Read Ebook: The Arch-Satirist by Williams Frances Fenwick Copeland Charles Illustrator

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Ebook has 1288 lines and 68990 words, and 26 pages

What if he, too, had had this boy's heritage? He tried, smiling a little, to imagine himself a Ricossia; a doomed, reckless, light-hearted being who chose to spend his few remaining years in hopeless vice. As he thought, a sudden pity for the boy overtook him as it had very often done before, a sudden curiosity as to what really transpired behind the black veil which we all hang between our inmost selves and the eyes of our fellow-humans. Did the boy ever feel regret or shame or loathing for himself or reluctance to continue in his vile career? Would he confess to it if he did? Amherst, pressed by a sudden desire to know more of his whimsical visitant, questioned him, soberly.

"I say--Leo!"

"Well, old man?"

"You've been going it a bit, lately, haven't you? Drinking pretty hard? Drugs, too, of some sort, I fancy. You look pretty seedy."

The boy started and glanced hastily in a polished, steel mirror which hung near. What he saw evidently re-assured him, for he tossed his black head and smiled, carelessly.

"I think I look pretty fit," he said, coolly. "I'd hate to think otherwise. My word! I don't know what I'd do if--some fellows show that sort of thing so. Swollen faces, purple round the nose and all that--you know?"

"I know."

"But I'm not in that class, yet, thank the Lord."

"Yes, but suppose the Lord went back on you and handed you the red nose and the pimples and all the other ornaments which rightfully belong to you--what then?"

"Then?--oh, then, I'd end it very quickly. I can't bear to have an ugly object in the room with me; do you think I could bear to be one myself? Chloral's painless."

"Yes, and cheap. The idea of suicide appeals to you, then?"

"Not especially," answered the boy, beginning to stir, restlessly. "But one must do something if the worst comes to the worst."

"I wonder, if you feel like that, that you continue to live. Do you really think your life's worth living?"

"No," answered Ricossia, calmly. "Do you think yours is?"

"I ask you," pursued Ricossia, quietly, "because, just now, as I leaned back here in your comfortable chair with your fire dancing in my eyes and your good drink warming the very cockles of my heart, I thought of you and, for a moment, envied you. Then I thought of your life. Your tiresome routine of work, exercise, wholesome food, good air, sound sleep--God! how do you stand it? I'd go mad!"

"You think your own life preferable?"

"I'm not paid to induce you to commit suicide, but, feeling as you do, I wonder what on earth you live for?"

"Hold on!" expostulated Amherst, genuinely shocked and startled, he could hardly tell why, at this most unexpected and unpleasant ending to their talk. "Don't do it, Ricossia. How can you? What--what can you expect from the 'Good Fellow' if you fly in his face, that way? It's devilish, that's what it is. Stay and let me fix you up for the night, you young fool, you!"

Ricossia laughed. "You're a funny old boy, Amherst," he observed, meditatively. "I wonder what it feels like to have a conscience. I'd rather have a drink--a series of drinks! 'My Clay with long oblivion has gone dry.' As for the 'Good Fellow'--I haven't seen anything of him, yet. Have you? But the other old Boy is howling to be fed, so I'm off. Good-night."

Agatha Ladilaw had made a pink dress and was embroidering it with roses. Each of us has some particular talent; Agatha's was dressmaking. Her parents were not wealthy and therefore she could not indulge in the "creations" affected by many of her friends; but by dint of constant industry, excellent taste and unusual skill, she contrived to be always charmingly costumed. True, with a figure that might have stepped out of a Fifth Avenue shop window and a face which any colour rendered lovely, she did not confront the difficulties of ordinary mortals.

As physical perfection is rare and as Agatha Ladilaw was, in her way, an unusually fine specimen of purely mundane and limited loveliness, a pen picture of her as she sat may be of interest.

Nature in planning Agatha had done unusually well. She had not only bestowed upon her a great amount of comeliness, but she had, apparently, taken pride in finishing her work in a way that is not common. How often a pretty face is spoilt by an irregular nose, a large ear, an imperfect contour of cheek or brow! In Agatha's case, however, no pains had been spared to produce a thoroughly bewitching whole. While face and form were sufficiently classical in outline to satisfy the most exacting, there was a warmth, a colour, a radiance about her, born partly of exuberant youth, partly of brilliant health. Her eyes were wonderful; purple pansies, black-lashed, white-lidded; her hair was a ripe chestnut, deepening to auburn, lightening to gold. Her skin had that pure satin whiteness peculiar to extreme youth; her hands were plump, dimpled, tapering, with pink palms and transparent nails. Her teeth were white, tiny and sharp; when she smiled, her pink cheeks broke into enchanting dimples which added the last touch of enticement to her kitten-like charms.

Nature had planned her upon classic lines--a sort of pocket edition Venus. Agatha, however, after a careful perusal of the fashion plates every spring, moulded her figure in accordance with the latest "craze." When long waists and narrow hips held sway, Agatha presented a faultlessly correct outline; when the coquettish athlete adorned magazine covers, Agatha might have passed for her sister. How all this was accomplished with no injury to health is a mystery which only the corsetiere can solve; Agatha at all times might have sat for a picture of Hebe.

