JACK BALLARD TAKES CHARGE
On my way back to the Manor house I thought deeply of a way to make
the best of the situation. That Jerry was a philosopher seemed for the
moment to be a matter of little importance, for the portion of his
conversation in the cabin which I had overheard was an indictment both
of my teaching and my integrity. His eyes, thanks to the gabble of
this mischievous visitor, were now open. He would want to know
everything and I found myself placed in the position of being obliged
to choose between a frankness which would be hazardous and a deception
which would be intolerable. The time had suddenly come for generous
revelations. I had labored all these years to bring Jerry to manhood,
armed with righteousness and a sound philosophy, equipment enough
according to my reading of his character and the meaning of life, to
make him impervious to all sophistry and all sin. The conversation
that I had overheard did nothing to weaken my faith in the Great
Experiment which in my heart I felt already to be an unqualified
success, but it notified me of the fact which had almost escaped me,
that Jerry was no longer a boy but a man in years as well as body and
intelligence and that his desire for worldly knowledge was not to be
thwarted.
And yet the prospect seemed far from pleasing to me. It was the
beginning of the end of our Utopia. Upon the threshold of the world
Jerry was eager for that which I had scorned. Our paths would
separate. The old relation would be no more.
I went home slowly and I think some sign of my weariness and
perplexity must have been marked upon my features as I entered the
hall where Jerry with sober countenance awaited me. There was nothing
for it but to talk the thing out. I did not upbraid him nor he me. We
understood each other too well for that.
Then followed the flood of eager questions from a mind topsy-turvy. I
answered him slowly, deliberately, and gave him in some detail his
father's thesis on education, explaining how and why I happened to be
in sympathy with it and pointing out by the results attained the
wisdom of our plans.
"Results!" he cried. "What results? In what respect is my education
better than another man's? I know my Latin, and my Greek, my French,
my German. I'm a good history scholar, and what you've taught me of
philosophy,--the inside of books--all of it. But life, Roger,--you've
starved me--starved me! If I were a babe in arms I couldn't know
less--"
"You'll know life in time, Jerry, see it through a finer prism."
"I want to see it as it is, in the raw, not beautiful when it is not
beautiful. I want the truth--all the truth, Roger, the rough and the
ugly where it _is_ rough and ugly. You say you've made me a man,
taught me to think fine thoughts, given me a good mind and a strong
body, but all the while you were sheltering me, saving me--from what?
What good are my mind and body if they aren't strong enough to be put
to the test of life and survive it?"
He was much agitated.
"I have no fear to put you to any test--today, tomorrow," I said
quietly.
"Then put me to it--out there." With a wave of his arm he cried: "I
must see for myself, think for myself."
"You shall, Jerry, soon. Will you be patient a little while longer?"
He controlled himself with an effort and bent forward in his chair,
bringing his head down into his hands.
"It's hard. I feel like a coward, a coward--not taking my share--"
"Ah," I said suddenly, "_she_ called you that?"
"Yes. If she had been a man I should have thrashed her. But in a
moment I knew that she had spoken the truth."
"But Jerry, a coward is one who is afraid. How could you be afraid of
something you didn't know about?"
"But I know now. She told me very little, Roger, but I've guessed the
rest."
He went on in this vein for awhile and at last grew calmer. And the
result of it all was a promise on my part to answer more frankly all
his questions, to subscribe to two newspapers and some magazines, and
to begin on the morrow a course of reading which would prepare the way
for his contact with the world. He seemed satisfied and at last went
to bed with his old cheery "Good night, Dry-as-dust."
After all, I had gotten out of it well enough. Only a few months
remained for him within the wall and with the exception of the
newspapers, my plans for him were really little changed. I may as well
confess at once that my delay in broadening his point of view was
selfish. I had made such a beautiful thing that I was as proud of it
as any painter of his masterpiece. Until the present moment I had been
true to my own ideals. What was to follow must be a concession to
convention.
But I entered frankly enough into the new scheme of things and set
Jerry a course in modern fiction in books carefully chosen and before
the summer was gone and the autumn far advanced Jerry had read at
least a shelf-full of volumes. He went through them avidly and asked
few questions. Love between the sexes he now accepted as a matter of
course, but he hadn't the slightest conception of what it meant and
told me so. He had passed the morbid age between boyhood and manhood,
his head in the air, his gaze upon the stars, and what he read now did
not trouble him.
And as the months flew by without the expected revelation, I breathed
more freely. His heart was so clean that the suggestion of forbidden
things made no impression upon it. He already accepted suffering, sin,
disease, as part of the lot of a too complex society, but he made few
comments upon his reading and these were perfunctory. He was so free
from guile that I actually believe he could have been given access to
any library without fear of contamination.
