Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"And I'm engaged in a freight war with a rival steamship company. It's perfectly bully. I've got 'em backed off the map. We're carrying stuff for almost nothing and they're howling for help." He had taken out his pipe and was lighting it. "I'm going to buy 'em out," he finished. "But you don't want to hear about me. What are—"

"I do. Of course"—and she exchanged a quick glance with me. "Of course, I see a little about you in the papers—your interest in athletics—"

"Oh, I say, Una," he cried, flushing a dark red. "It's not fair to—"

"I'm fearfully interested," she persisted calmly. "You know it's actually gotten me into the habit of the sporting page. 'Walloping' Houligan and 'Scotty' Smith, the Harlem knock-out artist, are no longer empty names for me. They're real people with jabs and things."

"It's not kind of you—"

"I've been waiting breathlessly for your next encounter. I hope it's with 'Scotty.' It would be so much more of an achievement to win from a real knock-out artist—"

"Stop it, Una," he cried painfully. "I forbid you—"

"Do you mean," she asked innocently, "that you don't like to discuss—"

"I—I'd rather talk of something else," he stammered. "I've stopped boxing."

"Why?" wide-eyed. "The newspapers were wild about you. It was a fluke, wasn't it—Clancy 'getting' you in the ninth?"

"No," he muttered sullenly, "he whipped me fairly."

"Really. I'm awfully sorry. When one sets one's heart upon a thing—"

"Will you be quiet, Una?" he cried impetuously. "I won't have you talking this way, of these things. I—I was jollied into the thing. I mean," with a glance at me, "I never thought of the consequences. It—it was only a lark. I'm out of it, for good."

"Oh!" she said in a subdued tone, her gaze upon a distant tree-trunk. "It's too bad."

Whatever she meant by that cryptic remark, Jerry looked most uncomfortable. Her irony had cut him to the quick, and her humor had flayed his quivering sensibilities. That he took it without anger argued much for the quality of the esteem in which he held her. Another person, even I, in similar circumstances, would have courted demolition. Secretly, I was delighted. She had struck just the right note. He still writhed inwardly, but he made no effort at unconcern. I think he was perfectly willing that she should be a witness of his self-abasement.

"I was an idiot, Una, a conceited, silly fool. I deserve everything you say. I think it makes me a little happier to hear you say it, because if you weren't my friend you'd have kept quiet."

"I haven't said anything," she remarked urbanely. "And of course it's none of my affair."

"But it is," he was insisting.

I had risen, for along the path some people were coming. Jerry and Una, their backs being turned, were so absorbed in their conversation that they did not hear the rustle of footsteps, but when I rose they glanced at me and saw my face. I would have liked to have spirited them away, but it was too late. I made out the visitors now, Marcia, Phil Laidlaw, Sarah Carew and Channing Lloyd. I saw a change come in Jerry's face, as though a gray cloud had passed over it. Una started up, butterfly-net in hand, and glanced from one to the other of us, a question in her eyes, her face a trifle set.

"Oh, here you are," Marcia's soft voice was saying. "It seemed ages getting here."

Jerry took charge of the situation with a discretion that did the situation credit.

"Marcia, you know Miss Habberton—Miss Van Wyck."

"Of course," they both echoed coolly. Marcia examining Una impertinently, Una cheerfully indifferent.

"Miss Habberton and I were after butterflies," said Jerry, "but she has promised to stop for tea."

"I really ought to be going, Jerry," said Una.

"But you can't, you know, after promising," said Jerry with a smile.

The introductions made, the party moved on toward the cabin, Miss Habberton and I bringing up the rear.

"I could kill you for this," she whispered to me and the glance she gave me half-accomplished her wish.

"It isn't my fault," I protested. "I didn't know they were coming until yesterday—and you know you said—"

"Well, you ought to have warned me. I've no patience with you—none."

"But, my dear child—"

"I feel like a fool—and it's your fault."

"But how could I—?"

"You ought to have known."

