Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

CHAPTER VII

JACK BALLARD TAKES CHARGE

On my way back to the Manor house I thought deeply of a way to make the best of the situation. That Jerry was a philosopher seemed for the moment to be a matter of little importance, for the portion of his conversation in the cabin which I had overheard was an indictment both of my teaching and my integrity. His eyes, thanks to the gabble of this mischievous visitor, were now open. He would want to know everything and I found myself placed in the position of being obliged to choose between a frankness which would be hazardous and a deception which would be intolerable. The time had suddenly come for generous revelations. I had labored all these years to bring Jerry to manhood, armed with righteousness and a sound philosophy, equipment enough according to my reading of his character and the meaning of life, to make him impervious to all sophistry and all sin. The conversation that I had overheard did nothing to weaken my faith in the Great Experiment which in my heart I felt already to be an unqualified success, but it notified me of the fact which had almost escaped me, that Jerry was no longer a boy but a man in years as well as body and intelligence and that his desire for worldly knowledge was not to be thwarted.

And yet the prospect seemed far from pleasing to me. It was the beginning of the end of our Utopia. Upon the threshold of the world Jerry was eager for that which I had scorned. Our paths would separate. The old relation would be no more.

I went home slowly and I think some sign of my weariness and perplexity must have been marked upon my features as I entered the hall where Jerry with sober countenance awaited me. There was nothing for it but to talk the thing out. I did not upbraid him nor he me. We understood each other too well for that.

Then followed the flood of eager questions from a mind topsy-turvy. I answered him slowly, deliberately, and gave him in some detail his father's thesis on education, explaining how and why I happened to be in sympathy with it and pointing out by the results attained the wisdom of our plans.

"Results!" he cried. "What results? In what respect is my education better than another man's? I know my Latin, and my Greek, my French, my German. I'm a good history scholar, and what you've taught me of philosophy,—the inside of books—all of it. But life, Roger,—you've starved me—starved me! If I were a babe in arms I couldn't know less—"

"You'll know life in time, Jerry, see it through a finer prism."

"I want to see it as it is, in the raw, not beautiful when it is not beautiful. I want the truth—all the truth, Roger, the rough and the ugly where it is rough and ugly. You say you've made me a man, taught me to think fine thoughts, given me a good mind and a strong body, but all the while you were sheltering me, saving me—from what? What good are my mind and body if they aren't strong enough to be put to the test of life and survive it?"

He was much agitated.

"I have no fear to put you to any test—today, tomorrow," I said quietly.

"Then put me to it—out there." With a wave of his arm he cried: "I must see for myself, think for myself."

"You shall, Jerry, soon. Will you be patient a little while longer?"

He controlled himself with an effort and bent forward in his chair, bringing his head down into his hands.

"It's hard. I feel like a coward, a coward—not taking my share—"

"Ah," I said suddenly, "she called you that?"

"Yes. If she had been a man I should have thrashed her. But in a moment I knew that she had spoken the truth."

"But Jerry, a coward is one who is afraid. How could you be afraid of something you didn't know about?"

"But I know now. She told me very little, Roger, but I've guessed the rest."

He went on in this vein for awhile and at last grew calmer. And the result of it all was a promise on my part to answer more frankly all his questions, to subscribe to two newspapers and some magazines, and to begin on the morrow a course of reading which would prepare the way for his contact with the world. He seemed satisfied and at last went to bed with his old cheery "Good night, Dry-as-dust."

After all, I had gotten out of it well enough. Only a few months remained for him within the wall and with the exception of the newspapers, my plans for him were really little changed. I may as well confess at once that my delay in broadening his point of view was selfish. I had made such a beautiful thing that I was as proud of it as any painter of his masterpiece. Until the present moment I had been true to my own ideals. What was to follow must be a concession to convention.

