Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

CHAPTER VIII

JERRY EMERGES

In hearing from Jack Ballard's own lips the story of Jerry Benham's first appearance in Broadway I was forcibly reminded of the opening cantos of the Divine Comedy where Dante follows the shade of Virgil into the abyss of hell. I had not let Jerry know of my presence in New York, for I believed that he would have wanted me with him and did not care to be placed in a position to refuse him. Indeed I can give no reason for my visit except the very plausible one that, my work going badly, I felt the need of a change. Jack was much amused at my sudden appearance one morning at his apartments, but welcomed me warmly enough, giving the pledge of secrecy I demanded.

"Oh, it's been perfectly ripping," he said, when we were seated, fairly bubbling over with delectable reminiscences. "He's like a newly-hatched chicken, all fluffy and clean, a little batty-eyed and groggy but intensely curious about everything."

"Has he asked any questions?"

"Millions of 'em, like balls from a Roman candle. He shoots 'em at every angle and some of 'em hit."

"You've taken him about?" I asked.

"Yes, but he doesn't exactly comprehend the meaning and purposes of his clubs. I took him in one of them, the most select, on several afternoons. The same fellows were always sitting around a window looking out, others, older ones, were asleep in armchairs. I didn't offer him anything to drink and we sat there, watching the chaps in the window and listening to their talk. The conversation was not brilliant."

"'Do these gentlemen do this all the time?' asked Jerry softly.

"'Yes, almost all the time.'

"'Don't they ever get tired of looking out of the window?'

"'They don't seem to. It's restful to watch other people working.'

"'But don't they do anything else?'

"'Not much. They're rich.'

"'And the others, the old gentlemen asleep in the chairs, are they rich too?'

"'Yes, rich too, but tired.'

"'Tired of being rich?'

"'Perhaps.'

"'I see.'

"He was quiet for a long while and then: 'What a horrible waste of opportunity!'

"I thought this was the psychological moment to put in my brief for the governor.

"'It certainly is. Luckily you've got a career waiting for you.'

"'But if riches only lead to this, Uncle Jack, I'm pretty sure I'd much rather be poor.'

"'There isn't much chance of your getting that wish,' I laughed.

"'Well, I could give my money away,' he said. I looked at him quickly, for his tone was very earnest.

"'That won't do, my boy. Indiscriminate giving may be very injurious.'

"'I can't understand that.'

"A few nights later a beggar touched his arm as he passed. The man said he was hungry and looked it. Jerry gave him his pocketbook. The fellow glanced at the pocketbook and then at Jerry as though he thought the boy was crazy and bolted without a word. Jerry watched him out of sight. 'Might at least have said "Thank you,"' he murmured. He didn't speak of giving away money for awhile.

"A night or two later he had an experience of another sort. It was after the theater, the least noxious play I could discover on the bills. Two women met us in a dark cross street. I saw Jerry stop and stare at one of them. That was unusual. I urged him to go on but he stopped and listened.

"'In an awful hurry, ain't you, dearie?' one of the girls asked.

"'Why, no, not at all,' says Jerry, politely taking off his hat. And then as her appellation struck him: 'I think you must have mistaken me for someone else.'

"The girl was a little puzzled.

"'Aw, yer stringin' me,' she said.

"'Stringing?' asked Jerry.

"'Cut it out. You know what I mean well enough'. Come along,' and she moved a pace away.

"Jerry followed. 'I'd be glad to come if I can be of any assistance.'

"'Assistance,' laughed the girl.

"'Did you hear that, Geraldine?'

"And with that they both burst into roars of laughter.

"Jerry's ignorance of things made him keenly sensitive to ridicule.

"'I think you're very impolite,' he said with dignity.

"'Aw, go chase yourself,' said Geraldine and vanished into the shadows with her companion.

"That interview took a lot of explaining. In fact, all the way to Jerry's house the mystery of the girls' behavior hung like a cloud over him. 'Do you know, Jack,' he said as we were parting, 'I think that girl was mad—quite mad.'"

"Couldn't you have prevented that meeting?" I asked.

"I didn't try. Besides, Jerry is a persistent chap. When I asked him why he stopped, he said it was because the girl looked like somebody he was hunting for."

