoyed with Lester in Hyde Park. It was really weeks before she could realize that Vesta was gone. The emaciated figure which she saw for a day or two after the end did not seem like Vesta. Where was the joy and lightness, the quickness of motion, the subtle radiance of health? All gone. Only this pale, lily-hued shell—and silence. Jennie had no tears to shed; only a deep, insistent pain to feel. If only some counselor of eternal wisdom could have whispered to her that obvious and convincing truth—there are no dead. Miss Murfree, Dr. Emory, Mrs. Davis, and some others among the neighbors were most sympathetic and considerate. Mrs. Davis sent a telegram to Lester saying that Vesta was dead, but, being absent, there was no response. The house was looked after with scrupulous care by others, for Jennie was incapable of attending to it herself. She walked about looking at things which Vesta had owned or liked—things which Lester or she had given her—sighing over the fact that Vesta would not need or use them any more. She gave instructions that the body should be taken to Chicago and buried in the Cemetery of the Redeemer, for Lester, at the time of Gerhardt's death, had purchased a small plot of ground there. She also expressed her wish that the minister of the little Lutheran church in Cottage Grove Avenue, where Gerhardt had attended, should be requested to say a few words at the grave. There were the usual preliminary services at the house. The local Methodist minister read a portion of the first epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians, and a body of Vesta's classmates sang "Nearer My God to Thee." There were flowers, a white coffin, a world of sympathetic expressions, and then Vesta was taken away. The coffin was properly incased for transportation, put on the train, and finally delivered at the Lutheran cemetery in Chicago. Jennie moved as one in a dream. She was dazed, almost to the point of insensibility. Five of her neighborhood friends, at the solicitation of Mrs. Davis, were kind enough to accompany her. At the grave-side when the body was finally lowered she looked at it, one might have thought indifferently, for she was numb from suffering. She returned to Sandwood after it was all over, saying that she would not stay long. She wanted to come back to Chicago, where she could be near Vesta and Gerhardt. After the funeral Jennie tried to think of her future. She fixed her mind on the need of doing something, even though she did not need to. She thought that she might like to try nursing, and could start at once to obtain the training which was required. She also thought of William. He was unmarried, and perhaps he might be willing to come and live with her. Only she did not know where he was, and Bass was also in ignorance of his whereabouts. She finally concluded that she would try to get work in a store. Her disposition was against idleness. She could not live alone here, and she could not have her neighbors sympathetically worrying over what was to become of her. Miserable as she was, she would be less miserable stopping in a hotel in Chicago, and looking for something to do, or living in a cottage somewhere near the Cemetery of the Redeemer. It also occurred to her that she might adopt a homeless child. There were a number of orphan asylums in the city. Some three weeks after Vesta's death Lester returned to Chicago with his wife, and discovered the first letter, the telegram, and an additional note telling him that Vesta was dead. He was truly grieved, for his affection for the girl had been real. He was very sorry for Jennie, and he told his wife that he would have to go out and see her. He was wondering what she would do. She could not live alone. Perhaps he could suggest something which would help her. He took the train to Sandwood, but Jennie had gone to the Hotel Tremont in Chicago. He went there, but Jennie had gone to her daughter's grave; later he called again and found her in. When the boy presented his card she suffered an upwelling of feeling—a wave that was more intense than that with which she had received him in the olden days, for now her need of him was greater. Lester, in spite of the glamor of his new affection and the restoration of his wealth, power, and dignities, had had time to think deeply of what he had done. His original feeling of doubt and dissatisfaction with himself had never wholly quieted. It did not ease him any to know that he had left Jennie comfortably fixed, for it was always so plain to him that money was not the point at issue with her. Affection was what she craved. Without it she was like a rudderless boat on an endless sea, and he knew it. She needed him, and he was ashamed to think that his charity had not outweighed his sense of self-preservation and his desire for material advantage. To-day as the elevator carried him up to her room he was really sorry, though he knew now that no act of his could make things right. He had been to blame from the very beginning, first for taking her, then for failing to stick by a bad bargain. Well, it could not be helped now. The best thing he could do was to be fair, to counsel with her, to give her the best of his sympathy and advice. "Hello, Jennie," he said familiarly as she opened the door to him in her hotel room, his glance taking in the ravages which death and suffering had wrought. She was thinner, her face quite drawn and colorless, her eyes larger by contrast. "I'm awfully sorry about Vesta," he said a little awkwardly. "I never dreamed anything like that could happen." It was the first word of comfort which had meant anything to her since Vesta died—since Lester had left her, in fact. It touched her that he had come to sympathize; for the moment she could not speak. Tears welled over her eyelids and down upon her cheeks. "Don't cry, Jennie," he said, putting