Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"I suppose you're right," he muttered.

"Jerry," she went on rapidly, and I think with a twinkle of mischief in her eye, "all of us have streaks of other people in us. I have, lots of 'em. Sometimes I wonder which part of me is other people and which is me. I think you've even got more different kinds of people in you than I have. Students, philosophers, woodsmen, prize fighters—"

"Una!"

"I must. Everything, almost everything you've been and done I like except—"

"Oh, don't Una—"

"I've got to. You wanted to clear things up between us. That's one of the things we've got to clear up. I don't understand the psychology of the prize ring and I'm not sure that I'd care to understand it. I know that you are strong in body. You should be glad of that, but not so glad as to be vain of it. One doesn't boast of the gifts of the gods. One merely accepts them, thankfully—"

"I was a fool—"

"Say rather, merely an animated biped, an instinct on legs. Is that a thing to be proud of—for a man who knows what real ideals are?"

"Don't—"

"Did you discuss Shakespeare and the musical glasses with 'Kid' Spatola?"

"Please!"

"Or the incorporeal nature of the soul with Battling Sagorski?"

"Una!" Her irony was biting him like acid.

"Or did Sagorski make you an accessory before the fact of his next housebreaking expedition?"

"Una, that isn't fair. Sagorski is—"

"He's a second-story man, Jerry, with a beautiful record. Shall I give it to you?"

"Er—no, thanks," gasped Jerry breathlessly. "I can't believe—"

"You missed nothing at the house?"

She waited for his reply.

"I'm not sure who took them—"

"But you did miss—?"

"Yes, spoons, forks and things—" He broke off exasperated. "Oh, Una, it's cruel of you?"

"No, kind. Sagorski is a smudgy page, Jerry. I happened to have seen it in the records. And there's a woman at the Mission—"

It was Una's turn to pause in sudden solemnity.

"A woman. His wife?" asked Jerry.

"No, just a woman."

"He had treated her badly?"

"Her soul," she replied slowly, "is dead. Her body doesn't matter."

She must have been thankful for the silence that followed? for the look of bewilderment, piteous, I think, it must now have seemed to Una, was in his face again. And before he could question further she had turned the topic.

A little later, I think, personalities began again.

"You're always helping people, Una, always helping," he said slowly. "Does it make you happy?"

"Yes, if I can help."

"And you want to help me? I wonder if I'm worth it."

"Yes, I wouldn't bother if you weren't."

"And how do you know I'm worth it?"

"It's my business to know," she said.

Jerry sent the car spinning joyously down a fine stretch of straight empty road. And then when he had reduced the car to a slower pace,

"You know, Una," he laughed, "you do take charge of a fellow, don't you?"

"You need 'mothering'," she smiled.

"Or sistering. I wish I had a sister like you. Fellows ought to have sisters, anyway. People ought to be born in pairs, male and female."

She laughed and then with sudden seriousness:

"But people ought to stand on their feet. All the 'sistering' in the world won't help a lame man to walk."

"I'm not so awfully lame, am I?"

"No. Just limpy. But don't try to run yet, Jerry."

"Oh, I say—"

"Just keep your eyes open. You'll see." And then quietly, "You know Phil Laidlaw, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, fine chap."

"I think it wouldn't harm you to know Phil better. He isn't brilliant, but he's steady, sure, reliable. And he stands on his feet, Jerry, on both of them."

Jerry's comment to me in telling this part of the conversation was amusing. "Phil Laidlaw is a good fellow and all that," he muttered, "but hang it all, Roger, you can't stomach having another man's virtues thrust down your throat!"

My own comment may be interesting.

"I don't wonder that she cares for him," I said. "A good match, I should say."

"H—m," replied Jerry. "I can't seem to think of Una married to anybody. She's so much occupied—"

"But she will be married some day, my boy. Charity begins at home."

She had used her woman's weapons loyally, at least. I think her comments on Laidlaw must have made Jerry silent for awhile and he told me little of the conversation that followed. But they must have "cleared up" all the things that stood between them. I think the subsequent conversation must have been largely pleasant and personal, for Jerry spoke of the wonderful weather and how Una admired the view they had of the great river from Hoboken with the lights of the towers of Manhattan, like the sparks of some mighty fire, hanging midway in the air.

