Jennie Gerhardt Part 46

"Pardon, Lester," said the other aimlessly, but sobering. "I beg your pardon. Remember, I'm just a little warm. Eight whisky-sours straight in the other room there. Pardon. I'll talk to you some time when I'm all right. See, Lester? Eh! Ha! ha! I'm a little loose, that's right. Well, so long! Ha! ha!"

Lester could not get over that cacophonous "ha! ha!" It cut him, even though it came from a drunken man's mouth. "That little beauty you used to travel with on the North Side. You didn't marry her, did you?" He quoted Whitney's impertinences resentfully. George! But this was getting a little rough! He had never endured anything like this before--he, Lester Kane. It set him thinking. Certainly he was paying dearly for trying to do the kind thing by Jennie.

CHAPTER XLI

But worse was to follow. The American public likes gossip about well-known people, and the Kanes were wealthy and socially prominent.

The report was that Lester, one of its princ.i.p.al heirs, had married a servant girl. He, an heir to millions! Could it be possible? What a piquant morsel for the newspapers! Very soon the paragraphs began to appear. A small society paper, called the South Side Budget, referred to him anonymously as "the son of a famous and wealthy carriage manufacturer of Cincinnati," and outlined briefly what it knew of the story. "Of Mrs. ----" it went on, sagely, "not so much is known, except that she once worked in a well-known Cleveland society family as a maid and was, before that, a working-girl in Columbus, Ohio. After such a picturesque love-affair in high society, who shall say that romance is dead?"

Lester saw this item. He did not take the paper, but some kind soul took good care to see that a copy was marked and mailed to him. It irritated him greatly, for he suspected at once that it was a scheme to blackmail him. But he did not know exactly what to do about it. He preferred, of course, that such comments should cease, but he also thought that if he made any effort to have them stopped he might make matters worse. So he did nothing. Naturally, the paragraph in the Budget attracted the attention of other newspapers. It sounded like a good story, and one Sunday editor, more enterprising than the others, conceived the notion of having this romance written up. A full-page Sunday story with a scare-head such as "Sacrifices Millions for His Servant Girl Love," pictures of Lester, Jennie, the house at Hyde Park, the Kane manufactory at Cincinnati, the warehouse on Michigan Avenue--certainly, such a display would make a sensation. The Kane Company was not an advertiser in any daily or Sunday paper. The newspaper owed him nothing. If Lester had been forewarned he might have put a stop to the whole business by putting an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper or appealing to the publisher. He did not know, however, and so was without power to prevent the publication. The editor made a thorough job of the business. Local newspaper men in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus were instructed to report by wire whether anything of Jennie's history was known in their city. The Bracebridge family in Cleveland was asked whether Jennie had ever worked there. A garbled history of the Gerhardts was obtained from Columbus. Jennie's residence on the North Side, for several years prior to her supposed marriage, was discovered and so the whole story was nicely pieced together. It was not the idea of the newspaper editor to be cruel or critical, but rather complimentary.

All the bitter things, such as the probable illegitimacy of Vesta, the suspected immorality of Lester and Jennie in residing together as man and wife, the real grounds of the well-known objections of his family to the match, were ignored. The idea was to frame up a Romeo and Juliet story in which Lester should appear as an ardent, self-sacrificing lover, and Jennie as a poor and lovely working-girl, lifted to great financial and social heights by the devotion of her millionaire lover. An exceptional newspaper artist was engaged to make scenes depicting the various steps of the romance and the whole thing was handled in the most approved yellow-journal style. There was a picture of Lester obtained from his Cincinnati photographer for a consideration; Jennie had been surrept.i.tiously "snapped" by a staff artist while she was out walking.

And so, apparently out of a clear sky, the story appeared--highly complimentary, running over with sugary phrases, but with all the dark, sad facts looming up in the background. Jennie did not see it at first. Lester came across the page accidentally, and tore it out. He was stunned and chagrined beyond words. "To think the d.a.m.ned newspaper would do that to a private citizen who was quietly minding his own business!" he thought. He went out of the house, the better to conceal his deep inward mortification. He avoided the more populous parts of the town, particularly the down-town section, and rode far out on Cottage Grove Avenue to the open prairie. He wondered, as the trolley-car rumbled along, what his friends were thinking--Dodge, and Burnham Moore, and Henry Aldrich, and the others. This was a smash, indeed. The best he could do was to put a brave face on it and say nothing, or else wave it off with an indifferent motion of the hand. One thing was sure--he would prevent further comment. He returned to the house calmer, his self-poise restored, but he was eager for Monday to come in order that he might get in touch with his lawyer, Mr. Watson. But when he did see Mr. Watson it was soon agreed between the two men that it would be foolish to take any legal action. It was the part of wisdom to let the matter drop. "But I won't stand for anything more," concluded Lester.

"I'll attend to that," said the lawyer, consolingly.

