Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"Una!" he said. "Don't you know me?"

"Yes, Jerry. Of course, but it seems so strange to see you—here—" She paused. "To see you down here—in the Bowery."

"It is, isn't it?" he stammered. "But I—I'll explain in a minute—if you'll let me walk with you."

She looked him over with a sober air, her gaze passing for a moment over his soft hat pulled down over the eyes, his rough clothing, the cigarette in his fingers (he hadn't really begun rigid training yet), and then shrugged.

"Of course, I can have no objection," she said coolly.

Jerry threw the cigarette away.

"I suppose you think it's very curious to see me down here at Finnegan's," Jerry repeated.

No reply.

"I've been there on—er—a matter of business—with—with Flynn. He's my athletic instructor, you know. It's a sort of secret. I—I'm supposed to belong up town."

"Oh, are you?" Still, I think, the cool, indifferent tone.

"You know I—I'm awfully glad to see you. I've been hunting for you ever since I came out of the—the asylum—you know."

It must have pleased her that Jerry should have remembered her phrase.

"Really!" her tone melting a little. "It's pleasant to be—remembered."

She turned and again searched him slowly with her gaze, smiling a little.

"How long have you been in New York?"

"Oh, ages—almost two months."

"And in that time," she said quizzically, "the Faun has learned the habit of saloons and cigarettes. You've progressed, haven't you?"

"Oh, I say, Una. That's not quite fair. I don't make a habit of saloons, and a cigarette once in a while doesn't hurt a fellow if his wind and heart are good."

"And are your wind and heart good?" she asked with her puzzling smile.

"Now you're making fun of me. You always did though, didn't you? You know it's awfully fine to hear you talk like that. Makes it seem as if we'd just met by the big rock on the Sweetwater. You remember, don't you?"

"Yes, I remember," she replied.

He eyed her sober little profile curiously. She seemed strangely demure.

"I don't think you're very glad to see me," he said. "I thought perhaps you would be. There were so many things that we began to talk about and didn't finish. I've thought about them a good deal. I really want to talk to you about them again. Couldn't we—er—go somewhere and—Have you had lunch yet? Can't we find a place to get a cup of tea?"

She turned toward him and their eyes met. When her gaze turned away from him she was smiling.

"Yes. I'd like a cup of tea," she said after a moment of deliberation.

He didn't very well know this part of the city, but he remembered a restaurant he had once gone to with Flynn, the very one, it seems, where I had taken refuge. And there they were, looking at each other across the table, the girl, as Jerry expressed it, a little demure, a little quizzical, possibly a little upon the defensive, but friendly enough. If she hadn't been friendly, he argued, most properly, she wouldn't have come with him.

"I can't seem to think it's really you," Jerry began after he had given his order. "You're different somehow—soberer and a little pale."

"Am I?"

"Yes, I can't think just how I expected you to look in New York. Of course, you wouldn't wear leather gaiters, or carry a butterfly net. There aren't any butterflies in the Bowery, are there?"

"No—no butterflies." She paused a moment. "Only moths with singed wings."

She examined him furtively, but he was frankly puzzled.

"Moths—! I don't think I understand."

"Yes—moths—I—I spend a good deal of my time at the Blank Street Mission."

"And what is that?"

She gazed for a moment at him wide-eyed.

"A home—a refuge," she went on haltingly, "for—for women in trouble. They're the moths—bewildered by the lights of the town—they—they singe their wings and then we try to help them."

"It's great of you, Una."

"And what do you do with your time?" she broke in quickly. "Whom have you met? Is the riddle of existence easier for you in New York than at Horsham Manor?"

"No," he blurted out. "I don't understand it at all. I'm always making the most absurd mistakes. I'm fearfully stupid. Do you ever use rouge, Una?"

The suddenness of the question took her aback, but in a second she was smiling in spite of herself.

"No, I don't, Jerry. But lots of girls do. It's the fashion."

"I know, but do you approve of it?"

"It's very effective if not overdone," she evaded.

"But do you approve of it?" he insisted.

"There's no harm in it, is there? I'd wear it if I wanted to."

"But you don't want to."

"No. Why do you want to know?"

But he didn't seem to hear her question.