I was silent when he had concluded. Evidently he wanted me to say something, for he looked at me once or twice as he was refilling his pipe. But I was thinking deeply.

"She's a wonder," he said after awhile. "You know the committee of ladies that's supposed to manage things down town have all gone away, leaving the whole responsibility to Una—the plans, specifications, business arrangements and all."

"As Marcia suggested," I replied, "they're sure that matters are in good hands."

"Yes, she's so sane. That's it. You know when we got to town I took dinner with the family down in Washington Square. Jolly lot of girls, like stair-steps, from eight to eighteen, but not a bit like Una, Roger, and the mother, placid, serene, intelligent with a dignity that seems to go with the house and neighborhood—a dear old lady, not so terribly old, either, and astonishingly well informed—Fine old house, refreshing, cool, mellow with age and decent associations; none of your Louis Quinze business there. I always wondered where Una got her poise. Now I know."

"Had you never called there before?" I asked when he paused to light his pipe.

"No, I always went to her office in the Mission and had her in a different setting, a bare room, desk, filing-cases, placards on the wall, scrupulously neat and business-like, but uncompromising, Roger, and severe. The house makes a better frame for her somehow—"

I knew what he meant, for I had seen her in it, but of course was silent.

"She's doing a tremendous work down town. She is the Mission. The superintendent and nurses idolize her. I was questioning her mother about it. Una has a way with her. The women that come there have to be handled carefully, it seems. I'm afraid they're a bad lot, though Una won't talk about 'em. She says I wouldn't understand. I suppose I wouldn't. I've never learned much about women yet, Roger. Funny, too. They seem so easy to understand, and yet they're not. It's the men that bring the women down—ruin them, but I can't see why it couldn't just as well be the other way about. Men are weak, too; why are the men always blamed? That's what I want to know, and what does it all mean? I suppose I'm awfully ignorant. Things go in one ear and out the other without making any impression. I lack something. It's the way I'm made. I've missed something, of the meaning of life, I suppose, because I've lived it all with so few people, you, Una, Uncle Jack—Flynn and the boys—"

"And Marcia," I put in suggestively.

He ignored my remark.

"Most chaps I've met seem to take so much of my knowledge for granted. The boys at Flynn's puzzled me, their strange phrases, hinting at hidden vices, but I wasn't going to question them. It's up to you, Roger. I want to know. What is this threat to Una's reputation when Marcia tells of our meeting here alone?"

As I remained resolutely silent, Jerry got up and paced with long strides up and down before me.

"Why shouldn't she and I meet here alone if we want to? And why these absurd restrictions surrounding the life of girls? I've accepted them, as I accept my morning coffee, because they're there. But what do they mean? I know that a girl is more delicate than a boy, a being to be sheltered and cared for; that seems natural. I accept that. But it goes too far. Una does what she pleases. Why shouldn't she? What is the meaning of unconventional morality? And why unconventional? Is morality so vague a term that there can be any sort of doubt as to its real meaning? And is Una any the less moral because she chooses to be unconventional? Una! I'd stake my life on her morality and innate refinement. No girl sacrifices her youth in the interests of others less fortunate than herself without being fine clear through. Then what did Marcia mean? And what could Una mean when she said her reputation was in danger? The very thought of my having harmed her, even by imputation, in the minds of others makes me desperately unhappy. And what, what on earth could Marcia suspect of me or of Una to place us both in so false a light? What could Marcia mean in speaking in that way about Una's visit here when she herself came—" He bit the word off abruptly and came to a stop. Some instinct—some baser instinct that Marcia was a part of, made frankness impossible. I could have finished his sentence for him but I didn't. Instead, I rose suddenly to a sitting posture, my tongue loosened.

"Bah!" I muttered. "The spleen of a jealous woman; it stops nowhere—at nothing!"

"But what was there in the story," he persisted, "to cause so much tension? I felt it in the air, Roger. It was in the looks of those about me, in Una's face. She was troubled. I had to speak."

"You did well, Jerry. You had to speak—to defend her—"

"Against what?"

"The results of her own imprudence," I said slowly, feeling my way with difficulty. "Una's visits here and at the cabin were not what are called conventional."

