Lola

“ It was nearly midday and the house had echoed with scales and badinage, bursts of operatic laughter and pæans of soprano praise to the gift of life for an hour and more. And so, of course, she expected to find her young friend lying in a daydream, reluctantly awake. But when she opened the door of Lola’s room as quietly as she could, it was to see the silver frock spilt upon the floor like a pool of moonlight and the girl lying under the bedclothes in the attitude of a child in irresistible sleep, breathing like a rose. ”

“ Then, returning to bed, she lay in great rotundity and with a wistful smile, to think back to the days when she had been as young and slim as Lola and just as much in love.
It was not until after breakfast, at which Lola did not appear, that she became aware of a curiosity that was like the bite of a mosquito. Where had that girl been all those hours and who was the man? But it was not a sinister curiosity, all alive to gather gossip and spread innuendoes, as women give so much to do. ”

“ And before he leaped back into his skin and while yet he retained his sanity and cold logic, he saw that he loved Lola for her golden hair and wide-apart eyes, her red lips and tingling hand, her young sweet body,—but not her soul, not the intangible thing in a woman that keeps a man’s love when passion passes. ”

“ It was Feo—Feo with her eyes wide and round and full of the most astonishing mischief and amusement—Feo with her mouth half open as though she were on the point of bursting into a huge laugh. Lola, that discreet little Lola, that little London mouse, niece of the stiff old Breezy, daughter of those little people in Queen’s Road, Bayswater, with a brigadier general, if you please, the famous Sir Peter Chalfont with a comic cork arm to catch whom every match-making mother had spread her net for years! ”

“ Lola should not do this thing! This man should not be allowed to blast her life! It would be better to get him by the throat, and drag him out of the car, and, no matter what, kill him if necessary. What came after did not count. This girl, the girl he loved, should not give her fresh beauty to this beast, soul and body to his vicious pleasures. He was in time, thank God for that! They saw him now, he could read the look of terror in Dick’s face, the queer expression of fascinated interest, almost of delight in Lola’s eyes, and he put all his strength into one last effort. ”

“ Yesterday as we lay on the sands, watching the waves idly lap the shore, Lola brought herself nearer to me with a rhythmic movement as no other creature form of woman is capable of, and looked into my eyes. And she whispered something to me which led to an infinite murmuring of foolish things. I put my arms round her and kissed her on the lips and on her cheek—whether the beautiful or the maimed I knew not—and she sank into a long, long silence. At last she said:
“What are you thinking of?”
I said, “I'm thinking that not a single human being on the face of the earth has a sense of humour.” ”

“ Lola thinks things out. She’s always thought things out. She became a lady’s maid for a purpose. When she’s finished with that, she’ll move on to something else. I don’t know what, because she keeps things to herself. But she knows more than you and I will ever know. I’ve noticed that often. And when she was here on Sunday, and we walked about the streets, she was no more Lola Breezy than Lady Feo is, and there was something in the way she laid the dinner and insisted on waiting on us which showed me that she knew she wasn’t. ”

“ There was a tone of almost commanding influence in which these last few words were uttered, and his dark full eyes were steadily fixed on her as he spoke them.
She hesitated to answer, and seemed to reflect.
“I ask no forced confession, Lola,” said he, proudly, and rising at the same time from his seat “In all the unreserve of our old affection, I told you my secret; yours is with yourself.” ”

“ He was treating her now in the little alcove he used as his office, and outside, with the curtains drawn, Lola was doing her best to soothe the almost frantic mother.
The treatment, in spite of all the Doctor’s gentleness, was painful in the extreme, and Lola was anxious to spare the poor woman the sight of her daughter’s suffering, but at the sound of a stifled cry from behind the curtains, Mrs. Mooney was unable to restrain herself, and rushed toward the next room with a cry of agony.
“Please,” said Lola, as she gently stopped her. “They are better without you.” ”