"Do you drink cocktails? Or smoke cigarettes?"

"No. I don't like cocktails. Besides they're not served at the Mission. We think they might create false notions of the purposes of the organization."

He didn't laugh.

"But surely you smoke cigarettes!"

"No, I don't smoke. I don't like cigarettes."

"But if you liked them, would you smoke?" he questioned eagerly.

"What a funny boy you are! What difference does it make what I do or don't do?"

"Would you smoke, if you liked to?" he still insisted.

She was very much amused.

"How can I tell what I'd do if I liked to when I don't like to?"

"Do you approve of them then—for women, I mean?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just because I'd like to know what you think of such things—because you seem to me to be so calm, so sane in your point of view. You always impressed me that way—from the very first, even when you were making fun of me."

"Why do you think I'm sane?" she asked amusedly.

"Because there's no nonsense about you. There are a lot of things I'd like to talk to you about—things I don't quite understand—if you'd only let me see you."

"You're seeing me now, aren't you?"

"Yes. But I can't talk about them all—at once."

"You've made a pretty good start, I should say."

Jerry laughed. "I have, haven't I? That's the way I always do when I'm with you."

"Always?" she inquired, raising her brows with a show of dignity. "Do you realize that I have only met you once—twice before in my life—and then most informally?"

"I feel as if I'd known you always."

"But you haven't. And I'm beginning to think I don't know you at all."

"But you do, better than anybody almost. It was awfully good of you to come here with me today—after my meeting you the way I did. I ought to apologize. Girls don't like to go with fellows when they come out of saloons, but I wasn't drinking, you know."

"Oh, weren't you?"

"No," he said hastily. And then to cover a possible misconception of his meaning, "But of course I would drink, if I wanted to. I don't see any difference between having a drink at Finnegan's and having it in a club uptown."

She regarded him for a moment in silence and then,

"You do belong to some of the clubs, then?"

"Oh, yes. The Cosmos, the Butterfly and several others—" He broke off with a laugh. "You see, I'm supposed to be something of a swell"—

"You don't look much of a swell today," she said with a glance at his clothes. "And Finnegan's, though exclusive for the Bowery, is hardly what might be called smart. I am curious, Jerry. Curiosity is one of my besetting sins—otherwise I'd never have gotten inside your wall. I've been wondering what on earth you could have been doing in Finnegan's saloon."

Jerry sipped at his tea and was silent. The girl's eyes still questioned good-humoredly and then, still smiling, looked away. But Jerry would not speak. A coward she had once called him. Was it that he feared her sober judgment of this wild plan of his? Did he see something hazardous in the conservatism of her calm slate-blue eyes that would put his new mode of thought, his new habit of mind to tests which they might not survive?

"I—I said it was on business of Flynn's," he evaded at last. "He's a very good friend of mine. It wouldn't interest you in the least, you know," he finished lamely.

"Possibly not," she said calmly. "I hope you'll forgive my impertinence."

He felt the change in her tone and was up in arms at once. "Don't talk in that way, Una. I'd let you know if there was any possible use." He paused and then decidedly, "But there isn't, you see. Won't you take my word for it?"

She laughed at his serious demeanor.

"You know I am a curious creature, unduly so about this. But you do seem a little like the Caliph in the Arabian Nights, or Prince Florizel in London. You aren't a second-story man, are you? Or a member of a suicide club?"

He gazed at her in perplexity and then laughed. "You're just as real as ever, aren't you?"

"Real! I should hope so. But you aren't. The first time I see you, you're a woodland philosopher, living on berries and preaching in the wilderness; the second time, you're merely a caged enthusiast without a mission; the third time you're Haroun al Raschid, smoking cigarettes at Finnegan's. I wonder what you're going to be next."

He felt the light sting of irony, but her humor disarmed him.

"I'm not going to be anything else," he said slowly. "And I'm not an enthusiast without a mission. I may have been then, but I'm not now. You don't just understand. I'm pretty busy in a way, learning the ropes, business, social and all the rest of them, but I'm not idle. I'm learning something all the time, Una, and I'm going to try to help—I can, too."

"Do you really mean that?" she asked incredulously when he paused.

