Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY

Una and her mother did not come to Horsham Manor during the following week, and it was early in June before Jerry ordered the rooms to be prepared for them. Jack Ballard, too, having at last found Newport irksome, promised to make up the house-party.

It did not seem to me that Jerry was especially overjoyed at the prospect of these guests. During the week or more that followed his encounter with Marcia in the woods, he had reverted to his former habits of strolling aimlessly about when he wasn't at Briar Hills or in town, at times cheerful enough; at others obstinately morose. But he did not drink. Whatever the differences between us, he evidently thought seriously enough of his word to me to make that promise worth keeping. I know he believed me to be meddlesome and with good reason (if he had known all), but he would not let me leave the Manor. I was a habit with him, a bad habit if you like, but it seemed a necessary one. Nevertheless in spite of the apparently pleasant nature of our relations, there was a coolness between us. Much as he loved me, and I was still sure that Marcia had made no real change in that affection, there was a new reserve in his manner, meant, I think, to show me that I had gone too far and that his affair with Marcia was not to be the subject of further discussion between us.

Had he known how thankful I was for that! I knew all that I wanted to know of Marcia Van Wyck and of their curious relations. And unfortunate as my ambush had seemed, demeaning to my honor and painful to my conscience, I had begun to look upon my venture beneath that infernal rock as a kind of mixed blessing. At least I knew!

Of Una, Jerry said much in terms of real friendship and undisguised admiration—of his visits to her in town and the progress of her work, a frankness which, alas! was the surest token of his infatuation elsewhere. And yet I could not believe that the boy was any more certain of the real nature of his feeling for Marcia than he had been a month ago. He was still bewildered, hypnotized, obsessed, his joyous days too joyous, his gloomy ones too hopeless. Like a green log, he burned with much crackling or sullenly simmered. But the fire was still there. Nothing had happened that would put it out, not even Una.

As the hour of the visit of the Habbertons approached, I found myself a prey to some misgivings. It was not difficult for me to imagine that the frank nature of Jerry's visits to Una might have given the girl a false notion of the state of Jerry's mind, for it was like the boy to have told her of Marcia's mellifluous contrition which, as I knew, was no more genuine than any other of her carefully planned emotional crises. I did not know what Marcia thought of Una's approaching visit or whether Jerry had even told her of it, but I had no fancy to see Una Habberton again placed in a false position. A visit to Miss Gore made one morning when Jerry was in town at the office showed me that even if Marcia knew of Una's approaching visit, she had not told Miss Gore of it and also revealed the unpleasant fact of Channing Lloyd's presence in the neighborhood, a guest of the Carews and at the very moment of my visit a companion of Marcia in a daylong drive up to Big Westkill Mountain. This was the way she was keeping her promise to give Lloyd up! What a little liar she was!

Of course, having learned wisdom, I said nothing to Miss Gore, but passed a very profitable morning in her society after which she invited me to stay for lunch. I can assure you that after Jerry's glum looks, Miss Gore's amiable conversation and warm hospitality were balm to my wounded spirit. I had no desire to discuss her intangible relative or she, I presume, the unfortunate Jerry, both of us having washed our hands of the entire affair. She was a prudent person, Miss Gore, and though full of the milk of human kindness, not disposed to waste it where it would do no good. I left with the promise to call upon her another morning and read to her a paper I had written for a philosophical magazine upon the "The Identical Character of Thought and Being."

Jack Ballard arrived upon the morning of the appointed day in his own machine, and since Jerry and his other guests were not expected until evening, we had a long afternoon of it together. We took a tramp across the country, and while Jack listened with great interest to my disclosures, I poured out my heart to him, omitting nothing, not even, to salve my self-esteem, my unfortunate experience in eavesdropping. I don't really know why I should have expected his sympathy, but he only laughed, laughed so much and so long that the tears ran down his cheeks and he had to sit down.

"Oh, Pope—a chipmunk! He might at least have allowed you the dignity of a bear or a mountain lion!"

"There are no mountain lions in these parts," I said with some dignity.

"Or a duck-billed platypus. Oh, I say, Pope, it's too rich. I can't help picturing it. Did they coo? Oh, Lord!"

"It was nauseating!" I retorted in accents so genuine that he laughed again.

"It's no laughing matter, I tell you, Jack," I said. "The boy is completely bewitched. He thinks he adores her. He doesn't. I know."

And bit by bit, while his expression grew interested, I told him all that I had heard.

"It's animal, purely animal," I concluded. "And he doesn't know it."

"By George! He's awakening, you think?"

"I'm sure of it. She's leading him on, for the mere sport of the thing. It has been going on for four months now, almost every day. He's pretty desperate. She won't marry him. She doesn't love him. She loves nobody—but herself."

"What will be the end of the matter?" he asked.

I shrugged.

"She'll throw him over when she debases him."

"Debase—!"

"Yes," I said wildly. "I tell you he thinks her an angel, Can't you see? A man doesn't learn that sort of thing—her sort of thing—from the woman he loves. It's like hearing impurity from the lips of one's God! And you ask me if she's debasing him! Why, Jack, he's all ideals still. The world has taught him something, but he still holds fast to his childish faith in everyone."

"Bless him! He does." And then, "What can I do, Pope?"

"Nothing. I'm waiting. But I don't like his temper. It's dangerous. I think he's beginning to suspect her sincerity and when he finds out that she's still playing false with Channing Lloyd—then look out!"

"You're going to tell him?"