his arm around her and holding her head to his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I've been sorry for a good many things that can't be helped now. I'm intensely sorry for this. Where did you bury her?" "Beside papa," she said, sobbing. "Too bad," he murmured, and held her in silence. She finally gained control of herself sufficiently to step away from him; then wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, she asked him to sit down. "I'm so sorry," he went on, "that this should have happened while I was away. I would have been with you if I had been here. I suppose you won't want to live out at Sand wood now?" "I can't, Lester," she replied. "I couldn't stand it." "Where are you thinking of going?" "Oh, I don't know yet. I didn't want to be a bother to those people out there. I thought I'd get a little house somewhere and adopt a baby maybe, or get something to do. I don't like to be alone." "That isn't a bad idea," he said, "that of adopting a baby. It would be a lot of company for you. You know how to go about getting one?" "You just ask at one of these asylums, don't you?" "I think there's something more than that," he replied thoughtfully. "There are some formalities—I don't know what they are. They try to keep control of the child in some way. You had better consult with Watson and get him to help you. Pick out your baby, and then let him do the rest. I'll speak to him about it." Lester saw that she needed companionship badly. "Where is your brother George?" he asked. "He's in Rochester, but he couldn't come. Bass said he was married," she added. "There isn't any other member of the family you could persuade to come and live with you?" "I might get William, but I don't know where he is." "Why not try that new section west of Jackson Park," he suggested, "if you want a house here in Chicago? I see some nice cottages out that way. You needn't buy. Just rent until you see how well you're satisfied." Jennie thought this good advice because it came from Lester. It was good of him to take this much interest in her affairs. She wasn't entirely separated from him after all. He cared a little. She asked him how his wife was, whether he had had a pleasant trip, whether he was going to stay in Chicago. All the while he was thinking that he had treated her badly. He went to the window and looked down into Dearborn Street, the world of traffic below holding his attention. The great mass of trucks and vehicles, the counter streams of hurrying pedestrians, seemed like a puzzle. So shadows march in a dream. It was growing dusk, and lights were springing up here and there. "I want to tell you something, Jennie," said Lester, finally rousing himself from his fit of abstraction. "I may seem peculiar to you, after all that has happened, but I still care for you—in my way. I've thought of you right along since I left. I thought it good business to leave you—the way things were. I thought I liked Letty well enough to marry her. From one point of view it still seems best, but I'm not so much happier. I was just as happy with you as I ever will be. It isn't myself that's important in this transaction apparently; the individual doesn't count much in the situation. I don't know whether you see what I'm driving at, but all of us are more or less pawns. We're moved about like chessmen by circumstances over which we have no control." "I understand, Lester," she answered. "I'm not complaining. I know it's for the best." "After all, life is more or less of a farce," he went on a little bitterly. "It's a silly show. The best we can do is to hold our personality intact. It doesn't appear that integrity has much to do with it." Jennie did not quite grasp what he was talking about, but she knew it meant that he was not entirely satisfied with himself and was sorry for her. "Don't worry over me, Lester," she consoled. "I'm all right; I'll get along. It did seem terrible to me for a while—getting used to being alone. I'll be all right now. I'll get along." "I want you to feel that my attitude hasn't changed," he continued eagerly. "I'm interested in what concerns you. Mrs.—Letty understands that. She knows just how I feel. When you get settled I'll come in and see how you're fixed. I'll come around here again in a few days. You understand how I feel, don't you?" "Yes, I do," she said. He took her hand, turning it sympathetically in his own. "Don't worry," he said. "I don't want you to do that. I'll do the best I can. You're still Jennie to me, if you don't mind. I'm pretty bad, but I'm not all bad." "It's all right, Lester. I wanted you to do as you did. It's for the best. You probably are happy since—" "Now, Jennie," he interrupted; then he pressed affectionately her hand, her arm, her shoulder. "Want to kiss me for old times' sake?" he smiled. She put her hands over his shoulders, looked long into his eyes, then kissed him. When their lips met she trembled. Lester also felt unsteady. Jennie saw his agitation, and tried hard to speak. "You'd better go now," she said firmly. "It's getting dark." He went away, and yet he knew that he wanted above all things to remain; she was still the one woman in the world for him. And Jennie felt comforted even though the separation still existed in all its finality. She did not endeavor to explain or adjust the moral and ethical entanglements of the situation. She was not, like so many, endeavoring to put the ocean into a tea-cup, or to tie up the shifting universe in a mess of strings called law. Lester still cared for her a little. He cared for Letty too. That was all right. She had hoped once that he might want her only. Since he did not, was his affection worth nothing? She could not think, she could not feel that. And neither could he. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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