"Yes, I mean it. I want to try to help right away, if you'll let me. See here, Una—" He leaned across the table in a sudden burst of enthusiasm. "I don't want you to think that I've ever said anything I don't mean. I said up there at Horsham Manor that I wanted to help you in your work, and I'm going to prove it to you that whatever your doubts of me I haven't changed my purposes. You didn't believe me when I said I'd been hunting for you. You don't have to, if you don't want to, but you'll have to believe me now when I tell you that I want to set aside a fund for you to use—to administer yourself. Oh, you needn't be surprised. I've got more money than I know what to do with. It's rotting in a bank—piling up. I don't want it. I don't need it, and I want you to take some of it right away and put it where it will do the most good. You've got to take it—you've got to, if only to prove that you don't believe me insincere. I'm going to start giving money now and if you don't help me I'll have to ask somebody else. I'd rather have you do it, personally, than work through some big charity organization, that would spend seven or eight dollars, in overhead charges, before they could distribute one. That kind of charity is all very well and does fine work, I suppose, but I want to feel that I'm helping personally—directly. I'll want to pitch in down here some day and do what I can myself. You've got to do it, Una—let me give you some money to start with right away, won't you?"

He paused breathless awaiting her reply. Her face was turned toward me during the whole of Jerry's rather long speech and I watched the play of emotion upon her features. She had been prepared, I suppose, from the appearance of Jerry's companions at Finnegan's, to find her woodland idyl shattered, and she followed Jerry word by word through his boyish outburst, incredulously at first, then earnestly and then eagerly. She had an unusually expressive countenance and the transition I observed was the more illuminating in the light of my previous knowledge of their acquaintance. Jerry was enthroned again, panoplied in virtues.

"You almost take my breath way," she said at last. "It's very bewildering," she smiled. "But are you sure you're—" she paused. "I mean, isn't there someone else to be consulted?"

"No," he cried, I think a little triumphantly. "No one, I'm my own master. I can do as I please. How much do you want, Una? Would five thousand help? Five thousand right away? And then five thousand more the first of each month?"

She started back in her chair and gazed at him in an expression of mingled incredulity and dismay.

"Five thou—!"

"And five thousand a month," Jerry repeated firmly.

"You can't mean—"

"I do. See here. I'll show you."

He felt in his pockets, I suppose for his check-book,—but could not find it. Naturally! It evidently wasn't a habit of the pugilist Robinson to carry about in his hand-me-down suit a check-book carrying a bank balance of forty or fifty thousand dollars. He was rather put out at not finding it and felt that she must still consider his magnificent offer somewhat doubtfully.

"Well, I'll send it to you tomorrow. You'll see if I don't."

The boy was uppermost in him now and I saw the gay flash of her eye which recognized it—the enthusiast of Horsham Manor who wanted to help cure the "plague spots."

"I knew it," she laughed at him. "I knew you'd be somebody else if I only waited long enough. Now you're Prester John and Don Quixote rolled into one. You propose by the simple process of financing the operation to turn our slums into Happy Valleys, our missions into gardens of resurrection. It's a very beautiful purpose, Jerry, quite worthy of your colorful imagination, but the modern philanthropist doesn't wed his Danae with a shower of gold. He's discovered that it's very likely to turn her head."

"But if it's wisely given—" he put in peevishly.

"Oh, wisely! That's just the point."

"It ought not to be so difficult."

She smiled at him soberly.

"Charity isn't merely giving money, Jerry," she said. "Money sometimes does more harm than good."

"I can't see that."

"It's quite true. We try to keep people from being dependent. What you propose is a kind of philanthropic chaos. If I used your money as freely as you would like, it wouldn't be long before half the people in my district would be living on you—giving nothing—no effort, no work, no self-respect in return. You don't mind if I say so, but that sort of thing isn't charity, Jerry. It's merely sentimental tomfoolery which might by accident do some good, but would certainly do much harm."

Jerry's eyes opened wide as he listened. She was frank enough, but I couldn't help admitting to myself that she was quite wise. Jerry was discovering that it wasn't so easy to help as he had supposed. Whatever he may have thought of her theories of social science, he made no comment upon them.

"Then you won't let me help you?" he asked quite meekly, for Jerry.

