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Title: The Lost Girl (published 1921 in the USA)Author: D H Lawrence* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0700831h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: June 2007Date most recently updated: June 2007Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
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CONTENTSCHAPTER I. THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSECHAPTER II. THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTONCHAPTER III. THE MATERNITY NURSECHAPTER IV. TWO WOMEN DIECHAPTER V. THE BEAUCHAPTER VI. HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOURCHAPTER VII. NATCHA-KEE-TAWARACHAPTER VIII. CICCIOCHAPTER IX. ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYECHAPTER X. THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSECHAPTER XI. HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENTCHAPTER XII. ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGEDCHAPTER XIII. THE WEDDED WIFECHAPTER XIV. THE JOURNEY ACROSSCHAPTER XV. THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANOCHAPTER XVI. SUSPENSE
Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of tenthousand people, and three generations behind it. This space of threegenerations argues a certain well-established society. The old "County"has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to flourish onmineral rights in regions still idyllic. Remains one great andinaccessible magnate, the local coal owner: three generations old, andclambering on the bottom step of the "County," kicking off the massbelow. Rule him out.
A well established society in Woodhouse, full of fine shades,ranging from the dark of coal-dust to grit of stone-mason and sawdustof timber-merchant, through the lustre of lard and butter and meat, tothe perfume of the chemist and the disinfectant of the doctor, on tothe serene gold-tarnish of bank-managers, cashiers for the firm,clergymen and such-like, as far as the automobile refulgence of thegeneral-manager of all the collieries. Here thene plus ultra.The general manager lives in the shrubberied seclusion of the so-calledManor. The genuine Hall, abandoned by the "County," has been taken overas offices by the firm.
Here we are then: a vast substratum of colliers; a thick sprinklingof tradespeople intermingled with small employers of labour anddiversified by elementary schoolmasters and nonconformist clergy; ahigher layer of bank-managers, rich millers and well-to-do ironmasters,episcopal clergy and the managers of collieries, then the rich andsticky cherry of the local coal-owner glistening over all.
Such the complicated social system of a small industrial town in theMidlands of England, in this year of grace 1920. But let us go back alittle. Such it was in the last calm year of plenty, 1913.
A calm year of plenty. But one chronic and dreary malady: that ofthe odd women. Why, in the name of all prosperity, should every classbut the lowest in such a society hang overburdened with Dead Sea fruitof odd women, unmarried, unmarriageable women, called old maids? Why isit that every tradesman, every school-master, every bank-manager, andevery clergyman produces one, two, three or more old maids? Do themiddle-classes, particularly the lower middle-classes, give birth tomore girls than boys? Or do the lower middle-class men assiduouslyclimb up or down, in marriage, thus leaving their true partnersstranded? Or are middle-class women very squeamish in their choice ofhusbands?
However it be, it is a tragedy. Or perhaps it is not.
Perhaps these unmarried women of the middle-classes are the famoussexless-workers of our ant-industrial society, of which we hear somuch. Perhaps all they lack is an occupation: in short, a job. Butperhaps we might hear their own opinion, before we lay the lawdown.
In Woodhouse, there was a terrible crop of old maids among the"nobs," the tradespeople and the clergy. The whole town of women,colliers' wives and all, held its breath as it saw a chance of one ofthese daughters of comfort and woe getting off. They flocked to thewell-to-do weddings with an intoxication of relief. For letclass-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman leftstalely on the shelf, without a chance. They allwanted themiddle-class girls to find husbands. Every one wanted it, including thegirls themselves. Hence the dismalness.
Now James Houghton had only one child: his daughter Alvina. SurelyAlvina Houghton--
But let us retreat to the early eighties, when Alvina was a baby: oreven further back, to the palmy days of James Houghton. In his palmydays, James Houghton wascrême de la crême ofWoodhouse society. The house of Houghton had always been well-to-do:tradespeople, we must admit; but after a few generations of affluence,tradespeople acquire a distinctcachet. Now James Houghton, atthe age of twenty-eight, inherited a splendid business in Manchestergoods, in Woodhouse. He was a tall, thin, elegant young man withside-whiskers, genuinely refined, somewhat in the Bulwer style. He hada taste for elegant conversation and elegant literature and elegantChristianity: a tall, thin, brittle young man, rather fluttering in hismanner, full of facile ideas, and with a beautiful speaking voice: mostbeautiful. Withal, of course, a tradesman. He courted a small, darkwoman, older than himself, daughter of a Derbyshire squire. He expectedto get at least ten thousand pounds with her. In which he wasdisappointed, for he got only eight hundred. Being of aromantic-commercial nature, he never forgave her, but always treatedher with the most elegant courtesy. To see him peel and prepare anapple for her was an exquisite sight. But that peeled and quarteredapple was her portion. This elegant Adam of commerce gave Eve her ownback, nicely cored, and had no more to do with her. Meanwhile Alvinawas born.
Before all this, however, before his marriage, James Houghton hadbuilt Manchester House. It was a vast square building--vast, that is,for Woodhouse--standing on the main street and highroad of the smallbut growing town. The lower front consisted of two fine shops, one forManchester goods, one for silk and woollens. This was James Houghton'scommercial poem.
For James Houghton was a dreamer, and something of a poet:commercial, be it understood. He liked the novels of George Macdonald,and the fantasies of that author, extremely. He wove one continualfantasy for himself, a fantasy of commerce. He dreamed of silks andpoplins, luscious in texture and of unforeseen exquisiteness: hedreamed of carriages of the "County" arrested before his windows, ofexquisite women ruffling charmed, entranced to his counter. Andcharming, entrancing, he served them his lovely fabrics, which only heand they could sufficiently appreciate. His fame spread, untilAlexandra, Princess of Wales, and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, thetwo best-dressed women in Europe, floated down from heaven to the shopin Woodhouse, and sallied forth to show what could be done bypurchasing from James Houghton.
We cannot say why James Houghton failed to become the Liberty or theSnelgrove of his day. Perhaps he had too much imagination. Be that asit may, in those early days when he brought his wife to her new home,his window on the Manchester side was a foam and a may-blossom ofmuslins and prints, his window on the London side was an autumn eveningof silks and rich fabrics. What wife could fail to be dazzled! But she,poor darling, from her stone hall in stony Derbyshire, was a little bitrepulsed by the man's dancing in front of his stock, like David beforethe ark.
The home to which he brought her was a monument. In the greatbedroom over the shop he had his furniturebuilt: built of solidmahogany: oh too, too solid. No doubt he hopped or skipped himself withsatisfaction into the monstrous matrimonial bed: it could only bemounted by means of a stool and chair. But the poor, secluded littlewoman, older than he, must have climbed up with a heavy heart, to lieand face the gloomy Bastille of mahogany, the great cupboard opposite,or to turn wearily sideways to the great cheval mirror, which performeda perpetual and hideous bow before her grace. Such furniture! It couldnever be removed from the room.
The little child was born in the second year. And then JamesHoughton decamped to a small, half-furnished bedroom at the other endof the house, where he slept on a rough board and played the anchoritefor the rest of his days. His wife was left alone with her baby and thebuilt-in furniture. She developed heart disease, as a result of nervousrepressions.
But like a butterfly James fluttered over his fabrics. He was atyrant to his shop-girls. No French marquis in a Dickens' novel couldhave been more elegant andraffiné and heartless. Thegirls detested him. And yet, his curious refinement and enthusiasm borethem away. They submitted to him. The shop attracted much curiosity.But the poor-spirited Woodhouse people were weak buyers. They weariedJames Houghton with their demand for common zephyrs, for red flannelwhich they would scallop with black worsted, for black alpacas andbombazines and merinos. He fluffed out his silk-striped muslins, hisIndia cotton-prints. But the natives shied off as if he had offeredthem the poisoned robes of Herakles.
There was a sale. These sales contributed a good deal to Mrs.Houghton's nervous heart-disease. They brought the first signs of wearand tear into the face of James Houghton. At first, of course, hemerely marked down, with discretion, his less-expensive stock of printsand muslins, nuns-veilings and muslin delaines, with a few fancybraidings and trimmings in guimp or bronze to enliven the affair. AndWoodhouse bought cautiously.
After the sale, however, James Houghton felt himself at liberty toplunge into an orgy of new stock. He flitted, with a tense look on hisface, to Manchester. After which huge bundles, bales and boxes arrivedin Woodhouse, and were dumped on the pavement of the shop. Fridayevening came, and with it a revelation in Houghton's window: the firstpiques, the first strangely-woven and honey-combed toilet covers andbed quilts, the first frill-caps and aprons for maid-servants: a wonderin white. That was how James advertised it. "A Wonder in White." Whoknows but that he had been reading Wilkie Collins' famous novel!
As the nine days of the wonder-in-white passed and receded, Jamesdisappeared in the direction of London. A few Fridays later he came outwith his Winter Touch. Weird and wonderful winter coats, forladies--everything James handled was for ladies, he scorned the coarsersex--: weird and wonderful winter coats for ladies, of thick, black,pock-marked cloth, stood and flourished their bear-fur cuffs in theback-ground, while tippets, boas, muffs and winter-fancies coquetted infront of the window-space. Friday-night crowds gathered outside: thegas-lamps shone their brightest: James Houghton hovered in theback-ground like an author on his first night in the theatre. Theresult was a sensation. Ten villages stared and crushed round the plateglass. It was a sensation: but what sensation! In the breasts of thecrowd, wonder, admiration,fear, and ridicule. Let us stress theword fear. The inhabitants of Woodhouse were afraid lest James Houghtonshould impose his standards upon them. His goods were in excellenttaste: but his customers were in as bad taste as possible. They stoodoutside and pointed, giggled, and jeered. Poor James, like an author onhis first night, saw his work fall more than flat.
But still he believed in his own excellence: and quite justly. Whathe failed to perceive was that the crowd hated excellence. Woodhousewanted a gently graduated progress in mediocrity, a mediocrity so staleand flat that it fell outside the imagination of any sensitive mortal.Woodhouse wanted a series of vulgar little thrills, as one tawdrymediocrity was imported from Nottingham or Birmingham to take the placeof some tawdry mediocrity which Nottingham and Birmingham had alreadydiscarded. That Woodhouse, as a very condition of its own being, hatedany approach to originality or real taste, this James Houghton couldnever learn. He thought he had not been clever enough, when he had beenfar, far too clever already. He always thought that Dame Fortune was acapricious and fastidious dame, a sort of Elizabeth of Austria orAlexandra, Princess of Wales, elegant beyond his grasp. Whereas DameFortune, even in London or Vienna, let alone in Woodhouse, was a vulgarwoman of the middle and lower middle-class, ready to put her heavy footon anything that was not vulgar, machine-made, and appropriate to theherd. When he saw his delicate originalities, as well as his faintflourishes of draper's fantasy, squashed flat under the calm and solidfoot of vulgar Dame Fortune, he fell into fits of depression borderingon mysticism, and talked to his wife in a vague way of higherinfluences and the angel Israfel. She, poor lady, was thoroughly scaredby Israfel, and completely unhooked by the vagaries of James.
At last--we hurry down the slope of James' misfortunes--the realdays of Houghton's Great Sales began. Houghton's Great Bargain Eventswere really events. After some years of hanging on, he let gosplendidly. He marked down his prints, his chintzes, his dimities andhis veilings with a grand and lavish hand. Bang went his blue pencilthrough 3/11, and nobly he subscribed 1/0¾. Prices fell likenuts. A lofty one-and-eleven rolled down to six-three, 1/6 magicallyshrank into 4¾d, whilst good solid prints exposed themselves at3¾d per yard.
Now this was really an opportunity. Moreover the goods, havingbecome a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, werebeginning to approximate to the public taste. And besides, good soundstuff it was, no matter what the pattern. And so the little Woodhousegirls went to school in petties and drawers made of material whichJames had destined for fair summer dresses: petties and drawers ofwhich the little Woodhouse girls were ashamed, for all that. For ifthey should chance to turn up their little skirts, be sure they wouldraise a chorus among their companions: "Yah-h-h, yer've got Houghton'sthrep'ny draws on!"
All this time James Houghton walked on air. He still saw the FataMorgana snatching his fabrics round her lovely form, and pointing himto wealth untold. True, he became also Superintendent of the SundaySchool. But whether this was an act of vanity, or whether it was anattempt to establish an Entente Cordiale with higher powers, who shalljudge.
Meanwhile his wife became more and more an invalid; the littleAlvina was a pretty, growing child. Woodhouse was really impressed bythe sight of Mrs. Houghton, small, pale and withheld, taking a walkwith her dainty little girl, so fresh in an ermine tippet and a muff.Mrs. Houghton in shiny black bear's-fur, the child in the white andspotted ermine, passing silent and shadowy down the street, made animpression which the people did not forget.
But Mrs. Houghton had pains at her heart. If, during her walk, shesaw two little boys having a scrimmage, she had to run to them withpence and entreaty, leaving them dumbfounded, whilst she leaned blue atthe lips against a wall. If she saw a carter crack his whip over theears of the horse, as the horse laboured uphill, she had to cover hereyes and avert her face, and all her strength left her.
So she stayed more and more in her room, and the child was given tothe charge of a governess. Miss Frost was a handsome, vigorous youngwoman of about thirty years of age, with grey-white hair andgold-rimmed spectacles. The white hair was not at all tragical: it wasa familytrait.
Miss Frost mattered more than any one else to Alvina Houghton,during the first long twenty-five years of the girl's life. Thegoverness was a strong, generous woman, a musician by nature. She had asweet voice, and sang in the choir of the chapel, and took the firstclass of girls in the Sunday-School of which James Houghton wasSuperintendent. She disliked and rather despised James Houghton, saw inhim elements of a hypocrite, detested his airy and graciousselfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all, his fairyfantasy. As James went further into life, he became a dreamer. Sadindeed that he died before the days of Freud. He enjoyed the mostwonderful and fairy-like dreams, which he could describe perfectly, incharming, delicate language. At such times his beautifully modulatedvoice all but sang, his grey eyes gleamed fiercely under his bushy,hairy eyebrows, his pale face with its side-whiskers had a strangelueur, his long thin hands fluttered occasionally. He had become meagrein figure, his skimpy but genteel coat would be buttoned over hisbreast, as he recounted his dream-adventures, adventures that were halfEdgar Allan Poe, half Andersen, with touches of Vathek and Lord Byronand George Macdonald: perhaps more than a touch of the last. Ladieswere always struck by these accounts. But Miss Frost never felt sostrongly moved to impatience as when she was within hearing.
For twenty years, she and James Houghton treated each other with acourteous distance. Sometimes she broke into open impatience with him,sometimes he answered her tartly: "Indeed, indeed! Oh, indeed! Well,well, I'm sorry you find it so--" as if the injury consisted in herfinding it so. Then he would flit away to the Conservative Club, with afleet, light, hurried step, as if pressed by fate. At the club heplayed chess--at which he was excellent--and conversed. Then he flittedback at half-past twelve, to dinner.
The whole morale of the house rested immediately on Miss Frost. Shesaw her line in the first year. She must defend the little Alvina, whomshe loved as her own, and the nervous, petulant, heart-stricken woman,the mother, from the vagaries of James. Not that James had any vices.He did not drink or smoke, was abstemious and clean as an anchorite,and never lowered his fine tone. But still, the two unprotected onesmust be sheltered from him. Miss Frost imperceptibly took into herhands the reins of the domestic government. Her rule was quiet, strong,and generous. She was not seeking her own way. She was steering thepoor domestic ship of Manchester House, illuminating its dark roomswith her own sure, radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and herpale, heavy, reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. Sheseemed to give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering andbewildered home. She controlled the maid, and suggested themeals--meals which James ate without knowing what he ate. She broughtin flowers and books, and, very rarely, a visitor. Visitors were out ofplace in the dark sombreness of Manchester House. Her flowers charmedthe petulant invalid, her books she sometimes discussed with the airyJames: after which discussions she was invariably filled withexasperation and impatience, whilst James invariably retired to theshop, and was heard raising his musical voice, which the work-girlshated, to one or other of the work-girls.
James certainly had an irritating way of speaking of a book. Hetalked of incidents, and effects, and suggestions, as if the wholething had just been a sensational-aesthetic attribute to himself. Not agrain of human feeling in the man, said Miss Frost, flushing pink withexasperation. She herself invariably took the human line.
Meanwhile the shops began to take on a hopeless and frowsy look.After ten years' sales, spring sales, summer sales, autumn sales,winter sales, James began to give up the drapery dream. He himselfcould not bear any more to put the heavy, pock-holed black cloth coat,with wild bear cuffs and collar, on to the stand. He had marked it downfrom five guineas to one guinea, and then, oh ignoble day, toten-and-six. He nearly kissed the gipsy woman with a basket of tinsaucepan-lids, when at last she bought it for five shillings, at theend of one of his winter sales. But even she, in spite of the bittersleety day, would not put the coat on in the shop. She carried it overher arm down to the Miners' Arms. And later, with a shock that reallyhurt him, James, peeping bird-like out of his shop door, saw hersitting driving a dirty rag-and-bone cart with a green-white, mouldypony, and flourishing her arms like some wild and hairy-decoratedsquaw. For the long bear-fur, wet with sleet, seemed like a chevaux defrise of long porcupine quills round her forearms and her neck. Yetsuch good, such wonderful material! James eyed it for one moment, andthen fled like a rabbit to the stove in his back regions.
The higher powers did not seem to fulfil the terms of treaty whichJames hoped for. He began to back out from the Entente. The SundaySchool was a great trial to him. Instead of being carried away by hisgrace and eloquence, the nasty louts of colliery boys and girls openlybanged their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to speak. Hesaid many acid and withering things, as he stood there on the rostrum.But what is the good of saying acid things to those little fiends andgallbladders, the colliery children. The situation was saved by MissFrost's sweeping together all the big girls, under her surveillance,and by her organizing that the tall and handsome blacksmith who taughtthe lower boys should extend his influence over the upper boys. Hisinfluence was more than effectual. It consisted in gripping anyrecalcitrant boy just above the knee, and jesting with him in a jocularmanner, in the dialect. The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith'shand need be, and his dialect was as broad as could be wished. Betweenthe grip and the homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. Sothe Sunday School paid more attention to James, whose prayers werebeautiful. But then one of the boys, a protege of Miss Frost, havingbeen left for half an hour in the obscure room with Mrs. Houghton, gaveaway the secret of the blacksmith's grip, which secret so haunted thepoor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of her malady, andmade Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Houghtonresented something in the coarse Scotch manner of the minister of thatday. So that the superintendency of the Sunday School came to anend.
At the same time, Solomon had to divide his baby. That is, he letthe London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor andhaberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bearanalysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joinersappeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room inthe shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and sawing, andsuffered. W H. Johnson came out with a spick-and-span window, and hadhis wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a handsome, loudgirl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked in--even women,buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They could have boughta tie for four-three from James Houghton. But no, they would rathergive sixpence-halfpenny for W. H. Johnson's fresh but rubbishy stuff.And James, who had tried to rise to another successful sale, saw thestreams pass into the other doorway, and heard the heavy feet on thehollow boards of the other shop: his shop no more.
After this cut at his pride and integrity he lay in retirement for awhile, mystically inclined. Probably he would have come to Swedenborg,had not his clipt wings spread for a new flight. He hit upon thebrilliant idea of working up his derelict fabrics into ready-mades: notmen's clothes, oh no: women's, or rather, ladies'. Ladies' Tailoring,said the new announcement.
James Houghton was happy once more. A zig-zag wooden stair-way wasrigged up the high back of Manchester House. In the great loftssewing-machines of various patterns and movements were installed. Amanageress was advertised for, and work-girls were hired. So a newphase of life started. At half-past six in the morning there was aclatter of feet and of girls' excited tongues along the back-yard andup the wooden stairway outside the back wall. The poor invalid heardevery clack and every vibration. She could never get over her nervousapprehension of an invasion. Every morning alike, she felt an invasionof some enemy was breaking in on her. And all day long the low, steadyrumble of sewing-machines overhead seemed like the low drumming of abombardment upon her weak heart. To make matters worse, James Houghtondecided that he must have his sewing-machines driven by someextra-human force. He installed another plant of machinery--acetyleneor some such contrivance--which was intended to drive all the littlemachines from one big belt. Hence a further throbbing and shaking inthe upper regions, truly terrible to endure. But, fortunately orunfortunately, the acetylene plant was not a success. Girls got theirthumbs pierced, and sewing machines absolutely refused to stop sewing,once they had started, and absolutely refused to start, once they hadstopped. So that after a while, one loft was reserved for disused andrusty, but expensive engines.
Dame Fortune, who had refused to be taken by fine fabrics and fancytrimmings, was just as reluctant to be captured by ready-mades. Againthe good dame was thoroughly lower middle-class. James Houghtondesigned "robes." Now Robes were the mode. Perhaps it was Alexandra,Princess of Wales, who gave glory to the slim, glove-fitting PrincessRobe. Be that as it may, James Houghton designed robes. His work-girls,a race even more callous than shop-girls, proclaimed the fact thatJames tried-on his own inventions upon his own elegant thin person,before the privacy of his own cheval mirror. And even if he did, whynot? Miss Frost, hearing this legend, looked sideways at theenthusiast.
Let us remark in time that Miss Frost had already ceased to draw anymaintenance from James Houghton. Far from it, she herself contributedto the upkeep of the domestic hearth and board. She had fully decidednever to leave her two charges. She knew that a governess was animpossible item in Manchester House, as things went. And so she trudgedthe country, giving music lessons to the daughters of tradesmen and ofcolliers who boasted pianofortes. She even taught heavy-handed butdauntless colliers, who were seized with a passion to "play." Miles shetrudged, on her round from village to village: a white-haired womanwith a long, quick stride, a strong figure, and a quick, handsome smilewhen once her face awoke behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Like manyshort-sighted people, she had a certain intent look of one who goes herown way.
The miners knew her, and entertained the highest respect andadmiration for her. As they streamed in a grimy stream home from pit,they diverged like some magic dark river from off the pavement into thehorse-way, to give her room as she approached. And the men who knew herwell enough to salute her, by calling her name "Miss Frost!" giving itthe proper intonation of salute, were fussy men indeed. "She's a ladyif ever there was one," they said. And they meant it. Hearing her name,poor Miss Frost would flash a smile and a nod from behind herspectacles, but whose black face she smiled to she never, or rarelyknew. If she did chance to get an inkling, then gladly she called inreply "Mr. Lamb," or "Mr. Calladine." In her way she was a proud woman,for she was regarded with cordial respect, touched with veneration, byat least a thousand colliers, and by perhaps as many colliers' wives.That is something, for any woman.
Miss Frost charged fifteen shillings for thirteen weeks' lessons,two lessons a week. And at that she was considered rather dear. She wassupposed to be making money. What money she made went chiefly tosupport the Houghton household. In the meanwhile she drilled Alvinathoroughly in theory and pianoforte practice, for Alvina was naturallymusical, and besides this she imparted to the girl the elements of ayoung lady's education, including the drawing of flowers inwatercolour, and the translation of a Lamartine poem.
Now incredible as it may seem, fate threw another prop to thefalling house of Houghton, in the person of the manageress of thework-girls, Miss Pinnegar. James Houghton complained of Fortune, yet towhat other man would Fortune have sent two such women as Miss Frost andMiss Pinnegar,gratis? Yet there they were. And doubtful ifJames was ever grateful for their presence.
If Miss Frost saved him from heaven knows what domestic debacle andhorror, Miss Pinnegar saved him from the workhouse. Let us not mincematters. For a dozen years Miss Frost supported the heart-stricken,nervous invalid, Clariss Houghton: for more than twenty years shecherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the childalike from a neurotic mother and a father such as James. For nearlytwenty years she saw that food was set on the table, and clean sheetswere spread on the beds: and all the time remained virtually in theposition of an outsider, without one grain of establishedauthority.
And then to find Miss Pinnegar! In her way, Miss Pinnegar was verydifferent from Miss Frost. She was a rather short, stout,mouse-coloured, creepy kind of woman with a high colour in her cheeks,and dun, close hair like a cap. It was evident she was not a lady: hergrammar was not without reproach. She had pale grey eyes, and a paddingstep, and a soft voice, and almost purplish cheeks. Mrs. Houghton, MissFrost, and Alvina did not like her. They suffered her unwillingly.
But from the first she had a curious ascendancy over James Houghton.One would have expected his aesthetic eye to be offended. But no doubtit was her voice: her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed almost likea secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers disliked beingsecretly touched, as it were beneath their clothing. Miss Frostabhorred it: so did Mrs. Houghton. Miss Frost's voice was clear andstraight as a bell-note, open as the day. Yet Alvina, though in loyaltyshe adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, did not really mind the quietsuggestive power of Miss Pinnegar. For Miss Pinnegar was not vulgarlyinsinuating. On the contrary, the things she said were rather clumsyand downright. It was only that she seemed to weigh what she said,secretly, before she said it, and then she approached as if she wouldslip it into her hearer's consciousness without his being aware of it.She seemed to slide her speeches unnoticed into one's ears, so that oneaccepted them without the slightest challenge. That was just her mannerof approach. In her own way, she was as loyal and unselfish as MissFrost. There are such poles of opposition between honesties andloyalties.
