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.