Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"How old were you?"

"Older than you Jerry—and wiser."

He was silent. Once I thought he was about to speak, but he refrained, and when he deftly turned the topic, I knew that any chance I might have had to help him had passed. I understood, of course, and I could not help respecting his delicacy. Jerry was in for some hard knocks, I feared, harder ones than Clancy had given him.

He went to bed presently and I sat by the lamp alternately reading and thinking of Jerry, comparing him with myself in that long-distant romance of my own. They were not unlike, these two women, pretty little self-worshipers, born to deceit and chicanery, with clever talents for concealing their ignorance, hiding the emptiness of their hearts with pretty tricks of coquetry. But Marcia was the more dangerous, a clean body and an unclean mind. A half-virgin! I would have given much to know what had recently passed between Marcia and Jerry. If there was any way to bring about a disillusionment—

As though in answer to my enigma, at this moment Christopher came down from Jerry's room on his way below stairs. I stopped him and taking him into my study closed the door.

"You're very fond of Master Jerry, Christopher?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Canby."

"So am I, Christopher. I think you know that, don't you?"

"Why, yes, sir. You've been a father to 'im, sir. Nobody knows that better than me, sir."

"We'd both go through fire and water for him, wouldn't we, Christopher?"

"Oh, yes, sir; an' if you please, sir, what with these prize fighters at the Manor an' all, I rather think we 'ave, sir."

I smiled.

"A bad business, but over for good, I think, Christopher. But there are other things, worse in a way—"

I paused, scrutinizing the man's homely, impassive face.

"Did Master Jerry do much drinking before he went into training, Christopher?"

"A little, what any gentleman would, out in the world, sir."

"You've noticed it since the fight?"

He hesitated. Loyalty was bred in his bone.

"Yes, sir."

"You know, Christopher, that I've spent my life trying to make Jerry a fine man?"

"You 'ave, sir. It's a pity—the—the drink. But it can't 'ave much of a 'old on 'im yet, sir."

"Then you have noticed?"

"Yes, sir."

"When did he begin?"

He paused a moment.

"I think it was the day after the fight, that very night, to be hexact, sir."

"I see. The night after the fight. He spent the evening out and when he came home, was he intoxicated?"

"Not then, no, sir. But 'e'd been drinkin', just mildly lit—in a manner o' speakin' sir, not drunk, but gay and kind o' sarcastic-like; not like Master Jerry 'imself, sir."

"Had he been with some other gentlemen during the evening?"

"No, sir. 'E 'ad been callin' on a lady, but stopped at 'is club on the way around—"

"What lady?"

"I—I—"

"You may speak freely, Christopher. Miss Van Wyck?"

"I—I think so, sir. They 'ad an appointment."

"I see. And did he drink again that night?"

"A few brandies—yes, sir. Ye see, sir, it got to him quick-like—breakin' training so suddent."

"I understand. And you put him to bed."

"Yes, sir, in a manner o' speakin' I did, sir."

"When did you notice his drinking again?"

"Not for some days, sir."

"And what then?"

"The same thing happened again, sir."

"I see." I paced the floor silently, my inclination to question further struggling against my sense of the fitness of things. Was not Christopher, after all, a friend as well as a servant, a well-tried friend of Jerry's clan? "Did you connect the fact of Master Jerry's drinking with his visits to the lady I have mentioned, Christopher?" I asked in a moment.

He paused a moment scratching his head in perplexity, and then blurted forth without reserve.

"I'm glad you've spoken, Mr. Canby. I'm not given to talkin' over Master Jerry's private affairs, sir, but it's all in the family, like, though I wouldn't 'ave Master Jerry know—"

"Master Jerry will not know."

"Well, Mr. Canby, if you'd ask my hopinion, sir, I'd say that this young lady—sayin' no names, sir—is doin' no good to Master Jerry. She's always got 'im fussed, sir, an' irritable. 'E's not like 'imself—not like 'imself at all, sir. Why, Mr. Canby, I'm not the kind as listens behind keyholes, sir, but one night last week when she comes to the 'ouse in New York to visit 'im—"

"Ah, she came to the house?"

"Yes, sir, alone, sir, at night; a most unproper thing for a nice girl to do, sir, if I must say it, Mr. Canby. I couldn't 'elp 'earin' in the next room, or seein' for the matter of that. Master Jerry is out of 'is 'ead about 'er, an' no mistake, sir. I could 'ear 'is voice soft-like an she indifferent, leadin' 'im on, a-playin' with 'im, sir. Seemed to me like she was sweet an' mad-like by turns. She's a strange one, Mr. Canby, an' if the matter goes no further I'd like to say, sir, that I've no fancy for such doin's in a lady."