Miss Pinnegar had thesecond class of girls in the SundaySchool, and she took second, subservient place in Manchester House. Byforce of nature, Miss Frost took first place. Only when Miss Pinnegarspoke to Mr. Houghton--nay, the very way she addressed herself tohim--"What doyou think, Mr. Houghton?"--then there seemed to beassumed an immediacy of correspondence between the two, and anunquestioned priority in their unison, his and hers, which was a cruelthorn in Miss Frost's outspoken breast. This sort of secret intimacyand secret exulting in having,really, the chief power, was mostrepugnant to the white-haired woman. Not that there was, in fact, anysecrecy, or any form of unwarranted correspondence between JamesHoughton and Miss Pinnegar. Far from it. Each of them would have foundany suggestion of such a possibility repulsive in the extreme. It wassimply an implicit correspondence between their two psyches, animmediacy of understanding which preceded all expression, tacit,wireless.
Miss Pinnegar lived in: so that the household consisted of theinvalid, who mostly sat, in her black dress with a white lace collarfastened by a twisted gold brooch, in her own dim room, doing nothing,nervous and heart-suffering; then James, and the thin young Alvina, whoadhered to her beloved Miss Frost, and then these two strange women.Miss Pinnegar never lifted up her voice in household affairs: sheseemed, by her silence, to admit her own inadequacy in culture andintellect, when topics of interest were being discussed, only comingout now and then with defiant platitudes and truisms--for almostdefiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian point of view; yet aftereverything she would turn with her quiet, triumphant assurance to JamesHoughton, and start on some point of business, soft, assured,ascendant. The others shut their ears.
Now Miss Pinnegar had to get her footing slowly. She had to letJames run the gamut of his creations. Each Friday night new wonders,robes and ladies' "suits"--the phrase was very new--garnished thewindow of Houghton's shop. It was one of the sights of the place,Houghton's window on Friday night. Young or old, no individual,certainly no female left Woodhouse without spending an excited andusually hilarious ten minutes on the pavement under the window. Muffledshrieks of young damsels who had just got their first view, guffaws ofsympathetic youths, continued giggling and expostulation and "Eh, butwhat price the umbrella skirt, my girl!" and "You'd like to marry me inthat, my boy--what? not half!"--or else "Eh, now, if you'd seenme inthat you'd have fallen in love with me at first sight,shouldn't you?"--with a probable answer "I should have fallen overmyself making haste to get away"--loud guffaws:--all this was theregular Friday night's entertainment in Woodhouse. James Houghton'sshop was regarded as a weekly comic issue. His piqué costumeswith glass buttons and sort of steel-trimming collars and cuffs wereimmortal.
But why, once more, drag it out. Miss Pinnegar served in the shop onFriday nights. She stood by her man. Sometimes when the shrieks grewloudest she came to the shop door and looked with her pale grey eyes atthe ridiculous mob of lasses in tam-o-shanters and youths half buriedin caps. And she imposed a silence. They edged away.
Meanwhile Miss Pinnegar pursued the sober and even tenor of her ownway. Whilst James lashed out, to use the local phrase, in robes and"suits," Miss Pinnegar steadily ground away, producing strong,indestructible shirts and singlets for the colliers, sound, serviceableaprons for the colliers' wives, good print dresses for servants, and soon. She executed no flights of fancy. She had her goods made to suither people. And so, underneath the foam and froth of James' creativeadventure flowed a slow but steady stream of output and income. Thewomen of Woodhouse came at last todepend on Miss Pinnegar.Growing lads in the pit reduce their garments to shreds with amazingexpedition. "I'll go to Miss Pinnegar for thy shirts this time, mylad," said the harassed mothers, "and see ifthey'll standthee." It was almost like a threat. But it served Manchester House.
James bought very little stock in these days: just remnants andpieces for his immortal robes. It was Miss Pinnegar who saw thetravellers and ordered the unions and calicoes and grey flannel. Jameshovered round and said the last word, of course. But what was his lastword but an echo of Miss Pinnegar's penultimate! He was not interestedin unions and twills.
His own stock remained on hand. Time, like a slow whirl-pool churnedit over into sight and out of sight, like a mass of dead seaweed in abackwash. There was a regular series of sales fortnightly. The displayof "creations" fell off. The new entertainment was the Friday-night'ssale. James would attack some portion of his stock, make a wild jumbleof it, spend a delirious Wednesday and Thursday marking down, and thenopen on Friday afternoon. In the evening there was a crush. A goodmoire underskirt for one-and-eleven-three was not to be neglected, anda handsome string-lace collarette for six-three would iron out and beworth at least three-and-six. That was how it went: it would nearly allof it iron out into something really nice, poor James' crumpled stock.His fine, semi-transparent face flushed pink, his eyes flashed as hetook in the sixpences and handed back knots of tape or packets of pinsfor the notorious farthings. What matter if the farthing change hadoriginally cost him a halfpenny! His shop was crowded with womenpeeping and pawing and turning things over and commenting in loud,unfeeling tones. For there were still many comic items. Once, forexample, he suddenly heaped up piles of hats, trimmed and untrimmed,the weirdest, sauciest, most screaming shapes. Woodhouse enjoyed itselfthat night.
And all the time, in her quiet, polite, think-the-more fashion MissPinnegar waited on the people, showing them considerable forbearanceand just a tinge of contempt. She became very tired those evenings--herhair under its invisible hairnet became flatter, her cheeks hung downpurplish and mottled. But while James stood she stood. The people didnot like her, yet she influenced them. And the stock slowly wilted,withered. Some was scrapped. The shop seemed to have digested some ofits indigestible contents.
James accumulated sixpences in a miserly fashion. Luckily for herwork-girls, Miss Pinnegar took her own orders, and received paymentsfor her own productions. Some of her regular customers paid her ashilling a week--or less. But it made a small, steady income. Shereserved her own modest share, paid the expenses of her department, andleft the residue to James.
James had accumulated sixpences, and made a little space in hisshop. He had desisted from "creations." Time now for a new flight. Hedecided it was better to be a manufacturer than a tradesman. His shop,already only half its original size, was again too big. It might besplit once more. Rents had risen in Woodhouse. Why not cut off anothershop from his premises?
No sooner said than done. In came the architect, with whom he hadplayed many a game of chess. Best, said the architect, take off onegood-sized shop, rather than halve the premises. James would be left alittle cramped, a little tight, with only one-third of his presentspace. But as we age we dwindle.
More hammering and alterations, and James found himself cooped in along, long narrow shop, very dark at the back, with a high oblongwindow and a door that came in at a pinched corner. Next door to himwas a cheerful new grocer of the cheap and florid type. The new grocerwhistled "Just Like the Ivy," and shouted boisterously to his shop-boy.In his doorway, protruding on James' sensitive vision, was a pyramid ofsixpence-halfpenny tins of salmon, red, shiny tins with pink halvedsalmon depicted, and another yellow pyramid of fourpence-halfpenny tinsof pineapple. Bacon dangled in pale rolls almost over James' doorway,whilst straw and paper, redolent of cheese, lard, and stale eggsfiltered through the threshold.
This was coming down in the world, with a vengeance. But what Jameslost downstairs he tried to recover upstairs. Heaven knows what hewould have done, but for Miss Pinnegar. She kept her own workroomsagainst him, with a soft, heavy, silent tenacity that would have beatenstronger men than James. But his strength lay in his pliability. Herummaged in the empty lofts, and among the discarded machinery. Herigged up the engines afresh, bought two new machines, and started anelastic department, making elastic for garters and for hat-chins.
He was immensely proud of his first cards of elastic, and saw DameFortune this time fast in his yielding hands. But, becoming used todisillusionment, he almost welcomed it. Within six months he realizedthat every inch of elastic cost him exactly sixty per cent. more thanhe could sell it for, and so he scrapped his new department. Luckily,he sold one machine and even gained two pounds on it.
After this, he made one last effort. This was hosiery webbing, whichcould be cut up and made into as-yet-unheard-of garments. Miss Pinnegarkept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much more thanabortive. And then James left her alone.
Meanwhile the shop slowly churned its oddments. Every Thursdayafternoon James sorted out tangles of bits and bobs, antique garmentsand occasional finds. With these he trimmed his window, so that itlooked like a historical museum, rather soiled and scrappy. Indoors hemade baskets of assortments: threepenny, sixpenny, ninepenny andshilling baskets, rather like a bran pie in which everything was aplum. And then, on Friday evening, thin and alert he hovered behind thecounter, his coat shabbily buttoned over his narrow chest, his faceagitated. He had shaved his side-whiskers, so that they only grewbecomingly as low as his ears. His rather large, grey moustache wasbrushed off his mouth. His hair, gone very thin, was brushed frail andfloating over his baldness. But still a gentleman, still courteous,with a charming voice he suggested the possibilities of a pad of greenparrots' tail-feathers, or of a few yards of pink-pearl trimming or ofold chenille fringe. The women would pinch the thick, exquisite oldchenille fringe, delicate and faded, curious to feel its softness. Butthey wouldn't give threepence for it. Tapes, ribbons, braids, buttons,feathers, jabots, bussels, appliqués, fringes, jet-trimmings,bugle-trimmings, bundles of old coloured machine-lace, many bundles ofstrange cord, in all colours, for old-fashioned braid-patterning,ribbons with H.M.S. Birkenhead, for boys' sailor caps--everything thatnobody wanted, did the women turn over and over, till they chanced on afind. And James' quick eyes watched the slow surge of his flotsam, asthe pot boiled but did not boil away. Wonderful that he did not thinkof the days when these bits and bobs were new treasures. But he didnot.
And at his side Miss Pinnegar quietly took orders for shirts,discussed and agreed, made measurements and received instalments.
The shop was now only opened on Friday afternoons and evenings, soevery day, twice a day, James was seen dithering bareheaded and hastilydown the street, as if pressed by fate, to the Conservative Club, andtwice a day he was seen as hastily returning, to his meals. He wasbecoming an old man: his daughter was a young woman: but in his ownmind he was just the same, and his daughter was a little child, hiswife a young invalid whom he must charm by some few delicateattentions--such as the peeled apple.
At the club he got into more mischief. He met men who wanted toextend a brickfield down by the railway. The brickfield was calledKlondyke. James had now a new direction to run in: down hill towardsBagthorpe, to Klondyke. Big penny-daisies grew in tufts on the brink ofthe yellow clay at Klondyke, yellow eggs-and-bacon spread theirmidsummer mats of flower. James came home with clay smeared all overhim, discoursing brilliantly on grit and paste and presses and kilnsand stamps. He carried home a rough and pinkish brick, and gloated overit. It was a hard brick, it was a non-porous brick. It was an uglybrick, painfully heavy and parched-looking.
This time he was sure: Dame Fortune would rise like Persephone outof the earth. He was all the more sure, because other men of the townwere in with him at this venture: sound, moneyed grocers and plumbers.They were all going to become rich.
Klondyke lasted a year and a half, and was not so bad, for in theend, all things considered, James had lost not more than five per cent.of his money. In fact, all things considered, he was about square. Andyet he felt Klondyke as the greatest blow of all. Miss Pinnegar wouldhave aided and abetted him in another scheme, if it would but havecheered him. Even Miss Frost was nice with him. But to no purpose. Inthe year after Klondyke he became an old man, he seemed to have lostall his feathers, he acquired a plucked, tottering look.
Yet he roused up, after a coal-strike. Throttle-Ha'penny put newlife into him. During a coal-strike the miners themselves began diggingin the fields, just near the houses, for the surface coal. They found aplentiful seam of drossy, yellowish coal behind the Methodist NewConnection Chapel. The seam was opened in the side of a bank, andapproached by a footrill, a sloping shaft down which the men walked.When the strike was over, two or three miners still remained workingthe soft, drossy coal, which they sold for eight-and-sixpence a ton--orsixpence a hundredweight. But a mining population scorned such dirt, asthey called it.
James Houghton, however, was seized with a desire to work theConnection Meadow seam, as he called it. He gathered two minerpartners--he trotted endlessly up to the field, he talked, as he hadnever talked before, with inumerable colliers. Everybody he met hestopped, to talk Connection Meadow.
And so at last he sank a shaft, sixty feet deep, rigged up acorrugated-iron engine-house with a winding-engine, and lowered his menone at a time down the shaft, in a big bucket. The whole affair wasricketty, amateurish, and twopenny. The name Connection Meadow wasforgotten within three months. Everybody knew the place asThrottle-Ha'penny. "What!" said a collier to his wife: "have we got nocoal? You'd better get a bit from Throttle-Ha'penny."
"Nay," replied the wife, "I'm sure I shan't. I'm sure I shan't burnthat muck, and smother myself with white ash."
It was in the early Throttle-Ha'penny days that Mrs. Houghton died.James Houghton cried, and put a black band on his Sunday silk hat. Buthe was too feverishly busy at Throttle-Ha'penny, selling hishundredweights of ash-pit fodder, as the natives called it, to realizeanything else.
He had three men and two boys working his pit, besides asuperannuated old man driving the winding engine. And in spite of alljeering, he flourished. Shabby old coal-carts rambled up behind the NewConnection, and filled from the pit-bank. The coal improved a little inquality: it was cheap and it was handy. James could sell at last fiftyor sixty tons a week: for the stuff was easy getting. And now at lasthe was actually handling money. He saw millions ahead.
This went on for more than a year. A year after the death of Mrs.Houghton, Miss Frost became ill and suddenly died. Again James Houghtoncried and trembled. But it was Throttle-Ha'penny that made him tremble.He trembled in all his limbs, at the touch of success. He saw himselfmaking noble provision for his only daughter.
But alas--it is wearying to repeat the same thing over and over.First the Board of Trade began to make difficulties. Then there was afault in the seam. Then the roof of Throttle-Ha'penny was so loose andsoft, James could not afford timber to hold it up. In short, when hisdaughter Alvina was about twenty-seven years old, Throttle-Ha'pennyclosed down. There was a sale of poor machinery, and James Houghtoncame home to the dark, gloomy house--to Miss Pinnegar and Alvina.
It was a pinched, dreary house. James seemed down for the last time.But Miss Pinnegar persuaded him to take the shop again on Fridayevening. For the rest, faded and peaked, he hurried shadowily down tothe club.
The heroine of this story is Alvina Houghton. If we leave her out ofthe first chapter of her own story it is because, during the firsttwenty-five years of her life, she really was left out of count, or soovershadowed as to be negligible. She and her mother were the phantompassengers in the ship of James Houghton's fortunes.
In Manchester House, every voice lowered its tone. And so from thefirst Alvina spoke with a quiet, refined, almost convent voice. She wasa thin child with delicate limbs and face, and wide, grey-blue, ironiceyes. Even as a small girl she had that odd ironic tilt of the eyelidswhich gave her a look as if she were hanging back in mockery. If shewere, she was quite unaware of it, for under Miss Frost's care shereceived no education in irony or mockery. Miss Frost wasstraightforward, good-humoured, and a little earnest. ConsequentlyAlvina, or Vina as she was called, understood only the explicit mode ofgood-humoured straight-forwardness.
It was doubtful which shadow was greater over the child: that ofManchester House, gloomy and a little sinister, or that of Miss Frost,benevolent and protective. Sufficient that the girl herself worshippedMiss Frost: or believed she did.
Alvina never went to school. She had her lessons from her belovedgoverness, she worked at the piano, she took her walks, and for sociallife she went to the Congregational Chapel, and to the functionsconnected with the chapel. While she was little, she went to SundaySchool twice and to Chapel once on Sundays. Then occasionally there wasa magic lantern or a penny reading,' to which Miss Frost accompaniedher. As she grew older she entered the choir at chapel, she attendedChristian Endeavour and P. S. A., and the Literary Society on Mondayevenings. Chapel provided her with a whole social activity, in thecourse of which she met certain groups of people, made certain friends,found opportunity for strolls into the country and jaunts to the localentertainments. Over and above this, every Thursday evening she went tothe subscription library to change the week's supply of books, andthere again she met friends and acquaintances. It is hard tooverestimate the value of church or chapel--but particularly chapel--asa social institution, in places like Woodhouse. The CongregationalChapel provided Alvina with a whole outer life, lacking which she wouldhave been poor indeed. She was not particularly religious byinclination. Perhaps her father's beautiful prayers put her off. So sheneither questioned nor accepted, but just let be.
She grew up a slim girl, rather distinguished in appearance, with aslender face, a fine, slightly arched nose, and beautiful grey-blueeyes over which the lids tilted with a very odd, sardonic tilt. Thesardonic quality was, however, quite in abeyance. She was ladylike, notvehement at all. In the street her walk had a delicate, lingeringmotion, her face looked still. In conversation she had rather a quick,hurried manner, with intervals of well-bred repose and attention. Hervoice was like her father's, flexible and curiously attractive.
Sometimes, however, she would have fits of boisterous hilarity, notquite natural, with a strange note half pathetic, half jeering. Herfather tended to a supercilious, sneering tone. In Vina it came out inmad bursts of hilarious jeering. This made Miss Frost uneasy. She wouldwatch the girl's strange face, that could take on a gargoyle look. Shewould see the eyes rolling strangely under sardonic eye-lids, and thenMiss Frost would feel that never, never had she known anything soutterly alien and incomprehensible and unsympathetic as her own belovedVina. For twenty years the strong, protective governess reared andtended her lamb, her dove, only to see the lamb open a wolf's mouth, tohear the dove utter the wild cackle of a daw or a magpie, a strangesound of derision. At such times Miss Frost's heart went cold withinher. She dared not realize. And she chid and checked her ward, restoredher to the usual impulsive, affectionate demureness. Then she dismissedthe whole matter. It was just an accidental aberration on the girl'spart from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly thequalities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she wastaught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined creature ofher governess' desire. But there was an odd, derisive look at the backof her eyes, a look of old knowledge and deliberate derision. Sheherself was unconscious of it. But it was there. And this it was,perhaps, that scared away the young men.
Alvina reached the age of twenty-three, and it looked as if she weredestined to join the ranks of the old maids, so many of whom found coldcomfort in the Chapel. For she had no suitors. True there wereextraordinarily few young men of her class--for whatever her condition,she had certain breeding and inherent culture--in Woodhouse. The youngmen of the same social standing as herself were in some curious wayoutsiders to her. Knowing nothing, yet her ancient sapience went deep,deeper than Woodhouse could fathom. The young men did not like her forit. They did not like the tilt of her eyelids.
Miss Frost, with anxious foreseeing, persuaded the girl to take oversome pupils, to teach them the piano. The work was distasteful toAlvina. She was not a good teacher. She persevered in an off-hand way,somewhat indifferent, albeit dutiful.
When she was twenty-three years old, Alvina met a man called Graham.He was an Australian, who had been in Edinburgh taking his medicaldegree. Before going back to Australia, he came to spend some monthspractising with old Dr. Fordham in Woodhouse--Dr. Fordham being in someway connected with his mother.
Alexander Graham called to see Mrs. Houghton. Mrs. Houghton did notlike him. She said he was creepy. He was a man of medium height, darkin colouring, with very dark eyes, and a body which seemed to moveinside his clothing. He was amiable and polite, laughed often, showinghis teeth. It was his teeth which Miss Frost could not stand. Sheseemed to see a strong mouthful of cruel, compact teeth. She declaredhe had dark blood in his veins, that he was not a man to be trusted,and that never, never would he make any woman's life happy.
Yet in spite of all, Alvina was attracted by him. The two would staytogether in the parlour, laughing and talking by the hour. What theycould find to talk about was a mystery. Yet there they were, laughingand chatting, with a running insinuating sound through it all whichmade Miss Frost pace up and down unable to bear herself.
The man was always running in when Miss Frost was out. He contrivedto meet Alvina in the evening, to take a walk with her. He went a longwalk with her one night, and wanted to make love to her. But herupbringing was too strong for her.
"Oh no," she said. "We are only friends."
He knew her upbringing was too strong for him also.
"We're more than friends," he said. "We're more than friends."
"I don't think so," she said.
"Yes we are," he insisted, trying to put his arm round her waist."Oh, don't!" she cried. "Let us go home."
And then he burst out with wild and thick protestations of love,which thrilled her and repelled her slightly.
"Anyhow I must tell Miss Frost," she said.
"Yes, yes," he answered. "Yes, yes. Let us be engaged at once."
As they passed under the lamps he saw her face lifted, the eyesshining, the delicate nostrils dilated, as of one who scents battle andlaughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud, sinisterrecklessness. His hands trembled with desire.
So they were engaged. He bought her a ring, an emerald set in tinydiamonds. Miss Frost looked grave and silent, but would not openly denyher approval.
"You like him, don't you? You don't dislike him?" Alvinainsisted.
"I don't dislike him," replied Miss Frost. "How can I? He is aperfect stranger to me."
And with this Alvina subtly contented herself. Her father treatedthe young man with suave attention, punctuated by fits of jerkyhostility and jealousy. Her mother merely sighed, and took salvolatile.
To tell the truth, Alvina herself was a little repelled by the man'slove-making. She found him fascinating, but a trifle repulsive. And shewas not sure whether she hated the repulsive element, or whether sherather gloried in it. She kept her look of arch, half-derisiverecklessness, which was so unbearably painful to Miss Frost, and soexciting to the dark little man. It was a strange look in a refined,really virgin girl--oddly sinister. And her voice had a curiousbronze-like resonance that acted straight on the nerves of her hearers:unpleasantly on most English nerves, but like fire on the differentsusceptibilities of the young man--the darkie, as people calledhim.
But after all, he had only six weeks in England, before sailing toSydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry before he sailed.Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people first, shesaid.
So the time passed, and he sailed. Alvina missed him, missed theextreme excitement of him rather than the human being he was. MissFrost set to work to regain her influence over her ward, to remove thatarch, reckless, almost lewd look from the girl's face. It was aquestion of heart against sensuality. Miss Frost tried and tried towake again the girl's loving heart--which loving heart was certainlynot occupied by that man. It was a hard task, an anxious, bitter taskMiss Frost had set herself.
But at last she succeeded. Alvina seemed to thaw. The hard shiningof her eyes softened again to a sort of demureness and tenderness. Theinfluence of the man was revoked, the girl was left uninhabited, emptyand uneasy.
She was due to follow her Alexander in three months' time, toSydney. Came letters from him, en route--and then a cablegram fromAustralia. He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing hertrousseau, to follow. But owing to her change of heart, she lingeredindecisive.
"Do you love him, dear?" said Miss Frost with emphasis, knitting herthick, passionate, earnest eyebrows. "Do you love him sufficiently?That's the point."
The way Miss Frost put the question implied that Alvina did not andcould not love him--because Miss Frost could not. Alvina lifted herlarge, blue eyes, confused, half-tender towards her governess, halfshining with unconscious derision.
"I don't really know," she said, laughing hurriedly. "I don'treally." Miss Frost scrutinized her, and replied with a meaningful:"Well--!"
To Miss Frost it was clear as daylight. To Alvina not so. In herperiods of lucidity, when she saw as clear as daylight also, shecertainly did not love the little man. She felt him a terribleoutsider, an inferior, to tell the truth. She wondered how he couldhave the slightest attraction for her. In fact she could not understandit at all. She was as free of him as if he had never existed. Thesquare green emerald on her finger was almost nonsensical. She wasquite, quite sure of herself.
And then, most irritating, a completevolte face in herfeelings. The clear-as-daylight mood disappeared as daylight is boundto disappear. She found herself in a night where the little man loomedlarge, terribly large, potent and magical, while Miss Frost haddwindled to nothingness. At such times she wished with all her forcethat she could travel like a cablegram to Australia. She felt it wasthe only way. She felt the dark, passionate receptivity of Alexanderoverwhelmed her, enveloped her even from the Antipodes. She feltherself going distracted--she felt she was going out of her mind. Forshe could not act.
Her mother and Miss Frost were fixed in one line. Her father said:"Well, of course, you'll do as you think best. There's a great risk ingoing so far--a great risk. You would be entirely unprotected."
"I don't mind being unprotected," said Alvina perversely. "Becauseyou don't understand what it means," said her father.
He looked at her quickly. Perhaps he understood her better than theothers.
"Personally," said Miss Pinnegar, speaking of Alexander, "I don'tcare for him. But every one has their own taste."
Alvina felt she was being overborne, and that she was lettingherself be overborne. She was half relieved. She seemed to nestle intothe well-known surety of Woodhouse. The other unknown had frightenedher.
Miss Frost now took a definite line.
"I feel you don't love him, dear. I'm almost sure you don't. So nowyou have to choose. Your mother dreads your going--she dreads it. I amcertain you would never see her again. She says she can't bear it--shecan't bear the thought of you out there with Alexander. It makes hershudder. She suffers dreadfully, you know. So you will have to choose,dear. You will have to choose for the best."
Alvina was made stubborn by pressure. She herself had come fully tobelieve that she did not love him. She was quite sure she did not lovehim. But out of a certain perversity, she wanted to go.