"Conventional! Perhaps not. But where does the question of morality come in?" he went on boring straight at the mark.

"It doesn't," I remarked calmly. "It seems to me that Una's reply was quite clear upon that point."

He frowned. "Yes, but she said that Marcia's mind wasn't clean, or that's what she meant. That's a terrible thing to say and Una shouldn't have said it. She shouldn't have, Roger."

"She had to defend herself," I muttered. "That's the privilege of the poorest beast of the woods."

"Yes," he said slowly, "but it has upset me, given me a new view of things, of women, of life. What is this terrible thing that threatens them, that they fear and court at the hands of men? They act it in their advances and sudden defenses. I've learned that much—Even Una—Why, Roger, there's something that they're more jealous of than they are of life itself. Reputation! That's what Una called it. Una—who's giving up her life to try to make people better! If a girl like Una has to defend herself, then the world is a rotten place and Marcia—"

"And Marcia—"

He walked up and down again muttering.

"She has gone too far, Roger—too far." He paused before me.

"But you haven't answered my questions," he said flatly.

"You've hardly given me time," I said with a smile.

To be truthful, I did not propose to answer them. Aside from a curious shyness born of our long and innocent intimacy which made frankness now seem a violation of the precedent of years, I found that the desire was born in me, born anew with Jerry's awakening consciousness, to stand by my guns, and await the results of his lessons from the world. He must solve the riddle of the Great Experiment alone.

"You haven't answered my questions, Roger," he insisted.

I was unjointing Jerry's rod with scrupulous care.

"I'm not going to," I said quietly.

"You—?" He examined me with a curious expression. "Who else should I go to if not to you?"

I paused a long moment, during which he scraped at the moss with the toe of his boot.

"My dear Jerry," I said. "I am more than convinced since the period of your probation has passed that my mission at Horsham Manor is ended. I was brought here to bring you to manhood with the things that were requisite as well for the body as the soul. I thought I had acquitted myself with tolerable success in obeying the desires of your dead father. But once freed from my influence you took the bit in your teeth and ran the race in your own way. I gave you advice but you wouldn't take it. If you had listened then, I could have helped you now. But you didn't listen. And if I were to warn you, to answer your questions, you wouldn't heed me now. Experience is the great teacher. Seek it. I'm through."

He reddened and took a turn up and down.

"Do you mean that?"

"I do. I meddle with your personal affairs no longer. If I did I should begin at once—" I paused, for an attack on Marcia Van Wyck was trembling at the top of my tongue. "But there—you see we should only quarrel. I don't like your friends. We couldn't agree—"

"You like Una."

"Yes, unqualifiedly. She is one in a million."

"Well, we're agreed on that at least," he said smiling.

There was another silence in which Jerry puffed on his unlighted pipe.

"You know I've invited Una and her mother up here this week and what's better still, they're coming."

This was excellent news. To me it meant that Una thought the boy worth saving from himself and now proposed to carry the war into the enemy's country.

"I'm delighted," I said briefly.

"So am I," he returned thoughtfully. He scraped his pipe, filled it slowly and when it was lighted again, settled down comfortably.

"I think Una has wakened me, Roger. The force of her example is tremendous, her life, her way of thinking of things, her cheerfulness, hopefulness about everybody. I can't make out why Marcia should attack her so unjustly. It wasn't fair."

"It was cattish."

"I don't like your saying that," he put in quickly.

"I'm sorry. Can you imagine Una doing a similar thing?"

"No," he admitted, "but Una has been brought up differently."

Another silence. In spite of the recrudescence of Una we were on dangerous ground. But hope had given me temerity. In another moment he was back to the earlier questions.

"I see no reason why you shouldn't answer me, Roger. I've got to know what all this trouble means. If Una has been imprudent I want to know why, still more so, if she is to suffer as a consequence of it. If Marcia's insinuations are cruel I've got to understand what they mean."

"You may take my word for their cruelty," I said dryly and stopped with compressed lips. He clasped his hands over his knees and looked down into the pool before us.

"Do you think you're quite fair with me, Roger? I give you my confidences and you refuse—"

"Half-confidences, Jerry. My usefulness to you is ended. If you would speak, I could perhaps help you, solve some of your problems, answer your questions. But—"

I paused, throwing out my hands in a helpless gesture.

