“Life is a battle, my dear. If you gain anything you will have to fight for it.”
“In my judgment it is silly not to take advantage of any aid which will help you to be what you want to be.” (This while applying a faint suggestion of rouge.)
“Most people are born silly. They are exactly what they are capable of being. I despise lack of taste; it is the worst crime.”
Most of these worldly-wise counsels were not given directly to Jennie. She overheard them, but to her quiet and reflective mind they had their import. Like seeds fallen upon good ground, they took root and grew. She began to get a faint perception of hierarchies and powers. They were not for her, perhaps, but they were in the world, and if fortune were kind one might better one’s state. She worked on, wondering, however, just how better fortune might come to her. Who would have her to wife knowing her history? How could she ever explain the existence of her child?
Her child, her child, the one transcendent, gripping theme of joy and fear. If she could only do something for it — sometime somehow!
For the first winter things went smoothly enough. By the closest economy the children were clothed and kept in school, the rent paid, and the instalments met. Once it looked as though there might be some difficulty about the continuance of the home life, and that was when Gerhardt wrote that he would be home for Christmas. The mill was to close down for a short period at that time. He was naturally anxious to see what the new life of his family at Cleveland was like.
Mrs. Gerhardt would have welcomed his return with unalloyed pleasure had it not been for the fear she entertained of his creating a scene. Jennie talked it over with her mother, and Mrs. Gerhardt in turn spoke of it to Bass, whose advice was to brave it out.
“Don’t worry,” he said; “he won’t do anything about it. I’ll talk to him if he says anything.”
The scene did occur, but it was not so unpleasant as Mrs. Gerhardt had feared. Gerhardt came home during the afternoon, while Bass, Jennie, and George were at work. Two of the younger children went to the train to meet him. When he entered Mrs. Gerhardt greeted him affectionately, but she trembled for the discovery which was sure to come. Her suspense was not for long. Gerhardt opened the front bedroom door only a few minutes after he arrived. On the white counterpane of the bed was a pretty child, sleeping. He could not but know on the instant whose it was, but he pretended ignorance.
“Whose child is that?” he questioned.
“It’s Jennie’s,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, weakly.
“When did that come here?”
“Not so very long ago,” answered the mother, nervously.
“I guess she is here, too,” he declared, contemptuously, refusing to pronounce her name, a fact which he had already anticipated.
“She’s working in a family,” returned his wife in a pleading tone. “She’s doing so well now. She had no place to go. Let her alone.”
Gerhardt had received a light since he had been away. Certain inexplicable thoughts and feelings had come to him in his religious meditations. In his prayers he had admitted to the All-seeing that he might have done differently by his daughter. Yet he could not make up his mind how to treat her for the future. She had committed a great sin; it was impossible to get away from that.
When Jennie came home that night a meeting was unavoidable. Gerhardt saw her coming, and pretended to be deeply engaged in a newspaper. Mrs. Gerhardt, who had begged him not to ignore Jennie entirely, trembled for fear he would say or do something which would hurt her feelings.
“She is coming now,” she said, crossing to the door of the front room, where he was sitting; but Gerhardt refused to look up. “Speak to her, anyhow,” was her last appeal before the door opened; but he made no reply.
When Jennie came in her mother whispered, “He is in the front room.”
Jennie paled, put her thumb to her lip and stood irresolute, not knowing how to meet the situation.
“Has he seen?”
Jennie paused as she realised from her mother’s face and nod that Gerhardt knew of the child’s existence.
“Go ahead,” said Mrs. Gerhardt; “it’s all right. He won’t say anything.”
Jennie finally went to the door, and, seeing her father, his brow wrinkled as if in serious but not unkindly thought, she hesitated, but made her way forward.
“Papa,” she said, unable to formulate a definite sentence.
Gerhardt looked up, his greyish-brown eyes a study under their heavy sandy lashes. At the sight of his daughter he weakened internally; but with the self-adjusted armour of resolve about him he showed no sign of pleasure at seeing her. All the forces of his conventional understanding of morality and his naturally sympathetic and fatherly disposition were battling within him, but, as in so many cases where the average mind is concerned, convention was temporarily the victor.
“Yes,” he said.
“Won’t you forgive me, Papa?”
“I do,” he returned grimly.
She hesitated a moment, and then stepped forward, for what purpose he well understood.
“There,” he said, pushing her gently away, as her lips barely touched his grizzled cheek.
It had been a frigid meeting.
When Jennie went out into the kitchen after this very trying ordeal she lifted her eyes to her waiting mother and tried to make it seem as though all had been well, but her emotional disposition got the better of her.
“Did he make up to you?” her mother was about to ask; but the words were only half out of her mouth before her daughter sank down into one of the chairs close to the kitchen table and, laying her head on her arm, burst forth into soft, convulsive, inaudible sobs.
“Now, now,” said Mrs. Gerhardt. “There now, don’t cry. What did he say?”
It was some time before Jennie recovered herself sufficiently to answer. Her mother tried to treat the situation lightly.
“I wouldn’t feel bad,” she said. “He’ll get over it. It’s his way.”
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