Damaged Goods
U >>
Upton Sinclair >> Damaged Goods
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8
"George!" cried the girl in horror.
He put his hand upon hers. "Don't be frightened," he said. "It
will be all right, only I have to take care of myself." How very
dear of her, he thought--to be so much worried!
"George, you ought to go away to the country!" she cried. "You
have been working too hard. I always told you that if you shut
yourself up so much--"
"I am going to take care of myself," he said. "I realize that it
is necessary. I shall be all right--the doctor assured me there
was no doubt of it, so you are not to distress yourself. But
meantime, here is the trouble: I don't think it would be right
for me to marry until I am perfectly well."
Henriette gave an exclamation of dismay.
"I am sure we should put it off," he went on, "it would be only
fair to you."
"But, George!" she protested. "Surely it can't be that serious!"
"We ought to wait," he said. "You ought not to take the chance
of being married to a consumptive."
The other protested in consternation. He did not look like a
consumptive; she did not believe that he WAS a consumptive. She
was willing to take her chances. She loved him, and she was not
afraid. But George insisted--he was sure that he ought not to
marry for six months.
"Did the doctor advise that?" asked Henriette.
"No," he replied, "but I made up my mind after talking to him
that I must do the fair and honorable thing. I beg you to
forgive me, and to believe that I know best."
George stood firmly by this position, and so in the end she had
to give way. It did not seem quite modest in her to continue
persisting.
George volunteered to write a letter to her father; and he hoped
this would settle the matter without further discussion. But in
this he was disappointed. There had to be a long correspondence
with long arguments and protestations from Henriette's father and
from his own mother. It seemed such a singular whim. Everybody
persisted in diagnosing his symptoms, in questioning him about
what the doctor had said, who the doctor was, how he had come to
consult him--all of which, of course, was very embarrassing to
George, who could not see why they had to make such a fuss. He
took to cultivating a consumptive look, as well as he could
imagine it; he took to coughing as he went about the house--and
it was all he could do to keep from laughing, as he saw the look
of dismay on his poor mother's face. After all, however, he told
himself that he was not deceiving her, for the disease he had was
quite as serious as tuberculosis.
It was very painful and very trying. But there was nothing that
could be done about it; the marriage had been put off for six
months, and in the meantime he and Henriette had to control their
impatience and make the best of their situation. Six months was
a long time; but what if it had been three or four years, as the
other doctor had demanded? That would have been a veritable
sentence of death.
George, as we have seen, was conscientious, and regular and
careful in his habits. He took the medicine which the new doctor
prescribed for him; and day by day he watched, and to his great
relief saw the troublesome symptoms gradually disappearing. He
began to take heart, and to look forward to life with his former
buoyancy. He had had a bad scare, but now everything was going
to be all right.
Three or four months passed, and the doctor told him he was
cured. He really was cured, so far as he could see. He was
sorry, now, that he had asked for so long a delay from Henriette;
but the new date for the wedding had been announced, and it would
be awkward to change it again. George told himself that he was
being "extra careful," and he was repaid for the inconvenience by
the feeling of virtue derived from the delay. He was relieved
that he did not have to cough any more, or to invent any more
tales of his interviews with the imaginary lung-specialist.
Sometimes he had guilty feelings because of all the lying he had
had to do; but he told himself that it was for Henriette's sake.
She loved him as much as he loved her. She would have suffered
needless agonies had she known the truth; she would never have
got over it--so it would have been a crime to tell her.
He really loved her devotedly, thoroughly. From the beginning he
had thought as much of her mental sufferings as he had of any
physical harm that the dread disease might do to him. How could
he possibly persuade himself to give her up, when he knew that
the separation would break her heart and ruin her whole life?
No; obviously, in such a dilemma, it was his duty to use his own
best judgment, and get himself cured as quickly as possible.
After that he would be true to her, he would take no more chances
of a loathsome disease.
The secret he was hiding made him feel humble--made him unusually
gentle in his attitude towards the girl. He was a perfect lover,
and she was ravished with happiness. She thought that all his
sufferings were because of his love for her, and the delay which
he had imposed out of his excess of conscientiousness. So she
loved him more and more, and never was there a happier bride than
Henriette Loches, when at last the great day arrived.
