The Shriek.
by Charles Somerville.
CHAPTER I
"Are you comin" to the dawncin", Lady Speedway?" asked the American in his best transatlantic liner accent.
"Most decidedly not!"
Mind you, this answer from Lady Speedway meant red lights ahead.
At the Hotel Biscuit she had the authority of a traffic policeman as to whom were who as well as what was what regarding the foreign colony tirelessly wasting its time on the verge of the tawny Sahara.
She was the Field Marshal of the Front Porch Knitting Needle Hussars, nicknamed "Hussies."
Her approbation was olive oil; her discountenance p.r.i.c.kly heat.
"Of course," she added, "while recognizing that expatiation does not include brevity, one may not stand as I do now--in the soft light of the balcony and well off the main scene, I hope you observe--without declaring one"s self aggressively out of sympathy with the maddeningly awful expedition of which this dance is the insolubly idiotic inauguration.
"To give my opinion concisely, plainly, briefly, without ratiocinations, fulminations, obscurations, diversions, digressions or nuances, I go on record as saying that this flapper, Verbeena Mayonnaise,--the absurd chit--is impossible!"
"O, me lady!"
"Yes, I am. And that"s more than Verbeena Mayonnaise will find herself if she insists on carrying on in this matter.
"A lone girl, crossing the desert with only native camel drivers and servants in attendance! Chaperoned only by her hand luggage! The idea is rhapsodically rancid!
"The rash creature is simply throwing her good name to the American Sunday supplements and Margot Asquith at "ome."
The American trembled.
"Not," said Lady Speedway letting out a few buckles in her necklace, "that I"ll need to take any sleeping powders over that feature of the affair. But its effect on the Continent! The puncture it is bound to give British prestige!
[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY SPEEDWAY, WHO HAD THE AUTHORITY OF A TRAFFIC POLICEMAN AS TO SOCIAL MATTERS AT THE HOTEL BISCUIT.]
"We English cannot be too careful of our "h"s" and this mad girl picks the Sahara!
"I think only of what _La Vie Parisienne_ will have to say about it and I blush all over. In this gown you will, I think, be able to see most of it."
"O, come, Lady Speedway!"
"Where to?"
"I mean it"s not quite as bad as all that! In planning this lone desert trip Verbeena may be doing something on the brink of the very-very, but," said the American stoutly, "one has to consider the jolly queer childhood circ.u.mstances of the ripping little rotter."
"My dear man, unless I"ve had a crack of amnesia don"t you suppose I know positively that the entire Mayonnaise outfit was designed as dressing for a nut salad?"
"Indeed?"
"Rather! But mark my words, if she persists in this scandalous venture she"d best make her explanations in Arabic when she gets back. Her story will sound a bit garish in English I fancy! A single gel--a flapper--amid a flock of males Orientally disposed! Why----"
Drawing her wrap around her as far as it would go, Lady Speedway shook her dependent chins vigorously and departed.
"Oh, my word and tosh!" exclaimed the American. "Old scandal sprinkler!"
"Good heavens!" cried his phlegmatic British companion, "isn"t it true how one misses one"s opportunities? Here I"ve known Verbeena Mayonnaise all her life and never a breath of scandal has touched her!
"In the first place, you know, Verbeena isn"t a mere human girl. She had an uncle who was an old pig, her father was a balmy bloater and her brother is an a.s.s!"
"O, I say, really?" asked the American, fingering the English tailor"s label on his clothing and looking sharply into the ballroom. "Whereas she herself was clearly meant for a boy and was changed at the last moment. She looks like a boy in skirts, a d.a.m.ned pretty boy--and a d.a.m.ned haughty one."
"I falter," said the Englishman courteously, "at an attempt to think of a boy no matter how d.a.m.ned pretty he might be, looking haughty in skirts. But have it your own way, old dear. However, please remember the handicap that Lady Speedway has taken on me and don"t interrupt in the matter of these Mayonnaises. Why, I was brought up right next to "em, as it were, and----"
"An odd streak in the family?"
"Streak? A psychopathic rainbow, old dear!
"Her father, Sir John Mayonnaise and his wife were so pa.s.sionately devoted that they had two children born nineteen years apart.
"The first was Lord Tawdry. You"ve seen him?"
"O, quite."
"There was discouragement for a devoted couple if you like!
"Then when Verbeena was born her mother died immediately.
"Ten seconds later Sir John grasped a big pistol and blew his brains somewhere or other. n.o.body criticized the act of Sir John save as to the size of the pistol. Least of all he who is now Lord Tawdry."
"There was no suicide clause in Sir John"s insurance policy, I take it?"
"What a sharp devil you are! Exactly. And one doesn"t blame Tawd really for what followed regarding Verbeena. That is to say, he turned down about fifty female advisers and decided to bring Verbeena up as a Johnny instead of a Mildred. Can you conceive?"
"Not easily."
"It was less trouble--it wouldn"t, you know, take up so much of his time. He needed all that for training up on bridge and American poker in order to conserve the old patrimony thing."
"Brought her up just as a boy?"
"Like a bally nipper! Quite. Ridin", wrestlin", boxin", boatin", fightin"--wherever she might be duly confident of victory--jumpin", runnin", skatin", skeein", golfin", gamblin"--er----"
"No s.e.x at all?"
"Had she any the little dear must have wrestled with it long ago and lost."
"Ah," said the American, "that would account for her sang Freud."