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Title: An unmarried father
A novel
Author: Floyd Dell
Release date: May 23, 2026 [eBook #78732]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: George H. Doran Company, 1927
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78732
Credits: Sean (@parchmentglow)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN UNMARRIED FATHER ***
AN
UNMARRIED FATHER
_A Novel_
By
Floyd Dell
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1927,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
AN UNMARRIED FATHER
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE: The Discovery
I. The Letter 9
II. Legal Advice 16
III. The Way of the World 24
IV. Post Mortem on a Dead Romance 32
V. Encounter 41
VI. Dr. Zerneke 46
VII. Flowers 58
VIII. Isabel 60
IX. The Baby 72
X. Art Alone Endures 77
XI. Common Sense 81
XII. Bad Dreams 87
XIII. En Route 91
XIV. Homecoming 100
XV. Family Breakfast 106
XVI. Aubade 111
XVII. Flight 120
BOOK TWO: In Exile
I. The Prodigal 125
II. A Man Has Some Rights 136
III. An Ambassador from Vickley 143
IV. Speech to the Jury 157
V. The Older Generation 163
VI. J. J. Overbeck 169
VII. Home 176
VIII. Apron Strings 185
IX. It Was Bound to Happen 195
X. Mrs. Case 202
XI. Paradise Lost 205
XII. Out of a Job 209
XIII. The Dreamer Wakes 215
BOOK THREE: The Dominant Sex
I. Vita Nova 225
II. Waste Not Your Hour 229
III. His Mother 235
IV. ’Ware Women! 239
V. As Usual 244
VI. Night Thoughts 248
VII. A Letter 255
VIII. A Sociological Interlude 260
IX. On Taking a Girl at Her Word 268
X. Which? 277
XI. As Luck Would Have It 281
XII. The Fugitive 284
XIII. Conversation in a Taxi 288
XIV. A Farewell 291
XV. The Inevitable 296
BOOK ONE
The Discovery
Chapter I: The Letter
THAT April morning Norman Overbeck drove his father to the station and
put him on the early train for Springfield. The elder Overbeck--J. J.
Overbeck--was going to argue a case before the supreme court. Norman,
his unworthy son, as he felt himself to be, drove on to the office.
Parking his car in front of the Overbeck building until he should want
it again that afternoon, according to the leisurely custom of Vickley
on the Mississippi, he went up the dingy, old-fashioned stairway to the
Overbeck and Overbeck offices. In the hall he glanced up for a moment
at the new sign with the name repeated, replacing the old one of “J.
J. Overbeck, Attorney-at-Law.” It was less than a year since Norman
had been admitted to the bar and been made a member of the law-firm.
When his father wasn’t with him he sometimes glanced up at that sign,
expecting to find in it some reassurance, something that would make him
feel in himself the dignity and power which were associated with his
father’s name. He never quite got it. Most of the time it seemed to
him that all he had so far done was to make costly mistakes.
“Good morning, Miss Patterson,” he said to the stenographer. “Is my
mail ready?”
“Yes, sir,” said the girl. “It’s on your desk.”
She looked at him, when he turned away, with admiration: for he was
tall, handsome enough with his thoughtful brown eyes and light wavy
hair--and he was the son of J. J. Overbeck.
He did not go to his own office immediately. He lingered in the outer
office, staring at the rows of law-reports, bound in musty calf and
newer buckram. He was pursuing a line of private psychological inquiry,
not easily to be conducted when his father was there. His father
would have asked, “What are you looking for?” and he would have had
to give some sensible answer.... Perhaps it wasn’t the books, they
were only law-books. He looked at the old leather-upholstered mahogany
furniture.... He was trying to confront something about this office
which obscurely intimidated him, made him feel foolishly young and out
of place. It was absurd to feel that way, when he had won his first
important case yesterday.... He turned to his office.
As he passed Miss Patterson, he reflected that she obviously thought of
him as grown up....
He was sitting at his desk a minute or two later when the telephone
rang. He lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he said. It was Miss Patterson.
“Your sister just called up,” she said. (Doris? he thought.) “She
didn’t want to disturb you and asked me to give you the message.”
No, that wouldn’t be his kid sister Doris. She wouldn’t care whether
she disturbed him or not. That was Lucinda. He frowned slightly, as the
picture of that futile, pathetic, rather old-maidish sister came before
him.
“All right, what is it?” he asked patiently.
“She wanted me to remind you that you promised to go and look at a dog
for her. Out at Schwartz’s. It’s a Scotch terrier puppy. The one she is
thinking of taking has a black spot over the left eye. She thought you
might have forgotten.”
It was true, he had forgotten, though she had spoken of it last night
and again at breakfast this morning.
“Thank you, Miss Patterson. If my sister should call up again, tell her
I said I wouldn’t forget about it.”
Why did he have to go and look at that dog? But that was just like
Lucinda.... If Doris had wanted a dog, she’d have gone and bought it,
without asking any advice.
Whenever he thought of Lucinda, he consoled himself by thinking of
Doris. An historical epoch seemed to have intervened between them. It
was strange to think of them as being sisters. Families were queer
things. Lucinda at thirty-five belonged to a decaying world; Doris at
sixteen to another, a feverish and jazzy, but certainly a healthier
one.... But families are not always pleasant things to think about.
His mind went back to its interrupted thoughts about himself.
--Yes, he reflected, he was grown up in everybody else’s eyes. Why
not, then, in his own? He was twenty-five years old, and engaged to be
married. He and Madge were going to be married in June. He had won that
Harrington case. His future was secure. Why should he feel as though he
were merely pretending to be what he was--and as though the pretense
were likely to be found out at any moment, and he himself swept out
into chaos like a scrap of paper in a high wind? What was he afraid of?
There was nothing to be afraid of. He could cope with any situation
that would arise. He was building himself securely into the solid
structure of--of Vickley. He would be what his father had been. There
was no doubt of it.
He turned to his mail. He sorted it through rapidly, and finding
nothing outwardly attractive and unbusiness-like to distract him, he
opened the letters in turn. His day’s work had begun.
The first two letters he made notations upon and put aside.
The third letter puzzled him.
It was from a Martha Zerneke, in Chicago--a person quite unknown to
him, but, according to a small printed inscription in one corner of her
letterhead, “Medical Director, St. Thecla Child Adoption Society.” The
letter began pleasantly by hoping that he was coming, or could arrange
to come to Chicago to attend the Springer exhibit at the Steinbach
Galleries, April 4th to 18th, and preferably during the following week,
when--as the letter went on strangely to say--she would like to have
him call at her office concerning a matter of personal interest to him
which it would not be so convenient to take up in correspondence. “Very
truly yours.”
After reading it, at first idly and then very carefully, he laid it
aside as incomprehensible, and went on with his other mail. But having
glanced at several letters, he took it up again, sat back in his chair,
lighted a cigarette, and considered it thoughtfully.
The reference to the Springer exhibit suggested that the letter was
based upon some knowledge of his habits, for he made a point of running
up to Chicago to see the most interesting of the picture shows; he had,
in fact, planned to go to see this one, for he had been interested in
Springer ever since he had seen him and his pictures back in Boston a
year ago. So far the suggestion was of art matters. But the rest of the
letter didn’t go to that tune. Indeed, the casual familiarity of the
opening appeared to be a diplomatic disguise--as if for the benefit
of any one else who might happen to open his mail in his absence! “A
matter of personal interest to you which it would not be so convenient
to take up in correspondence.” There was a veiled threat in that....
What sort of matter was there that could not “conveniently” be taken
up in correspondence? A matter of personal interest to him! And this
from a doctor--a woman doctor. The Medical Director of a Child Adoption
Society. Why, it was preposterous! Absurd!
Perhaps he was reading into it some meaning that wasn’t there. He
studied it carefully, and shook his head. If not that, what could it
mean?
His acquaintance with girls in Chicago was of the most casual sort.
There was no one-- He had an impulse to throw the thing into the
waste basket.... But if he ignored it, and this Dr. Zerneke did take
up the matter in correspondence, it might become embarrassing. There
was certainly some mistake; but that would be no protection if the
thing--whatever it was--got into the newspapers. After all, appearances
were against him. He had made trips to Chicago from time to time, and
people would quite readily believe that it hadn’t all been for the
sake of art. It would be a difficult position for the most innocent
of men. And there was Madge to be considered. She might think there
was something to it, and break off the engagement! And his father--oh,
his father would believe him; but he would think he had made a fool of
himself in some way, and that it was his fault that such a thing should
ever have come up. Nobody had ever written a letter like that to J.
J. Overbeck!... Doubtless because he attended strictly to the law,
and did not waste his time prowling about art-galleries and studios.
Perhaps it _was_ his own fault. Perhaps his father’s way of life was
the only correct one, if he were to build himself into the solid
structure of Vickley....
It occurred to him that this was the sort of thing he had been
awaiting, without knowing what it was--some accident that would crash
down his life about him, and whirl him out like a scrap of paper on
the wind.... Well, not so bad as all that! He was taking this much too
seriously. But it did need thinking about.
Under these circumstances--he smiled to himself--the proper thing to
do was to consult a lawyer.... His father, of course, was the obvious
person to consult, but he dismissed that idea instantly. Nor would he
be likely to take up a thing like this with Medway, the chief clerk of
Overbeck and Overbeck. Nor with any other lawyer in Vickley ... except,
perhaps, old Gilbert....
He considered a moment longer, and then abruptly put out his cigarette
and took up the telephone.
Chapter II: Legal Advice
GILBERT RAND--old Gilbert--was sitting, large and ruddy and cheerful,
at a table in the corner of Henschel’s when Norman came in at
twelve-thirty.
There are various ways in which an elderly lawyer of repute may show
consideration for a young and untried one, if he is so disposed. Old
Gilbert had been so disposed on various occasions during the past year,
for he liked the boy. He didn’t know what Norman wanted of him now
except that it was something legal and personal, which nevertheless
could be disposed of at lunch. Norman had suggested a quiet place
where they could talk without interruption, and Gilbert had said that
Henschel’s would do.
He congratulated Norman on his victory in the Harrington case
yesterday, to which Norman replied in a preoccupied way.
“Now,” he said to Norman, when the luncheon was under way, “what’s on
your mind?”
Norman took the letter from his pocket and handed it over. “What do you
think of this?” he said.
Gilbert put on his glasses and read the letter; then he read it again.
“A very clever piece of writing,” he said thoughtfully; “evidently
intended to look as little like blackmail as possible.”
Blackmail!
“So you think so, too!” said Norman. “Well, what do you think I ought
to do about it? Ignore it? or--what?”
“That depends,” said Gilbert gravely. “If I’m to advise you, I’ll
have to know something about the situation. Who the girl is--her
circumstances and character: you’d better tell me the whole story. Then
we’ll know where we’re at.”
Norman was rather taken aback. But he saw the humor of it, and smiled.
“Aren’t you taking a good deal for granted?” he said.
Old Gilbert smiled back at him. “Oh,” he said, “the alibi part
comes later. I realize, of course, that you are not necessarily the
responsible party in this matter. Girls are sometimes unscrupulous
about that sort of thing. The man who is in a position to pay gets
saddled with the responsibility every time. You remember that case here
in Vickley last winter, in Magistrate Cooley’s court--I saw you there,
I remember.”
“Look here,” said Norman. “You seem to accept it as a matter of
fact--that I’m involved with some girl!”
Gilbert glanced at the letter. “I thought,” he said, “that was what
the letter was about. If I’m on the wrong track, you’ll have to set me
right. What _is_ it about?”
“I don’t know,” said Norman. “But when I read it, I thought the same
thing you did. It seemed like a veiled threat of blackmail. That’s
what puzzles me. You see, I’ve never heard of this Dr. Zerneke--and as
for the girl, if that’s what it hints at, as you also seem to think,
I don’t know who she’s supposed to be. The whole thing comes out of a
clear sky. I haven’t the least idea what it’s all about.”
“That’s curious,” said Gilbert. “Let’s have another look at it.” He
took it up, readjusting his glasses. “There _is_ something queer about
this letter,” he said.
“Damned queer!” said Norman.
“I mean,” said Gilbert, “that it has an air of--well, of quiet
certainty.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Norman, uncomfortably. Did old
Gilbert think he was lying?
“To begin with, you are known by the writer to be interested in art.
That in itself is nothing much. But the fact is put forward in a
rather suggestive way. The reference to the Springer exhibit and the
Steinbach galleries looks as though it were intended to remind you of
something.... Does it suggest anything to you--a girl you met at the
Steinbach galleries, for example?”
“I have not been in the habit of meeting girls at the Steinbach
galleries--or any other galleries,” said Norman, a little on his
dignity. “I know practically no girls in Chicago--and I certainly have
made love to none of them.”
“Well,” said old Gilbert, “there are hysterical girls who make strange
accusations, upon slight or no provocation.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Norman. “It must be something like
that.”
“There’s some explanation for this letter,” said Gilbert. “Let’s see
what we can make out of it. A girl in Chicago ... no, not necessarily
in Chicago; she may have come there from somewhere. She goes to a
doctor; we know nothing about this doctor, but presumably she knows her
business. So we have to assume for the moment that the girl is actually
in trouble. The doctor, apparently, is sympathetic. Money is evidently
needed. The doctor undertakes to write to you.”
“Yes--but why to me?”
“Come, Norman; you are twenty-five years old, and so far as I know you
have never taken any vows. How can you be sure that there’s no girl in
the whole United States who couldn’t accuse you of having got her into
this scrape?”
Norman flushed. “I don’t want to pretend that I’m a saint,” he said.
“But I’m not a cad, either; I’ve been engaged to Madge for six months,
and I swear I haven’t looked at another girl in that time.... In fact,”
he added, “you’ll see how absurd it is to think that I could be mixed
up in such a thing, when I tell you that there’s been nothing of that
sort in my life since I left Cambridge. There was a waitress there--but
that was fully four years ago.”
“Well, Norman, you ought to know. But the trouble with this matter is
that it is so vague. If it mentioned a name, you would know where you
are at. As it is, of course, you may have overlooked some trifling
incident of no consequence to you at the time.”
Norman laughed. “I’m not such a devil of a fellow as all that. I’d not
be likely to forget such an incident.”
“I hope you’re right. It might prove rather embarrassing to you if
you went to this doctor in Chicago, indignantly convinced of your
innocence, and then found you had made a little slip of memory.”
“You think, then, that I ought to go and see this doctor?” Norman asked
in surprise.
“Somebody ought to go, and find out what it’s all about. There’s
something that needs to be straightened out.... Mistaken identity,
possibly.”
“Yes--there’s that,” said Norman. “There may be some very simple
explanation.”
“In any case,” said Gilbert, “I don’t think it’s ordinary blackmail.
A doctor, and especially one connected with a child adoption society,
would hardly mix herself up with anything like that. And the whole
tone of her letter shows a due consideration for your position. It’s
written in such a way as not to make trouble for you if it fell into
the wrong hands. And at the same time--or so it seems to me, though
I’ve apparently stumbled into a mare’s nest--it attempts to remind you
who the girl is.... That reference to the Steinbach Galleries--”
“I said I knew no girls in Chicago,” Norman interrupted.
“You might take a wider range,” suggested Gilbert.
Norman made an impatient movement.
“I’m only trying to help you,” said Gilbert.
“I know, and at my own request,” said Norman. “But I thought we had
cleared up the possibility of it’s being me who is involved.”
“I suppose we have,” said Gilbert. “Well, I was going to propose this
to you. I’m going to Chicago to-night, to see some people in connection
with the Ostrander case; and I’ll go and see this doctor to-morrow
if you like. I’ll be home Sunday, and your mind will be set at rest
without undue delay.”
“That’s damned good of you, Gilbert.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.... Only you see, if I’m to act for you, I’d like to
be quite sure of my facts.”
“You can be quite sure the facts are as I’ve stated them,” said Norman
comfortably.
“Then I’ll take this letter with me,” said Gilbert. He folded it up and
put it in his pocket. “However, there’s one more angle on this thing
still to be checked up on.”
“What angle is that?” asked Norman.
“The Cambridge angle,” said Gilbert. “Nothing like being prepared for
the worst, you know.”
“But that,” said Norman, “is all ancient history now.”
“Just the same, I’d better know something about it. When did these
Cambridge incidents occur and what was the nature of them?”
“Well, besides the waitress, there was just one incident, really,” said
Norman. “It was just before I came home.... It seems ages ago.”
“Actually, however,” said Gilbert, “it’s been something less than a
year. Late June to early April--”
“Ten--” said Norman, and then stopped, with a shock of dismay.
“Ten months,” said Gilbert, “or to be exact, nine months and some
days.” He looked at the young man questioningly. “Does that letter
begin to mean anything to you now?”
“It couldn’t be Isabel,” said Norman wonderingly. “And yet--”
“Isabel?” said Gilbert inquiringly--suppressing a smile.
Norman spoke with an effort. “Springer’s pictures.... It was with her
that I first saw them. At his studio in Boston. She took me there.”
Gilbert nodded. “And now,” he said, “this Isabel seems to be in
Chicago, under the care of a doctor. It looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, but that--it’s impossible!” said Norman.
“For a girl to have an unexpected baby? I’m afraid not,” said Gilbert
dryly. “Though this is rather late in the day for her to let you know
about it.”
“My God!” said Norman.
The waiter appeared, and recommended the Mocha tarte.
“I don’t think I want anything more,” said Norman faintly.
“You’d better have some coffee. No? Then nothing for me either. Bring
the check.”
When the waiter was gone, he said: “There’s no occasion to look so
upset. Girls have had by-blown babies before. And respectable Vickley
citizens have been the fathers of them.”
Then he added, more kindly: “We’ll go to my office, thresh the whole
thing out, and decide what’s to be done.”
Chapter III: The Way of the World
GILBERT RAND, in his office, considered the boy sympathetically. “How
do you feel now?” he asked.
“Still in a sort of a daze,” Norman confessed.
Gilbert took from his desk drawer a bottle and glasses. “A little shot
of this will help steady your nerves.” He poured and they drank.
“You realize,” said Gilbert, “that all this is merely a guess; there
may be nothing to it whatever.”
Norman shook his head. “It’s only too damned true,” he said. “I’m not
going to try to fool myself about that.”
“At any rate, we have to face it as a possible truth just now,” said
Gilbert, “and think of ways and means to handle it. And if I seemed
to take it lightly, it isn’t that I don’t understand the seriousness
of the situation for you. You have a career ahead of you; you’re your
father’s son; and you’re going to be married. This thing will have to
be fixed up very quietly. But that’s not so difficult as you might
think. I want you to know that I’m with you in this, and I’ll see you
through it.”
“It’s awfully good of you,” said Norman. “But what is there to do? You
must forgive me if I seem stupid. I feel as though the roof of the
world had fallen in.”
“The first thing we have to do is to go over the facts of the case.
With them in my mind, I will be able to deal with the situation,
whatever it is, in Chicago. And I’ll be back here day after
to-morrow--probably with everything all straightened out. All you have
to do in the meantime is to keep smiling, and behave as if nothing had
happened.... Now what’s the matter?”
“I just remembered,” said Norman, “that I’ve got to see Madge to-night.”
“Yes, that may be a little difficult,” said Gilbert.
“I’m sorry to be such a fool,” said Norman. “But I don’t see how I can
face her.”
“Now don’t lose your nerve, my boy,” said old Gilbert kindly. “Just sit
tight and keep mum--that’s all you have to do.”
“That’s just the trouble,” said Norman.
“I know how you feel,” said Gilbert. “But you won’t come wearing
your secret on your face. You can easily invent some discouragement
in your law practice to account for your jumpiness. Besides, it’s
getting very near the time of your wedding; she’ll have her mind on a
thousand other things besides your state of nerves. Women aren’t such
good thought-readers as you might imagine.” Then, when Norman remained
silent, he said sharply: “You wouldn’t be such an idiot as to tell her?”
“I was thinking that I ought to,” said Norman. “She’ll have the right
to know--a thing like this.”
“Nonsense!” said Gilbert, and secretly cursed these modern ideas of
frankness. Aloud he said: “There’ll be plenty of time to consider what
there is to tell--if anything. There may be nothing, you know. You
wouldn’t want to upset her needlessly.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve guessed it right,” said Norman dully. “It will be
only a question of sooner or later when she’ll have to know. I simply
couldn’t get married with a thing like that hanging over us. It would
come out some time--and I’d rather know the worst at once. If things
are going to smash, it had better be before we are married.”
“Now, now,” said Gilbert soothingly. “Nothing is going to smash. You’re
all worked up and incapable of seeing things clearly. Everything is
coming out all right, I tell you.”
“You mean that this thing can be hushed up, I suppose.”
“Yes, if there’s anything to hush up.”
“That’s all very well. So far as the world at large is concerned,
perhaps it could be hushed up. But--why should two people be married,
with a secret like that between them? What kind of marriage would that
be?”
“Why, not so unusual a kind of marriage, I should say,” replied Gilbert
coolly. “You don’t think men have to tell their wives everything, do
you? By the way, have you told your fiancée anything at all about this
Cambridge girl?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You see, you’ve kept your little secret so far without any difficulty.”
“But it didn’t really concern her--or it didn’t seem to--until now. It
was only a part of my past, then--but now it affects our whole future.”
“It won’t affect her future, if you keep a decent silence and let me
attend to it,” said Gilbert. “Why didn’t you tell her anything about
the Cambridge girl?”
“Because it didn’t seem of any great importance,” said Norman. “And
because she might be supposed to take something of that sort for
granted. Perhaps I should have told her. It would make it easier now.
But it would have hurt her feelings. I suppose that’s the reason why I
didn’t.”
“And a very good reason, too,” said Gilbert. “You did as any lover
would do. And you still love her, don’t you?”
“Madge? Of course I do!”
“Yet now you seem to think the proper way to treat her is to inflict
pain on her. I’d hate to believe you were that kind of moral weakling.”
“I’m doubtless all sorts of moral weakling,” said Norman, “but I don’t
know what you mean. It would take courage to tell her the truth.”
“It will take more courage to keep your mouth shut,” said Gilbert.
“It’s only the coward, the man who can’t bear the burden of his own
sins, that has to go and blab them to his wife or sweetheart. If
they’re his sins, he ought to be the one to suffer for them--not she.”
Their minds, Norman realized, didn’t meet in this talk. There was a
gulf of years between them. Old Gilbert was thinking of property and
respectability, and not of human rights. And now he was talking about
“sins.” No doubt if one believed that an illegitimate child was a sin,
one repented it--and forgot it. But it wasn’t a sin to him; it was a
fateful fact that had somehow to be faced.
“Why,” old Gilbert was asking, “should a man want to drag the girl he
loves into a thing like that--unless he wishes to hurt her?”
“I don’t wish to hurt Madge. But she has a right to know what she’s
getting into,” Norman insisted.
“And if she decided not to marry you--as she easily might, if you came
blurting it out like that--?”
“That would be her privilege,” said Norman, tonelessly.
“A nice privilege,” Gilbert commented. “A choice between a humiliation
and an outrage--a marriage broken off at the last moment, or a secret
scandal.”
“It’s something she’ll have to decide about in any case, sooner or
later,” said Norman. “And until she knows, the thing will be on my mind
every moment. I shall feel like a dog, keeping it from her. She’ll go
on making plans for our marriage--and all the while there’ll be this
secret holding us apart.”
“Do you think it would bring you together if you told her?” Gilbert
asked ironically.
“I don’t know. That’s what I don’t know. And I’ve got to find out....
Perhaps not ... not unless she loved me a very great deal--more than I
deserve. More than I’ve any right to expect.”
“You’d like to give her a chance to prove how noble she is--how much
she does love you: is that the idea? You’d throw her love for you
into the gutter, to see whether she’d stoop and pick it up. I’m no
psychologist, but I’d call that vanity.”
Norman was silent.
“Or else mere inexperience,” Gilbert went on. “You’ve just found out
that some secrets are hard to keep. And because it hurts to keep a
secret from the girl you love, you want to turn the world’s morality
upside down.” That stab seemed to go home to its mark and Gilbert added:
“Misery loves company. You’d like to share your unhappiness. Natural
enough, perhaps. But heroic? No. Selfish.”
“Oh, you’re probably right,” said Norman, suddenly weary. “I suppose it
wouldn’t do to tell her....”
Gilbert waited.
“Everything seems to me--smashed,” said Norman. “But maybe something
can be saved out of the wreck.”
“If you’ll follow my advice, quite a number of things can be saved out
of the wreck,” said Gilbert. “Your marriage, your career, your father’s
pride.”
“All right,” said Norman quietly. “I’ll do what you say. Just tell me
what to do.”
“I’m glad that you realize that you’re in no state of mind to decide
on anything final right now,” said Gilbert. “I’ll be very glad to take
charge of your destinies for a few days. Then you’ll feel differently.”
“I’ve no doubt I shall. And I’ll be able to thank you properly. Just
now it seems scarcely to matter....”
“That’s all right. The thanks can wait. We’ll proceed to the other
aspects of the case--if it’s settled that you are to be guided by me,
and will say nothing about this to your fiancée till I get back from
Chicago?”
“Yes, that’s settled,” said Norman. “You’ve made it clear to me what a
lie and sham marriage is. The trouble with me, I guess, is that I’ve
not quite grown up; I seem to have some remnants of boyish idealism
left in my mind. I had thought that this marriage was going to be
real--that we weren’t going to have to lie to one another. I can see
it’s nonsense.”
“Men,” said Gilbert, “have lied to women since the dawn of history. The
more they love them, the more they lie to them. You’ll be surprised to
find how easy it comes. But just the same, I don’t think I had better
trust that boyish idealism of yours too far right now. If I leave you
here while I go to Chicago to straighten things out, you’ll have got
them into some frightful mess by the time I’m back. I think I’d better
take you along with me and keep an eye on you.”
“I think that would be a good idea,” said Norman. “I’ll know the worst
sooner. And if we could take the early train, I wouldn’t have to see
Madge to-night.” In a shamefaced way he explained:
“We were going to go over to see our new house that my father’s
building for us: it’s nearly finished. I don’t think I could stand it.”
“Very well,” said Gilbert. “Make your apologies by telephone, and we’ll
take the six o’clock train this afternoon. Legal business in connection
with the Ostrander case. I’ll reserve a compartment, and we can talk
all the way. There’s still a lot to be gone over. And now you had
better go home and pack.”
Chapter IV: Post Mortem on a Dead Romance
“NOW,” said Gilbert Rand, in their compartment that evening, “do
you want to tell me about this Cambridge girl, or shall I ask you
questions?”
“You’d better ask me questions. It’s never seemed quite real to me. I
haven’t readjusted myself to it as a reality even yet.”
Gilbert took out a pencil and paper.
“What was her name? I think you referred to her as Isabel.”
“Yes, Isabel Drury.”
Gilbert wrote it down.
The porter opened the door and looked in. “Did you ring, sir?”
“No, but we could do with a little more air.”
The porter opened the upper air-vents and went away.
Gilbert went on with the inquisition.
“Her age?”
“Twenty-five.”
“And yours was twenty-four. Well,” said Gilbert with satisfaction,
“that clears up the matter of responsibility, at any rate. What was
she? Stenographer, salesgirl, or what?”
“I suppose,” said Norman slowly, “you’d call her an art student. She
was studying art in Boston.” He was finding it difficult to put this
matter in objective terms. Isabel had been to him a romantic mystery
and a psychological puzzle and a symbol of the strangeness of life. But
that wasn’t what old Gilbert wanted to know....
“Art student.” Gilbert wrote it down. “Where did she come from, do you
know?”
Something of the satisfaction of old Gilbert’s tone reached his mind.
He began to see Gilbert’s game. Isabel was to be made out as scarcely
respectable. A Bohemian encounter. And, though that had in truth been
the spirit of the affair, some perverse desire for fair play made him
block that simple interpretation with some contrary facts.
“Her father was a professor of Latin in a boys’ school. They had a
place on the edge of Cambridge. Poor but terribly respectable.” And he
added: “I was a guest at their home, more or less, when it happened.”
Gilbert frowned. “How did you come to know her?”
“The Drurys were neighbors of a classmate of mine. I spent a good many
week-ends at his home. There were neighborhood parties, and Isabel was
often there. We saw a good deal of each other that last winter and
spring.”
“What was your classmate’s name?” Gilbert asked casually.
“Hal Sibley.” Then Norman looked suspiciously at his questioner. “See
here, you mustn’t get him mixed up in this!”
“Why do you say that?” Gilbert inquired blandly. “Was he interested in
her too?”
Norman flushed. “We were both romantic about her. But leave Hal out of
this.” A disgust for these vulgar necessities of self-defense rose in
him like nausea, and he said: “I couldn’t forgive myself if I thought
you were trying to do that!”
“Trying to do what?” asked Gilbert coldly.
“Shield me by dragging in my friend.” Old Gilbert needn’t pretend he
didn’t know what he was up to. “No, no--it won’t do. I’m not that kind
of coward.”
“I only wanted, my boy,” said Gilbert softly, “to take into account all
the possibilities of the situation.”
“Just the same, we’ll leave Hal out of this discussion.” A flicker of
amusement in old Gilbert’s eyes made him feel a little ridiculous, and
he added defensively: “He wouldn’t have dragged me in, if it had been
he that was in this mess.”
“You prefer not to consider that possibility?” asked Gilbert smoothly.
Norman had the feeling of having mismanaged this matter. He had made it
look as though he were quixotically shielding his friend. “Oh, go into
it if you insist,” he said impatiently. “Only it’s a waste of time. I
merely wanted to make it clear that I’m not going to try to--sneak out
of my responsibility.”
“Very well,” said Gilbert, “we’ll leave it at that for the present. Now
as to the girl’s family: any brothers?”
“No. An only child.” And Norman reflected that a girl’s brothers were
her traditional protectors. That should please old Gilbert. He smiled;
it was odd to think of Isabel as the menace against which he was being
protected. He? His respectability, rather. The thing was out of his
hands. Vickley was protecting itself. His career, his marriage, his
reputation--these things belonged to Vickley. And old Gilbert had
promised to guard them....
“And the girl--” Gilbert was asking, “beautiful, I suppose?”
Her image came powerfully before him--her slight figure, her pointed
face with its grey-green eyes and shock of auburn hair. Beautiful? “In
a sullen, discontented way: yes.” That, he thought, was sufficiently
objective.
“And you fancied yourselves hopelessly in love with one another?”
“Not exactly.” He must try to explain it to old Gilbert. “I had been
crazy about her all year--ever since I met her. Hal had talked to me
about her. His favorite word for her was ‘elusive.’ And she was just
that. She played with us in an imaginative sort of way. But she seemed
emotionally untouched. She was scornful of the idea of love.”
“Yes?” said Gilbert.
“But when I was going away that summer, she seemed sorry we weren’t
going to see each other any more. I stayed over a couple of weeks, at
the Sibleys, before I came home. We saw more of each other. She told me
things about herself--her ambitions. And she took me to see Springer’s
pictures one day, just before I left. Coming back to her home that
night, we lost ourselves in the woods. That was when we became lovers.”
“You lost yourselves in the woods?”
“We pretended we were lost. You see, everything had to be play between
us. We always pretended all sorts of things. That night we pretended it
was a wood near Athens.”
“A wood near Athens?”
“Midsummer-night’s-dream stuff. Perhaps you’d understand it if you knew
her.”
“Was there ever any question of marriage between you?”
“There hadn’t been, up to then. I had--well, I had wanted to have a
love affair with her. That was all. But in the woods, afterward, I
was rather frightened about what we had done, and I said we must get
married. I suppose I meant it. But fortunately she didn’t take me
seriously. She laughed at me.”
“She laughed at you?”
“You see, love wasn’t a serious reality to her. It was just something
to play at in idle moments. The only reality, to her, was art. She
wanted to be a painter--a great painter.”
Old Gilbert rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Sort of Rosa Bonheur, eh?”
“I think she would have despised Rosa Bonheur. Gauguin was more in her
line.”
“And so that was how it began?”
“Yes--and how it ended. I saw her for the last time the next day,
before I went back to my rooms in Cambridge to pack. I didn’t get a
chance to talk with her. She seemed to avoid that deliberately. She was
more distant, more elusive, than ever.”
“Did you tell your friend Hal what had occurred?”
“Of course not.”
“And then you came home to Vickley.”
“Yes.”
“Did you write to her?”
“Three times. She didn’t reply.”
“You were not under the impression that you were her first lover?”
Norman hesitated. “I really know nothing about that. But for some
reason I assumed that she had had lovers.”
“She seemed sophisticated?”
“In her talk, yes.”
“You didn’t ask her about her previous experiences?”
“One couldn’t have asked her a thing like that. But I think she wanted
it to be taken for granted.”
Old Gilbert looked puzzled. “She wanted to have it taken for granted
that she was not a virgin?”
“Yes. But afterward--I wasn’t so sure. I’m not, now. Or rather--I think
I was really her first lover, in spite of the way she talked.”
Old Gilbert considered that helplessly, shook his head, and changed the
subject.
“As to Springer,” he asked, “was he married?”
“Not at that time. He’s been married since then.”
“How did Springer behave when she brought you to his studio?”
“Springer is a great clumsy bear. He’s friendly with everybody, unless
he’s in one of his suspicious moods. He was very friendly that day.”
“How well do you know him?”
“I’ve seen him only that once. Isabel told me a great deal about him.”
“Does he make much money with his painting?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid. What are you getting at?” Norman demanded.
“Were Isabel and Springer very great friends?”
Norman smiled. “She admired his work very much.”
“Do you think they had been lovers?”
“That idea had never occurred to me.”
“Let’s see,” said Gilbert. “The girl was elusive for a long time--and
then suddenly friendly. The day she took you to Springer’s studio was
the day she made love to you. Do you make anything out of that?”
“Nothing at all.”
“You thought of her as a mysterious and incalculable creature; but
let us supply the _x_ and see how the problem works out. She had
been Springer’s sweetheart. But Springer threw her over for another
girl--the one whom he afterwards married. And so she consoled herself
with you--perhaps trying to make him jealous. Doesn’t that clear up the
strangeness of her behavior?”
Norman tried hard to be objective. “It might be true. It merely doesn’t
fit in with my conception of Isabel.”
“I’ve described a very human sort of girl,” old Gilbert went on. “You
had your romantic ideas about her, to be sure. Why shouldn’t she be
elusive, with Springer for her lover? Until he got himself another
girl. Then she turned to you. I admit that this explanation is not
calculated to appeal to a young man’s vanity.”
“After all, what does it matter?” said Norman.
But Gilbert seemed to think it did matter. “You offered to marry
her,” he pursued, “but in spite of what had occurred between you, she
refused--because she was still in love with Springer. You wrote letters
to her. It wasn’t you she was thinking about; it was Springer. And when
she found she was pregnant, it wasn’t to you that she’d write, but to
him. Now, does it look,” asked Gilbert, “as though she thought it were
your child?”
“But, Good Lord--!” said Norman in bewilderment.
“Then Springer married the other girl; evidently refused to have
anything more to do with her. And now at last she remembers you. In
this emergency, your money would be a great convenience, no doubt.”
Norman shook his head. “I can’t believe that she’d lie to me,” he said.
“If you had gone to see her,” said old Gilbert with a tolerant smile,
“she wouldn’t have had to lie. She’d only have had to remind you of
that night in the woods, and your guilty conscience would have supplied
the rest.”
“I wish to God I could believe it,” said Norman.
“Would you rather,” asked Gilbert, “believe yourself the father of her
child?”
“What I wish,” said Norman, “is that I could wake up and find that this
was only a bad dream.”
“That’s the way it will seem to-morrow night,” answered Gilbert
cheerfully.
Norman turned toward the window, and stared out at the dark, flying
landscape. Every moment was bringing him nearer to the truth. To-morrow
he would know the truth. But--he wished he could see Isabel himself.
This wasn’t something that old Gilbert could handle for him.
Chapter V: Encounter
IT wouldn’t, he realized fully, be sensible to see Isabel. And besides,
it would be unfair to old Gilbert. He had promised to leave his
destinies to his friend’s charge. He had better leave things as they
stood.
When Gilbert left the hotel after breakfast to keep his appointment
with the lawyers representing the other interests in the Ostrander
case, it was with the understanding that they were to meet again at
lunch for a final conference before Gilbert’s visit to Dr. Zerneke.
When Norman was left alone in their suite at the hotel, he wondered
what to do with himself in the meantime.
He went out and strolled up Michigan Boulevard.
He passed the Steinbach Galleries.
Strolling back, he passed the Steinbach Galleries again.
Springer might be there, getting ready for his exhibit.
Norman turned and went in.
The place seemed to be empty. But as he went from one of the rooms to
another, passing the little office, he heard young Steinbach’s voice,
and then Springer’s.
