The Last Days of a Rake

ornamental bushes on his way into Lady Phoenicia’s gala event in honor of the new Regent at her Mayfair home.
    The air that night was crisp and light, fully as intoxicating as wine, and Lankin, in the company of another frivolous—if poorer—young man, was of a mind for mischief. Old cats and society dragons frowned in disapproval as Lankin and his friend lounged into the festivity, leering at exposed bosoms and surreptitiously patting bottoms in the most insolent manner. The fashion of the day for ladies was such that leering and patting, though uninvited, was rewarding. But after a half hour spent in such pleasantries, both were becoming bored.
    “Lankin, let us get out of this place,” Felix Bellwether said, finally, after they had shocked their quota of old people.
    Lankin was ready to go, for there were yet ancient watchmen to box and carriage horses to torment. But as fate would have it, he saw, that moment, descending the steps to the ballroom, a luminous goddess. She was as fresh as the spring air—a veritable Persephone—with golden hair piled high and decked with a coronet of pearls.
    “Who is that?” he breathed, not expecting an answer. The young lady stood at the top of the stairs. She was gowned in palest green trimmed in gold, demure eyes downcast, while her companion was a formidable dame dressed in purple, her head topped by a plumed turban.
    “Her?” Felix asked. “That’s Susan Bailey, a friend of m’sister’s.”
    Thunderstruck, Lankin stared as she passed by him. He was instantly transported back to the springtimes of his childhood, when all the world was gold and green, fresh, new, with limitless possibilities. “Introduce me, there’s a good chappie,” he said to Felix, clapping him on the shoulder.
    As the orchestra tuned their instruments, Bellwether led Lankin toward the bank of chaperone chairs, where Susan was just taking a seat with her society guardian.
    “Hallo, Susie,” Bellwether said, lounging indolently on the back of one gilt-adorned chair. “This here is Edgar Lankin,” he said, hooking one thumb over his shoulder toward his friend, “just down from Oxford.”
    The young woman smiled, but before she could speak, the elderly purple-gowned woman rose from her seat with some difficulty. “Young man,” she said, peering at Bellwether through her lorgnette, one eye monstrously larger than the other because of it, “some may allow such slack introductions, but I expect young gentlemen to behave correctly.”
    “It’s all right, Lady Stoddart,” Susan Bailey said, her tone as light and sweet as a matins bell. “Felix and his sister are my childhood friends. Surely any friend of his would be suitable as an acquaintance?”
    From such a promising beginning, how could the evening do aught but progress? Lankin stayed at the ball and danced the supper dance with Susan. Felix, bored by the proceedings, went off to the card room to lose what little money he had at whist.
    She was so profoundly lovely, budding womanhood clothing her more beautifully than any costly raiment. Lankin and Susan’s tale might have been like a hundred, or a thousand, others. Mayhap they would have courted, and then, after a suitable interval (an innocent kiss, the fervid pressing of one hand over another) he would have sunk to one knee and begged for her lily-white hand in marriage. There were no impediments to tear them asunder, no sneering evil uncle trying to sell her to the highest bidder, no dark family secrets, no ill health in their immediate future. He was wealthy and well-born, she the same, with the added enticements of a good dowry, youth and a pristine reputation. Marriage and children would have followed. Then, given his character, the next sequence would surely have been infidelity, disenchantment, separation, and finally death. Just so would the skein of their lives have raveled if Lankin had been like others of his time and place, willing to follow the rules of life as set down by society and the church.
    Such stories, the accounts of romances between suitably boring young people, are edifying for the public in the reassurance that a life governed by God and country will end in the preservation of society, if not in happiness for the individuals. But the devil was in Lankin; nay, not one devil but a legion of imps, the demons of pride, mischief, lust and conceit. He began, that very evening, to weave a veil of mystery over Susan, in a game of seduction that the innocent