They went to the Riveria for their honeymoon, and then returned
to live in the home which had belonged to George's father. The
investment in the notary's practice had proven a good one, and so
life held out every promise for the young couple. They were
divinely happy.
After a while, the bride communicated to her husband the tidings
that she was expecting a child. Then it seemed to George that
the cup of his earthly bliss was full. His ailment had slipped
far into the background of his thoughts, like an evil dream which
he had forgotten. He put away the medicines in the bottom of his
trunk and dismissed the whole matter from his mind. Henriette
was well--a very picture of health, as every one agreed. The
doctor had never seen a more promising young mother, he declared,
and Madame Dupont, the elder, bloomed with fresh life and joy as
she attended her daughter-in-law.
Henriette went for the summer to her father's place in the
provinces, which she and George had visited before their
marriage. They drove out one day to the farm where they had
stopped. The farmer's wife had a week-old baby, the sight of
which made Henriette's heart leap with delight. He was such a
very healthy baby that George conceived the idea that this would
be the woman to nurse his own child, in case Henriette herself
should not be able to do it.
They came back to the city, and there the baby was born. As
George paced the floor, waiting for the news, the memory of his
evil dreams came back to him. He remembered all the dreadful
monstrosities of which he had read--infants that were born of
syphilitic parents. His heart stood still when the nurse came
into the room to tell him the tidings.
But it was all right; of course it was all right! He had been a
fool, he told himself, as he stood in the darkened room and gazed
at the wonderful little mite of life which was the fruit of his
love. It was a perfect child, the doctor said--a little small,
to be sure, but that was a defect which would soon be remedied.
George kneeled by the bedside and kissed the hand of his wife,
and went out of the room feeling as if he had escaped from a
tomb.
All went well, and after a couple of weeks Henriette was about
the house again, laughing all day and singing with joy. But the
baby did not gain quite as rapidly as the doctor had hoped, and
it was decided that the country air would be better for her. So
George and his mother paid a visit to the farm in the country,
and arranged that the country woman should put her own child to
nurse elsewhere and should become the foster-mother of little Gervaise.
George paid a good price for the service, far more than would
have been necessary, for the simple country woman was delighted
with the idea of taking care of the grandchild of the deputy of
her district. George came home and told his wife about this and
had a merry time as he pictured the woman boasting about it to
the travelers who stopped at her door. "Yes, ma'am, a great
piece of luck I've got, ma'am. I've got the daughter of the
daughter of our deputy--at your service ma'am. My! But she is
as fat as out little calf--and so clever! She understands
everything. A great piece of luck for me, ma'am. She's the
daughter of the daughter of our deputy!" Henriette was vastly
entertained, discovering in her husband a new talent, that of an
actor.
As for George's mother, she was hardly to be persuaded from
staying in the country with the child. She went twice a week, to
make sure that all went well. Henriette and she lived with the
child's picture before them; they spent their time sewing on caps
and underwear--all covered with laces and frills and pink and
blue ribbons. Every day, when George came home from his work, he
found some new article completed, and was ravished by the scent
of some new kind of sachet powder. What a lucky man he was!
You would think he must have been the happiest man in the whole
city of Paris. But George, alas, had to pay the penalty for his
early sins. There was, for instance, the deception he had
practiced upon his friend, away back in the early days. Now he
had friends of his own, and he could not keep these friends from
visiting him; and so he was unquiet with the fear that some one
of them might play upon him the same vile trick. Even in the
midst of his radiant happiness, when he knew that Henriette was
hanging upon his every word, trembling with delight when she
heard his latchkey in the door--still he could not drive away the
horrible thought that perhaps all this might be deception.
There was his friend, Gustave, for example. He had been a friend
of Henriette's before her marriage; he had even been in love with
her at one time. And now he came sometimes to the house--once or
twice when George was away! What did that mean? George
wondered. He brooded over it all day, but dared not drop any
hint to Henriette. But he took to setting little traps to catch
her; for instance, he would call her up on the telephone,
disguising his voice. "Hello! Hello! Is that you, Madame
Dupont?" And when she answered, "It is I, sir," all
unsuspecting, he would inquire, "Is George there?"
"No, sir," she replied. "Who is this speaking?"