"What more do you want?" he asked.

I took the bull by the horns. I had wanted to for weeks.

"Freely, unreservedly, the nature of your relations with Marcia Van Wyck—"

He rose suddenly, his face flushing darkly and took up his rod and creel.

"If you don't mind my saying so," he muttered, "that is none of your affair."

I rose, though his reproach stung me bitterly.

"Confidences and advice are inseparable," I said coldly.

"You hate Marcia," he mumbled.

"I do."

"Why?"

"Because she's unsound, unsafe, im—"

"Be careful!" he cried.

I shrugged but was silent, I think, from the fear of Jerry's fists which were clenching his rod and creel ominously.

"She's the woman I love," he declared with pathetic drama.

I braved the fists and laughed.

"Tush!" I said.

He was furious. For a moment I thought he was going to strike me. Had he done so I should have been ended there and then, and this interesting history brought to an untimely conclusion on the very eve of its most interesting disclosures.

But he thought better of it and with a shaking forefinger pointed toward the path downstream. "Go, Roger," he said in a trembling voice, "please go."

CHAPTER XXII

THE CHIPMUNK

I obeyed. There was nothing left for me to do. Our afternoon had ended in disaster, but I was not sorry. I had thought from all Jerry had told me that he was beginning to awaken, to rouse himself and tear asunder the web of enchantment that this girl Marcia had woven about him. I had meant to help him lift the veil to let him see her as she was, a beautiful, selfish little sensualist with a silken voice and an empty heart. But the time was not yet. I sighed, lamenting my failure but not regretting my temerity. If he would not waken at least I had the satisfaction of knowing it was not because I had not tried to wake him.

I made my way down over the rocks, casting a glance over my shoulder toward Jerry as I descended. He was following slowly, his hands behind him, his head down, the pipe hanging bowl downward in his teeth. There was anger in his appearance but there was something of reflection, too. Down on a lower level where the going was easier I paused, deliberating whether I shouldn't put my pride in my pocket and braving rebuffs, wait for him. I had half decided to choose this ignominious course when in the path ahead of me at some distance away I espied a figure walking toward me. I was deep in the shadow and the person, a female, had not espied me, but I could see her quite clearly in the sunlight. There was no mistaking her curious gait. It was Marcia Van Wyck, come at pains which must convince of her contrition, to make peace with Jerry.

I looked again to be sure that my eyes had not deceived me and then jumped into the underbrush beside the path and hid myself under a projection of nearby rock. I disliked the girl intensely and hated the sight of her, and this must, I suppose, account for the sudden impulse which led to my undignified retreat. Had I known in advance of the unfortunate situation in which it would have placed me, I should have faced her boldly or have fled miles away from that spot, to be forever associated in my mind with the one really discreditable experience of my career. I have always been, I think, an honorable man and such a paltry sin as eavesdropping had always been beneath me, save on the one occasion when my duty as Jerry's guardian prompted me to listen for a few moments at the cabin window last year when Una and Jerry were settling between them the affairs of the world. That was a pardonable transgression, this, a different affair, for Jerry was now released from my guardianship, a grown man ostensibly capable of managing his own affairs, which, as he had some moments before taken pains to inform me, were none of mine.

But as luck would have it, the girl walking upstream and Jerry walking down, they met in the path just beside the rock behind which I was so uncomfortably reclining and scarcely daring to breathe. I could not see their faces as they came together, but I heard their voices quite Distinctly.

"Marcia!" said Jerry, it seemed a trifle harshly. "What are you doing here?"

With my vision obstructed, the soft tones of her voice seemed to take an added significance.

"I came," she purred, "because, Jerry, I couldn't stay away."

And then, after a pause, her voice even more silken, "You don't seem very glad to see me."

"I—I—your appearance surprised me."

"But now that the surprise is over—are you glad to see me?" she asked.

A pause and then I heard him mutter.

"I didn't suppose that—after yesterday you would want to see me."

"Yesterday," she sighed, "twenty-four hours—an age! The surest proof that I wanted to see you is that I'm here, that I ran away from a house full of people, just to tell you—"

"Is Channing Lloyd still there?" he broke in harshly.

"Yes, Jerry, he is. But doesn't it mean anything to you that I left him, to come to you?"

