Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book I

LILIAN. Yes.

JACKY. Well, I could have taken your maidenhead, perhaps got you in the family way, and gone away laughing at you and all your people. (There was no reply to this. She bent her head still more, and dragged herself away from me, writhing strangely as she spoke.)

LILIAN. But this is my position. I am a milliner. It is supposed down here that I am carrying on this trade merely as a pleasant occupation until I get married. I have talent and taste. I know I have. Here I hardly make headway. I can't get workgirls or fresh customers. I have to give a hundred francs a month to Father for my keep. (The last time she told me this, the sum was a hundred and fifty. And Papa had just told me in the afternoon that he had given her a purse with silver mounts and five louis in it for a Christmas present. This did not look as if she was paying for her board now, whatever she may have done up to this winter. The word “darling” would not be so lovingly applied to a grasping Papa.) He gives Mother only a hundred francs a week to keep house. It is not enough for five mouths and all the dogs. Besides, he is a great glutton and wants everything of the finest and well served. He does not care a straw for me or my future. I know I please men generally and I could marry to-morrow if I liked (?), but I could never act the part of a loving wife to a man I did not care about. My stomach rises at the very thought. I want to go and live in Paris, and start a millinery business in a little apartment of my own. My parents won't help me. When I came to Paris this summer to you, and brought back the money you gave me, supposed to be the bad debt coming in from Madame Muller, they received me with open arms, and asked no questions. But when I returned from you and your English friends empty-handed, there was an awful row, and Mother was going herself with me to see the lady I was supposed to have spent the day with.

JACKY. Which reminds me that I thoroughly believe you had that letter of mine with the money in it, but being angry at having to worry me for it, and thinking too that it was not enough, you never acknowledged it. Later, when I asked you about it, to get out of it all, you denied having received the letter. That was a lie.

She did not seem astonished at this accusation, but looked quite dazed and replied softly: “What ugly ideas you have of me!”

JACKY. But you can't go and live alone in Paris, You might perhaps carry on a business, if you were to go home and sleep at your mother's every night, but otherwise your reputation would be damned. People would talk, and ask your concierge, and he would say that you were all alone, and that there was an Englishman who often came and stopped late, and so on.

LILIAN. But I know a girl who is in business all alone, and no one speaks against her. I could not go backwards and forwards, as the work must be ready for the girls at seven a.m., and sometimes they work until eleven at night. You don't or won't understand me.

JACKY. All this sounds very fantastical to me. I don't understand it at all. And I can do nothing for you in this matter. I have nothing for you. It is all too strange.

LILIAN. It is you who are strange and unjust. I am very unhappy at vegetating down here and I worry and fret when I think of you!

JACKY. (With surprise.) What! Poor little Lilian, does she really think about me sometimes?

LILIAN. I shall be in Paris tomorrow evening at five p.m. I have to see a customer. I have many customers in Paris now.

This was a lie to tease me and make me jealous, and to confirm my opinion, I try the following proposition:

“I will come and meet you at the station.”

LILIAN. (Quickly.) Suppose you do? How much better off will you be? What good will that do you?

JACKY. No good at all, but I should see you for a few minutes. As you don't care about it, I will not trouble you.

We were now home again, and nothing more definite had been said. I bade good bye to her mother, who gave me a lump of pudding to take away, and Lilian and her father accompanied me to the station. Mademoiselle was very quiet, and looked embarrassed, but caressed me furtively on the way. My plain words had evidently been a surprise for her. It was half-past twelve; time for the last train.

I can see myself now standing on top of the steep steps that led to the bridge conducting to the up platform. Papa and his Lilian looking up at me, as I wave my hand to them. She gazes at me with a look of wonder and puzzled wistfulness in her large eyes. I turn away with a feeling of pity and sadness for her. She does not know me, and does not possess any delicate feelings, and the advice that her Papa will give her will never be conducive to her benefit.

I returned home with the impression that she would no longer have any wish to see me again. I was glad I had found the courage to speak plainly. How many men would have dared to tell a woman they desired anything that might cause them to lose her? I supposed she would send for me, if she wanted me, and if she did not, so much the better for me; it would be a worry the less, for considering the slight amount of sensual satisfaction I got at rare intervals, it was not worth-while associating with the semi-incestuous couple.

I had to write to Papa the next day about a bitch he had ready to whelp-more in-breeding! — and to send to his bureau in the rue Vissot a box of writing-paper for Lilian, which I had promised her as far back as the famous eleventh of November, but which I could not get from the maker. I had two boxes made. One was for my Lilian at home. It was fancy dark blue note, with the name of Lilian in the corner, embossed in white.

Mr. Arvel knew about the paper and I think he knew a little more.

I determined I would not make the slightest move towards her.

My lady readers will be very angry with me, and tell me I expected too much, having been cruel, really quite too awfully cruel morally, to a poor little girl, whose only crime was that she wanted to get on in the world, and how could she do that, unless she got somebody to help her-lover or husband?

To which I reply that had Miss Arvel been a poor little milliner, living alone in one small room, working truly for her daily bread, depending on the caprice of her employers, I should have befriended her to the utmost, and moved heaven and earth to make her comfortable. But she had a good home, and everything she wanted, with parents who, whatever their vices, did all they could to sweeten her life, and at any rate kept her off the streets.

I was to be the victim, it seemed. What beasts men are! There was my poor dying companion at home ready to deprive herself of the common necessaries of life if I so willed it; ready to do without her doctors and medicines unfortunately useless-if my purse was empty, and I was neglecting her, and fencing with this little viper, a living lie, and bad all through, from her tapering heels to the ends of her black tresses.

I ought to have behaved with the same dignity as the year before, when I refused to go to their Christmas dinner, for what had I gleaned? That she was certainly no longer a virgin, and had become her “Papa's" plaything. In answer to my accusation of venality, she simply replied by a description of her commercial projects. There was not a word of womanly tenderness; being so taken by surprise, she had no time to invent any story. For a year, she had the reins loose on her neck. I suddenly woke up, and blurted out my real idea of her disposition. What a surprise it must have been for her!

Like many women of strong passions I have met, she is perfectly hysterical and readily anxious to try all kinds of strange joys, but they never have any idea of truth, or what is right or wrong, or of the flight of time. Everything is muddled in their brain, and they are only fit to be enjoyed, and avoided as much as possible out of bed, or they would lead you to hell. This theory explains her strange proposals: marriage, and going into business with me, etc.