Came his letter from Sydney, and one from his parents to her and oneto her parents. All seemed straightforward--not very cordial, butsufficiently. Over Alexander's letter Miss Frost shed bitter tears. Toher it seemed so shallow and heartless, with terms of endearment stuckin like exclamation marks. He seemed to have no thought, no feeling forthe girl herself. All he wanted was to hurry her out there. He did noteven mention the grief of her parting from her English parents andfriends: not a word. Just a rush to get her out there, winding up with"And now, dear, I shall not be myself till I see you here inSydney--Your ever-loving Alexander." A selfish, sensual creature, whowould forget the dear little Vina in three months, if she did not turnup, and who would neglect her in six months, if she did. Probably MissFrost was right.
Alvina knew the tears she was costing all round. She went upstairsand looked at his photograph--his dark and impertinent muzzle. Who washe, after all? She did not know him. With cold eyes she lookedat him, and found him repugnant.
She went across to her governess's room, and found Miss Frost in astrange mood of trepidation.
"Don't trust me, dear, don't trust what I say," poor Miss Frostejaculated hurriedly, even wildly. "Don't notice what I have said. Actfor yourself, dear. Act for yourself entirely. I am sure I am wrong intrying to influence you. I know I am wrong. It is wrong and foolish ofme. Act just for yourself, dear--the rest doesn't matter. The restdoesn't matter. Don't takeany notice of what I have said. Iknow I am wrong."
For the first time in her life Alvina saw her beloved governessflustered, the beautiful white hair looking a little draggled, thegrey, nearsighted eyes, so deep and kind behind the gold-rimmedglasses, now distracted and scared. Alvina immediately burst into tearsand flung herself into the arms of Miss Frost. Miss Frost also cried asif her heart would break, catching her indrawn breath with a strangesound of anguish, forlornness, the terrible crying of a woman with aloving heart, whose heart has never been able to relax. Alvina washushed. In a second, she became the elder of the two. The terriblepoignancy of the woman of fifty-two, who now at last had broken down,silenced the girl of twenty-three, and roused all her passionatetenderness. The terrible sound of "Never now, never now--it is toolate," which seemed to ring in the curious, indrawn cries of the elderwoman, filled the girl with a deep wisdom. She knew the same would ringin her mother's dying cry. Married or unmarried, it was the same--thesame anguish, realized in all its pain after the age of fifty--the lossin never having been able to relax, to submit.
Alvina felt very strong and rich in the fact of her youth. For herit was not too late. For Miss Frost it was for ever too late.
"I don't want to go, dear," said Alvina to the elder woman. "I knowI don't care for him. He is nothing to me."
Miss Frost became gradually silent, and turned aside her face. Afterthis there was a hush in the house. Alvina announced her intention ofbreaking off her engagement. Her mother kissed her, and cried, andsaid, with the selfishness of an invalid:
"I couldn't have parted with you, I couldn't." Whilst the fathersaid: "I think you are wise, Vina. I have thought a lot about it."
So Alvina packed up his ring and his letters and little presents,and posted them over the seas. She was relieved, really: as if she hadescaped some very trying ordeal. For some days she went about happily,in pure relief. She loved everybody. She was charming and sunny andgentle with everybody, particularly with Miss Frost, whom she lovedwith a deep, tender, rather sore love. Poor Miss Frost seemed to havelost a part of her confidence, to have taken on a new wistfulness, anew silence and remoteness. It was as if she found her busy contactwith life a strain now. Perhaps she was getting old. Perhaps her proudheart had given way.
Alvina had kept a little photograph of the man. She would often goand look at it. Love?--no, it was not love! It was something moreprimitive still. It was curiosity, deep, radical, burning curiosity.How she looked and looked at his dark, impertinent-seeming face. Aflicker of derision came into her eyes. Yet still she looked.
In the same manner she would look into the faces of the young men ofWoodhouse. But she never found there what she found in her photograph.They all seemed like blank sheets of paper in comparison. There was acurious pale surface-look in the faces of the young men of Woodhouse:or, if there was some underneath suggestive power, it was a littleabject or humiliating, inferior, common. They were all either blank orcommon.
Of course Alvina made everybody pay for her mood of submission andsweetness. In a month's time she was quite intolerable.
"I can't stay here all my life," she declared, stretching her eyesin a way that irritated the other inmates of Manchester Houseextremely. "I know I can't. I can't bear it. I simply can't bear it,and there's an end of it. I can't, I tell you. I can't bear it. I'mburied alive--simply buried alive. And it's more than I can stand. Itis, really."
There was an odd clang, like a taunt, in her voice. She was tryingthem all.
"But what do you want, dear?" asked Miss Frost, knitting her darkbrows in agitation.
"I want to go away," said Alvina bluntly.
Miss Frost gave a slight gesture with her right hand, of helplessimpatience. It was so characteristic, that Alvina almost laughed. "Butwhere do you want to go?" asked Miss Frost.
"I don't know. I don't care," said Alvina. "Anywhere, if I can getout of Woodhouse."
"Do you wish you had gone to Australia?" put in Miss Pinnegar.
"No, I don't wish I had gone to Australia," retorted Alvina with arude laugh. "Australia isn't the only other place besidesWoodhouse."
Miss Pinnegar was naturally offended. But the curious insolencewhich sometimes came out in the girl was inherited direct from herfather.
"You see, dear," said Miss Frost, agitated: "if you knew what youwanted, it would be easier to see the way."
"I want to be a nurse," rapped out Alvina.
Miss Frost stood still, with the stillness of a middle-ageddisapproving woman, and looked at her charge. She believed that Alvinawas just speaking at random. Yet she dared not check her, in herpresent mood.
Alvina was indeed speaking at random. She had never thought of beinga nurse--the idea had never entered her head. If it had she wouldcertainly never have entertained it. But she had heard Alexander speakof Nurse This and Sister That. And so she had rapped out herdeclaration. And having rapped it out, she prepared herself to stick toit. Nothing like leaping before you look.
"A nurse!" repeated Miss Frost. "But do you feel yourself fitted tobe a nurse? Do you think you could bear it?"
"Yes, I'm sure I could," retorted Alvina. "I want to be a maternitynurse--" She looked strangely, even outrageously, at her governess. "Iwant to be a maternity nurse. Then I shouldn't have to attendoperations." And she laughed quickly.
Miss Frost's right hand beat like a wounded bird. It was reminiscentof the way she beat time, insistently, when she was giving musiclessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beatwithout time or reason. Alvina smiled brightly and cruelly.
"Whatever put such an idea into your head, Vina?" asked poor MissFrost.
"I don't know," said Alvina, still more archly and brightly. "Ofcourse you don't mean it, dear," said Miss Frost, quailing. "Yes, I do.Why should I say it if I don't."
Miss Frost would have done anything to escape the arch, bright,cruel eyes of her charge.
"Then we must think about it," she said, numbly. And she wentaway.
Alvina floated off to her room, and sat by the window looking downon the street. The bright, arch look was still on her face. But herheart was sore. She wanted to cry, and fling herself on the breast ofher darling. But she couldn't. No, for her life she couldn't. Somelittle devil sat in her breast and kept her smiling archly.
Somewhat to her amazement, he sat steadily on for days and days.Every minute she expected him to go. Every minute she expected to breakdown, to burst into tears and tenderness and reconciliation. Butno--she did not break down. She persisted. They all waited for the oldloving Vina to be herself again. But the new and recalcitrant Vinastill shone hard. She found a copy ofThe Lancet, and saw anadvertisement of a home in Islington where maternity nurses would befully trained and equipped in six months' time. The fee was sixtyguineas. Alvina declared her intention of departing to this traininghome. She had two hundred pounds of her own, bequeathed by hergrandfather.
In Manchester House they were all horrified--not moved with grief,this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate stepto take. Which it was. And which, in her curious perverseness, Alvinamust have intended it to be. Mrs. Houghton assumed a remote air ofsilence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She lapsedfar away. She was really very weak. Miss Pinnegar said: "Well, really,if she wants to do it, why, she might as well try." And, as often withMiss Pinnegar, this speech seemed to contain a veiled threat.
"A maternity nurse!" said James Houghton. "A maternity nurse! Whatexactly do you mean by a maternity nurse?"
"A trained mid-wife," said Miss Pinnegar curtly. "That's it, isn'tit? It is as far as I can see. A trained mid-wife."
"Yes, of course," said Alvina brightly.
"But--!" stammered James Houghton, pushing his spectacles up on tohis forehead, and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair uncoverhis baldness. "I can't understand that any young girl of any--anyupbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose sucha--such--an--occupation. I can't understand it."
"Can't you?" said Alvina brightly.
"Oh, well, if shedoes--" said Miss Pinnegar cryptically.
Miss Frost said very little. But she had serious confidential talkswith Dr. Fordham. Dr. Fordham didn't approve, certainly he didn't--butneither did he see any great harm in it. At that time it was rather thething for young ladies to enter the nursing profession, if their hopeshad been blighted or checked in another direction! And so, enquirieswere made. Enquiries were made.
The upshot was, that Alvina was to go to Islington for her sixmonths' training. There was a great bustle, preparing her nursingoutfit. Instead of a trousseau, nurse's uniforms in fine blue-and-whitestripe, with great white aprons. Instead of a wreath of orange blossom,a rather chic nurse's bonnet of blue silk, and for a trailing veil, ablue silk fall.
Well and good! Alvina expected to become frightened, as the timedrew neat But no, she wasn't a bit frightened. Miss Frost watched hernarrowly. Would there not be a return of the old, tender, sensitive,shrinking Vina--the exquisitely sensitive and nervous, loving girl? No,astounding as it may seem, there was no return of such a creature.Alvina remained bright and ready, the half-hilarious clang remained inher voice, taunting. She kissed them all good-bye, brightly andsprightlily, and off she set. She wasn't nervous.
She came to St. Pancras, she got her cab, she drove off to herdestination--and as she drove, she looked out of the window. Horrid,vast, stony, dilapidated, crumbly-stuccoed streets and squares ofIslington, grey, grey, greyer by far than Woodhouse, and interminable.How exceedingly sordid and disgusting! But instead of being repelledand heartbroken, Alvina enjoyed it. She felt her trunk rumble on thetop of the cab, and still she looked out on the ghastly dilapidatedflat facades of Islington, and still she smiled brightly, as if therewere some charm in it all. Perhaps for her there was a charm in it all.Perhaps it acted like a tonic on the little devil in her breast.Perhaps if she had seen tufts of snowdrops--it was February--andyew-hedges and cottage windows, she would have broken down. As it was,she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed glimpsing in through uncurtainedwindows, into sordid rooms where human beings moved as if sordidlyunaware. She enjoyed the smell of a toasted bloater, rather burnt. Socommon! so indescribably common! And she detested bloaters, because ofthe hairy feel of the spines in her mouth. But to smell them like this,to know that she was in the region of "penny beef-steaks," gave her aperverse pleasure.
The cab stopped at a yellow house at the corner of a square wheresome shabby bare trees were flecked with bits of blown paper, bits ofpaper and refuse cluttered inside the round railings of each tree. Shewent up some dirty-yellowish steps, and rang the "Patients'" bell,because she knew she ought not to ring the "Tradesmen's." A servant,not exactly dirty, but unattractive, let her into a hall painted a dulldrab, and floored with cocoa-matting, otherwise bare. Then up barestairs to a room where a stout, pale common woman with two warts on herface, was drinking tea. It was three o'clock. This was the matron. Thematron soon deposited her in a bedroom, not very small, but bare andhard and dusty-seeming, and there left her. Alvina sat down on herchair, looked at her box opposite her, looked round the uninvitingroom, and smiled to herself. Then she rose and went to the window: avery dirty window, looking down into a sort of well of an area, withother wells ranging along, and straight opposite like a reflectionanother solid range of back-premises, with iron stair-ways and horridlittle doors and washing and little W. C.'s and people creeping up anddown like vermin. Alvina shivered a little, but still smiled. Thenslowly she began to take off her hat. She put it down on thedrab-painted chest of drawers.
Presently the servant came in with a tray, set it down, lit a nakedgas-jet, which roared faintly, and drew down a crackly dark-greenblind, which showed a tendency to fly back again alertly to theceiling.
"Thank you," said Alvina, and the girl departed.
Then Miss Houghton drank her black tea and ate her bread andmargarine.
Surely enough books have been written about heroines in similarcircumstances. There is no need to go into the details of Alvina's sixmonths in Islington.
The food was objectionable--yet Alvina got fat on it. The air wasfilthy--and yet never had her colour been so warm and fresh, her skinso soft. Her companions were almost without exception vulgar andcoarse--yet never had she got on so well with women of her own age--orolder than herself. She was ready with a laugh and a word, and thoughshe was unable to venture on indecencies herself, yet she had anamazing faculty for looking knowing and indecent beyond words, rollingher eyes and pitching her eyebrows in a certain way--oh, it was quitesufficient for her companions! And yet, if they had ever actuallydemanded a dirty story or a really open indecency from her, she wouldhave been floored.
But she enjoyed it. Amazing how she enjoyed it. She did not care howrevolting and indecent these nurses were--she put on a look as if shewere in with it all, and it all passed off as easy as winking. Sheswung her haunches and arched her eyes with the best of them. And theybehaved as if she were exactly one of themselves. And yet, with thecurious cold tact of women, they left her alone, one and all, inprivate: just ignored her.
It is truly incredible how Alvina became blooming and bouncing atthis time. Nothing shocked her, nothing upset her. She was always readywith her hard, nurse's laugh and her nurse's quips. No one was betterthan she atdouble-entendres. No one could better give thenurse's leer. She had it all in a fortnight. And never once did shefeel anything but exhilarated and in full swing. It seemed to her shehad not a moment's time to brood or reflect about things--she was toomuch in the swing. Every moment, in the swing, living, or active infull swing. When she got into bed she went to sleep. When she awoke, itwas morning, and she got up. As soon as she was up and dressed she hadsomebody to answer, something to say, something to do. Time passed likean express train--and she seemed to have known no other life thanthis.
Not far away was a lying-in hospital. A dreadful place it was. Thereshe had to go, right off, and help with cases. There she had to attendlectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and students.Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When she had put onflesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their sort: just theirvery ticket. Her voice had the right twang, her eyes the right roll,her haunches the right swing. She seemed altogether just the ticket.And yet she wasn't.
It would be useless to say she was not shocked. She was profoundlyand awfully shocked. Her whole state was perhaps largely the result ofshock: a sort of play-acting based on hysteria. But the dreadful thingsshe saw in the lying-in hospital, and afterwards, went deep, andfinished her youth and her tutelage for ever. How many infernos deeperthan Miss Frost could ever know, did she not travel? the inferno of thehuman animal, the human organism in its convulsions, the human socialbeast in its abjection and its degradation.
For in her latter half she had to visit the slum cases. And suchcases! A woman lying on a bare, filthy floor, a few old coats thrownover her, and vermin crawling everywhere, in spite of sanitaryinspectors. But what did the woman, the sufferer, herself care! Sheground her teeth and screamed and yelled with pains. In her calmperiods she lay stupid and indifferent--or she cursed a little. Butabject, stupid indifference was the bottom of it all: abject, brutalindifference to everything--yes, everything. Just a piece of femalefunctioning, no more.
Alvina was supposed to receive a certain fee for these cases sheattended in their homes. A small proportion of her fee she kept forherself, the rest she handed over to the Home. That was the agreement.She received her grudged fee callously, threatened and exacted it whenit was not forthcoming. Ha!--if they didn't have to pay you at all,these slum-people, they would treat you with more contempt than if youwere one of themselves. It was one of the hardest lessons Alvina had tolearn--to bully these people, in their own hovels, into some sort ofobedience to her commands, and some sort of respect for her presence.She had to fight tooth and nail for this end. And in a week she was ashard and callous to them as they to her. And so her work was well done.She did not hate them. There they were. They had a certain life, andyou had to take them at their own worth in their own way. What else! Ifone should be gentle, one was gentle. The difficulty did not lie there.The difficulty lay in being sufficiently rough and hard: that was thetrouble. It cost a great struggle to be hard and callous enough. Gladshe would have been to be allowed to treat them quietly and gently,with consideration. But pah--it was not their line. They wanted to becallous, and if you were not callous to match, they made a fool of youand prevented your doing your work.
Was Alvina her own real self all this time? The mighty questionarises upon us, what is one's own real self? It certainly is not whatwe think we are and ought to be. Alvina had been bred to think ofherself as a delicate, tender, chaste creature with unselfishinclinations and a pure, "high" mind. Well, so she was, in themore-or-less exhausted part of herself. But high-mindedness had reallycome to an end with James Houghton, had really reached the point, notonly of pathetic, but of dry and anti-human, repulsive quixotry. InAlvina high-mindedness was already stretched beyond the breaking point.Being a woman of some flexibility of temper, wrought throughgenerations to a fine, pliant hardness, she flew back. She went rightback on high-mindedness. Did she thereby betray it?
We think not. If we turn over the head of the penny and look at thetail, we don't thereby deny or betray the head. We do but adjust it toits own complement. And so with high-mindedness. It is but one side ofthe medal--the crowned reverse. On the obverse the three legs still gokicking the soft-footed spin of the universe, the dolphin flirts andthe crab leers.
So Alvina spun her medal, and her medal came down tails. Heads ortails? Heads for generations. Then tails. See the poetic justice.
Now Alvina decided to accept the decision of her fate. Or rather,being sufficiently a woman, she didn't decide anything. Shewasher own fate. She went through her training experiences like anotherbeing. She was not herself, said Everybody. When she came home toWoodhouse at Easter, in her bonnet and cloak, Everybody was simplyknocked out. Imagine that this frail, pallid, diffident girl, soladylike, was now a rather fat, warm-coloured young woman, strappingand strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagine her mother'sstartled, almost expiring:
"Why, Vina dear!"
Vina laughed. She knew how they were all feeling.
"At least it agrees with yourhealth," said her father,sarcastically, to which Miss Pinnegar answered:
"Well, that's a good deal."
But Miss Frost said nothing the first day. Only the second day, atbreakfast, as Alvina ate rather rapidly and rather well, thewhite-haired woman said quietly, with a tinge of cold contempt:
"How changed you are, dear!"
"Am I?" laughed Alvina. "Oh, not really." And she gave the arch lookwith her eyes, which made Miss Frost shudder.
Inwardly, Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from questioning.Alvina was always speaking of the doctors: Doctor Young and DoctorHeadley and Doctor James. She spoke of theatres and music-halls withthese young men, and the jolly good time she had with them. And herblue-grey eyes seemed to have become harder and greyer, lightersomehow. In her wistfulness and her tender pathos, Alvina's eyes woulddeepen their blue, so beautiful. And now, in her floridity, they werebright and arch and light-grey. The deep, tender, flowery blue was gonefor ever. They were luminous and crystalline, like the eyes of achangeling.
Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from question. She wanted, sheneeded to ask of her charge: "Alvina, have you betrayed yourselfwith any of these young men?" But coldly her heart abstained fromasking--or even from seriously thinking. She left the matter untouchedfor the moment. She was already too much shocked.
Certainly Alvina represented the young doctors as very nice, butrather fast young fellows. "My word, you have to have your wits aboutyou with them!" Imagine such a speech from a girl tenderly nurtured: aspeech uttered in her own home, and accompanied by a florid laugh,which would lead a chaste, generous woman like Miss Frost toimagine--well, she merely abstained from imagining anything. She hadthat strength of mind. She never for one moment attempted to answer thequestion to herself, as to whether Alvina had betrayed herself with anyof these young doctors, or not. The question remained stated, butcompletely unanswered--coldly awaiting its answer. Only when Miss Frostkissed Alvina good-bye at the station, tears came to her eyes, and shesaid hurriedly, in a low voice:
"Remember we are all praying for you, dear!"
"No, don't do that!" cried Alvina involuntarily, without knowingwhat she said.
And then the train moved out, and she saw her darling standing thereon the station, the pale, well-modelled face looking out from behindthe gold-rimmed spectacles, wistfully, the strong, rather stout figurestanding very still and unchangeable, under its coat and skirt of darkpurple, the white hair glistening under the folded dark hat. Alvinathrew herself down on the seat of her carriage. She loved her darling.She would love her through eternity. She knew she was right--amply andbeautifully right, her darling, her beloved Miss Frost. Eternally andgloriously right.
And yet--and yet--it was a right which was fulfilled. There wereother rights. There was another side to the medal. Purity andhigh-mindedness--the beautiful, but unbearable tyranny. The beautiful,unbearable tyranny of Miss Frost! It was time now for Miss Frost todie. It was time for that perfected flower to be gathered toimmortality. A lovelyimmortel. But an obstruction to other,purple and carmine blossoms which were in bud on the stem. A lovelyedelweiss--but time it was gathered into eternity. Black-purple and redanemones were due, real Adonis blood, and strange individual orchids,spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss Frost to die. She, Alvina, wholoved her as no one else would ever love her, with that love which goesto the core of the universe, knew that it was time for her darling tobe folded, oh, so gently and softly, into immortality. Mortality wasbusy with the day after her day. It was time for Miss Frost to die. AsAlvina sat motionless in the train, running from Woodhouse to Tibshelf,it decided itself in her.
She was glad to be back in Islington, among all the horrors of herconfinement cases. The doctors she knew hailed her. On the whole, theseyoung men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a whole. Whydrag in respect? Human functions were too obviously established to makeany great fuss about. And so the doctors put their arms round Alvina'swaist, because she was plump, and they kissed her face, because theskin was soft. And she laughed and squirmed a little, so that they feltall the more her warmth and softness under their arm's pressure.
"It's no use, you know," she said, laughing rather breathless, butlooking into their eyes with a curious definite look of unchangeableresistance. This only piqued them.
"What's no use?" they asked.
She shook her head slightly.
"It isn't any use your behaving like that with me," she said, withthe same challenging definiteness, finality: a flat negative.
"Who're you telling?" they said.
For she did not at all forbid them to "behave like that." Not in theleast. She almost encouraged them. She laughed and arched her eyes andflirted. But her backbone became only the stronger and firmer. Soft andsupple as she was, her backbone never yielded for an instant. It couldnot. She had to confess that she liked the young doctors. They werealert, their faces were clean and bright-looking. She liked the sort ofintimacy with them, when they kissed her wrestled in the emptylaboratories or corridors--often in the intervals of most critical andappalling cases. She liked their arm round her waist, the kisses as shereached back her face, straining away, the sometimes desperatestruggles. They took unpardonable liberties. They pinched her haunchesand attacked her in unheard-of ways. Sometimes her blood really came upin the fight, and she felt as if, with her hands, she could tear anyman, any male creature, limb from limb. A super-human, voltaic forcefilled her. For a moment she surged in massive, inhuman, femalestrength. The men always wilted. And invariably, when they wilted, shetouched them with a sudden gentle touch, pitying. So that she alwaysremained friends with them. When her curious Amazonic power left heragain, and she was just a mere woman, she made shy eyes at them oncemore, and treated them with the inevitable female-to-male homage.
The men liked her. They cocked their eyes at her, when she was notlooking, and wondered at her. They wondered over her. They had beenbeaten by her, every one of them. But they did not openly know it. Theylooked at her, as if she were Woman itself, some creature not quitepersonal. What they noticed, all of them, was the way her brown hairlooped over her ears. There was something chaste, and noble, andwar-like about it. The remote quality which hung about her in the midstof her intimacies and her frequencies, nothing high or lofty, butsomething given to the struggle and as yet invincible in the struggle,made them seek her out.
They felt safe with her. They knew she would not let them down. Shewould not intrigue into marriage, or try and make use of them in anyway. She didn't care about them. And so, because of her isolateself-sufficiency in the fray, her wild, overweening backbone, they wereready to attend on her and serve her. Headley in particular hoped hemight overcome her. He was a well-built fellow with sandy hair and apugnacious face. The battle-spirit was really roused in him, and heheartily liked the woman. If he could have overcome her he would havebeen mad to marry her.
With him, she summoned up all her mettle. She had never to be offher guard for a single minute. The treacherous suddenness of hisattack--for he was treachery itself--had to be met by the voltaicsuddenness of her resistance and counter-attack. It was nothing lessthan magical the way the soft, slumbering body of the woman could leapin one jet into terrible, overwhelming voltaic force, something strangeand massive, at the first treacherous touch of the man's determinedhand. His strength was so different from hers--quick, muscular,lambent. But hers was deep and heaving, like the strange heaving of anearthquake, or the heave of a bull as it rises from earth. And by sheernon-human power, electric and paralysing, she could overcome the brawnyred-headed fellow.
He was nearly a match for her. But she did not like him. The twowere enemies--and good acquaintances. They were more or less matched.But as he found himself continually foiled, he became sulky, like abear with a sore head. And then she avoided him.
She really liked Young and James much better. James was a quick,slender, dark-haired fellow, a gentleman, who was always trying tocatch her out with his quickness. She liked his fine, slim limbs, andhis exaggerated generosity. He would ask her out to ridiculouslyexpensive suppers, and send her sweets and flowers, fabulouslyrecherché. He was always immaculately well-dressed.