"Who? I can't imagine."

"He said her name was Una Smith."

"Oh, yes. The minx who slipped into Horsham Manor. I told you about her. But her name isn't Smith."

"Jerry has been looking for her." He laughed. "He thought at first, he said, he'd see her on the street, but was surprised to find the city so large. He was a little disappointed. But I think he's forgotten. There's safety in numbers."

"Then he doesn't know anything yet?"

"Bless your heart! I'd no more think of teaching Jerry filth than I would my own sister. But by the Lord Harry, he's an inquisitive cuss. He's learning that life isn't all beer and skittles, has felt the skinny talons of poverty on his elbow and has heard a truck-driver swear in the approved New York manner. That in itself was a liberal education. The worst of it was that the chap happened to be swearing at Jerry."

He chuckled at the memory.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Jerry jumped over the wheel, caught the man by the collar of his coat and threw him into the street. He was a big 'un too."

Ballard lingered provokingly in the narrative, which was interesting me greatly.

"And then?" I asked.

"The fellow rose, covered with slime, looking vicious.

"'What did you mean taking God's name in vain?' says Jerry sternly.

"'I'll show you, you—'

"He came in with a rush, grimy fists flying. Jerry feinted just once, side-stepped and caught him prettily on the point of the jaw. The blow was beautifully timed, and the fellow dropped like a log."

"And then?"

"A crowd was gathering and so we ducked—I slipped Jerry into a hotel entrance near by and out we went by another way." Ballard paused in the act of lighting a cigarette. "You see, he's already giving battle to society. A walk abroad with Jerry is an adventure which may end in metaphysics or the jail. But it won't do, Roger, tilting at wind-mills like that. He can't make New York like Horsham Manor—at least not all at once."

"He'd try that if he could," I laughed.

"It will be a slow business, I'm afraid. New York is quite contented to be exactly what she is. And the women!" He emitted a tenuous whistle. And then, "I don't suppose it ever occurred to you, Pope, that all these years you've been sheltering the Apollo Belvedere."

"He is good looking. Thank God he doesn't know it."

"He will in time. It's really a shame the way the women stare at him on the street. He's never through blushing when he isn't asking questions.

"'What do those women look at me for?' he asks. 'Nothing queer about me, is there?'

"'Oh, no,' I reply. 'They look at everybody like that. It's a characteristic of the sex, curiosity. You don't mind, do you?'

"'Oh, I suppose not. I rather like it when the pretty ones do. How red their cheeks are and their lips! It must be much more healthful in the city than I had supposed.'"

"Rouge?" I asked.

"Yes, of course. Even the flappers do it. It takes good eyesight to tell 'em from the dowagers nowadays."

"And Jerry doesn't know the difference?"

"I think he's beginning to. A few days ago I met an old girl I know, Mrs. Warrington, walking with Marcia Van Wyck; you know, the heiress, who has the big place up near Horsham Manor—father, mother both dead. Spoiled all her life. Lives with a companion, you know,—poor relation. They stopped us—mere curiosity—not to talk to me, bless your heart, but to see Jerry. It seems they'd heard we'd turned him loose, and guessed who my companion was. We talked awhile and Marcia asked us to call. When they went off. Jerry turned to me in a stage whisper:

"'Jack, that lady has paint on her face.'

"'Woman, not lady,' said I. 'This is Fifth Avenue. The ladies of New York are only to be found on Broadway and the Bowery,'

"He looked bewildered but his other discovery interested him the most.

"'But I say she had paint on her face,' he repeated.

"'How could you tell?' I asked innocently.

"'It was streaky. I saw it.'

"'Possibly. But it isn't polite to notice such things.'

"He was silent a moment. And then: 'I think the other, the girl, Miss Van Wyck, is very beautiful. I think I should like to call on her, Jack.'

"So you see, Pope, he's looking up. Marcia is pretty. She has been out three seasons but she takes good care of herself. I've never liked her much myself—a little too studied, you know, and quite ultra-modern."

"You think Jerry was impressed?" I asked. There may have been a deeper note of interest in my query than I intended, for Jack burst into laughter.