"Nor I, Christopher. You heard what she said?"

"I couldn't 'elp, some of it. 'Twas about the fight, sir. 'But you lost,' says she again and again when 'e speaks to 'er soft-like. 'You lost. You let that ugly gorilla'—them's 'er words, sir, speakin' o' Clancy—'you let that gorilla beat you, you, my fightin' god.' I remember the words, sir, 'er hexact words, sir, she said them again and again. Queer talk for a drawin' room, Mr. Canby, in a lady's mouth, an' Master Jerry talkin' low all the time and tellin' her he loved 'er—not darin' even to touch 'er 'and, sir, an' lookin' at her pleadin' like; 'im with his soft eyes, 'im with 'is great strength an' manhood, like a child before 'er, not even touchin' 'er, sir, with 'er temptin' and tantalizing." He broke off with a shrug. "'Tis a queer world, sir, where them that calls themselves ladies comes a visitin' gentlemen alone at night, an' goes away clean with a laugh on their lips. A gentleman Master 'Jerry is, sir, too good for the likes o' her." The man paused and looked toward the door with a startled air. "I 'ave no business sayin' what's in my mind, even to you, Mr. Canby. You'll not tell 'im, sir?"

"No. I'm glad you've spoken. You've said nothing of this—to anyone?"

"I'd cut my tongue out first, sir," he muttered, wagging his head.

I led the way to the door and opened it.

"I like her no better than you, Christopher. Something must be done—something—It's too bad—"

"Good night, sir," he said.

"Good night, Christopher."

CHAPTER XVIII

TWO EMBASSIES

There was something particularly brutal to me in hearing this estimate of Marcia Van Wyck's visit to Jerry through the lips of a servant. And yet I felt no remorse at encouraging the confession. Good Christopher was not brilliant, and only the most obvious of things impressed him, but he had seen, and like me, had judged. And his judgment was even more damning than mine, for Christopher was an amicable person, who doddered along, accepting life as it came, too weary for enmities, or too well trained to show them. It must have been at the cost of a severe wrench to his habits and traditions that he had dared to speak so freely. Good old Christopher! Ten years of the monastic life had narrowed your vision and mine, but they had made that vision singularly clear.

During that night in my hours of wakefulness before sleep came, I studied Jerry's infatuation from every angle. I feared for him. The moment of awakening was approaching, and then? Whatever the hidden weaknesses in his moral fiber, thus suddenly subjected to strain, he was not one to be lightly dealt with by man or woman. He was gentle, soft, if you please, childlike with those he loved, but there was dangerous mettle in him not to be tampered with by trickery or guile. Christopher had shown me with his uncompromising bluntness what I had merely suspected; the girl loved danger and saw it in Jerry's eyes, fascinated by the imminence of peril that lurked in his innocence. A strange passion, calculating, cold, abnormal. And Jerry loved this girl—adored her, as though she were a sacred vessel, a fragile thing, that would break in his fingers! I began to hope that he would break her (and to fear it), crush her and discover her emptiness.

The morrow brought a resolve to visit Briar Hills. Except for the afternoons when Jerry fished, he went there daily. He was delighted at my wish to accompany him. We drove over in the motor in the flush of the afternoon, Jerry blithe again, I silent, wondering at the inexhaustible springs of youth, forgetting that it was merely May and Jerry on his way to the woman he loved.

The house was full of guests for the week-end, but Marcia Van Wyck, with an air of hospitality that quite took me aback, welcomed me warmly, confessed herself much honored by this mark of my attention and took me to see her garden. Oh, she was clever. Spring flowers, youth, grace, the sweetness of the warm, scented paths, her symbolic white frock to set the scene for innocence. But I understood her now. Two could play at her game.

"It was wonderful of you to come, Mr. Canby," she purred. "So kind, so neighborly."

"It's really a great pleasure, I'm sure," I said with a show of gallantry. "A lovely spot! Blossoms. I wondered where you got them for your cheeks."

She flashed a quick glance at me, wholly humorous.

"For that speech, you shall have a bud for your lapel." And she plucked and fastened it, her face very close to mine. She gave me a moment of intense discomfort which was only half embarrassment. She had planned well. She was a part of the purity and sweetness of this lovely summer garden. Guile and she were miles asunder.