“ And when Lola returned, having carried out her orders and still tingling with the triumph of having proved her courage and her wit, she found Lady Feo lying in the middle of the room, on her back, doing exercises. “All the dullards have left the Winchfields’,” she said. “There’s to be a pucca man there this afternoon, one I’ve had my eye on for weeks. Quick’s the word, Lola. Get me dressed and into the car. This is Sunday and I’m in London. It’s perfectly absurd. ”

“ The fame of Lola spread through the borough, and now she can walk feared, honoured, unmolested by night or by day through the streets of horror and crime, which neither I nor any other man—no matter how courageous—dare enter at certain hours without the magical protection of a policeman.
Sunshine has come at last, both into this little backwater of the world by the sea and into my own life, and it is time I should end this futile record. ”

“ Those coming without are their friends, not yours. They are white men—the settlers who were on his trail,” and Lola glided forward.
“Traitress! but I’ll not be balked entirely—I’ll strike one blow before I die!”
His pistol spoke, and the bullet claimed a victim. But not the one at whose life he had aimed. Lola sprung forward, shielding with her body the life of the man whom she so madly loved.
With a groan of agony she sunk down upon the blood-sprinkled floor, her young life going out as she gasped a name—the name of him she had saved from death. ”

“ It was by these tricks of his that Lola earned money for her uncle, with whom she lived; for her father and mother were both dead, and there was no one in the whole world who loved the little girl. The dear mother had died in a beautiful mountain country far across the ocean, and Lola and Bruno had been sent in a ship over to America. Now this dear, pretty mamma of Lola's used to sing to her when she rocked her to sleep, and as she grew from a baby to a tiny girl she learned the little songs to sing to Bruno when he was a little puppy. ”

“ There was something in the way in which Lola stood, brave but trembling, that kept them silent; something in Fallaray’s expression of adoration and respect that made them feel ashamed of their materialism. They were ignorant of all that had gone to the making of Lola’s apprenticeship to give that lonely man the rustle of silk, and of the fact that he had grown to love this girl not as a mistress, but as a wife. ”

“ Somehow the girl’s clothes were not right, her hair was badly dressed; what a contrast to Lola Corbett, in her marvellous French frock, with her glittering ornaments, and shameless shoulders. Lola was in great form: talking incessantly, gay, provoking, challenging. Of course, she was made up: but she took the centre of the stage, and beside her brilliance and vivacity the timid bride looked positively washed out, and dowdy.
The hostess failed to understand most of the good stories, chaff, and repartee that circulated with the ’84 champagne. ”

“ LOLA VAIL.
Lola Vail,—
Her father, a rich planter, owned a vast
Estate upon the banks of that great stream
Which gathers up the waters of the land
And sweeps them onward to the gulf. Half way
To that strange southern land whence Cedric came
Was Lola born—a schoolmate, friend and guest
Of Dora Lee, and much like her; or as she
Would appear with three more years of summers’
Sun to paint with ruddier glow the bloom of{20}
Health upon her cheek, and tint with deeper
Gold her ample braids; in purity of
Thought and loyalty, they also were alike. ”

“ Lola, large, unwhaleboned, vibrating porcinely with every motion, her brown coarsely moulded face beaming with good nature, her little black eyes full of temper and kindness, her black hair in a neat small knot, an unspotted brown and yellow calico garment secluding her person, stood at a sink in a kitchen as brilliantly clean as a varnished boot. Even the corners shone like glass, Patience often observed with a sigh. The two tables were scrubbed daily. The stove was black, the windows white. ”

“ No friend of hers could have a man in her train, without Lola's endeavouring to snatch him from her. Handsome or ugly, forward or shy, it mattered not; all she cared for was to gratify her incurable craving for admiration, and her desire to triumph over every other woman. ”

“ It was good to see the way in which that man caught his little girl in his arms and held her tight.—A good girl, Lola, a good affectionate girl, working hard when there was no need for her to do so and improving herself. Good Lord, she had begun to talk like a lady and think like a lady, but she would never be too grand to come into the little old shop in Queen’s Road, Bayswater,—not Lola. ”