He stopped, and sat down on a cushioned bench in the middle of the
room, staring unseeingly across at a painting of a Pueblo Indian dance.
He supposed what he was doing was foolish. But he had to hear what
Springer had to say--about him and Isabel.... For Springer would know
about it all. Springer was her friend.... And if he could not go to see
this doctor, if that must be left to Gilbert, yet here was something he
could do, while he waited.... All Gilbert’s carefully-built-up edifice
of caution and secrecy melted into mist, in his mind.
He had been there three minutes when Springer came out of the office.
Norman well remembered that dark bushy head and great lumbering frame.
Norman rose.
Springer paused, glanced at him idly, and took out his watch and looked
at it in a bored way.
There had been no recognition in that glance. Norman was disconcerted.
He would have to introduce himself.
“Mr. Springer,” he said.
Springer looked at him inquiringly. “Yes?”
“My name is Overbeck--Norman Overbeck.” And, since that seemed to mean
nothing to Springer, he added: “I met you a year ago in Boston.”
Springer offered his hand with the embarrassment of one who had a
bad memory in social matters. “Ah, yes,” he said, with an effort at
cordiality. “How are you?”
It wasn’t at all what Norman had expected. It was quite obvious that
Springer didn’t know who he was at all. So Isabel hadn’t told him!
Norman readjusted his mind to that.
“Well, how did you find Italy?” asked Springer absently, misled by some
_ignis fatuus_ gleam of false recollection.
Norman, ignoring this mistaken reference, said firmly: “Isabel Drury
took me to your studio.”
“Oh, yes!” said Springer. “You wrote a play. I remember now.”
“No, I didn’t write a play,” said Norman indignantly. “I am a lawyer
down in Vickley. I was at Harvard at the time, and”--he added--“a
friend of Isabel’s.”
“I’m sorry,” said Springer, confused and chagrined at his blunder. “I
remember your face quite well. So you are one of Isabel’s friends. Have
you heard of her good luck?”
“Good luck?” Norman repeated, baffled.
“Yes, she’s going to Paris. Some rich woman is subsidizing her for a
year’s study--isn’t it fine!”
“Yes,” said Norman. “But--”
He scarcely took in the news about Isabel’s going to Paris.
Was it possible that Springer didn’t know about what had happened
to her? Or was he keeping that secret? Yes, naturally enough, a
secret from an outsider.... That, Norman realized, was what he was to
Springer--an outsider! Because Springer didn’t know. Isabel hadn’t told
him that part of it. Maybe he didn’t know anything about it at all!
“How is Isabel?” Norman asked abruptly.
“Oh,” said Springer, “she’s all right.”
“All right?”
Why should he say that? Did he mean anything? Did he know anything?
“I suppose,” said Norman, as casually as possible, “that you keep in
touch with her?”
“Well, yes,” said Springer.
“I understand,” said Norman, “that she’s here in Chicago now.”
“Why, yes, she is,” said Springer reluctantly.
So it was true!
“I’d like to see her,” said Norman. His heart was beating heavily.
“Where is she?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, she’s--not seeing anybody. She’s just
recuperating from an operation for appendicitis.”
The usual lie! Springer said it with an air of protecting her from
intrusive acquaintances. And Norman couldn’t say: “You mean she’s just
had a baby!” No, he had to accept what Springer told him. He was an
outsider.
“Is that so?” he said, and his voice mechanically took on the proper
tone of sympathy and courteous interest.
Springer, having got past that point, spoke more fluently and easily.
“She’s going to Michigan to rest up for a few weeks, and then go on to
Paris,” he said.
Norman wanted to ask him at what hospital she was. But he felt that
Springer would evade that question.
“I’d like to see her before she goes,” he said.
“Are you going to be in town long?” asked Springer.
“No--a day or two.”
“I’m afraid there’s no chance,” said Springer.
“I suppose not,” said Norman.
The subject seemed closed.
“I’m having a show here next week,” said Springer.
“Yes, I would like to see it,” said Norman.
Springer held out his hand.
“Well, I may run into you here again,” he said.
Norman was dismissed.
He was conscious of two emotions--of annoyance with Springer, and,
strangely enough, of an enormous relief. It was all true! He hadn’t
doubted it, really, but something in his mind accepted this new
evidence with gratitude. It was as though an unendurable tension had
been relaxed. So Isabel had had a baby....
And then it occurred to him that he didn’t know whether her baby was
alive or dead.
He had to go to see Dr. Zerneke.
Chapter VI: Dr. Zerneke
HE went to a telephone booth. He did not need to look in the book: Dr.
Zerneke’s phone number was fixed in his mind.
A girl’s voice answered the telephone. He gave his name.
“Yes, Mr. Overbeck,” said the girl. “Dr. Zerneke is expecting you. Can
you come right over?”
“I’ll be there immediately,” he said.
The taxi stopped in front of an apartment building on the North Side.
The name, Dr. Martha Zerneke, was on a plaque in one of the front
windows. He rang the bell, and a young woman admitted him.
He gave his name.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Just wait in here a moment, please.”
She opened the door of the reception room, and went back to her desk.
He began to wonder why he had come. He ought to leave this part of it
to Gilbert!
There were three women in the room. One by one they were called into an
inner office by the office nurse.
Then it was his turn.
As he walked across the room, his mind whirled. But part of his mind
didn’t care. He would know the whole truth, now.
A small dark woman seated at a desk rose and held out her hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Overbeck.”
“Dr. Zerneke?”
“Yes. You received my letter?”
“You asked me to come to see you.”
“It is very good of you to come. Sit down, please.”
Norman took the chair at the corner of the desk.
“My letter,” said Dr. Zerneke, “wasn’t very explicit, I’m afraid. But
possibly you guessed something of its meaning. If you didn’t, I can
make the situation clear to you.”
Norman had an impulse to delay matters, by pretending ignorance. If
he had not talked with old Gilbert--if he had not met Springer--if he
had walked in here unsuspectingly--what would she have said? She had
offered just now to make the situation clear to him.
“Please do explain,” he said.
“I’m sorry if my letter appeared unduly mysterious, Mr. Overbeck.
You’ll understand in a moment why I felt obliged to write as I did. The
fact is that I need your assistance in a small technical matter.”
So that, thought Norman, was how she would have begun!
“You said, I believe,” he remarked, still keeping to his rôle of
ignorance, “that it was of personal interest to me.”
“Yes,” she answered, “sufficiently so that I feel sure you will go to
some little trouble to oblige us in the matter.”
“I should be glad to do anything I can,” he said. This, at least, was
a way of postponing the inevitable for a few moments. He felt like a
shipwrecked man who is holding to a plank and keeping his head above
water while in the distance a great wave is sweeping down upon him. And
at the same time he felt strangely calm.
“I am confident that you will, when I explain,” said the doctor. “Your
name has been given me by one of my patients under circumstances which
oblige me to ask for your assistance and coöperation. The matter is
a little unusual: that is why I go at it in this somewhat elaborate
manner. And because of its character, I think I ought to begin by
assuring you that the question of money is not involved. I want to make
that plain first of all.”
“I see,” said Norman.
“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now as to my patient. A year ago, Mr.
Overbeck, if I am rightly informed, you were going to law school at
Harvard.”
“Yes,” he said. The great wave hung overhead, about to fall.
“At that time you were acquainted with a girl named Isabel Drury.
Recently she has come under my care, and--”
Enough of this farce of ignorance!
“I know,” said Norman, “she has had a baby.”
“Oh--you know that?”
“It’s true, then!”
“Yes. And for certain reasons, Mr. Overbeck--”
“It’s--alive?”
“Oh, yes.”
“A--a boy or girl?”
“A boy. And for certain reason which I’ll explain in a moment, it is
desirable to have a record of the paternity in these cases. It is
for this purpose only, that Miss Drury has consented to allow me to
communicate with you.”
“Tell me,” said Norman impatiently, “when did it happen?”
“What? Oh, the baby was born eleven days ago.--The matter,” she
went on, returning to her argument, “is entirely a private one, you
understand....”
“How did she--come through it?” Norman asked.
“The delivery,” said the doctor, “was a somewhat difficult one, but she
stood it very well.”
“She’s all right now?” Norman persisted.
“Oh, quite all right. She’ll be able to leave the hospital within a
week or so.”
“And the baby?” asked Norman.
“The baby is a very healthy child. No physical defects. Six pounds at
birth, now about six and a half.”
“Isn’t that rather small?” Norman asked anxiously.
The doctor smiled. “Not at all,” she said, “especially not for a first
child. A very good weight, in fact. And now as to yourself.”
“Yes?” said Norman anxiously.
“Do you mind my asking you a few questions?” She drew a sheet of paper
toward her. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” said Norman in surprise.
“Have you recently had a thorough medical examination?”
“I took out some insurance recently,” he said, wondering what this was
all about. “I was examined then.”
“Will you take off your coat and vest, please?” she asked firmly.
He obeyed with some inward astonishment, and followed her into an
inner office, where he was weighed on her scales, seated on a kind of
trestle, and thumped and listened to in chest and back.... “Am I all
right?” he asked haughtily when they went back into the other office.
The doctor smiled. “You seem to be. Don’t put on your coat yet. Have
any of your family ever had tuberculosis?”
“No,” he said.
“Epilepsy?”
“No.”
“Insanity?”
“No!”
“Roll up your sleeve, please.”
He did so, obediently.
“This will only take a moment.” She put a tourniquet around his upper
arm and tightened it. She took out a queer shaped instrument of glass,
partly wrapped with cotton, and with a needle on the end.
“What is that?” he asked curiously.
“A Kiedal tube,” she replied. She sterilized the needle, and dabbed
with alcohol a spot on the skin of his upper arm. “Double up your
fist--hard.”
She skilfully thrust the needle point into a swollen vein, and pressed
upon the cotton about the tube, which immediately filled with blood.
She withdrew the needle, took off the tourniquet, and dabbed again at
his arm with alcohol.
“What is that for?” he asked.
“For a Kahn blood test,” she replied. “Now you may put on your coat and
vest. Can you give me a statement from your family doctor about your
family history--as to the hereditary diseases I asked you about?”
“Why--I suppose so. Yes, I’m sure I can. But why do you want to know
these things?”
“Oh--I thought I had explained that, Mr. Overbeck. It is always
desirable in these cases, when possible.”
“But what is it all about?” he asked. “You see, I am engaged to another
girl. Do you think I ought to marry Isabel, in order to legitimate the
child? Is that why you sent for me?”
The doctor looked surprised. “Apparently I have not yet made the
situation quite clear,” she said. “No, that wasn’t why I sent for you.
It is, as I told you, merely a technical matter. With a medical record
of paternity, showing that the child is free from hereditary disease,
a more desirable adoption can be effected. There was no intention of
embarrassing you further. As for these medical records, they will be
sealed and filed with the St. Thecla Child Adoption Society, of which
I am the medical director. These records are secret, and can’t even be
brought into court. Under these circumstances, I felt sure you wouldn’t
mind giving us this assistance.”
“I--no; I mean yes,” said Norman weakly, as with that word “secret”
ringing in his mind the world righted itself from topsy-turviness and
settled down about him--familiar, solid, secure.... He could marry
Madge, his career would not be affected, everything would be just as
old Gilbert had prophesied....
“And I thank you very much,” said the doctor, rising and holding out
her hand.
“Then--that’s all?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s all--except for the family medical history that you
promised to send me. You won’t forget that?”
“No, I won’t forget. But if you can spare the time--a moment or
two--I’d like to know something further about what’s going to be done
with the baby.”
“Certainly,” said the doctor, resuming her seat. “I’ll be glad to
explain that to you. Just what is it you want to know?”
“Well,” said Norman uncomfortably, “I really don’t know--but I don’t
quite like the idea of adoption!”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “some people feel that way. It offends them
to think of the child being separated from its natural mother.” And
she went on, in an impersonal manner to speak of the different laws of
different states--something about the mother having to keep her babies
herself....
“This,” Dr. Zerneke commented, “is supposed to be good for the girl’s
character. In some cases, no doubt it is. And it at least makes it
rather unlikely that those girls will have any more illegitimate
babies. That, I sometimes think, is the real reason for putting that
burden on them.”
Norman felt confused by these generalizations. This wasn’t exactly what
he wanted to know....
“Social workers believe, theoretically,” the doctor went on, “that
both parents should be held as strictly as possible to their
responsibilities for children born out of wedlock. But in actual
practice that means compelling the girl to take care of the baby, with
some inadequate financial aid, if any at all, from the man....”
Norman would have felt indignant, except that she seemed to have
forgotten that he was one of those men she was talking about.... Yes,
she was ignoring his personal interest in the question altogether. She
was treating him as though he were some visitor who had inquired about
the work of her society.... It was queer....
“The fact is,” she was saying, “that there isn’t any right solution of
the problem of illegitimacy. If we had a decent civilization, any baby
would be legitimate. To have babies is a natural function of women.
But the penalties for having them outside of marriage are still pretty
severe; and when there are homes where these children are wanted,
there seems to be no reason for penalizing the children. That’s why we
undertake to get these children adopted.”
“Yes, but--who is going to take Isabel’s baby?” Norman made himself ask.
“The Society has a large waiting list,” said the doctor. “The
applicants are thoroughly investigated.”
“Do you mean that you can’t--or won’t tell me?”
“I shouldn’t think of telling you,” said the doctor.
“Why not?”
“It makes trouble in the future,” said the doctor. “The adoptive
parents want to be assured of untroubled possession of the child. The
girl sometimes changes her mind and tries to get her child back.”
“Then Isabel isn’t to know who they are, either?”
“No more than you. If there were any chance of a parent turning up
later to reclaim the child, they would refuse to take it. You can see
that, Mr. Overbeck.”
“And Isabel agrees to this?”
“She trusts us to do the best for the child.”
“Has she--signed over the child yet?”
“Not yet. If you have any doubts of the Society I represent, Mr.
Overbeck, its record is easily looked up. In fact, Mr. Overbeck, since
you are a lawyer, I wish you would make an investigation, and advise
Miss Drury accordingly. The one thing we are anxious to avoid is the
charge of exerting undue influence upon the mothers of these children.”
Norman was conscious of a feeling of frustration which he could not
quite understand.
“I shall certainly make inquiries about the Society,” he said. “But I
might remind you that there are my rights, as well as the mother’s, to
be considered.”
“I’m sorry to have to correct you on a legal point,” said the doctor
drily, “but the fact is that you have no legal rights to or over Miss
Drury’s child.”
“Is that true?”
“You’ll find it to be quite true, Mr. Overbeck.”
Norman was silent for a long moment. Then he looked up and said:
“I must see her--Isabel. Can I?”
“Certainly,” said the doctor, “as far as I am concerned. If she wishes
to see you.”
“Why shouldn’t she wish to see me?” Norman demanded.
“She may feel that the fact that you are her child’s father gives you
no special claim upon her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She was quite unwilling for me to communicate with you at all. She
particularly said that she did not wish to see you.”
“She said that?”
“But she may feel differently about it now. I am only warning you.”
“I’ll call her up and ask her,” said Norman grimly.
“I’ll call up for you, if you like, right now, and find out.”
“Do, please,” said Norman coldly.
“Do you wish to see her this morning?”
“The sooner the better.”
The doctor lifted the receiver and called the number.
“Obstetrical B, please.... Miss Higginson? This is Dr. Zerneke. Please
send word to Miss Drury in Room 37 that Mr. Norman Overbeck would like
to visit her this morning.... Yes, Over-beck.”
Norman waited.
“Yes.... She will? Thank you.”
Dr. Zerneke turned to Norman. “It’s all right. You can go at eleven.
But I will have to remind you that emotional scenes are not good for
nursing mothers. And don’t stay longer than fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Very well,” said Norman, and rose impatiently.
Chapter VII: Flowers
HIS taxi passed a florist’s shop, and he leaned forward and pounded on
the window. “Stop a minute. Yes, right here.”
It might be ridiculous-- But why should it be ridiculous? A girl who
had a baby, a girl in bed in a hospital, would like to have flowers
brought by a visitor, surely. Any girl!
In the shop, he looked about at the banked flowers in uncertainty.
“We have some very nice American Beauty roses,” said the salesman,
leading him toward the glass fronted refrigerator. He took out
a bunch of long stemmed buds. “Fifteen dollars a dozen.” Norman
felt uncomfortable. He was vaguely apprehensive of the emotional
inappropriateness of American Beauty roses for this occasion.
Something yellow caught his eye. “Jonquils,” he said. “Let me see
those.”
“A dollar a dozen,” said the salesman, without enthusiasm.
Norman hesitated. A husband, a lover, a dear friend, might give the
yellow flowers she liked. But what was he? Isabel had always that power
of making him feel at a loss. From a moment of intimacy she could
withdraw herself until he felt infinitely remote, the most casual of
acquaintances, almost a stranger.
He bought the roses.
In the taxi, he had a disconcerting picture of himself, with stick and
gloves and tissue-wrapped bouquet. It seemed altogether too jaunty.
He felt like a silly-ass character in a story by P. G. Wodehouse.
Vindictively he accused himself of being really that--a superficial
person, with no capacity for dealing with the serious aspects of life.
Yes, what should a P. G. Wodehouse young man be doing in a Tolstoian
situation? But real life seemed to be like that.
Abruptly he knocked on the glass window. “Drive back to that
florist’s,” he ordered.
The driver turned the corner, rounded the block, and drew up at the
florist’s shop again.
“Give me two dozen jonquils,” said Norman to the salesman.
When they were wrapped up and paid for, he handed back the other
bouquet. “You can keep these,” he said, and walked out.
Chapter VIII: Isabel
THE taxi brought him to the hospital a few minutes after eleven. He
went up to Obstetrical Ward B. To a nurse who sat at a desk in the
corridor he gave his name. “I would like to see Miss Drury in room
thirty-seven.”
“Just a minute,” said the nurse, and pressed a button on her desk.
Presently another uniformed young woman appeared. “Take this visitor to
room thirty-seven, Miss Paget.”
He accompanied the young woman down the corridor.
She tapped at a door, opened it slightly, and glanced in. “A visitor
for you,” she said, and ushered Norman in.
On a small high bed lay Isabel, her pointed face framed in loosely
strewn locks of short auburn hair against her pillow. She raised her
head a little as the door closed behind him.
“Oh,” she said, and smiled, “it’s you.” A thin arm was withdrawn
languidly from under the coverlet, and a hand was offered to him. It
seemed strangely frail for her hand. She seemed queerly thin and white.
He put his hat, stick and bouquet upon the little table by the bed, and
bent over her hand. A sudden emotion flooded him so that he could not
speak for a moment. He held her thin hand to his lips. He would have
dropped on his knees beside the bed--but that would have been awkward,
the bed was so high. His sense of the ridiculous helped him to recover
his self-possession.
“Isabel!” he said.
“Yes, here I am,” she said. “Who would have thought it would come to
this?” Her face was lit up by one of her amused ironic perceptions. How
well he knew that look!
“The wood near Athens,” he said.
“Yes--the wood near Athens! But do sit down, Norman.”
He drew the chair up close to her bed.
“I hope you understand,” she went on, “that it really isn’t my fault
you’ve been dragged into all this. Dr. Zerneke explained everything to
you, didn’t she?”
He nodded, not quite able to trust himself to speak.
“I didn’t think I’d see you at all,” she said. “I thought it would be
simpler not to. But when you called up, that seemed to me rather silly.”
“Why didn’t you want to see me?” he asked.
“Well--everything was settled, and I didn’t want things upset.
I haven’t got my strength back yet, and I didn’t feel equal to
arguing with you. I remembered you as being rather controversially
conventional, you know.”
“I suppose I am rather conventional,” he said humbly. “But what did
you think my attitude would be, about this?”
“Oh, I thought you might be shocked at the idea of my deserting my
child. I thought you might preach the duties of motherhood to me--that
sort of thing. You remember, we once had an argument about it. You
thought woman’s destiny after all was the home. I suppose it is, for
most of them. But I’ve got to paint, Norman. I can’t give up my life to
a baby. Please don’t think I’m heartless. But I’m not going to let a
biological accident change my whole life.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” Norman asked abruptly.
“Well, I didn’t know for a long time.”
“You didn’t know!”
“At least I wouldn’t believe it. I was an awful fool, Norman. You
see, I’d always thought of myself as an artist--not a woman. I simply
couldn’t admit the possibility of such a thing as my having a baby. You
remember, when you were afraid this might happen, and I laughed and
said oh, it would be all right? That was just my sublime egotism!” She
laughed. “I thought it _couldn’t_ happen to me.”
“But you found out you were a woman after all,” he said solemnly.
She stirred restlessly beneath the coverlet. “I found out that my body
is a woman’s body,” she said. “And that still seems queer to me. Yes,
apparently it’s true that this body of mine is a baby-factory, just
like other girls’ bodies. And what a strange and cumbersome process
it is, Norman! I’ve a good chance to observe it, you see. I was under
ether during the final crisis, so I can’t speak of that. But I saw and
felt enough to make me wonder at women--why they stand for it, being
made use of this way as baby-producers. I suppose Nature traps them
into it--and then they accept their fate. But I’m not going to! My body
has been used nine months for a purpose that I never consented to--used
and occupied and then torn and mangled--but I’m free now at last, and
I’m going to stay free. My body may be a woman’s body, but my thoughts
are not a woman’s thoughts. I have something else to do than take care
of a baby! And even my silly body seems to know that at last.--I’m
supposed to be a milk-producing animal now, a kind of contented cow
with bloated udders. But my milk is drying up. Dr. Zerneke says it is
because of my mental conflict. My mind, you see, is resuming possession
of my body. Soon it will be all mine again. And then I shall be a
painter once more, and never a woman again, Norman.
“And yet,” she continued, “there has been one good thing about it. It
has set me free from my family. They’ve repudiated me, thank God!--let
me go my own way at last. I suppose that was why I could be so calm
about it, and practically think nothing about it for so many months. I
had nothing to lose when the truth came out--except my respectability.
Nothing to lose but my chains, and a world to gain, as the soap-box
orators say. And it was worth it. I comforted myself with that thought,
Norman, when the pain came--that I was giving birth to a bastard child,
and my shocked family would never lay loving hands on me again to drag
me back into the fold. I was buying my freedom at last by going through
that torture.”
“Don’t!” said Norman involuntarily.
“I’m sorry!” she laughed and reached out a white hand and patted his
bent head as though he were a child. “I shouldn’t have talked that way.
Poor boy, I’ve shocked you again. I suppose you came here to see a
Madonna. I never could live up to your romantic expectations, Norman.
You’d better stop trying to understand me. There’s no reason why you
should be bothered. It’s no concern of yours.”
“It seems to me,” said Norman, choking a little as he tried to speak,
“that it--is--a concern of mine.”
“I didn’t intend that it should be. Did it upset you when you heard
about it?”
“Naturally it upset me. But Dr. Zerneke’s letter was so diplomatic that
at first I didn’t know what it was all about.”
“That’s my fault. I made her promise to write very diplomatically. I
thought of you in the bosom of your family there in Vickley--you might
have forgotten the girl who led you astray back in Cambridge. I told
her to say that I was the girl who took you to Springer’s studio.”
“She mentioned Springer,” said Norman, and he thought of all
the trouble that mention had caused--old Gilbert’s surmises of
double-dealing. How far away that coil of respectability seemed now!
“I saw him at Steinbach’s this morning,” he said.
“Springer? Yes, he has a show on at Steinbach’s next week. He’s done
some very fine things. You ought to see them.”
“He spoke of you.”
“He and Roberta have been very good to me. I don’t know what I’d have
done without them. It’s nice, too, his being in Chicago now. I have
somebody to talk to. And he’s got me a place to stay, in Michigan,
until I’m able to stand the trip across. You’ve heard of my luck, I
suppose? I’m going to study in Paris! I owe that to them, too. They’ve
found me the sort of patron every young artist dreams about. A rich
woman in Boston is giving me my traveling expenses and fifteen dollars
a week for a year. With three hundred francs a week in Paris, I shall
feel that I own the world!”
“Does Springer approve of--your plans?”
She frowned. “Springer is a dear,” she said, “but he can’t forget that
I am a woman, and he doesn’t believe that women _can_ be artists in a
serious way. See what he’s done to Roberta--”
“Roberta is his wife, I take it?”
She nodded. “Roberta had a great deal of promise as a painter. But
she’s settled down to just being a painter’s wife. I think that’s why
she has done all these things for me--to give me my chance.”
“Then _he_ doesn’t think you ought to go to Paris?”
“He doesn’t say anything about it. But he’s not very enthusiastic.”
“What does he want you to do?”
“I don’t know. Secretly, I suppose, he thinks I ought to give up my
career and live for my child. Something of that sort.”
“And you consider that--quite out of the question, I suppose.”
“Yes, Norman. I’ve tried to tell you why. And I don’t think any sort
of compromise would do--such as keeping the baby and going on with
my career. I’d not be a good mother. It just wouldn’t work out. It
wouldn’t be good for the child to have a mother like that. The only
sensible thing is to have the baby adopted by people who do want one.”
“Even if you know nothing of these people, Isabel?”
“Dr. Zerneke knows them. And I’m sure they couldn’t be worse parents
than I should be!”
“Suppose,” said Norman, “they should be conventional people--and the
boy should inherit your talent. They wouldn’t understand him. They’d
try to discourage him.”
“If he were an artist, that wouldn’t keep him from being one.” Then
Isabel smiled. “But why not suppose that he will inherit your traits,
Norman? That’s quite as likely. And then he’d get along perfectly well
in his bourgeois environment.”
“So that’s what you think of me--as a perfectly bourgeois person,” said
Norman.
“You’ve managed to make terms with the world you live in,” she said, “I
thought you got along with it very comfortably.”
“So I did,” he said, “until yesterday--when this thing came up. This
has knocked the foundations of my old life to pieces.”
“I’m sorry,” said Isabel. “I hope it’s not as bad as that. This needn’t
affect your life.”
“It does,” said Norman. “There’s no use pretending. Isabel, won’t you
marry me?”
She took his hand between both of hers for a moment. “It’s terribly
sweet of you to want to, Norman. But we’ve already discussed that, back
at Cambridge. You remember.”
“I remember that you didn’t want to marry a bourgeois young lawyer and
settle down to a life of teas and bridge in Vickley,” he said. “But
now--I’m afraid you’d not be marrying a prosperous lawyer in Vickley,
Isabel. You’d be marrying”--he smiled--“a ruined man and an outcast.”
“You make it very attractive, Norman,” she said. “It’s a temptation to
marry you, just to ruin you. But the trouble is, the marriage which
would be your ruin would make me a respectable woman again. I can’t
venture that. I’ve too recently escaped from prison to give up my
freedom. I won’t marry you, Norman.”
“Is that your real reason?” he asked.
“Marriage is marriage, Norman. I’m going to Paris to paint. You want to
keep me here, looking after your baby. No, thank you.”
“Is that the real reason?” he repeated.
“What else? Oh, I suppose you mean, do I love you?”
“Perhaps that’s what I do mean. But I suppose I know the answer
already.”
“If I weren’t going to be a painter, I could love you, Norman. If I
were a real girl, I’d be proud to have your babies. I’m sorry, for your
sake--and perhaps for my own--that I’m such a queer monster as I am,
and--and not a nice girl for you, Norman.”
She turned her head away from him and flung her arm up to cover her
face. She was crying.
“Go away,” she said, after a moment.
He thought with a thrill that this wild girl might yet be conquered....
And then he remembered that he mustn’t upset Dr. Zerneke’s patient.
He rose, contritely.
She found a handkerchief under her pillow, and wiped her eyes, and
turned toward him. He was fumbling with the tissue wrappings of the
bouquet.
“Oh, flowers!” she cried. And then, as he unwrapped them: “Jonquils! I
love them! How nice of you to remember!”
She is a girl, after all! thought Norman.
“Put them in the water pitcher,” she told him.
He did so.
“And now come here and kiss me.”
He bent over her, and their lips touched. What did that kiss mean?
Gratitude, to be sure. A lonely girl in a hospital.... He wished he
could believe it was more.
“Norman, dear,” she said softly, “will you forgive me for being--what I
am?”
“But are you that, really?” he asked. “I wish I knew!”
“Yes--yes--yes!” she cried, raising herself up from her pillow. “Don’t
be fooled by a few silly tears, Norman. The real me is in Paris now,
sitting before an easel in a paint-smeared smock. You’ve found me weak
and helpless, but I’ve that hope. And if I didn’t have it, as God knows
I mightn’t have--if I didn’t have Paris to look forward to and three
hundred francs a week for a year and no questions asked--if I had been
penniless and scared, I might have married you, Norman. But you’d only
have had my woman’s body--my thoughts would never have stayed with you.
That’s the truth, and we’re both lucky to have escaped such a trap.
Think! if you’d given up everything for me, and then found you could
never really have me--and if I had given up my dreams for food and
shelter--we’d have hated each other, Norman.”
“It isn’t just us,” he said. “Isabel, it’s our son. Couldn’t we--”
She bit her lip and shook her head.
“Besides,” she said, “you’re engaged to another girl. Hal told me so.”
“What does that matter, now?”
“She’ll give you another son.”
“Doesn’t,” he asked desperately, “doesn’t it mean anything to you?”
“Why,” she asked wonderingly, “should our child mean so much to you?
You’ve never even seen him.”
“I want to see him.”
“You can. But don’t you understand--”
“I understand that he would interfere with your career, yes,” said
Norman harshly.
“Hate me if you want to. But I am what I am. And if I’ve nursed this
baby at my breast, and still think of myself as an artist and not as
a mother--” She paused.... “Norman--I fought out this wife and mother
business once before--when I was eighteen. I was engaged. And I was
really in love ... more than I ever will be again. But I saw what
marriage would do to me, and I wouldn’t go through with it. My mother
tried to make me. But I wouldn’t--I couldn’t. I settled it for myself
then that I was going to be an artist, and not a wife and mother. I
don’t suppose you’ll ever understand. But there’s no use arguing with
me. I’ve my own road to go.”
“But to give your child away to strangers--!” he protested bitterly.
She sank back on her pillow. “I can’t talk to you any more,” she said
wearily. “You’d better go.”
“I want to see my son,” he said stubbornly.
“The nurse will show you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. And--I’ll try to
understand your point of view....”
“Good-by,” she said. “And thank you for the flowers.”
There was a tap at the door.
“Yes?” said Isabel. “I think,” she said to Norman, “that’s the baby
now.”
Chapter IX: The Baby
THE door opened, and an angular, old-maidish-looking nurse entered with
a baby in her arms. “Feeding time,” she said.
She went to the bed and laid the baby down beside Isabel. “I’ll bring
the bottle,” she said, and went out.
“It’s a good thing,” said Isabel, “that this is a bottle feeding. I’m
not supposed to go through scenes like this--it’s not good for my milk.”
Norman looked down at the baby in a kind of terrified curiosity. It was
a very tiny thing, with a round face, and some blond hair like his own
on the queer-shaped skull. The blue eyes blinked up at him sleepily.
“Yes,” said Isabel, “this is what we have been rowing about.” She
turned to the baby. “This man thinks I ought to take care of you,”
she said. “But you know better, don’t you? I’m a very poor mother, I
haven’t even enough milk for you, and the little I have is not up to
standard. You won’t be sorry to see the last of me.” She smiled at
Norman. “Well,” she said, “he’s a healthy little bastard, isn’t he?”
Norman flinched at the word.
“Well, he is, you know,” said Isabel. “And he’s too young to have his
feelings hurt by mentioning it. You and I ought to be able to face the
fact. After all, Norman, it’s the sort of thing that happens quite
regularly and inevitably in every civilized country on the globe. Do
you happen to know the statistics for illegitimacy? I made Dr. Zerneke
give me something to read about it. It’s very interesting. It seems
that in the United States about one in every forty-two births is
illegitimate. I’ve been figuring it out. Sixty thousand illegitimate
births a year comes to about a hundred and sixty-four a day, or seven
an hour, or one every eight minutes and twenty seconds. Statistics are
very consoling. They take away the uniqueness of one’s discomforts.”
He was looking at the baby. Gradually it had become thoroughly awake.
It stretched its arms, and yawned magnificently. Its lips began to make
sucking movements. Its face grew red, and broke into a wrinkled grimace
of anger.
Isabel went on talking. “Every year--you see, I’ve had nothing to
do for days except to study statistics--out of every hundred and
fifty-nine unmarried females of childbearing age, one gives birth to an
illegitimate child. This year it so happened that the lot fell to me.”
A loud wail came from the little bundle.
“I’ve nothing for you,” said Isabel. “You’ll have to wait for your
bottle.”
“Why is his head such a queer shape?” asked Norman.
“You ought to have seen it at first. It was pulled out of shape getting
into the world. It’s getting to look all right now.”
The baby’s wails grew more insistent.
“Just a minute, young man,” said Isabel.
“Have you--named him?” asked Norman.
“Well,” said Isabel, a little embarrassed, “it really makes no
difference--the people who are going to have him will never know, and
they’ll name him all over again. But when I first saw him, he did look
so much like you! Do you mind?”
“You named him Norman?”
“When the doctor was making out the birth certificate, she told me
I’d have to give him some sort of first name--the first one that came
into my head would do, she said. And that was the first one that came
into my head. I know I shouldn’t have done it. But it doesn’t really
implicate you, Norman.”
“Why the devil,” asked Norman, “should you be so considerate of _me_?”
“Because it wasn’t your fault, Norman. You didn’t know you were going
to be let in for anything like this. You’ve your own life to live. It
wouldn’t be fair.”
“If--for any reason--” he said, “you had decided to keep the baby, what
would you have done then--about me?”
“I’d never have told you anything about it at all. It would have been
my baby. I don’t see why you should be asked to support it, in any
case.”
“But I think that’s silly,” said Norman. “Because I could support
it--and you couldn’t.”
“Oh, yes, I could. Girls do, you know. And I’ll tell you this. I didn’t
intend to, but I will.... You see, when a girl is going to give up
her baby for adoption, she doesn’t nurse it at all, and never sees
it--except just once, before she signs the papers. They manage it that
way for fear of arousing the maternal instinct. Because usually, after
a girl has nursed a baby, she wants to keep it. But that seemed to me
a cowardly thing to do. I told Dr. Zerneke I’d nurse my baby, and take
my chances of my maternal instinct being aroused. I didn’t explain to
her, but I can tell _you_--it was a kind of test of myself: whether
I was destined to be a mother or a painter. I decided that if I felt
like keeping the baby, I would--I’d get a job of some kind and give
up my year in Paris and everything--stop painting, and be a regular
female.... Well, you see, my milk is drying up! And I don’t feel at all
like a mother--I still want to paint! So that’s why--”
“I see,” said Norman.
Yes, he thought bitterly, if she were a real mother, she’d be
interested in comforting that crying baby, instead of explaining her
psychology!
The spinsterish-looking nurse came in efficiently with the bottle.
“I think your visitor has been here long enough,” she said firmly.
“I’m going,” said Norman.
He gathered up his hat and stick. “I’ll see you again, if I may.”
“Yes, do,” said Isabel.
“Here, precious!” said the nurse, cooingly, “here’s your itsie
bottsie-wottsie.”
Norman heard her crooning over his child as he went out the door.
Chapter X: Art Alone Endures
OUTSIDE of the hospital he hailed a taxi, and gave the name of his
hotel.
Coming out of some reverie too deep to remember, he looked out of the
window and saw that he was on Michigan Boulevard, passing the Art
Institute. On an impulse, he stopped the taxi, and went in.
He climbed the wide stair to the large room in which the treasures of
the place were on view--a miscellaneous lot of treasures: some of them,
like Bougereau’s bather, cheapened by time’s changes in the realm of
taste; none but the ignorant now stopped to admire the high lights on
those perfect and polished toe-nails. And poor Gilbert Stuart--what
an irony for a painter to be cherished because of the historical
importance of one of his subjects! But here was, at least, a Van Dyck.
Norman paused in front of it.... And from somewhere out of a memory
whose leisure hours for some years had been given to connoisseurship
in the art of painting, there leaped out the irrelevant fact that Van
Dyck had had an illegitimate child in the Netherlands; the mother being
unknown to history.... He passed on.
He did not know what he was looking for.... Possibly for some proof
that art was as important as he had always taken for granted that
it was. These artists starved and painted, attained--if they were
lucky--the heights of fame, and left pictures that eventually found
their way to some American gallery. That seemed to be the final, ironic
goal of all their striving. It was, no doubt, very improbable that
this willful girl would ever achieve any sort of fame. But if she did,
beyond her wildest dreams--then, some day, a troubled young man would
stand in front of some picture of hers, and remember that she was said
to have had an illegitimate child in America.