"Of course, as a ladyand a nurse," he said to her, "you aretwo sorts of women in one."
But she was not impressed by his wisdom.
She was most strongly inclined to Young. He was a plump young man ofmiddle height, with those blue eyes of a little boy which are soknowing: particularly of a woman's secrets. It is a strange thing thatthese childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of theother sex. Young was certainly innocent as far as acts went. Yet hishair was going thin at the crown already.
He also played with her--being a doctor, and she a nurse whoencouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her: and did not rouse herto contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness of a littleboy's, which nearly melted her. She could almost have succumbed to him.If it had not been that with him there was no question of succumbing.She would have had to take him between her hands and caress and cajolehim like a cherub, into a fall. And though she would have liked to doso, yet that inflexible stiffness of her backbone prevented her. Shecould not do as she liked. There was an inflexible fate within her,which shaped her ends.
Sometimes she wondered to herself, over her own virginity. Was itworth much, after all, behaving as she did? Did she care about it,anyhow? Didn't she rather despise it? To sin in thought was as bad asto sin in act. If the thought was the same as the act, how much morewas her behaviour equivalent to a whole committal? She wished she werewholly committed. She wished she had gone the whole length.
But sophistry and wishing did her no good. There she was, stillisolate. And still there was that in her which would preserve herintact, sophistry and deliberate intention notwithstanding. Her timewas up. She was returning to Woodhouse virgin as she had left it. In ameasure she felt herself beaten. Why? Who knows. But so it was, shefelt herself beaten, condemned to go back to what she was before. Fatehad been too strong for her and her desires: fate which was not anexternal association of forces, but which was integral in her ownnature. Her own inscrutable nature was her fate: sore against herwill.
It was August when she came home, in her nurse's uniform. She wasbeaten by fate, as far as chastity and virginity went. But she camehome with high material hopes. Here was James Houghton's own daughter.She had an affluent future ahead of her. A fully-qualified maternitynurse, she was going to bring all the babies of the district easily andtriumphantly into the world. She was going to charge the regulation feeof two guineas a case: and even on a modest estimate of ten babies amonth, she would have twenty guineas. For well-to-do mothers she wouldcharge from three to five guineas. At this calculation she would makean easy three hundred a year, without slaving either. She would beindependent, she could laugh every one in the face.
She bounced back into Woodhouse to make her fortune.
It goes without saying that Alvina Houghton did not make her fortuneas a maternity nurse. Being her father's daughter, we might almostexpect that she did not make a penny. But she did--just a few pence.She had exactly four cases--and then no more.
The reason is obvious. Who in Woodhouse was going to afford atwo-guinea nurse, for a confinement? And who was going to engage AlvinaHoughton, even if they were ready to stretch their purse-strings? Afterall, they all knew her asMiss Houghton, with a stress on theMiss, and they could not conceive of her as Nurse Houghton.Besides, there seemed something positively indecent in technicallyengaging one who was so much part of themselves. They all preferredeither a simple mid-wife, or a nurse procured out of the unknown by thedoctor.
If Alvina wanted to make her fortune--or even her living--she shouldhave gone to a strange town. She was so advised by every one she knew.But she never for one moment reflected on the advice. She had become amaternity nurse in order to practise in Woodhouse, just as JamesHoughton had purchased his elegancies to sell in Woodhouse. And fatherand daughter alike calmly expected Woodhouse demand to rise to theirsupply. So both alike were defeated in their expectations.
For a little while Alvina flaunted about in her nurse's uniform.Then she left it off. And as she left it off she lost her bounce, hercolour, and her flesh. Gradually she shrank back to the old, slim,reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face. And now itseemed her face was a little too long, a little gaunt. And in hercivilian clothes she seemed a little dowdy, shabby. And altogether, shelooked older: she looked more than her age, which was only twenty-fouryears. Here was the old Alvina come back, rather battered anddeteriorated, apparently. There was even a tiny touch of the trollopsin her dowdiness--so the shrewd-eyed collier-wives decided. But she wasa lady still, and unbeaten. Undeniably she was a lady. And that wasrather irritating to the well-to-do and florid daughter of W. H.Johnson, next door but one. Undeniably a lady, and undeniablyunmastered. This last was irritating to the good-natured buteasy-coming young men in the Chapel Choir, where she resumed her seat.These young men had the good nature of dogs that wag their tails andexpect to be patted. And Alvina did not pat them. To be sure, a patfrom such a shabbily-black-kid-gloved hand would not have been soflattering--she need not imagine it! The way she hung back and lookedat them, the young men, as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and yetwith the well-bred indifference of a lady--well, it was almostoffensive.
As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for the time being from herinterest in young men. Manchester House had settled down on her like adoom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to worm one'sencumbered way in the gloom--unless one liked to go miles round a backstreet, to the yard entry. There was James Houghton, faintly powderedwith coal-dust, flitting back and forth in a fever of nervous frenzy,to Throttle-Ha'penny--so carried away that he never saw his daughter atall the first time he came in, after her return. And when she remindedhim of her presence, with her--"Hello, father!"--he merely glancedhurriedly at her, as if vexed with her interruption, and said:
"Well, Alvina, you're back. You're back to find us busy." And hewent off into his ecstasy again.
Mrs. Houghton was now very weak, and so nervous in her weakness thatshe could not bear the slightest sound. Her greatest horror was lesther husband should come into the room. On his entry she became blue atthe lips immediately, so he had to hurry out again. At last he stayedaway, only hurriedly asking, each time he came into the house, "How isMrs. Houghton? Ha!" Then off into uninterrupted Throttle-Ha'pennyecstasy once more.
When Alvina went up to her mother's room, on her return, all thepoor invalid could do was to tremble into tears, and cry faintly:"Child, you look dreadful. It isn't you."
This from the pathetic little figure in the bed had struck Alvinalike a blow.
"Why not, mother?" she asked.
But for her mother she had to remove her nurse's uniform. And at thesame time, she had to constitute herself nurse. Miss Frost, and a womanwho came in, and the servant had been nursing the invalid between them.Miss Frost was worn and rather heavy: her old buoyancy and brightnesswas gone. She had become irritable also. She was very glad that Alvinahad returned to take this responsibility of nursing off her shoulders.For her wonderful energy had ebbed and oozed away.
Alvina said nothing, but settled down to her task. She was quiet andtechnical with her mother. The two loved one another, with a curiousimpersonal love which had not a single word to exchange: an almostafter-death love. In these days Mrs. Houghton never talked--unless tofret a little. So Alvina sat for many hours in the lofty, sombrebedroom, looking out silently on the street, or hurriedly rising toattend the sick woman. For continually came the fretful murmur:
"Vina!"
To sit still--who knows the long discipline of it, nowadays, as ourmothers and grandmothers knew. To sit still, for days, months, andyears--perforce to sit still, with some dignity of tranquil bearing.Alvina was old-fashioned. She had the old, womanly faculty for sittingquiet and collected--not indeed for a life-time, but for long spellstogether. And so it was during these months nursing her mother. Sheattended constantly on the invalid: she did a good deal of work aboutthe house: she took her walks and occupied her place in the choir onSunday mornings. And yet, from August to January, she seemed to beseated in her chair in the bedroom, sometimes reading, but mostly quitestill, her hands quietly in her lap, her mind subdued by musing. Shedid not even think, not even remember. Even such activity would havemade her presence too disturbing in the room. She sat quite still, withall her activities in abeyance--except that strange will-to-passivitywhich was by no means a relaxation, but a severe, deep,soul-discipline.
For the moment there was a sense of prosperity--or probableprosperity, in the house. And there was an abundance ofThrottle-Ha'penny coal. It was dirty ashy stuff. The lower bars of thegrate were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which it wasfatal to try to poke away. For if you poked and poked, you raised whitecumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a few darkeningand sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous application, youcould keep the room moderately warm, without feeling you were consumingthe house's meat and drink in the grate. Which was one blessing.
The days, the months darkened past, and Alvina returned to her oldthinness and pallor. Her fore-arms were thin, they rested very still inher lap, there was a ladylike stillness about them as she took herwalk, in her lingering, yet watchful fashion. She saw everything. Yetshe passed without attracting any attention.
Early in the year her mother died. Her father came and weptself-conscious tears, Miss Frost cried a little, painfully. And Alvinacried also: she did not quite know why or wherefore. Her poor mother!Alvina had the old-fashioned wisdom to let be, and not to think. Afterall, it was not for her to reconstruct her parents' lives. She cameafter them. Her day was not their day, their life was not hers.Returning up-channel to re-discover their course was quite anothermatter from flowing downstream into the unknown, as they had donethirty years before. This supercilious and impertinent exploration ofthe generation gone by, by the present generation, is nothing to ourcredit. As a matter of fact, no generation repeats the mistakes of thegeneration ahead, any more than any river repeats its course. So theyoung need not be so proud of their superiority over the old. The younggeneration glibly makes its own mistakes: and how detestable these newmistakes are, why, only the future will be able to tell us. But be surethey are quite as detestable, quite as full of lies and hypocrisy, asany of the mistakes of our parents. There is no such thing asabsolute wisdom.
Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for everan infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand.
So Alvina refrained from pondering on her mother's life and fate.Whatever the fate of the mother, the fate of the daughter will beotherwise. That is organically inevitable. The business of the daughteris with her own fate, not with her mother's.
Miss Frost however meditated bitterly on the fate of the poor deadwoman. Bitterly she brooded on the lot of woman. Here was ClarissHoughton, married, and a mother--and dead. What a life! Who wasresponsible? James Houghton. What ought James Houghton to have donedifferently? Everything. In short, he should have been somebody else,and not himself. Which is thereductio ad absurdum of idealism.The universe should be something else, and not what it is: so thenonsense of idealistic conclusion. The cat should not catch the mouse,the mouse should not nibble holes in the table-cloth, and so on and soon, in the House that Jack Built.
But Miss Frost sat by the dead in grief and despair. This was theend of another woman's life: such an end! Poor Clariss: guilty James.Yet why? Why was James more guilty than Clariss? Is the only aim andend of a man's life, to make some woman, or parcel of women, happy?Why? Why should anybody expect to bemade happy, and developheart-disease if she isn't? Surely Clariss' heart-disease was a moreemphatic sign of obstinate self-importance than ever James'shop-windows were. She expected to bemade happy. Every woman inEurope and America expects it. On her own head then if she is madeunhappy: for her expectation is arrogant and impertinent. The be-alland end-all of life doesn't lie in feminine happiness--or in anyhappiness. Happiness is a sort of soap-tablet--he won't be happy tillhe gets it,' and when he's got it, the precious baby, it'll cost himhis eyes and his stomach. Could anything be more puerile than a mankindhowling because it isn't happy: like a baby in the bath!
Poor Clariss, however, was dead--and if she had developedheart-disease because she wasn't happy, well, she had died of her ownheart-disease, poor thing. Wherein lies every moral that mankind canwish to draw.
Miss Frost wept in anguish, and saw nothing but another womanbetrayed to sorrow and a slow death. Sorrow and a slow death, because aman had married her. Miss Frost wept also for herself, for her ownsorrow and slow death. Sorrow and slow death, because a man hadnot married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with theseexigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? Our mothers pined because ourfathers drank and were rakes. Our wives pine because we are virtuousbut inadequate. Who is this sphinx, this woman? Where is the Oedipusthat will solve her riddle of happiness, and then strangle her?--onlyto marry his own mother!
In the months that followed her mother's death, Alvina went on thesame, in abeyance. She took over the housekeeping, and received one ortwo overflow pupils from Miss Frost, young girls to whom she gavelessons in the dark drawing-room of Manchester House. She wasbusy--chiefly with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to put inorder after her mother's death.
She sorted all her mother's clothes--expensive, old-fashionedclothes, hardly worn. What was to be done with them? She gave themaway, without consulting anybody. She kept a few private things, sheinherited a few pieces of jewellery. Remarkable how little trace hermother left--hardly a trace.
She decided to move into the big, monumental bedroom in front of thehouse. She liked space, she liked the windows. She was strictlymistress, too. So she took her place. Her mother's little sitting-roomwas cold and disused.
Then Alvina went through all the linen. There was still abundance,and it was all sound. James had had such large ideas of setting uphouse, in the beginning. And now he begrudged the household expenses,begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have liked tointroduce margarine instead of butter. This last degradation the womenrefused. But James was above food.
The old Alvina seemed completely herself again. She was quiet,dutiful, affectionate. She appealed in her old, childish way to MissFrost, and Miss Frost called her "Dear!" with all the old protectivegentleness. But there was a difference. Underneath her appearance ofappeal, Alvina was almost coldly independent. She did what she thoughtshe would. The old manner of intimacy persisted between her and herdarling. And perhaps neither of them knew that the intimacy itself hadgone. But it had. There was no spontaneous interchange between them. Itwas a kind of deadlock. Each knew the great love she felt for theother. But now it was a love static, inoperative. The warm flow did notrun any more. Yet each would have died for the other, would have doneanything to spare the other hurt.
Miss Frost was becoming tired, dragged looking. She would sink intoa chair as if she wished never to rise again--never to make the effort.And Alvina quickly would attend on her, bring her tea and take away hermusic, try to make everything smooth. And continually the young womanexhorted the elder to work less, to give up her pupils. But Miss Frostanswered quickly, nervously:
"When I don't work I shan't live."
"But why--?" came the long query from Alvina. And in herexpostulation there was a touch of mockery for such a creed.
Miss Frost did not answer. Her face took on a greyish tinge.
In these days Alvina struck up an odd friendship with Miss Pinnegar,after so many years of opposition. She felt herself more in sympathywith Miss Pinnegar--it was so easy to get on with her, she left so muchunsaid. What was left unsaid mattered more to Alvina now than anythingthat was expressed. She began to hate outspokenness and directspeaking-forth of the whole mind. It nauseated her. She wanted tacitadmission of difference, not open, wholehearted communication. And MissPinnegar made this admission all along. She never made you feel for aninstant that she was one with you. She was never even near. She keptquietly on her own ground, and left you on yours. And across the spacecame her quiet commonplaces--but fraught with space.
With Miss Frost all was openness, explicit and downright. Not thatMiss Frost trespassed. She was far more well-bred than Miss Pinnegar.But her very breeding had that Protestant, northern quality whichassumes that we have all the same high standards, really, and all thesame divine nature, intrinsically. It is a fine assumption. Butwilly-nilly, it sickened Alvina at this time.
She preferred Miss Pinnegar, and admired Miss Pinnegar's humblewisdom with a new admiration. The two were talking of Dr. Headley, who,they read in the newspaper, had disgraced himself finally.
"I suppose," said Miss Pinnegar, "it takes his sort to make allsorts."
Such bits of homely wisdom were like relief from cramp and pain, toAlvina. "It takes his sort to make all sorts." It took her sort too.And it took her father's sort--as well as her mother's and MissFrost's. It took every sort to make all sorts. Why have standards and aregulation pattern? Why have a human criterion? There's the point! Why,in the name of all the free heavens, have human criteria? Why? Simplyfor bullying and narrowness.
Alvina felt at her ease with Miss Pinnegar. The two women talkedaway to one another, in their quiet moments: and slipped apart likeconspirators when Miss Frost came in: as if there was something to beashamed of. If there was, heaven knows what it might have been, fortheir talk was ordinary enough. But Alvina liked to be with MissPinnegar in the kitchen. Miss Pinnegar wasn't competent and masterfullike Miss Frost: she was ordinary and uninspired, with quiet,unobserved movements. But she was deep, and there was some secretsatisfaction in her very quality of secrecy.
So the days and weeks and months slipped by, and Alvina was hiddenlike a mole in the dark chambers of Manchester House, busy with cookingand cleaning and arranging, getting the house in her own order, andattending to her pupils. She took her walk in the afternoon. Once andonly once she went to Throttle-Ha'penny, and, seized with suddencuriosity, insisted on being wound down in the iron bucket to thelittle workings underneath. Everything was quite tidy in the shortgang-ways down below, timbered and in sound order. The miners werecompetent enough. But water dripped dismally in places, and there was astale feeling in the air.
Her father accompanied her, pointed her to the seam ofyellow-flecked coal, the shale and the bind, the direction of thetrend. He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the wholeaffair, and seemed like some not quite trustworthy conjuror who hadconjured it all up by sleight of hand. In the background the minersstood grey and ghostly, in the candle-light, and seemed to listensardonically. One of them, facile in his subordinate way as James inhis authoritative, kept chiming in:
"Ay, that's the road it goes, Miss Huffen--yis, yo'll see th' rooftheer bellies down a bit--s' loose. No, you dunna get th' puddin'stones i' this pit--s' not deep enough. Eh, they come down on youplumb, as if th' roof had laid its egg on you. Ay, it runs a bit thindown here--six inches. You see th' bed's soft, it's a sort o'clay-bind, it's not clunch such as you get deeper. Oh, it's easyworkin'--you don't have to knock your guts out. There's no need forshots, Miss Huffen--we bring it down--you see here--" And he stooped,pointing to a shallow, shelving excavation which he was making underthe coal. The working was low, you must stoop all the time. The roofand the timbered sides of the way seemed to press on you. It was as ifshe were in her tomb for ever, like the dead and everlasting Egyptians.She was frightened, but fascinated. The collier kept on talking to her,stretching his bare, grey-black hairy arm across her vision, andpointing with his knotted hand. The thick-wicked tallow candlesguttered and smelled. There was a thickness in the air, a sense ofdark, fluid presence in the thick atmosphere, the dark, fluid, viscousvoice of the collier making a broad-vowelled, clapping sound in herear. He seemed to linger near her as if he knew--as if he knew--what?Something for ever unknowable and inadmissible, something that belongedpurely to the underground: to the slaves who work underground:knowledge humiliated, subjected, but ponderous and inevitable. Andstill his voice went on clapping in her ear, and still his presenceedged near her, and seemed to impinge on her--a smallish,semi-grotesque, grey-obscure figure with a naked brandished forearm:not human: a creature of the subterranean world, melted out like a bat,fluid. She felt herself melting out also, to become a mere vocal ghost,a presence in the thick atmosphere. Her lungs felt thick and slow, hermind dissolved, she felt she could cling like a bat in the long swoonof the crannied, underworld darkness. Cling like a bat and sway forever swooning in the draughts of the darkness--
When she was up on the earth again she blinked and peered at theworld in amazement. What a pretty, luminous place it was, carved insubstantial luminosity. What a strange and lovely place, bubblingiridescent-golden on the surface of the underworld. Iridescentgolden--could anything be more fascinating! Like lovely glancingsurface on fluid pitch. But a velvet surface. A velvet surface ofgolden light, velvet-pile of gold and pale luminosity, and strangebeautiful elevations of houses and trees, and depressions of fields androads, all golden and floating like atmospheric majolica. Never had thecommon ugliness of Woodhouse seemed so entrancing. She thought she hadnever seen such beauty--a lovely luminous majolica, living andpalpitating, the glossy, svelte world-surface, the exquisite face ofall the darkness. It was like a vision. Perhaps gnomes and subterraneanworkers, enslaved in the era of light, see with such eyes. Perhaps thatis why they are absolutely blind to conventional ugliness. For trulynothing could be more hideous than Woodhouse, as the miners had builtit and disposed it. And yet, the very cabbage-stumps and rotten fencesof the gardens, the very back-yards were instinct with magic, molten asthey seemed with the bubbling-up of the under-darkness, bubbling up ofmajolica weight and luminosity, quite ignorant of the sky, heavy andsatisfying.
Slaves of the underworld! She watched the swing of the grey colliersalong the pavement with a new fascination, hypnotized by a new vision.Slaves--the underground trolls and iron-workers, magic, mischievous,and enslaved, of the ancient stories. But tall--the miners seemed toher to loom tall and grey, in their enslaved magic. Slaves who wouldcause the superimposed day-order to fall. Not because, individually,they wanted to. But because, collectively, something bubbled up inthem, the force of darkness which had no master and no control. Itwould bubble and stir in them as earthquakes stir the earth. It wouldbe simply disastrous, because it had no master. There was no darkmaster in the world. The puerile world went on crying out for a newJesus, another Saviour from the sky, another heavenly superman. Whenwhat was wanted was a Dark Master from the underworld.
So they streamed past her, home from work--grey from head to foot,distorted in shape, cramped, with curious faces that came out pallidfrom under their dirt. Their walk was heavy-footed and slurring, theirbearing stiff and grotesque. A stream they were--yet they seemed to herto loom like strange, valid figures of fairy-lore, unrealized and asyet unexperienced. The miners, the iron-workers, those who fashion thestuff of the underworld.
As it always comes to its children, the nostalgia of the repulsive,heavy-footed Midlands came over her again, even whilst she was there inthe midst. The curious, dark, inexplicable and yet insatiablecraving--as if for an earthquake. To feel the earth heave and shudderand shatter the world from beneath. To go down in the debacle.
And so, in spite of everything, poverty, dowdiness, obscurity, andnothingness, she was content to stay in abeyance at home for the time.True, she was filled with the same old, slow, dreadful craving of theMidlands: a craving insatiable and inexplicable. But the very cravingkept her still. For at this time she did not translate it into adesire, or need, for love. At the back of her mind somewhere was thefixed idea, the fixed intention of finding love, a man. But as yet, atthis period, the idea was in abeyance, it did not act. The craving thatpossessed her as it possesses everybody, in a greater or less degree,in those parts, sustained her darkly and unconsciously.
A hot summer waned into autumn, the long, bewildering days drew in,the transient nights, only a few breaths of shadow between noon andnoon, deepened and strengthened. A restlessness came over everybody.There was another short strike among the miners. James Houghton, likean excited beetle, scurried to and fro, feeling he was making hisfortune. Never had Woodhouse been so thronged on Fridays withpurchasers and money-spenders. The place seemed surcharged withlife.
Autumn lasted beautiful till end of October. And then, suddenly,cold rain, endless cold rain, and darkness heavy, wet, ponderous.Through the wind and rain it was a toil to move. Poor Miss Frost, whohad seemed almost to blossom again in the long hot days, regaining afree cheerfulness that amounted almost to liveliness, and who evencaused a sort of scandal by her intimacy with a rather handsome butcommon stranger, an insurance agent who had come into the place with agood, unused tenor voice--now she wilted again. She had given therather florid young man tea in her room, and had laboured away at hisfine, metallic voice, correcting him and teaching him and laughing withhim and spending really a remarkable number of hours alone with him inher room in Woodhouse--for she had given up tramping the country, andhad hired a music-room in a quiet street, where she gave her lessons.And the young man had hung round, and had never wanted to go away. Theywould prolong their tête-à-tête and their singing ontill ten o'clock at night, and Miss Frost would return to ManchesterHouse flushed and handsome and a little shy, while the young man, whowas common, took on a new boldness in the streets. He had auburn hair,high colouring, and a rather challenging bearing. He took on a newboldness, his own estimate of himself rose considerably, with MissFrost and his trained voice to justify him. He was a little insolentand condescending to the natives, who disliked him. For their livesthey could not imagine what Miss Frost could find in him. They beganeven to dislike her, and a pretty scandal was started about the pair,in the pleasant room where Miss Frost had her piano, her books, and herflowers. The scandal was as unjust as most scandals are. Yet truly, allthat summer and autumn Miss Frost had a new and slightly aggressivecheerfulness and humour. And Manchester House saw little of her,comparatively.
And then, at the end of September, the young man was removed by hisInsurance Company to another district. And at the end of October set inthe most abominable and unbearable weather, deluges of rain and northwinds, cutting the tender, summer-unfolded people to pieces. Miss Frostwilted at once. A silence came over her. She shuddered when she had toleave the fire. She went in the morning to her room, and stayed thereall the day, in a hot, close atmosphere, shuddering when her pupilsbrought the outside weather with them to her.
She was always subject to bronchitis. In November she had a badbronchitis cold. Then suddenly one morning she could not get up. Alvinawent in and found her semi-conscious.
The girl was almost mad. She flew to the rescue. She despatched herfather instantly for the doctor, she heaped the sticks in the bedroomgrate and made a bright fire, she brought hot milk and brandy.
"Thank you, dear, thank you. It's a bronchial cold," whispered MissFrost hurriedly, trying to sip the milk. She could not. She didn't wantit.
"I've sent for the doctor," aid Alvina, in her cool voice, whereinnone the less there rang the old hesitancy of sheer love.
Miss Frost lifted her eyes:
"There's no need," she said and she smiled winsomely at Alvina.
It was pneumonia. Useless to talk of the distracted anguish ofAlvina during the next two days. She was so swift and sensitive in hernursing, she seemed to have second sight. She talked to nobody. In hersilence her soul was along with the soul of her darling. The longsemi-consciousness and the tearing pain of pneumonia, the anguishedsickness.
But sometimes the grey eyes would open and smile with delicatewinsomeness at Alvina, and Alvina smiled back, with a cheery, answeringwinsomeness. But tha costs something.
