Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

"She wasn't worthy of you. Jerry," I remarked.

"No, that's not true," he said, a hand shading his eyes from the lamplight. "It would be a poor creature that wouldn't be worthy of such a beast as I. But she tried me, Roger, terribly."

"She tempted you purposely. It was a game. I saw it. But you, poor blind Jerry—"

"Yes, blind and worse than blind, deaf to the appeals of my friends—you and—and Una, who saw where I did not. Marcia had promised to marry me, Roger, to be my wife. Do you understand what such a promise meant to me then? All ideals and clean thoughts. I worshiped her, did not even dare to touch her—until—Oh, I kissed her, Roger. She taught me—many things, little things, innocent they seemed in themselves at the time, but dangerous to my body and to my soul. I knew nothing. I was like a new-born babe. My God! Roger—if only you had told me! If you had told me—"

"I couldn't then, Jerry," I said softly. "It would have been too late. You wouldn't have believed—"

"No," he muttered, "you're right. I wouldn't have believed anything against her at the time or found a real meaning in the truth. She could have done no wrong. Then I saw her kissing that fellow—you remember? I think the change came in me then, my vision. I seemed to see things differently without knowing why. Rage possessed me, animal rage. I saw red. I wanted to kill."

He rose and paced the length of the room with great strides.

"I mustn't, Roger. I can't say more. It's impossible."

I was silent. A reaction had come.

CHAPTER XXVI

DRYAD AND SATYR

Little by little the story came from him. Perhaps I urged him but I think the larger impelling motive to speak was his conscience which drove him on to confession. He needed another mind, another heart, to help him bear his burden. And the years had taught him that the secrets of his lips were mine. I could be as silent, when I chose, as a mummy. He had not named me old Dry-as-dust for nothing.

It seems that when Jerry left us at the Manor that afternoon and took to the woods he had no very clear notion of what he was going to do. All that he knew was that he could not bear the sight or touch or hearing of his fellow beings, least of all of those of us who were kind to him. In fact, he had no very clear notion of anything, for his brain was whirling with terrible grinding, reiterating blows like machinery that is out of order. What thoughts he had were chaotic, mere fragments of incidents, and conversations jumbled and mostly irrelevant. But the vision of the figures in the automobile dominated all. I am sure that he was mentally unsound and that his actions were instinctive. He walked furiously, because walk he must, because violent physical exercise had always been his panacea, and because the very act of locomotion was an achievement of some sort. After awhile he found himself running swiftly along the paths that led to the Sweetwater, and then following the stream through the gorge in the hills, leaping over the rocks until he reached the wall and the broken grille. There he paused for a moment and tried to reason with himself. But he found that he could not think and that his legs still urged him on. They were bent on carrying him to Briar Hills, he knew that much now, and that he had no power to stop them. The violence of his exercise, he said, had cleared the chaos from his brain and only the vision of the red automobile remained, Marcia's roadster. He knew it well. Had he not driven it? There was no mistake. It crossed his disordered brain that red for a machine was a frightful color, a painful color it seemed to him, and he wondered why he hadn't thought that before. Red, blood color, the color that seemed to be in his eyes at that very moment. All the trees were tinged with it, the rocks, even the pools in the brook, around the edges especially—and they had always seemed so cool, so very cool.

He leaped down the rocks and before he realized it had crawled under the broken railing and was in the forest beyond. He did not run now but walked quickly and with the utmost care over fallen tree-trunks and rocks, avoiding the paths and seeking the deep woods, still moving ever nearer to his goal. He made a wide detour around the Laidlaws' place and went half a mile out of his way to avoid the sight of some farmers working in an open field. As he neared Marcia's land he grew more crafty, even crawling upon his hands and knees across a clearing where there was little cover. He had no notion as yet of what he was going to do when he got there except that he hoped to find the girl and Lloyd together.

He saw the house at last and the garden, from a distance. The house had a red roof. Red again! It glared horribly in the afternoon sunlight. He turned his head so that he might not look at it and moved stealthily around a stone wall toward the woods beyond the garden—Marcia's woods, pine woods they were, their floor carpeted with brown needles where he and she had used to go and walk of an afternoon to the rocks by Sweetwater Spring, the source of the stream, they said, which Jerry had named the "blushful Hippocrene," the fountain of the Muses who met there to do Marcia, their goddess, honor.

Marcia, his goddess. And Chan Lloyd! Would they be there? He hoped so. The whole success of his venture seemed to depend upon seeing them together. It was her favorite spot. She had led Jerry to believe that the crevice among the rocks by the spring, a natural throne sculptured by nature, was his, his only, and that he was her king. That had always seemed a very beautiful thought to Jerry. She used to sit at his feet, her arms upon his knees, look up at him and tell him of his dominion over her and all the world; her "fighting-god" he had once been, and then again her Pan, and she a dryad or an oread.