“The father,” he murmured half aloud, “being unknown to history.”
Yes, times were changing. Women were taking the privileges of men. And
that careless masculine privilege of leaving behind an illegitimate
child or so in the course of one’s career--that, too. Van Dyck hadn’t
been stopped in his painter’s progress by a mere illegitimate child:
why should Isabel Drury be?
Oh, no doubt there was something to be said for her attitude. And it
was important, doubtless, that she have her chance to paint a picture
that would be bought after her death for a fabulous sum by an American
millionaire. Just why it was important he could not at the moment
seem to be able to tell himself. But he had always known that it was
important....
A fragment of a poem of Gautier’s flickered into his mind. “_Tout
passe. La vers souveraine demeurent._” That had impressed him greatly
when he read it at college. All passes; sovereign verse--or, as in this
case, painting--lasts....
To be sure. Children grow up; become old; die. Paint on canvas stays
young. More or less. Less rather than more, to tell the truth. Paint
ages, too. The gloom into which Whistler’s paintings are already
fading.... An accident, perhaps. Isabel didn’t use that kind of a
palette. She was a post-Impressionist.... But styles decay, too.
_Pointillisme_--how quaint it looks already! Picasso--will he and all
his manners seem to another generation as futile as Meissonier?... This
whole age: was it perhaps afflicted, as some said, with a spiritual
sickness? Was it because of something morbid in his own mind that he
had ever been drawn to it?... A bourgeois thing to think!
But then, he was a bourgeois: no doubt of that. What did he know about
art? He had enjoyed the belief that he knew a great deal. And that did
no harm--it would encourage him to buy some poor devil’s pictures; and
if he guessed right, he could present them to a museum. That was his
function--to buy pictures.... Some day he might have the privilege of
buying some of Isabel’s.
When he was dead, his widow would call in an expert and ask, “Are these
worth anything?” If they weren’t, she would burn them up as trash--the
mere record of a girl’s vain dreams. If the expert said, “Oh, yes,
indeed, madam, those are very fine early Drurys!”--then they would
pass into the possession of some millionaire. They would fetch a good
price.... But the man who bought them wouldn’t know how cheap they were
at any price.... He would be getting, not just paint and canvas and a
name, but the milk that had dried up in Isabel’s breasts, the love that
she had kept from her baby, the hope that she had refused to squander
on a mere living child--all that she had saved up and put into her
masterpieces rather than waste in motherhood: that’s what he would be
getting for his money. And when after dinner he took his guests for a
stroll through his gallery, and-- But this was mere sentimentality....
Norman awoke from his reverie, in front of Millet’s picture of the
new-born calf being brought home by two peasants on a straw-covered
litter, the mother cow following along and licking her baby.... Silly
sentimentalists, cows. Didn’t they know their real business was to
produce cream for the tables of the bourgeoisie? And Millet--a damned
sentimentalist, himself. Any post-impressionist would say so....
Norman remembered suddenly his luncheon engagement with old Gilbert.
They were to meet at the hotel.
He hurried out.
Chapter XI: Common Sense
“WELL,” said old Gilbert, at the table in the corner of the hotel
dining room, “how have _you_ been spending your morning?”
“I went to see Dr. Zerneke,” said Norman. “I couldn’t wait.”
Old Gilbert stopped wiping his mouth and threw his napkin violently on
the table.
“I’ll be damned!” he said. “I suppose I ought to have known it.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” said Norman. “I had to know.”
“Well, and what did you find out?”
“Your guess was true, of course. It’s Isabel Drury. She had her baby
eleven days ago.”
“I’ve had time to find out that much myself,” said Gilbert. “I had some
one call up all the hospitals in town for me. What I want to know is
what kind of mess you’ve got yourself into.”
“If I haven’t got myself into a mess,” said Norman, “it’s not my fault,
I’m afraid. I didn’t try to deny anything. But all that this doctor
wanted--”
“Yes, what did she want?”
“She wanted to find out whether the baby has a healthy father. The
people who are planning to adopt the child wished to be sure of that,
it seems.”
“Yes--and what else?”
“That appears to be all. She was at great pains to assure me that I had
no further responsibility in the matter. When I’ve furnished her with
some more medical data, I can dismiss the matter from my mind entirely,
I gather.”
“The girl makes no claim on you?”
“None at all.”
Old Gilbert looked immensely relieved.
“Tell me,” said Norman, “have you ever heard of the Thecla Child
Adoption Society?”
“Yes,” said Gilbert. “I’ve looked that up too.”
“Is it a reputable organization?”
“Perfectly. And I had Dr. Zerneke looked up, too.”
“You found her to be all right?” asked Norman.
“Professional reputation unimpeachable, it seems. Why?”
“Well--about the adoption matter.”
“That’s all right. They’ll handle it in the right way. I found out
something about their work. And if you’ve been assured that your secret
will be kept, you’ve nothing to fear from them.”
“I didn’t mean that, precisely.”
“What, then?”
“I was thinking--of the child.”
“They know their business. The child will be put in good hands. You
needn’t worry about that.”
Old Gilbert once more gave to his lunch the attention it deserved. “You
see,” he said comfortably between mouthfuls, “things have turned out
all right after all--just as I said they would. And now that you’ve had
your mind put at ease, I think you’d better go right home. There’s no
point in your hanging around Chicago.”
“Why do you want me to go home?” asked Norman.
“Because I think well enough is best left alone,” said Gilbert.
“Everything is all right now, and that’s a good way to leave it.”
“You mean that you’re afraid I might go to see Isabel?”
“You’re safer, I think, back in Vickley.”
“Well--I might as well tell you that I saw her, too. And the baby.”
“You _have_ taken this case into your own hands, with a vengeance,”
said old Gilbert in discouragement. “I was a damned fool ever to bring
you here. Well, tell me the worst at once. Did you offer to marry her?”
“I asked her to, and she refused.”
“You asked her to!--and she refused? You certainly have fool’s luck.
But why did she refuse you?”
“For the same reasons as before. It would interfere with her career.”
“That’s beyond me. But I suppose she has her reasons. Lord, what a
tight squeak! You don’t know how lucky you are! But I suppose you
thought that was the noble thing to do--offer to marry her! You didn’t
happen to remember, I suppose, that you were engaged to another girl.”
“It didn’t seem to make any difference.”
“Boy, she might have taken you up. You were putting your head into the
lion’s mouth!”
“Oh, I knew what I was doing. And it wasn’t just a noble gesture. I was
quite ready to let everything else go to hell.”
“Good Lord, you’re as much infatuated with her as all that?”
“No. I’m not even sure that I love her at all.”
“Do you mean to say that you offered to marry her just to make an
honest woman of her?”
Norman laughed. “Nothing like that.”
“Then why in the name of God did you offer to marry her? Can you tell
me that?”
“That seemed the simplest thing to do,” said Norman.
“I think you’re a little mad,” said old Gilbert.
“I don’t know,” said Norman. “I suppose it was foolish. Any way, she
wouldn’t.”
“Fortunately,” said Gilbert, “she seems to be just as crazy as you are!
What would your father think of me if I took you here to Chicago and
let you get into a mess like that, right under my nose!”
“Well, you needn’t worry about it,” said Norman.
“I shan’t ask her again.”
“I should hope not!” said old Gilbert.
“I saw Springer this morning.” And then Norman was sorry he had
mentioned it. Gilbert would commence again on his suspicions.
“What is _he_ doing here?” asked Gilbert.
“Getting ready for his exhibit.”
“Oh, you went to see him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what did _he_ say?”
“He didn’t know me. He said Isabel had appendicitis. His wife has found
her a rich patron, and she’s going to Paris to study.”
“I’ve been wondering who was paying her expenses,” said Gilbert.
“I suppose you still wish to think that Springer is mixed up in this
affair,” said Norman, “and that something is being put over on me. But
I am convinced that you are wrong. And I have acknowledged the child as
my own.”
“I’ve only been trying to act as your friend in this matter, Norman. Of
course, if you are convinced that the child is yours, there’s nothing
more to say on that score. The only question is, what do you propose
to do about it? Publish the fact from the housetops? I appreciate
your honorable scruples. They seem to me excessive, I must admit. But
you have acted upon them--you have offered to marry the girl; and she
has declined your offer. The question of money does not seem to be
involved. If it were a matter of paying the girl’s expenses--or if
she wanted to keep the child herself--I’m sure you would wish to be
generous. As it is, there seems to be nothing more that you can do. Dr.
Zerneke will find a good home for the child. The girl will go ahead and
paint pictures. And you will go back to Vickley and resume the practice
of law. That is the situation as I see it. The matter is closed. It has
been very exciting, and no doubt instructive. But it’s all over.”
“Yes,” said Norman, and sighed. “I suppose it is all over.” All except
remembering, and thinking, and wondering--and he’d have the rest of his
life for that.
A picture flashed into his mind. An absurd picture--a melodramatic
picture. He was older, and driving a car slowly through a Chicago
street at night. A young man, with a revolver in his hand, stepped in
front of the car and called, “Stop!” But he bent his head and stepped
hard on the gas. A bullet grazed his cheek like a knife, and then
he became aware that the car was dragging a dead, mangled body. And
somehow he knew that it was his son’s....
He pulled himself back to reality, and smiled wanly at the absurdity of
his fancies.
“Well,” old Gilbert was saying, “this business has turned out
remarkably well, considering everything. We can go back to the status
quo ante without a qualm. We take the eleven o’clock train to-night.
You’ll be here at ten ready to go?”
“Yes,” said Norman, “I’ll be ready.”
Chapter XII: Bad Dreams
BUT what could he do that afternoon?...
Two o’clock found him back in Dr. Zerneke’s waiting room.
“Have you looked us up?” asked Dr. Zerneke cheerfully, when he was
admitted to her office.
“If I were a poor devil of a soda-fountain clerk,” said Norman, “and
Isabel a stenographer I had got into trouble--what would you do?”
“Just what I have done in this case,” said Dr. Zerneke. “The rest, so
far as I am concerned, would be up to you and her. Did you ask her to
marry you?”
“Yes,” said Norman. “And she refused.”
“I thought that was what would happen,” said the doctor. “She’s a very
determined young woman. And all women are not to be forced into a
single mold. She wants her career. So we must find the child a proper
home.”
“Yes, I understand that,” said Norman. “But what I object to is this
business of turning the baby over to strangers!”
“They are not strangers to the Society,” said Dr. Zerneke. “We have
more applicants than we have babies, and as I told you, they are very
thoroughly investigated. We know all about them.”
“But I don’t,” said Norman stubbornly.
“I’m afraid that can’t be helped,” said Dr. Zerneke. And then she
repeated her question: “Have you made inquiries about the work of our
Society?”
“Oh,” said Norman, “I’ve no doubt your Society is all right. But--” He
paused helplessly.
“I was sure you would come to that conclusion,” said Dr. Zerneke. And
then, as he sat there, silent and troubled, she added: “I don’t wish to
take advantage of your situation, Mr. Overbeck, but if it would help to
ease your feelings the Society would be glad to accept a check to help
carry on its work.”
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll be glad to do that.”
He took out his check-book and his fountain-pen, and started to write.
But suddenly he laid down his pen.
“No,” he said, “I can’t buy them off that way.”
He spoke softly, as if to himself, but Dr. Zerneke asked sharply:
“Buy who off?”
“The bad dreams--the pictures,” he said. “The things that come into my
mind.”... A frightful vision had visited him as he held the pen poised
over the check. It was like the one that had come to him at lunch, with
Gilbert--only worse, this time. Its misty fringes still clung to his
mind and afflicted him with horror.
The doctor seemed to understand. She reached out and put her hand for
a moment on one of his stooped, miserable shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she
said. “What do you want to do?”
“I--I don’t know,” he said.
That vision-- No, of course nothing like that would ever really happen.
But was he to be tormented with such pictures all his life? In every
handcuffed youth being taken to prison--in every poster offering a
reward for a young murderer--was he to seek for the features of his
unknown son?
“If you have any practical alternative to offer--” the doctor was
saying.
His mind was still grappling with the thought of a life haunted by such
visions.... His wife would say, “Dearest, you’re positively morbid
about crime-news!” He would have legitimate sons. “Dad, don’t you think
I’m old enough to have a car of my own?” And then he would have to
think about his other son, the one nobody knew about--a tramp, perhaps,
freezing on the rods of a freight-train. He would be like a man haunted.
“Do you think your own family would care to adopt the child?” Dr.
Zerneke asked. “Is that what you would like to do?”
“I hadn’t thought of that!” he said. “Of course--that’s what I’ll do!”
“Well,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “you can consult them about it,
and let me know.”
Some dim apprehension of the actualities of that proposal came to
him, clouding his relief. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll have to put it up to
them....”
“Of course,” said the doctor, “they may not take kindly to the idea.”
“They’ll--_have_ to do it!” said Norman.
“We’ll see,” said the doctor. “But I hope there will not be too much
delay in settling the matter, one way or another.”
“I’ll go back home to-night,” said Norman.
“And do you think you’ll be able to give me the decision within, say,
two weeks?”
“Oh, yes,” he said.
She rose. “I’ll expect to see or hear from you in a fortnight, then.”
“In two weeks from to-day,” he said, “I shall come here to get my son,”
and he walked out like some one in a dream.
Chapter XIII: En Route
THERE was no use in waiting for old Gilbert. He would take the next
train to Vickley.
He packed, and left a message, and caught a train which would get him
home at midnight.
The train had barely left the environs of Chicago when he realized
abruptly the folly of his errand. What! Propose to his father and
mother that they should adopt and bring up his illegitimate child! It
was too preposterous.
He felt an impulse to get up and jump from the slowly moving train. He
would go to Dr. Zerneke and ... And what? Give her a check?
He sank back in his chair. The train slid more swiftly out past the
little towns, gathered momentum, hurled itself on toward Vickley. The
song of the wheels on the rails was a mocking one. It seemed to say,
over and over, “You’re in for it now! You’re in for it now!”
He could get off at Aurora, of course.
No, he’d have to see it through, somehow.
Was it so preposterous? He wished he had asked Dr. Zerneke for some
statistics about this situation! Was it often done? He smiled, after a
fashion, at the thought of saying to his father: “Every year, in the
United States, six hundred respectable families (or sixty, or whatever
it might be) take a son’s illegitimate child to raise. You see, this
has plenty of precedent.” Yes, doubtless it did sometimes happen in the
United States: but not in Vickley. Not with people like the Overbecks.
He simply couldn’t involve his family in a thing like that.
(Well, nobody asked him to! Why didn’t he get off at Aurora--go back
and sign the check which let him off scot-free?)
The train stopped presently at Aurora. Here was his chance. He’d better
take it.
But he was still in his chair when the train pulled out of Aurora.
He simply couldn’t decide this thing by himself. It was too
overwhelming--too full of lifelong consequences. It needed a wiser head
than his own. And his father was the wisest man he knew.
He would tell his father. His father might know what to do.
He envisaged in imagination that interview with his father.
“Did you seduce this girl under promise of marriage?”
And “Was she a virgin?” Yes, that would be terribly important to his
father. If she had been a virgin, if he had seduced her, if he had
promised marriage, his father’s stern sense of justice might prevail
though the heavens fell.... But it wasn’t a question of marrying
Isabel. It was a question of what should become of her child.
There had been a time, many years ago, when Norman not merely admired
and feared his father, but loved and trusted him. When he was in
trouble he could come to his father, though in fear and trembling, and
tell the truth. He wished he could be that little boy again.
“What is it, Son? Tell your father.”
“I--I had a sweetheart at college, Father, and now she has a baby, and
doesn’t want to keep it, and I don’t want it given away to strangers,
and I don’t know what to do!”
“Was she a good girl?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Then you’d better marry her, Son. It will hurt us all, but you must do
what is right.”
“But she won’t marry me, Father.”
“Send her to me. I’ll talk with her about it. She’ll _have_ to marry
you, Son.”
Norman smiled. It would be wonderful to believe again in his father’s
omnipotence.
Well, what would his father say to Isabel? He imagined that, in the
same boyish mood.
“How old are you, Isabel?”
“Twenty-six, sir.”
“You were a year older than Norman when this happened. You can have no
cause for resentment against him such as would justify you in refusing
to marry him.”
“But I want to be a painter!”
“We cannot always have what we want. My son wanted to be a lawyer. Now
he can’t be--and you must take your punishment along with him. I will
buy a pants-pressing establishment for the two of you, down on Commerce
Street. By faithfully pressing creases in the trousers of our best
citizens for the rest of your life, you will expiate your sin. And now
off to the preacher with you!”
“Yes, sir!” (Exit Isabel, crying.)
He frowned, and imagined it again, in a slightly more realistic vein.
“You seem to be a well-brought-up young woman. I really can’t
understand this at all.”
“I’m afraid nothing I could say would make it any clearer to you, Mr.
Overbeck.”
“Well, we won’t go into that. The fact is that you and Norman have
brought a child into the world. I have told him that he must marry you.”
“And I have told him that I won’t marry him.”
“Nonsense! Why not?”
“Because I am going to Paris to paint.”
“You can paint just as well in Vickley. The landscapes here along the
Mississippi are as beautiful as any in the world. I have traveled,
and I know. I’m sure Norman would have no objection to your doing
water-color sketches in your spare time.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do, Mr. Overbeck. I’ve already explained to
your son how I feel about it. It’s very good of you to trouble yourself
in the matter, but quite unnecessary. My mind is fully made up.” Very
cool Isabel was, in this interview. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I
have another engagement.”
No, it wouldn’t be like that _at all_. His father had emotions--and
so had Isabel. There would be a battle. He would almost crush, almost
overwhelm her--but not quite. She would be defiant, stubborn to the
last. It would be rather a magnificent spectacle, that struggle between
them--between the world as it always had been and the world as it was
perhaps coming to be--between the old dispensation and the new.
(Why was he so sure his father would want them to marry? He might take
old Gilbert’s practical and cynical view of the situation.... No, he
wouldn’t do that. He was a good man, in his stern way. And in that
thought there was some obscure comfort for Norman.)
He rose restlessly and went into the smoking compartment.
In all his experience of smoking cars and smoking compartments, he had
never heard there what was known as a “typical smoking-car story.” But
this time, as it chanced, one was being told. It was just finished as
he entered, and there was a burst of laughter. He recognized the story
from the final lines. It was the one about the young couple who had
been caught in the storm while driving in the country, and had stayed
overnight at a farmhouse. His entrance put a damper on the others, and
they shifted self-consciously to the subject of automobiles. Norman
sat down in a corner, lighted a cigarette, and picked up a discarded
magazine that lay on the leather seat beside him. It was an obscure
magazine devoted to the more humorous aspects of sex. Norman reflected
that the aspects of sex with which he was now becoming personally
acquainted rather took the humor out of stories about casual sexual
encounters. He had once thought they were funny, too; but just now it
seemed to him that these things were too serious to laugh about. Some
time he might recover his sense of sexual humor, but just now it was at
a low ebb.
The world, however, had not changed because of an incident in the life
of Norman Overbeck. Sex continued to seem funny to other people. The
three other men in the smoking-compartment, encouraged by his apparent
absorption in his reading, verged closer to that delectable topic, and
presently one of them began to tell another story. “If I had secretly
committed a murder,” thought Norman, “I suppose I would find them
talking about murders!” For by a painful coincidence this story was the
one about the eight girls in Scotland who had illegitimate children
and all named the same boy as the father. The doctor’s curiosity was
aroused, and he went to see the boy to find out how it could happen....
Norman, feeling a little sick, threw down his cigarette, dropped his
magazine and went out. As he went, he heard, in bad Scotch dialect,
the tag line, “Wull, ye see, doctor, Oi’ve a bicycle!” And the robust
laughter of the three followed him into the corridor.... Was he never
going to be able to listen to a dirty story again with normal masculine
gusto?
The porter came through the car. “First call for dinner!”
The man sitting across from him at the little table in the dining-car
was a salesman. Norman roused himself and they talked about
automobiles. If it had been anything else, he might have lost himself
in the conversation for a few minutes at least. But one can talk about
automobiles without having to think of what one is saying....
He stopped in the smoking-compartment for a cigarette. The magazine
devoted to funny stories about sex was gone. In its place was a copy
of the New Republic. He turned the pages. At another time he would not
have noticed it, but there staring him in the face was an article on
“Unmarried Mothers.” The illegitimacy rate for Scotland, he noted, was
66 per thousand births, for England and Wales 42, for France (before
the war) 88, the United States 23.8.... He studied the tables guiltily.
Isabel had found these statistics comforting, so she said. He did not
find them so. “A considerable proportion of the mothers are girls
in their teens, while what data is available indicates that a large
majority of them are working in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations,
with an undue proportion in factory work and domestic service.”
But there wasn’t anything about girls who wanted to go to Paris and
paint, and wouldn’t marry the fathers of their children....
“Contrary, however, to prevalent ideas on the subject, European
statistics show that illegitimacy rates tend to increase rather than
decrease with the spread of education; they are lower in cities than
in rural districts; and comparisons of the poorest parts of London
with certain well-to-do parts show the richer districts as having an
illegitimacy rate of nearly six times the poorest districts.”
Well, there was a grain of comfort in that....
But why must he, now, find the subject of illegitimacy everywhere he
turned?
Damn these coincidences!
He took one more glance at the article, and read: “In Austria, about a
quarter of all births are illegitimate; in some rural districts nearly
a half.”
Yes--but why had _Isabel_ had a baby? Perhaps simply because, after
all, she was a girl. It seemed to be the sort of thing that quite
generally happened to girls, in or out of marriage. Mere ignorance
couldn’t account for all those illegitimate babies! Girls must _want_
to have babies, in spite of the frightful penalties that are attached
to having them except in accordance with the rules. Nature laughs at
the solemn rules of marriage, and the babies come at her bidding. Not
accident, not carelessness, but some profound wish, deeper than their
conscious fears, for this fulfillment of their natural destiny! In
Isabel, too? He had to believe that. The woman in her had wanted--not
merely that hour of delirium in the woods--but motherhood. Yet her
nature was divided against itself. Something else in her was in revolt
against being a woman. She was running away from her fate. That was the
truth.... And he, in this internal battle between woman and artist,
was the victim, along with her child. The woman that was in Isabel had
chosen him to be her child’s father. The artist that was in Isabel
was deserting them both with a brutal indifference. But here they
were, father and child, made so at her deep wish, the wish she now
repudiated. Nothing she might do could destroy the bond she had created
between him and her child. She had given him a son. Let her run away
to Paris, and forget. He couldn’t forget. He was caught in a trap of
Nature’s. It was real. It was damnable. But it was true. He had a son.
And what was he going to do about it?
He looked at his watch. Still an hour and a half from Vickley.
Would his father understand?
Chapter XIV: Homecoming
HE decided to walk home from the station. A soft breeze tossed him its
faint, acrid, earthy scents. The stars were hidden and revealed by
the fleecy scud of clouds. The moon, dwindling to its last quarter,
had just lifted itself above the hills. Back in those hills, among
the trees, was his home. All was peaceful there. They didn’t know the
trouble he was bringing them....
The moon had been large and low when he and Isabel had gone together
into the wood, last year. What was there about the moon that made
people think they had to make love? And afterward the moon sailed
on serenely, not giving a damn, leaving them to worry about the
consequences. Usually, though, it was the girl who did the worrying....
If he were a girl--would his folks understand? Better, perhaps, than as
it was now. They’d have to take the baby....
He had passed the old brick building where he used to go to school as
a boy. And here was the house where the Snyders had lived. He had not
noticed the house for years. He had forgotten the mystery that it once
contained for him. But now he remembered. The little boy playing about
the Snyder yard was really (it was whispered on the way home from
school) not Sally Snyder’s little brother but her own bastard child.
Norman had occasionally caught a glimpse of Sally Snyder--a tall, pale,
quiet girl. She never went anywhere, it was said....
That secret hadn’t been very well kept. And now Norman wondered how the
little Snyder boy had got along in school. He himself had gone on to
high school, ceasing to pass the house, and had forgotten the story.
But had the other boys referred to Sally’s son, behind his back, as
a bastard? (Or to his face?...) Norman counted up the years. Sally’s
boy would be about eighteen now. Did he still live here? Did this dark
house still shelter him and his tall, pale, silent sister-mother? Or
had the family moved to some other town, where the story wasn’t known?
That was one good thing about being poor. Poverty gave you, in a
new town, a kindly obscurity.... But it wouldn’t be any use for the
Overbecks to move away. (Or so it seemed to Norman, accustomed as he
was to being a member of one of the chief families of Vickley.) They
would have to stay and face what they would call their shame....
He turned the corner. There was a light in his father’s study. Was his
father waiting up for him? That would not be unlikely, if his father
had known he was coming to-night. Anyway, it would be a good chance to
tell his father everything. The sooner the better.
He ran up the steps and went in. His father’s voice from the study
asked in surprise and disapproval: “Who’s that?”
So he wasn’t expected. But who of the family could be out at this
hour? “Early to bed” was a rule strictly enforced in the Overbeck
household. “It’s me,” he answered, and went into the study, where his
father was sitting at a table, somewhat ostentatiously waiting. He sat
stiffly in his chair, with an upright, severe bearing. People spoke
with admiration of the old man’s soldierly carriage. Well, he had been
a soldier, back in the years before Norman was born, in the Spanish
war. But anybody else would have forgotten that. Not that that had
anything to do with it. He must always have been a martinet--born with
discipline in his blood. Here he was, the General, seeing that the
little Overbeck army got safely to bed.
“Oh,” said his father, “it’s you. I am waiting up for Doris.”
Doris? Oh, yes, of course. This was the night of the spring “hop” of
her high-school sorority. She had a new frock for the occasion. She had
brought it in to show him the other day while he was packing to go to
Chicago....
“There she is now,” said his father, as a car stopped noisily at the
curb.
Doris! He hadn’t taken her into his calculations at all.... No, he had
simply not thought of her--and his baby here in the house. Would they
talk at school about her being the aunt of a ----? Or (Good God!)
would they think it was really _hers_? His fists clenched, and his
forehead was suddenly wet with perspiration....
Out on the porch Doris and her boy friend were giggling....
No--that was absurd. But just the same she would be involved in the
scandal. It would poison her friendships, humiliate and hurt her. It
might spoil her whole life. Oh, it was altogether out of the question.
He couldn’t inflict that on her....
“Good night, Peter!”
“Good night, Doris!”
Young voices....
The front door opened and shut, and Doris came straight to the lighted
room, saying in exasperated protest: “I _do_ wish, Father, you wouldn’t
wait up for me! I can--”
She paused in the doorway, seeing her brother. “Oh, _you’re_ home!” she
cried. Then she walked in, with a little self-conscious swagger. She
was showing herself off in her new frock to her big brother.
“You look,” he said, “like a million dollars! How was the dance?”
“I had a swell time,” she answered.
There was a time when Mr. Overbeck would have reproved any child of his
for using such vulgar expressions. But not even J. J. Overbeck could
sweep back the rising tide. All he said was: “Doris, go up to bed. It’s
nearly one o’clock.”
“Oh, all rightie!” she replied, and swaggered out.
“How did you come out with the supreme court?” asked Norman.
“I think my arguments may have impressed them,” his father admitted.
And then he asked: “How did you come to go to Chicago so suddenly?”
Now, if ever, was the time to confess. But what was the use?
And so Norman repeated what he had already told Medway to tell his
father: “Old Gilbert got it into his head that I could help him--seeing
some people in a will case. I didn’t think I’d really be of much use,
but he insisted on my going along.”
His father nodded. “That’s all right,” he said. “It won’t do you any
harm to work with Gilbert Rand. There’s a good deal you can learn from
him.”
Norman’s chance had passed....
“I’ll lock up,” said his father.
“Good night,” said Norman.
“Good night.”
Upstairs, a door opened as he passed, and a whisper called him.
“Norman!”
It was his sister Lucinda, in wrapper and archaic curl-papers. He
paused.
“I just wanted to ask you--did you look at my puppy for me?”
“Your puppy?” said Norman, wrenching his mind loose from his own
thoughts.
“Yes--you know you promised to go and look at him yesterday--the one
with the black spot over his left eye. And I wasn’t here when you came
home to pack, so I didn’t know whether you had or not.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was so rushed I couldn’t get around to
Schwartz’s. I’ll go to-morrow if you want me to.”
“Oh, I wish you would, Norman! I just can’t decide by myself!”
How, he asked himself, as he went into his room, could he bring the
truth into such a world as this? It couldn’t be done!
But what was he going to do?
He felt suddenly very tired--too tired to think.... He would decide
to-morrow.
Chapter XV: Family Breakfast
AT eight o’clock a bell sounded through the Overbeck house, to tell
everybody to get up. At eight-thirty it would sound again, telling them
to come to breakfast.
It had been so as long as Norman could remember--except that on
week-days the bell sounded an hour earlier. And that bell, like the
voice of J. J. Overbeck himself, had always been obeyed. But this
morning, though the bell struck into his sleeping consciousness, he
did not want to wake up. He wanted to hold fast to the dream he was
dreaming.... Something about being off on a ship, alone....
Ten minutes later his mother shook him gently by the shoulder, saying:
“Norman, you’d better get up. It’s eight-forty. And you know how Father
feels about having us all at the breakfast table.”
“All--right!” he said reluctantly, opening his eyes.
He watched her go out of the room--the little, sensible, practical wife
of the great J. J. Overbeck....
What was that dream? It had vanished completely.
He sprang out of bed. And then he remembered yesterday--Isabel--the
baby--Dr. Zerneke--his errand here. It seemed unreal.
He shaved hurriedly, so as not to be late to breakfast.
Doris came down a little late, sleepy and petulant. “I don’t see why
I can’t be allowed to have my sleep out when I’m at a party the night
before,” she said, as she dug her spoon into her grapefruit. “Everybody
else sleeps on Sunday morning!”
“You should have thought of that last night,” said Lucinda vindictively.
“You know,” said her mother placatingly, “that Father likes us all to
be at the breakfast table with him.”
“Yes, I know,” said Doris, “but I don’t see the sense of it. It’s a
darn silly rule, if you ask me.”
They all waited for J. J. Overbeck’s quiet thunders and lightnings to
descend upon the rebel.
“If that’s the effect that late hours have on your temper,” said her
father gravely, “I think perhaps this had better be the last of them,
until you are old enough to have learned some self-control.”
Doris struggled with her tears for a moment, and then jumped up and ran
crying from the room.
Norman looked down at his plate, ashamed. What a home!...
It was always like this--meaningless tyrannies, with which they all
made such terms as they could. Their mother didn’t seem to notice it.
Lucinda had been crushed by it into what she was. He himself had
learned how to get along with his father. Doris was stubborn, but she
would have to learn.... And he had taken it all for granted.
He had known that other homes were not like this. But as a boy he
had accepted it as one accepts the climate. Away at college, he had
preferred to forget it. But coming back to Vickley again, he had begun
to take it for granted once more.
His way of getting along with his father was to acquiesce publicly
in his authority, but to retain a secret independence of opinion.
It occurred to him now that this was rather cowardly. Even Doris’s
undignified outbreaks were more honest. He had always sympathized with
her in silence. Now he wanted to break that pattern and speak up in
her defense. And so he said abruptly in the silence that followed his
sister’s departure from the room:
“I think Isabel is quite right.”
He realized the slip of his tongue as they stared at him.
“Who’s Isabel?” asked Lucinda.
He flushed. “I meant Doris. She should be allowed to sleep after a late
party. Especially on Sunday.”
“Who is Isabel?” Lucinda repeated.
His defiance, such as it was, had been completely spoiled by that silly
slip of the tongue. They would all be wondering who Isabel was....
He ignored Lucinda’s question and spoke sharply, forgetting his
accustomed dignity:
“Father has no right to punish her that way--for a mere trifle!”
His father was surprised, and for a moment or two said nothing at all.
At last he remarked quietly:
“Late hours don’t seem to agree with you, either, Norman.”
Lucinda’s lips were framing the question: “Who--?”
“Well,” Norman demanded of his father belligerently, “are you going to
send _me_ to bed at ten o’clock?”
“Norman!” said his mother in sensible, practical disapproval of such
nonsense.
“If you are going to behave like a child,” said his father, “I ought to
send you from the table like one.”
“I’d prefer to go,” said Norman. He rose and marched out of the
room--feeling as though he were ten years old.
In the hall he saw Doris coming downstairs. He waited for her.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m going back and apologize,” she said lightly. “It’s the only
thing to do.”
Their mother’s practical voice floated out from the breakfast room.
“Norman, if you’re going out, take your overcoat.”
“Where are you running off to?” asked Doris.
She was helping him on with his overcoat. “To see Madge, I suppose!”
“Madge? Oh--why--yes.”
He had managed to forget Madge....
“Wait a moment,” said Doris. “I’ll bring you a fresh handkerchief.” She
snatched the old one out of his breast pocket, ran up the stairs, came
back and tucked the clean one in. “There!” she said.
Outside, he glanced over next door at the new frame building--the home
his father was building for him and Madge--almost finished.... That was
just like his father--to put them next door, where he could run their
affairs for them, as if they were children.
Chapter XVI: Aubade
MADGE! Yes, he had to go to see her. But--could he tell her? What was
the use! He couldn’t bring his son to Vickley. He realized that now....
Perhaps he ought to be sensible about the thing.
He wished Hal were here. Hal, at Cambridge, was the first real friend
he had ever had since childhood. Hal wouldn’t argue with him, wouldn’t
tell him what he ought to do. Hal would listen to him. That was what
he needed. Maybe if he could talk to somebody--somebody who didn’t
represent Vickley--he would feel better.
At any rate, there was no sense in telling Madge. Old Gilbert had been
quite right about that.... He would have to act a part.
He would just behave as if nothing had happened.
As Gilbert had said, she would be thinking about other things.... She
would never need to know....
His life stretched out in front of him--a long vista of bridge-parties,
as it seemed at this moment, with Madge as a handsome young matron
presiding over them. He would live all his life with that pretty
stranger--for so now she seemed. She would be called his wife. Perhaps
people would speak approvingly of their happy marriage....
Here he was, already, at the Ferris house.
He hadn’t thought what he was going to say.
Just behave naturally--that was it.
He gave the bell his customary long ring followed abruptly by two short
ones--the signal that Madge said sounded like “_O_-ver-beck!”
No one came immediately, and he had to fight an impulse to go away. He
rang again, and waited.
A sound of feet running down the stairs quickly. Madge! He felt a
sick qualm in his stomach. Madge calling to the maid who came tardily
hurrying from the back: “I’ll answer the bell, Katie!”
She opened the door. “Hello, Toodles!” she said. In the hall she flung
herself into his arms.... It seemed queer to be so passionately kissing
a stranger....
“Let little me help him off with his overcoat,” she said.
She led him into the “den” off the hall. It was a place of memories of
their courtship. But these memories seemed curiously alien to him now.
Was it he that had read poetry to her, sitting on that sofa? Was it he
who had asked her, one winter night, to be his wife?
“She’s not dressed,” she said, drawing her flowery negligée about her,
and bending her bobbed golden head toward him. “Her hair’s not dry!
When your imperious ring came, she was just finishing her bath!”
These childish mannerisms of speech had once enchanted him.
“When did the old bum get home?” she demanded, drawing him down on the
couch beside her.
“Last night--late,” he said.
“How late?”
“My train got in at midnight.”
“That’s not late. She was waiting for you--hoping you’d be back. She
couldn’t get to sleep, thinking of you. And she had a queer dream....”
He asked, with a pang of superstitious dread: “A dream--about me?”
“Never mind,” she said. “She never tells her dreams before breakfast.”
And then: “Why doesn’t he act as if he were glad to see me?”
He kissed her again.
“What’s the matter, Norman?” she asked abruptly, drawing away from him.
“Has anything happened?”
“Yes,” he said. (Why did he say that?)
“What is it, dear?” she asked anxiously.
He must not tell her.... And he spoke at random, saying the first thing
that came into his mind--just to be saying something: “I looked at our
house....”
“Yes, Norman?”
“It’s much too close to my father’s....”
“I’ve known that all along,” she said quietly.
“Did you?” That little remark of hers astonished him infinitely. He
realized that he had never known this girl at all. “I didn’t,” he said,
“until this morning.”
“What happened this morning? Have you been quarreling with your family?”
“Yes,” he said. “How did you know?”
“What were you quarreling about?” she asked.
“Why--nothing, really. About getting up on Sunday.” He laughed
nervously. “You’d have to get up at eight on Sunday--if you lived
there!”
“You think I’d let your family run _me_?”
“I don’t know how you’d help yourself.” (But why were they talking
about that house?)
“Trust me!” she answered. “Norman--we haven’t talked about it: but you
and I are going to live our own lives, when we are married. We can live
anywhere we like.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Have they been criticizing me?” she demanded.
