Sister Carrie: A Novel
There was also a small rear yard, walled in by the fences of the
neighbours and holding a stable where he kept his horse and trap.
The ten rooms of the house were occupied by himself, his wife Julia,
and his son and daughter, George, Jr., and Jessica. There were besides
these a maid-servant, represented from time to time by girls of various
extraction, for Mrs. Hurstwood was not always easy to please.
“George, I let Mary go yesterday,” was not an unfrequent salutation at
the dinner table.
“All right,” was his only reply. He had long since wearied of
discussing the rancorous subject.
A lovely home atmosphere is one of the flowers of the world, than which
there is nothing more tender, nothing more delicate, nothing more
calculated to make strong and just the natures cradled and nourished
within it. Those who have never experienced such a beneficent influence
will not understand wherefore the tear springs glistening to the
eyelids at some strange breath in lovely music. The mystic chords which
bind and thrill the heart of the nation, they will never know.
Hurstwood’s residence could scarcely be said to be infused with this
home spirit. It lacked that toleration and regard without which the
home is nothing. There was fine furniture, arranged as soothingly as
the artistic perception of the occupants warranted. There were soft
rugs, rich, upholstered chairs and divans, a grand piano, a marble
carving of some unknown Venus by some unknown artist, and a number of
small bronzes gathered from heaven knows where, but generally sold by
the large furniture houses along with everything else which goes to
make the “perfectly appointed house.”
In the dining-room stood a sideboard laden with glistening decanters
and other utilities and ornaments in glass, the arrangement of which
could not be questioned. Here was something Hurstwood knew about. He
had studied the subject for years in his business. He took no little
satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something
of what the art of the thing required. He was not garrulous by any
means. On the contrary, there was a fine reserve in his manner toward
the entire domestic economy of his life which was all that is
comprehended by the popular term, gentlemanly. He would not argue, he
would not talk freely. In his manner was something of the dogmatist.
What he could not correct, he would ignore. There was a tendency in him
to walk away from the impossible thing.
There was a time when he had been considerably enamoured of his
Jessica, especially when he was younger and more confined in his
success. Now, however, in her seventeenth year, Jessica had developed a
certain amount of reserve and independence which was not inviting to
the richest form of parental devotion. She was in the high school, and
had notions of life which were decidedly those of a patrician. She
liked nice clothes and urged for them constantly. Thoughts of love and
elegant individual establishments were running in her head. She met
girls at the high school whose parents were truly rich and whose
fathers had standing locally as partners or owners of solid businesses.
These girls gave themselves the airs befitting the thriving domestic
establishments from whence they issued. They were the only ones of the
school about whom Jessica concerned herself.
Young Hurstwood, Jr., was in his twentieth year, and was already
connected in a promising capacity with a large real estate firm. He
contributed nothing for the domestic expenses of the family, but was
thought to be saving his money to invest in real estate. He had some
ability, considerable vanity, and a love of pleasure that had not, as
yet, infringed upon his duties, whatever they were. He came in and went
out, pursuing his own plans and fancies, addressing a few words to his
mother occasionally, relating some little incident to his father, but
for the most part confining himself to those generalities with which
most conversation concerns itself. He was not laying bare his desires
for any one to see. He did not find any one in the house who
particularly cared to see.
Mrs. Hurstwood was the type of woman who has ever endeavoured to shine
and has been more or less chagrined at the evidences of superior
capability in this direction elsewhere. Her knowledge of life extended
to that little conventional round of society of which she was not—but
longed to be—a member. She was not without realisation already that
this thing was impossible, so far as she was concerned. For her
daughter, she hoped better things. Through Jessica she might rise a
little. Through George, Jr.’s, possible success she might draw to
herself the privilege of pointing proudly. Even Hurstwood was doing
well enough, and she was anxious that his small real estate adventures
should prosper. His property holdings, as yet, were rather small, but
his income was pleasing and his position with Fitzgerald and Moy was
fixed. Both those gentlemen were on pleasant and rather informal terms
with him.
The atmosphere which such personalities would create must be apparent
to all. It worked out in a thousand little conversations, all of which
were of the same calibre.
“I’m going up to Fox Lake to-morrow,” announced George, Jr., at the
dinner table one Friday evening.
“What’s going on up there?” queried Mrs. Hurstwood.
“Eddie Fahrway’s got a new steam launch, and he wants me to come up and
see how it works.”
“How much did it cost him?” asked his mother.
“Oh, over two thousand dollars. He says it’s a dandy.”
“Old Fahrway must be making money,” put in Hurstwood.
“He is, I guess. Jack told me they were shipping Vegacura to Australia
now—said they sent a whole box to Cape Town last week.”
“Just think of that!” said Mrs. Hurstwood, “and only four years ago
they had that basement in Madison Street.”
“Jack told me they were going to put up a six-story building next
spring in Robey Street.”
“Just think of that!” said Jessica.
On this particular occasion Hurstwood wished to leave early.
