[Illustration: MISS VERBEENA MAYONNAISE IN ALL HER WONDROUS
BOYISH GRACE AND BEAUTY.]
THE SHRIEK
_A Satirical Burlesque_
BY
CHARLES SOMERVILLE
With illustrations
BY THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
THE SHRIEK
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 prickly 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!
[Illustration: 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 circumstances 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 ass!"
"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 damned pretty boy--and a
damned haughty one."
"I falter," said the Englishman courteously, "at an attempt to think
of a boy no matter how damned 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 passionately
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. Nobody 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 sex 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."
"O, indeed, I assure you, cold as a fish."
"She probably feels the void?"
"Sir?"
"Figures the hot sands of the desert may warm her up a bit."
"Frapjous! And yet you see, she goes alone! What in the world her idea
is I'm sure I--_look_--there's young Butternut after her now! A good
lad but not, I think, quite clear above. Really you know he can't be.
For surely must he know that all Verbeena inherited from her father
was the pistol Sir John shot himself with. Although, of course, she
shares with her brother, Tawdry, the same damned haughty luck at
bridge. These two things and a sterling uppercut is all she owns and
yet he would marry her!"
"You'd think he'd have a Butternut," said the American shamelessly,
although, after due explanation, the Englishman broke into hilarious
laughter.
"You mean, he hadn't best? I quite agree with you."
They stood with looks of mild intelligence on their cosmopolitanly
caustic countenances at Lord Tawdry and his sister, Verbeena, as they
sat predominantly on the platform of the ballroom acting as host and
hostess with tremendous _haute monde de flair_.
Lord Tawdry was six feet two in height, though seated, and half a foot
wide and he wore an eight-pound black mustache to show that regardless
of Verbeena's curiously trained character, there was nothing
ambisextrous about himself.
His courtesy was so inbred that he kept looking the company over as if
he wished they'd all go home and let him go to bed. His sleek head
would drop forward sleepily from time to time but always bob up like
the balloon it possibly perhaps was maybe.
The distinguished nobleman was, moreover, an awful tramp at wearing a
monocle. It was dropping out of his eye every few minutes keeping six
servants busy catching it and putting it back. Frequently they took a
mean advantage and slapped it back.
Verbeena, you betcher, was different from her brother despite all that
had otherwise been done for and to her. Anybody could see she was
violently alive, that she had verve to the crescendo of the
fluorescent.
[Illustration: LORD TAWDRY, FROM A PORTRAIT BY HEVVINS IN THE
ANCESTRAL CASTLE AT MAYONNAISE-ON-LETTYS.]
Strangely enough, she was smaller than her brother. But she had a pair
of shoulders did Verbeena and her ball gown revealed the ripple of the
steel muscles on her young arms.
Straddling her chair on the platform she kicked up her heels in her
boyish, athletic manner and snapped a smoking cigarette into the air
every once in a while, catching it by the lighted end in her firm,
proud, scornful, obstinate, determined, appealing, impulsive,
unsatisfied sweet mouth.
Twice she missed and set fire to her skirt, but what did this boyish,
lovely creature care about a skirt?
Her eyes were marvelous. They were crossed between a sea green and a
pond blue but her black eyebrows were obviously alike and offered
strange contrast to the loose, red, bobbed curls she wore, clubbed
about her ears.
In the course of training her Lord Tawdry had always attended to the
style in which she wore her hair.
In the company at the Hotel Biscuit dance all the men dropped their
partners, even if they weren't their wives, and trooped toward
Verbeena, an international galaxy of adorers comprising Scotch, Irish,
Spanish, Scandinavians, Malays, Canadians, Moabites and--well, that
will be about enough--but toward all of them who pleaded, some with
twanging guitars, others with ukeleles and one with a harmonica for a
chance to clasp her boyish beauty in the ardor of a kicky dance, Miss
Mayonnaise had but one insouciant, petulant reply:
"Aw, g'wan. Fade!"
Young Butternut stood nearby with his heart in his eyes. He was
nodding joyfully and murmuring softly for her ear alone:
"'Attaboy!"
"I say, chappie, what are you cooing about?" finally demanded Miss
Mayonnaise.
"Please, old thing, a word alone out on the balcony," Butternut
abjectly amplified.
"You've a jolly cheek," retorted Verbeena lighting another cigarette.
"And yet?" she suddenly arose and knocked the pleasing young man for a
few feet with a merry clap on the ear. "I'll take you on. I like you,
Butternut. You remind me so much of your sister."
She pulled out a guinea and started matching him as they passed from
the ballroom and out upon the balcony under the ambient, silver light
of the romantic moon which was, indeed, shining.
Two minutes later and from the direction of this same window out of
which they had passed--you remember, harmlessly matching
guineas--sounded a wild, prolonged and subtly syncopated ladylike
screech.
A hush came over the crowded room. Regular ladies huddled fearsomely
against shaky-kneed, cosmopolitan daredevils while craven waiters went
out to see what the trouble was. Somebody tore the hotel doctor away
from his absinthe drip and rushed him out too.
A solemn procession returned.
Frightened faces drew apart to let it pass. Frightened eyes gazed upon
a white stretcher borne in the center of it. On it was the prone
figure of a person whose face was also white.
The figure recumbent was boyish.
But it was not that of Verbeena Mayonnaise. The white face showed the
delicate, feminine profile of Bertie Butternut!