Women I knew were not reasonable beings, but I expected better things than this of Una. I followed meekly, aware of my insufficiency. I felt sorry if Una was uncomfortable, but I had seen enough of her to know that she was quite able to cope with any situation in which she might be placed. Marcia with Jerry had gone on ahead and I saw that, while the girl was talking up at him, Jerry walked with his head very erect. The situation was not clear to Marcia. I will give her the credit of saying that she had a sense of divination which was little short of the miraculous. It must have puzzled her to find Una here if, as I suspected. Jerry made her the confidante of all his plans, present and future—Una Habberton, the girl who had ventured alone within the wall, the account of whose visit had once caused a misunderstanding between them. The thought of Una's visit I think must have always been a thorn in Marcia's side, for Jerry's strongest hold on Marcia's imagination was nurtured by the thought that she, Marcia, was the first, the only woman that Jerry had ever really known. And here was her forgotten and lightly esteemed predecessor sporting with Jerry in the shade!

In the cabin we made a gay party. Una, I am sure, in spite of her cheerful pretense with Phil Laidlaw, had a woman's intuition of Marcia's antagonism. Jerry joined and chatted in Una's group for a moment, but I could see that he had lost something of his buoyancy. I watched Marcia keenly. Though absorbed apparently in the pouring of the tea, a self-appointed prerogative which she had assumed with something of an air—(meant, I am sure, for Una)—her narrowly veiled eyes lost no detail of any happening in Una's group, and her ears, I am sure, no detail of its conversation. Subtle glances, stolen or portentous, shot between them, and Jerry, poor lad, wandered from one to the other like some great ship becalmed in a tropic sea aware of an impending tempest, yet powerless to prevent its approach.

Una Habberton, I would like to say, had recovered her composure amazingly. Phil Laidlaw was an old acquaintance whom she very much liked and in a while they were chatting gayly, exchanging reminiscences with such a rare degree of concord and amusement that it seemed to matter little to either of them who else was in the room. But Una, I think, in spite of this abstraction, missed nothing of Marcia's slightest glances. She said nothing more of going. It seemed almost as though, war having tacitly been declared, she was on her mettle for the test whatever it was to be. I had not misjudged her. She knew Marcia Van Wyck, and what she did not know she suspected, and by the light of that knowledge (and that suspicion) had a little of contempt for her.

CHAPTER XX

REVOLT

I sat in my corner sipping tea. Being merely a man, middle-aged and something of a misogynist into the bargain, I was aware that as an active, useful force in this situation, I was a negligible quality. But it is interesting to record my impressions of the engagement. It began actively, I believe, when Marcia called Jerry from Una's group and appeared to appropriate him. Jerry looked ill at ease and from the glances he cast in the direction of Channing Lloyd, and the sullen way in which he spoke to Marcia, I think that all was not well with this ill-sorted pair.

I think that Channing Lloyd had for some time been a bone of contention between them and it required little imagination on my part to decide that his presence here today at Marcia's request had broken some agreement between them. Mere surmise, of course, but interesting. Marcia was stubborn and showed her defiance of Jerry's wishes by retaliation at Una's expense. But by this time other people who had come in from the fishing had joined Una's group by the window where the intruder seemed to be oblivious of Marcia and quite in her element. Indeed for the moment Marcia was out of it and her conversation with Jerry having apparently reached an impasse, she rose, leaving the tea-table to Christopher's ministrations and advanced valiantly to the attack.

Una promptly made room for her on the window sill, a wise bit of generalship which forced the enemy at once into polite subterfuge.

"It's so nice to see you, Una dear. How did you manage to escape from all your tiresome work at the Mission?"

"I could do it very nicely this week-end," said Una cheerfully. "Why haven't you been to any of the committee meetings?"

"It has been so warm. And of course while you are in charge we all know that everything must be going right."

"It's kind of you to say so. You know, wonderful things have been happening at the Mission. We're building a day nursery on the next block to help the working women. Jerry has been awfully kind. Of course you knew about it."

"Yes, of course," said Marcia, not turning a hair.

She lied. I knew that Jerry had kept the matter secret even from Marcia. I figured that the revelation must have been something of a shock to one of her intriguing nature, but she covered her grievance skillfully.

"Jerry is very generous," she said sweetly. "Do tell me about it."

Here Jerry blundered in rather sheepishly. "Oh, I say, Una, that's a secret, you know."