"Oh, no," she smiled coolly. "I didn't say that. I was merely trying to show you what the difficulties are. We're very glad to get voluntary contributions when we're sure just what we can do with them. I know of several cases now—"

"Yes," eagerly. "Whatever you need—"

"But five thousand—"

"Couldn't you use it?" eagerly.

She paused and then smiled brightly across the table at him.

"I'll try to, Jerry."

"And the five thousand a month?" he urged. "Oh, you don't know, Una. It isn't a third of my income even now and later I've got more—so much that I'm sick thinking of it. You've got to use it, somehow. If you can't help the women, use it on the men, or the children—"

"We might add a day nursery—" she murmured thoughtfully.

"Yes, that's it—a day nursery—wonderful thing—a day nursery. Add two of 'em. You must. You've got to plan; and if your organization isn't big enough to handle it, you must get the right people to help you."

He reached across the table, upsetting a teacup, and seized her hands in both of his. "Oh, you will, Una, won't you?"

She withdrew her hands gently and looked at him, on her lips a queer little crooked smile.

"What are you now? The philosopher, the enthusiast or the Caliph? You're very insistent, aren't you? I think you must be the Caliph—or the Grand Cham!"

"Then you agree?" he cried.

"I'll try," she said quietly.

Jerry gave a great gasp. "By Jove," he said with a boyish laugh. "I can't tell you what a relief it is to get this off my mind. I know I ought to be down here helping, but I—I can't just now. Uncle Jack—that's Ballard Junior—says I've got a place in the world to keep up and a lot of rubbish about—"

"That's very right and proper—of course," she said, gathering up her gloves.

He noted the motion.

"Oh, don't go yet, Una. There are a lot of things I'd like to ask you."

"I think I will have to go."

"But you'll let me see you and talk to you about things, won't you?"

"Of course, I'll have to make an accounting of your money—"

"Oh, yes—the check. You'll get it tomorrow."

"But, Jerry—"

"Your address, please," he insisted with a stern and business-like air.

The moment was propitious. They would certainly see me when they got up, so when their heads were bent together over the slip of paper the waiter brought, I quietly rose and, braving detection, went out of the door.

CHAPTER XIV

JERRY GOES INTO TRAINING

Outside the restaurant I changed my plans. I decided not to go to Flynn's that afternoon, for I wanted Jerry to understand how little I was in sympathy with his prize fight. And after the first day he no longer insisted on my going with him. But he came to Ballard's apartment and we had several talks in which, after one final and fruitless effort to dissuade him from his fight, I gave up and we talked of other things.

It was not necessary for me to tell Jerry that I had overheard his interview with Una Habberton. And when he spoke of the incident, I encouraged him to talk until I learned just how much—and how little—the meeting meant to him. The impression, the rather unique impression she had first made upon the clean, fair surface of his mind, remained indelibly printed: the first female creature he had seen and talked with, a youthful being, like himself, with whom he could talk as he talked with me, without care or restraint,—a creature of ideals, humor, and a fine feeling for human companionship which she did not hesitate to share; a friend like Skookums or me, but of an infinitely finer grain, with a gentler voice, a smoother skin and softer eyes, better to look at; in short, more agreeable, more surprising, more sympathetic, more appealing. This chance meeting, I think, merely confirmed the previous impression, reasserting an early conception of femininity with which the charms of Marcia Van Wyck could have nothing in common. He must have compared them, but with different standards of comparison, for each in Jerry's mind was sui generis. The glamour of Marcia, her perfumes, her artistry, the lure of her voice and eyes, her absorbing abstractions and sudden enthusiasms—how could Una's quaint transitions compare with such as these? And yet I am sure that he judged Una Habberton not unfavorably in Marcia's reflected glamour, for he spoke of the character in her hands (thinking of Marcia's rosy nails) and the radiancy of her smile (thinking of Marcia's red lips). And whatever he may have thought of her personal pulchritude or the quiet magnetism of her friendliness, there was no room in his mind just now for the merely spiritual. If Una had a place in his heart, it was where the ebb and flow were quiet, not in the mid-stream of hot blood. But Jerry kept his word. His check for Una's day nursery went forward on the day following their meeting and Jerry found time in the intervals between Marcia, business and the gymnasium to call upon Una and talk over in a general way the great project in which their interest was involved. I heard little of these few meetings, for after a short visit with Ballard, during which we discussed Jerry's plans in despair, I went back to the Manor to resume my much neglected work.