“ The youngest, Siva, was like Lola, intelligent, passionate, easily aroused, but she was only eleven and merely profited by her sister’s bad example. Lola was quarrelsome, insubordinate, impertinent. She contended every point, objected to every request, shirked her work, fought with her sisters, mocked her mother, went about the village with a chip upon her shoulder. When she was fourteen, she became so unmanageable at home that her uncle sent her to live in the pastor’s household. ”

“ Miss Breezy bit her lip. She was bitterly annoyed. She was unaware of the expression but she felt that Lola had double-crossed her,—as indeed she had. “Well, my lady,” she said, “to tell you the truth, I didn’t think that you would care to have two people of the same family in your house. It always leads to trouble.”
“Oh, rot,” said Lady Feo, “I loathe those old shibboleths. They’re so silly.” She turned to Lola. “Look here, do you really mean to say that you’d rather be a lady’s maid than kick your heels about in the chorus?” ”

“ And having come to that conclusion, he broke the silence hitherto disturbed only by the odd wailing of machinery on the other side of the river and by the traffic passing over Westminster Bridge like fireflies. He put his hand under Lola’s elbow, stopped her and drew her to the stonework of the embankment. “In an hour or two,” he said, “I suppose you will disappear again and not give me another thought until you cry out, ‘Horse, horse, play with me,’ and there isn’t a horse. I can’t let that happen.”
Instinct and the subconscious inheritance of a knowledge of men kept Lola from asking why not. ”

“ His relief from his feeling of horror and remorse was naturally great, but he made up his mind that it was quite hopeless to expect Lola’s forgiveness, and when he met her one day on Broadway, shortly after her recovery, he was about to pass her without any other greeting than a bow, when to his great surprise she stopped him and, without any reference either to the accident or to his deceit about his marriage, chatted with him so gayly and so pleasantly that he took heart and invited her to drop into a restaurant with him for a cup of tea. ”

“ Then Lola put her whole fine personality into a smile, directed apparently not only at each separate individual within sight, but also individually at every person on the globe; and when Brownie Montandon set out to make a production of a smile, it had the impact of a pile-driver. Then came her smooth, gently-flowing, friendly thought:
"My name, friends of this world Ormolan, is Lola Montandon. Those of you who are now looking at teevee screens can see my imaged likeness. All of you can see me very much better within your own minds. ”

“ Perambulators cluttered the pavements and eager housewives were in earnest conversation with butchers and greengrocers who had arranged their wares temptingly outside their shops so that they could be handled and considered and sampled. Lola made her way to Kensington Gardens filled with a desire which had been growing upon her ever since she woke up to make another Cinderella dash into the great world. She was seized with another overpowering eagerness to meet Fallaray on his own level. ”

“ And when, presently, they returned to the shop and let themselves in, it was Lola, with a curious emotion, because she might never see them again as she was that night, who got the supper, who placed them, arguing, in the stuffy drawing-room, and made many journeys up and down the narrow staircase to the kitchen. “Please,” she said. “Please. This is my evening. Even a lady’s maid can lay a supper if she tries hard enough.” ”

“ Lola would drink nothing but tea; in fact she needed nothing stronger; the intoxication of the scenes is as complete sometimes as the intoxication of strong drink, and to this girl, seeing for the first time a glimpse of the thing that to her seemed life, came the birth of a desire that never again left her, the desire to know everything, to experience everything, to live as those persons about her seemed to be living, without thought of anything but the pleasure of the moment, and had she known the price that all who live that life must surely pay, she would still have gone on. ”

“ Here, too, with one single note being struck I was unequal to the test, but Lola's replies were excellent, yet was it again the novelty that gave zest to the affair, for later on her answers were good only when she was inclined to take trouble. But in the beginning she had been most obviously delighted with the whole matter and leapt up at me in her joy and excitement whenever I said: "Lola, listen to sounds!" I have interested and amused many friends with this little exhibition, for it came as a surprise to many, especially as the sense of "pitch" is a comparatively rare one in most people. ”