Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"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."