“Who?”
“Well--your sister Lucinda.”
“Oh, no--of course not!” he said. But the stream of memory began to
flow back into its old channels. And he could remember that there had
been a time, months ago, when Lucinda had been spiteful about Madge.
She had called her “frivolous” and “giddy.” Nor, what was somewhat more
important, had Madge’s Aunt Julia approved at all of him. She had
thought of him, for some reason, as irresponsible. He and Madge had
enjoyed all the sensations of being misunderstood, of defying their
families, of being leagued together in love and faith against a hostile
world.... And then the criticisms had changed to blessings. Within a
few months, all their world was anxious to get them married and settled
down. But to Madge, it would seem, their romantic defiance of the world
was still real. That was the only thing she could imagine as shadowing
their happiness--the opinion of his family.
“Then what’s the matter?” she was asking.
He couldn’t bring realities into that doll-world of hers.... “Nothing,”
he answered--too evasively.
“I know there is,” she insisted.
It would be like hurting a child.... But he ought to give her some
warning....
“Madge,” he said, “I may have to give up my position in my father’s
office--and go away--” He stopped. He hadn’t intended to say that....
“Norman!”
The trouble was that he kept forgetting his purpose. A purpose implies
a conviction, and a stable sense of realities. His world fluctuated and
changed about him from moment to moment....
This puzzled, incredulous girl at his side--she wasn’t a child, but a
woman. It was he who felt like a child.
“I’m in trouble, Madge,” he said.
Her arms were around him. “What is it, Norman?” she asked quietly.
He wanted terribly to tell her. There was some reason why he
shouldn’t--but he couldn’t remember exactly what it was.
“I never told you,” he said, “about a girl I knew at Cambridge. We
were--sweethearts. And--I didn’t know until the other day--when she
sent for me--in Chicago--there’s a baby.”
“You mean--yours?” Her voice was very cool, remote, far away. He didn’t
look at her. But he was aware that her arms had slipped away from him,
that her body no longer touched his.
“Yes, mine,” he said.
She rose, slowly. “I’m glad you told me,” she said.
He didn’t look at her face, but he saw her body convulsed by a shiver,
and her hands were fumbling together. Then a ring dropped to the floor.
He stooped to pick it up, and rose. Now he remembered the reason why he
must not tell her. She wouldn’t want to marry him--of course.
“You’re free now,” she said, “to go to her.”
They were struck silent in their tableau by a sense of people coming.
The maid. And footsteps descending the stair. That would be Aunt Julia.
But the maid came first.
“Mr. Overbeck is wanted on the telephone.”
“Me?”
“It’s your sister, Miss Lucinda, Mr. Overbeck. It’s something about a
dog.”
It was too absurd.... “Yes--please ask her to wait one moment.” He
would have to greet Madge’s aunt.
The maid went away....
Then Aunt Julia.
“Good morning, Norman.” She offered her cheek to be kissed. “You’d
better go and put some clothes on, Madge. I’ll entertain Norman while
you dress. You’ll stay to breakfast, Norman.”
Madge went out, and slowly up the stairs.... He hadn’t had a chance to
explain anything to her. Why did Aunt Julia have to interrupt them just
now? He smouldered with helpless anger.
“When did you get back from Chicago?” Aunt Julia asked affably, seating
herself on the sofa.
“Last night.” Damn this silly woman!
“Don’t walk up and down the room, Norman. Sit down. And tell me what’s
the matter.”
Oh, he’d have to tell her something.
“Madge,” he said, “has just broken our engagement.” And as he spoke he
seemed to realize for the first time what he had done. Of course she
wouldn’t marry him. He had smashed everything....
“What!” said Aunt Julia, in amused incredulity. “No, not really? You
mustn’t take these lovers’ quarrels too seriously, Norman.”
“Lovers’ quarrels! I wish that were all!” he said bitterly.
“Oh, is it so bad as all that, really?”
“Yes, Mrs. Ferris.”
Her face took on an expression of sympathy, and after a moment’s
thought she said reassuringly:
“I know, Madge is a very high-spirited girl. But it’s a little late in
the day to change her mind. If you’ll only tell me what the trouble is,
I’ll be glad to talk with her. An older woman, you know, Norman, has a
more reasonable point of view. If it’s really so serious, it must be a
question of--well, another girl. Have you been philandering, Norman?”
He saw what she was thinking, and reluctantly answered:
“No--not exactly.”
“Not exactly? But she thinks so! I see. Has it anything to do with your
Chicago trip?”
“Yes--in a way,” he said evasively.
“Don’t you want to tell me about it, Norman? I’m sure it’s nothing that
can’t be smoothed out. I know Madge will be reasonable when she’s had a
chance to think things over.”
Norman felt a sudden unreasonable anger. She was so comfortable--so
sure that nothing could go seriously wrong in her little world. He
wanted to shatter that complacency of hers....
But it was not necessary for him to speak. At that moment they both
heard a sound of sobbing upstairs. It was like no woman’s crying that
he had ever heard. It had a strange note of animal pain in it.... Then
silence.... Norman felt himself transfixed by pity as by a spear thrust
through his body. He realized what he had done to Madge.... Aunt Julia
rose, startled.
The maid returned to say: “Miss Lucinda is still on the wire, Mr.
Overbeck.”
“Oh, yes. Excuse me.” What a nightmare!
Lucinda’s voice. “Oh, Norman, Mr. Schwartz called up, and said that
somebody else wants to buy that puppy. He wants to know whether I want
it. Won’t you go and look at it right away, and tell me what you think?
It’s the one with the black spot over his left eye!”
“All right. I’ll go.”
When he came back, the room was empty. Aunt Julia had gone upstairs to
comfort Madge. He listened, and he heard the sound of voices....
_Why_ had he done it? But it was too late to ask that....
Anyway, he _had_ done it....
It was all over....
He stood there irresolutely for a moment, then took his things from the
hall, and went quietly out of the house.
Madge had been a good sport about it. But it was a little too much like
committing murder.
And _now_ to face the folks at home....
Chapter XVII: Flight
BUT he did not go home. He walked down town.
He had keys to the Overbeck building. He would go there and think.
Why had he told Madge? There wasn’t any sense to it. Yes, why?...
But that wasn’t the question, either. The question was what to do
now--now that he had told Madge....
He walked up and down in the outer office, trying to think. It was no
use. His mind wouldn’t work.
He lay down on one of the leather-upholstered benches, exhausted, and
fell asleep.
When he woke up it was dark. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. Had
he slept all day?
He had certainly made a frightful mess of things.... He reached for a
cigarette.
When he had smoked all his cigarettes, he went out for more. He had not
been able to make any decisions at all.
On an impulse, he stepped into the telephone booth at the cigar store,
and called up Madge’s house. He was going to ask how she was. But when
he heard her voice answering him, he lost his nerve. What could he say
to her?
“Sorry,” he muttered, and hung up the receiver.
After a moment’s thought, he reached for his pocketbook. It wasn’t
there, and he remembered that he had left it in the bureau in his room.
He came out of the booth, and went up to the counter, taking out his
check-book. “Jack,” he said, “how’s your cash to-night? Can you let me
have twenty-five dollars?”
“Fifty, if you like, Mr. Overbeck,” said Jack.
“All right--I could use fifty. Or a hundred. Could you let me have a
hundred?”
“I’ll see, Mr. Overbeck.”
He looked in the cash-register, and took some bills from his pocket.
“I’m afraid I haven’t got a hundred here. I could let you have seventy.
Or, if you don’t mind taking some silver, I could give you--let’s
see--eighty. Eighty-five. Would that do?”
“That will be fine.”
Norman wrote out a check, pushed it across the counter, and stuffed the
money in his pocket. “Do you happen to know what time the St. Louis
train leaves?”
Jack thought there was just about time to make it.
BOOK TWO
In Exile
Chapter I: The Prodigal
ON a certain Saturday afternoon, Norman Overbeck called up Dr.
Zerneke’s office, asking if he might see her. The girl answered without
hesitation, “Come right over, please!”
When he arrived, the girl gazed at him curiously. He looked quite the
same as she remembered him, with his little stick, his soft hat, his
light wavy hair, his polite manner--and his courteous voice, by now
familiar to her from hearing it daily over the telephone. It had been
her duty during the last two weeks to send a telegram to Gilbert Rand
in Vickley, saying, “Telephoned to-day as usual.” For this young man
had called up every day, refusing to give any name, and imperiously
demanding news of the health of Isabel Drury’s baby. At first she had
argued with him about it; but when she had referred the matter to Dr.
Zerneke, the doctor had smiled and said: “It’s all right. Tell him. He
happens to be the baby’s father.” This week he had shown some anxiety
when he heard that the baby had been sent to a “boarding home.” She had
assured him that there was nothing to worry about....
The waiting-room to-day was full of women patients, but Norman was
ushered immediately into the doctor’s office.
Norman felt rather like a fool--and at the same time quite pleased
with himself. Dr. Zerneke, he felt, if anybody, would understand. At
any rate, he hoped she would!...
“Well!” said Dr. Zerneke, shaking hands with him. “What have you been
doing, these last two weeks?”
“I--why--I’ve been here in Chicago, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Has
anybody been looking for me?”
“Everybody has been looking for you,” said Dr. Zerneke. “Your friend
Gilbert Rand is here in town looking for you right now. And I’ve been
bombarded with telegrams about you. The police would have been looking
for you, if you hadn’t turned up pretty quick. What do you mean by
disappearing from the world like that?”
“I’m sorry,” said Norman. “Were my family worried?”
“Of course they were worried. They didn’t know whether you were alive
or dead.”
“But I sent a letter--”
“So I heard. And it seems to have sounded to your family as if you were
intending to commit suicide.”
“Good Lord!” He had left Vickley out of his calculations. In fact, he
had managed to keep from thinking very much of the folks at home during
these two weeks. It was just like them to act as though he were a
runaway child! Why couldn’t they let him alone for once?
“But what have you been up to, all this time?”
“Why, I’ve been getting a job.” He masked his secret pride with an air
of casualness.
“A job here in Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“Really!”
“Yes. In an advertising office. Wilkins and Freeman.”
“So that’s what you’ve been doing!” She looked at him curiously.
“Well--as a matter of fact that only took me a week. But I wanted to
see whether I could hold the job before I said anything to any one
about it. And you gave me two weeks, you know.”
That was by way of reminding her of her promise. He had told her he
would be back in two weeks. He hadn’t known, then, what it would mean
to come back--over what débris of a wrecked career he would have to
clamber.... But here he was.
“The two weeks are up to-day,” he added.
Dr. Zerneke said reflectively: “As I remember, I gave you two weeks to
find out if your family would take the baby.”
“Well, you see--I made rather a mess of that,” he confessed.
“I was afraid you might find it difficult to persuade them.”
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t really try. I saw it would be no use.
I decided that I’d have to take care of the baby myself.”
“You?”
“Certainly. That’s why I came here and got a job.”
He took out a cigarette, tapped it, and put it back in the case....
“But you must realize,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that this is an entirely new
proposal. Last week, it was a question of having the child adopted by
a responsible family. Now you make it a question of turning the child
over to an irresponsible young man of very uncertain prospects.”
“I don’t think my prospects are so bad, really, Dr. Zerneke,” he
protested.
“Would you mind telling me--it’s a question you oblige me to ask--what
you are now making, Mr. Overbeck, at your new job?”
“I’m starting in at thirty dollars a week. I know that’s not very much.
But it’s merely while I’m on trial. As soon as I show that I can do the
work, I’ll get a raise to fifty or sixty. And so on. If I’m any good at
all, I’ll be getting eighty-five or ninety in the course of the year.
And the rest is up to me.--I’m repeating what my boss told me when I
got the job. And, if you can take my word for it, I have some real
ability at this kind of work. I ought to be getting my raise within a
month or so.”
“It’s not entirely a question of money,” said Dr. Zerneke. “It’s partly
a matter of character.”
He hadn’t expected to have to argue about it like this. But he would
defend himself if he had to....
“Yes--I know you called me irresponsible. Because I changed my job,
I suppose. But you make it sound as if I were a drunkard or a thief.
Haven’t I a right to stop being a lawyer if I want to?”
“Look at the thing impersonally for a moment, Mr. Overbeck. Do you
really think it is a recommendation of a young man’s character and
stability, that he disappears from home for two weeks, allows his
family to think him dead--”
“But I didn’t know they were going to think any such idiotic thing.”
“Well, why did you do it? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“Because it was the only way I could be free to--to go ahead with this.
I _had_ to cut loose from my family.”
“You wish to acknowledge the child as your son?”
“I do, certainly.”
“And make him your heir?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I should think you could do that without so much melodrama, Mr.
Overbeck. You do not need to have left home for that, surely. Your
family would have had to reconcile themselves to the fact. If they
refused to do so, that would be another matter.”
“But--that isn’t all. I want to have my son with me.”
“You are hardly in a position to take care of him, are you? You have
no home at present--I take it that on thirty dollars a week you are
living in a furnished room. And you have no one to look after the
baby--you’re not married,--and you can scarcely afford to set up an
establishment with a housekeeper and nurse. We don’t turn babies over
to bachelors, Mr. Overbeck.”
“Is that a rule, Dr. Zerneke? Even when the bachelor happens to be the
baby’s father?”
“I admit that precisely such a situation has never come up before in my
experience. But there’s another thing--it wouldn’t be fair to the child
to pitch him into the middle of a family row. A baby is a baby, Mr.
Overbeck. He needs regular meals and sleep, in an atmosphere of peace
and affection. He is getting that now. We’ve put him in a boarding
home, as it’s called--a private family.”
“Yes, so I heard. What’s--become of Isabel?”
“She has left town.”
“Oh!”
He wouldn’t let himself think about Isabel.... That was all over....
With an effort he put his attention on what Dr. Zerneke was saying:
“If you want to act for the best interests of your child, Mr. Overbeck,
you will go back home and straighten things out with your family. And
then you will make a will acknowledging the child as your son and
naming him as your heir. There is no reason why he should not inherit
your share of your father’s estate some day. That is why I suggest
that you make up with your family--so that you, and consequently your
child, will not be disinherited. Now that you have a child, you must
think of such things, and behave sensibly. This is not a matter for
histrionics--defiance of your family, and all that.” She paused.
“Yes, I can see your point of view,” said Norman doubtfully.
“In the meantime--I assure you that the Society is glad enough to turn
over its financial responsibilities--you can pay for the child’s care.
You will be able to see him whenever you like. And later, when you
marry, your wife will be prepared to take the child into your home. I
believe that I have heard something about your being engaged?”
“Yes, but that’s off. I told her about the baby, and she broke the
engagement.”
“No doubt it would be a shock to a girl, coming without warning. Well,
if she won’t marry you, some other girl will. Then you can have your
child to bring up.”
“Not until then?”
“Certainly not now. What would you do with a four-weeks-old baby, Mr.
Overbeck?”
Norman realized with a shock of surprise that the part of his mind
which had been taking some satisfaction in the thought of having a son
at his side, was picturing this son sometimes as a boy of eighteen
and sometimes as a boy of five. His fantasies had all concerned the
future, not the present....
“I--I hadn’t worked all that out,” he said.
“I thought not. Tell me, Mr. Overbeck--if you saw a roomful of babies,
could you pick out your own child?”
Norman reflected. “I think so,” he said. “He has light hair, like mine,
and a queer-shaped head.”
Dr. Zerneke smiled. “Would you like to see him again?”
“Yes. I would.”
“If I can feel safe that you’re not going to do something idiotic, I’ll
let you see him.”
“What do you mean, idiotic?”
“Such as trying to kidnap him....”
“Oh, but really--you don’t think I’m as crazy as all that!”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m going to let you see him. And as soon as
the situation clears up satisfactorily, as I trust it will, we can take
the next step.”
“I ought to tell you, Dr. Zerneke, that I have no intention of trying
to make up with my family,” said Norman firmly.
“Well, perhaps they will do the making up,” said Dr. Zerneke easily.
“And in the meantime the child can stay with Mrs. Czermak. I’ll give
you a note to her.”
She took pen and paper, and wrote. Looking up, she said: “You’ll find
her a very capable foster-mother. She has an interesting story that
I’ll tell you some time. This is the third baby she’s taken care of for
me.”
“What,” asked Norman, “happened to the others?” His tone was anxious.
He had heard of “baby-farms.”...
Dr. Zerneke smiled. “They came back to their mothers fat and rosy. You
needn’t worry about what happens to babies in Mrs. Czermak’s care.”
She handed him the note.
“And by the way,” she said, “we must make up a story for you.”
“A story for me?”
“To account for the baby. You don’t want everybody in Chicago to know
the peculiar state of your affairs, do you?”
“No. I’ve had enough of trying to explain it in Vickley.”
“Now when a girl has a fatherless baby, we always advise a wedding ring
and a dead husband to simplify matters. But I don’t think you ought to
be a widower, Mr. Overbeck.” She paused thoughtfully. “A widower with
a baby is the natural prey of womankind. You’ll have a hard enough
time as it is. You ought to have a wife, even though an absent one, to
scare them off. Now how should we account for her absence? She might be
ill--but then people would be sympathetic and inquiring. Can you think
of a good story--simple, convincing, and not too interesting?”
“It does seem a rather difficult problem, doesn’t it?” said Norman,
trying hard to think.
“T.B. is the only thing I can think of.”
“T.B.?”
“Yes. Your wife has been ordered to Colorado for the sake of her
health. She’s in a sanitarium--you can be vague about that: or you can
say Dr. Rublee’s sanitarium--there isn’t any such place, but there
might be. She’ll have to stay there six months or a year. Yes, I think
that will do. You understand just why I advise this story, don’t you?
It’s simply to keep you from being married off to the first unattached
woman you come across.”
“Do you really think there’s any great likelihood of any one being
willing to marry me?”
“My dear man, you don’t know what you’re up against. Well, you can
start in practicing your story on Mrs. Czermak, if you like. I told her
the mother was ill. You can elaborate it. She’ll be glad enough of the
prospect of keeping the baby longer.”
The telephone rang, and Dr. Zerneke turned to answer.
“Yes, connect him, please.... Mr. Rand?... Yes, indeed--your young
friend is right here. I’ll let you speak to him.”
She handed the telephone to Norman.
“Hello, Gilbert.”
“Good God, is it really you, Norman?”
“It’s all right, Gilbert. Where are you?”
“At the Annex. What the devil have you been doing?”
“I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be with you in about an hour.... Keep
your shirt on. Good-by!”
He turned to Dr. Zerneke. “You don’t quite realize what I’m in for,” he
said.
Dr. Zerneke smiled. “I don’t know your family,” she said, “but I’ve
been in communication with your friend Mr. Rand, and you’ll find him
quite reasonable, I think.”
“Just the same, I want to make my first visit to--my son. Before I see
any one from Vickley.”
“If that will make you feel better, go ahead,” said Dr. Zerneke.
She dismissed him with a warm hand-shake.
Chapter II: A Man Has Some Rights
MRS. CZERMAK’S address was on the North side, not far away.... He
really couldn’t afford a taxi. But this was a special occasion--and
Gilbert was waiting. He hailed one.
One in a row of dingy three-story brick houses. He rang the bell. A
young woman came to the door.
“I want to see Mrs. Czermak.”
“I’m Mrs. Czermak. Did you want a room?”
She was younger than he had expected Mrs. Czermak to be--not a
responsible-looking middle-aged matron, but a girl in her middle
twenties--not at all what he had pictured as a child’s nurse.... And
her speech did not have the foreign accent that her name suggested.
“No--I--here’s a letter from Dr. Zerneke,” he said.
She stood there, leaving him waiting on the doorstep, while she opened
and read it. Then she looked up quickly.
“Oh--so you’re my baby’s father?” and she opened the door wider to
admit him. “Do you want to see him now? He’s asleep. You can look at
him, though.”
“I’d like to,” said Norman.
She led him upstairs, through a bedroom, very clean and orderly, into
a small room which was the nursery. There was the crib. They went up to
it, and she drew back a coverlet.
Norman felt no particular emotion at the sight of the sleeping child.
He wondered why. He was moving heaven and earth to have that child for
his own. He had broken Madge’s heart. It would make his family terribly
unhappy. He had thrown away a career. And here was what it was all
about--a baby with soft fair hair, and a queer-shaped head. No--the
head wasn’t so queer-shaped to-day. And the face was pinker.... He was
a little disappointed at his lack of any deep feeling....
The baby stirred in its sleep, and flung up a tiny fist.
Mrs. Czermak put back the coverlet, and Norman turned away. As they
went back into the larger room, the picture of that small fist lingered
in his mind.
He realized that Mrs. Czermak was expecting him to say something. He
felt embarrassed--as if it were somebody else’s baby he were being
called upon to praise.
“It’s awfully little, isn’t it!” he said awkwardly.
“He’s a fine baby!” said Mrs. Czermak defensively.
Norman was conscious of having said “it” instead of “he.” Was she
offended by that? Did she think he didn’t appreciate the baby?
“If you come just before six, you can see him awake,” she said.
“That’s his feeding time. Or on Sundays you could come at a little
before two.”
Well, that was all. What had he expected? He had come to see his son.
And he had seen him. Now he would go.
Gilbert was waiting for him....
Somehow, he had expected something more--something to fortify him
against Gilbert’s reproaches--Gilbert’s news of the havoc he had
left behind him in Vickley. He had run away from Vickley. He hadn’t
permitted himself to think about what he had done to Madge--to his
family. He’d hear about it all. And Gilbert would have some new, slick,
plausible scheme.
“Sundays at two, you say?” he asked.
“Yes. That’s when he gets his bottle. You might come a little before
then--fifteen minutes before.”
He’d never get acquainted with his son, at that rate.... It was more
of a job than he had realized. First he had to get reconciled to his
family--and then, apparently, get married! Good Lord! And meanwhile the
baby would stay here....
As he started to leave, an idea came brilliantly. Yes, why not? He
turned to Mrs. Czermak.
“You say you have rooms for rent here?”
She hesitated, and then answered reluctantly:
“Sometimes.”
He vaguely sensed some opposition to his plan. But he asked in a
determined way:
“Have you any vacant now?”
Again she hesitated. “Not any suitable for two.”
“I don’t want a room for two. I want a room for one.” He had the
feeling of putting something over on Dr. Zerneke. Wait until he was
married, to be with the baby? He would show her!
“Oh!” said Mrs. Czermak. “Well, I have a hall bedroom on the next
floor.”
“May I see it?”
“Is it for yourself or your wife?” asked Mrs. Czermak.
He remembered abruptly what Dr. Zerneke had told him to say.
“My wife has been ordered to Colorado for her health. She started
to-day.”
“Oh--and without the baby!”
“It will be quite out of the question for her to have the baby with her
for another six months--possibly more,” said Norman solemnly. “She’s
going to Dr. Rublee’s sanitarium.”
“Where is that--in Denver?”
“Yes,” he said. He was anxious to get off a subject on which further
questions would be embarrassing. “May I see the room?”
Her manner, which had become hostile for a minute or two, had changed
to friendliness again. “Now that I come to think of it,” she said,
“there’s the large front room downstairs. It was promised, but the
people haven’t come. I’ll show it to you.” She took him there.
He looked around. It was much larger, lighter, cleaner, than the one he
had been living in.
“How much is it?” he asked.
She thought a moment. “We could let you have it for eight dollars, I
guess.”
Remarkably cheap! He had been paying eight for the hole he had been
living in.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
Yes, if a baby couldn’t live with a bachelor father, there was nothing
to keep a bachelor father from coming to live with his baby! Norman
smiled, with a sense of triumphing over a hostile universe.
Then he looked about the room again, with a practical glance. He went
to the center-table. It was rickety under his touch, like the one
upon which during his evenings for two weeks he had been computing
and recomputing the statistics of illegitimate parenthood--a peculiar
consolation which he had learned from Isabel. With the figures he
had found at the Crerar library, and the further assistance of the
population tables in the World Almanac, all sorts of interesting things
could be worked out....
“Could I have a small, solid table to write on? An unpainted kitchen
table would do.”
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Czermak. “When do you want to move in?”
“I’ll move to-night.” There wasn’t, as a matter of fact, anything to
move, except his overcoat and his alarm clock. And the two weeks for
which he had paid in advance were about up. He might as well make the
change without delay, and get settled. He took out some bills.
“By the way,” he said, “how much has Dr. Zerneke been paying you for
taking care of the baby?”
“Ten dollars a week. With Grade A milk, and clothes, it comes to about
twelve dollars, not counting extras.”
Norman calculated silently. Twelve dollars for the baby; eight for his
room; nine, say, for his meals; a dollar for laundry; that was exactly
thirty dollars, and left him nothing for carfare or cigarettes. But he
would manage somehow--and it would be only a few weeks until he got a
raise.
“I’ll take care of that from now on,” he said.
“Suppose I pay a week in advance for the room, and a week for the
baby,” he said. “Will that be all right?”
He handed her the money.
She looked at it. “There’s supposed to be a deposit for the keys,” she
said, “but we won’t bother about that.”
“Why not?” he said, and offered her another dollar.
“No,” she shook her head. “You’ll need every dollar you can save. With
a sick wife in Colorado.”
He somewhat guiltily put the dollar back in his pocket.
“I’ll get you your keys,” she said, turning to go.
“Never mind,” he said, “give them to me to-night. I’m in a hurry now.”
He looked at his watch.
“I’m afraid I can’t promise the table till Monday,” she said.
“That’s all right.”
“We’ll try to make you comfortable.”
Well, that was settled! And now for old Gilbert....
Chapter III: An Ambassador from Vickley
GILBERT was standing in the door of his room. “You crazy loon,” he
cried. “My God, I’m glad to see you.” He threw his arms around Norman,
and pulled him inside the door. “You’ve aged me ten years in the last
two weeks, you son-of-a-gun.”
“I’m sorry I’ve given you so much trouble, Gilbert,” said Norman
stiffly.
“Oh, it’s all right,” said Gilbert. “Now that it’s turned out this way,
it’s perfectly all right. Couldn’t be better. But tell me just one
thing--what have you been doing these last two weeks?”
“Looking for work.” And he told Gilbert briefly of his new job.
Gilbert slapped him on the shoulder. “I thought so. That’s exactly what
I’ve been telling them. Sit tight, I said, and trust me.--But I tell
you, if you hadn’t shown up to-day or to-morrow, my hair would have
gone white. Two weeks is a long time to wait.”
“But I wrote in my letter to my mother, from the station, not to
worry--”
“I know what you wrote. And that there’d be news of you in two weeks.
That’s what I counted on. That’s been my job--getting them to wait,
instead of notifying the police.”
“But really--why all this nonsense about suicide? Perhaps my letter
wasn’t as tactful as I thought it was--but after all--”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Gilbert. “The suicide part and everything.
It fitted in fine. You did everything just right.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I thought I had done everything just
wrong. I’ve realized that my behavior must have seemed very queer to
the folks at home. But even so--suicide!”
“That’s just the point, my boy. People can forgive anything to a
man who’s probably committed suicide. And when it turns out that
you haven’t, they’re so glad, that nothing else matters. You framed
the thing just right--that quarrel with your father, the mysterious
references to the unknown girl, everything down to cashing that check
at the cigar store and asking about the St. Louis train. Couldn’t have
been better.”
These remarks were evidently intended to be reassuring; but they
reminded Norman uncomfortably of what a fool he had behaved like in
Vickley.
“I suppose you think I did it on purpose?” he said. “Well, I didn’t. I
was in a state of mind. I hardly knew what I was doing, Gilbert. But I
still don’t understand why you’re so happy about it all.”
“I’m happy, you son-of-a-gun, because you’re alive. Here, have a drink.”
Gilbert opened his suitcase and took out a bottle. “No? Well, I will.
My nerves have gone to pieces over this.” He poured some whiskey into
a tumbler, and drank.
“You know, Norman, you let me down something awful. That’s no way to
treat your lawyer. You ought to have told me what you were going to do.
Here I arrived in Vickley with the thing all settled--and when I called
up your house Sunday afternoon, hell was popping. I had to think fast.”
“Gilbert--I know. I should have told you. I suppose I was afraid to.
The truth is, I wasn’t capable of reasonable thought.”
“I gathered that something had gone wrong, so I went over to your
house. And there I was, sweating blood while the thing came out bit by
bit that evening.”
Norman felt uncomfortable. He had expected Gilbert to scold him. He had
been prepared for that.... But he wasn’t prepared to hear all about
just what had been happening in Vickley.... He really didn’t want to
know.... But Gilbert would want to tell him. He would have to listen.
There was no way of getting out of it....
“I didn’t know exactly what you’d done, Norman, but I knew you were
running amuck somehow,” Gilbert went on, with a smile.
“You knew I had told Madge, at least,” said Norman unhappily.
“Not at first. In fact, when I arrived, all that was known was that
you hadn’t come home to dinner, and that you had quarreled with your
father at the breakfast table. If I hadn’t been on the inside of your
affairs, I should have thought they were damned fools to be making so
much fuss about nothing. And then they asked me if I had ever heard you
mention a girl named Isabel!”
“But didn’t Madge--or her aunt--tell them anything about--about the
engagement being broken?”
“I’ve no doubt they supposed your family knew. And a silly thing
happened there. It seems that your sister Lucinda had called up the
Ferris house three or four times that morning, asking for you--”
“I know--about a dog.”
“Yes. About a dog. I imagine that Madge made some reference to what had
happened, but Lucinda didn’t take it in. She kept talking about the
dog. And at last Madge said, ‘Oh, damn your dog!’ So Lucinda cried, and
wouldn’t let your mother call up the Ferrises any more, even to ask
about you. The first any of us in the house heard about the engagement
being broken was when some kind neighbors came in to inquire if it
were true. Your sister Lucinda seemed to rather hope it was, but she
wouldn’t let your mother call up and ask. I was the only one who had
any notion of what had happened. All they were worried about was that
their darling boy hadn’t come home to dinner. Even when the neighbors
said that Madge’s aunt had taken to bed with nervous prostration, they
didn’t begin to suspect anything serious might be the matter--anything
that would affect them. And there was I, knowing the dynamite you were
carrying around, and surer every minute that you had set it off.”
Norman sighed. Must Gilbert go into all these painful details? Why not
let the dead past be forgotten?
“I tell you,” said Gilbert, “I was sweating blood!”
“It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, to tell them the truth?” Norman
asked with some asperity.
“There’s where you do me an injustice, my boy. I’m more versatile than
you think. I figured it all out--and this seemed to be one of those
rare situations in which the truth might be better than the best lie
that the mind of man could invent. Of course, I didn’t want to do
anything rash. If I gave the show away, and then you walked in with
some other story--that _would_ be a pretty mess! But I had a hunch that
you weren’t going to walk in. My hunches were mostly right, that day. I
didn’t understand what you were up to, all at once--not, in fact, till
next day, when I got an answer to my wire to Dr. Zerneke. But I wasn’t
far wrong in my first guess.”
“What _was_ your first guess?” Norman asked, as patiently as he could.
Of course, all this was interesting to Gilbert. The least he could do
was to listen....
“I thought you had come back in good faith, intending to keep your
mouth shut and preserve the status quo--but that your damned honesty
had got the best of you, and you had told Madge about the baby, and
then lit out for Chicago when she threw you over. Not a bad guess,
either. And for my purposes it was as good as the whole story. The
point was that you had probably spilled the beans. They say a good
lawyer is one that can take advantage of a defeat. Well, I was
defeated, all right. My plans were all smashed to hell--and there
wasn’t any use trying to patch them up. So I made new plans then and
there. This has been one of the most interesting cases I ever handled,
Norman--and if it had been tried in court I’d have made a great
reputation on it. I figured that the whole town was my jury, or would
be in twenty-four hours. There was no use trying to frame up any more
alibis for you. I had to get the truth before the jury, and get you
off that way. That’s what I was thinking when the clock commenced to
strike midnight. We all knew what time it was, but we sat still and
listened--your mother and father, Lucinda and I. It finished striking.
You hadn’t come. And then there was a ring at the bell. We knew you
wouldn’t have rung, you’d have walked in. It might be anything--your
dead body. Waiting under an emotional strain for somebody for a few
hours will do that to people’s minds! Well, it was your special
delivery letter. Your mother was afraid to open it. Your father opened
it. In that atmosphere, you see, your words weren’t as cheerful as you
intended them to be. News of you in two weeks!--Not news _from_ you,
but news _of_ you. It sounded like grim death itself.”
Norman twisted uncomfortably in his chair.
“I never thought of that, Gilbert. But _you_ knew--”
“What did I know? Nothing. I didn’t guess until next day, when I heard
from Dr. Zerneke about what you came home for. All I could think of
then was that you were going to Chicago and make that girl marry you.”
“Of course--you didn’t know,” Norman murmured.
“But you were out of town--I knew that. And then we heard more about
that. Somebody told the clerk at the cigar-store that your girl
had jilted you. And he got worried, and confided to a policeman
what he knew--the check, and the St. Louis train. And then some one
recalled seeing a light in the Overbeck building. The police and the
nightwatchman had gone to your office, and found cigarette stubs all
over the floor. So along towards one o’clock we heard from the police.
Then your father called up the Ferrises. Madge answered the telephone.
Yes, she said, it was true that she’d broken the engagement that
morning. No, she hadn’t seen you since. But she’d had a telephone call
from you at about eleven o’clock. You’d said something about being
sorry, and hung up. No, she’d prefer not to say why she had broken the
engagement. She was cool enough about it.”
“Cool?” Norman asked in surprise.
“Your sister Lucinda called it heartless. She kept on talking about how
heartless Madge Ferris was. Finally she came out with something about
poor Norman possibly lying dead at this very moment. Your mother ssh’d
her, and told her not to be silly. But the thing had been said--the
thing that was in everybody’s mind. After all, when a man disappears
like that, one of the possibilities _is_ suicide.”
“You keep harping on that, Gilbert. It’s not a pleasant thought.”
“I’m telling you just what happened.”
“Of course. Go on.”
“As a matter of fact, I was glad it had come to that. It put your
family where I wanted them. It made the possibility of your being alive
the only thing of any importance. And my mind was made up. You had told
Madge about the baby, I was sure of that. The whole thing would come
out. And now was the time to spring the truth. At the time, you see,
I thought you were going to try to pull off a marriage with the other
girl. It would be a sort of happy ending. But I looked at your sister
Lucinda, and I thought again. I didn’t want my effect spoiled by any
discordant notes. And I didn’t think she’d take so kindly to a happy
ending that involved the mysterious Isabel. Your mother--it wouldn’t
hurt her to do a little worrying. Your father--he was the one that had
to be told. Only not in that house. There was something else, if it
came to that, I was going to remind him of. So I suggested that he and
I go down to the office where you had been camping all day. You might
have left something there that the police hadn’t found--a letter, or
something of the sort. He was glad to go. Norman, if you ever had any
doubt whether your father loves you-- He was nearly crazy with anxiety.
He had been trying to keep up a front with his women-folk, but alone
with me in the office he was beginning to break down. He commenced to
blame himself for a thousand things--including the way he had persuaded
you against your wishes to go into the law.... Well, I told him the
whole story.”
“So he knows....”
“Yes.” Gilbert looked into his empty glass, and poured himself another
drink. “Everybody knows. That’s what I’m coming to. The whole damn
town. And I’m the one that told them. Oh, I had good reasons. In the
first place--you know what a lot of nonsense gets around--there was
talk of your having embezzled some of the firm’s money. I wanted to put
a stop to that. But that’s getting too far ahead. The next person I
told the truth to was your fiancée.”
“Madge? But she knew!”
“She knew what you told her, which wasn’t much, I gather. Enough to
give her the wrong slant on the whole thing. Well, somebody had to talk
to her--and your sister Lucinda had taken to bed over what I had told
your father the night before. Your mother was busy looking after her.
And your father was pretty much shot to pieces. So that left me, to
attend to all these little things. The impression your sister Lucinda
got of what I had told your father was that you were eloping with an
artist’s model. And, of course, with my connivance. The baby she simply
didn’t believe in. She would have it that you had been victimized by
some designing female. Well, I didn’t argue with her. I went to see
Madge.”
He would rather not hear that part of it. But he felt obliged to ask:
“What did Madge say?”
“At first she practically told me it was none of my business why
she had broken the engagement. I said I could guess why it was, and
reminded her that I had been with you in Chicago. She said, if I knew,
there was no use discussing it. I admit I was pretty much stumped by
her coolness. I wondered if she were really heartless, as your sister
Lucinda said. But that wasn’t it. She was really trying to be a good
sport, as I found out afterward. She was trying not to hate the girl
who had taken you away from her. She wasn’t thinking about a baby at
all. In fact, she didn’t know about it.”
