“To-night!” he repeated. “This very minute! Let her find a home. She did not want this one. Let her get out now. We will see how the world treats her.” He walked out of the room, inflexible resolution fixed upon his rugged features.
At half-past five, when Mrs. Gerhardt was tearfully going about the duty of getting supper, Jennie returned. Her mother started when she heard the door open, for now she knew the storm would burst afresh. Her father met her on the threshold.
“Get out of my sight!” he said savagely. “You shall not stay another hour in my house. I don’t want to see you any more. Get out!”
Jennie stood before him, pale, trembling a little, and silent. The children she had brought home with her crowded about in frightened amazement. Veronica and Martha, who loved her dearly, began to cry.
“What’s the matter?” George asked, his mouth open in wonder.
“She shall get out,” reiterated Gerhardt. “I don’t want her under my roof. If she wants to be a street-walker, let her be one, but she shall not stay here. Pack your things,” he added, staring at her.
Jennie had no word to say, but the children cried loudly.
“Be still,” said Gerhardt. “Go into the kitchen.”
He drove them all out and followed stubbornly himself.
Jennie went quietly to her room. She gathered up her few little belongings and began, with tears, to put them into a valise her mother brought her. The little girlish trinkets that she had accumulated from time to time she did not take. She saw them, but thought of her younger sisters, and let them stay. Martha and Veronica would have assisted her, but their father forbade them to go.
At six o’clock Bass came in, and seeing the nervous assembly in the kitchen, inquired what the trouble was.
Gerhardt looked at him grimly, but did not answer.
“What’s the trouble?” insisted Bass. “What are you all sitting around for?”
“He is driving Jennie away,” whispered Mrs. Gerhardt tearfully.
“What for?” asked Bass, opening his eyes in astonishment.
“I shall tell you what for,” broke in Gerhardt, still speaking in German. “Because she’s a street-walker, that’s what for. She goes and gets herself ruined by a man thirty years older than she is, a man old enough to be her father. Let her get out of this. She shall not stay here another minute.”
Bass looked about him, and the children opened their eyes. All felt clearly that something terrible had happened, even the little ones. None but Bass understood.
“What do you want to send her out to-night for?” he inquired. “This is no time to send a girl out on the streets. Can’t she stay here until morning?”
“No,” said Gerhardt.
“He oughtn’t to do that,” put in the mother.
“She goes now,” said Gerhardt. “Let that be an end of it.”
“Where is she going to go?” insisted Bass.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gerhardt interpolated weakly.
Bass looked around, but did nothing until Mrs. Gerhardt motioned him toward the front door when her husband was not looking.
“Go in! Go in!” was the import of her gesture.
Bass went in, and then Mrs. Gerhardt dared to leave her work and follow. The children stayed awhile, but, one by one, even they slipped away, leaving Gerhardt alone. When he thought that time enough had elapsed he arose.
In the interval Jennie had been hastily coached by her mother.
Jennie should go to a private boarding-house somewhere, and send back her address. Bass should not accompany her, but she should wait a little way up the street, and he would follow. When her father was away the mother might get to see her, or Jennie could come home. All else must be postponed until they could meet again.
While the discussion was still going on, Gerhardt came in.
“Is she going?” he asked harshly.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Gerhardt, with her first and only note of defiance.
Bass said, “What’s the hurry?” But Gerhardt frowned too mightily for him to venture on any further remonstrance.
Jennie entered, wearing her one good dress and carrying her valise. There was fear in her eyes, for she was passing through a fiery ordeal, but she had become a woman. The strength of love was with her, the support of patience and the ruling sweetness of sacrifice. Silently she kissed her mother, while tears fell fast. Then she turned, and the door closed upon her as she went forth to a new life.
CHAPTER X
The world into which Jennie was thus unduly thrust forth was that in which virtue has always vainly struggled since time immemorial; for virtue is the wishing well and the doing well unto others. Virtue is that quality of generosity which offers itself willingly for another’s service, and, being this, it is held by society to be nearly worthless. Sell yourself cheaply and you shall be used lightly and trampled under foot. Hold yourself dearly, however unworthily, and you will be respected. Society, in the mass, lacks woefully in the matter of discrimination. Its one criterion is the opinion of others. Its one test that of self-preservation. Has he preserved his fortune? Has she preserved her purity? Only in rare instances and with rare individuals does there seem to be any guiding light from within.
Jennie had not sought to hold herself dear. Innate feeling in her made for self-sacrifice. She could not be readily corrupted by the world’s selfish lessons on how to preserve oneself from the evil to come.
It is in such supreme moments that growth is greatest. It comes as with a vast surge, this feeling of strength and sufficiency. We may still tremble, the fear of doing wretchedly may linger, but we grow. Flashes of inspiration come to guide the soul. In nature there is no outside. When we are cast from a group or a condition we have still the companionship of all that is. Nature is not ungenerous. Its winds and stars are fellows with you. Let the soul be but gentle and receptive, and this vast truth will come home—not in set phrases, perhaps, but as a feeling, a comfort, which, after all, is the last essence of knowledge. In the universe peace is wisdom.
Jennie had hardly turned from the door when she was overtaken by Bass. “Give me your grip,” he said; and then seeing that she was dumb with unutterable feeling, he added, “I think I know where I can get you a room.”
He led the way to the southern part of the city, where they were not known, and up to the door of an old lady whose parlor clock had been recently purchased from the instalment firm by whom he was now employed. She was not well off, he knew, and had a room to rent.
“Is that room of yours still vacant?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, looking at Jennie.
“I wish you’d let my sister have it. We’re moving away, and she can’t go yet.”
The old lady expressed her willingness, and Jennie was soon temporarily installed.
“Don’t worry now,” said Bass, who felt rather sorry for her. “This’ll blow over. Ma said I should tell you not to worry. Come up to-morrow when he’s gone.”
Jennie said she would, and, after giving her further oral encouragement, he arranged with the old lady about board, and took his leave.
“It’s all right now,” he said encouragingly as he went out. “You’ll come out all right. Don’t worry. I’ve got to go back, but I’ll come around in the morning.”
He went away, and the bitter stress of it blew lightly over his head, for he was thinking that Jennie had made a mistake. This was shown by the manner in which he had asked her questions as they had walked together, and that in the face of her sad and doubtful mood.
“What’d you want to do that for?” and “Didn’t you ever think what you were doing?” he persisted.
“Please don’t ask me to-night,” Jennie had said, which put an end to the sharpest form of his queries. She had no excuse to offer and no complaint to make. If any blame attached, very likely it was hers. His own misfortune and the family’s and her sacrifice were alike forgotten.
Left alone in her strange abode, Jennie gave way to her saddened feelings. The shock and shame of being banished from her home overcame her, and she wept. Although of a naturally long-suffering and uncomplaining disposition, the catastrophic wind-up of all her hopes was too much for her. What was this element in life that could seize and overwhelm one as does a great wind? Why this sudden intrusion of death to shatter all that had seemed most promising in life?
As she thought over the past, a very clear recollection of the details of her long relationship with Brander came back to her, and for all her suffering she could only feel a loving affection for him. After all, he had not deliberately willed her any harm. His kindness, his generosity—these things had been real. He had been essentially a good man, and she was sorry—more for his sake than for her own that his end had been so untimely.