He answered, "It is I, Gustave. How are you this morning?" He
wanted to see what she would answer. Would she perhaps say,
"Very well, Gustave. How are you?"--in a tone which would betray
too great intimacy!
But Henriette was a sharp young person. The tone did not sound
like Gustave's. She asked in bewilderment, "What?" and then
again, "What?"
So, at last, George, afraid that his trick might be suspected,
had to burst out laughing, and turn it into a joke. But when he
came home and teased his wife about it, the laugh was not all on
his side. Henriette had guessed the real meaning of his joke!
She did not really mind--she took his jealousy as a sign of love,
and was pleased with it. It is not until a third party come upon
the scene that jealousy begins to be annoying.
So she had a merry time teasing George. "You are a great fellow!
You have no idea how well I understand you--and after only a year
of marriage!"
"You know me?" said the husband, curiously. (It is always so
fascinating when anybody thinks she know us better than we know
ourselves!) "Tell me, what do you think about me?"
"You are restless," said Henriette. "You are suspicious. You
pass your time putting flies in your milk, and inventing wise
schemes to get them out."
"Oh, you think that, do you?" said George, pleased to be talked
about.
"I am not annoyed," she answered. "You have always been that
way--and I know that it's because at bottom you are timid and
disposed to suffer. And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for
not having confidence in a wife's intimate friends--lady-killer
that you are!"
George found this rather embarrassing; but he dared not show it,
so he laughed gayly. "I don't know what you mean," he said--
"upon my word I don't. But it is a trick I would not advise
everybody to try."
There were other embarrassing moments, caused by George's having
things to conceal. There was, for instance, the matter of the
six months' delay in the marriage--about which Henriette would
never stop talking. She begrudged the time, because she had got
the idea that little Gervaise was six months younger than she
otherwise would have been. "That shows your timidity again," she
would say. "The idea of your having imagined yourself a
consumptive!"
Poor George had to defend himself. "I didn't tell you half the
truth, because I was afraid of upsetting you. It seemed I had
the beginning of chronic bronchitis. I felt it quite keenly
whenever I took a breath, a deep breath--look, like this. Yes--I
felt--here and there, on each side of the chest, a heaviness--a
difficulty--"
"The idea of taking six months to cure you of a thing like that!"
exclaimed Henriette. "And making our baby six months younger
than she ought to be!"
"But," laughed George, "that means that we shall have her so much
the longer! She will get married six months later!"
"Oh, dear me," responded the other, "let us not talk about such
things! I am already worried, thinking she will get married some
day."
"For my part," said George, "I see myself mounting with her on my
arm the staircase of the Madeleine."
"Why the Madeleine?" exclaimed his wife. "Such a very
magnificent church!"
"I don't know--I see her under her white veil, and myself all
dressed up, and with an order."
"With an order!" laughed Henriette. "What do you expect to do to
win an order?"
"I don't know that--but I see myself with it. Explain it as you
will, I see myself with an order. I see it all, exactly as if I
were there--the Swiss guard with his white stockings and the
halbard, and the little milliner's assistants and the scullion
lined up staring."
"It is far off--all that," said Henriette. "I don't like to talk
of it. I prefer her as a baby. I want her to grow up--but then
I change my mind and think I don't. I know your mother doesn't.
Do you know, I don't believe she ever thinks about anything but
her little Gervaise."
"I believe you," said the father. "The child can certainly boast
of having a grandmother who loves her."
"Also, I adore your mother," declared Henriette. "She makes me
forget my misfortune in not having my own mother. She is so
good!"
"We are all like that in our family," put in George.
"Really," laughed the wife. "Well, anyhow--the last time that we
went down in the country with her--you had gone out, I don't know
where you had gone--"
"To see the sixteenth-century chest," suggested the other.
"Oh, yes," laughed Henriette; "your famous chest!" (You must
excuse this little family chatter of theirs--they were so much in
love with each other!)
"Don't let's talk about that," objected George. "You were
saying--?"
"You were not there. The nurse was out at mass, I think--"
"Or at the wine merchant's! Go on, go on."