"You broke your promise—to give him up—"

"Why, Jerry, I had to invite him to my dance. It would have been a slight."

"But you promised. He's a—"

"But I've known him for ages, Jerry. I can't be impolite."

"He's not polite to you, to me, or anybody. I told you I wanted you to give him up."

"You're fearfully exacting," she said, modulating her voice softly.

"He's a cad. I can't understand your inviting him. His very look is an insult, his touch a desecration. I don't like the way he paws you."

"Of course, he—he means nothing by it," she said soothingly. "It's only his way."

"But I don't like his way and I don't like him. I've told you so a good many times."

"You make it very difficult for me. It would have been insulting not to have asked him. We've been very good friends until you came."

"It's a pity I came, then. You've got to choose between us. I've told you that before."

"Why, Jerry, I have chosen," she said, her voice softening suspiciously. "How could I ever think of anybody else now that I have you? It's so absurd of you to be jealous of Chan. He's not like you, of course, and his manner is a little rough, but he really isn't nearly so terrible a person as you think he is." She sighed. "But if you insist, I suppose I shall have to give him up."

"Is it painful to you?" he muttered.

She laughed. "You silly boy, of course not. I will give him up. There! Does that settle that matter?"

"I thought it was settled before."

"It was—but—" She paused.

"I don't see how you could want to be with a man I don't like—"

"I don't care for him, Jerry, really I don't. Won't you believe me?"

"I'll believe you when you give him up."

She sighed again, her voice breaking effectively.

"Oh, dear! Do you want me to give up all my friends? And is it quite fair?"

"I haven't asked you to give up any of your friends, but Lloyd—"

Well, I've given him up, Jerry. I'll send him home tonight. Don't let's think of him any more. I can't stand having anything come between us again. I can't, Jerry. It makes me so unhappy. I've been wretched since yesterday about Una. That's why I came. I wanted you to know how sorry I am that I spoke to Una the way I did."

"Are you, Marcia?" His voice had softened suddenly and from the shuffling of his feet I think he took a pace toward her.

"Yes, Jerry dear, contrite. I simply couldn't let another hour pass without coming to ask your forgiveness."

He was weakening. Perhaps his arm was around her. I don't know, but his silence was ominous.

"I have been so miserable," she murmured. "My conscience has troubled me terribly. Oh, I can't tell you how I have suffered. All the evening I thought you would come. I waited for you; I went out on the terrace a hundred times, watching for the lights of your car; but you didn't come, you didn't come, Jerry, and I knew how terribly I had offended you."

I couldn't see her but I'm sure she was wringing her pretty white hands. Jerry must have been deeply moved for his voice was shaky.

"It didn't matter about me, but a visitor, a guest at Horsham Manor, Marcia, a friend—!"

"A friend, yes. Oh, I've been so unhappy about it all—so miserably wretched."

Her voice broke and she seemed upon the point of tears.

"Why did you, Marcia? Why did you?" he repeated.

"I—I—" She appeared to break down and weep and Jerry's voice took on a tone of distress.

"Don't, Marcia, please!"

"I—I'm trying not to—but—" and she wept anew.

"Come," said Jerry's voice. "Sit here a moment. I'm sure it can all be explained. It makes me very unhappy to see you so miserable."

They moved nearer and she sat upon the very rock beneath which I lay among the mouldy leaves; so near that I could have reached out and touched the girl's silken ankle with my fingers. Jerry, I think, still stood.

"I don't want to—to make you unhappy," she said in a moment. "And it was all my fault, but I just couldn't—couldn't stand it, Jerry."

"Stand what?"

A pause and then in muffled tones.

"Don't you know? Don't you really understand?"

"No. I—"

"I was mad," she whispered, "mad with jealousy of Una. She was your first love, your first—"

"Marcia! You mustn't. It's absurd."

"No, no," she protested. "I know. Ever since I first learned that she had—had been in here with you, I—I haven't been able to get her out of mind—I may have appeared to, but I'm not one who forgets things easily; and to meet her at the cabin, the very place where I thought I should—should have you all to myself—it was too much. Jerry. I couldn't stand it. Something—something in me rebelled. I grew cold all over and hard against all the world, even you."