In November Jack Ballard arrived for a visit of a few days and
announced that his father had bought a house in New York which was to
be ready for occupancy after Jerry's birthday. As Jack is to occupy a
prominent place in these pages, I may as well announce at once that at
this time he had reached the age of thirty-five, had kept most of his
hair, was slightly inclined to corpulency, and wore gay cravats which
matched his handkerchiefs, shirts and socks, the "sartorial symphony,"
as he described it. He still kept office hours from two to three on
Thursdays and refused all efforts on the part of his father to make
him take life other than as a colossal joke. He had not married,
though I do not doubt that there were many who would have nabbed him
quickly enough.
In his previous visits to Horsham Manor Jack had, at no little cost,
repressed his speech into accord with my teachings, and Jerry was very
fond of him. They fished, swam and sparred by day, and in the evenings
Jack told stories of hunting in foreign countries to which Jerry
listened wide-eyed.
But now, it seemed, his visit had a purport. There was just a
suggestion of swagger in Jack's manner at the dinner table where, to
Jerry's surprise, he wore a jacket and a fluted shirt.
At the boy's comment, Jack inhaled deeply of his cigarette (another
operation which Jerry always regarded with a certain awe) and stated
the object of his visit, which was nothing less than that of
sartorially equipping Jerry for the fray.
"To be well-dressed, my boy," he said gayly, "is to show the finishing
touch of a perfect culture. Without well-fitting garments no man is
complete. I am going to clothe you, Jerry, from the skin out. That's
my privilege. I shall be the framemaker for Roger's _magnum opus_.
And not over my dead body shall you wear after December twelfth a
tartan-cravat." (Jerry fingered at the gay bit of ribbon at his neck.)
"If you will remember, our friend Ruskin said that the man who wears a
tartan-cravat will most surely be damned."
As you will observe. Jack Ballard exactly defined sophistication, root
and branch. But his sophistries were always colorful and ornamental
and of course Jerry laughed.
"I'll take your word for it, Uncle Jack," he said. "But you know I
rather like color."
"Of course, in a rainbow, my boy. But in a cravat--no! The cravat is
the chevron of gentility. You shall see. Symphonies in browns and
gray-greens! I'll make you a heart-breaker."
"Why do you put such rubbish in his head, Ballard?" I said testily.
"Because he's got quite enough essential matter there already," he
laughed. "For ten years you've been packing him with facts. I have a
feeling that if one only shook Jerry a little, he would disgorge them
all--dates of battles, maxims, memorabilia of all sorts, a
heterogeneous mess. He's full to the brim, I tell you, and ready to
explode. Suppose he did! How would you like to be hit in the midriff
by an apothegm of Cicero, or be hamstrung by the subjunctive
pluperfect of an irregular French verb?"
Jerry was laughing immoderately, though I admit such blackface
pleasantry appealed little to my sense of humor. But I found myself
smiling. "Surely you don't expect to avert this catastrophe by
providing Jerry with a new cravat?" I urged.
"That is precisely what I _do_ expect," he said. "You've had your
fling at him, Pope. I'm going to have mine. Tomorrow a tailor will
arrive, also a haberdasher and a bootmaker. Jerry will be measured
from top to toe. The mountain is coming to Mahomet."
"Let's be sure no mouse is born," I said dryly.
"Six feet two of country mouse," he roared. "Oh, Pope, don't you
worry. We'll show you a thing or two, won't we, Jerry?"
The tailor, the haberdasher and the bootmaker came, saw and measured,
while Jack sat in the background, with a sheaf of plates of men's
clothing in his lap, and gave directions. Jerry must have felt a great
deal like a fool during the operation for I'm sure he looked one. But
Ballard had his way and not until night did he leave us to peace and
our own devices.
The time for the boy's emergence approached, alas, too quickly. A
change had come over the spirit of Jerry's dreams. I saw that he was
eager to go. It seemed that he already stood on tiptoe peering forth,
eager, straining at his leash. And since he was no longer content at
Horsham Manor, I reasoned, with regret, that the sooner he went the
better. I had done all I could for him. His destiny was now in the lap
of the gods.
Everything had been carefully arranged. The Ballards, elder and
younger, were to take him to the new house in town where Christopher
would look after him. At first Jerry would not listen to the
arrangement. I had for so long been his guide and philosopher I must
continue his friend. He wanted me with him in New York. But to this I
demurred. Much as I disliked the thought of separation, I had made up
my mind that he must go alone, cut adrift from all moral support. I
had wished to go away, for having saved practically all my salary for
ten years I was now independent, but at Jerry's insistent pleading we
compromised. For the present I would stay on at the Manor and finish
my book.