"There you go. Your one chick is a duckling now, Pope, old boy. You'll have to let him swim if he wants to. The water's deep there, too—very deep. Marcia knows her way about."

"It would be a pity if she made a fool of him," I ventured.

He only smiled.

"It would, of course. Perhaps she will. But Jerry's got to cut his eye teeth. And he might as well cut 'em on Marcia as anybody else. But there's no danger of her marrying him for his money. She's almost if not quite as rich as he is. Half the young bloods in town are after her. It's rather flattering to Jerry. She gave me the impression yesterday of rather liking him."

"Oh, you called?"

"It was something of a command. When a girl rolls her eyes the way she did at Jerry and says that he must come to see her, there's nothing for him but to go. Besides, they're neighbors up in the country, you know. I went with him. I had an idea what we were in for, but Jerry didn't, naturally. She expected us and the butler led the way past the drawing-room into the lady's particular sanctorum, a smallish room in a wing of the house all hung in black damask, with black velvet rugs and ebony chairs. Marcia's blonde, you know, and gets her effects daringly. I must admit that she looked dazzling, like a bit of Meissen or Sevres in an ormolu cabinet. She was lolling on a black divan smoking a cigarette and put out her slim fingers languidly. That's her pose—condescension mixed with sudden spasms of intense interest. She extended her fingers to be kissed—she had learned that nonsense in Europe somewhere—and so I kissed 'em. They were dry, cool, very beautifully tinted, with the nails long and highly polished and had the odor, very faintly, of jasmine. Jerry kissed 'em too, looking extremely foolish."

"He would," I growled. "The hussy!"

Ballard shook with laughter.

"Oh, that's rather rough, Pope. She's merely the product of a highly sensitized milieu. Because I don't like girls of that stamp doesn't argue her unlikable. I've never heard a word against her except that she has much attention from men. And with her money and looks that's natural enough."

"What happened?" I put in shortly.

"Oh, she was very languid at first and a little formal, thawing effectively as she drew Jerry out. You see she had a little the advantage in knowing his history.

"'I'm very flattered that you should have come so soon,' she said, comprehending us both in her level gaze. 'Will you smoke, Mr. Benham? No? You haven't succumbed yet to all of the amiable weaknesses of human nature. They're very mild. Do change your mind. There! I knew you would,'

"Jerry fingered the thing and lighted it as though it might have been the match of a blunderbuss.

"'I've been wondering for a great many years, Mr. Benham, what you could be like,' she went on in a tone which is more nearly described as a purr than anything else. 'You know, our places up in Ulster County are almost adjoining. At times I've been tempted to scale your wall. It looked so very attractive from outside. But they told me you kept a private banshee, trained to visit those you didn't like. You don't, do you?'

"Jerry laughed. 'The nearest thing I've got to a banshee is my dog Skookums. But he's blind in one eye and his teeth are gone, and he's too lazy even to wag his tail. Besides I don't see why I should set him on you!

"She laughed, showing a row of rather small but even teeth.

"'They say you don't like girls. Tell me it isn't so, Mr. Ballard'—she appealed to me.

"I saw the way the wind was blowing but I chose to humor her.

"'I am sure he adores the very ground you walk on,' I said politely, 'especially when you look like a figure on an Etruscan amphora.'

"She smiled slowly. 'You can say nice things, can't you, Mr. Ballard? But that doesn't quite exculpate Mr. Benham.'

"'I'm sure,' said Jerry very gravely, 'that you're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen!'

"Her fishing prospered. Her eyelashes lowered so that we both could see how long they were and when she raised them again and looked at Jerry her eyes were opened wide.

"'That is the greatest compliment I've ever received in my life,' she said evenly. 'I hope you mean it, Mr. Benham.'

"'I shouldn't have said it if I didn't think so,' said Jerry quickly.

"Something in the positive way he spoke pleased her again for she smiled bewitchingly, effacing me completely. I think we're going to be very good friends,' she said, moving up on the divan a little nearer to him. 'Of course, it takes more than the aesthetic appeal to bring two sensible people together,' she murmured. 'It is not the eye which must catch the reflection, but the mind. You've thought a good deal—and studied? Men are so vapid nowadays.' She sighed. 'I hope some day you will think I'm clever enough for you to talk to me about things.'