But I entered frankly enough into the new scheme of things and set Jerry a course in modern fiction in books carefully chosen and before the summer was gone and the autumn far advanced Jerry had read at least a shelf-full of volumes. He went through them avidly and asked few questions. Love between the sexes he now accepted as a matter of course, but he hadn't the slightest conception of what it meant and told me so. He had passed the morbid age between boyhood and manhood, his head in the air, his gaze upon the stars, and what he read now did not trouble him.

And as the months flew by without the expected revelation, I breathed more freely. His heart was so clean that the suggestion of forbidden things made no impression upon it. He already accepted suffering, sin, disease, as part of the lot of a too complex society, but he made few comments upon his reading and these were perfunctory. He was so free from guile that I actually believe he could have been given access to any library without fear of contamination.

In November Jack Ballard arrived for a visit of a few days and announced that his father had bought a house in New York which was to be ready for occupancy after Jerry's birthday. As Jack is to occupy a prominent place in these pages, I may as well announce at once that at this time he had reached the age of thirty-five, had kept most of his hair, was slightly inclined to corpulency, and wore gay cravats which matched his handkerchiefs, shirts and socks, the "sartorial symphony," as he described it. He still kept office hours from two to three on Thursdays and refused all efforts on the part of his father to make him take life other than as a colossal joke. He had not married, though I do not doubt that there were many who would have nabbed him quickly enough.

In his previous visits to Horsham Manor Jack had, at no little cost, repressed his speech into accord with my teachings, and Jerry was very fond of him. They fished, swam and sparred by day, and in the evenings Jack told stories of hunting in foreign countries to which Jerry listened wide-eyed.

But now, it seemed, his visit had a purport. There was just a suggestion of swagger in Jack's manner at the dinner table where, to Jerry's surprise, he wore a jacket and a fluted shirt.

At the boy's comment, Jack inhaled deeply of his cigarette (another operation which Jerry always regarded with a certain awe) and stated the object of his visit, which was nothing less than that of sartorially equipping Jerry for the fray.

"To be well-dressed, my boy," he said gayly, "is to show the finishing touch of a perfect culture. Without well-fitting garments no man is complete. I am going to clothe you, Jerry, from the skin out. That's my privilege. I shall be the framemaker for Roger's magnum opus. And not over my dead body shall you wear after December twelfth a tartan-cravat." (Jerry fingered at the gay bit of ribbon at his neck.) "If you will remember, our friend Ruskin said that the man who wears a tartan-cravat will most surely be damned."

As you will observe. Jack Ballard exactly defined sophistication, root and branch. But his sophistries were always colorful and ornamental and of course Jerry laughed.

"I'll take your word for it, Uncle Jack," he said. "But you know I rather like color."

"Of course, in a rainbow, my boy. But in a cravat—no! The cravat is the chevron of gentility. You shall see. Symphonies in browns and gray-greens! I'll make you a heart-breaker."

"Why do you put such rubbish in his head, Ballard?" I said testily.

"Because he's got quite enough essential matter there already," he laughed. "For ten years you've been packing him with facts. I have a feeling that if one only shook Jerry a little, he would disgorge them all—dates of battles, maxims, memorabilia of all sorts, a heterogeneous mess. He's full to the brim, I tell you, and ready to explode. Suppose he did! How would you like to be hit in the midriff by an apothegm of Cicero, or be hamstrung by the subjunctive pluperfect of an irregular French verb?"

Jerry was laughing immoderately, though I admit such blackface pleasantry appealed little to my sense of humor. But I found myself smiling. "Surely you don't expect to avert this catastrophe by providing Jerry with a new cravat?" I urged.

"That is precisely what I do expect," he said. "You've had your fling at him, Pope. I'm going to have mine. Tomorrow a tailor will arrive, also a haberdasher and a bootmaker. Jerry will be measured from top to toe. The mountain is coming to Mahomet."

"Let's be sure no mouse is born," I said dryly.

"Six feet two of country mouse," he roared. "Oh, Pope, don't you worry. We'll show you a thing or two, won't we, Jerry?"