On the evening of the second day, Miss Frost got her hand from underthe bedclothes, and laic it on Alvina's hand. Alvina leaned down toher.
"Everything is for you, my love," whispered Miss Frost, looking withstrange eyes on Alvina's ace.
"Don't talk, Miss Frost," moaned Alvina.
"Everything is for you," murmured the sick woman--"except--" and sheenumerated some thy legacies which showed her generous, thoughtfulnature.
"Yes, I shall remember," sad Alvina, beyond tears now.
Miss Frost smiled with her old bright, wonderful look, that had atouch of queenliness in it.
"Kiss me, dear," she whispered.
Alvina kissed her, and could not suppress the whimpering of hertoo-much grief.
The night passed slowly. Sometimes the grey eyes of the sick womanrested dark, dilated, haggard on Alvina's face, with a heavy, almostaccusing look, sinister. Then they closed again. And sometimes theylooked pathetic, with a mute, stricken appeal. Then again theyclosed--only to open again tense with pain. Alvina wiped herblood-phlegmed lips.
In the morning she died--lay there haggard, death-smeared, with herlovely white hair smeared also, and disorderly: she who had been sobeautiful and clean always.
Alvina knew death--which is untellable. She knew that her darlingcarried away a portion of her own soul into death.
But she was alone. And the agony of being alone, the agony of grief,passionate, passionate grief for her darling who was torn intodeath--the agony of self-reproach, regret; the agony of remembrance;the agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome, and sinisterlyaccusing, and pathetically, despairingly appealing--probe after probeof mortal agony, which throughout eternity would never lose its powerto pierce to the quick!
Alvina seemed to keep strangely calm and aloof all the days afterthe death. Only when she was alone she suffered till she felt her heartreally broke.
"I shall never feel anything any more," she said in her abrupt wayto Miss Frost's friend, another woman of over fifty.
"Nonsense, child!" expostulated Mrs. Lawson gently.
"I shan't! I shall never have a heart to feel anything any more,"said Alvina, with a strange, distraught roll of the eyes.
"Not like this, child. But you'll feel other things--"
"I haven't the heart," persisted Alvina.
"Not yet," said Mrs. Lawson gently. "You can't expect--Buttime--time brings back--"
"Oh well--but I don't believe it," said Alvina.
People thought her rather hard. To one of her gossips Miss Pinnegarconfessed:
"I thought she'd have felt it more. She cared more for her than shedid for her own mother--and her mother knew it. Mrs. Houghtoncomplained bitterly, sometimes, thatshe hadno love.They were everything to one another, Miss Frost and Alvina. I shouldhave thought she'd have felt it more. But you never know. A good thingif she doesn't, really."
Miss Pinnegar herself did not care one little bit that Miss Frostwas dead. She did not feel herself implicated.
The nearest relatives came down, and everything was settled. Thewill was found, just a brief line on a piece of notepaper expressing awish that Alvina should have everything. Alvina herself told the verbalrequests. All was quietly fulfilled.
As it might well be. For there was nothing to leave. Justsixty-three pounds in the bank--no more: then the clothes, piano, booksand music. Miss Frost's brother had these latter, at his own request:the books and music, and the piano. Alvina inherited the few simpletrinkets, and about forty-five pounds in money.
"Poor Miss Frost," cried Mrs. Lawson, weeping rather bitterly--"shesaved nothing for herself. You can see why she never wanted to growold, so that she couldn't work. You can see. It's a shame, it's ashame, one of the best women that ever trod earth."
Manchester House settled down to its deeper silence, its darkergloom. Miss Frost was irreparably gone. With her, the reality went outof the house. It seemed to be silently waiting to disappear. And Alvinaand Miss Pinnegar might move about and talk in vain. They could neverremove the sense of waiting to finish: it was all just waiting tofinish. And the three, James and Alvina and Miss Pinnegar, waitedlingering through the months, for the house to come to an end. WithMiss Frost its spirit passed away: it was no more. Dark, empty-feeling,it seemed all the time like a house just before a sale.
Throttle-Ha'penny worked fitfully through the winter, and in thespring broke down. By this time James Houghton had a pathetic, childishlook which touched the hearts of Alvina and Miss Pinnegar. They beganto treat him with a certain feminine indulgence, as he fluttered round,agitated and bewildered. He was like a bird that has flown into a roomand is exhausted, enfeebled by its attempts to fly through the falsefreedom of the window-glass. Sometimes he would sit moping in a corner,with his head under his wing. But Miss Pinnegar chased him forth, likethe stealthy cat she was, chased him up to the workroom to considersome detail of work, chased him into the shop to turn over the olddebris of the stock. At one time he showed the alarming symptom ofbrooding over his wife's death. Miss Pinnegar was thoroughly scared.But she was not inventive. It was left to Alvina to suggest: "Whydoesn't father let the shop, and some of the house?"
Let the shop! Let the last inch of frontage on the street! Jamesthought of it. Let the shop! Permit the name of Houghton to disappearfrom the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a namelessnobody, occupying obscure premises?
He thought about it. And thinking about it, became so indignant atthe thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within hisfrail frame. And then he came out with the most original of all hisschemes. Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house forthe better classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs ofthese gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House shouldbe fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes.The shop should be turned into an elegant hall-entrance, carpeted, witha hall-porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the roundarch of which the words: "Manchester House" should appear large anddistinguished, making an arch also, whilst underneath, more refined andsmaller, should show the words: "Private Hotel." James was to beproprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending tocorrespondence: Miss Pinnegar was to be manageress, superintending theservants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy theequivocal position of "hostess." She was to shake hands with theguests: she was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. Forin the prospectus James would include: "Trained nurse always on thepremises."
"Why!" cried Miss Pinnegar, for once brutally and angrily hostile tohim: "You'll make it sound like a private lunatic asylum."
"Will you explain why?" answered James tartly.
For himself, he was enraptured with the scheme. He began to tot upideas and expenses. There would be the handsome entrance and hall:there would be an extension of the kitchen and scullery: there would bean installing of new hot-water and sanitary arrangements: there wouldbe a light lift-arrangement from the kitchen: there would be a handsomeglazed balcony or loggia or terrace on the first floor at the back,over the whole length of the back-yard. This loggia would give awonderful outlook to the south-west and the west. In the immediateforeground, to be sure, would be the yard of the livery-stables and therather slummy dwellings of the colliers, sloping downhill. But thesecould be easily overlooked, for the eye would instinctively wanderacross the green and shallow valley, to the long upslope opposite,showing the Manor set in its clump of trees, and farms and haystackspleasantly dotted, and moderately far off coal-mines with twinklingheadstocks and narrow railway-lines crossing the arable fields, andheaps of burning slag. The balcony or covered terrace--James settleddown at last to the wordterrace--was to be one of the featuresof the house:the feature. It was to be fitted up as a sort ofelegant lounging restaurant. Elegant teas, at two-and-six per head, andelegant suppers, at five shillings without wine, were to be servedhere.
As a teetotaller and a man of ascetic views, James, in his firstshallow moments, before he thought about it, assumed that his houseshould be entirely non-alcoholic. A temperance house! Already hewinced. We all know what a provincial Temperance Hotel is. Besides,there is magic in the sound of wine.Wines Served. The legendattracted him immensely--as a teetotaller, it had a mysterious,hypnotic influence. He must have wines. He knew nothing about them. ButAlfred Swayn, from the Liquor Vaults, would put him in the running infive minutes.
It was most curious to see Miss Pinnegar turtle up' at the mentionof this scheme. When first it was disclosed to her, her colour came uplike a turkey's in a flush of indignant anger.
"It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous!" she blurted, bridling andducking her head and turning aside, like an indignant turkey.
"Ridiculous! Why? Will you explain why!" retorted James, turtlingalso.
"It's absolutely ridiculous!" she repeated, unable to do more thansplutter.
"Well, we'll see," said James, rising to superiority.
And again he began to dart absorbedly about, like a bird building anest. Miss Pinnegar watched him with a sort of sullen fury. She went tothe shop door to peep out after him. She saw him slip into the LiquorVaults, and she came back to announce to Alvina:
"He's taken to drink!"
"Drink?" said Alvina.
"That's what it is," said Miss Pinnegar vindictively. "Drink!"
Alvina sank down and laughed till she was weak. It all seemed reallytoo funny to her--too funny.
"I can't see what it is to laugh at," said Miss Pinnegar."Disgraceful--it's disgraceful! But I'm not going to stop to be made afool of. I shall be no manageress, I tell you. It's absolutelyridiculous. Who does he think will come to the place? He's out of hismind--and it's drink; that's what it is! Going into the Liquor Vaultsat ten o'clock in the morning! That's where he gets his ideas--out ofwhiskey--or brandy! But he's not going to make a fool of me."
"Oh dear!" sighed Alvina, laughing herself into composure and alittle weariness. "I know it'sperfectly ridiculous. We shallhave to stop him."
"I've said all I can say," blurted Miss Pinnegar.
As soon as James came in to a meal, the two women attacked him. "Butfather," said Alvina, "there'll be nobody to come."
"Plenty of people--plenty of people," said her father. "Look at TheShakespeare's Head, in Knarborough."
"Knarborough! Is this Knarborough!" blurted Miss Pinnegar. "Whereare the business men here? Where are the foreigners coming here forbusiness, where's our lace-trade and our stocking-trade?"
"Thereare business men," said James. "And there areladies."
"Who," retorted Miss Pinnegar, "is going to give half-a-crown for atea? They expect tea and bread-and-butter for fourpence, and cake forsixpence, and apricots or pineapple for ninepence, and ham-and-tonguefor a shilling, and fried ham and eggs and jam and cake as much as theycan eat for one-and-two. If they expect a knife-and-fork tea for ashilling, what are you going to give them for half-a-crown?"
"I know what I shall offer," said James. "And we may make it twoshillings." Through his mind flitted the idea of 1/11½--but herejected it. "You don't realize that I'm catering for a higher class ofcustom--"
"But thereisn't any higher class in Woodhouse, father," saidAlvina, unable to restrain a laugh.
"If you create a supply you create a demand," he retorted.
"But how can you create a supply of better class people?" askedAlvina mockingly.
James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he werepreoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate littleboy who poses on the side of the angels--or so the women saw it.
Miss Pinnegar was prepared to combat him now by sheer weight ofopposition. She would pitch her dead negative will obstinately againsthim. She would not speak to him, she would not observe his presence,she was stone deaf and stone blind: therewas no James. Thisnettled him. And she miscalculated him. He merely took another circuit,and rose another flight higher on the spiral of his spiritual egotism.He believed himself finely and sacredly in the right, that he wasfrustrated by lower beings, above whom it was his duty to rise, tosoar. So he soared to serene heights, and his Private Hotel seemed acelestial injunction, an erection on a higher plane.
He saw the architect: and then, with his plans and schemes, he sawthe builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six orseven hundred--but James had better see the plumber and fitter who wasgoing to install the new hot water and sanitary system. James was alittle dashed. He had calculated much less. Having only a few hundredpounds in possession after Throttle-Ha'penny, he was prepared tomortgage Manchester House if he could keep in hand a sufficient sum ofmoney for the running of his establishment for a year. He knew he wouldhave to sacrifice Miss Pinnegar's work-room. He knew, and he fearedMiss Pinnegar's violent and unmitigated hostility. Still--his obstinatespirit rose--he was quite prepared to risk everything on this lastthrow.
Miss Allsop, daughter of the builder, called to see Alvina. TheAll-sops were great Chapel people, and Cassie Allsop was one of the oldmaids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about forty-twoyears old. In private, she was tyrannously exacting with the servants,and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces. But in public shehad this nipped, wistful look.
Alvina was surprised by this visit. When she found Miss Allsop atthe back door, all her inherent hostility awoke.
"Oh, is it you, Miss Allsop! Will you come in."
They sat in the middle room, the common living room of thehouse.
"I called," said Miss Allsop, coming to the point at once, andspeaking in her Sunday-school-teacher voice, "to ask you if you knowabout this Private Hotel scheme of your father's?"
"Yes," said Alvina.
"Oh, you do! Well, we wondered.. Mr. Houghton came to father aboutthe building alterations yesterday. They'll be awfully expensive."
"Will they?" said Alvina, making big, mocking eyes.
"Yes, very. What doyou think of the scheme?"
"I?--well--!" Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh. "To tellthe truth I haven't thought much about it at all."
"Well I think you should," said Miss Allsop severely. "Father's sureit won't pay--and it will cost I don't know how much. It is bound to bea dead loss. And your father's getting on. You'll be left stranded inthe world without a penny to bless yourself with. I think it's an awfuloutlook for you."
"Do you?" said Alvina.
Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the oldmaids.
"Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I could to prevent him, if Iwere you."
Miss Allsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in hermood. An old maid along with Cassie Allsop!--and James Houghton foolingabout with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester House up to thehilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification, in whichherpeculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and spitefully. "Oh well, so beit," said her spirit vindictively. "Let the meagre, mean, despicablefate fulfil itself." Her old anger against her father arose again.
Arthur Witham, the plumber, came in with James Houghton to examinethe house. Arthur Witham was also one of the Chapel men--as had beenhis common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father hadleft each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur, theeldest, had already increased ten-fold. He was sly and slow anduneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent. But he was notbad-looking, a tight fellow with big blue eyes, who aspired to keep his"h's" in the right place, and would have been a gentleman if hecould.
Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father inthe scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She likedhis blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, verywatchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered and creptunder the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear--she handed him acandle--and she laughed to herself seeing his tight, well-shapedhind-quarters protruding from under the sink like the wrong end of adog from a kennel. He was keen after money, was Arthur--and bossy,creeping slyly after his own self-importance and power. He wantedpower--and he would creep quietly after it till he got it: as much ashe was capable of. His "h's" were a barbed-wire fence and entanglement,preventing his unlimited progress.
He emerged from under the sink, and they went to the kitchen andafterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a littlealoof, and silent. When the tour of inspection was almost over, shesaid innocently:
"Won't it cost a great deal?"
Arthur Witham slowly shook his head. Then he looked at her. Shesmiled rather archly into his eyes.
"It won't be done for nothing," he said, looking at her again. "Wecan go into that later," said James, leading off the plumber.
"Good morning, Miss Houghton," said Arthur Witham. "Good morning,Mr. Witham," replied Alvina brightly.
But she lingered in the background, and as Arthur Witham was goingshe heard him say: "Well, I'll work it out, Mr. Houghton. I'll work itout, and let you know tonight. I'll get the figures by tonight."
The younger man's tone was a little off-hand, just a littlesupercilious with her father, she thought. James's star wassetting.
In the afternoon, directly after dinner, Alvina went out. Sheentered the shop, where sheets of lead and tins of paint and puttystood about, varied by sheets of glass and fancy paper. Lottie Witham,Arthur's wife, appeared. She was a woman of thirty-five, a bit of ashrew, with social ambitions and no children.
"Is Mr. Witham in?" said Alvina.
Mrs. Witham eyed her.
"I'll see," she answered, and she left the shop.
Presently Arthur entered, in his shirt-sleeves: ratherattractive-looking.
"I don't know what you'll think of me, and what I've come for," saidAlvina, with hurried amiability. Arthur lifted his blue eyes to her,and Mrs. Witham appeared in the background, in the inner doorway.
"Why, what is it?" said Arthur stolidly.
"Make it as dear as you can, for father," said Alvina, laughingnervously.
Arthur's blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Witham advanced into theshop.
"Why? What's that for?" asked Lottie Witham shrewdly.
Alvina turned to the woman.
"Don't say anything," she said. "But we don't want father to go onwith this scheme. It's bound to fail. And Miss Pinnegar and I can'thave anything to do with it anyway. I shall go away."
"It's bound to fail," said Arthur Witham stolidly.
"And father has no money, I'm sure," said Alvina.
Lottie Witham eyed the thin, nervous face of Alvina. For somereason, she liked her. And of course, Alvina wasconsidered alady in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to, with James's decliningfortunes: she was merely considered a lady. The consideration was nolonger indisputable.
"Shall you come in a minute?" said Lottie Witham, lifting the flapof the counter. It was a rare and bold stroke on Mrs. Witham's part.Alvina's immediate instinct was to refuse. But she liked Arthur Witham,in his shirt sleeves.
"Well--I must be back in a minute," she said, as she entered theembrasure of the counter. She felt as if she were really venturing onnew ground. She was led into the new drawing-room, done in newpeacock-and-bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and brass and whitewalls. This was the Withams' new house, and Lottie was proud of it. Thetwo women had a short confidential chat. Arthur lingered in the doorwaya while, then went away.
Alvina did not really like Lottie Witham. Yet the other woman wassharp and shrewd in the uptake, and for some reason she fancied Alvina.So she was invited to tea at Manchester House.
After this, so many difficulties rose up in James Houghton's waythat he was worried almost out of his life. His two women left himalone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned hisscheme--he was simply driven out of it by untoward circumstances.
Lottie Witham came to tea, and was shown over Manchester House. Shehad no opinion at all of Manchester House--wouldn't hang a cat in sucha gloomy hole.Still, she was rather impressed by the sense ofsuperiority.
"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she stood in Alvina's bedroom,and looked at the enormous furniture, the lofty tableland of thebed.
"Oh my goodness! I wouldn't sleep inthat for a trifle, bymyself! Aren't you frightened out of your life? Even if I had Arthur atone side of me, I should be that frightened on the other side Ishouldn't know what to do. Do you sleep here by yourself?"
"Yes," said Alvina laughing. "I haven't got an Arthur, even for oneside."
"Oh, my word, you'd want a husband on both sides, in that bed," saidLottie Witham.
Alvina was asked back to tea--on Wednesday afternoon, closing day.Arthur was there to tea--very ill at ease and feeling as if his handswere swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched closelyto learn from her guest the secret of repose. The indefinable reposeand inevitability of a lady--even of a lady who is nervous andagitated--this was the problem which occupied Lottie's shrewd andactive, but lower-class mind. She even did not resent Alvina's laughingattempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur: because Alvina was a lady, andher tactics must be studied.
Alvina really liked Arthur, and thought a good deal abouthim--heaven knows why. He and Lottie were quite happy together, and hewas absorbed in his petty ambitions. In his limited way, he wasinvincibly ambitious. He would end by making a sufficient fortune, andby being a town councillor and a J.P. But beyond Woodhouse he did notexist. Why then should Alvina be attracted by him? Perhaps because ofhis "closeness," and his secret determinedness.
When she met him in the street she would stop him--though he wasalways busy--and make him exchange a few words with her. And when shehad tea at his house, she would try to rouse his attention. But thoughhe looked at her, steadily, with his blue eyes, from under his longlashes, still, she knew, he looked at her objectively. He neverconceived any connection with her whatsoever.
It was Lottie who had a scheming mind. In the family of threebrothers there was one--not black sheep, but white. There was one whowas climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the secondbrother. He had been a school-teacher in Woodhouse: had gone out toSouth Africa and occupied a post in a sort of Grammar School in one ofthe cities of Cape Colony. He had accumulated some money, to add to hispatrimony. Now he was in England, at Oxford, where he would take hisbelated degree. When he had got his degree, he would return to SouthAfrica to become head of his school, at seven hundred a year.
Albert was thirty-two years old, and unmarried. Lottie wasdetermined he should take back to the Cape a suitable wife: presumablyAlvina. He spent his vacations in Woodhouse--and he was only in hisfirst year at Oxford. Well now, what could be more suitable--a youngman at Oxford, a young lady in Woodhouse. Lottie told Alvina all abouthim, and Alvina was quite excited to meet him. She imagined him ataller, more fascinating, educated Arthur.
For the fear of being an old maid, the fear of her own virginity wasreally gaining on Alvina. There was a terrible sombre futility,nothingness, in Manchester House. She was twenty-six years old. Herlife was utterly barren now Miss Frost had gone. She was shabby andpenniless, a mere household drudge: for James begrudged even a girl tohelp in the kitchen. She was looking faded and worn. Panic, theterrible and deadly panic which overcomes so many unmarried women atabout the age of thirty, was beginning to overcome her. She would notcare about marriage, if even she had a lover. But some sort of terrorhunted her to the search of a lover. She would become loose, she wouldbecome a prostitute, she said to herself, rather than die off likeCassie Allsop and the rest, wither slowly and ignominiously andhideously on the tree. She would rather kill herself.
But it needs a certain natural gift to become a loose woman or aprostitute. If you haven't got the qualities which attract loose men,what are you to do? Supposing it isn't in your nature to attract looseand promiscuous men! Why, then you can't be a prostitute, if you tryyour head off nor even a loose woman. Sincewilling won't do it.It requires a second party to come to an agreement.
Therefore all Alvina's desperate and profligate schemes and ideasfell to nought before the inexorable in her nature. And the inexorablein her nature was highly exclusive and selective, an inevitablenegation of looseness or prostitution. Hence men were afraid of her--ofher power, once they had committed themselves. She would involve andlead a man on, she would destroy him rather than not get of him whatshe wanted. And what she wanted was something serious and risky. Notmere marriage--oh dear no! But a profound and dangerousinterrelationship. As well ask the paddlers in the small surf ofpassion to plunge themselves into the heaving gulf of mid-ocean. Bah,with their trousers turned up to their knees it was enough for them towet their toes in the dangerous sea. They were having nothing to dowith such desperate nereids as Alvina.
She had cast her mind on Arthur. Truly ridiculous. But there wassomething compact and energetic and wilful about him that she magnifiedtenfold and so obtained, imaginatively, an attractive lover. Shebrooded her days shabbily away in Manchester House, busy with houseworkdrudgery. Since the collapse of Throttle-Ha'penny, James Houghton hadbecome so stingy that it was like an inflammation in him. A silversixpence had a pale and celestial radiance which he could not forego, anebulous whiteness which made him feel he had heaven in his hold. Howthen could he let it go. Even a brown penny seemed alive and pulsingwith mysterious blood, potent, magical. He loved the flock of his busypennies, in the shop, as if they had been divine bees bringing himsustenance from the infinite. But the pennies he saw dribbling away inhousehold expenses troubled him acutely, as if they were live thingsleaving his fold. It was a constant struggle to get from him enoughmoney for necessities.
And so the household diet became meagre in the extreme, the coal waseked out inch by inch, and when Alvina must have her boots mended shemust draw on her own little stock of money. For James Houghton had theimpudence to make her an allowance of two shillings a week. She wasvery angry. Yet her anger was of that dangerous, half-ironical sortwhich wears away its subject and has no outward effect. A feeling ofhalf-bitter mockery kept her going. In the ponderous, rather sordidnullity of Manchester House she became shadowy and absorbed, absorbedin nothing in particular, yet absorbed. She was always more or lessbusy: and certainly there was always something to be done, whether shedid it or not.
The shop was opened once a week, on Friday evenings. James Houghtonprowled round the warehouses in Knarborough and picked up job lots ofstuff, with which he replenished his shabby window. But his heart wasnot in the business. Mere tenacity made him hover on with it.
In midsummer Albert Witham came to Woodhouse, and Alvina was invitedto tea. She was very much excited. All the time imagining Albert ataller, finer Arthur, she had abstained from actually fixing her mindupon this latter little man. Picture her disappointment when she foundAlbert quite unattractive. He was tall and thin and brittle, with apale, rather dry, flattish face, and with curious pale eyes. Hisimpression was one of uncanny flatness, something like a lemon sole.Curiously flat and fish-like he was, one might have imagined hisbackbone to be spread like the backbone of a sole or a plaice. Histeeth were sound, but rather large and yellowish and flat. A mostcurious person.
He spoke in a slightly mouthing way, not well bred in spite ofOxford. There was a distinct Woodhouse twang. He would never be agentleman if he lived for ever. Yet he was not ordinary. Really an oddfish: quite interesting, if one could get over the feeling that one waslooking at him through the glass wall of an aquarium: that mosthorrifying of all boundaries between two worlds. In an aquarium fishseem to come smiling broadly to the doorway, and there to stand talkingto one, in a mouthing fashion, awful to behold. For one hears no soundfrom all their mouthing and staring conversation. Now although AlbertWitham had a good strong voice, which rang like water among rocks inher ear, still she seemed never to hear a word he was saying. He smileddown at her and fixed her and swayed his head, and said quite originalthings, really. For he was a genuine odd fish. And yet she seemed tohear no sound, no word from him: nothing came to her. Perhaps as amatter of fact fish do actually pronounce streams of watery words, towhich we, with our aerial-resonant ears, are deaf for ever.
The odd thing was that this odd fish seemed from the very first toimagine she had accepted him as a follower. And he was quite preparedto follow. Nay, from the very first moment he was smiling on her with asort of complacent delight--compassionate, one might almost say--as ifthere was a full understanding between them. If only she could have gotinto the right state of mind, she would really rather have liked him.He smiled at her, and said really interesting things between his bigteeth. There was something rather nice about him. But, we must repeat,it was as if the glass wall of an aquarium divided them.
