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