"She was playing up to him, you see, I think that Jerry is the most extraordinary male animal that has ambled into her vision this winter.

"'I'd be glad to. Of course you're different from anything I ever saw before,' said Jerry. 'I've always thought of nature as the most beautiful thing in the world. Now I seem to be just as sure that art is.'

"That rather took her aback, but she didn't turn a hair.

"'You think all this—superfluous?'

"'Not superfluous, perhaps. Merely artificial.'

"'Am I artificial?'

"'Yes,' bluntly! 'I don't understand it at all. But it's singularly effective. It's like night with only one star visible—'

"'The more visible,' I put in, 'for being Venus.'

"She looked at me slantways. 'I'm sorry you said that, Mr. Ballard. Venus is not my goddess. Diana—'

"'The Huntress,' I broke in again.

"'Pallas Athene, the guardian and guide of heroes,' she countered neatly.

"'I'm glad you don't like Venus, Miss Van Wyck,' put in Jerry quickly. 'She made a lot of trouble, just because she was pretty. Diana—she was the right sort, no sentimental rot for her.'

"'Of course. Sentiment is rot and so sloppy.'

"Jerry laughed ingenuously. 'That's a good word,' he said. 'Imagine Diana being sloppy.'

"'Women aren't nearly as sentimental as they used to be. As a woman's weapon hysteria has gone to the dust heap. Women are learning independence. You believe in women thinking for themselves, don't you?'

"'Of course,' said Jerry. 'But they don't, do they?'

"'I do. It's one of my gospels to be self-sufficient. Don't you believe me?'

"'I'd like to, you're so lovely to look at. I'd like to think you were perfect in everything.'

"He refreshed her. Her artificialities one by one were falling away from her like discarded garments. And yet I was not sure that it wasn't artifice that was discarding them. She was very clever. I might have guessed it, had I noticed earlier the volumes by Freud and Strindberg on the little ebony side table."

Ballard paused a moment to light a fresh cigarette.

"Bah!" I muttered contemptuously.

He looked over at me thoughtfully. "You may sneer, Pope, my boy," he commented. "But this sort of thing has come to stay. The infants are imbibing it with their bottles—self-expression, self-analysis and all that."

"But this girl is dangerous," I remarked.

"I imagine she is," he said calmly. "At any rate, she's going to prove or disprove your precious hypothesis."

"I'm not afraid for Jerry," I growled. "No chameleon will change his color. What else did she say?"

"She was very much pleased at Jerry's compliment.

"'Someone has taught you to be very polite,' she said with a smile.

"'Polite?' asked Jerry. 'Merely because I was hoping you weren't flabby?'

"'Well, I'm not flabby,' she smiled indulgently. 'I hate flabby people.'

"'I don't see any reason why a woman should be different from a man,' Jerry went on. 'Men don't cry, why should women? I've always thought the Greeks were right. To me there's only one sin the world and that's weakness.'

"You'll pardon me, Pope, if I say that he sounded very much like you," he laughed. "He had the preaching tone, the assertiveness. It was most amusing. Imagine the paradox, this babe, an ascetic and this worldling, a sybarite, meeting upon a common ground! For I really believe she was sincere about her self-sufficiency. Whatever her tastes, she's no weakling."

"But she's trivial, a smatterer, a decadent—"

"And handsome," laughed Ballard. "Don't forget that."

"Mere looks will never ensnare Jerry."

"I hope not, but she'll teach him a thing or two before she's through with him."

I was silent for some moments, and then: "What else do you know of this girl?" I asked.

"Nothing. I've painted you the picture as well as I could. The conversation that followed was unimportant. Her remarks became guarded and later descended to the mere commonplace."

"She is dangerous," I said.

"I've warned Jerry. He laughed at me."

"When was this call?" I asked.

"The day before yesterday."

"And where is Jerry today?"

"I have a notion that he is spending the afternoon with Miss Marcia Van Wyck," he said with a smile.