Alvina looked at Arthur. Arthur was short and dark-haired and nicelycoloured. But, now his brother was there, he too seemed to have a dumb,aqueous silence, fish-like and aloof, about him. He seemed to swim likea fish in his own little element. Strange it all was, like Alice inWonderland. Alvina understood now Lottie's strained sort of thinness, ahaggard, sinewy, sea-weedy look. The poor thing was all the timeswimming for her life.
For Alvina it was a most curious tea-party. She listened and smiledand made vague answers to Albert, who leaned his broad, thin brittleshoulders towards her. Lottie seemed rather shadowily to preside. Butit was Arthur who came out into communication. And now, uttering hisrather broad-mouthed speeches, she seemed to hear in him a quieter,subtler edition of his father. His father had been a little,terrifically loud-voiced, hard-skinned man, amazingly uneducated andamazingly bullying, who had tyrannized for many years over the SundaySchool children during morning service. He had been an odd-lookingcreature with round grey whiskers: to Alvina, always a creature, nevera man: an atrocious leprecaun from under the Chapel floor. And how heused to dig the children in the back with his horrible iron thumb, ifthe poor things happened to whisper or nod in chapel!
These were his children--most curious chips of the old block. Whoever would have believed she would have been taking tea with them. "Whydon't you have a bicycle, and go out on it?" Arthur was saying.
"But I can't ride," said Alvina.
"You'd learn in a couple of lessons. There's nothing in riding abicycle."
"I don't believe I ever should," laughed Alvina.
"You don't mean to say you're nervous?" said Arthur rudely andsneeringly.
"Iam," she persisted.
"You needn't be nervous with me," smiled Albert broadly, with hisodd, genuine gallantry. "I'll hold you on."
"But I haven't got a bicycle," said Alvina, feeling she was slowlycolouring to a deep, uneasy blush.
"You can have mine to learn on," said Lottie. "Albert will lookafter it."
"There's your chance," said Arthur rudely. "Take it while you've gotit."
Now Alvina did not want to learn to ride a bicycle. The two MissCarlins, two more old maids, had made themselves ridiculous for ever bybecoming twin cycle fiends. And the horrible energetic strain ofpeddling a bicycle over miles and miles of high-way did not attractAlvina at all. She was completely indifferent to sight-seeing andscouring about. She liked taking a walk, in her lingering indifferentfashion. But rushing about in any way was hateful to her. And then, tobe taught to ride a bicycle by Albert Witham! Her very soul stoodstill.
"Yes," said Albert, beaming down at her from his strange pale eyes."Come on. When will you have your first lesson?"
"Oh," cried Alvina in confusion. "I can't promise. I haven't time,really."
"Time!" exclaimed Arthur rudely. "But what do you do wi' yourselfall day?"
"I have to keep house," she said, looking at him archly.
"House! You can put a chain round its neck, and tie it up," heretorted.
Albert laughed, showing all his teeth.
"I'm sure you find plenty to do, with everything on your hands,"said Lottie to Alvina.
"I do!" said Alvina. "By evening I'm quite tired--though you mayn'tbelieve it, since you say I do nothing," she added, laughing confusedlyto Arthur.
But he, hard-headed little fortune-maker, replied:
"You have a girl to help you, don't you!"
Albert, however, was beaming at her sympathetically.
"You have too much to do indoors," he said. "It would do you good toget a bit of exercise out of doors. Come down to the Coach Roadtomorrow afternoon, and let me give you a lesson. Go on."
Now the coach-road was a level drive between beautiful park-likegrass-stretches, down in the valley. It was a delightful place forlearning to ride a bicycle, but open in full view of all the world.Alvina would have died of shame. She began to laugh nervously andhurriedly at the very thought.
"No, I can't. I really can't. Thanks, awfully," she said.
"Can't you really!" said Albert. "Oh well, we'll say another day,shall we?"
"When I feel I can," she said.
"Yes, when you feel like it," replied Albert.
"That's more it," said Arthur. "It's not the time. It's thenervousness." Again Albert beamed at her sympathetically, and said:
"Oh, I'll hold you. You needn't be afraid."
"But I'm not afraid," she said.
"You won'tsay you are," interposed Arthur. "Women's faultsmustn't be owned up to."
Alvina was beginning to feel quite dazed. Their mechanical,overbearing way was something she was unaccustomed to. It was like thejaws of a pair of insentient iron pincers. She rose, saying she mustgo.
Albert rose also, and reached for his straw hat, with its colouredband.
"I'll stroll up with you, if you don't mind," he said. And he tookhis place at her side along the Knarborough Road, where everybodyturned to look. For, of course, he had a sort of fame in Woodhouse. Shewent with him laughing and chatting. But she did not feel at allcomfortable. He seemed so pleased. Only he was not pleased withher. He was pleased with himself on her account: inordinatelypleased with himself. In his world, as in a fish's, there was but hisown swimming self: and if he chanced to have something swimmingalongside and doing him credit, why, so much the more complacently hesmiled.
He walked stiff and erect, with his head pressed rather back, sothat he always seemed to be advancing from the head and shoulders, in aflat kind of advance, horizontal. He did not seem to be walking withhis whole body. His manner was oddly gallant, with a gallantry thatcompletely missed the individual in the woman, circled round her andflew home gratified to his own hive. The way he raised his hat, the wayhe inclined and smiled flatly, even rather excitedly, as he talked, wasall a little discomforting and comical.
He left her at the shop door, saying:
"I shall see you again, I hope."
"Oh, yes," she replied, rattling the door anxiously, for it waslocked. She heard her father's step at last tripping down the shop.
"Good-evening, Mr. Houghton," said Albert suavely and with a certainconfidence, as James peered out.
"Oh, good-evening!" said James, letting Alvina pass, and shuttingthe door in Albert's face.
"Who was that?" he asked her sharply.
"Albert Witham," she replied.
"What hashe got to do with you?" said James shrewishly."Nothing, I hope."
She fled into the obscurity of Manchester House, out of the greysummer evening. The Withams threw her off her pivot, and made her feelshe was not herself. She felt she didn't know, she couldn't feel, shewas just scattered and decentralized. And she was rather afraid of theWitham brothers. She might be their victim. She intended to avoidthem.
The following days she saw Albert, in his Norfolk jacket and flanneltrousers and his straw hat, strolling past several times and looking inthrough the shop door and up at the upper windows. But she hid herselfthoroughly. When she went out, it was by the back way. So she avoidedhim.
But on Sunday evening, there he sat, rather stiff and brittle in theold Withams' pew, his head pressed a little back, so that his face andneck seemed slightly flattened. He wore very low, turn-down starchedcollars that showed all his neck. And he kept looking up at her duringthe service--she sat in the choir-loft--gazing up at her withapparently love-lorn eyes and a faint, intimate smile--the sort ofje-sais-tout look of a private swain. Arthur also occasionallycast a judicious eye on her, as if she were a chimney that neededrepairing, and he must estimate the cost, and whether it was worthit.
Sure enough, as she came out through the narrow choir gate intoKnarborough Road, there was Albert stepping forward like a policeman,and saluting her and smiling down on her.
"I don't know if I'm presuming--" he said, in a mock deferential waythat showed he didn't imagine hecould presume.
"Oh, not at all," said Alvina airily. He smiled with assurance. "Youhaven't got any engagement, then, for this evening?" he said. "No," shereplied simply.
"We might take a walk. What do you think?" he said, glancing downthe road in either direction.
What, after all, was she to think? All the girls were pairing offwith the boys for the after-chapel stroll and spoon.
"I don't mind," she said.
"But I can't go far. I've got to be in at nine."
"Which way shall we go?" he said.
He steered off, turned downhill through the common gardens, andproposed to take her the not-very-original walk up Flint's Lane, andalong the railway line--the colliery railway, that is--then back up theMarlpool Road: a sort of circle. She agreed.
They did not find a great deal to talk about. She questioned himabout his plans, and about the Cape. But save for bare outlines, whichhe gave readily enough, he was rather close.
"What do you do on Sunday nights as a rule?" he asked her.
"Oh, I have a walk with Lucy Grainger--or I go down to Hallam'sor gohome," she answered.
"You don't go walks with the fellows, then?"
"Father would never have it," she replied.
"What will he say now?" he asked, with self-satisfaction. "Goodnessknows!" she laughed.
"Goodness usually does," he answered archly.
When they came to the rather stumbly railway, he said:
"Won't you take my arm?"--offering her the said member. "Oh, I'm allright," she said. "Thanks,"
"Go on," he said, pressing a little nearer to her, and offering hisarm. "There's nothing against it, is there?"
"Oh, it's not that," she said.
And feeling in a false position, she took his arm, ratherunwillingly. He drew a little nearer to her, and walked with a slightprance.
"We get on better, don't we?" he said, giving her hand the tiniestsqueeze with his arm against his side.
"Much!" she replied, with a laugh.
Then he lowered his voice oddly.
"It's many a day since I was on this railroad," he said.
"Is this one of your old walks?" she asked, malicious.
"Yes, I've been it once or twice--with girls that are all marriednow."
"Didn't you want to marry?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. I may have done. But it never came off, somehow.I've sometimes thought it never would come off."
"Why?"
"I don't know, exactly. It didn't seem to, you know. Perhaps neitherof us was properly inclined."
"I should think so," she said.
"And yet," he admitted slyly, "I shouldlike to marry--" Tothis she did not answer.
"Shouldn't you?" he continued.
"When I meet the right man," she laughed.
"That's it," he said. "There, that's just it! And youhaven'tmet him?" His voice seemed smiling with a sort of triumph, as if he hadcaught her out.
"Well--once I thought I had--when I was engaged to Alexander."
"But you found you were mistaken?" he insisted.
"No. Mother was so ill at the time--"
"There's always something to consider," he said.
She kept on wondering what she should do if he wanted to kiss her.The mere incongruity of such a desire on his part formed a problem.Luckily, for this evening he formulated no desire, but left her in theshop-door soon after nine, with the request:
"I shall see you in the week, shan't I?"
"I'm not sure. I can't promise now," she said hurriedly."Goodnight."
What she felt chiefly about him was a decentralized perplexity, verymuch akin to no feeling at all.
"Who do you think took me for a walk, Miss Pinnegar?" she said,laughing, to her confidante.
"I can't imagine," replied Miss Pinnegar, eyeing her.
"You never would imagine," said Alvina. "Albert Witham."
"Albert Witham!" exclaimed Miss Pinnegar, standing quitemotionless.
"It may well take your breath away," said Alvina.
"No, it's not that!" hurriedly expostulated Miss Pinnegar. "Well--!Well, I declare!--" and then, on a new note: "Well, he's very eligible,I think."
"Most eligible!" replied Alvina.
"Yes, he is," insisted Miss Pinnegar. "I think it's very good."
"What's very good?" asked Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar hesitated. She looked at Alvina. She reconsidered. "Ofcourse he's not the man I should have imagined for you, but--"
"You think he'll do?" said Alvina.
"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Why shouldn't he do--if you likehim."
"Ah--!" cried Alvina, sinking on the sofa with laugh. "That'sit."
"Of course you couldn't have anything to do with him if you don'tcare for him," pronounced Miss Pinnegar.
Albert continued to hang around. He did not make any direct attackfor a few days. Suddenly one evening he appeared at the back door witha bunch of white stocks in his hand. His face lit up with a sudden, oddsmile when she opened the door--a broad, pale-gleaming, remarkablesmile.
"Lottie wanted to know if you'd come to tea tomorrow," he saidstraight out, looking at her with the pale light in his eyes, thatsmiled palely right into her eyes, but did not see her at all. He waswaiting on the doorstep to come in.
"Will you come in?" said Alvina. "Father is in."
"Yes, I don't mind," he said, pleased. He mounted the steps, stillholding his bunch of white stocks.
James Houghton screwed round in his chair and peered over hisspectacles to see who was coming.
"Father," said Alvina, "you know Mr. Witham, don't you?"
James Houghton half rose. He still peered over his glasses at theintruder.
"Well--I do by sight. How do you do?"
He held out his frail hand.
Albert held back, with the flowers in his own hand, and giving hisbroad, pleased, pale-gleaming smile from father to daughter, hesaid:
"What am I to do with these? Will you accept them, Miss Houghton?"He stared at her with shining, pallid smiling eyes.
"Are they for me?" she said, with false brightness. "Thank you."
James Houghton looked over the top of his spectacles, searchingly,at the flowers, as if they had been a bunch of white and sharp-toothedferrets. Then he looked as suspiciously at the hand which Albert atlast extended to him. He shook it slightly, and said:
"Take a seat."
"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you in your reading," said Albert, stillhaving the drawn, excited smile on his face.
"Well--" said James Houghton. "The light is fading."
Alvina came in with the flowers in a jar. She set them on thetable.
"Haven't they a lovely scent?" she said.
"Do you think so?" he replied, again with the excited smile. Therewas a pause. Albert, rather embarrassed, reached forward, saying:
"May I see what you're reading!" And he turned over the book."'Tommy and Grizel!' Oh yes! What do you think of it?"
"Well," said James, "I am only in the beginning."
"I think it's interesting, myself," said Albert, "as a study of aman who can't get away from himself. You meet a lot of people likethat. What I wonder is why they find it such a drawback."
"Find what a drawback?" asked James.
"Not being able to get away from themselves. Thatself-consciousness. It hampers them, and interferes with their power ofaction. Now I wonder why self-consciousness should hinder a man in hisaction? Why does it cause misgiving? I think I'm self-conscious, but Idon't think I have so many misgivings. I don't see that they'renecessary."
"Certainly I think Tommy is a weak character. I believe he's adespicable character," said James.
"No, I don't know so much about that," said Albert. "I shouldn't sayweak, exactly. He's only weak in one direction. No, what I wonder iswhy he feels guilty. If you feel self-conscious, there's no need tofeel guilty about it, is there?"
He stared with his strange, smiling stare at James.
"I shouldn't say so," replied James. "But if a man never knows hisown mind, he certainly can't be much of a man."
"I don't see it," replied Albert. "What's the matter is that hefeels guilty for not knowing his own mind. That's the unnecessary part.The guilty feeling--"
Albert seemed insistent on this point, which had no particularinterest for James.
"Where we've got to make a change," said Albert, "is in the feelingthat other people have a right to tell us what we ought to feel and do.Nobody knows what another man ought to feel. Every man has his ownspecial feelings, and his own right to them. That's where it is witheducation. You ought not to want all your children to feel alike. Theirnatures are all different, and so they should all feel different, aboutpractically everything."
"There would be no end to the confusion," said James.
"There needn't be any confusion to speak of. You agree to a numberof rules and conventions and laws, for social purposes. But in privateyou feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to feelsomething else."
"I don't know," said James. "There are certain feelings common tohumanity, such as love, and honour, and truth."
"Would you call them feelings?" said Albert. "I should say what iscommon is the idea. The idea is common to humanity, once you've put itinto words. But the feeling varies with every man. The same idearepresents a different kind of feeling in every different individual.It seems to me that's what we've got to recognize if we're going to doanything with education. We don't want to produce mass feelings. Don'tyou agree?"
Poor James was too bewildered to know whether to agree or not toagree.
"Shall we have a light, Alvina?" he said to his daughter.
Alvina lit the incandescent gas-jet that hung in the middle of theroom. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard-looking as shereached up to it. But Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly. Itseemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all. Hedid not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what hewas thinking about. And therefore she hardly heard what he said. Yetshe believed he was clever.
It was evident Albert was quite blissfully happy, in his own way,sitting there at the end of the sofa not far from the fire, and talkinganimatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he talked in thedirection of his interlocutor, he did not speakto him: merelysaid his words towards him. James, however, was such an airy featherhimself he did not remark this, but only felt a little self-importantat sustaining such a subtle conversation with a man from Oxford.Alvina, who never expected to be interested in clever conversations,after a long experience of her father, found her expectation justifiedagain. She was not interested.
The man was quite nicely dressed, in the regulation tweed jacket andflannel trousers and brown shoes. He was even rather smart, judgingfrom his yellow socks and yellow-and-brown tie. Miss Pinnegar eyed himwith approval when she came in.
"Good-evening!" she said, just a trifle condescendingly, as sheshook hands. "How do you find Woodhouse, after being away so long?" Herway of speaking was so quiet, as if she hardly spoke aloud.
"Well," he answered. "I find it the same in many ways."
"You wouldn't like to settle here again?"
"I don't think I should. It feels a little cramped, you know, aftera new country. But it has its attractions." Here he smiledmeaningful.
"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar. "I suppose the old connections count forsomething."
"They do. Oh decidedly they do. There's no associations like the oldones." He smiled flatly as he looked towards Alvina.
"You find it so, do you!" returned Miss Pinnegar. "You don't findthat the new connections make up for the old?"
"Not altogether, they don't. There's something missing--" Again helooked towards Alvina. But she did not answer his look.
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar. "I'm glad we still count for something,in spite of the greater attractions. How long have you in England?"
"Another year. Just a year. This time next year I expect I shall besailing back to the Cape." He smiled as if in anticipation. Yet it washard to believe that it mattered to him--or that anything mattered.
"And is Oxford agreeable to you?" she asked.
"Oh, yes. I keep myself busy."
"What are your subjects?" asked James.
"English and History. But I do mental science for my owninterest."
Alvina had taken up a piece of sewing. She sat under the light,brooding a little. Whathad all this to do with her. The mantalked on, and beamed in her direction. And she felt a littleimportant. But moved or touched?--not the least in the world.
She wondered if any one would ask him to supper--bread and cheeseand currant-loaf, and water, was all that offered. No one asked him,and at last he rose.
"Show Mr. Witham out through the shop, Alvina," said MissPinnegar.
Alvina piloted the man through the long, dark, encumbered way of theshop. At the door he said:
"You've never said whether you're coming to tea on Thursday."
"I don't think I can," said Alvina.
He seemed rather taken aback.
"Why?" he said. "What stops you?"
"I've so much to do."
He smiled slowly and satirically.
"Won't it keep?" he said.
"No, really. I can't come on Thursday--thank you so much.Goodnight!" She gave him her hand and turned quickly into the shop,closing the door. He remained standing in the porch, staring at theclosed door. Then, lifting his lip, he turned away.
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar decidedly, as Alvina reentered. "You cansay what you like--but I think he'svery pleasant, verypleasant."
"Extremely intelligent," said James Houghton, shifting in his chair."I was awfully bored," said Alvina.
They both looked at her, irritated.
After this she really did what she could to avoid him. When she sawhim sauntering down the street in all his leisure, a sort of angerpossessed her. On Sunday, she slipped down from the choir into theChapel, and out through the main entrance, whilst he awaited her at thesmall exit. And by good luck, when he called one evening in the week,she was out. She returned down the yard. And there, through theuncurtained window, she saw him sitting awaiting her. Without athought, she turned on her heel and fled away. She did not come in tillhe had gone.
"How late you are!" said Miss Pinnegar. "Mr. Witham was here tillten minutes ago."
"Yes," laughed Alvina. "I came down the yard and saw him. So I wentback till he'd gone."
Miss Pinnegar looked at her in displeasure:
"I suppose you know your own mind," she said.
"How do you explain such behaviour?" said her father pettishly.
"I didn't want to meet him," she said.
The next evening was Saturday. Alvina had inherited Miss Frost'stask of attending to the Chapel flowers once a quarter. She had beenround the gardens of her friends, and gathered the scarlet and hotyellow and purple flowers of August, asters, red stocks, tall Japanesesunflowers, coreopsis, geraniums. With these in her basket she slippedout towards evening, to the Chapel. She knew Mr. Calladine, thecaretaker would not lock up till she had been.
The moment she got inside the Chapel--it was a big, airy, pleasantbuilding--she heard hammering from the organ-loft, and saw the flickerof a candle. Some workman busy before Sunday. She shut the baize doorbehind her, and hurried across to the vestry, for vases, then out tothe tap, for water. All was warm and still.
It was full early evening. The yellow light streamed through theside windows, the big stained-glass window at the end was deep and fullof glowing colour, in which the yellows and reds were richest. Above inthe organ-loft the hammering continued. She arranged her flowers inmany vases, till the communion table was like the window, a tangle ofstrong yellow, and crimson, and purple, and bronze-green. She tried tokeep the effect light and kaleidoscopic, an interplay of tossed piecesof strong, hot colour, vibrating and lightly intermingled. It was verygorgeous, for a communion table. But the day of white lilies wasover.
Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble, up in theorgan-loft, followed by a cursing.
"Are you hurt?" called Alvina, looking up into space. The candle haddisappeared.
But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the Chapelto the stairs in the side porch, and ran up to the organ. She wentround the side--and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves sittingcrouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the wallof the back, while a collapsed pair of steps lay between her and him.It was too dark to see who it was.
"That rotten pair of steps came down with me," said the infuriatedvoice of Arthur Witham, "and about broke my leg."
Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He wassitting nursing his leg.
"Is it bad?" she asked, stooping towards him.
In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes weresavage with anger. Her face was near his.
"It is bad," he said furious because of the shock. The shock hadthrown him off his balance.
"Let me see," she said.
He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above theankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel ifthere was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with blood.Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed her handdown over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, as if herhand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her hand over hisbroken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are when they havehad a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of consciousness only, andfor the rest unconscious.
Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He couldnot bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of hissensitive, unbearable parts.
"The bone isn't broken," she said professionally. "But you'd betterget the stocking out of it."
Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled downhis stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain. "Can you show alight?" he said.
She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on alittle ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst heexamined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. Itwas a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He satlooking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the candle-light.
"It's not so very bad, when the pain goes off," she said, noticingthe black hairs of his shin. "We'd better tie it up. Have you got ahandkerchief?"
"It's in my jacket," he said.
She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little, by beingcompletely oblivious of her. She got his handkerchief and wiped herfingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for thewound.
"Shall I tie it up, then?" she said.
But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his leg, looking at hishurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards hisankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him.
"Shall I tie it up, then?" she repeated at length, a littleimpatient. So he put his leg a little forward.
She looked at the wound, and wiped it a little. Then she folded thepad of her own handkerchief, and laid it over the hurt. And again hedid the same thing, he took her hand as if it were a plaster, andapplied it to his wound, pressing it cautiously but firmly down. Shewas rather angry. He took no notice of her at all. And she, waiting,seemed to go into a dream, a sleep, her arm trembled a little,stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lose count, under the firmcompression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her handpressed her into oblivion.
"Tie it up," he said briskly.
And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage with numb fingers. Heseemed to have taken the use out of her.
When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organwhich he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pair of steps.
"A rotten pair of things to have, to put a man's life in danger," hesaid, towards the steps. Then stubbornly, he rigged them up again, andstared again at his interrupted job.
"You won't go on, will you?" she asked.
"It's got to be done, Sunday tomorrow," he said. "If you'd hold themsteps a minute! There isn't more than a minute's fixing to do. It's alldone, but fixing."
"Hadn't you better leave it," she said.
"Would you mind holding the steps, so that they don't let me downagain," he said. Then he took the candle, and hobbled stubbornly andangrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he worked,tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the ricketty steps and staredat him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers. Strange thedifference--she could not help thinking it--between the vulnerablehairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the shapeless formof these workmen's trousers. The kernel, the man himself--seemed sotender--the covering so stiff and insentient.
And was he not going to speak to her--not one human word ofrecognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After allhe had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently butfirmly down, down over his bruise, how he had taken the virtue out ofher, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he going torelapse into his tough and ugly workman's hide, and treat her as ifshe were a pair of steps, which might let him down or hold himup, as might be.
As she stood clinging to the steps she felt weak and a littlehysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own backfrom him. After all he had taken the virtue from her, he might have thegrace to say thank you, and treat her as if she were a human being.
At last he left off tinkering, and looked round.
"Have you finished?" she said.
"Yes," he answered crossly.
And taking the candle he began to clamber down. When he got to thebottom he crouched over his leg and felt the bandage.
"That gives you what for," he said, as if it were her fault. "Is thebandage holding?" she said.
"I think so," he answered churlishly.
"Aren't you going to make sure?" she said.
"Oh, it's all right," he said, turning aside and taking up histools. "I'll make my way home."
"So will I," she answered.
She took the candle and went a little in front. He hurried into hiscoat and gathered his tools, anxious to get away. She faced him,holding the candle.
"Look at my hand," she said, holding it out. It was smeared withblood, as was the cuff of her dress--a black-and-white striped cottondress.
"Is it hurt?" he said.
"No, but look at it. Look here!" She showed the bloodstains on herdress.
"It'll wash out," he said, frightened of her.
"Yes, so it will. But for the present it's there. Don't you thinkyou ought to thank me?"
He recoiled a little.
"Yes," he said. "I'm very much obliged."
"You ought to be more than that," she said.
He did not answer, but looked her up and down.
"We'll be going down," he said. "We s'll have folks talking."
Suddenly she began to laugh. It seemed so comical. What a position!The candle shook as she laughed. What a man, answering her like alittle automaton! Seriously, quite seriously he said it to her--"Wes'll have folks talking!" She laughed in a breathless, hurried way, asthey tramped downstairs.
At the bottom of the stairs Calladine, the caretaker, met them. Hewas a tall thin man with a black moustache--about fifty years old."Have you done for tonight, all of you?" he said, grinning in echo toAlvina's still fluttering laughter.