“But I told her about the baby!” he protested.
“You didn’t get it straight, Norman--or she didn’t hear it. Or maybe
her aunt mixed her up about it. You seem to have talked to her, too.”
“Not about the baby, I think,” said Norman, making an effort to
remember these things that seemed to have happened so many thousands of
years ago.
“So Madge said. But between what you told the girl and what her aunt
imagined, she got it wrong.”
“What in the world did she think I had told her?”
“She didn’t say in so many words. But I realized that I knew more about
it than she did, so I started in to tell her the whole thing. And she
was surprised from beginning to end. She was under the impression that
you had been carrying on an affair with the other girl while being
engaged to _her_.”
“I didn’t have a chance to go into details. But I’m sure I told her
about the baby!”
“Not that the baby was already born. You neglected that detail. And so
naturally she thought of a pregnant girl that you had to marry.”
“So--that’s what she meant.... She told me I was free--to go to her!”
“Exactly. I tell you, Norman, she’s a good sport!”
“I see that I blundered the thing frightfully.”
“You made it seem even worse than it was. But that’s a good way of
breaking bad news. She’d already suffered the worst. And what I told
her--it took the poison out of the wound, so to speak.”
“She’ll think a little more kindly of me, perhaps,” said Norman
wistfully.
“She’s sorry for you. And she’s interested in your wanting the baby.
I told her why you had come home--to see if your people would take
it. I had learned that from Dr. Zerneke over the long-distance. ‘Well,
Madge,’ I asked, ‘can you hate him for a thing like that?’ And she
said: ‘How could I hate him? I feel very humble.’”
“Humble!”
“To tell the truth, Norman, she thinks of you as a kind of saint.”
“Gilbert, don’t razz me.”
“Women are queer, Norman. Of course, there’s some credit due me as
your advocate. I didn’t neglect my opportunities. And it _is_ rather
dramatic, you know--your throwing up a career and respectability, for
the sake of your son. It’s the sort of thing women can understand.”
(Perhaps--but how did old Gilbert understand?)
“The only trouble is,” Gilbert went on, “it leaves her out. She’d
rather be the other girl, I think. She can’t understand Isabel--why she
won’t marry you. But then, as I told her, I don’t either.”
“You told her I had offered to marry Isabel?”
“Yes--and that you didn’t love her. That’s correct, I think?”
“Yes. How did Madge take that?”
“She seemed to understand it perfectly. It made you all the more
saintlike.”
“Please lay off that, Gilbert.”
“If you depart from the beaten track, Norman, you have to take the
consequences. You can’t do what you’ve done without being regarded
either as a scoundrel or a saint.”
“I was prepared to be regarded as a scoundrel.”
“Well, I’ve fixed that up for you, too. A saint to the women.... All
except your mother and sister, Norman. They both, in their different
ways, regard you as a child.”
“You haven’t mentioned my kid sister--Doris. I was really trying to
protect her.”
“So did we all. She was sent away to the neighbors or up to bed during
all the family conferences, and told some sort of transparent fib about
your being called out of town on business. But she strolled into our
conference Monday night--I had just got through telling them my revised
story about you--and announced with a bored air that we needn’t trouble
to keep the secret from her any longer. She knew all about Norman’s
baby, she said. As a matter of fact, she heard this new story before
the family did. It appears that the news, coming from some girl friend
of Madge’s, had spread like wildfire among the younger generation. They
all knew it by evening.”
“Do you think it will--hurt her much?” Norman asked anxiously.
“Doris? On the contrary, she’s quite a heroine on account of it. Times
are changing, Norman!”
“In Vickley!” said Norman incredulously.
Gilbert looked at him gravely.
“I haven’t intended to deceive you, Norman. You know perfectly well
that you’ve cooked your goose, as far as the law business goes. If you
wanted to set up as a romantic poet, it might be all right for you to
come back. But not as a lawyer. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Thank God for that!”
“Well, be that as it may, Norman, your career in Vickley is gone
completely and absolutely to smash. There’s not a moment’s doubt about
that. And there’s not a thing I or anybody else can do about that. You
had me beaten there. The only thing I could gain was what is called a
moral victory. And since that’s all I have to boast of, Norman, I’m
boasting of that. Let me go ahead and tell you about my speech to the
jury!”
“All right.”
“But first I’ll help myself to another drink.”
Chapter IV: Speech to the Jury
“AND now,” said Norman, “what about this alleged moral victory? You
didn’t by any chance tell people the real truth about me?”
Gilbert put his feet up on a chair. He, at any rate, was enjoying these
reminiscences.
“Yes. This business of telling the truth is like any other drug habit.
It grows on you. That same Monday night, after I left your house, I
dropped in at Sam’s place for a drink. There were half a dozen men
there--and Sam, behind the bar. One of the men was Davis of the Herald
and another was Quinn of the Whig. I won’t name the others, but they
are pillars of Vickley society. Well, Quinn came up to me and asked
if I had heard the rumor that you were in financial difficulties when
you left town--not that they would print anything about it, unless
something came up so that they would be obliged to. Well, I had an
inspiration. ‘Boys,’ I said, ‘I’m going to tell you the truth about the
disappearance of Norman Overbeck. You can decide for yourself whether
it can be printed.’--And not a word has been in the papers since. They
couldn’t have printed the story anyway--not in Vickley. But it was a
magnificent gesture. ‘This is for all of you to hear,’ I said. And so
I made my speech to the jury right there at Sam’s bar. The doors were
locked--Sam saw to that--so there wouldn’t be any interruptions. I’d
had two or three rehearsals of my speech already, between your family
and Madge, but this time it was for a different audience. These men
were hard-boiled guys, and not in love with you....”
“You--you didn’t--I mean--all that stuff about it’s being somebody
else--some other man--you didn’t suggest that?” Norman asked painfully.
“I cast no doubts on the paternity of your son, Norman, if that’s
what you mean. I wasn’t out to make a fool of you. On the contrary. A
scoundrel. It came to me in a flash. A saint--that was all very well
for the women. But men don’t like saints. I had to make you out a
villain--but a magnificent villain, such as men secretly envy. And I
had learned something, Norman. I had learned that the paternal passion
is repressed in our polite species--repressed, I believe, is the
word--but not extinct. I was depending on that. I looked at my jury,
and I said: ‘It isn’t embezzlement, gentlemen. It’s a baby.’ One fellow
snickered. I thought: ‘All right--I’ll have _you_ crying before I’ve
finished!’ And I did, too....”
“What in God’s name did you tell them, Gilbert?”
“The story of a respectable man and his illegitimate son. I must admit
that I embroidered it a little. You know you dropped that hint about
St. Louis--and several people saw you get on that train. Which shows
the value of evidence. Well, I followed up that hint--saying that it
was only a guess of mine. I said you had been talking to me about
South America. I said I thought you had gone there. And why South
America? Because it’s a Man’s Country. I’d been reading a story about
it in Mencken’s Mercury, and I laid in on thick. There a man begets
his children by all the girls he takes a fancy to. And he doesn’t have
to sneak out of his responsibilities--the country isn’t run by a lot
of old-maid Sunday-school teachers. When he gets tired of a girl he
gives her a present and tells her to get out. But she leaves her baby
behind. A South American gentleman, I gave them to understand, has a
dozen bright and happy illegitimate children, and a big house in the
country where he raises them, and visits them, and plays with them--and
everybody, including the lawful wife, knows all about it. I pictured
you, Norman, as a fellow that wasn’t going to be bluffed out of his
natural feelings by our hypocritical civilization. If you couldn’t
have your son with you in Vickley, you were going to South America,
where such things are understood. Mind you, I said, I’m not defending
the young man, I’m only trying to explain him. But I could see that
the idea appealed to the crowd. There’s something of the Turk and the
Mormon in us all. The truth is, we’d like not only to go to bed with
all the pretty girls we take a fancy to, but we’d like to have them
go right ahead and have their babies. And you needn’t tell me the
girls don’t feel the same way about it. If polygamy wasn’t so damned
expensive, that’s the way we’d do it, too. The aristocracy has always
had its bastards without shame and apparently to the satisfaction of
all concerned. It’s only our middle-class economy that has made us a
race of hypocrites.”
Norman looked at old Gilbert in astonishment. “I hope you don’t expect
me to live up to your romantic stories!”
“But, Norman--don’t go back on me now. You’re planning to adopt the
boy, aren’t you? I made sure of that when Dr. Zerneke said you were
calling up every day about him.”
Norman flushed. “Of course I’m going to adopt him. But I don’t feel in
the least like a Mormon or a Turk. Or a saint either.”
“Well, you’ve made a good start in both directions. Norman, my boy”--
Gilbert emptied the bottle into his tumbler--“you’ve done what every
man at some time in his life wishes he dared to do--and what every
woman feels instinctively that a real man ought to do.”
“Gilbert--all this excitement has gone to your head. You’re talking
bosh. Every man in America doesn’t beget a child out of wedlock. You
see, I happen to know the statistics. It comes to only about--I’ve
figured it out for Vickley: let me think. If Vickley runs true to
statistical averages, there are only about twenty new illegitimate
fathers there per year. And there are nearly twelve thousand males in
Vickley between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five. So you see it’s
really quite the exception, Gilbert.”
“Your statistics, my boy, apply only to the illegitimate children
that are actually born. I’m talking of the others. There may be men
in Vickley who have never in all their lives sent a girl to the
abortionist--but I’d not bet on any of them being there at Sam’s bar
that night. And that’s what they were all thinking of--the girls who
had cried because they couldn’t go ahead and have their babies--the
girls whose abortions they had paid for--the girls who, as they
damn well knew, despised them for being the dirty cowards that we
respectable men have to be!”
Norman looked at him curiously--wonderingly.... What did old Gilbert
know about such things?
The telephone rang. Gilbert took up the receiver.
“A telegram? Yes, send it up.”
He turned to Norman. “That will be from your father. I wired him that
the lost was found and in good shape.”
They waited. There was a knock at the door, and the boy with the
telegram. Gilbert read it and handed it to Norman.
In the stiff, reticent phrases that were so like his father, it read:
PLEASED AND GRATEFUL WILL ARRIVE CHICAGO SUNDAY MORNING AS PLANNED
OVERBECK
Ten words.
Chapter V: The Older Generation
LATE that evening they were talking in Norman’s new room.... They had
dined together, going over the whole situation. Gilbert wasted no time
in vain regrets. He accepted the new state of Norman’s affairs, and
was anxious to help him make the best of his Chicago career. He took
Norman’s job seriously, and discussed its future possibilities. And
Gilbert had readily come with him to see the baby. He remarked upon its
resemblance to Norman. They met Mrs. Czermak’s mother, whose name was
Mrs. Case, and another daughter named Monica, a young stenographer.
Also Mr. Victor, an elderly violinist, one of the boarders, just then
out of a job.... Everybody, it seemed, was interested in the baby....
“You know,” said Norman awkwardly, “he was named for me--by his mother.”
Gilbert nodded. “Queer girl!” he said.
They talked of Isabel. She had left town, said Norman; had probably
gone to Michigan, he thought. It was just as well, he said coldly. He
hadn’t wanted to see her again....
Then they talked of Norman’s father--of whom Norman had been secretly
and painfully thinking all the while....
It was all very well to have gained what old Gilbert called a moral
victory over the hard-boiled reprobates at Sam’s bar; over romantic
Vickley matrons who wished to believe in a remarkable young male
saint engaged in expiating his youthful sin by self-sacrifice; over a
sensation-loving younger generation: over even that girl whose love and
pride his destiny had driven him to trample upon so cruelly: but there
remained J. J. Overbeck. No moral victory was possible over him!
His father simply would not be able to understand what had happened.
How could he? A man like that! No, this sort of thing might be
comprehensible to a cynical philosopher like old Gilbert. But it would
be outside the range of his father’s imaginative sympathy. That was
what was going to make this meeting so hard. He couldn’t help wanting
to make his father understand. And that would be impossible.
“Still afraid of the old man?” asked Gilbert, smiling, as he read
Norman’s thoughts, so plain to see in his troubled face.
“I can’t help it,” said Norman. “No, it’s not exactly that I’m afraid
of him. But I know that he won’t be able to understand this at all.”
“No?” said Gilbert. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.”
“His whole life,” said Norman, “has gone to building up his family.
He thinks in terms of the family. You say he loves me--but it’s just
because I’m part of the family. I was to take his place in Vickley.
I’ve hurt him in a way he never can forgive.”
“Norman,” said Gilbert, “maybe I know your father better than you do.
We were in Cuba together, you know. Before you were born.”
“Are you hinting at something, Gilbert?” Norman asked in astonishment.
“I never hint, Norman. I’m going to tell you a story. Because I think
you ought to know it before your father comes. He won’t say a word to
you about it. But he’ll know I’ve told you. He couldn’t do it. Just as
I couldn’t tell my own son. But I know he’d like you to know.”
“My--father!” Norman whispered incredulously.
“Listen, Norman. That Sunday night, after midnight, when your father
and I sat in his office--after I’d told him about your baby--he broke
down. And ... well, you see I’ve known something about your father for
a long time. He didn’t know I knew it. I’d never have told you, but
it’s all right now. So I’ll begin with that.--You think of your father
as an old man, don’t you? Just as you think of me as ‘old Gilbert.’
Yes, it’s true he’s fifty-five and wears side-whiskers.... It’s hard to
go on, Norman, with you looking at me like that. I know how you feel.
But he’s not _my_ father--so it didn’t so much shock me to learn, as
I did a good many years ago by accident, that he had--well, a secret
life. Don’t look so God-damn’ solemn. It all happened before you were
born. A rather plain woman in her thirties. A widow. I knew her name,
but that meant nothing to me at the time. She is dead, now. This is
all ancient history. She left Vickley about the time you were born,
went out West to visit some relatives; and, as I learned the other
night, came back to Vickley some years later--but it was all over
then--and died.... Well, are you wishing I wouldn’t tell you?”
“I--it does upset me, rather,” Norman confessed. “I’ve no right to feel
like that, I know. But--”
“Of course. One’s own father. And that’s the true origin of our
conventional morality, my boy. I hear stuff about the hypocrisy of the
older generation. It’s true enough--but whose fault is it? Who puts us
up on a pedestal? Who refuses to believe that we are merely human? You
wait! You’ve a son now. He’ll have an ideal of you--and you won’t dare
shatter it. You’ll lie, like all the rest of us. You’ll be a hypocrite,
too. Oh, it’s a joke!...
“Well, I knew this thing about your father. And I smiled a little.
But I didn’t know the real story till that night.... It goes back to
the time we were in Cuba together, in the Spanish war. I don’t know
why your father enlisted. He was married, and had a child. I guess
your mother was all taken up with the child--your sister Lucinda. I
know that I went for fun. I was married, too. Anyway, we were both old
enough to know better, but there we were.
“Well, there was another Vickley boy in our company, named Tom. Tom
had never been any good at making money. Some new scheme he had put
his hopes in went to smash--I guess he couldn’t bear to face his wife.
He thought he was a failure, so he enlisted. And Tom and Jim--your
father--got to be great friends in the army. Chums was the word in
those days. I knew about their friendship. But I hadn’t thought of poor
Tom in all these years....
“Your father, that night, began to talk about Tom. And he began to cry.
Then I remembered about their being chums. But all the rest was new to
me, as your father told it. I never had known about Tom’s wife....
“Jim and Tom were both wounded at El Caney--Tom badly. He was going
to die, and he knew it. And there on the battlefield where they lay
together he talked to Jim about Sally. Would Jim look after Sally when
he got back? And Jim promised his chum that he would. And Tom died in
the hospital, and Jim came home to Vickley.
“That was twenty-eight years ago, Norman. Sally must have been about
thirty, then. Tom had written her a lot about Jim, and she was prepared
to like him. And of course she must have been terribly grateful for the
help he gave her. But Jim didn’t tell his wife about it. And he went
to see Sally in the evenings when he was supposed to be working at the
office. He would bring something for a late supper. She was a jolly
little woman, and her house was comfortable. He got to be more at ease
there than at home. And so it began.
“And so it went on. As such things do. Till you were born, and then he
sent Sally out West, and that was the end of it. She came back later,
and died.
“That’s all. Except ... You belong to a hard, unsentimental generation,
Norman. It will seem silly to you.... But there’s her grave, in a
Vickley cemetery. He sometimes visits it alone. He goes at night. Do
you--do you get the picture, Norman?”
Norman saw, in the moonlight, a cemetery with its marble memorials of
Vickley’s respectable dead. And over in an unkempt corner, a place that
meant nothing except to the one who kept its secret tight-locked in
his breast. And thither he saw that old man come, stealthily, with a
posy--an old man, looking down at his lost youth, buried there in that
secret grave. And Norman saw him slink away furtively in the moonlight,
back to his home, his family, his career, his respectability, home from
that secret, ridiculous, pitiful tryst. Symbol of an age that passes....
“Yes--I get the picture,” said Norman.
“He’ll know I’ve told you,” said Gilbert. “He wants you to know. But
he’ll not want anything said about it--not a word.”
“Of course not,” said Norman.
Chapter VI: J. J. Overbeck
HIS father was due to arrive on an early train Sunday morning, and
Norman, having forgotten his alarm clock, had asked Mrs. Case that
night if there was one about the house he could borrow. He explained
that he had to meet his father at seven. “Rose will be up at six to
give the baby his bottle,” she told him. “She’ll knock on your door
at half-past six, and leave you a cup of coffee, if you like.” Norman
protested that he couldn’t think of putting her to that trouble. But
Mrs. Case said it would be no trouble; she made it for herself anyway.
When the knock came, he sleepily answered “Yes.” And not Mrs. Czermak’s
but her younger sister’s voice answered cheerfully: “Here’s your
coffee, Mr. Overbeck. And would you like to have me call you a taxi?”
“Yes, please do!” he said.
“All right. It’ll be here when you’re ready.”
He opened the door when she had gone, and brought in the tray she had
left on the floor.
There was toast, too!
“What a nice family!” he thought gratefully.
He was at the station in plenty of time. Gilbert, it was agreed, would
stay at his hotel until called for, or they would all meet for lunch.
Norman watched the gate, and the stream of passengers. There was his
father.... Gilbert’s story seemed perfectly incredible.
“Well, Father,” he said.
“Well, Norman.”
“Let me take your grip. Did you manage to get any sleep?”
“I slept pretty well. Where are you taking me?”
“We’ll have breakfast, and then I’ll take you to my room.”
“It’s not breakfast time for me yet. This is Sunday, you know. You’d
better take me to your room first.”
“Certainly.”
In the taxi he said: “Does your job permit of your taking taxis like
this?”
It was his kind of humor.
“Only for very distinguished visitors,” said Norman.
“I don’t know why Chicago is supposed to be such an ugly city,” said
Norman’s father, presently. “I think it can hold up its head.”
“Michigan Avenue isn’t bad-looking,” said Norman.
They passed the Art Institute.
“Been buying any more pictures?” asked J. J. Overbeck.
That was probably humor, too.
“Not on my present salary. I get thirty a week at present,” said Norman.
“Thirty a week is not bad to start with,” said J. J. Overbeck. “I know
young lawyers in Vickley who make less.”
There was a silence.
“What are you working at? If you don’t mind my knowing.”
“Not at all. Advertising. Wilkins and Freeman.”
“I’ve heard of them.”
Silence again.
“You neglected to pack a trunk when you left home. Your mother attended
to it last night. It ought to be here to-morrow.” He took a stub out of
his vest pocket and gave it to his son.
“Thanks.”
He would have liked to have his father say something more about his
mother, and how she felt about all this. But he would not ask. And his
father made no further reference to the family.
“All right,” thought Norman, “who cares?”
The taxi drew up presently at the curb.
“Here’s where I live.”
He took his father to his room. The bed had been made, and there was
a vase of flowers on the table. To be sure, a visit from the baby’s
grandfather was an important occasion. They were being damn’ nice to
him, these people.... Tears came into his eyes.
Father and son sat down.
“Comfortable place,” said Norman’s father.
“Yes. Very.”
“And--where do you keep the baby?”
So his father assumed--for Gilbert hadn’t told him--that the baby would
be here! Of course--since that was what Norman had left home for....
Well, he was right....
“Upstairs,” said Norman. “I’ll find out if we can see him now.”
He went out in search of Mrs. Czermak. The younger sister was in the
hall, apparently waiting.
“Is he ready to see the baby now?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes, if he may.”
“He’s in our room--the big room. You can go on up, any time.”
“Thank you.”
He went back. “We can go right up,” he told his father.
He led the way to the upstairs room. Outside the door he started to say
something, in an ordinary tone of voice, but his father silenced him
with an abrupt, authoritative gesture. “You’ll wake him up,” he said in
a low tone.
J. J. Overbeck opened the door quietly, and went in. Mrs. Czermak was
there, with a white cap and apron on. She came forward pleasantly, but
J. J. Overbeck ignored her. He went past her straight to the crib,
stooped over and looked at the sleeping baby. The morning sunlight,
pouring in, lighted up his pink face with its grey side-whiskers, bent
over the crib. Norman came closer. His father remained stooped in that
way for a full minute. Then he uncovered the baby’s plump hand, and
felt of it. Then the feet, in their tiny socks. Norman looked up to see
whether Mrs. Czermak approved of these liberties. Apparently she did.
She was looking on with quiet satisfaction. Her mother, and the younger
sister, who had slipped into the room, were beaming.
Then, deliberately and with assurance, J. J. Overbeck lifted the baby
from the crib and held it in his arms. It slept on. J. J. Overbeck, not
paying any attention to the others, marched slowly around the room,
twice. Then he went back to the crib, and laid the baby down gently,
and covered it up. Then he turned and walked quietly out of the room.
Norman followed him.
In Norman’s room, his father took out a cigar, and offered one, saying:
“Not that it’s good for any one’s digestion, to smoke before breakfast.”
“I’d rather have a cigarette, if you don’t mind,” said Norman.
They sat down.
“Have you made a new will?” his father asked.
“Why, no,” said Norman,--remembering what Dr. Zerneke had told him as
to the sensible way of proceeding in this affair.
“You’d better, right away. That’s the thing to do. We can get Gilbert
Rand to help us draw it up to-day.”
Yes, Dr. Zerneke had said that he was to make up with his father, and
then make the child his heir....
“I suppose I’d better,” he said.
“Have you named him?”
“His mother--named him Norman.”
Doubtless it would be politic to suggest calling him James Norman....
But he wasn’t going to.
“Norman.” His father nodded thoughtfully.
There was a long silence, while J. J. Overbeck smoked.
“I’m not going to change the firm name,” he said, with an air of
finality.
Norman frowned in a puzzled way.
“I’m not expecting to come back,” he said.
“I wasn’t suggesting that precisely,” said his father. “I hope you will
find the advertising business agreeable. But I still think I shall let
the firm name stand as it is. To do otherwise would seem a concession
to vulgar prejudice.”
As he spoke, he glanced thoughtfully over Norman’s head. At the
ceiling, one would have said. But Norman’s mind followed that glance
through plaster and flooring to the upstairs room and the cradle. Was
that what his father was thinking of? A day in the future when, if he
lived that long, he should see another Overbeck in the firm?
(“Not if I know it!” thought Norman.)
“Now, as to financial arrangements,” said his father. “Of course, I
expect you to take care of yourself. But for the child--and for any
emergencies--there’ll be a thousand dollars in the bank that you can
draw on this year if you should need it. It will be put in a savings
account, in your son’s name, you understand.”
Norman resolved never to touch it.... But he must not offend his father.
“It’s very good of you,” he said stiffly.
J. J. Overbeck rose. “It’s time for breakfast,” he said. “We’ll go to
the hotel and rout out Gilbert Rand.”
Chapter VII: Home
HIS father had gone, taking the night train for Vickley. Gilbert Rand
had gone with him. Norman went back to his room on the elevated.
Now that it was all over, he could permit himself to realize what
a frightful strain his father’s visit had been.... Old Gilbert’s
romantic yarn about him still seemed incredible. Oh, no doubt it was
true enough--but it hadn’t changed his feelings about his father.
Nothing, it seemed, could change those feelings--not even his father’s
extraordinary generosity about the baby.... Gilbert had thought that
his story of that lonely grave in the moonlight was a touch of nature
which would make him feel that his father was made of the same human
stuff as himself. It should have done so, but it didn’t. The gulf of
generation was between them. His father was still--his father. And he
was tremendously glad that it was all over.
Things had gone to the satisfaction of everybody concerned--except,
perhaps, of Norman himself. A will had been drawn up; even a codicil to
J. J. Overbeck’s will, leaving Norman’s share of his father’s property,
in case of Norman’s death, to “my grandson, Norman Overbeck, the
natural son of my son Norman.” They visited Dr. Zerneke at her office;
she said that of course the Society would be glad to have the child
adopted by its father; it would be formally arranged within a few days,
she promised. And J. J. Overbeck made out a check to the Society which
far more than covered the expenses to which it had been put in this
matter. He also offered casually to pay any outstanding surgical or
hospital bills....
This was the only reference to Isabel’s part in the matter. And for
some reason that fact gave Norman an inward satisfaction. He had been
treated that way on his first visit to Dr. Zerneke’s office--as a mere
biological instrumentality connected with the production of a child!
Now it was her turn. And she deserved it, he thought vindictively. Yet
it did not escape him that he was still being treated, himself, in
something of the same impersonal fashion. The interests of the child
alone were being considered--which was quite all right. Yet he vaguely
felt it as a conspiracy to fasten upon this child the network of
Vickley.... True, they were only doing, with a generosity which he had
not expected, and a practical care exceeding his own impulsive efforts,
what he himself had sought to do by marrying the child’s mother. They
were undertaking merely to secure to his son, in so far as that could
be done by legal means, all those rights which would otherwise be
lost by the accident of birth outside of marriage. It was damned fine
of them! Why, then, must he feel all the while as though there were
something sinister in these proceedings? He remembered that glance
of his father’s at the ceiling.... Oh, doubtless he was being unduly
sensitive! His feelings as a parent were not being taken sufficient
account of. It was too abrupt a change from the heroic and rebellious
rôle he had been playing for two weeks! It was as if Vickley said:
“A child is the tribe’s concern. Either a child does not officially
exist for us, or it does. It would have been simpler for you to have
let this child remain, so far as we are concerned, non-existent. But if
you force the matter upon our attention, we shall take your child into
the tribe. But it is we who give sanction to its existence--not you.”
Well, it was over, for the time being. It now remained only for the
Adoption Society to take formal action. The child would be his.... He
wondered if Isabel knew.... But there was no reason why she should
know. It was a matter of indifference to her what happened to the
child.... So long as she didn’t have to bother with it herself....
Norman abruptly realized that he was at his station.
He would try to put these legalistic matters out of his mind. After
all, he was living in the same house with his son.... Dr. Zerneke had
been rather surprised when he told her that. But they couldn’t take
that privilege away from him.
He had just entered his room when there was a knock at the door. It was
the elderly musician, Mr. Victor.
“Pardon me,” he said with a smile, “but I’d like to hear the news, if I
may.”
“The news?”
“You see, we can’t help all being interested in the little drama. We’d
like to see it turn out right--for the sake of the little fellow.”
“Oh--come in.”
Of course--it would be a drama to them. They had seen his father--quite
evidently somebody of consequence in his own world--they couldn’t help
seeing that. And a son in evident poverty and disgrace. The family
hadn’t approved of the marriage, they would think. But the sight of
the baby conquers the grandfather’s stony heart--Abie’s Irish Rose, in
fact. Well, they ought to be satisfied with the dénouement. That glance
of his father’s at the ceiling had been a promise (or a threat, if one
were so unreasonable as to take it so!) that this child should be one
of the lords of Vickley! He might tell this romantic old bird that.
It was what he wanted to hear--what every one, including Dr. Zerneke,
seemed to be hoping for....
“Won’t you sit down,” said Norman. “And as to the little drama, I think
I can say that I have received assurances that my own follies will not
be held against the child.” That was sufficiently nineteenth-century to
suit the occasion, he thought.
“The girls will be pleased,” said the old man. “They are very fond of
the baby.”
There was another knock at the door.
“I think it’s them,” said Mr. Victor, with a smile. “Wanting to hear.”
Norman opened the door. It was the younger sister, Monica.
“Excuse me, Mr. Overbeck,” she said eagerly. “But what did he think of
the baby?”
Norman was touched at her interest, but he replied casually:
“Well--he seemed favorably impressed. Didn’t you think so?”
“Yes! we both thought so. Did he say anything?”
Norman smiled. “My father doesn’t say much,” he told her. “I mean, when
he’s pleased. One has to judge by the way he acts.”
“He certainly acted pleased.”
“Won’t you sit down?”
“No--I just came in to ask. You don’t mind my asking? We couldn’t help
being anxious.”
“Well, it’s all right,” he said reassuringly.
“I’m so glad!” she said, and was about to go when he remembered:
“I haven’t thanked you for the flowers--and the coffee. It was terribly
nice of you.”
“Oh--the coffee,” she said. “We’d be very glad to bring you your coffee
every morning, if you’d like it. You get to work at eight, don’t you?
We’re having our own at seven, and it would be no trouble at all!”
“Then you must let me pay you for it,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think my sister would want that,” she said.
“We’ll discuss that later, then,” he said.
“Good-night, then.”
“Good-night.”
“A nice family,” he remarked to Mr. Victor.
“Yes,” said Mr. Victor. “A very nice family. Not the usual type of
people who keep rooming-houses. I know.”
“They’ve been so friendly,” said Norman. “I don’t feel as though I were
among strangers at all.”
“We tried to make it homelike,” said Mr. Victor ingenuously. “I may say
that the idea of Mrs. Czermak wearing her nurse’s costume was my own
contribution, or suggestion. I thought it would help to impress your
father favorably.”
“Has Mrs. Czermak been a nurse-maid?” asked Norman.
“Yes. Babies of her own--that’s what she needs,” said Mr. Victor wisely.
“She’s not a widow, is she?” asked Norman.
“No. But she isn’t living with her husband, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a secret. He ran away.”
“Oh!”
“I might as well tell you,” said Mr. Victor. “He was a very young man,
and a poet. Vladimir Czermak was his name. He also tried to write
music. Very modern music.” Mr. Victor shook his head. “As to his
poetry, I am perhaps not so well qualified to judge. But I have read
some of it....”
“He wrote in English?”
“Yes. If it could be called English. He used to show me his things. He
had a room here. That was how it began. But he looked like a genius.
She has his picture--you must get her to show it to you some time.
The Irish, if you have noticed, have a tenderness for genius. Mrs.
Case allowed him to get behind in his rent. And then he married her
daughter. She was a nurse-maid then. To tell you the truth, I think
what she wanted was a baby of her own. But that wasn’t his idea at all.
He was afraid of the responsibility. As a matter of fact he couldn’t
very well afford to have a family. A young genius who is an unskilled
worker and odd-job man is a poor stick as a husband and father. He
wanted her not to have the baby, and when she went ahead having it he
cleared out.”
“And what happened to her baby?”
“It was prematurely born, and it died very soon afterward.”
“Hard luck,” said Norman.
“I don’t think she or the baby had the right kind of care,” said Mr.
Victor. “Poor people go to poor doctors. But Dr. Zerneke has been very
good to her. She performed some kind of operation that was needed, and
she gave her a baby to nurse. Your child is the third she has taken
care of for Dr. Zerneke. She gets very much attached to them, and feels
very bad at having to give them up. I understand,” he added, “that you
may leave your baby here for some time.”
“I probably shall,” said Norman.
“She’s hoping so,” said Mr. Victor. “She’s devoted to it.”
“And she hasn’t heard from her husband since he went away?”
“No. She’s going to get a divorce shortly.”
“The family isn’t Catholic, then?”
“Their father was Protestant Irish, and the girls have broken away from
the Church. And Dr. Zerneke seems to have persuaded the mother that it
wasn’t a real marriage in the Catholic sense, on account of his not
wanting to have a baby--something like that. At any rate, her scruples
have been more or less overcome. She isn’t sure it’s quite right, but
she’s making no protest. She realizes that Rose ought to be married
again and having her own babies.”
“How old is she--Mrs. Czermak?”
“Twenty-seven. That was one of the difficulties about her marriage. The
boy was three or four years younger.”
“And her sister--how old is she?”
“Monica is twenty.”
“A nice kid,” said Norman, thinking of his sister Doris, and
remembering Monica’s offer to bring him coffee every morning. He
couldn’t help being moved by the sisterly kindnesses he was finding in
his new home.
“It’s a very pleasant place here,” he said.
“Your wife is in Colorado for her health, I understand?” said Mr.
Victor.
They discussed the state of health of Norman’s alleged wife.
“You mustn’t be discouraged,” said Mr. Victor encouragingly.
“Everything will come out all right.” He rose to go.
“Thank you,” said Norman, “I’m sure it will.”
“That’s the right spirit!” said Mr. Victor.
It was a little embarrassing to be sympathized with on such fictitious
grounds. Nevertheless, after old Mr. Victor had taken his friendly
leave, Norman found himself wondering why all homes couldn’t be as
pleasant and comfortable as this one.
He said to himself that his new life had really begun.
Chapter VIII: Apron Strings
DURING that protracted Sunday conference Dr. Zerneke had suggested
to Norman that he come to her home some evening that week, to clear
up the situation in a talk of a less formal and legalistic sort. The
engagement had been made for Monday evening.
But on Monday morning, when Monica brought his coffee, he was up, and
they conversed for a moment at the door; and she reminded him that this
was the baby’s birthday. At that age, it appeared, birthdays came every
month, and this was his first. It was to be a sort of special occasion;
and it would be the first time (not counting that time at the hospital)
that he had seen his son awake.
He called up the doctor that afternoon and, explaining his reasons,
postponed the engagement. It was arranged that he should call Wednesday
evening instead.
Junior’s birthday party--for now the girls called the baby by that
name--was the pleasantest sort of contrast to Isabel’s impersonal
indifference that day in the hospital. It was infinitely agreeable to
Norman, the sight of these girls bending over his child--cooing to him,
and triumphantly eliciting his smile. They knew every dimple by heart.
And unquestionably the baby was rosier, plumper, happier, than he had
been with that unnatural mother of his. It ministered to some deep need
in Norman’s heart, the picture of maternal solicitude which these girls
presented--Rose with her grave motherly preoccupation, and Monica with
her joyous young excitement over every detail of this budding life.
It made him very happy. He sat in the room on those evenings with his
child and its young nurses, enchanted. Their mother, Mrs. Case, was
there, too, sometimes--and occasionally he felt a little embarrassed by
her Rabelaisian comments on babies and some of their natural functions;
but the girls paid no attention, and he soon learned not to mind
her way of talking.... Mr. Victor would drop in, too, to enjoy the
spectacle.
“You can see him bathed Sunday morning,” said Monica enthusiastically.
And on Tuesday evening, after the ceremony of the bottle was over,
and Mr. Victor was chatting with him in his room, Monica came in.
“My sister doesn’t like to ask,” she said, “but you see--she and Ma
have to be out to-morrow evening. It’s about Rose’s divorce. There’s
some witnesses we have to see. Of course, I could stay and look after
the baby, but I’m the one who has been talking to the lawyers, and I
really know more about it than they do. I ought to go along. And we
wondered--I wondered--if you were going to be in that evening. Because
if you were, I thought you wouldn’t mind staying up in our room, next
to the nursery. Of course, if you’re going to be out, I can stay at
home just as well. It’s only for a couple of hours. We’ll be home in
time to give him his ten o’clock bottle. I thought maybe you’d like to!”
This was an occasion much too important to be sacrificed to a mere
conference with Dr. Zerneke.
“I’d be very glad to,” he said.
He called up Dr. Zerneke the next day, and the engagement was postponed
until Friday.
On Friday evening, then, a little before ten, not without regrets at
having to miss the important occasion of the day, he walked over to Dr.
Zerneke’s home.
It was an apartment some blocks away from her office, in a less
imposing building. He had been told to ring the janitor’s bell, and “if
I’m not there, the key’s on the lintel above the door.” Having passed
the inspection of the janitress, he climbed the stairs, to the top
floor. There was no answer to his knock, so he let himself in according
to instructions.
The ceilings at the front were low, with a garret-like slant. There
were easy chairs, a large couch heaped with cushions, a little table
with a coffee-bulb and cups set out, large bookcases filled with books.
The rest of the wall space was occupied with etchings, lithographs,
and oils. Here was one of Nordfeldt’s New Mexico etchings--he had
several of that series himself. A lithograph by Picasso. And here was
a Springer.... He hadn’t gone to Springer’s exhibit. Well, he was a
workingman now. Not an art patron any more....
Dr. Zerneke entered, carrying her medicine case.
“You let yourself in--good. I’ll make some coffee in a moment.”