Lester got up. "It's amazing--this d.a.m.ned country of ours!" he exclaimed. "A man with a little money hasn't any more privacy than a public monument."

"A man with a little money," said Mr. Watson, "is just like a cat with a bell around its neck. Every rat knows exactly where it is and what it is doing."

"That's an apt simile," a.s.sented Lester, bitterly.

Jennie knew nothing of this newspaper story for several days.

Lester felt that he could not talk it over, and Gerhardt never read the wicked Sunday newspapers. Finally, one of Jennie's neighborhood friends, less tactful than the others, called her attention to the fact of its appearance by announcing that she had seen it. Jennie did not understand at first. "A story about me?" she exclaimed.

"You and Mr. Kane, yes," replied her guest. "Your love romance."

Jennie colored swiftly. "Why, I hadn't seen it," she said. "Are you sure it was about us?"

"Why, of course," laughed Mrs. Stendahl. "How could I be mistaken?

I have the paper over at the house. I'll send Marie over with it when I get back. You look very sweet in your picture."

Jennie winced.

"I wish you would," she said, weakly.

She was wondering where they had secured her picture, what the article said. Above all, she was dismayed to think of its effect upon Lester. Had he seen the article? Why had he not spoken to her about it?

The neighbor's daughter brought over the paper, and Jennie's heart stood still as she glanced at the t.i.tle-page. There it all was--uncompromising and direct. How dreadfully conspicuous the headline--"This Millionaire Fell in Love With This Lady's Maid,"

which ran between a picture of Lester on the left and Jennie on the right. There was an additional caption which explained how Lester, son of the famous carriage family of Cincinnati, had sacrificed great social opportunity and distinction to marry his heart's desire. Below were scattered a number of other pictures--Lester addressing Jennie in the mansion of Mrs. Bracebridge, Lester standing with her before an imposing and conventional-looking parson, Lester driving with her in a handsome victoria, Jennie standing beside the window of an imposing mansion (the fact that it was a mansion being indicated by most sumptuous-looking hangings) and gazing out on a very modest working-man's cottage pictured in the distance. Jennie felt as though she must die for very shame. She did not so much mind what it meant to her, but Lester, Lester, how must he feel? And his family? Now they would have another club with which to strike him and her. She tried to keep calm about it, to exert emotional control, but again the tears would rise, only this time they were tears of opposition to defeat.

She did not want to be hounded this way. She wanted to be let alone.

She was trying to do right now. Why couldn't the world help her, instead of seeking to push her down?

CHAPTER XLII

The fact that Lester had seen this page was made perfectly clear to Jennie that evening, for he brought it home himself, having concluded, after mature deliberation, that he ought to. He had told her once that there was to be no concealment between them, and this thing, coming so brutally to disturb their peace, was nevertheless a case in point. He had decided to tell her not to think anything of it--that it did not make much difference, though to him it made all the difference in the world. The effect of this chill history could never be undone. The wise--and they included all his social world and many who were not of it--could see just how he had been living. The article which accompanied the pictures told how he had followed Jennie from Cleveland to Chicago, how she had been coy and distant and that he had to court her a long time to win her consent. This was to explain their living together on the North Side. Lester realized that this was an asinine attempt to sugar-coat the true story and it made him angry.

Still he preferred to have it that way rather than in some more brutal vein. He took the paper out of his pocket when he arrived at the house, spreading it on the library table. Jennie, who was close by, watched him, for she knew what was coming.

"Here's something that will interest you, Jennie," he said dryly, pointing to the array of text and pictures.

"I've already seen it, Lester," she said wearily. "Mrs. Stendahl showed it to me this afternoon. I was wondering whether you had."

"Rather high-flown description of my att.i.tude, isn't it? I didn't know I was such an ardent Romeo."

"I'm awfully sorry, Lester," said Jennie, reading behind the dry face of humor the serious import of this affair to him. She had long since learned that Lester did not express his real feeling, his big ills in words. He was inclined to jest and make light of the inevitable, the inexorable. This light comment merely meant "this matter cannot be helped, so we will make the best of it."

"Oh, don't feel badly about it," he went on. "It isn't anything which can be adjusted now. They probably meant well enough. We just happen to be in the limelight."

"I understand," said Jennie, coming over to him. "I'm sorry, though, anyway." Dinner was announced a moment later and the incident was closed.

But Lester could not dismiss the thought that matters were getting in a bad way. His father had pointed it out to him rather plainly at the last interview, and now this newspaper notoriety had capped the climax. He might as well abandon his pretension to intimacy with his old world. It would have none of him, or at least the more conservative part of it would not. There were a few bachelors, a few gay married men, some sophisticated women, single and married, who saw through it all and liked him just the same, but they did not make society. He was virtually an outcast, and nothing could save him but to reform his ways; in other words, he must give up Jennie once and for all.