"That's a nice rotten pair of steps you've got up there for adeathtrap," said Arthur angrily. "Come down on top of me, and I'm luckyI haven't got my leg broken. It is near enough."
"Come down with you, did they?" said Calladine good-humouredly. "Inever knowed 'em come down wi' me."
"You ought to, then. My leg's as near broke as it can be."
"What, have you hurt yourself?"
"I should think I have. Look here--" And he began to pull up histrouser leg. But Alvina had given the candle to Calladine, and fled.She had a last view of Arthur stooping over his precious leg, whileCalladine stooped his length and held down the candle.
When she got home she took off her dress and washed herself hard andwashed the stained sleeve, thoroughly, thoroughly, and threw away thewash water and rinsed the wash-bowls with fresh water, scrupulously.Then she dressed herself in her black dress once more, did her hair,and went downstairs.
But she could not sew--and she could not settle down. It wasSaturday evening, and her father had opened the shop, Miss Pinnegar hadgone to Knarborough. She would be back at nine o'clock. Alvina setabout to make a mock woodcock, or a mock something or other, withcheese and an egg and bits of toast. Her eyes were dilated and as ifamused, mocking, her face quivered a little with irony that was not allenjoyable.
"I'm glad you've come," said Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar entered. "Thesupper's just done. I'll ask father if he'll close the shop."
Of course James would not close the shop, though he was merelywasting light. He nipped in to eat his supper, and started out againwith a mouthful the moment he heard the ping of the bell. He kept hiscustomers chatting as long as he could. His love for conversation haddegenerated into a spasmodic passion for chatter.
Alvina looked across at Miss Pinnegar, as the two sat at the meagresupper-table. Her eyes were dilated and arched with a mocking, almostsatanic look.
"I've made up my mind about Albert Witham," said Alvina. MissPinnegar looked at her.
"Which way?" she asked, demurely, but a little sharp.
"It's all off," said Alvina, breaking into a nervous laugh.
"Why? What has happened?"
"Nothing has happened. I can't stand him."
"Why?--suddenly--" said Miss Pinnegar.
"It's not sudden," laughed Alvina. "Not at all. I can't stand him. Inever could. And I won't try. There! Isn't that plain?" And she wentoff into her hurried laugh, partly at herself, partly at Arthur, partlyat Albert, partly at Miss Pinnegar.
"Oh, well, if you're so sure--" said Miss Pinnegar ratherbitingly.
"Iam quite sure--" said Alvina. "I'm quite certain."
"Cock-sure people are often most mistaken," said Miss Pinnegar. "I'drather have my own mistakes than somebody else's rights," saidAlvina.
"Then don't expect anybody to pay for your mistakes," said MissPinnegar.
"It would be all the same if I did," said Alvina.
When she lay in bed, she stared at the light of the street-lamp onthe wall. She was thinking busily: but heaven knows what she wasthinking. She had sharpened the edge of her temper. She was waitingtill tomorrow. She was waiting till she saw Albert Witham. She wantedto finish off with him. She was keen to cut clean through anycorrespondence with him. She stared for many hours at the light of thestreet-lamp, and there was a narrowed look in her eyes.
The next day she did not go to Morning Service, but stayed at hometo cook the dinner. In the evening she sat in her place in the choir.In the Withams' pew sat Louie and Albert--no Arthur. Albert keptglancing up. Alvina could not bear the sight of him--she simply couldnot bear the sight of him. Yet in her low, sweet voice she sang thealto to the hymns, right to the vesper:
"Lord keep us safe this nightSecure from all our fears,May angels guard us while we sleepTill morning light appears--"
As she sang her alto, and as the soft and emotional harmony of thevesper swelled luxuriously through the chapel, she was peeping over herfolded hands at Lottie's hat. She could not bear Lottie's hats. Therewas something aggressive and vulgar about them. And she simply detestedthe look of the back of Albert's head, as he too stooped to the vesperprayer. It looked mean and rather common. She remembered Arthur had thesame look, bending to prayer. There!--why had she not seen it before!That petty, vulgar little look! How could she have thought twice ofArthur. She had made a fool of herself, as usual. Him and his littleleg. She grimaced round the chapel, waiting for people to bob up theirheads and take their departure.
At the gate Albert was waiting for her. He came forward lifting hishat with a smiling and familiar "Good evening!"
"Good evening," she murmured.
"It's ages since I've seen you," he said. "And I've looked out foryou everywhere."
It was raining a little. She put up her umbrella.
"You'll take a little stroll. The rain isn't much," he said.
"No, thank you," she said. "I must go home."
"Why, what's your hurry! Walk as far as Beeby Bridge. Go on."
"No, thank you."
"How's that? What makes you refuse?"
"I don't want to."
He paused and looked down at her. The cold and supercilious look ofanger, a little spiteful, came into his face.
"Do you mean because of the rain?" he said.
"No. I hope you don't mind. But I don't want to take any more walks.I don't mean anything by them."
"Oh, as for that," he said, taking the words out of her mouth. "Whyshould you mean anything by them!" He smiled down on her. She lookedhim straight in the face.
"But I'd rather not take any more walks, thank you--none at all,"she said, looking him full in the eyes.
"You wouldn't!" he replied, stiffening.
"Yes. I'm quite sure," she said.
"As sure as all that, are you!" he said, with a sneering grimace. Hestood eyeing her insolently up and down.
"Good-night," she said. His sneering made her furious. Putting herumbrella between him and her, she walked off.
"Good-night then," he replied, unseen by her. But his voice wassneering and impotent.
She went home quivering. But her soul was burning with satisfaction.She had shaken them off.
Later she wondered if she had been unkind to him. But it wasdone--and done for ever.Vogue la galère.
The trouble with her ship was that it wouldnot sail. It rodewaterlogged in the rotting port of home. All very well to have wild,reckless moods of irony and independence, if you have to pay for themby withering dustily on the shelf.
Alvina fell again into humility and fear: she began to show symptomsof her mother's heart trouble. For day followed day, month followedmonth, season after season went by, and she grubbed away like ahousemaid in Manchester House, she hurried round doing the shopping,she sang in the choir on Sundays, she attended the various chapelevents, she went out to visit friends, and laughed and talked andplayed games. But all the time, what was there actually in her life?Not much. She was withering towards old-maiddom. Already in hertwenty-eighth year, she spent her days grubbing in the house, whilsther father became an elderly, frail man still too lively in mind andspirit. Miss Pinnegar began to grow grey and elderly too, money becamescarcer and scarcer, there was a black day ahead when her father woulddie and the home be broken up, and she would have to tackle life as aworker.
There lay the only alternative: in work. She might slave her daysaway teaching the piano, as Miss Frost had done: she might find asubordinate post as nurse: she might sit in the cash-desk of some shop.Some work of some sort would be found for her. And she would sink intothe routine of her job, as did so many women, and grow old and die,chattering and fluttering. She would have what is called herindependence. But, seriously faced with that treasure, and without theoption of refusing it, strange how hideous she found it.
Work!--a job! More even than she rebelled against the Withams didshe rebel against a job. Albert Witham was distasteful to her--orrather, he was not exactly distasteful, he was chiefly incongruous. Shecould never get over the feeling that he was mouthing and smiling ather through the glass wall of an aquarium, he being on the watery side.Whether she would ever be able to take to his strange and dishumanelement, who knows? Anyway it would be some sort of an adventure:better than a job. She rebelled with all her backbone against the wordjob. Even the substitutes,employment orwork,were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not want to work fora wage. It was too humiliating. Could anything be moreinfra digthan the performing of a set of special actions day in day out, for alife-time, in order to receive some shillings every seventh day.Shameful! A condition of shame. The most vulgar, sordid and humiliatingof all forms of slavery: so mechanical. Far better be a slave outright,in contact with all the whims and impulses of a human being, than servesome mechanical routine of modern work.
She trembled with anger, impotence, and fear. For months, thethought of Albert was a torment to her. She might have married him. Hewould have been strange, a strange fish. But were it not better to takethe strange leap, over into his element, than to condemn oneself to theroutine of a job? He would have been curious and dishuman. But afterall, it would have been an experience. In a way, she liked him. Therewas something odd and integral about him, which she liked. He was not aliar. In his own line, he was honest and direct. Then he would take herto South Africa: a whole newmilieu. And perhaps she would havechildren. She shivered a little. No, not his children! He seemed socuriously cold-blooded. And yet, why not? Why not his curious, pale,half cold-blooded children, like little fishes of her own? Why not?Everything was possible: and even desirable, once one could see thestrangeness of it. Once she could plunge through the wall of theaquarium! Once she could kiss him!
Therefore Miss Pinnegar's quiet harping on the string wasunbearable.
"I can't understand that you disliked Mr. Witham so much?" said MissPinnegar.
"We never can understand those things," said Alvina. "I can'tunderstand why I dislike tapioca and arrowroot--but I do."
"That's different," said Miss Pinnegar shortly.
"It's no more easy to understand," said Alvina.
"Because there's no need to understand it," said Miss Pinnegar. "Andis there need to understand the other?"
"Certainly. I can see nothing wrong with him," said MissPinnegar.
Alvina went away in silence. This was in the first months after shehad given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again--would notreturn to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the WoodhouseWithams there was a decided coldness. They never looked at her now--norshe at them.
None the less, as Christmas drew near Alvina worked up her feelings.Perhaps she would be reconciled to him. She would slip across and smileto him. She would take the plunge, once and for all--and kiss him andmarry him and bear the little half-fishes, his children. She workedherself into quite a fever of anticipation.
But when she saw him, the first evening, sitting stiff and staringflatly in front of him in Chapel, staring away from everything in theworld, at heaven knows what--just as fishes stare--then hisdishumanness came over her again like an arrest, and arrested all herflights of fancy. He stared flatly in front of him, and flatly set awall of oblivion between him and her. She trembled and let be.
After Christmas, however, she had nothing at all to think forwardto. And it was then she seemed to shrink: she seemed positively toshrink. "You never spoke to Mr. Witham?" Miss Pinnegar asked.
"He never spoke to me," replied Alvina.
"He raised his hat to me."
"You ought to have married him, Miss Pinnegar," said Alvina."He would have been right for you." And she laughed rathermockingly.
"There is no need to make provision for me," said Miss Pinnegar.
And after this, she was a long time before she forgave Alvina, andwas really friendly again. Perhaps she would never have forgiven her ifshe had not found her weeping rather bitterly in her mother's abandonedsitting-room.
Now so far, the story of Alvina is commonplace enough. It is more orless the story of thousands of girls. They all find work. It is theordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with anordinary girl we should have to carry on mildly and dully down the longyears of employment; or, at the best, marriage with some dullschoolteacher or office-clerk.
But we protest that Alvina is not ordinary. Ordinary people,ordinary fates. But extraordinary people, extraordinary fates. Or elseno fate at all. The all-to-one-pattern modern system is too much formost extraordinary individuals. It just kills them off or throws themdisused aside.
There have been enough stories about ordinary people. I should thinkthe Duke of Clarence must even have found malmsey nauseating, when hechoked and went purple and was really asphyxiated in a butt of it. Andordinary people are no malmsey. Just ordinary tap-water. And we havebeen drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual floods ofordinariness, that tap-water tends to become a really hateful fluid tous. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. We detest ordinarypeople. We are in peril of our lives from them: and in peril of oursouls too, for they would damn us one and all to the ordinary. Everyindividual should, by nature, have his extraordinary points. Butnowadays you may look for them with a microscope, they are so worn-downby the regular machine-friction of our average and mechanical days.
There was no hope for Alvina in the ordinary. If help came, it wouldhave to come from the extraordinary. Hence the extreme peril of hercase. Hence the bitter fear and humiliation she felt as she drudgedshabbily on in Manchester House, hiding herself as much as possiblefrom public view. Men can suck the heady juice of exaltedself-importance from the bitter weed of failure--failures are usuallythe most conceited of men: even as was James Houghton. But to a woman,failure is another matter. For her it means failure to live, failure toestablish her own life on the face of the earth. And this ishumiliating, the ultimate humiliation.
And so the slow years crept round, and the completed coil of eachone was a further heavy, strangling noose. Alvina had passed hertwenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and even her twenty-ninthyear. She was in her thirtieth. It ought to be a laughing matter. Butit isn't.
Ach, schon zwanzigAch, schon zwanzigImmer noch durch's Leben tanz' ichJeder, Jeder will mich küssenMir das Leben zu versüssen.Ach, schon dreissigAch, schon dreissigImmer Mädchen, Mädchen heiss' ich.In dem Zopf schon graue HärchenAch, wie schnell vergehn die Jährchen.Ach, schon vierzigAch, schon vierzigUnd noch immer Keiner find 'sich.Im gesicht schon graue FleckenAch, das muss im Spiegel stecken.Ach, schon fünfzigAch, schon fünfzigUnd noch immer Keiner will 'mich;Soll ich mich mit Bänden zierenSoll ich einen Schleier führen?Dann heisst's, die Alte putzt sich,Sie ist fu'fzig, sie ist fu'fzig.
True enough, in Alvina's pig-tail of soft brown the grey hairs werealready showing. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of as agirl. And the slow-footed years, so heavy in passing, were soimperceptibly numerous in their accumulation.
But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and drearyconclusion. Presumably, theordinary old-maid heroine nowadaysis destined to die in her fifties, she is not allowed to be thelong-liver of the bygone novels. Let the song suffice her.
James Houghton had still another kick in him. He had one last schemeup his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popularnovelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink,like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as hepushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he hadescaped, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like afrail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs, andmaking little splashes in warehouse-oddments. Miss Pinnegar thought hehad really gone quiet.
But alas, at that degenerated and shabby, down-at-heel club he metanother tempter: a plump man who had been in the music-hall line as asort of agent. This man had catered for the little shows of littletowns. He had been in America, out West, doing shows there. He hadtrailed his way back to England, where he had left his wife anddaughter. But he did not resume his family life. Wherever he was, hiswife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or lessstranded in Woodhouse. He hadnearly fixed himself up with amusic-hall in the Potteries--as manager: he had all-but got suchanother place at Ickley, in Derbyshire: he had forced his way throughthe industrial and mining townlets, prospecting for any sort ofmusic-hall or show from which he could get a picking. And now, in verylow water, he found himself at Woodhouse.
Woodhouse had a cinema already: a famous Empire run-up by Jordan,the sly builder and decorator who had got on so surprisingly. InJames's younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody. Andnow he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with sardoniccontempt, from under his heavy, heavy-lidded dark eyes. He was ratherstout, frail in health, but silent and insuperable, was A. WJordan.
"I missed a chance there," said James, fluttering. "I missed a rarechance there. I ought to have been first with a cinema."
He admitted as much to Mr. May, the stranger who was looking forsome sort of "managing" job. Mr. May, who also was plump and who couldhold his tongue, but whose pink, fat face and light-blue eyes had aloud look, for all that, put the speech in his pipe and smoked it. Notthat he smoked a pipe: always cigarettes. But he seized on James'sadmission, as something to be made the most of.
Now Mr. May's mind, though quick, was pedestrian, not winged. He hadcome to Woodhouse not to look at Jordan's "Empire," but at thetemporary wooden structure that stood in the old Cattle Market"Wright's Cinematograph and Variety Theatre." Wright's was not asuperior show, like the Woodhouse Empire. Yet it was always packed withcolliers and work-lasses. But unfortunately there was no chance of Mr.May's getting a finger in the Cattle Market pie. Wright's was a familyaffair. Mr. and Mrs. Wright and a son and two daughters with theirhusbands: a tight old lock-up family concern. Yet it was the kind ofshow that appealed to Mr. May: pictures between the turns. Thecinematograph was but an item in the program, amidst the more thrillingincidents--to Mr. May--of conjurors, popular songs, five-minute farces,performing birds, and comics. Mr. May was too human to believe that ashow should consist entirely of the dithering eye-ache of a film.
He was becoming really depressed by his failure to find any opening.He had his family to keep--and though his honesty was of the varietysort, he had a heavy conscience in the direction of his wife anddaughter. Having been so long in America, he had acquired Americanqualities, one of which was this heavy sort of private innocence,coupled with complacent and natural unscrupulousness in "matters ofbusiness." A man of some odd sensitiveness in material things, he likedto have his clothes neat and spick, his linen immaculate, his faceclean-shaved like a cherub. But alas, his clothes were nowold-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartness was detrimentalto his chances, in spite of their scrupulous look of having come almostnew out of the bandbox that morning. His rather small felt hats stillcurved jauntily over his full pink face. But his eyes lookedlugubrious, as if he felt he had not deserved so much bad luck, andthere were bilious lines beneath them.
So Mr. May, in his room in the Moon and Stars, which was the bestinn in Woodhouse--he must have a good hotel--lugubriously consideredhis position. Woodhouse offered little or nothing. He must go toAlfreton. And would he find anything there? Ah, where, where in thishateful world was there refuge for a man saddled with responsibilities,who wanted to do his best and was given no opportunity? Mr. May hadtravelled in his Pullman car and gone straight to the best hotel in thetown, like any other American with money--in America. He had done itsmart, too. And now, in this grubby penny-picking England, he saw hisboots being worn-down at the heel, and was afraid of being strandedwithout cash even for a railway ticket. If he had to clear out withoutpaying his hotel bill--well, that was the world's fault. He had tolive. But he must perforce keep enough in hand for a ticket toBirmingham. He always said his wife was in London. And he always walkeddown to Lumley to post his letters. He was full of evasions.
So again he walked down to Lumley to post his letters. And he lookedat Lumley. And he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It was along straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a pale-grey dustand spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys bellying forth blacksmoke right by the road. Then there was a short cross-way, up which onesaw the iron foundry, a black and rusty place. A little further on wasthe railway junction, and beyond that, more houses stretching toHathersedge, where the stocking factories were busy. Compared withLumley, Woodhouse, whose church could be seen sticking up proudly andvulgarly on an eminence, above trees and meadow-slopes, was an idyllicheaven.
Mr. May turned in to the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey. And ofcourse he entered into conversation.
"You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley," he said, in his odd,refined-showman's voice. "Have younothing at all in the way ofamusement?"
"They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathersedge."
"But couldn't you support some place of your own--somerivalto Wright's Variety?"
"Ay--'appen--if somebody started it."
And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting acinema on the virgin soil of Lumley. To the women he said not a word.But on the very first morning that Mr. May broached the subject, hebecame a new man. He fluttered like a boy, he fluttered as if he hadjust grown wings.
"Let us go down," said Mr. May, "and look at a site. You pledgeyourself to nothing--you don't compromise yourself. You merely have asite in your mind."
And so it came to pass that, next morning, this oddly assortedcouple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby, in hisblack coat and dark grey trousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bentforward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if pursuedby fate. His face was thin and still handsome. Odd that his cheap cap,by incongruity, made him look more a gentleman. But it did. As hewalked he glanced alertly hither and thither, and salutedeverybody.
By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and hishead back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of aconsequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suitfitted exactly--save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket andwaistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade as thecloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe like hisshirt. His boots were black, with grey suede uppers: but alittle down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether helooked very spruce, though alittle behind the fashions: verypink faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath: very much on thespot, although the spot was the wrong one.
They discoursed amiably as they went, James bending forward, Mr. Maybending back. Mr. May took the refined man-of-the-world tone.
"Of course," he said--he used the two words very often, andpronounced the second, rather mincingly, to rhyme withsauce:"Of course," said Mr. May, "it's a disgusting place--disgusting!I never was in a worse, in all thecauce of my travels. Butthen--that isn't the point--"
He spread his plump hands from his immaculate shirt-cuffs.
"No, it isn't. Decidedly it isn't. That's beside the pointaltogether. What we want--" began James.
"Is an audience--ofcauce--! And we have it--! Virginsoil--!"
"Yes, decidedly. Untouched! An unspoiled market."
"An unspoiled market!" reiterated Mr. May, in full confirmation,though with a faint flicker of a smile. "How veryfortunate forus."
"Properly handled," said James. "Properly handled."
"Why yes--ofcauce! Whyshouldn't we handle itproperly!"
"Oh, we shall manage that, we shall manage that," came the quick,slightly husky voice of James.
"Ofcauce we shall! Why bless my life, if we can't manage anaudience in Lumley, whatcan we do."
"We have a guide in the matter of their taste," said James. "We cansee what Wright's are doing--and Jordan's--and we can go to Hathersedgeand Knarborough and Alfreton--beforehand, that is--"
"Why certainly--if you think it'snecessary. I'll do all thatfor you.And I'll interview the managers and the performersthemselves--as if I were a journalist, don't you see. I've done a fairamount of journalism, and nothing easier than to get cards from variousnewspapers."
"Yes, that's a good suggestion," said James. "As if you were goingto write an account in the newspapers--excellent."
"And so simple! You pick up justall the information yourequire."
"Decidedly--decidedly!" said James.
And so behold our two heroes sniffing round the sordid backs andwasted meadows and marshy places of Lumley. They found one barren patchwhere two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling potatoes, sittingon the bottom step of her caravan. A half-caste girl came up with alarge pale-blue enamelled jug of water. In the background were twobooths covered up with coloured canvas. Hammering was heard inside.
"Good-morning!" said Mr. May, stopping before the woman. "'Tisn'tfair time, is it?"
"No, it's no fair," said the woman.
"I see. You're just on your own. Getting on all right?"
"Fair," said the woman.
"Only fair! Sorry. Good-morning."
Mr. May's quick eye, roving round, had seen a negro stoop from underthe canvas that covered one booth. The negro was thin, and looked youngbut rather frail, and limped. His face was very like that of the youngnegro in Watteau's drawing--pathetic, wistful, north-bitten. In aninstant Mr. May had taken all in: the man was the woman's husband--theywere acclimatized in these regions: the booth where he had beenhammering was a Hoop-La. The other would be a cocoanut-shy. Feeling theinstant American dislike for the presence of a negro, Mr. May moved offwith James.
They found out that the woman was a Lumley woman, that she had twochildren, that the negro was a most quiet and respectable chap, butthat the family kept to itself, and didn't mix up with Lumley.
"I should think so," said Mr. May, a little disgusted even at thesuggestion.
Then he proceeded to find out how long they had stood on thisground--three months--how long they would remain--only another week,then they were moving off to Alfreton fair--who was the owner of thepitch--Mr. Bows, the butcher. Ah! And what was the ground used for? Oh,it was building land. But the foundation wasn't very good.
"The very thing! Aren't wefortunate!" cried Mr. May, perkingup the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and briskperkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o'clockwhiskey terribly--terribly--his pick-me-up! And he daren't confess itto James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and hollow wayup to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous exhaustion inthe private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his short nose. Thesmell of the place was distasteful to him. Thedisgusting beerthat the colliers drank. Oh!--hewas so tired. He sank back withhis whiskey and stared blankly, dismally in front of him. Beneath hiseyes he looked more bilious still. He felt thoroughly out of luck, andpetulant.
None the less he sallied out with all his old bright perkiness, thenext time he had to meet James. He hadn't yet broached the question ofcosts. When would he be able to get an advance from James? Hemust hurry the matter forward. He brushed his crisp, curly brownhair carefully before the mirror. How grey he was at the temples! Nowonder, dear me, with such a life! He was in his shirt-sleeves. Hiswaistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had filledout--but he hadn't developed a corporation. Not at all. He looked athimself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinner. He was one ofthose men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so that their tailsticks out a little behind, jauntily. How wonderfully the satin of hiswaistcoat had worn! He looked at his shirt-cuffs. They were going.Luckily, when he had had the shirts made he had secured enough materialfor the renewing of cuffs and neck-bands. He put on his coat, fromwhich he had flicked the faintest suspicion of dust, and again settledhimself to go out and meet James on the question of an advance. Hesimply must have an advance.
He didn't get it that day, none the less. The next morning he wasringing for his tea at six o'clock. And before ten he had alreadyflitted to Lumley and back, he had already had a word with Mr. Bows,about that pitch, and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with thequiet, frail, sad negro, about Alfreton fair, and the chance of buyingsome sort of collapsible building, for his cinematograph.
With all this news he met James--not at the shabby club, but in thedeserted reading-room of the so-called Artizans Hall--where never anartizan entered, but only men of James's class. Here they took thechess-board and pretended to start a game. But their conversation wasrapid and secretive.
Mr. May disclosed all his discoveries. And then he said,tentatively:
"Hadn't we better think about the financial part now? If we're goingto look round for an erection--" curious that he always called it anerection--"we shall have to know what we are going to spend."
"Yes--yes. Well--" said James vaguely, nervously, giving a glance atMr. May. Whilst Mr. May abstractedly fingered his black knight.
"You see at the moment," said Mr. May, "I have no funds that I canrepresent in cash. I have no doubt a littlelater--if we needit--I can find a few hundreds. Many things aredue--numbers ofthings. But it is so difficult tocollect one's dues,particularly from America." He lifted his blue eyes to James Houghton."Of course we candelay for some time, until I get my supplies.Or I can act just as your manager--you canemploy me--"
He watched James's face. James looked down at the chess-board. Hewas fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partner. He wanted tobe in this all by himself. He hated partners.