Norman asked: “Can I do anything?”
“No. Sit down.”
Dr. Zerneke went into another room, put away her things, and came back.
She carried the coffee-bulb into the kitchen, returned with it filled
with water, and lighted the alcohol lamp.
“Why,” she asked, “didn’t you consult me before going to live at Mrs.
Czermak’s?”
“It didn’t occur to me that it was a matter to consult anybody about,”
Norman answered, a little defiantly. After all, he had not left home to
take orders on every little thing from Dr. Zerneke.
“Is there,” he asked, “any reason why I should not live there?”
“It’s merely,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that it will make it more difficult
for her to give up the baby.”
“That won’t be necessary for some time, I presume,” said Norman.
“I had not planned to leave the baby there more than a few weeks,” said
Dr. Zerneke.
“But why?” asked Norman in surprise. “I thought it was a fine place.”
“It has its merits. But I should prefer to put your baby in another
boarding-home, where there are other children, so that he won’t be
spoiled by too much devotion. And you can see that your being there
makes it unnecessarily embarrassing.”
“Yes, I can see that. But what I can’t see is why the baby should be
taken away.” It really seemed to him as though Dr. Zerneke were saying
that to annoy him.
“I think,” he added, “I might be allowed to be the judge of that. I was
going to ask you if the Adoption Society hadn’t passed on the matter of
the adoption, by the way.”
“And I was going to tell you that the Society has decided that the
proper procedure in this case would be for the mother to turn over the
child to you herself.”
“But she’s already given it up to the Society!” said Norman.
“That would be cancelled. It may be a legal quibble, but for some
reason this procedure is preferable. I’ve written to your father about
it.”
“Where is Isabel--in Paris?”
“No--she doesn’t sail till the eleventh of May, according to her plans.
She’s still in Michigan, resting. There won’t be much of a delay. As
soon as she signs the papers we’ve sent her, the child will be your
own. And for that reason, I think I ought to explain to you why you
should not leave him at Mrs. Czermak’s indefinitely. The atmosphere of
the place is all wrong. That kind of neurotic devotion is all right for
a few weeks, but you don’t want the child to get too accustomed to it.”
“Would you call them neurotic?” Norman asked defensively. “I should
have said they were a very healthy lot.”
“It’s the situation that is unhealthy. I’m thinking particularly of
Mrs. Czermak herself. The obvious thing to say is that she needs babies
of her own--and it’s quite true. She let her maternal instincts be
exploited for a long time in a nurse-maid’s job. Then, when she did get
married, it was to a no-account young genius who wanted to be the baby
of the family himself. And since her baby died, I’ve been exploiting
her for the benefit of other women’s babies. No, I don’t call it
healthy to break her heart over children that don’t belong to her.
Just because it’s your child that she’s in love with doesn’t mean that
everything’s all right. And when she does have to give him up, you can
thank yourself for making it worse for her.”
“But how have I made it any the worse?”
“A man around the house--her baby’s father--why, it’s almost like
being married! I’m not suggesting that she’s necessarily in love with
you, Mr. Overbeck--and if she were, it would not be so much a tribute
to your own charms as to the fact that you are the baby’s father. Her
baby’s, as she wishes to feel.”
“Am I to take this as a warning?” Norman asked coldly.
“Stranger things have happened. Of course, if you wish to settle down
there permanently”--Dr. Zerneke smiled--“you’d find her an excellent
wife in many respects.”
“Good heavens!” said Norman, horrified. “I never realized that these
things were so frightfully complicated. I only wanted to get acquainted
with my son. I’ve only seen him five times--awake, that is.”
“And to-night it was my fault that you were dragged away from the happy
scene, wasn’t it?” said Dr. Zerneke. “Thoughtless of me!”
The boiling water plunged upward through the glass tube furiously, and
Dr. Zerneke put out the flame beneath.
“Things came off very well Sunday, didn’t they?” she said.
“My father,” he replied uncomfortably, “was more than kind.”
“Yes--he was sensible, which is more to the point. When is your mother
coming?”
He hesitated. “No definite date has been set,” he told her.
“Have you asked her?”
“She knows where I am. She can come if she wants to.”
“Have you written to her at all?”
“No,” he said reluctantly.
“Nor to any of your family?”
“No. Why should I?”
“You must remember that you repudiated them, when you left home without
telling them about the baby. Don’t you suppose families have feelings?
They won’t come to see the baby till you invite them.”
“Oh, I suppose I should.”
“Yes, I think you’d better. And I also think it might be just as well
if you were living somewhere else when your mother and sisters come to
see you, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
He realized what she meant--they wouldn’t like his being so much at
home there. And his sister Lucinda would be suspicious of Mrs. Czermak.
It was perfectly absurd, but she would. She thought every woman had
designs on him.... He sighed....
“It’s been a very comfortable place,” he said. “I should be sorry to
have to leave.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Zerneke tartly, as she poured the coffee, “a man with
a fond mother and sisters does get in the habit of letting women-folk
wait on him. Sugar?”
“Black, please,” he said, flushing. Had she heard of Monica’s bringing
him his morning coffee? But that wasn’t his fault! They had all
insisted on it. He couldn’t have refused without being rude....
“I’ll stop scolding you,” she said, handing him the cup. “How is your
work going?”
“Not brilliantly, I’m afraid.”
“Well, the adoption matter ought to be settled soon, and then you can
settle down to a normal life.”
Something in her tone made him ask: “What, exactly, is your idea of a
normal life for me, Dr. Zerneke?”
“Well, I don’t mind saying that it isn’t hanging over a cradle in your
spare evenings. You ought to be having some kind of ordinary social
life. You ought to be making friends. Men friends and girl friends.
If I heard that you were caught drinking and dancing, I wouldn’t be
shocked. Even if you were seen kissing a pretty girl. I know, this may
seem precipitate to you. You’ve only been mooning over your baby for a
week. Just the same, it’s time you began to form other habits.--Your
habits would be admirable enough, if you were a husband, and one of
those girls your wife. That’s how a home is built up. But you are a
bachelor. And you ought to behave as such. It would be bad enough, the
way you’re acting, if they were your own mother and sisters. I want you
to snap out of it.... The truth is that something fell on you three
weeks ago, and hit you like a ton of brick. Nevertheless, you’ve got to
get over it. You can’t let time stop still for you at the moment when
you found you had a baby. After all, staying in the cave and cooing
to babies is a maternal occupation. Going out and killing bears is
the paternal job. How long, if I may ask, are you going to work for
thirty dollars a week? Or is your son going to be supported by his
grandfather?”
Norman set down his coffee cup and rose haughtily.
“I’m sorry my conduct doesn’t please you,” he said. “Thank you for your
advice. I will call on you when I want more of it.”
And so saying, thoroughly outraged, he left Dr. Zerneke’s home abruptly.
Chapter IX: It Was Bound to Happen
THAT was on Friday evening. And on Saturday morning he had a telephone
call from Dr. Zerneke.
“I’ve heard from Isabel,” she said. “The papers are signed. If you
can get off this afternoon to go to the courthouse, the thing will be
settled for good.”
He would be at her office at two, he said.
The legal red-tape would soon be unwound, now--his son would be all his
own!...
Going back to his desk, he found a note there, saying formally that Mr.
Wilkins wished to see him.
He walked buoyantly into Mr. Wilkins’ office, thinking to himself that
this would be his promised raise.
“My luck is with me!” he said to himself.
Ten minutes later, he came out of Mr. Wilkins’ office saying to himself
over and over:
“Of course. It was bound to happen. I’ve had too easy a time. It was
bound to happen.”
He had in his hand an order on the cashier for his week’s pay, and
another week’s in advance.
Mr. Wilkins had observed his work carefully, he said, during these two
weeks. Not everybody had the makings of an advertising man in him. He
felt sure that Mr. Overbeck would do better in some other field. Et
cetera.
Fired!
He tried to persuade himself to take it lightly. After all, there were
other advertising agencies in Chicago. He had got this job without
any experience at all. With what he had picked up of the lingo of the
profession, he ought to be able to get a better job. Yes, he was no
longer a mere beginner. He would strike the next place for sixty-five
dollars a week at least....
While he felt that way, as soon as he had cleaned up his desk and got
his money from the cashier, he walked over to the H. H. Warner agency
and asked for a job. He did not get it.
Then he tried the Simpson agency. There was nothing there for him,
either.
Well, it had taken him some little time to get that first job. It would
take more than a day to get another.... And in the meantime he had to
go to see Dr. Zerneke.
What an irony! That it should be at such a moment that he should be
given his son!
With Dr. Zerneke, in her office, he was stiff and formal. He had
decided not to tell her about losing his job--until he had found
another.
She wasted no words, but pushed a document across her desk.
“That is the mother’s consent. And here”--she glanced at another paper,
and handed it over--“is your petition. Sign it before a notary, and
take it to Judge Hummel in the County Court, at three o’clock; our
legal representative will be there. His name is Starrett.”
“Thank you.”
He took his departure stiffly.
There was a notary’s office down the street. He had noticed it in
coming. He stopped there, signed his name, and held up his hand while
the notary mumbled a formula.
At the courthouse he found Mr. Starrett waiting for him. They went into
Judge Hummel’s chambers. The judge looked at him curiously. It was not
every day, it seemed, that a man adopted his illegitimate child....
It was over at last. And now to look for a job.
But no--he must wait till Monday for that....
He would have nothing to do over Sunday except think.
He remembered what Dr. Zerneke had said about the child’s being
supported by his grandfather. It was as if she had known he was going
to lose his job....
It was true that he had been slack at his desk all week. Not like the
week before, when he had been living by himself, and calling up Dr.
Zerneke’s office once a day to see whether the baby was all right....
He had been working for his son, then. Ever since he had come to
Mrs. Czermak’s, he had been lapped in a soft, sentimental dream of
fatherhood....
He realized that he had had no lunch. He must eat, even if he was out
of a job.
He went home early in the evening and picked up a book to read, to keep
his thoughts off his situation. He had decided he would say nothing to
the people here about losing his job. Not until he had got another. He
would go out early in the morning as usual, and keep looking for a job
all day....
The book was one that had been in the room when he rented it, a novel
of Dumas’. He had read it when he was a boy. He started to read it
again, with the hope that in this cheerful swashbuckling romance he
would find something to take his mind entirely away from his problems.
It was about Athos--and, as he presently noted, about an illegitimate
son of that worthy. And Norman vaguely remembered, from his boyhood,
the story of how it had all come about. The young man had found upon
his doorstep a bassinet containing the newborn child--a souvenir sent
by a young lady of quality in memory of the jocund night of love which
they had enjoyed the year before. So, it appeared, were such matters
handled in those romantic days. And, as Norman remembered, the young
hero had suffered no pangs of conscience; he had taken it as a matter
of course, and sent the child away to be nursed and educated. Such, as
well as Norman could remember, were the origins and early circumstances
of the Vicompte de Bragelonne....
Norman threw the book aside fretfully. Dumas had played him false--had
merely reminded him of his own troubles....
He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. Time for the feeding. But
he did not want to go to see it.... He would feel ashamed, knowing that
he had lost his job....
What was it that Dr. Zerneke had said about the clock stopping for him?
When he found that he had a baby. Yes, he hadn’t thought of much else
since then.
When Dumas’ hero found that bassinet on his doorstep, he didn’t moon
over it. He took it in his stride....
Well, when he had another job, he would begin to live what Dr. Zerneke
called a normal life. He would make friends. He would meet girls. He
would not hang over his son’s cradle every evening. He would be a
normal young bachelor....
But first he had to find a job--and work hard to keep it this time.
What a fool he had been, to lose that job! It might be hard enough to
get another.... But he wasn’t going to let his son be supported by J.
J. Overbeck....
There was a knock at the door. It sounded like Mr. Victor’s. He ignored
it. And Mr. Victor took the hint of his silence and went away. But
presently there came another tap that sounded like Monica’s. He ignored
that, too. He sat slumped in his chair, thinking of his inadequacies.
He was sitting thus, with his head drooped on his chest miserably,
when the door opened slightly, and Monica’s voice uttered a surprised
and apologetic “Oh!”
Norman did not look up even then. For he became aware of the tears of
self-anger and self-pity in his eyes. He did not want this girl to see
him crying.
But girls are stupid about such things. She stayed there in the
doorway, and said “Oh!” again, this time in a sympathetic tone. Then
she came timidly into the room, approached him, touched his arm with
her hand. “Please--is anything the matter, Mr. Overbeck? Have you--have
you had bad news from Colorado?”
She stooped over him in a kind sisterly way.
Colorado?
“No!” he said. And he added roughly: “Go away and leave me alone!”
She fled.
He shouldn’t have said that, he thought regretfully. She wasn’t his
sister, to be talked to in such a fashion. She had a right to ask--she
had thought his wife was dying or something. That was what any one
would think, to see him sitting there crying.
Stricken with remorse, he went to the door.
“Monica!” he called, for she was not in sight. She appeared abruptly at
the head of the stairs. “Yes, Mr. Overbeck?”
“I--I’m sorry, Monica,” he said.
“Oh, it’s all right.”
She was coming down. She stood there before him, with a queer
frightened look on her face.
He didn’t know that he was holding out his arms to her in the doorway.
He didn’t know until she melted into his clasp, and they were kissing
one another.
“Oh!” she said at last, “we mustn’t do this. Your wife--”
“Of course,” said Norman, infinitely astonished at himself. “I forgot!”
There they were, in the doorway; and at the head of the stairs, as they
both suddenly became aware, was Monica’s mother. They released each
other abruptly. Monica ran out into the hall. Norman closed the door,
and sat down to think.
Now what?
He couldn’t imagine why he had done such a foolish thing.
Fortunately, he was supposed to have a wife in Colorado. Monica
wouldn’t expect him to marry her.
But what would her mother say?
He wasn’t left long in doubt. A firm rap at the door was Mrs. Case’s.
He rose to let her in.
Chapter X: Mrs. Case
“I’M very sorry, Mrs. Case,” he began, but she interrupted him.
“That’s all right,” she said, “you would be, caught as you were, and
I’m not worrying about what’s past. It’s the girl’s fault as much as
your own, and natural enough on both sides, with small blame to either
of you. It’s the days and nights to come I’m thinking of. A man with a
wife away is bound to be kissing some girl, and if it’s not one it will
be another, so another it shall be. We’ve trouble enough in our family,
and it will be some other than my Monica that you philander with from
now on. I’m not blaming you, Mr. Overbeck, you understand, but the way
it is, with you a married man, I’ll just ask you to find another room,
and take temptation out of harm’s way.”
“It’s very kind of you to look at it in that way, Mrs. Case,” said
Norman, much relieved. “I’ll move to-morrow.--I don’t know how it
happened,” he began to explain.
“Oh, I know how it happened,” said Mrs. Case. “There was you, and there
was she, and that’s how it happened. I’m not saying a word against
human nature. I can’t have it go on in _my_ house, that’s all. I’ll be
sorry to see you go, but you know how it is. I can’t be staying awake
all night to see that my daughter sleeps in her own bed.”
Norman blushed. “I assure you,” he said, “that we--that I--”
“You can save your assurances for your wife when she comes back, it’s
then you’ll need them,” said Mrs. Case. “I know the world of men and
women, and I’ve no great quarrel with the way they’re made. It’s all
right with me, but you can just be leaving your door unlocked at night
for the other girl at your new place, when it comes to that.”
Norman, not quite following her meaning, asked in bewilderment and some
indignation:
“What other girl do you mean?”
“Whatever one it chances to be, and I wish you good luck, too,” said
Mrs. Case. “There’ll be one. You’re not the sort of young man the girls
will let sleep single long, but I’d rather, as I say, it would be some
other woman’s daughter that kept you company when the lights are out.”
“Really, Mrs. Case,” said Norman in embarrassment. “You mustn’t think--”
“Oh, it’s only human nature,” said Mrs. Case, “and nothing to apologize
for. I think none the less of you, but I have to look after my own as
best I may.”
“I think you’re quite right, Mrs. Case,” said Norman.
“We’ll all miss you, I say, and we’ll all be glad to see you when you
come to visit your boy. You mustn’t think we’ve any grudge against
you, Mr. Overbeck. That’s why I’m asking you to go now, before that
happens which we’ll all be sorry for.”
There was more to the same effect, and it was arranged that Norman
should find another room and move to-morrow, on the excuse that he had
to be nearer to his office.
It was just as well all around, thought Norman; he would take a cheaper
room while he was looking for work. He paid Mrs. Case two weeks in
advance for the baby; that at least was secure....
“I don’t mind saying I’ll sleep better when you’ve gone, and I don’t
have to wonder is every creak a girl’s bare feet on the stairs,” she
said, at which Norman blushed again.
Was _that_--he wondered when she had gone--what everybody in this house
thought of their brother-and-sisterly friendship?... Well--that kiss
hadn’t been very brother-and-sisterly! After all, what did he know
about himself? Or Monica? Perhaps this brassy-tongued old woman was
right. Anyway, he gathered that these reflections upon his character
were not intended by Monica’s mother as uncomplimentary.
As he went to bed, he glanced at the lock on his door. Yes, perhaps
it was just as well he was going to leave this place.... What did he
really know about girls?
Chapter XI: Paradise Lost
ON Sunday morning he found a small room on the North side, not far
away, a narrow hall bedroom on the top floor--a hole in the wall that
cost him only four dollars a week.
He went back to Mrs. Case’s to pack up. Mr. Victor came in. He had
heard, he said, that Norman was leaving.
Nobody else came in. They seemed to be avoiding him.
He asked Mr. Victor to tell Mrs. Case that the corner expressman
would come for his trunk. He looked around the room regretfully, and
wondered again at that inexplicable kiss which had forfeited for him
this comfort.... Well, unless he got a job right away, he couldn’t have
stayed there anyway.
“Say good-by for me to Mrs. Case, and Mrs. Czermak--and Monica,” he
bade Mr. Victor. “Tell them how grateful I am and always will be to
them, for the way they’ve looked after my child.”
Mr. Victor raised his eyebrows. “But you’ll be coming here regularly to
see the boy, won’t you?” he asked.
Norman felt rather foolish. To Mr. Victor, of course, it was not a
farewell to a lost paradise.
“My work is going to keep me terribly busy for a while,” he said
stiffly. “I shan’t be able to get here very often.”
“You’ve been almost one of the family,” said Mr. Victor regretfully.
Just a little too darned near, thought Norman.... That kiss still
astonished him whenever he thought of it.
But he didn’t like to go away as though he were sneaking off in
disgrace. He wished he could see Monica for a moment.... An idea
occurred to him.
He unlocked his trunk. In the till were all sorts of trifles which
his mother had collected from his chiffonier. He searched among them,
looking for something appropriate.... Yes, girls wore cuff-links
sometimes. He selected a handsome green jade pair with silver mountings.
“May I entrust you with a little commission?” he asked Mr. Victor
formally. “I would like you to give these to little Monica.”
“She’ll be pleased as Punch,” said Mr. Victor, admiring them.
“I don’t know when I’ll be here again,” said Norman, “so I’ll say
good-by,” and shook hands with Mr. Victor.
He went over to his new room and awaited the trunk. He was afraid at
first that there would be no room for it. But he found that if it were
set at the end of the narrow iron bedstead, it left space enough for
the door to open half way--and that was enough.... He reflected that
if the worst came to the worst, all those suits of clothes his mother
had sent him ought to fetch something at a pawnshop.
But that was no way to be thinking at a time like this....
He dined as inexpensively as possible, and came back to his hole in the
wall.... At Mrs. Czermak’s there had been a tree in front of the house.
Here he looked out over a chaos of grimy roofs. Well, he might as well
get used to it! This might be his life for some time now.
All the rest of the day he stayed in his tiny room. He remembered that
he had promised Dr. Zerneke to write to his mother. But he did not want
her to come while he was out of a job. He would have to postpone that
indefinitely.
Well, what was he going to do? Look for a job, of course. But suppose
he couldn’t find one?
But he could. He would. He must!
He hadn’t been discouraged when he started in to look for a job three
weeks before. But this was different, somehow. Being a father, with a
baby to support--that had been then a strange dream, a daring wish, a
rebellious aspiration. Now it was a grim reality. He had to keep on
paying that twelve dollars a week.... And he began with pencil and
paper to figure out how long his money would last, computing his own
expenses at the lowest rate. Less than three weeks! Scarcely more than
two, in fact. He had that much time to find a job in. Then there was
that trunkful of clothes to pawn.... Of course, his father’s money was
there in the bank, waiting for such emergencies as this. But that would
be a confession of failure....
Why was he thinking of failure now? Three weeks ago he hadn’t worried
about that possibility.... But three weeks ago he hadn’t just been
fired from a job that he thought he was doing pretty well at.
Yesterday he had formally adopted his and Isabel’s child. He, a man
without a job, who could assure a child no more than three weeks’ food
and shelter. What would Isabel think, if she knew? Would she be sorry
she hadn’t given her baby to some well-to-do strangers?
He found it difficult to get to sleep that night. The future stretched
out before him, grim and frightening.
Chapter XII: Out of a Job
HE had intended to get up early Monday morning; but a troubled sleep,
filled with a long, anxious, childish dream concerning an attempt to
find the right train in a huge and bewildering railway station, held
him fast in its grip. Apparently he was waiting for Monica’s knock to
awaken him. But no knock came, and it was ten o’clock before he opened
his eyes. A bad start! He would have to get an alarm clock.
He called on an advertising agency that day, and was not surprised to
be told that they needed no one.
The rest of the day he spent in an aimless wandering about the streets.
The next day, again rising late from the enthrallment of an
anxiety-dream, he called on another advertising agency, and again used
his further time in meaningless perambulation. The fact was that the
experience of being refused a job robbed him of his courage for the
rest of the day. And in addition there was a half-conscious conviction
of the hopelessness of his search, which made him want to stretch out
the effort over a period of days or weeks, and postpone as long as
possible the inevitable conclusion of failure....
What occupied his thoughts during these long days was a monotonous
series of trifles which had assumed for him a heavy and grave
importance. One, which took all week to decide about, concerned
the buying of an alarm clock. He certainly needed one--there was
no doubt of that. He was rising later and later from his poisonous
fear-dreams.... But a clock cost money. He looked at clocks in the
windows of drug stores as he passed, noted their prices, and figured
out in his mind how many hours of his money the cheapest of them would
set him back. For he had his money computed now in terms of hours.
Every dollar, as he had calculated it, gave him and his child eight
hours and some forty-eight minutes of food and shelter. A forty-five
cent clock might seem cheap enough, but it robbed them of four hours’
security! And figured in that fashion, its cost was so stupendous that
its purchase must be postponed and reconsidered pro and con at great
length.
Again there was the matter of his meals. He had for this period set
down the meager sum of fifty cents a day for food. That had seemed
small enough, but when one ate only two meals a day at very cheap
restaurants it was possible to cut down that figure. He could get a
breakfast of doughnuts and coffee for ten cents, and a dinner of hash
or spaghetti for thirty. The consideration of these items, and the
sense of saving occupied much of his time and thought.... And yet,
after a few days, when he came to balance his budget one evening,
he found that he had spent more money than he should have done. Two
dollars, or seventeen hours and a half, had vanished without trace....
And there were items he had not reckoned on--cigarettes he could do
without (he smoked a kind that went out, and he saved the stubs of
his last box and had a luxurious puff or two from one of those before
going to bed), but laundry was a necessity; and so, after butchering
his face with his last dull blade, was a new supply of blades for his
safety razor; though the soap on the washstand was as good for shaving,
he found, as what comes in a tube. And even the small item of carfare
seriously disarranged his estimates; at a minimum of ten cents a day
for three weeks, it shortened his time of security by nineteen hours.
And he had quite forgotten about having to pay for laundry.
In truth, he knew these estimates were an absurd folly; yet he spent
hours of time every evening going over his figures, working them out in
decimals. There was this comfort in his preposterous mathematics, that
it kept his mind precariously balanced on the edge of the abyss of fear
along which he seemed to walk. It was as if he must keep his eyes fixed
upon these figures, lest he should look down into that gulf and become
dizzy....
He did not go to see his child; he could not face the people
there--yet. He called up every evening, and Mrs. Case or Mrs. Czermak
reported that the baby was--of course--all right. Once it was Monica
who answered the telephone; in a queer, constrained voice she gave him
the information he wanted, and then, still in a reserved tone, thanked
him for the cuff-links. (He had forgotten them.) He explained that he
was very busy, but hoped to have time soon for a visit....
Every day that week he went to an advertising agency. There were only
two, besides the one from which he had been discharged, where he would
have cared to work; one of them he had gone to last Saturday, and the
other he held in reserve, going first to the smaller and negligible
ones. On Saturday morning he would go to McCullough’s, the one he was
holding in reserve.
That day he rose early, having bought an alarm clock at
last--recklessly paying seventy-nine cents for it. He indulged in the
luxury of having his shoes shined. He bought a newspaper, and read
about the preparations for the General Strike in England, and the
sports news, so as not to be too out of touch conversationally with the
outside world. Thus prepared, he went to McCullough’s.
Mr. McCullough himself was not in, but somebody in charge told him
flatly that there was no opening there just now for anybody....
That afternoon, when going into a cheap restaurant to brace himself
with another meal of doughnuts and coffee, he noticed a sign in the
window: “Dishwasher Wanted.” He went up to the man at the cashier’s
desk and asked about the job.
The man looked at him doubtfully and said: “I don’t think it’s the kind
of a job you want.”
“How much does it pay?” asked Norman.
“Go and see the boss. He’s in the back.”
“Whom shall I ask for?”
“Ask for the boss.”
Norman went back into the greasy, steaming kitchen.
“I want to see the boss,” he said to a fat man in an apron.
“I’m the boss. What do you want?”
“How about that dishwashing job?”
The man looked at him. “My God, what next?” he said disgustedly.
“Why, what’s the matter with me?” Norman asked.
“You’d last about an hour,” said the man.
“How much is the pay?” Norman demanded.
“Twelve dollars and meals. You have the day shift for two weeks and
then the night shift--seven to seven.”
Twelve dollars--and meals. That was enough for the baby. And he could
pawn his trunkful of clothes to pay for his room.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
“If you’re here at six-thirty to-morrow morning and nobody else has
turned up, I’ll try you out,” said the man.
“All right,” said Norman. “I’ll be here.”
“The hell you will,” said the man doubtfully.
As Norman went by the cashier’s desk the man there asked: “Get it?”
“I think so,” said Norman.
“Working for a paper?” asked the man. “Going to write us up?” And he
smiled knowingly.
Norman shook his head and went out. Why were they so suspicious of him?
Just because of his clothes? Well, a week’s dishwashing would change
that....
He would have no time to call up Mrs. Czermak to-night. He’d better
call up now.
Monica answered the telephone.
“Oh!” she said. “Dr. Zerneke wants very particularly to see you
to-night. She said to go to her home at ten o’clock. Yes, Junior’s all
right. When are you coming to see him?”
“Soon, I hope,” said Norman vaguely.
What did Dr. Zerneke want to see him about? Had she found out about his
losing his job?
Chapter XIII: The Dreamer Wakes
DR. ZERNEKE was not in when he arrived at her home at ten o’clock, and
he let himself in as before.
Waiting for her, he turned to the book-shelves. He caught the name
of Freud on the back of certain imposing volumes.... Ferenczi....
Flexner.... Frazer.... Fabre....
All very informative, no doubt.... Sanger.... Spencer and Gillen....
Stendhal’s _L’Amour_.... Stopes.... If he read all those large books,
he might understand his own situation better. But it was a little late
to begin his education. Perhaps a younger generation, that babbled of
sex and psychoanalysis instead of nursery rhymes, as it was reputed to
do, would find clear sailing. And maybe not. He had thought he knew
something, himself. He had had a smattering of modern ideas. He had
thought of himself as a liberal.
Goethe.... Godwin.... Groos.... Remy de Gourmont. Guyot’s _Breviare
de l’amour experimentale_.... All about sex, it seemed.... Janet....
James Joyce.... Ernest Jones.... Jung.... Kammerer.... Kempf.... Ellen
Key.... The Koran.... Krafft-Ebing.... An omnium gatherum of biology,
sociology, psychiatry, poetry, plays, and what not.... Adler.... Grant
Allen’s “The Woman Who Did”--a novel Norman vaguely remembered having
read in his ’teens; it was about a woman who deliberately and on theory
had an illegitimate child; the child, as Norman recalled, did not
thank her mother for conferring upon her that heroic but embarrassing
distinction.... Aretino.... The Apocrypha....
Norman took down the Apocrypha, and looking into it at random was
interested to see there the name Thecla. He had wondered who was the
St. Thecla for whom the Adoption Society was named. He would read the
Apocrypha some time and find out.... He put the book back at the sound
of some one coming up the stairs.
Dr. Zerneke entered, and greeted him cordially.
“Well, Mr. Overbeck,” she said, “I suppose you are feeling pretty good
about everything?”
Norman was disconcerted.
“What about?” he asked suspiciously. Was she making fun of him?
“Why, you have your son,” she said. “That hasn’t palled already, has
it?”
“Oh,” he said. “I thought--”
“You thought what?”
“I hadn’t intended to tell you,” he said. “But the fact is, I’ve lost
my job.”
“That’s too bad,” she said sympathetically. “As a matter of fact,” she
added, “I knew.”
“Oh’you did?”
“Yes. I happened to call up Wilkins and Freeman, and they said you
weren’t there any more.”
“Of course.... It was foolish to think I could keep it a secret.”
“You haven’t another yet, I suppose?”
“No,” he admitted. “I’ve been looking for another all week without any
success. I--I seem to have lost my nerve. I’m frightfully discouraged.
To tell the truth, I took a job of dishwashing to-day.”
“Dishwashing?”
“Yes. So as to keep up my payments to Mrs. Czermak, while I’m looking
for a real job.... Oh, things will turn out all right, I know, but this
week my prospects haven’t looked so cheerful. It was something of a
shock, losing that job at Wilkins and Freeman’s. And looking for a job
and being turned down every day--it’s hard to keep up one’s courage.”
“So now,” Dr. Zerneke commented, “you know how a good many other young
fathers feel. Well, it may be good for you.”
“It may take me, of course,” said Norman, “several weeks to find
another job.”
“Or several months, even,” said the doctor. “Do you know Mr. Victor, at
Mrs. Case’s rooming-house? He’s been out of work since New Year’s.”
“How do they keep up?”
“Some of them don’t. Others have a little money put by for hard times.
When you were a prosperous lawyer, didn’t you save anything?”
“I had a bank account, yes.”
“Why not draw on it, then?”
“It’s not really mine, any longer, since I’ve quit the firm.”
“Suit yourself. But I hope you’re not going to be silly.”
“I’ve broken with my life in Vickley. I’d rather stay broken--not go
back for help. Is that so foolish?”
“Are you engaged in some private quarrel with your father? Or are you
trying to make a career for yourself here in Chicago? If your son, when
he grows up, goes to New York to look for a job, don’t you think he
will need some money to live on before he gets started? Of course, you
can do dishwashing jobs in cheap restaurants if you want to. It may be
good for your soul. But I doubt it. I think you’re ashamed of having
lost your job.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Shame is a luxury no sensible person can afford. Do you want to stay
in the advertising business?”
“I do. Very much. That’s really what I’m afraid of--that I’ll have to
fall back on something else.”
“Would you consent to let me do you a favor?”
“Why not?”
“I thought you might be too proud. Well--first of all, how much money
have you in the bank at Vickley?”
“Of my own--something like a thousand dollars. I was going to spend it
on my honeymoon.”
“Write out a check for it and deposit it in some Chicago bank. How much
are you paying for your new room?”
“Four dollars a week.”
“Rent a small apartment. You can get one, furnished, for the summer, in
this neighborhood, for fifty or sixty dollars a month. Give my name as
a reference. You will need such a place to entertain your family in,
anyway. Do that Monday.”
“And what then?” Norman asked curiously.
“You are fond of buying pictures, aren’t you?”
“I’ve confined myself to etchings, chiefly. I have a small collection
of moderns in Vickley.”
“Send for them. Or go to the galleries and buy something new that
you’ll want to put on your walls. Do that on Tuesday. Also, go to a
department store and buy some cups and saucers or hangings that please
you. Do you dance?”
“Yes.”
“I will send you tickets for a ball next Wednesday, for which you will
please remit ten dollars. If you don’t find a girl to take, come alone,
and I’ll introduce you. It’s a masquerade, but evening clothes will do.”
“Is that all?” Norman asked grimly.
“Thursday I leave to your own devices. And on Friday go to see Mr.
McCullough, of the McCullough Advertising Agency, and ask for a job.”
“I was in there this morning. They haven’t got a job to give me.”
“They will probably have one next Friday.”
“Why should they have one next Friday?” he asked suspiciously.
“Because there is such a thing in this wicked world as ‘pull,’ and I
use unscrupulously the little I have for the benefit of my friends. How
do you suppose people get jobs?”
“But what do you know about my ability?”
“Nothing. After you get the job, it will be up to you to keep it.
That’s not my affair. All I promise you is a two weeks’ trial. But
it just happens that the last young man I rashly recommended to Mr.
McCullough turned out to be pretty good. If you’re a flop, I’ll merely
lose my reputation for intuition, that’s all. Only, if I were you, I’d
ask for sixty a week to start on. They’ll not respect you otherwise.
Remember that you’ve a baby to support.... And don’t, please, be angry
at me for keeping you from conquering the world by your own unaided
efforts.”
“I’ll be everlastingly grateful,” he said. “But--I thought poverty was
supposed to be an incentive. Evidently you don’t think so. Why should
you want me to pretend to myself that I’m rich?”
“Because you’ve always been well-to-do. You are, still, as a plain
matter of fact. Your poverty is a fake poverty--a neurotic lie, to
please yourself.”
“It didn’t feel so to me. It seemed real enough. And it wasn’t at all
pleasing!”
“It was an exercise of your imagination, nevertheless. A dream. I’ve
merely waked you up.”
“It was a nightmare,” he said.
“A grim little poetic fantasy. Write a poem about it, and send it to
the Daily Worker. It will all be true enough--for others. Not for you!
Be honest about this, if you can.”
“I admit I feel better than I did when I came in. But why--aside from
the job you’ve more or less promised me--why should the _facts_ seem
different now? Because they do!”
“You’re facing realities now. Not fighting shadows any more. The
question isn’t whether you can conquer the world with your bare hands.
It’s merely whether you can succeed in the advertising business. Maybe
you can’t, you know!”
Norman laughed, and thanked her warmly.
“Have you asked your mother to come to see you?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, the sooner the better.”
As Norman walked back to his room, he had a startling apprehension
of the fact that what she had said about keeping a job was a really
important truth.... There had perhaps been something grimly romantic
about the thought of washing dishes and pawning his clothes to pay that
twelve dollars a week for his son’s care. This problem of keeping
a job after it had been given him--there was, he knew, nothing very
romantic about that. It was a quite realistic problem that he had to
face now....
“Am I,” he wondered, “a perfectly incorrigible ass?”
If it would help to do the things that Dr. Zerneke advised--if it would
keep him from flying off on some preposterous new emotional tangent (he
had Monica’s kiss in mind) he would do as she said.
He would get an apartment.... And then he would ask his mother to
come....
BOOK THREE
The Dominant Sex
Chapter I: Vita Nova
HIS mother was coming. He had wired, inviting her, and she had wired
back the date of her arrival....
Ten days had passed since his talk with Dr. Zerneke, and in the
meantime he had done most of the things outlined in her program. He had
transferred his bank account to Chicago. He had rented a good-sized
furnished apartment on the North side for the summer. He had even,
according to instructions, picked up an etching, a satiric thing by
Peggy Bacon, and put it on the wall, to make the place more his own....
He had in other respects dutifully carried out Dr. Zerneke’s commands,
day by day. He had obediently gone to the dance for which she had sent
him tickets (he thought of taking Monica, but rejected that idea as
distinctly out of place); and rather to his surprise, he had found on
that occasion that he was capable of enjoying himself like anybody
else....
And finally, with some uneasiness and considerable doubt, he had
applied to Mr. McCullough for a job--and had been taken on at forty
dollars a week, which was all he had the nerve to ask.
He ought, he knew, to feel at ease now, in his comfortable apartment,
and with his new job. But he had lost his sense of security. His
experience of being out of a job had taught him something he could not
so quickly forget. Some time he might be able to feel again that the
world was made for him; but it seemed still a difficult and dangerous
place, and he a somewhat helpless stranger in it. He was determined
not to lose his new job. Never did a young man work at his tasks more
earnestly and humbly....