"Thanks," I muttered, smelling the blossom with some ostentation.

"Then we're going to be friends?" she queried archly.

"I'm not aware that we were ever anything else," I replied easily.

"Come now, Mr. Canby. You know we haven't always understood each other. I'm sure each of us has been frightfully jealous of the other. Isn't it so?"

"Jealous! I? Of you, Miss Van Wyck?"

"Don't let's misunderstand again. I'm frightfully cheerful this afternoon. It mightn't happen again for weeks. I couldn't quarrel with fate itself. You did want Jerry to carry your doctrines out into the world with him, didn't you?"

"I'm not aware—"

"And I discovered him far too stodgy to endure. It wasn't so much that your philosophy and mine differed as the difference they made in Jerry. And so we clashed. I won."

I was silent.

"Didn't I, Mr. Canby?" she persisted, in her gentlest tone.

"Jerry is out of my hands, Miss Van Wyck," I managed coolly.

"And in mine?"

"Yes, in yours," after a pause.

She laughed softly.

"What do you suppose I'm going to do with him?"

The glamour of youth in a garden, her rare humor and the cloudless day—I had managed well so far, but she pressed me hard. Jerry was no chattel to be bandied carelessly. I felt my body stiffening.

"Jerry is very sweet, Mr. Canby," she went on with that softness of voice that I had grown to understand. "He does anything, everything that I ask him to. It really is a great responsibility. Human judgment is so fallible, especially a woman's. Suppose I asked him to become a nihilist or President, or even both."

D– the vixen. She was making game of me. But I struggled to hold my temper, taking her literally.

"Nihilism? Political or moral, Miss Van Wyck? To one of your means, the first would be inconvenient; to one of your affections, the other dangerous."

She flashed a narrow glance at me. "Touchée. I like the thrust from cover, but I can parry. Suppose that I said that I would relinquish Jerry."

"I'm not sure that you can," I replied coolly.

Our glances met again. She knew that I read her.

"Nothing is impossible to intelligence. I could send him away tomorrow, today—"

"But he would come back."

"You frighten me," she said, shuddering prettily.

"That is precisely what I wish to do," I went on stolidly.

"Threats!"

I shrugged. "You underestimate him, that's all."

"Perhaps. You know, Mr. Canby, that you improve vastly on acquaintance. If you were younger—" She paused and looked at me slantwise.

"Ingenuous, handsome, a fighting god—!"

I could have bitten out my tongue the moment I had spoken the words, and the dark look she shot at me as she flashed around gave a measure of her latent deviltry.

"Jerry told you that!" she said in tones half-suppressed.

"No."

"He did."

"No. But I know. I haven't watched for a month for nothing. I'm not a child, Miss Van Wyck."

"What are you?" she taunted.

"A prophet. Jerry is no woman's plaything. Let him be. You don't know him as I do. I warn you."

She suddenly went into a fit of laughter, meant to ruffle my dignity.

"Off with my head! If you knew how much you remind me of the Queen in 'Alice in Wonderland'!"

"I'm sorry you won't take me seriously."

"I can't," she laughed again. "You're too absurd to be tragic."

"Perhaps we had better be going toward the house," I remarked.

She moved slowly along, her back eloquent of disdain. But she paused for a moment to let me join her.

"You see? I've tried. You won't be friendly."

"My advice is friendly—"

"I never follow advice. We're enemies. It is written."

I shrugged. Impolite I may have been, but there was no use mincing matters. My preposterous embassy had failed. As we neared the house she left me on the lawn and turned to where Jerry and the others were moving toward the tennis courts.

"You'll find Miss Gore upon the veranda," she smiled over her shoulder with careless gayety. She was extraordinary. But I'm sure that never before had I hated the girl as at that moment. Thoughtfully I made my way to the veranda and Miss Gore.

"Well," she said cheerfully as I sank into a chair, "you are friends again?"

"No."

"It's really too bad. I think you take life too seriously, Mr. Canby."

"Perhaps." I remained silent. She worked at her embroidery frame for a moment as though to attune herself to my mood and then:

"Briar Hills can't hope for a visit which hasn't an ulterior purpose. What is it?"

As usual she wasted no words and smiled benignly, a comfortable motherly smile at once quizzical and forgiving.