Jerry crept nearer, stealthily. He had learned the craft of the woods years ago, and made no sound. He stalked that grove with the keenness of a deerslayer, moving around through the undergrowth until he was quite near the rocks. He could hear no voices as yet, but something told him that they must be there. It was a very secluded spot; it would have been a pity to have had to go on to the house where Miss Gore and the servants would hear and see. He crawled on his hands and knees, approaching slowly and with some pains. He still heard no sound, but at last reached a ridge of rock within a few feet of the spring and heard voices, lowered, guilty voices they seemed to him. He peered cautiously over. They were there, side by side on the rocky ledge.

Jerry told me that at this moment he seemed suddenly to grow strangely calm. The noises in his head had ceased and he felt a curious sense of quiet exaltation. He couldn't explain this. I think it was a purely mental reaction after many months of spiritual coma. He got to his feet and even before they heard the sounds of his footsteps he stood before them.

They must have been very much alarmed at Jerry's appearance for, after dashing hotfoot through the underbrush and crawling among the rocks, his clothing must have been disarranged and his hair dirty and disordered. The expression of his face, too, in spite of his boasted calm, could hardly have been pleasant to contemplate, for I had had a glimpse of it that morning in the motor and I am sure that for an hour or more he had been mad—quite mad. He said that they sprang apart suddenly and that Lloyd rose with a swaggering air and faced him. But it seemed that the current of Jerry's thought was diverted by Marcia, who had started up and then sank back upon the rock, addressing him in her softest tones.

"Why, Jerry!" she cried. "How you startled me!"

It was the first time, Jerry said, that the caressing tones of the girl's voice had made no impression upon him. In two strides he was alongside of her, within arm's reach of both of them. He looked dangerous, I think, for Lloyd edged off a little. Marcia kept her gaze fixed upon his face and what she read there was hardly reassuring.

"Jerry!" she cried again. "What does this mean? Your clothes are torn; your face scratched. Has—has something happened to you?"

The question was unfortunate, for it loosened Jerry's thick tongue.

"Yes. Something's happened," he muttered, moving a hand across his brows as though to clear his thoughts. And then:

"I've waked up, that's all," he growled.

"Waked! I don't understand," her voice still gentle, appealing, incredulous.

"Yes, awake. You're false as hell."

"Oh," she started back at that and the venturesome Lloyd took a pace forward.

"I say, Benham, I—" He got no further, for Jerry without even looking at him, swept his left arm around, the gesture of a giant bothered by a troublesome insect. But it caught the fellow full in the chest, and sent him reeling backward. Jerry's business just now was with Marcia Van Wyck.

"You understand what I mean," he went on quickly. "You've played false with me. You've always played false. I saw you there this morning kissing this man, the way you kissed me, the way you kiss others for all that I know."

"You're mad. You insult me." She rose, pale and trembling, but facing him hardily.

"No, I'm not mad. Nothing that I can say can insult you."

"Chan!" She appealed.

It was a fatal mistake, for at the word Lloyd came forward again, bent on making some show of resistance. Jerry turned on him with a snarl, for the fellow had foolishly put up his hands. A few blows passed and then—Jerry told what happened rather apologetically—"It was a pity, Roger. It wasn't altogether his fault, but he is a bounder. My fist struck his face, seemed to smear it, literally, all into a blot of red. It wasn't like hitting a man in the ring, it was like—like poking a bag full of dirty linen. The whole fabric seemed to give way. He toppled back, turned a complete somersault and collapsed."

I made no comment. I already knew that Lloyd hadn't been killed. The girl Marcia seemed stricken dumb for a moment and found her voice only when Jerry turned toward her again.

"Jerry," she cried. "It is horrible. You're a brute—beast—"

Jerry only pointed at the prostrate figure slowly struggling to its knees.

"Go and kiss him," he cried. "Go. Kiss him now. He's on his knees to you, waiting for you."

While they watched, Lloyd got to his feet, turned one look of terror in Jerry's direction and then fled blindly into the woods, like one possessed of a devil.

Jerry laughed. It couldn't have been very pretty laughter, for the girl covered her face with her hands and shrank away from him.

"How could you?" she stammered. "How could you?"

"You were mine. He wanted you."

"Jerry—I—. It's all a mistake. You thought you saw us. I haven't kissed—"

"You lie," he came a pace toward her. "I saw you. I'm not a fool—not any longer."

Her gaze met his and fell. There was something in his expression, something of the primitive that tore away all subterfuge.

But she was not without courage.

"And if I did kiss him—what then?" she asked defiantly. "I'll kiss as I please."

"Will you?" He caught at her wrist but she eluded him.

"Yes, I will. What right have you to tell me what I shall do or not do? I'll choose my friends as I please and kiss them as I please, Chan or anyone!"

She had not gauged his temper. Perhaps she hadn't read the meaning in his eyes. Perhaps she thought that she could elude him or that the fact that she was on her own land gave her a fancied sense of security.