Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор (книги без регистрации бесплатно полностью сокращений .txt) 📗

best she could. She had gone to see her washerwoman. She was slow

about her marketing. She didn't dream he was there. She was sorry, too,

that her absence had lost her an opportunity to serve him. It showed her

what a mess she was likely to make of it all.

It happened that about three weeks after the above occurrence Lester had

occasion to return to Cincinnati for a week, and during this time Jennie

again brought Vesta to the flat; for four days there was the happiest

goings on between the mother and child.

Nothing would have come of this little reunion had it not been for an

oversight on Jennie's part, the far-reaching effects of which she could

only afterward regret. This was the leaving of a little toy lamb under the large leather divan in the front room, where Lester was wont to lie and

smoke. A little bell held by a thread of blue ribbon was fastened about its neck, and this tinkled feebly whenever it was shaken. Vesta, with the

unaccountable freakishness of children had deliberately dropped it behind the divan, an action which Jennie did not notice at the time. When she

gathered up the various playthings after Vesta's departure she overlooked it entirely, and there it rested, its innocent eyes still staring upon the sunlit regions of toyland, when Lester returned.

That same evening, when he was lying on the divan, quietly enjoying his

cigar and his newspaper, he chanced to drop the former, fully lighted.

Wishing to recover it before it should do any damage, he leaned over and

looked under the divan. The cigar was not in sight, so he rose and pulled the lounge out, a move which revealed to him the little lamb still standing where Vesta had dropped it. He picked it up, turning it over and over, and wondering how it had come there.

A lamb! It must belong to some neighbour's child in whom Jennie had

taken an interest, he thought. He would have to go and tease her about

this.

Accordingly he held the toy jovially before him, and, coming out into the dining-room, where Jennie was working at the sideboard, he exclaimed in

a mock solemn voice, "Where did this come from?"

Jennie, who was totally unconscious of the existence of this evidence of

her duplicity, turned, and was instantly possessed with the idea that he

had suspected all and was about to visit his just wrath upon her. Instantly the blood flamed in her cheeks and as quickly left them.

"Why, why!" she stuttered, "it's a little toy I bought."

"I see it is," he returned genially, her guilty tremor not escaping his observation, but having at the same time no explicable significance to

him. "It's frisking around a mighty lone sheepfold."

He touched the little bell at its throat, while Jennie stood there, unable to speak. It tinkled feebly, and then he looked at her again. His manner was so humorous that she could tell he suspected nothing. However, it was

almost impossible for her to recover her self-possession.

"What's ailing you?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied.

"You look as though a lamb was a terrible shock to you."

"I forgot to take it out from there, that was all," she went on blindly.

"It looks as though it has been played with enough," he added more seriously, and then seeing that the discussion was evidently painful to her, he dropped it. The lamb had not furnished him the amusement that he had

expected.

Lester went back into the front room, stretched himself out and thought it over. Why was she nervous? What was there about a toy to make her

grow pale? Surely there was no harm in her harbouring some youngster

of the neighbourhood when she was alone—having it come in and play.

Why should she be so nervous? He thought it over, but could come to no

conclusion.

Nothing more was said about the incident of the toy lamb. Time might

have wholly effaced the impression from Lester's memory had nothing

else intervened to arouse his suspicions; but a mishap of any kind seems

invariably to be linked with others which follow close upon its heels.

One evening when Lester happened to be lingering about the flat later

than usual the door bell rang, and, Jennie being busy in the kitchen,

Lester went himself to open the door. He was greeted by a middle-aged

lady, who frowned very nervously upon him, and inquired in broken

Swedish accents for Jennie.

"Wait a moment," said Lester; and stepping to the rear door he called her.

Jennie came, and seeing who the visitor was, she stepped nervously out in the hall and closed the door after her. The action instantly struck Lester as suspicious. He frowned and determined to inquire thoroughly into the

matter. A moment later Jennie reappeared. Her face was white and her

fingers seemed to be nervously seeking something to seize upon.

"What's the trouble?" he inquired, the irritation he had felt the moment before giving his voice a touch of gruffness.

"I've to go out for a little while," she at last managed to reply.

"Very well," he assented unwillingly. "But you can tell me what's the trouble with you, can't you? Where do you have to go?"

"I—I," began Jennie, stammering. "I—have—"

"Yes," he said grimly.

"I have to go on an errand," she stumbled on. "I—I can't wait. I'll tell you when I come back, Lester. Please don't ask me now."

She looked vainly at him, her troubled countenance still marked by

preoccupation and anxiety to get away, and Lester, who had never seen

this look of intense responsibility in her before, was moved and irritated by it.

"That's all right," he said, "but what's the use of all this secrecy? Why can't you come out and tell what's the matter with you? What's the use of this whispering behind doors? Where do you have to go?"

He paused, checked by his own harshness, and Jennie who was intensely

wrought up by the information she had received, as well as the unwonted

verbal castigation she was now enduring, rose to an emotional state never reached by her before.

"I will, Lester, I will," she exclaimed. "Only not now. I haven't time. I'll tell you everything when I come back. Please don't stop me now."

She hurried to the adjoining chamber to get her wraps, and Lester, who

had even yet no clear conception of what it all meant, followed her

stubbornly to the door.

"See here," he exclaimed in his vigorous, brutal way, "you're not acting right. What's the matter with you? I want to know."

He stood in the doorway, his whole frame exhibiting the pugnacity and

settled determination of a man who is bound to be obeyed. Jennie,

troubled and driven to bay, turned at last.

"It's my child, Lester," she exclaimed. "It's dying. I haven't time to talk.

Oh, please don't stop me. I'll tell you everything when I come back."

"Your child!" he exclaimed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I couldn't help it," she returned. "I was afraid—I should have told you long ago. I meant to only—only—Oh, let me go now, and I'll tell you all

when I come back!"

He stared at her in amazement; then he stepped aside, unwilling to force

her any further for the present. "Well, go ahead," he said quietly. "Don't you want some one to go along with you?"

"No," she replied. "Mrs. Olsen is right here. I'll go with her."

She hurried forth, white-faced, and he stood there, pondering. Could this be the woman he had thought he knew? Why, she had been deceiving him