"I did want to see you," I put in awkwardly. "It has been a long time—"

"I'll spare you the necessity for explanations. You're here to tell me that Jerry is drinking and to find out why. Isn't that so?"

I could only stare at her in wonder at her intuitions, and made some remark which she chose to disregard.

"As I predicted, the disease is passing," she said quietly, "but it's leaving Marcia first. Three weeks ago Jerry was a god to Marcia. Last week she showed signs of disenchantment. This week she is plainly bored."

"I guessed as much. But why?"

She shrugged her shoulders expressively, but having gone so far I was not there to waste words.

"I know. Her idol fell in Madison Square Garden, a bone-and-muscle idol, Miss Gore."

She remained silent, examining her embroidery with a critical eye.

"You know that that is true," I asserted.

"Idols are as easily made as shattered for Marcia. She may adore him again next week."

"I hope not. It would be a pity."

"I agree with you," she said quietly. "It would be a pity."

I said nothing for a moment, watching her slim fingers weaving to and fro.

"I have just warned her," I said.

The fingers moved slowly, then stopped and lowered the embroidery frame to her lap. Her wide gaze was full upon me.

"You—what?"

"I warned her."

"Against what?"

"Against Jerry."

She straightened and a sound came from her throat.

"You—"

She gave a short laugh. "You'll pardon me, Mr. Canby, but I was on the point of calling you a fool."

"I warned her," I muttered. "Jerry isn't like other men. She's playing with fire."

"And don't you know that that is the very worst thing you could have done, for Jerry—for her?"

"I hadn't meant to do exactly that. She angered me."

"She would. Her idea of existence isn't yours. And if you don't mind my saying so, I think you're wasting your time on the possible chance of making Jerry appear ridiculous to her, to us all. Your guardianship is hardly flattering to his intelligence or his character. You can't help matters. Whatever the crisis, it is bound to come, the sooner the better for Jerry and for her. My good man, can't you see?"

I had realized my futility already, and it was not pleasant to have it shown me through another's eyes. Nor did I relish her calling me her "good man," but curiously enough when she had finished I made no reply. And so I sat meekly, Miss Gore resuming her embroidery.

"It is a pity that he cares for no other girls. There's Margaret Laidlaw, pretty, attractive, feminine, and Sarah Carew, handsome, sportive, masculine. One would think he'd find a choice between them and they both like him. But no, he has eyes in his head for Marcia only. A moment ago when he was talking to them, his gaze was on the flower-garden. Has he never cared for any other women? Who was the girl who got inside the wall last year, Mr. Canby?"

Una! I had forgotten her. But I shook my head.

"I meddle no more, Miss Gore. I've learned a lesson. Jerry must work out his own salvation."

"It's merely a suggestion. Think it over."

After awhile I rose, pleading the need of exercise and begging her to make my excuses to Marcia, I set out for the Manor. But instead of taking the longer road to the lodge gate, when I reached the wall I turned to the left into the footpath along which I had come that night with the girl Una, reaching the Sweetwater and crawling under the broken grille to the rocks where she and Jerry had met. I sat for awhile on the brink of the stream, watching the tangling reflections in the tiny current. Una! Somehow the place reminded me of Una Habberton, a sanctuary for quiet thoughts; the pools below me, her eyes reflecting the clear heavens; the intonation of the rill, her voice; the cheerful birdnotes, her joy of life; the dignity of the tall trees, her sanity. Less than a year ago I had turned her out of this garden, fearing for the boy the first woman he had seen, and to my ascetic mind because a woman, a minx. I eyed the broken grille regretfully and then suddenly rose and started hurriedly toward the Manor, the new thought drumming in my mind.

A fool's mission? Perhaps, and yet I resolved to take it. I put some things into a bag and, telling Christopher that Jerry wasn't to expect me home that night, I caught an evening train to the city.

It was not difficult to reach her by telephone, for I found her at the house in Washington Square. She did not recall my voice or my name, and only when I said that I had been Jerry Benham's tutor, did she remember. It was a personal matter, I explained, having to do with Mr. Benham, and at that she consented to see me. I left the telephone booth at the hotel perspiring freely, aware for the first time of the awkwardness and delicacy of my undertaking. But I dined and changed into my blue serge suit, one that I had bought upon the occasion of my last visit to town, and at half past eight presented myself in the Habberton drawing-room. In the moments before she appeared, I sat ill at ease, my eyes taking in every detail of the well-ordered room, the cool gray walls, the family portraits, the old-fashioned ornaments upon table and mantel, aware, in spite of myself, that I was warm at the collar, impatient for the interview to begin, yet fearful for it.

