Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book II

I made up my mind that if Lilian wanted me, she would have to come forward herself, and I sent off the following telegram at once, so as to stop Mamma going to market and providing for me:

JACKY TO ARVEL.

Telegram. August 2, 1899.

Thanks for amiable invitation, but regret, impossible to leave Paris at present. Very busy.

So they had to pass the day without me. I suppose they thought I should appear at once at Lilian's beck and call, with presents for the Mamma and girl, and cigars for the boy; papers, books, gossip, news and smut for Papa, and he and Lilian could tease me at their ease and so get him an erection for when I was gone.

And I should have had to play clown all day to make them laugh, when I was full of worry, and trouble and grief in Paris! Not that I mind acting a part in society; I am very good at it, and would go splendidly through it, if the girl had been sweet and tender and I knew a rendez-vous would follow the visit.

It must be remembered too that it was my birthday on the nineteenth of July, and Lilian knew it well. She had also made me send a wire to her Papa on his anniversary. I got nothing from them, and I wanted nothing, expected nothing; but why invite me suddenly?

Lilian Arvel would never forgive me this refusal to see her, as both Papa and Raoul would sneer at her, and her vanity would be wounded to find her power was gone.”

August 16, 1899.

In that lively London weekly, Society, since the month of April a serial story had been running, entitled: “The Confessions of Nemesis Hunt,” giving the history of a clergyman's daughter, who becomes an actress, going through the most extraordinary experiences and cynically talking of her various loves and lovers.

She becomes the mistress of an actor, who is a member of the same traveling troupe, and in the number of August 12, 1899, this tale took such a strange turn that I am certain Papa would think I had a hand in it to annoy him and Lilian. (See Appendix N.)

It was simply a strange coincidence. I also sent him a cutting relating to another incestuous father, condemned at Troyes. (See Appendix 0.)

The prospectus of The Double Life, which was now announced as soon ready, went to him as well, and I penciled the following note on it.

JACKY TO ERIC ARVEL.

Note.

Dear Mr. Arvel,

This is the prospectus of the book of which you saw a few rough proofs in the early days of June.

I shall send you my own copy, as I have been foolish enough to subscribe, as soon as I get it, probably in September.

You will read it, enjoy it, just the same as the others I lent to the Villa Lilian, and return to

Yours faithfully,

JACKY.

I was now finishing the revision of The Double Life, and I had inserted the two following paragraphs- Vanderpunk did not know English-and I do not think my additions spoilt that otherwise extraordinary work:

Page 237. -“Her nostrils quivered with fresh rising lust; her lips were moist. She clung to me, murmuring:

“'Papa! Papa! Don't be silly, darling! F… me last. Just one little tiny spend of your poupée. Tiny! Tiny!'“

Page 419. -“1 have a vision, papa! I dream that we are living in a pretty cottage in the country amid trees and flowers! We are happy there with poor dead mamma come to life again. All three we play together. Our bedrooms communicate. Sometimes you take me traveling alone with thee to foreign climes. I shall have a beautiful, tall brother. He shall have a sweetheart, and we will all enjoy her. He shall frig and suck with me, and thou shalt be jealous. Thou wilt make me cheat and deceive all men, and I will rob them for thee and mamma. And I will hoodwink them, telling that I am a virgin, and how papa teases me with his infamous love, and they will take pity and give me gold for my dress and the house. And I will try and never get the pox, so as not to give it to my darling old papa sweetheart!”

It was sweet after having been something like a puppet to turn round and make a marionette of the showman.

It was rather bold to mention that “you saw a few rough proofs,” especially as they had only been lent in secret to the girl, his daughter-mistress, and he always told me what wonderful precautions he took so that “the girl should not get hold of any book you may lend me.”

I had picked up an original edition of Charlot s'amuse, which I sent him in a packet of magazines on the last day of August; and on September 5, a number of The Illustrated Police Budget, containing the “Awful Story of a Daughter's Shame,” heavily marked by me. (See Appendix P)

On the sixteenth of September, I forwarded to him by registered bookpost, a clean, fresh, and uncut copy of The Double Life, which had arrived the same day from Rotterdam, and I received the following letter:

ERIC ARVEL TO JACKY.

Sonis-sur-Marne. September 18, 1899.

My dear Jacky,

I am half ashamed to write to you. It is so long since I was “going to” do so. When I went away to Coblenz a month ago, I made up my mind I would write to you during my travels, but I have such a lot of work to do manipulating the promotions of these new Anglo-German companies for the English market when I am in Germany that I have hardly time to eat.

We went down the Rhine to Cologne, and then from Cologne by train to Brussels, to Blankenberghe and Ostend, returning to Paris in time to spend Sunday, the tenth, quietly at home.

l cannot tell you how much I am obliged for all the papers I found waiting for me at the rue Vissot, and also for the loan of Charlot, and of The Double Life, both of which I am returning to you tomorrow with many thanks.

I think the last is very erotic reading, but there is nothing real about it, as there was about the four little volumes- The Romance of Lust — which you lent me previously.

They were really good as such things go, but what I should like to find would be a book written really by a woman, giving us the contre-partie, and probably convincing us that the act of copulation which plays such a large part among human pleasures is simply based on the vanity of men who “kid” to themselves, while the women are simply relieving themselves of a more or less troublesome itching, and simply regard the male as a parfait jobard.

This idea no doubt came to you when you were out in Samoa?

Can we ever think we hold a woman by her senses? I do not think so, and I have an ideal that the mere act of copulation without a love which has been mutually ripened by long acquaintance is not worth “twopennorth of gin.”

I have not had time to work at my photography, but I hope to get into full blast when some relations, who are going to stop with us, have concluded their visit.

I saw your brother at the Bourse yesterday. You never come there now.

I hope all your people are well.

I am very, very much obliged to you for all the papers, although I do not think much of Nemesis Hunt, who is rather too much of a whale for my swallow.

Yours very truly,

ERIC ARVEL.

JACKY TO ERIC ARVEL.

Paris. September 22, 1899.

My dear Mr. Arvel,

I am very pleased you like the papers I send you. All the magazines that come into the house are always put on my desk after perusal by the different members of our family, as they all know they go to you. And when the pile gets troublesome, I send it off. Therefore I deserve no thanks.

I am afraid you do not approach erotic tales in a proper spirit. Of course Nemesis Hunt, and The Double Life are unreal, but still here and there are incidents relating to passions, natural and unnatural which are such as take place every day. I prove my words by enclosed cutting. (See Appendix Q.)

Work up the amusements of Mademoiselle Vial into a little story and everybody will say it is all lies, the outcome of the writer's diseased imagination.