He had been to Mrs. Czermak’s to see his son twice in those ten
days--formal visits, different enough from the warm intimacy of his
former association with the family. He felt under constraint, and so
did the girls. Monica was distant and resentful, though she was rather
obviously wearing his present--the cuff-links.
Well, at any rate, he was being sensible. With his mother coming to see
him, he must not get involved in any more messes. But he felt a little
guilty about Monica.... It wasn’t quite the thing to do to kiss a girl
and then drop her cold....
When he was settled in his apartment, and at work on his new job, with
no further excuse for delay, he had wired his mother the invitation to
visit him. Her answering wire had said she would arrive Sunday morning;
and this had been followed by a letter, a friendly and casual letter,
taking everything as a matter of course. And Doris had scribbled a
postscript saying that she’d love to see the baby.... Lucinda, it
appeared, was still suffering from “nerves.” He gathered that she had
taken it all pretty hard....
And there had been a letter from Gilbert Rand, giving him the town
gossip. They were still talking about him in Vickley. Nothing like that
had ever happened there.... Considering everything, Norman thought it
was pretty sporting of his mother to be so calm and matter-of-fact
about it.
Nevertheless, with the approach of his mother’s visit, he began to
feel a sense of filial constraint. His new apartment was associated
with the thought of her visit: it was not so much his own place, as
one in which to entertain her. He felt that with her visit he would
lose the liberty he had gained in leaving home and coming to Chicago.
And he began to regret more keenly the pleasures of his stay at Mrs.
Czermak’s, and to recall the delightful details of that period--the
friendly midnight chats with old Mr. Victor, the morning coffee brought
by Monica, and the delightful half hours with the girls in the nursery.
Even Mrs. Case’s Rabelaisian conversation was something which he missed
with regret.... Mrs. Case had not felt any of the constraint which had
marked his visits since his departure from her roof; and last Sunday,
when he had seen his son bathed, she had in her frank way commented
upon one feature of the baby’s anatomy which is usually avoided in
polite conversation. “Ah!” she had said, addressing the baby, “little
do you know, young man, how much trouble you’re going to make in the
world with that!” A realist, she.... Norman grinned, remembering.
He had lived there only a week altogether. And he had been rather
longer than that installed here in his apartment. Yet that week
would always live in his memory, full of warmth and color and homely
sweetness. This week in his apartment had been merely barren.
Sitting there in his living room, he looked about with a vague
dissatisfaction. Polite comforts evidently did not suffice a man. The
fact was that he was lonely....
And his mother was coming in four days.
He really ought to make the best of those four days....
Chapter II: Waste Not Your Hour
YES, he was lonely, that was the trouble.
Dr. Zerneke had told him to make friends. But he had made friends
already, and had had to drop them....
Well, he must make some new friends.
He took out his memo-book, in which he had written the names, addresses
and telephone numbers of two girls he had met last week at that dance.
They had been very interesting girls. One of them was a field-worker
for some sort of agency which looked after delinquent children; she
had snapping black eyes and curly black hair, and she had talked very
interestingly about her work, in the intervals between dances. Her name
was Jennie Michaelson; a very intelligent girl, whom he had been eager
to know further. And she liked him. He wondered that he had let so long
a time slip by--more than a week--without calling her up. He looked at
his watch. It was only eight-thirty. She might be in from dinner, and
they could go to a restaurant and talk. She lived on the West side....
He hesitated, at the moment of going to the telephone, and sat there
in the big chair beneath the bridge-lamp, looking at his memo-book.
There was another new girl in it somewhere. Louise--he couldn’t
remember her last name: a fine, healthy, lovely blonde, and a wonderful
dancer. Yes--there she was: Louise Van Strohm. She was a student at
the University of Chicago, majoring in biology. It was her idea of
adventure to go around the world and down into deep seas seeing strange
and curious forms of life, like Will Beebe. She would, too, some time,
she said. She lived near the University. She was fond of music, and the
concerts in Jackson Park were commencing. She had mentioned it herself.
There was one to-night. Or they could go somewhere and dance--better
still! He looked at her ’phone number....
Again he hesitated, wondering whether what he most wanted to do
was talk or dance. If he wanted to talk, Jennie would be the more
interesting; if to dance, Louise danced like a dream. It was difficult
to decide which girl he most wanted to see to-night....
He sat there in his easy chair under the lamp, trying to decide between
Jennie and Louise.
The clock on the mantel chimed the hour of nine.
Of course, he had no assurance that either Jennie or Louise would be in
at this hour. Girls had other things to do with their evenings than sit
around in a furnished room waiting for the’phone to ring--especially
girls like these. It was no way to go about it, to call them up at that
hour. Girls had to be dated up beforehand. He’d be a fool to think he
could get them at a moment’s notice. In fact, he should have dated them
up for some evening there at the dance. By now they had forgotten all
about him. After all, if a man asked a girl for her telephone number,
and then didn’t call up for a week, she would naturally conclude that
he couldn’t be very much interested in continuing the acquaintance. It
would be rather embarrassing to call up now....
And if he did go to see one of these girls, what would he say to her?
A year ago, at college, he’d have known what to say. But he was a
thousand years older, now. Louise was twenty, Jennie twenty-two; Dr.
Zerneke had told him their ages. They were only kids. He didn’t know
how to get along with girls of that age any more....
To be sure, he had got along with them well enough that night at the
dance. But that was because of the stimulus of the music, the costumes,
and the drink or two that everybody had under his and her belt. But
to see these girls again in cold blood ... His spirit faltered at the
frightful difficulties of talking to a strange girl....
Well, no doubt it could be done. People did, somehow, get acquainted
with each other.... And his imagination flew on to envisage a time
when he and these girls might be better friends.... The trouble was,
it would be awkward to be always pretending to have a sick wife in
Colorado. Maybe they wouldn’t want to play around with a man who had
a sick wife in Colorado. Of course, he could be a recent widower, if
he preferred. Or a divorced man--one whose wife had run away: that was
near enough to the truth.... And he speculated upon just what Jennie
and Louise would think of a young divorced man with an infant child.
When they knew him better, they would ask to see the baby. Girls seemed
to be interested in babies--almost all girls. They might like him none
the worse for having a baby.... But there was the rub. He couldn’t ever
tell them the truth about that baby. There would be always an invisible
barrier, in his relations with them, from the very beginning. It would
spoil any friendship he might try to have with them.... Things would
come up in conversation about illegitimacy--things like that did come
up in conversation with girls nowadays!--and he would have to hide
his own thoughts. Because he couldn’t go around telling everybody his
story. And he would be ashamed of having to treat these girls as if
they were enemies from whom his thoughts must needs be concealed. Their
friendship would be a farce from the outset....
The clock chimed the half-hour.
It was really too late to call up those girls to-night. Besides, he
didn’t want to go out. He wasn’t in the mood for girls. He would stay
at home and read a book.
He went to the book-case, took one down at random, glanced through its
pages, and threw it aside. After a few restless turns up and down the
room he abruptly put on his hat.
It was too beautiful an evening to stay indoors. He would take a walk
in the park.
He found himself accidentally on the street where he had lived at Mrs.
Czermak’s.... He walked past the house, looking at the lighted windows.
His old room was dark. Had they rented it to somebody else yet? He
hadn’t asked, and they hadn’t told him.... The upstairs room, next to
the nursery, showed a glow of light at the edges of the curtains. That
was the girls’ room--Rose Czermak’s and Monica’s....
What did Monica think of him?
He turned, and walked back, on the other side of the street, looking at
the house.
He could make some inquiry about the baby, as an excuse for coming.
Yes, he hadn’t told them that his mother was coming. He ought to do
that. He halted.... No, it wouldn’t be very sensible to go to see them
in his present mood. Monica might be there. Better let well enough
alone.... He could telephone them about his mother.... He went on....
Walking through Lincoln Park, he reached the Lake front. The full white
moon was lifting itself out of the waters of the lake. He stood and
watched it....
What was Monica doing?
But he reminded himself that he was supposed to have a sick wife
in Colorado. Monica wouldn’t be thinking of him. Besides, to a girl
nowadays, a kiss meant nothing. She had doubtless forgotten all about
it.
And besides, his mother was coming in four days. He had best keep out
of trouble....
Chapter III: His Mother
IT was Saturday evening. His mother was coming in the morning. Norman
looked anxiously about his apartment, and spent an hour emptying
ash-trays, picking up cigarette stubs from the hearth, and getting his
bureau drawers in order. He found that he had forgotten to send off his
laundry this week. Well, he could buy some new shirts on Monday....
He sat down, seeing his apartment with his mother’s eyes. She would
probably find fault with the work of his cleaning-woman. She would
smile when she saw that bureau drawer full of bright chintz which he
had bought for curtains, forgetting that there was nobody he could ask
to sew them for him.... Mrs. Case, it was true, had asked if there was
anything they could do to help him get settled in his new place. But he
couldn’t have asked them to make his curtains....
He had telephoned Mrs. Czermak to let her know that his mother was
coming, and would probably be over to see the baby in the morning. The
news had seemed to upset her....
Well, there was nothing else to do to-night. He would read a while and
then go to bed and get some sleep. His mother was arriving on the
early train....
He had happened to see a copy of the Apocrypha in a bookshop window,
and had bought it out of curiosity, to see who St. Thecla was. But for
some absurd reason that apocryphal girl saint had reminded him in a
perverse way of Isabel. He did not want to be reminded of Isabel....
To-night he opened the book, read a little of the story of Thecla, and
fell to wondering about Isabel. She had been going to sail for France
on the eleventh. That was four days ago. (It was curious what a perfect
calendar his mind unconsciously was in these matters: it was four days
ago that he had bought this book, too.) Was she on shipboard now? Or
had she impatiently gone long before, and was she in Paris at this
moment?
Not that it made any difference to him....
But he had a queer troubled dream that night, in which both Isabel and
Monica figured--Isabel as a dim figure in the background, hiding her
face, and Monica, warm and near and dear, holding out her hands to him
appealingly....
The alarm clock sounded.... In an hour he must meet his mother at
the station. An hour. Then he could go on sleeping for five minutes
longer.... He wanted to finish that dream....
He was awakened by an insistent ringing of the door-bell, and
sprang up in confusion, looking at his watch. Good heavens!--he had
overslept nearly two hours.... Was that his mother now? He threw on a
dressing-gown and went to the door.
“Mother!” he cried out contritely.
“Good morning, Norman. You always were a sleepy-head.” She kissed him.
“It’s nice to see you, my boy.”
“And I didn’t meet you!” He seized her suitcase and packages. “How
awful of me! Come in!”
“That was all right,” she said. “What a nice place you have. As a
matter of fact, I was rather glad you didn’t come. I went over to see
the baby.”
“Oh! You did?”
“Yes. He’s a very nice baby, Norman. He looks exactly like you.”
“You--you liked him?”
“Of course. Now, Norman, go and have your bath and get dressed, and
I’ll get some breakfast.”
“I’m sorry, Mother--I’m afraid there’s not a thing in the house.”
“I brought everything. I stopped at a delicatessen. Go along, I’ll find
the kitchen. You’re still half asleep. You need a good cup of coffee.”
It wasn’t quite the way he had expected it to be.... But then, nothing
ever was, he reflected as he hurried through his bath and into his
clothes. She had simply and calmly walked in and taken possession....
“Are you almost ready?”
“Yes, Mother. In three minutes.”
He could smell the appetizing odors of bacon and coffee.
“All right. I’ll put the eggs in.”
That was just like her....
He felt half admiring and half resentful of such a mother.
Chapter IV: ’Ware Women
AT breakfast, when Mrs. Overbeck had satisfied herself that her son’s
stomach was being properly ministered to, they talked--Norman with
some caution and embarrassment, but she with apparent ease. It gave
Norman a queer feeling. One would not have thought from her manner that
there was anything unusual, let alone irregular, in his situation. She
inquired briefly and casually about Isabel (whom she referred to quite
familiarly by that name, instead of by any hostile circumlocutions),
and Norman was relieved to find that he need not make any further
explanation in regard to her. His mother appeared to take Isabel’s
going to Paris for granted.... She commented on Mrs. Case and her
daughters. “They seemed rather flustered at my visit,” she said. “They
are all very fond of the baby,” she added.
“Yes, they are,” he said.
“By the way,” she remarked, “they asked me something about your wife’s
health.”
To be sure--he hadn’t warned his mother of that protective fiction.
“Oh,” he said, “I’m supposed to be married, you know--on account of
the baby. I told them I had a sick wife in Colorado. You didn’t say
anything that would give me away, by any chance?”
“Why, no, I think not. I didn’t discuss you with them. I just pretended
not to notice the question, and went on talking about the baby. But you
might have told me, Norman. You didn’t write me anything. All I know is
what Dr. Zerneke has told me.”
“Oh--you’ve seen Dr. Zerneke too?”
“Not yet. I mean what she wrote to me.”
He might have known. Doubtless his mother and Dr. Zerneke had been
in correspondence about him all along. He seemed to sniff a maternal
conspiracy.
“What did she say about me?” he demanded.
“Oh, just that you were well, and about your work.”
“What did she say about my work?”
“She said you’d got a new job that paid more money. I was glad to hear
that. I didn’t see how you could live on thirty dollars a week in
Chicago.”
She hadn’t known, then, about his losing that other job. He felt
relieved.
“How is Lucinda?” he asked. He had already inquired about the other
members of the family.
“Well, you know how Lucinda gets--in a state of nerves over every
little thing. Her new puppy is lost.”
“What!”
“Yes, the new one she got from Schwartz’s. It just got out of the house
about ten days ago and disappeared.”
“I remember. It had a black spot or something.”
So Gilbert Rand was mistaken! It wasn’t concerned with him and his
baby, Lucinda’s state of nerves. Only her dog--of course....
“She’s thinking of coming on while I’m here.”
“No!” said Norman in helpless protest.
“Oh, well, you might as well let her, Norman. There’s plenty of room
here. And your baby will take her mind off her lost puppy.”
“Oh, then, by all means let’s have her,” said Norman ironically. “If my
baby can assuage her grief--!”
His irony was lost on his mother--as usual. “Yes,” she said, “I think
it would do her good.”
She had brought along her sewing-kit, and after breakfast sat down to
do the curtains, which she had somehow already discovered in his bureau.
“Now don’t let me interfere with your usual program,” she said. “Just
go ahead and do whatever you want to do. And don’t let me keep any of
your friends away.”
He didn’t like to tell her that he hadn’t made any friends.... Really,
he ought to bring somebody home, or she would think he was hiding them
from her.... He might bring Charlie Beckett here some evening. Charlie
was the only one at the office that he knew at all....
“I really don’t know many people yet,” he confessed. “I’ve been so
busy. I did get acquainted a little when I was living over at Mrs.
Czermak’s place--but that’s about all. And of course there’s Dr.
Zerneke. I’ve invited her to go out to dinner with us to-night, by the
way.”
“Yes, I’d like to meet her. And now go on out somewhere if you want to.
These curtains, and the dishes, will occupy me till dinner-time.”
“But I can’t have you washing my dishes, Mother,” said Norman,
scandalized.
“It won’t be the first time I’ve washed your dishes,” she said.
“I’ll do them myself,” he said. “You’re my guest.”
“Don’t be silly, Norman. Run along and leave me alone here for a while.”
And after some feeble protest, he did.... He went over to Mrs.
Czermak’s.
“Well,” he asked her, “what do you think of my mother?”
She looked at him in a frightened way.
“Tell me,” she begged, “is she going to take the baby away?”
“Take the baby away!” Norman echoed. “Why, of course not!” And then he
added, wonderingly: “I never thought of--such a thing.”
No, but now that he did think of it, it didn’t seem so impossible. If
she wanted to, she would be hard to stop.
“Why, did she say anything--when she was here?” he asked.
“It wasn’t what she said. But I’m afraid!” said Mrs. Czermak, and led
the way to the nursery. She lifted the sleeping child from his bed and
held him close in her arms. “I don’t want her to take him away!” she
said.
“Oh, well,” said Norman reassuringly, “I’m sure she hasn’t any such
idea.”
But that evening, at dinner with his mother and Dr. Zerneke in the
quiet restaurant he had selected, he was troubled by that thought....
Well, wasn’t it what he had once gone home to propose?--that she take
his child to raise!... Yes, but that was ages ago. It was the last
thing in the world that he wanted, now, to have his son brought up by
his family in Vickley.
He was a little shocked to realize how much he had changed his mind, in
the last six weeks....
And another thing, that evening at dinner, bothered him--the sense
that his mother and Dr. Zerneke were already too well acquainted--that
Dr. Zerneke was her friend and ally, rather than his.... There was an
air of implicit secret understanding between them--an understanding
concerning him.
What were these two women up to?
Yet it was the first time they had met, and they were of such different
kinds! They were only trying hard to be polite to one another. All they
had in common, after all, was a feminine conviction of his masculine
helplessness when it came to babies....
Chapter V: As Usual
WHEN Norman’s mother had been there less than a week, he had settled
down to a somewhat fretful but unprotesting acceptance of her presence.
She had got him an efficient cleaning woman; she had sewed buttons on
his shirts, and bought him a needed supply of socks and handkerchiefs.
She waked him in the morning to the kind of breakfast he had always had
at home. It was no use trying to regard her as a guest. She slipped
easily into the familiar, authoritative, useful and neglected rôle of
mother.... When Charlie Beckett, at the office, suggested to Norman
one day, as one bachelor to another, that they have dinner and go to a
musical comedy together that evening, he called up his mother and said
he wouldn’t be home till late--leaving her alone with no more thought
than if he had been at home in Vickley.
(One incident may be lightly touched upon. Norman was not much of
a drinking man, but in Charlie Beckett’s genial company, at the
place where Charlie took him to get some real old-fashioned beer
after the show, he drank enough to become rather tearily and beerily
confidential; though even then he presented his troubles in a somewhat
fictional disguise. “M’ wife ran away. Lef’ me with a baby. Nice little
kid, too!”--something like that, and so unlike Norman in his sober
senses that he preferred to forget it....)
His mother had written to Lucinda telling her she could come Saturday.
“Just for a few days,” she explained to Norman.... She herself had not
said how long she was going to stay; but on Monday she had brought
home from the station a second suitcase which she had checked there
on her arrival, and he guessed that she intended to remain at least a
fortnight. Well, there was nothing to complain of, surely, in this;
he had invited her to come--and he couldn’t say that she was in his
way. She did make him comfortable. Nevertheless her motherly presence
secretly and unreasonably irritated him. But that was no new thing,
either. He had been secretly irritated at her for the last several
years.... So that everything was much as it had always been.
Once, only, there flashed into his mind the curious tale that Gilbert
Rand had told him about his father. He hadn’t exactly doubted the
story--he had taken its truth for granted; but in a certain sense he
had not really believed it. How can one believe such things about one’s
parents? He wondered, now, if his mother had guessed what was going on?
And if she had guessed, had she sat there calmly, sewing buttons on her
husband’s shirts, knowing that he would get over what ailed him sooner
or later? Or had she never dreamed of such a thing? It was hard to make
his mother out--impossible, now, to tell what she knew or thought....
She saw the baby every day, and one evening they went together. If
her alien presence exercised a constraint on Mrs. Czermak and her
family, she appeared placidly unaware of it. She was friendly enough
with them; they were formal with her--still suspicious, it seemed, of
her intentions regarding the baby. Norman was ill at ease too, during
this visit.... And thereby occurred a second and still more disturbing
incident in Norman’s relations with Monica.
It was a rainy evening, late in the week, and he had’phoned for a taxi
to take them back home. As they were getting into the taxi, his mother
remembered that she had left her bag in the nursery; and he went back
to get it. Monica found it for him, and came down to the door with him.
It was the first time they had been alone together since that night
of the kiss, and they were both embarrassed. Doubtless it was this
embarrassment which provoked him to a silly speech. As they passed the
door of his old room, he remarked: “I suppose you’re bringing morning
coffee to somebody else now?”
She looked at him reproachfully, and they halted outside the room.
“Do you think so?” she said. She turned the knob. “See--it’s still
empty--waiting for you to come back.” And somehow or other they were
there together in that empty room, with the door slowly swinging shut
behind them. As it swung shut, the shadows closed in and obliterated
the light from the flickering gas-jet in the hall. In the darkness
Norman’s hand touched Monica’s hungrily. And this time he was not
surprised that next moment they were in one another’s arms.
No, he was not surprised. Monica no longer seemed to him a child. And
he knew that he wanted this--her arms about him, her kisses on his
mouth. He wanted it all so much that he couldn’t think of anything else
at the moment.
“Darling!” he whispered.
Then, in the darkness, she whispered to him: “I can’t stand it, Norman!
I want you too much! I don’t care if you _are_ married!...
“Now you know!” And her mouth passionately met his again.
“Do you want me?” she whispered.
And what could a young man answer but--
“Yes, of course I do!”
“Then come back and live with us again--and don’t let her take the baby
away!” she whispered pleadingly.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said, half brought back to sanity by
this alien note ... half aware that this was all mad folly, until her
kiss dizzied his senses again....
“You must go, now, dear,” she said presently, pushing him gently out.
“Good Lord!” thought Norman, as he ran down to the waiting taxi.
Chapter VI: Night Thoughts
HE could not get to sleep for a long time.
Of course, he could not take Monica’s proposal seriously. They had both
been a little mad. She hadn’t known what she was saying. She didn’t
really mean it. He couldn’t take advantage of a young girl’s romantic
emotions. It would be simply too caddish.... The best thing to do would
be to ignore the incident. Yes, the next time they met he would just
behave as though nothing had happened. No doubt she would be grateful
and relieved....
This mood of chivalry lasted for perhaps three quarters of an hour,
when abruptly his thoughts took another turn. He had a sudden vision
of her looking at him with scornful eyes. Women didn’t appreciate that
kind of masculine chivalry. It would hurt her pride, and she would
despise him....
Well, what could he say to her? Not, after their kisses to-night, that
he didn’t really care for her that much.... It would be a lie....
Well, if he felt that way, why not take her up?
The trouble was that it was impracticable. He couldn’t go to live
there again. Mrs. Case would have something to say about that. She had
foreseen this very situation. A realistic mother, Mrs. Case.... No, it
wouldn’t do at all. Agreeable as Monica’s proposal was, as a young man
of the world he had to realize that it must be foregone....
To be sure, he had this apartment. And after his mother had gone back
to Vickley--
Yes, why not?
Monica, he told himself, was old enough to know what she was doing. He
wasn’t exactly seducing her. She had made the offer herself. And he
would be a fool to say no....
He played in imagination with the idea, and it was infinitely alluring.
Of course, he must not let Monica enter into this relationship with any
false romantic ideas of its seriousness. He would have to make it clear
to her that it was just--well, a temporary and passing sort of thing....
If Monica were older, and had had more experience in the ways of the
world, she would take all this for granted. But that was not the case.
And the thought of making these explanations to her was not very
pleasant.
As a matter of fact, it would all be terribly serious to her. She would
be committing a sin, for the sake of their love. Because she thought he
was a married man.... It was hardly fair to her....
But if he told her the truth, she would want him to marry her....
That, of course, was entirely out of the question. The deception
would have to be kept up--or else, for that idea didn’t please his
imagination, he would have to make clear to her why he didn’t want to
get married....
He could imagine her saying reproachfully: “You mean--you don’t want to
get married to _me_!”
Well, all right, take it that way. He supposed he would get married
some day. But he had no intention of doing so for a long time....
“But why don’t you want to marry me, Norman?”
What could he answer to that? He might say that this wasn’t really
love.... But she would indignantly deny that. And she would be right,
so far as she was concerned. It really was love, with her.... And
what was it with him? He remembered how he had walked up and down in
front of her house, wanting desperately to go in and see her.... If
he had felt that way about a young woman of his own social class,
would he have doubted whether it was love?... Yes--that was why he was
subjecting his emotions to so brutal an inquisition: because she was a
stenographer and the daughter of a woman who ran a rooming-house! That
was why he must not permit himself to think of this as love! Madness,
folly, a young man’s casual amusement, a convenience, a chance not to
be passed up--call it anything but love! But what was the truth?
He wanted her. He liked her. He was happy in her presence. He thought
about her all the time ... the curve of her mouth, the tilt of her
chin, the steady look out of her eyes, the way she tossed back her
bobbed hair, the smoothness of her arms, the poise of her young
body--he knew these charms by heart.... Wasn’t that love?
Oh, not so romantic and poetic as some sorts of love, perhaps. But it
was real. Oh, it was real enough!
And yet he didn’t want to marry her.
Well, and why didn’t he? Simply because she wasn’t the sort of girl he
had ever thought of marrying. Because she was a stenographer. Because
her mother ran a rooming-house. Because her family was poor. Because
she had none of the airs and graces of his own familiar middle-class
world.... And because he was an Overbeck of Vickley.
Perhaps it _was_ mere snobbishness.... But still--could he and a girl
of such a different background get along together as man and wife?
That, however, implied that he still belonged to Vickley. He reminded
himself that he had actually left all that sort of thing behind him. He
wasn’t his father’s son, any more. He could marry anybody he liked....
And what could be a more appropriate wife for a struggling young man
of uncertain prospects than a girl like Monica, able to take care of
herself and make the best of narrow circumstances? It wasn’t at all a
question of her fitting into his world, but of his fitting into hers!
And the answer to that seemed to be the fact that he had been very
happy living there at her house....
He hastily summoned up in his mind the differences between them.
Her lack of education.... He was interested in art and ideas, in
abstractions which she would never be able to understand.... Not,
indeed, that most girls cared much for art and ideas; but at least some
girls knew how to talk about them....
It did not seem to him, just now, to matter greatly. After all, one
did not marry a wife for the sake of intellectual conversation. And
Monica was no goose, either. She had a sensible little head on her
young shoulders. And her own struggle with poverty had taught her what
life was.... When she knew the truth about his child--she wouldn’t be
shocked....
His mother might not like such a match, but she would have to accept
it.... He was running his life to suit himself, not his family.... If
he and Monica could be happy together, what else mattered?
Abruptly there flashed into his mind what his friend Hal would say
about such a marriage. “_Nostalgia de la boue._” He had always chaffed
Norman with having a common, earthy streak in him--just because,
before he too had fallen under the spell of Hal’s ethereal inamorata,
he had entertained a sufficiently realistic college-boy passion for
a pretty young waitress in Boston.... Well, his affair with that
girl had probably been healthier than his and Hal’s mooning over that
art-struck vixen Isabel.... Homesickness for the mud? Possibly. If he
hadn’t been an Overbeck from Vickley, he’d probably have married that
waitress back in Cambridge. It was shame at finding that he couldn’t
take that affair as lightly as the young-gentlemanly code demanded,
that had made him break off with her. He had never told anybody but Hal
how he really felt about that girl; and Hal had only laughed at him.
But she had given him a taste of simple, earthy young love, reckless
and sweet; and it was the memory, somewhere in the back of his mind,
of her unhesitating and passionate surrender, that had made him so
afraid of Monica. Well, he had been his father’s son at Cambridge;
he couldn’t marry his waitress sweetheart. But he could marry Monica
now--if he was really free from Vickley. _Nostalgia de la boue?_ Say
rather homesickness for the honest, fragrant earth! In Isabel he had
had enough dealings with the unattainable stars; and in his Vickley
fiancée, with the middle region of respectable compromise....
Vickley would hear about his marriage with Monica, of course; and
Vickley would think it a final degradation. Vickley would take it as
his surrender of any hope of ever making good and coming back. Well,
let them! He did not want to go back to Vickley. And if marrying Monica
prevented that, so much the better!
There was nothing about Monica’s family that he really need be ashamed
of. They were self-respecting, hard-working people. He had liked them
all.... Something Dr. Zerneke had said, when she was scolding him, came
into his mind: “If one of those girls were your wife, your behavior
would be admirable.” Well, why shouldn’t Monica become his wife?
Yes, why not tell her the truth and ask her to marry him?
But he would rather wait until his mother had gone back to Vickley....
And it wasn’t a thing to be decided on impulse. He would take the rest
of the week to think it over....
A week to think it over.... And he fell asleep to dream of happiness in
Monica’s passionate young arms....
Chapter VII: A Letter
HE was unusually gay at breakfast, and went whistling to his office....
Of course, he must not tell Monica just yet; but he might manage a
reassuring touch or word when he went in the evening with his mother to
see the baby.... His imagination was busy with thoughts of their life
together....
But something happened that day to disturb the happy tenor of his
thoughts.
In the afternoon there was a telephone call from Dr. Zerneke.
“I’ve just had a letter from Isabel,” she said.
“From Paris?” he asked.
“No. From Michigan.”
“But I supposed she had sailed a week or more ago!”
“It seems that she hasn’t. And this letter concerns you. In fact,
it’s really intended for you. I’m sending it special delivery to your
apartment. It’s something you’ll probably want to discuss with your
mother.”
“But what in the world--?”
“You’ll find out when you read her letter.” And that was all she would
say.
What could Isabel have to say to him? She 256 An Unmarried Father
hadn’t decided that she wanted to keep the baby after all? Girls, he
knew, did sometimes change their minds about such things. But it was
too late--the baby was his, now. And it was going to stay his.
But he did not allow himself to think about it. He was working with
Charlie Beckett on the Pearson account--an important job--and it needed
all his attention. Charlie seemed to like his ideas....
“Here’s a letter for you,” said his mother, when he came home that
afternoon.
“Oh, thanks,” he said. “Something from Dr. Zerneke.”
He went into his room, tore open the envelope nervously, put aside Dr.
Zerneke’s accompanying note, and glanced rapidly through the sheets
covered with Isabel’s tiny handwriting.... But it was a long and prolix
letter, and this rapid survey told him nothing, so he dropped into
a comfortable chair, lighted a cigarette, and began it again at the
beginning in a more leisurely manner:
“Dear Dr. Martha--
“I’ve delayed my sailing for a few weeks, because I seem to need a
longer rest before my ocean trip. I should have taken your advice and
stayed another week in the hospital, I realize now. But I expect to be
all right in another week or so.
“In the meantime, since signing over the baby to Norman, I’ve had
plenty of time to think about it, and I feel that perhaps I ought
to make a suggestion. You will, of course, use your own discretion
in passing it on. If it’s out of place, please throw this in the
wastebasket and forget about it.
“I hadn’t, of course, realized that Norman was as much interested in
the baby as all that. When he didn’t come to see me at the hospital
any more, I thought he had gone back to Vickley and dropped the matter
entirely. It was really quite a shock to get those documents. I saw
that I had done him an injustice. (It really makes me a little ashamed
of my own lack of the proper parental instincts. Norman and my baby! It
seems very odd, and rather sweet. He will make a nice father.)
“I feel awkward about making my suggestion. Not knowing anything
about any other plans he may have, I can’t be sure my idea is not an
unwelcome impertinence. If the girl in Vickley, the one he was engaged
to, is going to marry him anyway and take the baby, then of course
you won’t say anything to him about this. But Roberta writes me that
he is living in Chicago now, so perhaps the Vickley engagement is all
off.--You see, I’m very much in the dark about it all. You didn’t tell
me anything; and I suppose it’s really none of my business. But it
occurs to me that it may be almost as embarrassing for a man to have an
illegitimate baby as for a girl. And I can’t forget that under those
circumstances he was generous and considerate enough to offer to marry
me. I appreciated the offer, but since I wasn’t going to keep the baby
there was no reason for accepting it. But now that he has the baby,
perhaps I ought to make him a similar offer. It would be, of course,
and you must make that clear to him, only a legal fiction for his and
the child’s benefit. I would go on to Paris immediately, and he could
divorce me for desertion; or if he wanted the divorce more quickly,
so as to marry somebody else, then I could get a divorce in Paris as
soon as I had established my residence there. And as a divorced man he
would be in a less awkward position about the baby. I only make it as a
suggestion.
“I tried to paint when I first got here, but gave it up. I shouldn’t
have attempted any work so soon. But it was a reaction from the
hospital atmosphere, and the sense of being a failure when my milk gave
out--I wanted to do something I was equal to doing. But I shall have
to wait a while longer--Art is off me for the present. The truth is, I
feel discouraged. But in Paris, I know, it will all come back.
“I keep wondering about Norman and the baby. I had no idea he was going
to be such a Tolstoian saint, and atone for the sin of his youth in
that fashion! And did his family throw him out when the scandal broke,
the way mine did? You might tell a fellow something about it all!
Anyway, if my suggestion should be accepted, I’ll be glad to stop in
Chicago for a day on my way to New York, and fix it up accordingly with
him.
“I’m not trying to thank you for all you’ve done for me--you and St.
Thecla. I’ll try to say it with paint in Paris. I hope Norman won’t
take too long to decide, so I can have it off my mind and go with an
easy conscience.
“Faithfully yours,
“Isabel Drury.”
Norman laid down the letter and whispered bitterly to himself:
“She can go to hell!”
Chapter VIII: A Sociological Interlude
DR. ZERNEKE had suggested that he would want to discuss this matter
with his mother. But that was just what he did not want to do.
“I’ve something to attend to,” he said. “Would you mind going to dinner
and to see the baby alone this evening?”
“Of course not. I’ll get myself a bite right here. Just run along.”
He hurried out, saying that he would be back late that evening.
He tried to get Dr. Zerneke on the telephone, but she was not in.
Probably she would be, he reflected, at ten o’clock. He would go around
to see her then.
He did not want to go back to his apartment. His mother would notice
his nervous manner, and wonder what was the matter. (Though she never
asked any questions--that was one comfort.)
He walked in Lincoln Park for an hour or two. What he felt like doing
was to sit down and write Isabel a cold and decisive rejection of her
proposal. He framed and re-framed that letter in his mind. In one of
the versions it went like this:
“Dear Isabel--Thank you for your kind offer. You had your own reasons
for rejecting mine, and I have mine for rejecting yours. I wish you
success in your artistic career. Sincerely yours.”
Another version ran: “Dear Isabel--I have no desire to be made
respectable. Your offer is declined.”
As a matter of fact, none of these versions were as epigrammatic as he
could have wished, or did anything like justice to his feelings.
He was, of course, at a disadvantage. She had not addressed him
directly. He might write an informal letter to Dr. Zerneke, and ask
her to send it on. It might begin: “Dear Dr. Zerneke--You tell me that
Isabel Drury has offered to marry me, in order to simplify matters in
regard to my child. Well, a great deal of water has flowed under the
bridge since I made a similar offer to her. In the meantime I have the
child, and the marital farce seems quite unnecessary.” Something as
casual and unemotional as that....
But he ought to talk to somebody before he wrote to her. Not his
mother--no. And Dr. Zerneke was the only other person he could talk to
about it.
Would she urge him--he wondered suddenly--to accept Isabel’s proposal?
For the sake of the child? That had been her reason for everything so
far. His own feelings were never considered in the least....
Of course, marriage with Isabel _would_ (along with his acknowledgment
of paternity) legitimate his son, according to the laws of the State
of Illinois. He knew that. He had looked it up at the Crerar library.
In California, subsequent marriage of the parents wasn’t necessary
for legitimation; the child would be legitimated simply by his taking
it into his home and treating it as if it were legitimate. In New
Mexico a process in court sufficed. In New York, on the other hand,
under English common law, subsequent marriage did not legitimate the
child--though perhaps the original relationship could be legally
construed as a common-law marriage. It was all helter-skelter and
ridiculous--like the divorce laws. But he happened to live in Illinois.
It _would_ make a difference.
He wondered why his father hadn’t suggested it.... He had known, of
course, that Isabel had refused. Had he taken that as final? It wasn’t
like him, to let anybody’s wishes stand in the way of what he thought
correct and proper. There must have been some other reason.... To be
sure, now that the scandal was out, marriage with Isabel wouldn’t make
the thing any more decent in the eyes of Vickley. But it would settle
the legitimacy question. His son could never be called a---- Norman
choked on the word even in his thoughts....
Irrelevantly and bitterly, he reflected that it might have been kinder
to his son to let him be adopted in the first place by some married
couple. He would never, then, have known the secret of his birth. He
would have considered himself the son of Mr. and Mrs.----whoever they
were....
But no, he would have found out, some time. And then he would always
have wondered who his real father was.... Yes, and his mother, too, of
course....
It occurred to Norman that he mustn’t let his son grow up with a
resentment against his mother for deserting him. A story would have to
be concocted that wouldn’t hurt his feelings.... Norman remembered what
Gilbert had said that time--about hypocrisy. Yes, that was the way it
started. Well, there was a good deal to be said for hypocrisy, after
all. It made things so much simpler.
He looked at his watch. He hadn’t had any dinner, and it was nearly
nine o’clock. That was silly. He would go and get something to eat.
But instead, he went to the Crerar library.
Some people, in their troubles, solace themselves with drink, others
with statistics.