For the rest, she was slightly under medium height, a fact which she publicly deplored, but for which she was secretly grateful. She did not admire tall girls; in fact, she did not admire anybody or anything which differed very greatly from her extremely attractive self. She had an intense and artistic appreciation of her various good points and looked with pity on those to whom the fairies had been less lavish. One who came in for a share of this ingenuous pity was her cousin, Lynn Thayer.

This young lady had dropped in at the time the chapter opens, for a cup of tea, in accordance with a long-deferred promise. As she sank into an easy-chair and loosened her furs she smiled at Agatha with a smile which held no tinge of envy. For Lynn, while cherishing in common with many plain women an enthusiastic admiration for beauty, enjoyed it in much the same way that she enjoyed music; intensely, even emotionally, but impersonally. Notwithstanding, she attached an exaggerated importance to it and affected her small cousin more than she otherwise might have done because she possessed it in such unstinted measure.

As she sat, idly watching Agatha's white fingers moving through the pink draperies of the gown which she was embroidering, the thought of Leo Ricossia occurred to her and she mentally compared them. Both were beautiful to an extraordinary degree; but Agatha's beauty suggested roses, kittens, Cupids, everything that was soft and appealing, exquisite and empty, while Ricossia's beauty suggested storm, flaming sunset, glorious music. His was, in short, the beauty of a young caged tiger, Agatha's the loveliness of a very perfect white Persian kitten. Lynn laughed as this simile presented itself to her mind; it seemed to her singularly apropos. What different worlds they inhabited, these two radiant young creatures! Ricossia represented the pagan element, Agatha was the last word of civilized young-ladyship. The world was wide enough to contain both; nay, this little, stately old city was wide enough for that. They lived within an hour's distance of one another, as far asunder in thought, life, knowledge, ideals as is this little earth from "the last star's uttermost distance."

Lynn Thayer's and Agatha Ladilaw's mothers had been sisters and both had been beauties. Lynn, however, as her maternal relatives were fond of remarking, had "taken after her father." Though her face was pleasing it was rather plain; plain, not ugly; for its plainness consisted rather in lack of positive beauty than in any particular defect. Her hair was brown and abundant, her eyes deep-set and giving the effect of brown to the casual observer, although, as a matter of fact, they were a dark greyish green. Her skin was colourless, her mouth, large and thin-lipped, her nose, ordinary. However, her figure was excellent of its kind, tall, straight, flat-backed, and, while delicately proportioned, giving the effect of considerable reserve strength. Her movements, too, were graceful, but graceful somewhat as a young boy's are graceful, alert, easy, noiseless and entirely lacking in effort or self-consciousness. Perhaps her only positive beauty consisted in her teeth which, though not dainty like Agatha's, were white and regular. It would hardly be fair to say that her face lacked expression, but it was not a mobile face; habits of self-control and repression had stamped themselves too deeply in her nature not to show elsewhere. Her bearing was dignified and even distinguished and her voice well-modulated and soft. As a whole, she was the sort of girl whom one might meet any day in any city of the continent; a girl who was no longer young, yet showed no signs of age; a girl who could never be pretty, yet would hardly be considered ugly; a girl who wore dark coloured tailor-made costumes and looked like a lady in them; a girl who closely resembled scores of other girls the world over.

Lynn Thayer occupied a somewhat unusual position in Montreal. Her mother had been a pretty woman of fashion, her father a well-to-do man. However, her father dying shortly after his marriage and her mother losing all her money in a way which shall be explained elsewhere, Lynn had been left penniless. Her father's only living brother had offered her a home and a dress allowance; but she had refused the latter, had qualified as a public school teacher, and was earning a regular salary in one of the Board Schools. As both her father's and her mother's relatives were people of some wealth and much social standing, she occupied an anomalous position in what is known as "society." As a young girl she had "gone out" quite a little; now for reasons which shall presently develop, she went only to the homes of intimate friends and was seldom seen in public.

Oddly enough Lynn Thayer possessed a considerable fascination for both sexes. All men and most women liked her. She had never been pretty and was no longer a young girl, but her attraction had rather augmented than diminished as time went by. Debutantes, secure in the possession of unimpeachable gowns and rosy cheeks, often looked with amazement at the alacrity with which their partners left them for a dance with Miss Thayer. Probably these same partners would have found it difficult to explain why, themselves. Lynn always created the impression that she was a nice girl; a positive "nice girl," not a negative "nice girl." People liked her. Children "took to her" at once, dogs followed her; cats jumped on her knee without waiting for an invitation. Beyond an admirable figure and a pretty wit she possessed no surface charms; but something about her attracted and inspired confidence and trust. It is difficult to say why one excellent person is universally liked, another excellent person universally detested, another excellent person universally respected and shunned. Lynn Thayer belonged to the first class, that was all.

