The Devil's Garden

by W. B. Maxwell

At the Cross Roads he drew rein for a moment, as if undecided as to which way to turn. Before going home he had to pay a business call, and his destination was straight ahead of him, about four miles off as the crow flies. The quickest way to get there, the line nearest to the crow's line, would be to leave the road here and ride through Hadleigh Wood, under the bare beeches, among the somber pines, along the gloomy rides; and the alternative route would be to turn to the right, hold to the open road, and follow its deflected course past the Abbey gates and park, and all round the wild forest. That way would be three miles longer than the other way. He turned his horse's head to the right; and as he went on by the road, he was thinking of the terrible chapter in his life that closed with the death of Mr. Barradine.

Nearly fifteen years ago; yet in all that time, although dwelling so near to the tragic fateful wood, he had been into it only once—and then he had gone there with the hounds and jolly loud-voiced riders, cub-hunting, on a bright September morning. The wood symbolized everything that he wished to forget. And he thought that if he were really a rich man—not a poor little well-to-do trader, but a fabulous millionaire—he'd buy all this woodland, cut down every tree, chase away every shadow, and grow corn in the sunlight. He would buy woodland and parkland too—he would burn Aunt Petherick's hidden cottage, the Abbey with its inner, outer and middle courtyards, yes, and its church also; he would burn and fell, and grub and plough, and then plant the seeds of corn that symbolize the resurrection of life; and the sun should shine on a wide yellow sea, with waves of hope rippling across it as the ripened ears bowed and rose; and there should be no trace or stain to mark the submerged slime that had held corruption and death. Then, if he could do that, he would have nothing to remind him of all he had gone through in the past.

Nothing to remind him?

It made no difference whether the Abbey towers and the North Ride chimneys were visible or invisible; no screen of trees, whether leafless as now or carrying the full weight of foliage, could really screen them from him; they were inside him, together with all that they had once signified, a part of himself. If he did not look at them with introspective eyes, if he ignored their existence, if he succeeded in not thinking of them, there was always something else, inside him or outside him, to carry his thoughts back into the black bad time.

At this moment it was the Orphanage, with its wet red roofs and dripping white verandas. His road took him close in front of it—a lengthy stretch of building composed of a central block that contained the hall and schoolrooms, and two lesser and lower blocks connected by cloisters. He glanced at these blocks—long and low, only a ground floor and an upper story—and noticed the veranda and broad balconies. The girls slept here, as Mavis had told him; the younger in one block and the older in the other block. The whole institution had an air of old-established order and unceasing care; all the paint was new and clean; the gardens and terraces, with hedges and shrubs that had grown high and thick, were beautifully kept; not a weed showed in borders or paths; the copper bell in the belfry turret was so well polished that it seemed to shine, even though no glint of sunlight touched it. As he rode by he heard the sound of children's voices, and, raising himself in his stirrups, looked over the clipped yew hedge that guarded the lower garden from the roadway. A dozen or fifteen small blue-cloaks were romping joyously under one of the verandas, and perhaps twenty of the bigger blue-cloaks were soberly parading two by two in a cloister.

Nothing carried him back so promptly and surely as the sight of these blue-cloaked girls, and scarcely a day ever passed without his seeing them. Two by two they were incessantly tramping the roads for miles round. He could not walk, ride, or drive without meeting them. When he heard their footsteps and knew that they were coming marching by Vine-Pits, he turned his back to the office window, or went into the depths of granary or stable. He had hated that day when Mavis brought them off the road and into the heart of his home.

With the sound of their shrill cries and merry laughter lingering in his ears he rode on.

What a hideous and damnable mockery! This was the monument of that good kind man, the late Mr. Barradine. Every red tile, every dab of white paint, every square inch of clean gravel, gave substance and solidity to the lasting fame of that dear sweet gentleman. Visitors to the neighborhood always stopped their carriages or motor cars outside the Orphanage gates, questioned and gaped, sent in their cards, begged for permission to go all over it. Inside, no doubt they admired the rows of clean white beds, some of them quite little cots, others big enough for almost full-grown bouncing lasses; they stood with hushed breath before his portrait in the refectory hall or his bust on the stairs; and perhaps they patted the cheeks of some pretty inmate and asked if, when saying her prayers, she always included the name of the patron saint. On high occasions clergymen and bishops came, there to hiccough and weep over his blessed memory. Great lords and ladies praised him, newspaper writers praised him, ignorant fools in cottages praised him; and to high and low the crowning grace of his glorious charity was the selection of the softer, gentler, and too often downtrodden sex as the object of such tender care. That was what set the sentimental rivers flowing. It proved the innate gentleness and sweetness of him who was now an angel in Heaven. When it came to choosing the guests for the lovely home he had built in his mind, he had said: "I will not fill it with a lot of hulking boys. Boys are naturally rough and coarse animals, and can generally fight their way out on top, no matter how stiff the struggle. Give me so many graceful delicate girls; pretty helpless things, dainty little innocent fascinating creatures; not necessarily fatherless girls, but unprotected girls—girls that grievously need protection."

And Dale thought how the man, when he was alive, dealt with any innocent unprotected girl who chanced to fall into his power. In imagination he saw him taking care of Mavis, when she was young and tender, and scarcely knew right from wrong. In imagination he saw it all again—the pattings and pawings, the scheming and devising, the luring and ensnaring—Barradine and Mavis—the man of many years and the girl of few years, the serpent and the dove, the destroyer and the destroyed. Those torturing mental pictures glowed and took form, and were as vivid now as when, in the hour of his grief and despair, he first made them and saw them.

This departed saint, whose memory had become as a fragrance of myrrh, whose name sounded like the clinking of an incense-pot swung by devout hands, whose monument stood firm as a temple built upon the rock, was simply a dirty old beast for whom no excuse could be possible. What worse crime can there be than that of befouling youth? Who is a worse enemy to the commonweal than he who snatches and steals for his transient gratification treasures that are accumulating to make some honest man's life-long joy? Such wanton abuse of society's law and nature's plan is the unpardonable sin; it is sin as monstrous as the enormities that brought down fire upon the dwellers in the cities of the plain.