Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book II

With kindest regards from all, believe me to remain,

Yours very truly,

ERIC ARVEL.

May 28, 1899.

I sent a polite wire in answer and some of my perfumery for the mother and daughter, and went on my bicycle, arriving in the morning.

The photograph represented Lilian in her Japanese costume, standing up, her head reclining on the left breast of her handsome brother, who is swathed in the Japanese robe I had once put on. His arm is round her waist; he holds one of her hands in his, and presses it on his shoulder, while his cheek touches her hair, and she looks out of the picture with a wicked smile on her naughty face. Raoul seems sly, sardonic, and serious, as was his wont.

This group had been shown to my brother at the Bourse a a few days before I got mine, much to his surprise. He asked Mr. Arvel what it meant.

“It is a brother and sister,” was the answer. My brother found this very funny, as he thought it was slightly lewd.

When I got in, Papa was in his little photographic dark-room near the garden gate, and he was evidently quite gone with admiration on this Japanese group. I extolled it, and said it was very voluptuous, giving an impression of indecency, by reason of the flowing drapery of the girl, as one could see she had no stays on.

“You mean the backside!” he replied, coarsely.

I said it was very beautiful, and continued:

“Why don't you get photographed with her? I should like to see you two together.”

He did not answer, but I saw the usual change in his face, and he began arranging some bottles.

He told me he would photograph me that afternoon with my bicycle, and I could take him, as I expressed the wish to have his likeness I said I wanted him, as I had already got Lilian and Raoul, and he gave me some more copies of the Japanese couple on other papers, as there were several hanging up to dry.

I had brought a fancy little trick photograph, representing Lilian as a ballet girl. They sell in Paris cards without heads to print photographs upon, and if you have a negative you can get your friends' faces on comic bodies. Arvel liked the joke.

After some conversation, Lilian appeared to invite us in to breakfast, and greeted me with marked and studied coolness, still playing a part for her Papa. She looked old, worn, and seemed to get uglier every time I saw her. Her skin was dark and sallow, and a moustache was coming. She was black under the eyes. She was dressed without any care, and had no powder, or lip coloring. There were no rings on her hands.

I was very gay and quite self-possessed. I chaffed her about the Japanese photograph. I told her that her brother looked sly and devilish: as satanic as myself.

“My brother says it is indecent. He has seen it. Your Papa showed it to him at the Bourse. He is now quite gone on the little Japanese girl.”

“Pa,” said she, “you are mad to have shown that at the Bourse. I suppose everybody has seen it?”

And I persuaded him to have it enlarged and colored. We now went in to breakfast, and I told her quite loudly before her Papa, not to be sulky that day.

“Don't put on your black face, and show those ugly, violet, distorted lips. Last time I saw you, you looked like a Christy minstrel.”

She walked rapidly away in front of me, turning her back to both of us, quite surprised, and he, of course, said nothing.

I had on for the first time at Sonis, bicycle breeches and Scotch stockings, and I began to make fun of my own calves, as we sat down to table. I said that all the ladies were in love with me, since my relations and my half-sister had forced me to put on cycling costume.

“Oh, your love! That must be very precious!” exclaimed Lilian, sneeringly and loudly, so that both her mother and father could not fail to hear her.

“Precious or not, once tasted, women always return for it,” was my quick rejoinder.

She made no reply to this vain boast. The rest of the talk at déjeuner, although I made as many jokes as I could, and caused them all to laugh, does not concern our narrative.

I said that I had been to London just before Whitsuntide.

“I wish I had known,” said Papa, “you could have brought me over a camera. There is no duty on it.”

“I should have been very pleased to do so. I went to see some friends, had some clothes made, and I purchased this bicycle rig-out.”

I said, which was perfectly true, that every Sunday I had been coming to Sonis to lunch in the pretty village with a party of cycling friends, but that the weather had been too cold. They were astonished. I said I should come down next Sunday. They told me they were all going to the races in Paris. I expect Lilian got me invited, after nearly a month's silence, to tell me she was going to the races. They evidently thought I should go too, and walk them about, give her and her Mamma drinks, and gamble a little for them. Instead of which, I said I was coming to Sonis with some ladies. I, of course, did not tell the principal lady of the party-no other than my Lily at home-that the Arvels would all be absent on Sunday. So that was all smoothed over. And my artful puss of a “missus” who thought I dared not go to Sonis with her, was now thoroughly mystified. At the end of the lunch, Lilian broke out with her old lie:

“I must go to Paris this afternoon to get some cottons, etc.”

“You can't go now that Mr. S. is here!” said Papa.

This was her usual comedy. I said nothing, but it will be seen later in the afternoon, that it was only a fib to tease me and hide the fact that my invitation had been deliberately planned by the pair.

Now comes a big parcel from the Louvre, with household goods, brooms, etc. Papa will not pay and flies into a passion. He does not pull out handfuls of gold, as he did in February.

Ma runs out in a huff. Lilian chides Papa for getting in a rage, just as if he were a little boy: “Temper, Pa, temper!” she says.

“Let her go mad if she likes and tear her hair and grit her teeth, as she did the other day,” snarls Arvel.

They must quarrel horribly at times.

“She has no money left,” says Lilian quietly, “and she will only send the things back. It is silly of you.”

Papa reflects, and then relents, with a heavy sigh.

“Well, go and pay it out of your money.”

Lilian goes and gets the money upstairs and he is alone with me. He groans about the two women's extravagance.

The meal is finished and I am to go out on my bike with Papa. Lilian refuses to accompany us. I do not ask her. She has customers coming. She also takes piano lessons now. She says she has a new bicycling costume.

Papa starts his parrot-cry again: “Bitter! Bitter!” And then he says, apropos of nothing:

“Raoul spells 'bitter' with one 't.'“ He chuckles at this.

“Ah, that makes 'biter,'“ I reply. “The biter bit!”

His laugh stops suddenly and there is a pause, enabling me to add:

“Sometimes people try to trick you, but you see through them and they lose the game.”

“In that case,”-and Papa spoke with some warmth- “the loser retires, and don't go into mourning for so little.”

“How can people try to trick you, when there is not any interested motive to be seen?” broke in Lilian, as she rolled up the napkins and put them in the drawer of the buffet.

“But if the motive is hidden?” quoth I.

No answer came, and Papa and I go and work at photography. He takes me in two positions. I take him in two others. He is a handsome man, or was. Lilian comes now and again to see us at work, and once in a fit of rage, she tears up her photograph as the ballet-dancer, which has been shown to Mamma and all the work-girls. I could see that they had still some lingering idea that I was a jealous lover, full of agony at Lilian's coldness, and she hated to see me so natural and undramatic.