Paradise Garden Part 45

"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 b.u.t.terflies," 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 a.s.sumed 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 _impa.s.se_, 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."

"Oh, is it?" said Una innocently. "I can't see why. Marcia knows.

Everybody ought to. It was such a splendid thing to do."

"Jerry is so modest," said Marcia.

"The plans are simply adorable," Una went on quickly. "You know, Jerry, we simply had to have that open-air school on the roof. You know, you didn't object--"

"N--no--of course," said Jerry, shifting his feet.

"And the ward for nursing babies--we _did_ put those windows in the west wall. You know we were a little uncertain about that."

"So we were," echoed Jerry dismally.

This was merely the preliminary skirmish with Una's outposts holding their positions close to the enemy's lines. But Marcia was not to be daunted. She opened fire immediately.

"It's simply _dear_ of you, Una, to take so much interest in the work.

I'm sure Jerry must have frightful difficulties in managing to spend his income. But to have his _oldest friend_ to help him must relieve him of a tremendous burden of responsibility."

The outposts withdrew to the main line of skirmirshers and there opened fire again, from cover.

"It isn't so much a matter of friendship as of real interest in the needs of the community, you know. Anyone else would do quite as well as I; for instance, you, Marcia."

"But you see," Marcia countered coolly, "I haven't known Jerry _nearly_ so long as you have."

"Haven't you?"

"I don't think so. Have I, Jerry?"

Jerry evaded the issue with some skill.

"Friendships aren't reckoned in terms of time," he put in with a short laugh. "If they were I'd be the most solitary person under the sun."