"No, he'll discover it. She's quite brazen."

He was silent for a while.

"Pope, you surprise me," he muttered at last. "The modern girls, I give them up. There's a name for this sort, perverted coquettes, 'teasers.' The man of the world abominates them, they're beneath contempt; but Jerry—No," he remarked with a shake of the head, "he wouldn't understand that."

"And when he does?"

"H—m!"

His manner added no encouragement.

"It would serve her jolly well right," he muttered cryptically in a moment.

"What?" I asked.

I think he understood Jerry now as well as I did.

"Violence," he blurted out.

"Ah! Then I'm not a fool. You agree with me."

"I'm glad I'm not in Lloyd's shoes, that's all."

We resumed our walk, turning back toward the Manor, and I told him of how matters stood with Jerry and Una. He had not met her, but he knew her history and was, I think, willing to accept her upon her face value.

"But you can't match mere affection with that sort of witchcraft!" he said. "It's like trying to treat the hydrophobia with eau de Cologne. It can't be done, my boy. Your device does credit to your heart if not to your intelligence. She may come in a pretty bottle which exudes comforting odors but she's not for him."

"You'll be pleasant to her, Jack? She's fond of Jerry, not in love with him, you know, but fond. And doesn't want to see him made a fool of any more than I do."

I owed Una this. Whatever I thought of her feelings toward Jerry, even Jack had no right to be aware of them.

"Pleasant!" he grinned. "Just you watch. I'll be her Fidus Achates. That's my specialty. Pretty, you say?" He kissed the tip of his fingers and gestured lightly toward the heavens. "I'm your man. Well, rather. I'll make Jerry want to pound my head. And if he neglects her for Marcia, I'll pound his."

Una and her mother were having tea with Jerry on the terrace when we reached the Manor. Mrs. Habberton was, as Jerry had described her, "a dear old lady" with calm eyes and level brows, "astonishingly well informed" and immensely proud of her pretty daughter. She was not assertive and while I knew nothing of Mr. Habberton, she somehow conveyed the impression that if there was anything in Mendel's theory of the working of heredity she and her six daughters went a long way toward exemplifying it. There was a genuineness about the pair which was distinctly refreshing to Jack's jaded tastes in fashionable feminine fripperies and he fell into the conversation as smoothly as a finger into a well-fitting glove. Una made no secret of her delight at being at the Manor and her enthusiasm as we wandered over the place brought more than one smile into Jerry's tired face. I know that he enjoyed her being there, but there was a weight upon him which he masked with a dignity that might have deceived others but not Una or me.

"You've been buying too many steamship companies this week. Jerry. I'm sure of it. You're 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' It's too bad you have a conscience. It must be fearfully inconvenient." And then as we came to the swimming pool, "Isn't it huge? And all of marble! You're the most luxurious creature. I was just wondering—" She paused.

"Wondering what—?"

"How many Blank Street families I could clean in it without even changing the water."

He laughed. "Build one. I'll pay for it."

"It would be great for the boys and men, wouldn't it? But, then—" she sighed. "We haven't got our club yet."

He laughed again.

"But you're going to have it, you know, when the day nursery is done."

"Oh, are we?"

"Of course, that's settled."

We had reached the gymnasium.

"And this is where you—?" A pleading look from Jerry made her pause. "And do you pull all these ropes? What fun! I believe you could have fifty boys in here at once all playing and not one of them in the other's way."

We couldn't help smiling. In spite of herself, she was thinking in terms of her beloved Blank Street.

"You'll have to forgive me, Jerry, if I'm covetous. That's my besetting sin. But it is a fine place—so spacious. And it would make such an adorable laundry!"

"You shall have one," said Jerry.

The girl laughed.

"No. I won't dare to wish any more. The purse of Fortunatus brought him into evil ways. It must be terrible, Jerry, not to be able to want something."

"But I do want many things."

"Yes. I suppose we all do that," she said, quickly finishing the discussion, but I think she had noticed the sudden drop in Jerry's voice.

From there we went to the museum to look over the specimens, and in a moment Una and Jerry were deep in a butterfly talk. There Jack and I left them, taking Mrs. Habberton into the main hall, where I rang for one of the maids who showed her to her room.

"Well," I asked of Jack. "What do you think of her?"

"What I think is of course a matter of no importance to Jerry. But since you ask, I don't mind telling you that I love her to distraction. Where are the boy's eyes? His ears? And all the rest of his receptive organs? If I were ten years younger—" and he patted his embonpoint regretfully, "I'd ask something of her charity, something immediate and practical. She should found the John K. Ballard Home, Pope, a want of mine for many years. But, alas! She has eyes only for Jerry."

"Do you really think so?" I asked.

"Yes, I do. And he's not worth bothering about. He ought to be shot, offhand."

"I entirely agree with you," I smiled.

Dinner that night was gay and most informal. Jack was at his best and gave us in inimitable satire a description of a luncheon at Newport in honor of a prize chow dog attended by all the high-bred pups of Bellview Avenue, including Jack's own bull terrier Scotty, which in an inadvertent moment devoured the small Pekingese of Jack's nearest neighbor, a dereliction of social observance which caused the complete and permanent social ostracism of Scotty—and Jack.

"How terrible!" said Una.

"It was, really, but it was a kind of poetic canine justice, you know. The Pekingese just stared at Scotty and stared without wagging his tail. Very impolite, not wagging your tail at a luncheon. Scotty grew embarrassed and angry and then—just took him at a gulp. It was the easiest way out."