I was watching the folding doors at the end of the room when she startled me by appearing silently almost at my elbow. The lights were dim, but I could see that her face wore no smile of greeting and as I rose she did not offer me her hand.

"Mr. Canby," she said politely, indicating a chair, "won't you sit down?"

"Er—thanks," I said. My throat was dry. I hoped she would not make it too difficult for me. Meanwhile I saw her eyeing me narrowly as though the possibility had just occurred to her that I might have come to ask for money. She waited a moment for me to speak, but I found it difficult to begin.

"Mr. Benham sent you to me?" she asked at last very coolly.

"Er—not exactly," I stammered. "Mr. Benham did not send me, but I—I'm here in his interest."

"Yes?"

The rising inflection on the monosyllable could hardly have been called encouraging.

"The circumstance of our first meeting," I ventured again with an assumption of ease that I was far from feeling—"its duration was so brief that I feared you wouldn't remember me."

Her neck stiffened ever so slightly.

"You surely did not come here," she said icily, "merely to discuss the circumstances of our first meeting."

"N—no, not at all, at least, not altogether, Miss Habberton. But I—I couldn't help hoping—" here I tried to smile—a ghastly one at best—"I couldn't help hoping that you had managed to forgive me for performing a very unpleasant duty."

"If you will please come as quickly as possible to the object of your visit—"

"I—I will. If you'll be a little patient with me."

She averted her head, but said nothing.

"I think you know, Miss Habberton, that I've given the last eleven years of my life to Jerry. He has been like a younger brother to me and I have done what I could to develop him physically, mentally, morally, to successful manhood. I had hoped under ideal conditions to produce—"

"I fail to see, Mr. Canby—"

"Please bear with me a moment longer. I think you may have realized last year what Jerry was. You saw him then, a creature with the body and intelligence of a man and the heart of a child. He was what I had made him. From my point of view he was flawless, as nearly perfect as you will find a man in this—"

"Without temptations," she put in quickly, the first encouraging sign of her interest.

"I had built my hopes as I had built his body and mind and character, sure that contact with the world would only refine and strengthen him."

She shook her head. "You do not know the world as I do. It was a dream. I could have told you so then, last summer."

"You—you have seen the papers—the accounts of—?"

"I don't see how I could very well help seeing them," she said smiling. "He began his battle with the world bravely at least."

"My only hope is that you haven't misjudged him in that affair. All his life he has cared for boxing—"

"I can't see what difference my judgment of him can make one way or the other. He has done much, is doing much for the people I'm interested in. Of course, you know of that. But as to his private life—that is something with which, of course, I can have no concern."

"I am sorry to hear you say that. I thought perhaps that as a friend—"

"Mr. Benham understands my interest in him, I think," she paused and averted her head, one small foot tapping the floor impatiently. "I cannot see where this conversation is leading us. I beg that you will be explicit."

"I was counting on your interest, for he values your good opinion more I think than that of anyone in the world."

Her foot ceased tapping and she bent forward, one elbow on her knee, her head lowered thoughtfully.

"What do you want, Mr. Canby?" she asked abruptly.

"Your help."

"Mine!"

"Yes, your help. Jerry needs it—"

"He did not ask—?"

"No. I haven't consulted Jerry—"

"Then I—"

"Please listen. If Jerry's future means anything to you, you will do what you can. Jerry has—has gotten into bad company—he is slipping, Miss Habberton—slipping down. I don't know whose the fault is, his father's for his idealism, or mine for my selfish delight in the experiment of his education, but Jerry is failing us. You see, I'm telling you all. I have given up. A dream, you have called it. It was a dream; but I can't see him fail without an effort to help him. When a man centers all his hopes in life on one ambition, its failure is tragic. You see I'm humble. It has cost me something to come to you. I hope you understand what it means."

My appeal had reached her, for I think she realized how seldom such a person as I could be moved to emotion.

"But I—how can I help?" she asked.

"Will you listen and not think me visionary? Jerry cares for you. To him you have made a different appeal from that of any other woman in the world. You were the first. You stirred him. You may not be aware. In his mind you stand for everything that is clean and noble. In his heart, I know—I have not studied Jerry all these years for nothing—he has a shrine there—for you, Miss Habberton. You will always be Una, the first. I hope you will forgive me and believe me. It is necessary that you should."