“You are going away on a nice little journey all alone with your Papa who loves you dearly, and you are very fond of him, which is not to be wondered at, as he adores you. It is a real honeymoon. Do not think I am jealous. I have noticed his love for you for a long time. It reminds me of a beautiful novel I have got, and which I must lend you, all about a father and daughter who go away together for a pleasure trip.”
“Do you think that a daughter cannot misconduct herself with her Papa without traveling with him?”
“You are quite right, but it is much nicer to be entirely alone with the man one loves, amid fresh scenes.”
She did not answer me, but laughed the matter off and changed the conversation. I think I chaffed her a little more that day, when the hazards of our ride brought us near to each other, out of hearing of the German gentleman, and she took it all in very good part, as if I was alluding to any ordinary flirtation. I am bold enough to say that she was proud to have made the conquest of her mother's old lover. What amused me most was the part played by the woman who was known as Mrs. Arvel. Did she know? As a jealous woman of ordinary intelligence in sexual matters, she must by this time have an inkling of what was going on, if she had not connived at it already by her policy of the open (bedroom) door. That was the one blot on the salacious picture, to my thinking, for having long since made up my mind that Lilian was one of those women of passion who were destined to have many lovers, a fact that excited my passions more than anything, it was a matter of perfect indifference to me who the man was, and how many we were to share her affection. I did not know whether to feel pity or disgust, when I thought of Lilian's mother. The latter sentiment carried the day, and put her down as a selfish, calculating woman, who had given up her girl to serve her own ends. I felt a trifle horrified at that idea. All women have been tempted in their lives. Some fall, some few resist temptation, generally for the sake of the children, when there are any; and many a time I have seen and heard mothers, sometimes in a low station of life, shudder and weep at the idea that the little one who had clung to their breast when an infant, and who they had seen grow up from an unsteady, tiny toddler to a graceful girl, might one day despise and blush for the woman who had carried her nine weary months in her womb, and whose Lilliputian feet had kicked ever so gently within, as if to say: “Mummy, I am here!” How then can a woman who has ever “felt life,” as it is called, in that way, prostitute her child surpasses even my understanding, all debauched and besmirched as I am. No, there was no excuse for Adèle; any woman is free to dispose of her own body, but not to debauch her children, her own flesh and blood. It is quite bad enough when they “go wrong” themselves. Lilian's mother could not plead ignorance, as she had lived among harlots all her life and knew what went on behind the scenes in Paris and London.
I did not say very much more to Mademoiselle Arvel than is set down here. I, like all love-sick men, was afraid to put her out of temper, an easy task with willful Lilian, and I possessed a sentiment of delicacy with regard to her which was perfectly ridiculous. I hinted that she had done well to accept her Papa's love, and thus become the true mistress of the house. Her brow grew dark and serious as I spoke and she dropped into a brown study. To prevent her being too sad, I joked, and begged her not to forget poor Jacky, when she became “queen of the harem,” and she allowed me to make all these silly quips and jokes. If I had not seen with my own eyes the recent passion of Papa and Lilian's seduction of him, my conversations with her would have sufficed to fix her guilt, as no girl, however debased, could have supported the strain of my lewd talk if there had not been something between them; something more than mere playing and romping.
Laughing gaily, we reached the garden and the inn to which it belonged. I called for a bottle of champagne which we soon finished, and Lilian had her full share of her favorite wine.
We returned, and were late, getting home at dark, Lilian having slipped us on the road and we two old fools lost our way. We had no lights and I was riding a hired machine without a brake down steep hills in the dark. We struck the town at last, and I use the term advisedly, as I got my front wheel into a tramway rail and came down inelegantly. And my reader must remember that I was forty-seven years of age.
We got back to the Villa Lilian, and were received like two prodigal sons, or rather two gay old prodigal fathers, and as I told the story of how Lilian had left us in the lurch, her Papa whispered gently to me that she was “yappy”; i.e., mad. (London slang of the East End.)
Lilian wished to know what we were making a mystery about, and I told her. I tried to improvise a “Limerick,” and began:
“Miss Arvel was a pretty young Jappy,
“Who her Pa said was perfectly 'yappy'…”
And of course, I pretended to be unable to finish it.
Dinner was now served and Madame Arvel complained bitterly that she had prepared tea for all of us, including the gentleman from Berlin, and all the two big potfulls would be wasted.
“Not wasted, Mother,” said Papa, with a saturnine grin, “It will do for Lilian!”
The remark being made in English, no one understood it but the speaker, Lilian, and I, so Papa repeated it to Granny, laughing and chuckling to himself, as if he had made an excellent joke. I laughed inwardly, as by what he had said Papa had corroborated my suspicions extending over two months concerning the virginity of his daughter. For the benefit of all young unmarried men, I must explain that tea is used as an astringent in cases of the “whites,” the same as alum or walnut leaves, but such infusions are of no practical use unless taken as an injection, and as injections cannot be taken by virgins, Papa was simply telling me that his bewitching Jappy was no longer a maid, and the tranquil way in which he said it, and the matter-of-fact manner in which Mamma, Granny, and Lilian herself laughed at the witticism, proved that her maidenhead had gone some time back, sufficiently long enough ago for all her people to get used to her shame, if they knew what shame was.
I sat by as if I heard nothing, putting on the most innocent air I could assume, but nobody took any notice of me. No doubt, in years gone by I had let many strange remarks pass without notice, so wrapped up was I in my love for Lilian, and they were all quite right to continue to treat me the same. I was not displeased at finding that I was supposed to be a fool, and I made up my mind to continue to play the part of one, which was the only chance I had of finding out the truth, without counting, and I hardly knew it myself then, I had a mortal dread of quarrelling with her I still foolishly called my Lilian. So I suppose Papa thought Lilian had told me the truth, or that I had had connection with her, as he had, and she had not yet told him how I was a kind of a half-believer in her virginity.
When Papa had spoken, dinner was nearly over, and Lilian jumped up and called me to come and help her to take the dogs out, and we promised to be back in time to say “good bye” to the German and accompany him to the station.
Lilian, finding that I had paid seemingly no attention to Papa's remark, made herself most agreeable to me, and I suspect the champagne and the day's outing had made her feel a wee bit jolly.
She told me point-blank that she wanted me badly and that she had formed a plan to get out on the day of Mi-Carême, which was Thursday, the ninth of March, and spend the afternoon with me.
“What shall we do that day?” I asked, as I did not know but what I was wanted merely as an escort, as on Shrove Tuesday.
“Whatever you like, my darling, I shall be yours that day, and will go anywhere and do anything you like.”
I thanked her effusively, as I always was foolish enough to do every time she took it into her head to be like an ordinary tender woman to me, and our lips met in one of Lilian's special, long, sucking kisses. There was not a soul to be seen, and we embraced and caressed each other madly; indeed I was rampant with lust, and made use of the most bawdy language, much to the wayward girl's apparent delight.