Jerry's birthday dinner was an impressive affair. With the two
Ballards came the five solemn co-executors of John Benham's will--Mr.
Stewardson, Mr. da Costa, Mr. Wrenn, Mr. Walsenberg and Mr. Duhring.
And these, with Jerry, Radford, Flynn, the boxer, and myself made up
the company. Jerry had insisted on having Flynn and no amount of
urging could dissuade him. Flynn was his friend, he said, more his
friend than Mr. Wrenn, Mr. Duhring or indeed any of the others whom he
barely knew by sight. And so Flynn came.
The elders were solemn and significant, Jerry, at the head of the
table, wearing for the first time his new finery (under the hypnotism,
as he confessed in a whisper, of the vast expanse of white
shirt-front), trying to look as though he were enjoying himself.
Radford and I were mere onlookers. Flynn was acutely miserable. Had it
not been for Jack Ballard I fear the conversation would have
degenerated into a discussion of the merits and possibilities of
Jerry's many "companies." But every time that that danger threatened
the irrepressible Jack demolished it with an anecdote. He wasn't going
to have Jerry's bud nipped so early, as his own had been, by the frost
of finance. By the time we had reached the roast, and the champagne,
the plutocrats seemed to realize that the occasion was a birthday
party and not a board meeting.
Over the port there were speeches, toasts by the plutocrats, one by
one, to the newly risen Railroad King, while Jerry grasped the arms of
his chair, a ballet dancer's smile on his lips, trying to look happy.
But when Jack got up he laughed genuinely.
"Gentlemen, I've known our host of this evening almost since he was
born. I have watched with solicitude the rearing of this infant. I am
his fairy godfather. I got Canby. Thanks to my wisdom, Jerry has now
safely emerged from the baby diseases, and confronts the world in a
boiled shirt. He has kindly consented, I think, against the advice of
his tutor, to permit me to put the finishing touches on his education.
"Jerry has already been proposed at three excellent clubs, to two of
which he has been elected today. I have warned him against the
insidious cocktail and the deadly cigarette" (here Jack puffed at one
vigorously) "and have advised him that ladies were designed by their
Maker for purely ornamental purposes. I am not sure that he has taken
my word for it and will probably propose to verify my statement
according to his reading of aesthetics. I wish him all success in the
purely scientific side of his investigations.
"As to his career, gentlemen, I warn you that he will choose it for
himself. If you don't believe me, I will ask you carefully to examine
the breadth and squareness of his chin. In proposing Jerry Benham's
health, a superfluous proceeding at the best, I don't think I can pay
him a higher tribute than in saying that in addition to being both a
scholar and a gentleman, he is also the best heavyweight boxer I have
ever seen, in the ring or out of it, and that anyone who expects to
make him do anything he does not want to do, will be a subject for
commiseration--or the coroner. Gentlemen, Jerry Benham!"
Having discharged this bombshell into the ranks of the plutocrats,
Jack sat down. Of course, everybody laughed, and while they were
laughing Flynn awkwardly got up, perspiring profusely, first shooting
his cuffs and then fingering at his neckband. "Misther Ballard's
right, gents. He's right. I don't know much about books, but if
Masther Jerry's as good at edjication as he is wid his fists, then all
I've got to say is that he's _some_ perfessor. I've been workin' wid
him on an' off these four year an' all I'd loike to say to you, gents,
is just this: Don't crowd him, _don't crowd him_, gents, because he's
got an uppercut like a ton o' coal."
Flynn sat down amid applause and Jerry rose, flushing happily. I think
what Flynn had said pleased him more than all that had preceded it.
"My friends," he said quietly, "I am glad to see you here and hope
that I may prove worthy of your good opinions. I'm grateful to you and
Mr. Ballard, Mr. Stewardson, Mr. da Costa, Mr. Walsenberg, Mr. Wrenn
and Mr. Duhring for all that you've done for me in here, but I want
you all to know that it's to Roger Canby that I owe my greatest debt,
to Roger Canby, my tutor, brother, mother, father,--friend."
They wanted me to speak. I could not. But Jerry understood.
In the library after dinner I overheard part of a conversation
between Ballard the elder and Mr. Duhring.
"What's all this rubbish of Jack's, Harry, about Jerry having a square
chin. Do you think he'll be difficult to manage?"
Henry Ballard smiled.
"Jack can't resist his little joke. I'm afraid I've spoiled that boy
outrageously."
"Yes, I rather think you have," said the other dryly.