The tailor, the haberdasher and the bootmaker came, saw and measured, while Jack sat in the background, with a sheaf of plates of men's clothing in his lap, and gave directions. Jerry must have felt a great deal like a fool during the operation for I'm sure he looked one. But Ballard had his way and not until night did he leave us to peace and our own devices.

The time for the boy's emergence approached, alas, too quickly. A change had come over the spirit of Jerry's dreams. I saw that he was eager to go. It seemed that he already stood on tiptoe peering forth, eager, straining at his leash. And since he was no longer content at Horsham Manor, I reasoned, with regret, that the sooner he went the better. I had done all I could for him. His destiny was now in the lap of the gods.

Everything had been carefully arranged. The Ballards, elder and younger, were to take him to the new house in town where Christopher would look after him. At first Jerry would not listen to the arrangement. I had for so long been his guide and philosopher I must continue his friend. He wanted me with him in New York. But to this I demurred. Much as I disliked the thought of separation, I had made up my mind that he must go alone, cut adrift from all moral support. I had wished to go away, for having saved practically all my salary for ten years I was now independent, but at Jerry's insistent pleading we compromised. For the present I would stay on at the Manor and finish my book.

Jerry's birthday dinner was an impressive affair. With the two Ballards came the five solemn co-executors of John Benham's will—Mr. Stewardson, Mr. da Costa, Mr. Wrenn, Mr. Walsenberg and Mr. Duhring. And these, with Jerry, Radford, Flynn, the boxer, and myself made up the company. Jerry had insisted on having Flynn and no amount of urging could dissuade him. Flynn was his friend, he said, more his friend than Mr. Wrenn, Mr. Duhring or indeed any of the others whom he barely knew by sight. And so Flynn came.

The elders were solemn and significant, Jerry, at the head of the table, wearing for the first time his new finery (under the hypnotism, as he confessed in a whisper, of the vast expanse of white shirt-front), trying to look as though he were enjoying himself. Radford and I were mere onlookers. Flynn was acutely miserable. Had it not been for Jack Ballard I fear the conversation would have degenerated into a discussion of the merits and possibilities of Jerry's many "companies." But every time that that danger threatened the irrepressible Jack demolished it with an anecdote. He wasn't going to have Jerry's bud nipped so early, as his own had been, by the frost of finance. By the time we had reached the roast, and the champagne, the plutocrats seemed to realize that the occasion was a birthday party and not a board meeting.

Over the port there were speeches, toasts by the plutocrats, one by one, to the newly risen Railroad King, while Jerry grasped the arms of his chair, a ballet dancer's smile on his lips, trying to look happy. But when Jack got up he laughed genuinely.

"Gentlemen, I've known our host of this evening almost since he was born. I have watched with solicitude the rearing of this infant. I am his fairy godfather. I got Canby. Thanks to my wisdom, Jerry has now safely emerged from the baby diseases, and confronts the world in a boiled shirt. He has kindly consented, I think, against the advice of his tutor, to permit me to put the finishing touches on his education.

"Jerry has already been proposed at three excellent clubs, to two of which he has been elected today. I have warned him against the insidious cocktail and the deadly cigarette" (here Jack puffed at one vigorously) "and have advised him that ladies were designed by their Maker for purely ornamental purposes. I am not sure that he has taken my word for it and will probably propose to verify my statement according to his reading of aesthetics. I wish him all success in the purely scientific side of his investigations.

"As to his career, gentlemen, I warn you that he will choose it for himself. If you don't believe me, I will ask you carefully to examine the breadth and squareness of his chin. In proposing Jerry Benham's health, a superfluous proceeding at the best, I don't think I can pay him a higher tribute than in saying that in addition to being both a scholar and a gentleman, he is also the best heavyweight boxer I have ever seen, in the ring or out of it, and that anyone who expects to make him do anything he does not want to do, will be a subject for commiseration—or the coroner. Gentlemen, Jerry Benham!"