Certainly no two girls could resemble one another less than the cousins. Lynn was at best "a nice-looking girl," Agatha was "a dream." She showed to excellent advantage, too, in her mother's house where everything had been planned with an eye to the petted daughter as the central figure.

It was a very pretty sitting-room where Agatha Ladilaw sat, this cold January day. Without, the sharp air cut like a knife; within, all was comfort, warmth, cosiness. It would be difficult to imagine Agatha in anything but elegant and graceful surroundings. She was like a lovely, white, Persian kitten who had fed on cream and lain on cushions all her life; and, someway, one always knew that she would continue to feed on cream and lie on silk even if she lost her fur and her teeth in the course of time. If certain natures carry within themselves the elements of tragedy, others carry within themselves not only the desire for the soft things of life but the capacity for obtaining them. To the latter class Agatha undoubtedly belonged. Her beautiful aunt, Lynn's mother, had made rather a mess of her life, in spite of the fact that she had had all and more than Agatha possessed in the way of beauty and fascination. One knew instinctively that Agatha would never fall into her mistakes. In the first place she would not wait till twenty-five before marrying; in the second place she would never dislike any man who fed and clothed her sumptuously; in the third place she would never be carried away by any indiscreet and expensive infatuation. In short Agatha was quite the most correct thing in young ladies, eminently satisfactory and desirable.

The room where Agatha liked to sit with embroidery or sewing was long, low, light. The bay-window was filled with plants, and the fragrance of mignonette and jasmine hung about the rose-coloured curtains which draped the alcove and separated it from the rest of the room. The furniture was light and artistic rather than costly; easy chairs upholstered in rose-patterned chintz; mission-wood tables, bookcases and "rockers"; the inevitable "cosy corner," cushioned to the last degree of comfort; a green carpet displaying a border of various-coloured roses; a silver-laden tea-table, a table containing books and magazines--mostly uncut; another containing one beautiful vase of cut flowers. Presently, when dusk arrived, the room would be suffused with rose-coloured lamp-light, but, at present, the winter sun flooding the room and the tiny fire which burned on the hearth gave a sufficient suggestion of cheer.

Agatha in her pink environment sewing on a pink dress gave one a delightful sense of the eternal fitness of things. One forgot, for the time being, the bitter January wind howling outside, the flock of black cares that dog the footsteps of ordinary mortals. Agatha certainly had her place in the scheme of the universe, just as the Persian kitten has. If the kitten were thrust out into the world and told to earn its cream--that would be another story.

Agatha, as has before been stated, would never have to earn her cream, otherwise than by existing and ornamenting. She would always be cheerfully ready to pay for it whenever necessary in the coin with which Nature had so richly endowed her. Therefore it will at once be seen that Agatha was a most satisfactory girl; everything that a young lady ought to be; just the sort of person who could be depended upon to give Society no shocks and her parents no anxiety.

Lynn almost wished that Agatha would not think it necessary to talk; the fire-lit, rose-decorated room and the beautiful little occupant who sat, absorbed in her draperies, were both so eminently satisfactory from an artistic point of view that she would have preferred to lounge idly, and enjoy them. Everything about Agatha was so attractive, so feminine, in such charming taste. The delicate white fingers moving in and out of the pink draperies; the graceful pose of the pretty figure in the easy chair; the absorbed, almost spiritual expression of the great, violet eyes; all charmed Lynn, even while she realized their misleadingness and realized, too, that, by breaking into these absorbed meditations, one was liable to disturb nothing more important than the set of an imaginary train. Soon, however, Agatha spoke; slowly and with something resembling an effort.

"Lynn, what do you think of Harry Shaftan, the General's nephew?"

"He's a nice boy."

"Nicer than Howard Pyle or Jimmy Gresham?"

"I believe I like him better."

"What do you think of the others?"

"Why? Are you engaged to any of them?" asked Lynn, laughing.

"Oh, no! That is--I mean to say--yes. I mean, I'm engaged to them all."

Lynn leaned back and gasped. Agatha continued to embroider.

"And--may I ask which one you intend to marry?"

"I don't know, exactly," confessed Agatha, poising her needle on her pink lip and gazing reflectively heavenward. "They're all nice; but I don't think I'll marry any of them."

"Agatha Ladilaw! What do you mean?"

"Why, lots of engagements are broken," said Agatha, looking surprised. "Lots and lots of them. If I found that I didn't really love any of these men--that the real passion of my life was yet to come--you wouldn't advise me to marry them, would you?" She looked at her cousin with an air of virtuous surprise and Lynn shouted.

"Oh, Agatha, you're a treat!" she exclaimed, with intense enjoyment. "A veritable, living treat!"

"I really don't see why," said Agatha, coldly, proceeding to thread a needle with an offended air. "And if you're going to laugh about serious subjects like love and marriage, why, I won't talk about them, that's all."

This consummation was far from Lynn's desire; and by dint of earnest and respectful entreaties she finally induced her small cousin to continue.

"What made you accept them all in the first place?" she asked with interest.

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