In the frame of the balcony window stood another boyish figure. Sure
enough this was Verbeena in all her laddie-like grace and poised with
a seeming boyish indifference.
But it could be seen by those who knew her at all that Miss Mayonnaise
was perturbed. For at one grab she had emptied the contents of her
slim gold case and was moodily smoking six cigarettes at once.
* * * * *
Verbeena returned to her rooms and undressed herself.
She couldn't keep a maid. They always ended by calling her "Sir."
At this connecting point or juncture, there came a knock on the door
and Verbeena called in her fresh, young baritone:
"Who the dickens is this and what do you want at this hour?"
"A note for you, monsieur--pardon, mademoiselle."
"O, stick it under the door," she replied.
But when she had looked at the note she gurgled:
"Zingo! But this will put Tawdry in a bait! He will be furious at me!
As if I should worry! He forgets I'm twenty-one and my punch is
getting better every day."
She nodded stoutly.
"Brother Tawd has clubbed my curls about my ears for the last time.
And I had no heart for this scheme of his! But the other stunt--the
desert, freedom, kicking along the old Sahara man enough for any
emergency and my own little notion of what may come of it--those
things for Verbeena!"
She looked again at the note in her hand.
"God bless Butternut," said Verbeena Mayonnaise.
She ran to the balcony, leaned far over and kicked up her heels and
burst into wild and rippling laughter at certain thoughts of Tawdry
and of Butternut which flooded beneath her carmine cap of hair, until
Lord Tawdry looking through the adjoining lattice said sternly:
"See here, young fellow, me lad, cut that!"
"O, cut your throat, you big mooch," she replied haughtily. "I'm an
icicle myself but I know a grand moon when I see one!"
But she wasn't looking at the moon at all. She was leaning out as far
as she could and peering on the balcony below where she thought she
had seen a sign of white drapery. But when she looked again it was
gone.
Had she only known!
If she had she'd have known it was Lady Speedway stretching her ear to
try and find out why a messenger was going at so late an hour to the
room of a single girl like Miss Mayonnaise.
But as it was, Verbeena squatted on the balcony rail lighting
cigarette after cigarette as she looked out into the market place
where the moon and her nostrils told her was the caravan she had
engaged from Musty Ale for her wild, mad adventure.
If Butternut had acted differently--but Butternut hadn't!
Dear little Butternut, sweet little Butternut!
She had his note to prove it conclusively to Lord Tawdry. To-morrow
would see her plunging forth into the yellow wilderness, the vast
places, the majestic silences, the----
Verbeena felt a sudden, mad boyish temptation to shoot her cigarette
stump into the eye of a native sleeping at the foot of the verandah.
But, very unusual with her in such cases, she refrained. It might
start some trouble and she didn't want that to happen now.
Nothing must prevent her journey upon the desert!
From her window she looked out toward it, so wonderful, so superb, so
exquisite, weird and beautiful. Exactly, she told herself, like a big,
black smudge.
But she cuddled in bed with one knee up to her neck in cute boyish
fashion, laughing softly at the remembrance of another time when she
had popped a cigarette stump into the eye of a London bobby from the
top of a 'bus.
And such a merry fight as she had put up when he had yanked her down!
She was wearing her usual boy's clothes and when she had given her
real name at the station, the policeman wouldn't believe it of her
and the matron had resigned rather than carry the investigation
further.
Verbeena gave her boyish head a twist or two on the pillow and then
she slept. Two weird sounds were in her ears as she dropped off. One
was a queer, wild, melancholy song. The other was the snores of Lord
Tawdry, equally weird, equally melancholy, equally wild.
Yet she slept.
But an hour later awoke.
Verbeena untied her long, knotted eyelashes and peered about.
Had--she seen something?
The moon was all there, the famous, well-known Biscuit moon, lighting
the room riotously.
Yet she saw nothing. She took a sharp peek around. As her state of
consciousness emerged from the nebulous condition of soft pitch and
congealed to the concrete of a highway, Verbeena said softly to
herself:
"I could kick myself for a goal if I didn't see somp'n. Mystic it was,
white, thrilling, strange----"
"Meow!"
Verbeena rushed for the balcony but the cat took the rail in a streak.
"Bally thing!"
Again on the still white night she heard that weird song with its
slurred but insistent staccato _expressione_, ancient as the days of
the Pharaohs, the melancholy, passionate Katsbemerri.
But there would be no cats in the desert. Only nice, gentle, cute
little, wriggly sandworms. No big boob brother, Tawdry. No Knitting
Needle Hussars.
Out there, beyond, swallowed up in that dear black smudge she had seen
from the balcony her soul would wave its Stars and Stripes of freedom
and move grandly in the palpitant sunlight upon the yellow linoleum of
the mighty desert!
And she would have for company kickin', bitin' horses and daredevil
men, magnificent, virile, strenuous nomads of the wild silences and
the silver moons!
Only under no circumstances were they--any one of them--to be allowed
to go too far!
Camaraderie--yes, in her boyish way she would offer them that. But
beyond that----
"Remember, Verbie," she told herself. "As regards such bally things
you are an icicle--an icicle."
She shivered.
"An icicle!"
She drew the covers swiftly up to her chin--up to the loose, red curls
that brother Tawdry so loved to club about her ears.