It was now March. I missed Jerry as I knew I should miss him always at this season when it had been our custom to fare forth in search of woodland adventure and the early signs of spring. I wondered if Jerry in the city could be feeling the call of the wanderlust as I did. I managed to work a few hours of each day, but my habit of concentration seemed to fail me, and my thoughts kept recurring unpleasantly to the ruin Jerry was courting both for his reputation and his spirit. Clean as he was, he couldn't play too long with pitch and not be defiled. I heard one day that Briar Hills had just been opened and I pricked up my ears. Aha! It couldn't be long now before the bird would come homing.

The notice of this home-coming reached me in the form of a wire.

"Will arrive with party tomorrow. Have six bedrooms prepared for guests. Will explain when I see you."

Six bedrooms! A house party—in the very midst of his training! I couldn't understand. A fine hope surged in me. A house party—guests! Could it be that something had happened to change his plans? Had he given up his bout with Clancy? I could hardly restrain my impatience and tried to get Jack Ballard on the telephone. He had left town. It was very curious; for somewhere in me vague misgivings stirred. What if—!

The morrow brought the painful solution of my uncertainties. For toward four o'clock of the afternoon there was a roaring of automobiles in the drive which brought me to the study window, from which vantage point I saw Jerry dismounting from the car in front with three other men, Flynn, Christopher and a large colored man, while from the other car, a hired machine, by the look of it, four other figures descended—all unloading suit-cases upon the terrace steps—a motley crowd in flannel shirts and sweaters, with cropped heads, thick necks and red hands, all talking loudly and staring up at the towers of the house as though they expected them to fall on them. This then was Jerry's house-party—! Thugs, cut-throats, apaches—his pugilist friends from Flynn's!

"This then was Jerry's house-party—!"

Jerry hurried along the terrace and met me at the hall door, where he burst into unseemly laughter. I suppose at the expression of dismay which must have been written upon my countenance. He seized me by both hands and led me indoors.

"There wasn't any use wiring you the truth, Roger. I didn't want to make you unhappy any sooner than I had to. Are you upset?"

"Nothing can ever upset me again," I said with dignity. "It's your house. I can move out."

"But you won't, Roger," he clapped an arm around my shoulders and walked me into the study. "We're not going to bother you. But we just had to get away from town for some road work—and it's devilish conspicuous anywhere near the city, people watching, reporters and all that sort of thing."

He turned, for the dismayed servants had come out and stood in a row in the hall aghast at the appearance of the visitors who stood awkwardly shifting their feet in the main doorway, their suit-cases and bundles in their arms, awaiting directions.

"Take those things upstairs—show 'em, Christopher," says Jerry. "You show 'em to their rooms, Poole. And when you're washed up, Flynn, come down here again."

Over his shoulder I watched the hulking devils go past in sheepish single file with furtive glances at me. When they had passed out of sight, Jerry explained rapidly.

"You see, Roger, we had to do it. There was no other way. I needed some running badly and there wasn't a chance for it—without the whole thing coming out in the papers."

I smiled ironically. "And you think you've chosen a way to avoid publicity by bringing these"—I restrained myself with difficulty—"these gentlemen here? Don't you know that every paper in New York will have a man here writing the thing up?"

"No, they won't. They can't get in. I stopped at the Lodge as I came by and gave my orders."

"But they'll know that Jim Robinson and Jerry Benham are the same."

Jerry winked an eye and laid a finger along his nose.

"No, they won't, old Dry-as-dust, for the very simple reason that he isn't."

"I don't understand."

"Well, you see, I'm Jim Robinson and you are Jerry Benham."

"I!" I gasped.

"Precisely. You are Jerry Benham, patron of the manly art—Mæcenas, friend and backer of Robinson aforesaid, whom you've invited to Horsham Manor to complete his training."

"Preposterous! These—these bruisers" (I let go now) "think I'm you?"