Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book I

“Certainly-that is, if you like!”

So I accepted, and from that moment, I treated her purposely before her parents as if she was no longer the daughter of the house, but something higher-or shall we say-lower? And I was familiar in my talk with her. More like a son-in-law, but these shades of conduct were thrown away on the people of Sonis. They did not know; did not understand; and did not care. Or perchance, they pretended not to notice? But I was greatly amused and delighted to find that I had regained such complete mastery over my own passion.

Lily and her mother went off to make their purchases, and it was arranged that I should pass the afternoon with Papa, and go down to Sonis with him at dinner-time.

He rapidly finished his work and, to pass the time, began to show me some private photographs. My readers will guess what they were.

“You see I keep them carefully locked up. I am so frightened lest Lilian might see them.”

I chuckled inwardly at this ever-recurring phrase. It was perfectly useless and in very bad taste to always try and impress upon me that she was so innocent and had never seen anything obscene. She was in her twenty-third year now, it must be remembered. It was unnecessary, I take it, to mention a daughter's name, while showing obscene photographs or books. Is it not perfectly well understood that a father, tutor, stepfather, or guardian would keep such things out of the sight and reach of young people? Why this exaggerated declaration of virtue? Then he got out a framed photograph of a Japanese beauty, and told me for the third or fourth time all about her. The story was briefly that when in Japan, he had a native girl on hire as his mistress. Here she was photographed with him. Again he told me how careful he was to hide and lock up this little picture, but when he spoke of his wife finding it, I saw he was frightened of her. She was truly, madly, jealous, or had made him believe so.

I think I pitied the poor old chap a little that day. He was a slave to all his grosser passions. The soft blandishments of Lily and the excesses of the table-these were his delights. The two women had got him firmly fixed between them.

I felt certain, as he unrolled the very ordinary tale of his Japanese amours, that Lily had heard it too from his lips. He told the same stories always over and over again, and knew nothing of the world, as it moved daily. His brain had stopped ten years ago, and in a garrulous, purposeless way, he would talk to me of people we had known about that time, and so will you and I, reader; so will we babble on, when we get to live over threescore, and continue to indulge in wine, women, alcohol, and tobacco, until we are sans eyes, sans teeth, sans penis, sans everything.

We went to the station eventually, having first locked up the photographs, with great fuss and luxury of precaution, and got into a wrong train, which took us right on to Meaux. It was Papa's fault, and he was in a fearful funk. I noticed curiously enough that he dared not stop out after a certain hour, and he was dreadfully exercised lest the ladies should have arrived before us. Luckily, we caught a train back quickly enough, and there was not much time lost. We raced to the house, as fast as Papa could shuffle, for I noticed that during the repose of the winter, the pleasures of gastronomy had rendered him quite obese, and, to his gasping relief, found that the entrancing fascination of the Louvre and the Bon Marché had made the ladies late. We were home first, but they soon arrived.

Lilian did not come near me. I stopped with Pa; he showed me a small smoker's table, garnished with tobacco jar, ashtray, cigar-cutter, etc., that his two women had bought for him. He added that he hated receiving presents from them. He told me he had given Lilian a purse with money in it, but he did not speak of any gift he had made to his wife. He took me upstairs to wash my hands. The bedrooms were no longer on the ground floor.

It was too cold, I was told, and the second story was now used nightly, as there were three rooms, opening one into the other. The doors were left open, it appears, and one portable stove kept them all warm. One bedroom was occupied by Pa and Ma, another by Lilian, and the third by Granny, who was installed there, ready to take charge of the house when Mr. and Mrs. Arvel had left for the Riviera.

He pointed to one bed and I saw an expression in his face and a light in his eye that I had never seen before, as he said to me, with a devilish grin, and his mouth full of saliva:

“That's where Scraggy sleeps!”

And he stroked the pillow with an affectionate gesture of his stubby, nailless fingers. Then he showed me a suit of pyjamas on his bed, and told me that Lilian had made them for him.

The dinner passed off without notable incidents, but afterwards Lilian calmly asked me to go out with her and the dogs, in the dark, leaving Pa and Ma at home. It seemed to be a recognized thing now, that I could walk out with her at night. No doubt Mamma knew I could not hurt her now.

I must confess, with due shame, that I have no particular recollection of our chat, although it ought to have been important enough after what had passed at our last meeting.

My impression is that I waited to hear Lilian complain of having been accused of lying venality by me, and that she never alluded to anything, but seemed to want me to forget everything and start afresh. So I was bound to think that I had guessed aright; should I be forced to despise her now?

All I can find in my scribbling diary is one word: “Reconciliation.” So we must have patched up a peace somehow or the other. Lilian went so far as to repeat that she had tried to forget me and could not. She also said that the old couple, who had dined with us on the twenty-sixth of December, had put me down as her fiancé. This was certainly one of Lilian's little crammers to see what I would say, and she had placed her own thoughts, words, and ideas in the mouths of these strangers.

“I suppose, one day when I get down here, I shall be introduced to some nice young man, and Mamma will say: 'Mr. S., allow me, — Mr. So-and-so, — Lilian's betrothed!'“

“Oh! That will never happen,” she exclaimed, adding a peculiar half-sigh, half-groan, that I was fated to hear twice more later on, and which seemed to be the strongest expression of anguish to which she could give vent.

She told me that she was not going to Nice. That was no lie, at all events, and she said she would try and manage to see me while she was alone at the villa with her Granny. She was very impressive in informing me that she could not get to Paris without good and valid reasons, but I did not grumble about that. I knew she could do pretty much as she liked. I let her chatter as she chose, and was careful not to commit myself in any way. She could have no suspicion of what I thought. I almost lost my presence of mind, however, when she told me that she had broken off the marriage between Charlotte and Raoul. She said that they did not meet any more. How she managed it, she would not tell. I dared not press the point, but the sister slept with the lad's mistress and they were still friends, but Lolotte was not to see Adèle's son any more. What did it all mean? I jumped to the conclusion that Papa was now fairly ensconced in Lilian's heart and bed, and together they had jockeyed Raoul's sweetheart. Mamma spoke about the rupture of the marriage and hinted that Charlotte had too many lovers. Wicked Lilian had betrayed her brother's betrothed, but was artful enough to still be friends with her. No wonder she called Charlotte a little goose.

Lilian was not well. She looked pale, worn, and worried. A doctor had been consulted, and she was taking cod-liver oil. I had guessed aright about her anemia in November, but I held my tongue now, and did not recur to her fit of blind rage, when I had dared to say she was poor-blooded. I would not quarrel any more with her.