CHAPTER IX

FOOT-WORK

I should very much like to have been present while Jerry made some of his visits to the house of the girl Marcia in order to have heard with my own ears what she said to Jerry in those first few weeks of their acquaintance. Some of it, a very little, I did learn from Jerry's letters to me, but much more from Jack Ballard, who visited the lady upon his own account and supplied the missing links in my information as to the growing friendship. But the nature of Jerry's feelings toward her I can only surmise by my knowledge of the character of the boy himself through which I tried to peer as with my own eyes, at the personality of this extraordinary female. That she was more than ordinarily clever there was no reason to doubt; that she was attractive to the better class of young men in her own set was beyond dispute; that she was thoroughly unscrupulous as to the means by which she attained her ends (whatever they were) seemed more than probable. Perhaps she did not differ greatly from other young female persons in her own walk of life, but I would have been better pleased if Jerry's education in the ways of the world could have proceeded a little more slowly. It seemed to me as I compared them, that the girl Una, who had called herself Smith, brazen as she was, would have been a much saner companion. I could not believe, of course, that either of them could sway Jerry definitely from the path of right thinking, but I realized that the eleven years during which Jerry had been all mine were but a short period of time when compared to the years that lay before him. From the description I had of her, the Van Wyck girl was not at all the kind of female that I thought Jerry would like. She was an exotic, and was redolent, I am sure, of faint sweet odors which would perplex Jerry, who had known nothing but the smell of the forest balsams. She was effete and oriental, Jerry clean and western.

But, of course, I had not met the girl and my opinion of her was based upon the merest guesses as to her habits and character. She seemed to be, according to Ballard, essentially feminine (whatever he meant by that) and in spite of her protestations to Jerry as to her self-sufficiency and soundness, to have a faculty for ingratiating herself into the fullest confidence of the young men who came into her net.

In looking over the above, it occurs to me that I may be accused of prejudice against or unfairness to this girl of whom I really knew so little, for if I do not tell the truth, this work has no value. But upon consideration I have decided to let my opinions stand, leaving my own personal point of view to weigh as little or as much as it may in the mind of my reader. To say that I was jealous of Jerry's attentions to any young woman would be as far from the truth as to say that I was not jealous for his happiness. But as several weeks went by and Jerry did not appear at the Manor, his notes meanwhile becoming more and more fragmentary, I found a conviction slowly growing in my mind that my importance in Jerry's scheme of things was diminishing with the days. One afternoon just before the dinner hour I was reading Heminge and Condell's remarkable preface to the "Instauratio Magna" of Bacon, which advances the theory that the state of knowledge is not greatly advancing and that a way must be opened for the human understanding entirely different from any known. In the midst of my studies Jerry rushed in, flushed with his long drive in the open air, and threw his great arms around my neck, almost smothering me.

"Good old Dry-as-dust! Thought I'd surprise you. Glad to see me? Anything to eat? By George! You're as yellow as a kite's foot. Been reading yourself into a mummy, haven't you?"

It was good to see him. He seemed to bring the whole of outdoors in with him.

I took him by the shoulders and held him off from me, laughing in pure happiness.

"Well. What are you looking at? Expect to see my spots all changed?"

"I think you've actually grown."

"In four weeks? Rubbish! I think I've contracted. If there's anything to make a fellow feel small it's rubbing elbows with four million people. Good old Roger! Seems as if I'd been away for a lifetime. Then again it seems as if I'd never been away at all, as if New York was all a dream. Well, here I am, like Shadrach, past the fiery furnace and not even scorched. It's a queer place—New York—full of queer people, living on shelves, like the preserves in a pantry. Great though! I'm getting to understand 'em a little, though they don't understand me. I suppose I'm queer to them. Funny, isn't it? 'Old fashioned,' a fellow called me the other day. I didn't know whether to hit him or take him by the hand. I think he meant it as a compliment. I had been polite, that's all. Most people don't understand you when you say, 'Thank you' or 'Excuse me.' They just stare, and then dash on. I used to wonder where they were all going and why they were rushing. I don't now. I rush like the rest of 'em, even when I've got nothing to do of a morning but to buy a new cravat. By Jove, I'm rattling on. Is dinner ready?"