"Well, I was in the little room, and mother dear thought she was
all alone with Gervaise. I was listening; she was talking to the
baby--all sorts of nonsense, pretty little words--stupid, if you
like, but tender. I wanted to laugh, and at the same time I
wanted to weep."
"Perhaps she called her 'my dear little Savior'?"
"Exactly! Did you hear her?"
"No--but that is what she used to call me when I was little."
"It was that day she swore that the little one had recognized
her, and laughed!"
"Oh, yes!"
"And then another time, when I went into her room--mother's
room--she didn't hear me because the door was open, but I saw
her. She was in ecstasy before the little boots which the baby
wore at baptism--you know?"
"Yes, yes."
"Listen, then. She had taken them and she was embracing them!"
"And what did you say then?"
"Nothing; I stole out very softly, and I sent across the
threshold a great kiss to the dear grandmother!"
Henriette sat for a moment in thought. "It didn't take her very
long," she remarked, "today when she got the letter from the
nurse. I imagine she caught the eight-fifty-nine train!"
"Any yet," laughed George, "it was really nothing at all."
"Oh no," said his wife. "Yet after all, perhaps she was right--
and perhaps I ought to have gone with her."
"How charming you are, my poor Henriette! You believe everything
you are told. I, for my part, divined right away the truth. The
nurse was simply playing a game on us; she wanted a raise. Will
you bet? Come, I'll bet you something. What would you like to
bet? You don't want to? Come, I'll bet you a lovely necklace--
you know, with a big pearl."
"No," said Henriette, who had suddenly lost her mood of gayety.
"I should be too much afraid of winning."
"Stop!" laughed her husband. "Don't you believe I love her as
much as you love her--my little duck? Do you know how old she
is? I mean her EXACT age?"
Henriette sat knitting her brows, trying to figure.
"Ah!" he exploded. "You see you don't know! She is ninety-one
days and eight hours! Ha, ha! Imagine when she will be able to
walk all alone. Then we will take her back with us; we must wait
at least six months." Then, too late, poor George realized that
he had spoken the fatal phrase again.
"If only you hadn't put off our marriage, she would be able to
walk now," said Henriette.
He rose suddenly. "Come," he said, "didn't you say you had to
dress and pay some calls?"
Henriette laughed, but took the hint.
"Run along, little wife," he said. "I have a lot of work to do
in the meantime. You won't be down-stairs before I shall have my
nose buried in my papers. Bye-bye."
"Bye-bye," said Henriette. But they paused to exchange a dozen
or so kisses before she went away to dress.
Then George lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out in the
big armchair. He seemed restless; he seemed to be disturbed
about something. Could it be that he had not been so much at
ease as he had pretended to be, since the letter had come from
the baby's nurse? Madame Dupont had gone by the earliest train
that morning. She had promised to telegraph at once--but she had
not done so, and now it was late afternoon.
George got up and wandered about. He looked at himself in the
glass for a moment; then he went back to the chair and pulled up
another to put his geet upon. He puffed away at his cigarette
until he was calmer. But then suddenly he heard the rustle of a
dress behind him, and glanced about, and started up with an
exclamation, "Mother!"
Madame Dupont stood in the doorway. She did not speak. Her veil
was thrown back and George noted instantly the look of agitation
upon her countenance.
"What's the matter?" he cried. "We didn't get any telegram from
you; we were not expecting you till tomorrow."
Still his mother did not speak.
"Henriette was just going out," he exclaimed nervously; "I had
better call her."
"No!" said his mother quickly. Her voice was low and trembling.
"I did not want Henriette to be here when I arrived."
"But what's the matter?" cried George.
Again there was a silence before the reply came. He read
something terrible in the mother's manner, and he found himself
trembling violently.
"I have brought back the child and the nurse," said Madame
Dupont.
"What! Is the little one sick?"
"Yes."
"What's the matter with her?"
"Nothing dangerous--for the moment, at least."
"We must send and get the doctor!" cried George.
"I have just come from the doctor's," was the reply. "He said it
was necessary to take our child from the nurse and bring her up
on the bottle."
Again there was a pause. George could hardly bring himself to
ask the next question. Try as he would, he could not keep his
voice from weakening. "Well, now, what is her trouble?"
The mother did not answer. She stood staring before her. At
last she said, faintly, "I don't know."