Besides, Norman was a lawyer--or had been. What he had so far seen
of the legal attempts to deal with the problems of illegitimacy only
reënforced his secret contempt for Law. But in his recent reading he
had come across approving references to recent legislation in Norway
and Sweden, by which children born out of wedlock were given, entirely
or almost, the same rights as others. He was thumbing over the card
catalogue looking for information on this Scandinavian Utopia, when he
came upon the title: “Marriage Laws in Soviet Russia.”
“Well, let’s see how the Bolsheviks handle this thing,” he said to
himself, and turned in a slip for the pamphlet.
He glanced through its pages rapidly. Ah! Section 133. Note I.
“Children descending from parents who are not married have equal rights
with those descending from parents living in registered marriage.” He
read on. Section 140 required an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant
to give notice to the Bureau of Vital Statistics “not later than three
months before the birth of her child,” together with the name and
address of the father. Section 141 provided that upon receipt of the
notice, the Bureau should issue a citation upon the man named, who
would have two weeks in which to deny paternity. Further sections dealt
with the court inquiry by which paternity should be established. The
man held liable as father was to be held responsible for his share in
the expenses of gestation, delivery, and maintenance of the child....
Norman felt a little disappointed. This did not seem so frightfully
revolutionary. A court process to determine paternity was no new
thing in the history of the world. He remembered one in Vickley last
winter--he had gone to Magistrate Cooley’s court out of curiosity. A
girl had charged a neighboring storekeeper with being the father of her
child. Under cross-examination she broke down and confessed that it was
really not he but a young fellow out of a job. She wanted a father for
her child who could support it properly.... Norman wondered if things
like that happened in Soviet Russia. Human nature being what it was, he
didn’t see why not!
He turned the pages of the pamphlet idly, and his glance rested on this
passage: “160. Children have no right to the property of their parents,
nor parents to the property of their children. 161. Parents shall
be bound to provide board and maintenance for their minor children
and for children who are indigent and unable to work.” That reminded
him--in Soviet Russia, he had heard, there was a different kind of
economic system, which left nothing much for anybody to inherit. That,
of course, would simplify this whole matter of legitimacy. It was
in order to protect the inheritance rights of the legal family that
illegitimate children had been so cruelly penalized the world over. He
remembered a lecture to that effect at law school. And these Bolsheviks
weren’t concerned with defending property rights. That was the real
difference between Moscow and Vickley. If there weren’t any inheritance
rights involved, there wasn’t any reason to deny their human rights to
children born out of wedlock--nothing to make a fuss about at all!
But he wasn’t living in poverty-stricken and revolutionary Russia. He
was living in prosperous America, where the legal family had property
rights to be defended against the claims of bastards. That was, it
occurred to him, the real reason why he was now an outcast from Vickley
respectability. If men were permitted to do what he had done, what
would become of the Family, in its legal, sacred, property-inheriting
sense? It would mean red ruin and the breaking up of close-corporation
homes, to be sure.... And his father--Norman could appreciate now the
old man’s grim idealism--he was battling stubbornly against his own
respectable Vickley world, attempting to bring his grandson into that
close corporation in spite of a bar sinister....
“Board and maintenance”--that was all that Norman himself, set adrift
from family protection, could seriously hope to offer his son: that,
and his mere paternal love and companionship. He had no longer any
illusions about the possibility of any great success in the advertising
business--he would do well if he hung on to his job. And that was
all he really wanted to give the boy, if the truth were told--an
upbringing, and then freedom to make what he wanted to of his life!
But J. J. Overbeck could offer his grandson the prospect not merely
of a legal career, but of lordship in the small town of Vickley:
a snug income from rents, mortgages, government bonds, and steel
securities--and, with these, pride and power.
Which would the boy choose?
But at two months of age, the boy had no choice. Norman had to choose
for him.... He might make it easy for his father, by marrying Isabel
before she sailed for France. That, of course, was what Dr. Zerneke
would want him to do. For the child’s sake.
No!
He would be damned if he would marry that girl--to make his son one of
the little lords of Vickley.
He looked up at the library clock.
Five minutes of ten.
He would tell Dr. Zerneke that there were limits to what a father
should be asked to do.
Chapter IX: On Taking a Girl at Her Word
DR. ZERNEKE was in when he arrived, and the coffee was steaming.
“How is your mother enjoying her visit?” she asked, pouring him a cup.
“All right, I guess.” He drank his coffee at a gulp. “Well, I’ve read
Isabel’s letter....”
“Yes?”
“I want to know what you think.”
“What does your mother say?”
“I haven’t asked her.... And I’m not going to.”
Dr. Zerneke shrugged her shoulders. “I really don’t want to get mixed
up in this,” she said.
“But you can tell me what you think!”
“And be blamed afterwards....”
“I’ve got to talk it over with somebody!”
“There’s your mother,” she reminded him.
“But you know Isabel, and she doesn’t!”
“Well, the only thing I feel like advising you is--not to do anything
rash.”
“Such as what?”
“Such as taking Isabel at her word in a hurry, without having a chance
to think it all over.”
“You don’t want me to marry her?” he asked, in surprise.
“I don’t care whether you marry her or not. That’s entirely up to you.”
“I’m glad you feel that way about it,” he said. “I thought you’d say I
_ought_ to do it.”
His relief was so plain that she went on, with a smile: “We don’t
advise girls, in similar circumstances, to marry the fathers of their
children--not, I mean, just to be made respectable; I should think
the same considerations would apply to a man. After all, you’ve gone
through the worst of it, now.”
“Of course,” he said, “it isn’t just me. Marrying her would serve to
legitimate my son--and nothing else, in this state, will.”
“That doesn’t matter so much,” said Dr. Zerneke. “In fact, I don’t
think it matters at all, the way things have been arranged. It’s a mere
legal quibble. Socially speaking, an illegitimate child is one whose
father does not give him his name, support and protection. Your child
is very well provided for in all those respects. He’s merely lacking a
mother. But that is scarcely a reason for your marrying Isabel, when
there are other girls in the world.”
“Then what _would_ be a reason for my marrying her?” he asked.
“If you were in love with each other, that would be a fairly good
reason,” said Dr. Zerneke.
Norman laughed, a little grimly. “Then it’s entirely out of the
question,” he said. “Because we’re not. Not in the least. Besides, that
isn’t the proposition to be considered. She says very plainly in her
letter that it would be only a matter of legal form. A marital farce,
she calls it. We would never live together. She would go on to Paris,
and get a divorce.”
The argument was not going quite as he had expected. In fact, it was
almost as if he were arguing in favor of Isabel’s plan.
“You would be quite willing that it should be only a matter of form?”
Dr. Zerneke asked.
“I certainly shouldn’t think of trying to persuade her to make it a
real marriage--if _that’s_ what you mean!”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Of course not. We talked all that out, the time I went to see her at
the hospital. She doesn’t want to be a wife and mother.”
Dr. Zerneke opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. “I came
across the report of our psychiatrist on her,” she said, “and had some
of it copied. Would you like to see it? It might amuse you. We go about
these things in a very scientific fashion nowadays.”
He read the typewritten sheet.
_“Case H 15278. Unmarried mother who refuses to keep her child._
_“Report of Dr. A. B. Fishwanger, psychiatrist (extract):_
“Her feeling of hostility toward maternity is thus accounted for as a
repression of the psychic conflict originating in her father-complex,
and expressing itself in her artistic ambitions. She is convinced that
if she allowed herself to accept the full rôle of motherhood, she
would never get a chance to be an artist. Something might undoubtedly
be said for this view on strictly realistic grounds. But it would be
truer to say that if she allowed herself to become interested in her
child, she might stop wanting to be an artist. This is what she is
really afraid of. If her child had been born in wedlock, she would
probably have rebelled a little at her fate, and then settled down,
as the saying goes, and become a sufficiently devoted mother. But she
has deliberately managed the affair so as to keep what she calls her
freedom.
“A thorough analysis, lasting over several months, would probably be
required to resolve her psychic conflict, which appears to be of a
very deep-seated nature. (To this conflict is probably due, in view of
the absence of other findings, the premature drying up of her milk.) A
briefer analysis might have some considerable value, but on account of
the resistance of the subject even this is out of the question.”
“Can’t you imagine Isabel being interviewed by that psychiatrist?” said
Dr. Zerneke, smiling. “I must say I rather sympathize with her. Still,
it does throw some light on her psychology.”
“I suppose she was in a state of conflict about it,” said Norman.
“Still, she made up her mind. You don’t think anything has happened to
change it?”
“I think she’s probably in a very difficult situation just now.
Undoubtedly she is finding out that she is more of a woman than she was
willing to admit. Having a baby does something like that--it starts
all the glandular secretions that create tenderness and devotion.
She’s done her best to fight those feelings down, but they’re there.
She can’t escape them. After all, it’s nothing unusual. Sometimes
girls think beforehand that they are going to hate their illegitimate
babies--but they generally don’t. And it’s quite the ordinary thing for
a girl who has given her baby away to be sorry she’s done it.”
“But she doesn’t say she’s sorry,” Norman objected.
“I think that might possibly be read between the lines.”
“It never occurred to me. You think she wants her baby?”
“I can’t pretend to speak for her. But that might be one explanation of
her offer.”
“Not if she were going on to Paris,” said Norman.
“She might not go on to Paris, then.”
“But she says definitely that she would!”
“No doubt she means it. But how do you know what would happen to you
two young people after you get married? You both have families. They
would have something to say about it. You might find yourselves boxed
up in a house together the rest of your lives. That’s why I suggest
that you think twice about marrying her.”
“I see what you mean. But if I went up to Michigan and we were quietly
married there--who would know about it?”
“All the newspapers in the United States, I expect. And your mother is
here, as you seem to forget. You couldn’t marry without telling her.”
“I could make some business excuse for my trip to Michigan. She
wouldn’t know till it was all over, and Isabel on the boat. Then it
would be too late for our families to interfere.”
“Do as you please. But don’t expect me to be surprised if Isabel comes
back with you from Michigan to meet your mother.”
“Aren’t you rather cynical, Dr. Zerneke? I think I could trust her. I’m
sure of it.”
“I’m not suggesting that she has any intention of double-crossing you.
That’s not the point. If she came back with you it would be because you
had invited her to.”
“But why should I do that?” he asked coldly.
“You were in love with her once. And she’s your child’s mother. It
would be the most natural thing in the world.”
“You really think she’d stay with me if I asked her?”
“Do you really want her to stay? Then the only way to find out is to
ask her. If that’s what you want.”
“It wouldn’t really mean giving up her career,” said Norman
reflectively. “There would be time enough for that, later.”
“It would be a decisive step, for her. I doubt if she’ll have any
career, if she marries you now. But that is her own lookout. It’s
nothing for you to worry about--except as it might mean having a
discontented wife on your hands in Vickley.”
“Why in Vickley?”
“Can you support a wife on your present job?”
“I suppose not. She’d have to work.”
“Has she ever done any work?”
“You don’t think I ought to marry her?”
“I’m not trying to run your affairs for you, Norman. But I think you
ought to understand what you may be getting into. Isabel is probably
feeling much more like a mother than an artist, just now. If you want
to capture her, this is undoubtedly your chance. And in justice to her,
I don’t think you ought to accept her offer unless you are willing to
urge her to make it a real marriage. But that is not a thing you can do
out of mere generosity to her--nor is it really necessary to do because
of the child. It all depends on how you feel about her. Do you want her
as your wife?--That’s the real question, Norman. I don’t know how you
feel about that.”
Norman rose and walked up and down the room. “All this is new to me,”
he said. “I can’t quite believe it.”
“Take your time and think it over. Talk to your mother about it.”
“That would mean taking the whole family into my confidence. I don’t
want any more family conferences. And besides, it’s something that
can’t be delayed indefinitely.”
“She won’t go till she hears from you. I repeat that the only question
is, do you want her for a wife?”
Norman kept on walking back and forth unhappily.
“She’s treated me atrociously,” he said.
The doctor smiled. “Now you’ll have a chance to revenge yourself--by
marrying her.”
He paid no attention to that remark. “She doesn’t deserve to ever see
her baby again,” he said bitterly.
And, after a moment:
“I ought to hate her!”
“And instead, it seems, you still love her?”
“Yes--damn her!”
Dr. Zerneke laughed.
“You think it’s funny, do you?” Norman said indignantly.
“Promise me this,” said Dr. Zerneke, “that you’ll take a week to think
it over.”
“A week?”
Something clicked in his memory. He realized that he had been going to
take a week to think about marrying Monica....
“Yes. Suppose you postpone your decision till next Saturday--or Sunday.
And then tell me what you’ve decided.”
“All right,” he said meekly.
“Till next Sunday, then.”
Chapter X: Which?
HE walked in Lincoln Park for a while before going home.
That damned letter from Isabel! Of course it had upset him....
Anyway, he oughtn’t to put any confidence in Dr. Zerneke’s guesses as
to Isabel’s feelings about marriage. He knew Isabel as well as Dr.
Zerneke did--better! She was incapable of being in love with anybody
or anything except her art. She meant just what she had said in her
letter. If he married her, it would be a mere formality for the child’s
benefit. Nothing more. Why should he suppose the marriage would mean
more to her? She had expressed herself plainly enough in her letter.
Why should he give her an opportunity to insult him again?
She might be a little discouraged about her art just now--but it was
all she really cared anything about. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t a
woman at all. She was what Hal had said about her in a poem--she was a
pixie ... or a leafy shadow in the spring moonlight that seemed like a
girl until one tried to clasp it in one’s arms....
Monica was real. Monica was a true flesh-and-blood girl. Monica could
love....
Why was he condemned still to be haunted by this ghost of his lost
youth? Why couldn’t he forget her? Why wouldn’t she let him forget
her? How like her this letter was!--in offering a stone for bread....
Even if in the discouragement of the moment she should agree to
try being his wife, that would mean nothing. That marriage would
be foredoomed to failure. She had said it herself, that day in the
hospital. She would never really belong to him. He would be clasping
her body, but her thoughts, her soul, would be far away, in a world he
could not enter.... They would come to hate each other....
Unless--unless what Dr. Zerneke said about her was true....
But it wasn’t true. He knew better than to believe that....
It wasn’t quite fair to Monica--to think of marrying her with that
ghost hovering in the background....
And if he were going to moon over Isabel all his life, he might as well
marry her and be done with it....
Perhaps he was so cursed that he would rather be miserable with Isabel
than happy with Monica....
He would have to give her an answer, one way or the other, soon. If he
said “no,” he might regret it all his life....
If he said “yes,” he was throwing himself into a whirlpool of doubt and
misery....
But he didn’t have to decide right now. He ought to get some sleep. He
had a job to go to in the morning.
He entered the apartment quietly, so as not to wake his mother. But she
came to his door in a dressing-gown, holding out a telegram.
“Lucinda’s done such a fool thing,” she said. “Look at this! And I
don’t want you to think it’s my fault, because it’s not.”
He took the telegram. It read:
MADGE COMING TO CHICAGO WITH ME TO DO SHOPPING WILL BE AT ANNEX
“Madge!” he said in astonishment. “And with Lucinda?”
“Oh, yes--they’re great friends now. You know the way Lucinda is. But
she ought to have more sense than to bring Madge with her. And Madge
ought to have more sense than to come.”
“Well,” said Norman, “I don’t expect Madge to stay away from Chicago on
my account. Why shouldn’t she come with Lucinda, if she wants to?”
“You know perfectly well why,” said his mother. “The shopping is only
an excuse. Lucinda will take her to see the baby, and then somehow or
other you’ll run into her.”
“Well, what of it?” said Norman irritably. “Why shouldn’t we meet?”
“Don’t talk like a fool, Norman. You know that girl’s still in love
with you!”
“No, I didn’t,” said Norman, disconcerted. “Is she, really?”
His mother did not consider that worth a reply.
She went back to her room, saying as she went:
“Well, don’t blame me, is all I say!”
“Good Lord!” said Norman helplessly.
Chapter XI: As Luck Would Have It
A YOUNG man may expend anguished thought upon the question of which of
two girls he ought to marry; but a third claimant breaks the spell of
that dilemma. He no longer feels the sense of having to make a painful
choice; his feeling is rather a bewildering one of having no choice at
all. He loses in imagination the position of embarrassing masculine
jurisdiction over the fate and happiness of the girls, and begins to
feel a little like a hunted animal.
Abruptly, when left alone by his mother, the color of the whole
situation changed for Norman. He felt as though a horde of women
were closing in upon him. It was not a dignified situation, and in
self-defense he felt a burst of resentment against them all.
What right had they to make demands upon him? They weren’t any of them
in love with him, really. It was their damned maternal instinct. Even
Monica had talked about the baby in the midst of their love-making....
Everybody seemed to think that a man with a baby had to have a wife....
Well, he would show them....
He fell asleep in a mood of profound hostility to all womankind, and
when he awoke it was with the grim resolve not to be bullied into
marrying anybody.
That Saturday afternoon, when he came back from lunch, there was a note
on his desk. He knew when he saw it afar what it would say. That Mr.
McCullough wished to see him.... And it did.... “Fired again!” thought
Norman.
He wasn’t surprised; he had thought he was doing damn good work on
that Pearson account; but evidently McCullough knew better.... And it
was just the time when a thing like this would happen, with his mother
and sister looking on. He couldn’t keep it a secret from Vickley this
time....
But there was just one good thing about it: if he lost his job and
became a bum on a park bench, maybe these women would let him alone....
It would be a good excuse; he wouldn’t have to marry anybody.... Norman
brightened, and went in cheerfully to get the ax from Mr. McCullough.
But Mr. McCullough, as he somewhat gradually and rather incredulously
discovered, had not sent for him in order to fire him--only to tell
him that he seemed to be getting along pretty well, and that he could
consider himself a regular member of the staff from now on. “Your
salary check will be for seventy-five this week,” Mr. McCullough added
casually. “And you can go on working with Charlie Beckett on the
Pearson account.”
“Thank you, Mr. McCullough,” said Norman, gulping down his emotions....
Of course, one couldn’t be sorry that one hadn’t been fired.... But
it took away his one avenue of escape from the embarrassing situation
in which he found himself. It left him with no good excuse to make to
those three girls....
Those three girls--that was the way he put it in his conscious
thoughts. But in reality it was only one of them that he had in mind.
Isabel would not care--he knew that well enough. And reckless little
Monica--she had offered her love and demanded nothing.... It was Madge
that he was afraid of. Madge--and Vickley.
Chapter XII: The Fugitive
AS for Madge, he was determined to keep out of her way while she was in
Chicago....
Lucinda was at the apartment with his mother when he came home that
afternoon. She had been taken to see the baby, and she expressed
herself enthusiastically. Norman couldn’t help being touched. He had
never heard her talk that way even about one of her pet dogs.... He was
on the alert to ignore any reference she might make to Madge.... But
she said nothing about Madge.
At last, in impatience, he remarked: “I understood Madge was coming to
Chicago with you.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucinda, and went on talking about the baby.
Had Madge seen the baby? He was curious to know, but he was determined
not to ask....
Doubtless it was the part of a brother to show his sister about
Chicago--take her to dinner and the theater, and so on. But when she
had been so indiscreet as to come companioned by a girl he did not want
to see, she would have to go without these brotherly attentions. He
would let her look after herself.
Lucinda seemed not to notice that she was being neglected.... After
all, she had been in Chicago before; and she was accustomed to Norman’s
brotherly indifference.
But Norman suspected a plot. How could he not suspect it? Lucinda’s
friendship with Madge, her bringing Madge to Chicago--doubtless she
hoped to bring about a reconciliation. His mother, in spite of her
protests, might be in on it. And so might even Dr. Zerneke. They all
thought of him as a helpless male who needed a wife. It was all very
well-meant--but he’d thank them just to leave him alone....
To block any plans they might have for an “accidental” meeting at Mrs.
Czermak’s, he invented business engagements for all his evenings which
would prevent his going there to see the baby this week. (And besides,
he didn’t want to face Monica, either.) And with the idea that Madge
might be at the apartment with Lucinda when he came home, he stayed
away every night until very late.... At least, he did this until
Saturday; and that evening, having found nothing better to do than sit
in the Crerar library, he revolted. After all, his apartment belonged
to him. It was rather absurd for him to be kept out of it that way. He
went home.
All the week he had been having, in his thoughts of Madge, the same
experience which he had had so often since his life ran off the smooth
track of custom and habit into the jungle of uncertainty in which he
had to find out for himself what things were like--the experience
of seeing facts change their appearance before his eyes.... In this
changing and surprising world, his feeling about Madge had remained
fixed until now. He had been sorry to have hurt her--but glad
nevertheless to have escaped from that marriage, because of what it
would have meant. And now that certainty was being undermined. Since
Madge had come to Chicago, he was remembering things about her--no, not
things to make him regret that she had thrown him over, nothing to make
him think himself still in love with her--nothing like that: yet sweet
and brave and tender and funny little things, making of her a human
girl and not a graven image of conventionality, an algebraic formula
of bourgeois marriage. And in merely becoming in his imagination a
person rather than a formula, she had upset him dreadfully--more than
he was willing to admit to himself. For his campaign of life in Chicago
was based implicitly upon an obscure but profound conviction that it
represented a revolt against a system of respectability and hypocrisy.
He wasn’t a theorist, and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t have wished to,
put it in words. But there it was. And that obscure theory gave him
courage and faith. But if it was not against the rock-walled citadel
of Respectability that he had dealt his clumsy and cruel blows, but
against the naked and defenseless breast of a girl--a girl who happened
to be in love with him--then some of the meaning went out of his whole
brave adventure. He didn’t want to face that possibility. He had
tried to put aside these inconvenient and unsettling memories. But he
wondered more and more what Madge was really like. Perhaps he would
never be sure until he saw and talked with her again.
Anyway, what was there to be afraid of? If she was at his apartment
this evening, well and good. He would find out what that respectable
young woman to whom he had once been engaged to be married was really
like....
But there was no one at the apartment.
He waited impatiently for his mother to come home.
She came at last, with Lucinda. They had been to the theater, they
said. They did not mention Madge. But he knew quite well she had been
with them. She must have gone on to the hotel alone to avoid meeting
him. These elaborate evasions were rather silly, he thought....
Lucinda, in her exasperating fashion, got started on an account of the
musical comedy they had seen, and could not be stopped until she had
described it all. It was the same one Norman had seen the week before
with Charlie Beckett. He heard her wearily to the end--noting that she
had picked up some slangy terms of speech from Doris--and when she
started to go, he said: “I’ll take you to your hotel.”
She seemed surprised at this offer--and indeed it was a trifle unusual
for Norman voluntarily to act as her escort. “Oh, you needn’t bother,”
she said. “I can get a bus over on the Avenue.”
“I’ll take you,” said Norman firmly.
Chapter XIII: Conversation in a Taxi
IN the taxi he tried hard to think of something to talk about to his
sister. He couldn’t seem to think of anything at all to say.
They were going down Michigan Avenue. In another minute or two they
would be at her hotel.
“Has Madge seen the baby?” he asked abruptly.
“Oh, yes,” said Lucinda. “She saw it the first thing.”
“One look was enough, I suppose,” said Norman bitterly.
“Oh, no,” said Lucinda. “She goes with us every day.”
“Oh,” said Norman. “She does?”
“There’s no reason,” said Lucinda, “why she should bear a grudge
against the baby.”
“I suppose not,” said Norman. “I’m the only one to blame. Of course,
I couldn’t exactly help it--the way I treated her.... I had hoped she
might understand that--and forgive me a little.”
Lucinda said nothing.
“Perhaps,” said Norman, “I ought to see her.”
“I don’t know,” said Lucinda doubtfully. “Tell me, Norman--have you
been carrying on with that little Monica Case?”
“Why in the world should you think that?” asked Norman indignantly.
“Well, she wears your jade cuff-buttons, and turns all colors when your
name is mentioned.”
“And what of it?” Norman asked defiantly.
“Nothing. That’s just the sort of girl you _would_ get mixed up with,”
said Lucinda. “Your tastes always were rather vulgar, Norman.”
“We were speaking of Madge, I believe,” said Norman haughtily.
“Well, that’s just it. I don’t think it’s very nice for Madge.”
“I’m sorry,” said Norman, “but I can’t regulate my conduct to suit my
ex-fiancée--or you either. Why did you bring Madge to Chicago?”
“I didn’t bring her,” said Lucinda. “But I knew she wanted to see the
baby--and I thought it might help her to get over it all.”
“You’re lying, Lucinda,” he said. “You know you want Madge and me to
make up. And so does Mother.”
“Well,” said Lucinda, “I think we’d all rather you’d marry Madge
than--that other girl.”
“What other girl?”
“The one who--deserted the baby. You don’t suppose I think you’d marry
Monica Case, do you?” she added impersonally.
“Why should I marry at all?” he demanded.
“Oh, you’ll have to marry _somebody_. Because of the baby, you know.”
He smiled. “And why not the baby’s mother, then?” he asked curiously.
“Oh, Norman--that _would_ be the absolute limit! After the way she’s
treated you! You wouldn’t be a--a doormat!” she said scornfully.
“Anyway,” he said, “there’s no reason why Madge and I shouldn’t
understand one another. I’ve no wish to hurt her feelings wantonly.”
“Well, you can’t see her to-night,” said Lucinda. “She’s gone to bed by
now. She went on to the hotel so as not to see you.”
“I think it’s rather ridiculous,” said Norman, “all this artificial
avoidance. Suppose you bring her over to the apartment for breakfast.
About eleven. Will you?”
“I’ll ask her,” said Lucinda.
“Do.”
The taxi stopped at the hotel.
“I’ve told Lucinda to bring Madge around for Sunday breakfast,” he said
casually to his mother, who was still puttering about the apartment
when he returned.
She frowned--in disapproval, Norman thought. But what she said was
only: “I wonder if there are enough eggs.”
She went into the kitchen, and came back. “Yes, there’s plenty of
everything,” she said.
If she saw any dramatic crisis imminent in her son’s life, she gave no
sign of it....
Chapter XIV: A Farewell
WHEN his mother had gone to bed, Norman sat up smoking and thinking.
So Lucinda--and Vickley in general, no doubt--thought he ought not to
marry Isabel!
Well, perhaps Vickley was right, at that.
Why should she be given another chance? Why should she be allowed to
have the son she had deserted?
“No, by God--he’s mine!” thought Norman, rocked with an emotion of
jealous hatred.
He went to bed. But presently he got up and turned on the light and
brought back to bed with him the Apocrypha he had picked up. He turned
to the story of Thecla.... This apocryphal girl saint was to him a
queer parable. When he had first read its opening sentences he had been
reminded of something Isabel had told him that day in the hospital--how
she had broken her engagement, at eighteen, for the love of art.... St.
Thecla here in the Apocrypha had broken hers for the love of God.... It
was all different enough and yet as he read it had seemed to him that
Isabel’s rebellious career was a queer, perverse, modern echo of that
old tale. For “the gospel of Paul” one need only put “the gospel of
Modern Art.”
He read it again, now, to allay his hatred of Isabel. For when he
thought of Isabel, it was with love or hatred, and both were torments.
He was safer in hating her, safer from the danger of more pain; but
hating her hurt him. And in this parable he found something to make him
sorry for her....
The story he read told of how when Paul was preaching in Iconium a girl
named Thecla, who was betrothed to a young man named Thamyris, sat in
the window of her mother’s house and listened to this new gospel; nor
would she depart from the window. And her mother, when she could not be
prevailed upon, sent for Thamyris, who came with exceeding pleasure, as
hoping now to marry her. He said to her mother, “Where is my Thecla?”
Her mother replied: “Thamyris, I have a strange thing to tell you. For
the space of three days my daughter has not moved from the window, not
so much as to eat or drink, but is intent on hearing the artful and
delusive discourses of a certain foreigner. Thamyris, this stranger
causes trouble throughout the whole city of the Iconians, for the
young men and girls listen to him and will not marry. And my daughter
too, caught as in a spider’s web at the window, is possessed by a new
desire and a fearful passion. But go you and speak to her, for she is
betrothed to you.”
And Thamyris went to her, desiring her, and yet alarmed because of her
strange ecstasy, and said: “Thecla, why do you sit thus? What strange
passion holds you in its power? Turn to your Thamyris and be ashamed
of yourself!” And her mother likewise: “Thecla, why do you look down
and answer nothing, as if you had lost your wits?” And they mourned,
Thamyris for his betrothed and her mother for her child, and Thecla
paid no heed to them but listened only the while to the new gospel.
And Thamyris leapt up and went away ... and brought officers with
staves to arrest Paul, and had him led to the proconsul, saying: “This
is the stranger who keeps girls from marrying.” And Paul was taken to
prison.
But Thecla that night took off her bracelets and gave them to the
doorkeeper and went into the prison and sat at Paul’s feet and listened
to his words, and kissed his chains.
And they were brought before the governor, who asked: “Thecla, why will
you not marry Thamyris, according to the law of the Iconians?” But she
looked only upon Paul and answered not, and her own mother cried: “Burn
the lawless one, burn her that will not be a bride, so that the women
of Iconium may be made afraid to follow these new teachings!”
And she was brought naked to the stake, but God had compassion on her,
and sent a rain to quench the fire. And she was set free, and went to
Paul and said: “I will cut my hair, and follow you wherever you go.”
But he said: “The time is ill-favored, and you are comely. I fear a
harder trial may come, which you will not be able to withstand.”
But she cut her hair and went with him to Antioch. And there a
magistrate named Alexander saw her and was enamored of her, and sent
Paul presents....
(Norman thought: “I became interested in pictures just to please
Isabel.”...)
But Paul said: “I know not this woman of whom you speak, neither does
she belong to me.”
And Alexander seized her in the street, but she rent his cloak and took
the wreath from his head, and made him a laughing-stock before the
whole town....
“That’s me,” thought Norman.
He did not go on to read the rest of Thecla’s triumphant career. He
stopped there with poor Alexander, who had been made a laughing-stock
before the whole town.
Nobody, he reflected, would ever write the inglorious story of
Alexander. The sympathies of storytellers were always with the girl.
Not, to be sure, precisely with a girl like Isabel, though. They didn’t
understand a girl’s being faithful to her art, in spite of a moonstruck
moment in the woods--in spite of having a baby at her breast--in spite
of confusion, complications, tormented and conflicting emotions.
Legend, if she became famous, would simplify her story; and he alone
would know what a troubled soul she had been....
She was waiting now for her answer. She was trusting him to decide
her life for her. Too tired, sick, discouraged, to know any more what
she wanted, she was leaving it to him to say whether she should be an
artist or a mother. He could take her in this moment of weakness. But
he would never be content with what she had to give....
No, he would trouble her no more with his human demands for love. He’d
let her go on to her own destiny....
It seemed to him that he had forgiven her. At least, he did not hate
her now. And if he still, in a way loved her, yet he did not want
her for his own. He had let her go. She was remote, now, in his
imagination, above the reach of desire, shining from the abode where
things that seem eternal find refuge.... And at the same time, it
seemed to him that he had put aside his youth for ever.
Chapter XV: The Inevitable
SUNDAY morning dawned for Norman--if it could be said to dawn at about
ten o’clock--with a sense of fatality. At first he didn’t know why.
He lay in bed, hearing his mother stirring in the kitchen. Then he
remembered. She was getting breakfast for Madge. Madge was coming....
Suddenly in his imagination he saw the two of them left alone together.
She would reproach him. Well, she had a right to. And he would feel
sorry and ashamed. But he would defend himself--he would try to make
her understand. It would be like one of their old-time quarrels. For
they had quarreled--and made up. They had kissed and made up, always,
and everything had seemed all right again....
Well, perhaps it was inevitable. Everybody seemed to think he had to
have a wife. Lucinda had said so. Dr. Zerneke had said so. His mother
had as good as said so. A man with a baby was helpless.... And if Madge
would marry him....
He turned, as if for the last time, to the thought of Monica....
Reckless little Monica--the rooming house--old Mr. Victor--the homely
maternal airs of Mrs. Czermak--the Rabelaisian conversation of Mrs.
Case.... He sighed. He knew now that those things weren’t for him....
He rose to face the day and what might come of it.... After all, Madge
would be a damned sight nicer wife than he deserved....
Breakfast was getting ready. He walked slowly back and forth.
The bell rang. He went to the door.
Lucinda was there, alone.
“Where’s Madge?” he asked.
“She wouldn’t come,” said Lucinda. “She’s very much upset. I left her
at the hotel, packing to go back to Vickley.”
“I’ll go and get her,” said Norman.
“Wait. She wrote this to you last night.”
He took the letter and walked out.
Lucinda ran to the banister and called down to him. “The room is
314--you’d better go right up, Norman, if you want to see her!”
In the street he opened the envelope, stopped short on the corner, and
read:
“Dear Norman Overbeck: I came to see your child, not to see you.
Perhaps it was foolish of me to come; but I wanted to, and I’m not
sorry I did. And I can tell you better in a letter how I feel about
you, without seeing you.
“I don’t blame you for what happened. I mean, about the baby. I love
your baby. But you weren’t fair to me. You never told me about the
other girl. It wasn’t fair to ask me to marry you when you were still
in love with her. But I could forgive that, because maybe you didn’t
know and thought you were over it. That isn’t what hurts most.
“What hurts is that you should not have trusted me to understand about
the baby. You never gave me a chance. You ran away before we could
talk it over. You treated me as if I were a conventional little fool.
That is what you thought of me. You never came back to explain. You
didn’t try to make me understand. You didn’t let me have a chance to
say whether I would take the baby or not. You just assumed that I was
a certain sort of person. You didn’t trust me, and that’s what I shall
never forgive you for.
“I’m not what you think. I’ll tell you this. If it had been I that had
had another sweetheart, and found I was going to have a baby when I was
engaged to you--I’d have told you, I’d have trusted you, I’d have given
you your chance.
“No, I’m not what you think. You never knew me. I hate Vickley as much
as you do--more. It’s you who are conventional at heart.
“You never gave me my chance.
“I would rather not see you. Some time I may feel differently, but it
is too bitter a subject just now. I’m glad I’ve seen Norman Junior. I’m
going back to Vickley in the morning, and I’m leaving with Lucinda some
little things I’ve bought for him while I’ve been here.
“Good-by.
“Madge Ferris.”
Norman stood there, with tears in his eyes. He hadn’t known she was
like that.... He had been an awful fool. He didn’t understand girls at
all....
Well, if he got there before she left, it might still be all right....
It was plain that she still cared for him....
“Taxi?”
“Yes!” He climbed in. “The Annex--quick!” In his imagination he could
see Madge in the hotel room, packing.... He saw himself enter ... yes,
and quarrel, and kiss. Oh, there was no doubt that they would make
up.... And no doubt, either, that that would be the best thing all
around....
Only one thing bothered him. Madge wasn’t what he had thought, at all.
She wasn’t a doll. She was a real girl, with a heart. She could love,
and suffer. She wouldn’t mind being poor with him in Chicago. She would
be a mother to his child. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be glad
to marry her. And in spite of what she wrote, she would be hoping in
her heart that he would come before she packed up and left the hotel.
Only one thing stood in the way--and that was something a loving and
tender wife could surely banish--the ghost of that girl who was so
unaccountably the mother of his child ... Oh, he would forget Isabel in
time....
But he might as well settle that now. He looked out, and rapped on the
glass. “Stop at that cigar store on the corner for a moment!”
He would send her a telegram, and have that off his mind. He knew her
address in Michigan.
“Western Union, please....
“I want to send a telegram....
“To Miss Isabel Drury.... Yes.... Hawk Lake, Michigan.... Just a
moment....”
He had known what he was going to say. Something polite and final.
But suddenly it was as if Isabel was at the other end of the wire,
listening.... and the words went out of his head....
“Just a moment,” he repeated, while the world rocked dizzily about
him....
Couldn’t he say the word that would free them both? Couldn’t he let
that vain dream go?
It seemed not. A new pattern of words was framing itself in his mind,
forcing itself to his lips....
Must he forever be a fool? Must he doom himself to endless unhappiness?
It wouldn’t work out. He knew it. He had renounced her. Why couldn’t he
take what life offered? Madge--and peace.... Madge--waiting now, ready
to forgive him, cherish him, be patient with him....
No.... But at least he could send a sane telegram.
He spoke into the telephone to the impatient operator: “I have it, now.
Here’s the message:
“‘Call me McCullough Advertising Agency when you come Chicago this
week preferably.’ Signed, ‘Norman.’
“That’s all. How much is it?”
He dropped in the nickels and dimes....
And Madge?--he couldn’t help it, that was all....
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said to the taxi-driver, and handed him a
dollar bill.
The taxi drove away, leaving him standing there on the corner.
Yes, no doubt it was a crazy thing to do. But he didn’t care. He had to
see this thing through with Isabel....
He began to walk slowly back toward the apartment.
[The End]
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