The Last Days of a Rake

deflowering. She whispered something, shook her head and backed up one step, bumping into her friend, who looked up toward Lankin.
    Susan spoke rapidly to her friend, who glared at him as if he were something she had discovered slithering out from beneath a rock in the garden. He was indignant. He had forced Susan Bailey to do nothing. It had been she who suggested meeting at the cottage folly. What had she thought would be the outcome?
    The friend, a plain young lady with glasses, strode toward him and said, “Sir, I suggest you leave immediately, or Susan will do that which she has not seen fit to do as yet, and that is inform her father of the disgusting advantage you took of her.”
    His ire intensified. “Do you know, I think she should go ahead and do that, if she thinks she has been so dishonored.”
    The girl gasped and retreated, scuttling away like a mouse from a dangerous snake. Lankin drifted closer to Susan. Sending her friend to warn him away had the opposite effect. He resented the notion he should hide his face in shame. Society was a male bastion to which men only allowed women access as a favor, his youthful arrogance informed him.
    Instead he stayed, and because of his wealth, which was a well-known quantity in society, he was smiled at by mothers and patted on the back by fathers. Young ladies laughed at his jests and he was invited to more than one home for the upcoming season of frivolity and festivity. “Come down to the country for hunting,” one man said. “Come to Berkshire for Christmas,” said another. “Join us to ring in the new year,” said yet another.
    And all of this while Susan watched, her face bleached of all color, her lips trembling and causing those around her to gaze at her with censure at such a public display of emotion.
    What prompted such callousness on Lankin’s part? In the spring, when he defiled the poor girl, he had congratulated himself that he was not a brute. What had changed in the intervening months? For he was not done with her. Had Susan left that moment, or looked less vulnerable, he probably would have ceased, but every display of emotion urged him to new cruelty, and one particular young lady, an acknowledged diamond, allowed his extravagant flirtation and even left the room with him for a stroll on the terrace.
    When he returned, Susan had left the recital, and that was the end of it. Or so he thought.
    He had rooms, in those days, the top floor of a once extravagant London townhome, now the dominion of an old woman who provided meals, laundry service and cleaning, as well as an airy suite with plenty of space for Lankin and his valet. His horse was kept by the livery down the street, and he could come and go as he pleased.
    That very night, after the recital, he arrived back home from hours in a gambling hell. He had drunk too much, and was staggering, so when a young woman darted out of the shrubbery, he reared back in fright and fell up the steps to the front door.
    “Edgar,” she said. “I have run away from Papa. Please, let us go in to your rooms!”
    It was Susan, but Lankin was too befuddled to do aught but stare at her in dismay that was mingled with drunken outrage. What she was doing was beyond the pale, completely unladylike and faintly disgusting. He was unable to form any thought or deed, though, and in a moment, as he swayed and swore, she snatched the key from his hand and led him up the stairs.
    Over the next few days, while he went about his life as usual, she spent every waking moment (when he was home, and not at a gaming club, White’s, or some other affair) pleading, arguing, berating, browbeating and, when she failed with every other method, petting him, trying to convince him to marry her. Lankin loathed the scenes, was impatient with the petting, and his disgust grew.
    Finally, late one night when he came home a little high, though not stinking, she played her final card. She awaited him in his bed and offered herself again. He made love to her, and this time she did not cry. She lay like a plank, not pretending the amorous delight that more seasoned girls knew elicited the best rewards. It was not his fault, this confirmed for him. Other girls enjoyed his lovemaking. If she didn’t, it was her trouble, not his.
    Even at that moment, late as it was, one approach would have forced him to marriage. If she had gone home, confessed all to her father and let him handle it, Lankin may have been persuaded by the fear of