"You didn't ask?"
"I asked. But it was not to our own doctor that I went."
"Ah!" whispered George. For nearly a minute neither one of them
spoke. "Why?" he inquired at last.
"Because--he--the nurse's doctor--had frightened me so--"
"Truly?"
"Yes. It is a disease--" again she stopped.
George cried, in a voice of agony, "and then?"
"Then I asked him if the matter was so grave that I could not be
satisfied with our ordinary doctor."
"And what did he answer?"
"He said that if we had the means it would really be better to
consult a specialist."
George looked at his mother again. He was able to do it, because
she was not looking at him. He clenched his hands and got
himself together. "And--where did he send you?"
His mother fumbled in her hand bag and drew out a visiting card.
"Here," she said.
And George looked at the card. It was all he could do to keep
himself from tottering. It was the card of the doctor whom he
had first consulted about his trouble! The specialist in
venereal diseases!
CHAPTER IV
It was all George could do to control his voice. "You--you went
to see him?" he stammered.
"Yes," said his mother. "You know him?"
"No, no," he answered. "Or--that is--I have met him, I think. I
don't know." And then to himself, "My God!"
There was a silence. "He is coming to talk to you," said the
mother, at last.
George was hardly able to speak. "Then he is very much
disturbed?"
"No, but he wants to talk to you."
"To me?"
"Yes. When the doctor saw the nurse, he said, 'Madame, it is
impossible for me to continue to attend this child unless I have
had this very day a conversation with the father.' So I said
'Very well,' and he said he would come at once."
George turned away, and put his hands to his forehead. "My poor
little daughter!" he whispered to himself.
"Yes," said the mother, her voice breaking, "she is, indeed, a
poor little daughter!"
A silence fell; for what could words avail in such a situation?
Hearing the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were
all a-quiver with the strain she had been under. A servant came
in and spoke to her, and she said to George, "It is the doctor.
If you need me, I shall be in the next room."
Her son stood trembling, as if he were waiting the approach of an
executioner. The other came into the room without seeing him and
he stood for a minute, clasping and unclasping his hands, almost
overcome with emotion. Then he said, "Good-day, doctor." As the
man stared at him, surprised and puzzled, he added, "You don't
recognize me?"
The doctor looked again, more closely. George was expecting him
to break out in rage; but instead his voice fell low. "You!" he
exclaimed. "It is you!"
At last, in a voice of discouragement than of anger, he went on,
"You got married, and you have a child! After all that I told
you! You are a wretch!"
"Sir," cried George, "let me explain to you!"
"Not a word!" exclaimed the other. "There can be no explanation
for what you have done."
A silence followed. The young man did not know what to say.
Finally, stretching out his arms, he pleaded, "You will take care
of my little daughter all the same, will you not?"
The other turned away with disgust. "Imbecile!" he said.
George did not hear the word. "I was able to wait only six
months," he murmured.
The doctor answered in a voice of cold self-repression, "That is
enough, sir! All that does not concern me. I have done wrong
even to let you see my indignation. I should have left you to
judge yourself. I have nothing to do here but with the present
and with the future--with the infant and with the nurse."
"She isn't in danger?" cried George.
"The nurse is in danger of being contaminated."
But George had not been thinking about the nurse. "I mean my
child," he said.
"Just at present the symptoms are not disturbing."
George waited; after a while he began, "You were saying about the
nurse. Will you consent that I call my mother? She knows better
than I."
"As you wish," was the reply.
The young man started to the door, but came back, in terrible
distress. "I have one prayer to offer you sir; arrange it so
that my wife--so that no one will know. If my wife learned that
it is I who am the cause--! It is for her that I implore you!
She--she isn't to blame."
Said the doctor: "I will do everything in my power that she may
be kept ignorant of the true nature of the disease."
"Oh, how I thank you!" murmured George. "How I thank you!"
"Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will
consent to lie."
"And my mother?"
"Your mother knows the truth."
"But--"
"I pray you, sir--we have enough to talk about, and very serious
matters."
So George went to the door and called his mother. She entered
and greeted the doctor, holding herself erect, and striving to
keep the signs of grief and terror from her face. She signed to
the doctor to take a seat, and then seated herself by a little
table near him.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8