“I guess I’ll be going down town,” he remarked, rising.
“Are we going to McVicker’s Monday?” questioned Mrs. Hurstwood, without
rising.
“Yes,” he said indifferently.
They went on dining, while he went upstairs for his hat and coat.
Presently the door clicked.
“I guess papa’s gone,” said Jessica.
The latter’s school news was of a particular stripe.
“They’re going to give a performance in the Lyceum, upstairs,” she
reported one day, “and I’m going to be in it.”
“Are you?” said her mother.
“Yes, and I’ll have to have a new dress. Some of the nicest girls in
the school are going to be in it. Miss Palmer is going to take the part
of Portia.”
“Is she?” said Mrs. Hurstwood.
“They’ve got that Martha Griswold in it again. She thinks she can act.”
“Her family doesn’t amount to anything, does it?” said Mrs. Hurstwood
sympathetically. “They haven’t anything, have they?”
“No,” returned Jessica, “they’re poor as church mice.”
She distinguished very carefully between the young boys of the school,
many of whom were attracted by her beauty.
“What do you think?” she remarked to her mother one evening; “that
Herbert Crane tried to make friends with me.”
“Who is he, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Hurstwood.
“Oh, no one,” said Jessica, pursing her pretty lips. “He’s just a
student there. He hasn’t anything.”
The other half of this picture came when young Blyford, son of Blyford,
the soap manufacturer, walked home with her. Mrs. Hurstwood was on the
third floor, sitting in a rocking-chair reading, and happened to look
out at the time.
“Who was that with you, Jessica?” she inquired, as Jessica came
upstairs.
“It’s Mr. Blyford, mamma,” she replied.
“Is it?” said Mrs. Hurstwood.
“Yes, and he wants me to stroll over into the park with him,” explained
Jessica, a little flushed with running up the stairs.
“All right, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurstwood. “Don’t be gone long.”
As the two went down the street, she glanced interestedly out of the
window. It was a most satisfactory spectacle indeed, most satisfactory.
In this atmosphere Hurstwood had moved for a number of years, not
thinking deeply concerning it. His was not the order of nature to
trouble for something better, unless the better was immediately and
sharply contrasted. As it was, he received and gave, irritated
sometimes by the little displays of selfish indifference, pleased at
times by some show of finery which supposedly made for dignity and
social distinction. The life of the resort which he managed was his
life. There he spent most of his time. When he went home evenings the
house looked nice. With rare exceptions the meals were acceptable,
being the kind that an ordinary servant can arrange. In part, he was
interested in the talk of his son and daughter, who always looked well.
The vanity of Mrs. Hurstwood caused her to keep her person rather
showily arrayed, but to Hurstwood this was much better than plainness.
There was no love lost between them. There was no great feeling of
dissatisfaction. Her opinion on any subject was not startling. They did
not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point. In
the accepted and popular phrase, she had her ideas and he had his. Once
in a while he would meet a woman whose youth, sprightliness, and humour
would make his wife seem rather deficient by contrast, but the
temporary dissatisfaction which such an encounter might arouse would be
counterbalanced by his social position and a certain matter of policy.
He could not complicate his home life, because it might affect his
relations with his employers. They wanted no scandals. A man, to hold
his position, must have a dignified manner, a clean record, a
respectable home anchorage. Therefore he was circumspect in all he did,
and whenever he appeared in the public ways in the afternoon, or on
Sunday, it was with his wife, and sometimes his children. He would
visit the local resorts, or those near by in Wisconsin, and spend a few
stiff, polished days strolling about conventional places doing
conventional things. He knew the need of it.
When some one of the many middle-class individuals whom he knew, who
had money, would get into trouble, he would shake his head. It didn’t
do to talk about those things. If it came up for discussion among such
friends as with him passed for close, he would deprecate the folly of
the thing. “It was all right to do it—all men do those things—but why
wasn’t he careful? A man can’t be too careful.” He lost sympathy for
the man that made a mistake and was found out.
On this account he still devoted some time to showing his wife
about—time which would have been wearisome indeed if it had not been
for the people he would meet and the little enjoyments which did not
depend upon her presence or absence. He watched her with considerable
curiosity at times, for she was still attractive in a way and men
looked at her. She was affable, vain, subject to flattery, and this
combination, he knew quite well, might produce a tragedy in a woman of
her home position. Owing to his order of mind, his confidence in the
sex was not great. His wife never possessed the virtues which would win
the confidence and admiration of a man of his nature. As long as she
loved him vigorously he could see how confidence could be, but when
that was no longer the binding chain—well, something might happen.
During the last year or two the expenses of the family seemed a large
thing. Jessica wanted fine clothes, and Mrs. Hurstwood, not to be
outshone by her daughter, also frequently enlivened her apparel.
Hurstwood had said nothing in the past, but one day he murmured.
“Jessica must have a new dress this month,” said Mrs. Hurstwood one
morning.