But he did not want to do this. The thought was painful to him--objectionable in every way. Jennie was growing in mental ac.u.men. She was beginning to see things quite as clearly as he did.

She was not a cheap, ambitious, climbing creature. She was a big woman and a good one. It would be a shame to throw her down, and besides she was good-looking. He was forty-six and she was twenty-nine; and she looked twenty-four or five. It is an exceptional thing to find beauty, youth, compatibility, intelligence, your own point of view--softened and charmingly emotionalized--in another. He had made his bed, as his father had said. He had better lie on it.

It was only a little while after this disagreeable newspaper incident that Lester had word that his father was quite ill and failing; it might be necessary for him to go to Cincinnati at any moment. Pressure of work was holding him pretty close when the news came that his father was dead. Lester, of course, was greatly shocked and grieved, and he returned to Cincinnati in a retrospective and sorrowful mood. His father had been a great character to him--a fine and interesting old gentleman entirely aside from his relationship to him as his son. He remembered him now dandling him upon his knee as a child, telling him stories of his early life in Ireland, and of his subsequent commercial struggle when he was a little older, impressing the maxims of his business career and his commercial wisdom on him as he grew to manhood. Old Archibald had been radically honest. It was to him that Lester owed his instincts for plain speech and direct statement of fact. "Never lie," was Archibald's constant, reiterated statement. "Never try to make a thing look different from what it is to you. It's the breath of life--truth--it's the basis of real worth, while commercial success--it will make a notable character of any one who will stick to it." Lester believed this. He admired his father intensely for his rigid insistence on truth, and now that he was really gone he felt sorry. He wished he might have been spared to be reconciled to him. He half fancied that old Archibald would have liked Jennie if he had known her. He did not imagine that he would ever have had the opportunity to straighten things out, although he still felt that Archibald would have liked her.

When he reached Cincinnati it was snowing, a windy, bl.u.s.tery snow.

The flakes were coming down thick and fast. The traffic of the city had a m.u.f.fled sound. When he stepped down from the train he was met by Amy, who was glad to see him in spite of all their past differences.

Of all the girls she was the most tolerant. Lester put his arms about her, and kissed her.

"It seems like old times to see you, Amy," he said, "your coming to meet me this way. How's the family? I suppose they're all here. Well, poor father, his time had to come. Still, he lived to see everything that he wanted to see. I guess he was pretty well satisfied with the outcome of his efforts."

"Yes," replied Amy, "and since mother died he was very lonely."

They rode up to the house in kindly good feeling, chatting of old times and places. All the members of the immediate family, and the various relatives, were gathered in the old family mansion. Lester exchanged the customary condolences with the others, realizing all the while that his father had lived long enough. He had had a successful life, and had fallen like a ripe apple from the tree. Lester looked at him where he lay in the great parlor, in his black coffin, and a feeling of the old-time affection swept over him. He smiled at the clean-cut, determined, conscientious face.

"The old gentleman was a big man all the way through," he said to Robert, who was present. "We won't find a better figure of a man soon."

"We will not," said his brother, solemnly.

After the funeral it was decided to read the will at once. Louise's husband was anxious to return to Buffalo; Lester was compelled to be in Chicago. A conference of the various members of the family was called for the second day after the funeral, to be held at the offices of Messrs. Knight, Keatley & O'Brien, counselors of the late manufacturer.

As Lester rode to the meeting he had the feeling that his father had not acted in any way prejudicial to his interests. It had not been so very long since they had had their last conversation; he had been taking his time to think about things, and his father had given him time. He always felt that he had stood well with the old gentleman, except for his alliance with Jennie. His business judgment had been valuable to the company. Why should there be any discrimination against him? He really did not think it possible.

When they reached the offices of the law firm, Mr. O'Brien, a short, fussy, albeit comfortable-looking little person, greeted all the members of the family and the various heirs and a.s.signs with a hearty handshake. He had been personal counsel to Archibald Kane for twenty years. He knew his whims and idiosyncrasies, and considered himself very much in the light of a father confessor. He liked all the children, Lester especially.

"Now I believe we are all here," he said, finally, extracting a pair of large horn reading-gla.s.ses from his coat pocket and looking sagely about. "Very well. We might as well proceed to business. I will just read the will without any preliminary remarks."

He turned to his desk, picked up a paper lying upon it, cleared his throat, and began.

It was a peculiar doc.u.ment, in some respects, for it began with all the minor bequests; first, small sums to old employees, servants, and friends. It then took up a few inst.i.tutional bequests, and finally came to the immediate family, beginning with the girls. Imogene, as a faithful and loving daughter was left a sixth of the stock of the carriage company and a fourth of the remaining properties of the deceased, which roughly aggregated (the estate--not her share) about eight hundred thousand dollars. Amy and Louise were provided for in exactly the same proportion. The grandchildren were given certain little bonuses for good conduct, when they should come of age. Then it took up the cases of Robert and Lester.