"You will agree to be manager, at a fixed salary?" said Jameshurriedly and huskily, his fine fingers slowly rubbing each other,along the sides.
"Why yes, willingly, if you'll give me the option of becoming yourpartner upon terms of mutual agreement, later on."
James did not quite like this.
"What terms are you thinking of?" he asked.
"Well, it doesn't matter for the moment. Suppose for the moment Ienter an engagement as your manager, at a salary, let us say, of--ofwhat, do you think?"
"So much a week?" said James pointedly.
"Hadn't we better make it monthly?"
The two men looked at one another.
"With a month's notice on either hand?" continued Mr. May. "Howmuch?" said James, avaricious.
Mr. May studied his own nicely kept hands.
"Well, I don't see how I can do it under twenty pounds a month. Ofcourse it's ridiculously low. In America Inever accepted lessthan three hundred dollars a month, and that was my poorest and lowest.But ofcauce, England's not America--more's the pity."
But James was shaking his head in a vibrating movement."Impossible!" he replied shrewdly. "Impossible! Twenty pounds a month?Impossible. I couldn't do it. I couldn't think of it."
"Then name a figure. Say what youcan think of," retorted Mr.May, rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a dodderingprovincial, and by his own sudden collapse into mean subordination.
"I can't make it more than ten pounds a month," said Jamessharply.
"What!" screamed Mr. May. "What am I to live on? What is my wife tolive on?"
"I've got to make it pay," said James. "If I've got to make it pay,I must keep down expenses at the beginning."
"No,--on the contrary. You must be prepared to spend something atthe beginning. If you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashion in thebeginning, you will get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month! Why it'simpossible! Ten pounds a month! But how am I tolive?"
James's head still vibrated in a negative fashion. And the two mencame to no agreementthat morning. Mr. May went home more sickand weary than ever, and took his whiskey more biliously. But James waslit with the light of battle.
Poor Mr. May had to gather together his wits and his sprightlinessfor his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in otherways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten pounds--butreally, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous in your life,ten pounds!--dirty old screw, dirty, screwing old woman! Hewould accept the ten pounds; but he would get his own back.
He flitted down once more to the negro, to ask him of a certainwooden show-house, with section sides and roof, an old travellingtheatre which stood closed on Selverhay Common, and might probably besold. He pressed across once more to Mr. Bows. He wrote various lettersand drew up certain notes. And the next morning, by eight o'clock, hewas on his way to Selverhay: walking, poor man, the long anduninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod feet,through country that had been once beautiful but was now scrubbled allover with mining villages, on and on up heavy hills and down others,asking his way from uncouth clowns, till at last he came to the Common,which wasn't a Common at all, but a sort of village more depressingthan usual: naked, high, exposed to heaven and to full barren view.
There he saw the theatre-booth. It was old and sordid-looking,painted dark-red and dishevelled with narrow, tattered announcements.The grass was growing high up the wooden sides. If only it wasn'trotten? He crouched and probed and pierced with his penknife, till acountry-policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got off hisbicycle and came stealthily across the grass wheeling the same bicycle,and startled poor Mr. May almost into apoplexy by demanding behind him,in a loud voice:
"What're you after?"
Mr. May rose up with flushed face and swollen neck-veins, holdinghis pen-knife in his hand.
"Oh," he said, "good-morning." He settled his waistcoat and glancedover the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "I wastaking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. I'mafraid it's going rotten from the bottom."
"Shouldn't wonder," said the policeman suspiciously, watching Mr.May shut the pocket knife.
"I'm afraid that makes it useless for my purpose," said Mr. May. Thepoliceman did not deign to answer.
"Could you tell me where I can find out about it, anyway?" Mr. Mayused his most affable, man of the world manner. But the policemancontinued to stare him up and down, as if he were some marvellousspecimen unknown on the normal, honest earth.
"What, find out?" said the constable.
"About being able to buy it," said Mr. May, a little testily. It waswith great difficulty he preserved his man-to-man openness andbrightness. "They aren't here," said the constable.
"Oh indeed! Whereare they? Andwho are they?"
The policeman eyed him more suspiciously than ever.
"Cowlard's their name. An' they live in Offerton when they aren'ttravelling."
"Cowlard--thank you." Mr. May took out his pocket-book."C-o-w-l-a-r-d--is that right? And the address, please?"
"I dunno th' street. But you can find out from the Three Bells.That's Missis' sister."
"The Three Bells--thank you. Offerton did you say?"
"Yes."
"Offerton!--where's that?"
"About eight mile."
"Really--and how do you get there?"
"You can walk--or go by train."
"Oh, there is a station?"
"Station!" The policeman looked at him as if he were either acriminal or a fool.
"Yes. Thereis a station there?"
"Ay--biggest next to Chesterfield--"
Suddenly it dawned on Mr. May.
"Oh-h!" he said. "You meanAlfreton--"
"Alfreton, yes." The policeman was now convinced the man was awrong-'un. But fortunately he was not a pushing constable, he did notwant to rise in the police-scale: thought himself safest at thebottom.
"And which is the way to the station here?" asked Mr. May. "Do yerwant Pinxon or Bull'ill?"
"Pinxon or Bull'ill?"
"There's two," said the policeman.
"For Selverhay?" asked Mr. May.
"Yes, them's the two."
"And which is the best?"
"Depends what trains is runnin'. Sometimes yer have to wait an houror two--"
"You don't know the trains, do you--?"
"There's one in th' afternoon--but I don't know if it'd be gone bythe time you get down."
"To where?"
"Bull'ill."
"Oh Bull'ill! Well, perhaps I'll try. Could you tell me theway?"
When, after an hour's painful walk, Mr. May came to Bullwell Stationand found there was no train till six in the evening, he felt he wasearning every penny he would ever get from Mr. Houghton.
The first intelligence which Miss Pinnegar and Alvina gathered ofthe coming adventure was given them when James announced that he hadlet the shop to Marsden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed totake over James's premises at the same rent as that of the premises healready occupied, and moreover to do all alterations and put in allfixtures himself. This was a grand scoop for James: not a penny was itgoing to cost him, and the rent was clear profit.
"But when?" cried Miss Pinnegar.
"He takes possession on the first of October."
"Well--it's a good idea. The shop isn't worth while," said MissPinnegar.
"Certainly it isn't," said James, rubbing his hands: a sign that hewas rarely excited and pleased.
"And you'll just retire, and live quietly," said Miss Pinnegar.
"I shall see," said James. And with those fatal words he wafted awayto find Mr. May.
James was now nearly seventy years old. Yet he nipped about like aleaf in the wind. Only, it was a frail leaf.
"Father's got something going," said Alvina, in a warning voice.
"I believe he has," said Miss Pinnegar pensively. "I wonder what itis, now."
"I can't imagine," laughed Alvina. "But I'll bet it's somethingawful--else he'd have told us."
"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar slowly. "Most likely he would. I wonderwhat it can be."
"I haven't an idea," said Alvina.
Both women were so retired, they had heard nothing of James's littletrips down to Lumley. So they watched like cats for their man's return,at dinner-time.
Miss Pinnegar saw him coming along talking excitedly to Mr. May,who, all in grey, with his chest perkily stuck out like a robin, waslooking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreement, he hadventured on whiskey and soda in honour, and James had actually taken aglass of port.
"Alvina!" Miss Pinnegar called discreetly down the shop. "Alvina!Quick!"
Alvina flew down to peep round the corner of the shop window. Therestood the two men, Mr. May like a perky, pink-faced grey bird standingcocking his head in attention to James Houghton, and occasionallycatching James by the lapel of his coat, in a vain desire to get a wordin, whilst James's head nodded and his face simply wagged with excitedspeech, as he skipped from foot to foot, and shifted round hislistener.
"Whoever can that common-looking man be?" said MissPinnegar, her heart going down to her boots.
"I can't imagine," said Alvina, laughing at the comic sight. "Don'tyou think he's dreadful?" said the poor elderly woman. "Perfectlyimpossible. Did ever you see such a pink face?"
"And the braid binding!" said Miss Pinnegar in indignation."Father might almost have sold him the suit," said Alvina.
"Let us hope he hasn't sold your father, that's all," said MissPinnegar.
The two men had moved a few steps further towards home, and thewomen prepared to flee indoors. Of course it was frightfully wrong tobe standing peeping in the high street at all. But who could considerthe proprieties now?
"They've stopped again," said Miss Pinnegar, recalling Alvina.
The two men were having a few more excited words, their voices justaudible.
"I do wonder who he can be," murmured Miss Pinnegar miserably. "Inthe theatrical line, I'm sure," declared Alvina.
"Do you think so?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Can't be! Can't be!"
"He couldn't be anything else, don't you think?"
"Oh Ican't believe it, I can't."
But now Mr. May had laid his detaining hand on James's arm. And nowhe was shaking his employer by the hand. And now James, in his cheaplittle cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a gracefulwave of his grey-suede-gloved hand, was turning back to the Moon andStars, strutting, whilst James was running home on tip-toe, in hisnatural hurry.
Alvina hastily retreated, but Miss Pinnegar stood it out. Jamesstarted as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her confrontinghim. "Oh--Miss Pinnegar!" he said, and made to slip by her.
"Who was that man?" she asked sharply, as if James were a child whomshe could endure no more.
"Eh? I beg your pardon?" said James, starting back.
"Who was that man?"
"Eh? Which man?"
James was a little deaf, and a little husky.
"The man--" Miss Pinnegar turned to the door. "There! That man!"
James also came to the door, and peered out as if he expected to seea sight. The sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty littlehat and the grey suede hands retreating quite surprised him. He wasangry at being introduced to the sight.
"Oh," he said. "That's my manager." And he turned hastily down theshop, asking for his dinner.
Miss Pinnegar stood for some moments in pure oblivion in the shopentrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recovered, she felt shewas on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened herselfonce more, though the effort cost her a year of her life. She had nevercollapsed, she had never fallen into hysteria.
She gathered herself together, though bent a little as from a blow,and, closing the shop door, followed James to the living room, like theinevitable. He was eating his dinner, and seemed oblivious of herentry. There was a smell of Irish stew.
"What manager?" said Pinnegar, short, silent, and inevitable in thedoorway.
But James was in one of his abstractions, his trances.
"What manager?" persisted Miss Pinnegar.
But he still bent unknowing over his plate and gobbled his Irishstew.
"Mr. Houghton!" said Miss Pinnegar, in a sudden changed voice. Shehad gone a livid yellow colour. And she gave a queer, sharp little rapon the table with her hand.
James started. He looked up bewildered, as one startled out ofsleep.
"Eh?" he said, gaping. "Eh?"
"Answer me," said Miss Pinnegar. "What manager?"
"Manager? Eh? Manager? What manager?"
She advanced a little nearer, menacing in her black dress. Jamesshrank.
"What manager?" he re-echoed. "My manager. The manager of mycinema."
Miss Pinnegar looked at him, and looked at him, and did not speak.In that moment all the anger which was due to him from all womanhoodwas silently discharged at him, like a black bolt of silentelectricity. But Miss Pinnegar, the engine of wrath, felt she wouldburst.
"Cinema! Cinema! Do you mean to tell me--" but she was reallysuffocated, the vessels of her heart and breast were bursting. She hadto lean her hand on the table.
It was a terrible moment. She looked ghastly and terrible, with hermask-like face and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. Some fearfulthunderbolt seemed to fall. James withered, and was still. There wassilence for minutes, a suspension.
And in those minutes, she finished with him. She finished with himfor ever. When she had sufficiently recovered, she went to her chair,and sat down before her plate. And in a while she began to eat, as ifshe were alone.
Poor Alvina, for whom this had been a dreadful and uncalled-formoment, had looked from one to another, and had also dropped her headto her plate. James too, with bent head, had forgotten to eat. MissPinnegar ate very slowly, alone.
"Don't you want your dinner, Alvina?" she said at length. "Not asmuch as I did," said Alvina.
"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. She sounded short, almost like MissFrost. Oddly like Miss Frost.
Alvina took up her fork and began to eat automatically.
"I always think," said Miss Pinnegar, "Irish stew is more tasty witha bit of Swede" in it."
"So do I, really," said Alvina. "But Swedes aren't come yet."
"Oh! Didn't we have some on Tuesday?"
"No, they were yellow turnips--but they weren't Swedes."
"Well then, yellow turnip. I like a little yellow turnip," said MissPinnegar.
"I might have put some in, if I'd known," said Alvina.
"Yes. We will another time," said Miss Pinnegar.
Not another word about the cinema: not another breath. As soon asJames had eaten his plum tart, he ran away.
"What can he have been doing?" said Alvina when he had gone. "Buyinga cinema show--and that man we saw is his manager. It's quitesimple."
"But what are we going to do with a cinema show?" said Alvina.
"It's what ishe going to do. It doesn't concern me. It's noconcern of mine. I shall not lend him anything, I shall not think aboutit, it will be the same to me as if therewere no cinema. Whichis all I have to say," announced Miss Pinnegar.
"But he's gone and done it," said Alvina.
"Then let him go through with it. It's no affair of mine. After all,your father's affairs don't concern me. It would be impertinent of meto introduce myself into them."
"They don't concernme very much," said Alvina.
"You're different. You're his daughter. He's no connection of mine,I'm glad to say. I pity your mother."
"Oh, but he was always alike," said Alvina.
"That's where it is," said Miss Pinnegar.
There was something fatal about her feelings. Once they had gonecold, they would never warm up again. As well try to warm up a frozenmouse. It only putrifies.
But poor Miss Pinnegar after this looked older, and seemed to get alittle round-backed. And the things she said reminded Alvina so oftenof Miss Frost.
James fluttered into conversation with his daughter the nextevening, after Miss Pinnegar had retired.
"I told you I had bought a cinematograph building," said James. "Weare negotiating for the machinery now: the dynamo and so on."
"But where is it to be?" asked Alvina.
"Down at Lumley. I'll take you and show you the site tomorrow. Thebuilding--it is a frame-section travelling theatre--will arrive onThursday--next Thursday."
"But who is in with you, father?"
"I am quite alone--quite alone," said James Houghton. "I have foundan excellent manager, who knows the whole business thoroughly--a Mr.May. Very nice man. Very nice man."
"Rather short and dressed in grey?"
"Yes. And I have been thinking--if Miss Pinnegar will take the cashand issue tickets: if she will take over the ticket-office: and youwill play the piano: and if Mr. May learns the control of themachine--he is having lessons now--: and if I am the indoors attendant,we shan't need any more staff."
"Miss Pinnegar won't take the cash, father."
"Why not? Why not?"
"I can't say why not. But she won't do anything--and if I were you Iwouldn't ask her."
There was a pause.
"Oh, well," said James, huffy. "She isn't indispensable."
And Alvina was to play the piano! Here was a blow for her! Shehurried off to her bedroom to laugh and cry at once. She just sawherself at that piano, banging off theMerry Widow Waltz, and,in tender moments,The Rosary. Time after time,TheRosary. While the pictures flickered and the audience gave shoutsand some grubby boy called "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, penny abar! Chot-let, penny a bar!" away she banged at another tune.
What a sight for the gods! She burst out laughing. And at the sametime, she thought of her mother and Miss Frost, and she cried as if herheart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous tunescame into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with mostpriceless variations.Linger Longer Lucy, for example. She beganto spin imaginary harmonies and variations in her head, upon the themeofLinger Longer Lucy.
Linger longer Lucy, linger longer Loo.How I love to linger longer linger long o' you.Listen while I sing, love, promise you'll be true,And linger longer longer linger linger longer Loo.
All the tunes that used to make Miss Frost so angry. All the DreamWaltzes and Maiden's Prayers, and the awful songs.
For in Spooney-ooney IslandIs there any one cares for me?In Spooney-ooney IslandWhy surely there ought to be.
Poor Miss Frost! Alvina imagined herself leading a chorus of collierlouts, in a bad atmosphere of "Woodbines" and oranges, during theintervals when the pictures had collapsed.
How'd you like to spoon with me?How'd you like to spoon with me?(Why ra-ther!)Underneath the oak-tree nice and shadyCalling me your tootsey-wootsey lady?How'd you like to hug and squeeze,(Just try me!)Dandle me upon your knee,Calling me your little lovey-doveyHow'd you like to spoon with me?(Oh-h--Go on!)
Alvina worked herself into quite a fever, with her imaginings. Inthe morning she told Miss Pinnegar.
"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar, "you see me issuing tickets, don't you?Yes--well. I'm afraid he will have to do that part himself. And you'regoing to play the piano. It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's adisgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead. He's lostevery bit of shame--every bit--if he ever had any--which I doubt verymuch. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I am not concerned. And I'm sorryfor you, for being his daughter. I'm heart sorry for you, I am. Well,well--no sense of shame--no sense of shame--"
And Miss Pinnegar padded out of the room.
Alvina walked down to Lumley and was shown the site and wasintroduced to Mr. May. He bowed to her in his best American fashion,and treated her with admirable American deference.
"Don't you think," he said to her, "it's an admirable scheme?"
"Wonderful," she replied.
"Of cauce," he said, "the erection will be a merely temporary one.Of cauce it won't be anything tolook at: just an old woodentravelling theatre. Butthen--all we need is to make astart."
"And you are going to work the film?" she asked.
"Yes," he said with pride, "I spend every evening with the operatorat Marsh's in Knarborough. Very interesting I find it--very interestingindeed. Andyou are going to play the piano?" he said, perkinghis head on one side and looking at her archly.
"So father says," she answered.
"But what doyou say?" queried Mr. May.
"I suppose I don't have any say."
"Oh butsurely. Surely you won't do it if you don't wish to.That would never do. Can't we hire some young fellow--?" And he turnedto Mr. Houghton with a note of query.
"Alvina can play as well as anybody in Woodhouse," said James. "Wemustn't add to our expenses. And wages in particular--"
"But surely Miss Houghton will have her wage. The labourer is worthyof his hire. Surely! Even ofher hire, to put it in thefeminine. And for the same wage you could get some unimportant fellowwith strong wrists. I'm afraid it will tire Miss Houghton todeath--"
"I don't think so," said James. "I don't think so. Many of the turnsshe will not need to accompany--"
"Well, if it comes to that," said Mr. May, "I can accompany some ofthem myself, when I'm not operating the film. I'm not an expertpianist--but I can play a little, you know--" And he trilled hisfingers up and down an imaginary keyboard in front of Alvina, cockinghis eye at her smiling a little archly.
"I'm sure," he continued, "I can accompany anything except a manjuggling dinner-plates--and then I'd be afraid of making him drop theplates. But songs--oh, songs!Con molto espressione!"
And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, and smiled his ratherfat cheeks at Alvina.
She began to like him. There was something a little dainty abouthim, when you knew him better--really rather fastidious. A showman,true enough! Blatant too. But fastidiously so.
He came fairly frequently to Manchester House after this. MissPinnegar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her. But he wasvery happy sitting chatting tête-à-tête withAlvina.
"Where is your wife?" said Alvina to him.
"My wife! Oh, don't speak ofher," he said comically. "She'sin London."
"Why not speak of her?" asked Alvina.
"Oh, every reason for not speaking of her. We don't get on atall well, she and I."
"What a pity," said Alvina.
"Dreadful pity! But what are you to do?" He laughed comically. Thenhe became grave. "No," he said. "She's an impossible person."
"I see," said Alvina.
"I'm sure youdon't see," said Mr. May. "Don't--" and here helaid his hand on Alvina's arm--"don't run away with the idea that she'simmoral! You'd never make a greater mistake. Oh dear me, no.Morality's her strongest point. Live on three lettuce leaves, and givethe rest to the char. That's her. Oh, dreadful times we had in thosefirst years. We only lived together for three years. But dearme! how awful it was!"
"Why?"
"There was no pleasing the woman. She wouldn't eat. If I said to her'What shall we have for supper, Grace?' as sure as anything she'danswer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to bed--that will be mysupper.' She was one of these advanced vegetarian women, don't youknow."
"How extraordinary!" said Alvina.
"Extraordinary! I should think so. Extraordinary hard lines onme. And she wouldn't letme eat either. She followed meto the kitchen in afury while I cooked for myself. Why imagine!I prepared a dish of champignons: oh, mostbeautifulchampignons, beautiful--and I put them on the stove to fry in butter:beautiful young champignons. I'm hanged if she didn't go into thekitchen while my back was turned, and pour a pint of old carrot-waterinto the pan. I wasfurious. Imagine!--beautiful fresh youngchampignons--"
"Fresh mushrooms," said Alvina.
"Mushrooms--most beautiful things in the world. Oh! don't you thinkso?" And he rolled his eyes oddly to heaven.
"Theyare good," said Alvina.
"I should say so. And swamped--swamped with her dirty oldcarrot water. Oh I was so angry. And all she could say was, 'Well, Ididn't want to waste it!' Didn't want to waste her old carrot water,and soruined my champignons.Can you imagine such aperson?"
"It must have been trying."
"I should think it was. I lost weight. I lost I don't know how manypounds, the first year I was married to that woman. She hated me toeat. Why, one of her great accusations against me, at the last, waswhen she said: 'I've looked round the larder,' she said to me, 'andseen it was quite empty, and I thought to myselfNow hecan't cook a supper! Andthen you did!' There! What doyou think of that? The spite of it! 'Andthen you did!"
"What did she expect you to live on?" asked Alvina.
"Nibble a lettuce leaf with her, and drink water from the tap--andthen elevate myself with a Bernard Shaw pamphlet. That was the sort ofwoman she was. All it gaveme was gas in the stomach."
"So overbearing!" said Alvina.
"Oh!" he turned his eyes to heaven, and spread his hands. "I didn'tbelieve my senses. I didn't know such people existed. And her friends!Oh the dreadful friends she had--these Fabians!" Oh, their eugenics.They wanted to examine my private morals, for eugenic reasons. Oh, youcan't imagine such a state. Worse than the Spanish Inquisition. And Istood it for three years.How I stood it, I don't know--"
"Now don't you see her?"
"Never! I never let her know where I am! But Isupport her,of cauce."
"And your daughter?"
"Oh, she's the dearest child in the world. I saw her at a friend'swhen I came back from America. Dearest little thing in the world. Butofcauce suspicious of me. Treats me as if she didn'tknow me--"
"What a pity!"
"Oh--unbearable!" He spread his plump, manicured hands, on onefinger of which was a green intaglio ring.
"How old is your daughter?"
"Fourteen."
"What is her name?"
"Lemma. She was born in Rome, where I was managing for Miss MaudCallum, thedanseuse."
Curious the intimacy Mr. May established with Alvina at once. But itwas all purely verbal, descriptive. He made no physical advances. Onthe contrary, he was like a dove-grey, disconsolate bird pecking thecrumbs of Alvina's sympathy, and cocking his eye all the time to watchthat she did not advance one step towards him. If he had seen the leastsign of coming-on-ness in her, he would have fluttered off in a greatdither. Nothinghorrified him more than a woman who wascoming-on towards him. It horrified him, it exasperated him, it madehim hate the whole tribe of women: horrific two-legged cats withoutwhiskers. If he had been a bird, his innate horror of a cat would havebeen such. He liked theangel, and particularly the angel-motherin woman. Oh!--that he worshipped. But coming-on-ness!
So he never wanted to be seen out-of-doors with Alvina; if he mether in the street he bowed and passed on: bowed very deep andreverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back a little morestrutty and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back on her inpublic.
But Miss Pinnegar, a regular old, grey, dangerous she-puss, eyed himfrom the corner of her pale eye, as he turned tail.
"So unmanly!" she murmured. "In his dress, in his way, ineverything--so unmanly."
"If I was you, Alvina," she said, "I shouldn't see so much of Mr.May, in the drawing-room. People will talk."
"I should almost feel flattered," laughed Alvina.
"What do you mean?" snapped Miss Pinnegar.
None the less, Mr. May was dependable in matters of business. He wasup at half-past five in the morning, and by seven was well on his way.He sailed like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze, hither andthither, out of Woodhouse and back again, and across from side to side.Sharp and snappy, he was, on the spot. He trussed himself up, when hewas angry or displeased, and sharp, snip-snap came his words, ratherlike scissors.
"But how is it--" he attacked Arthur Witham--"that the gas isn'tconnected with the main yet? It was to be ready yesterday."
"We've had to wait for the fixings for them brackets," saidArthur.
"Had towait forfixings! But didn't you know afortnight ago that you'd want the fixings?"
"I thought we should have some as would do."
"Oh! you thought so! Really! Kind of you to think so. And have youjust thought about those that are coming, or have you made sure?"
Arthur looked at him sullenly. He hated him. But Mr. May's sharptouch was not to be foiled.
"I hope you'll go further thanthinking," said Mr. May."Thinking seems such a slow process. And when do you expect thefittings--?"
"Tomorrow."
"What! Another day! Another daystill! But you're strangelyindifferent to time, in your line of business. Oh!Tomorrow!Imagine it! Two days late already, and thentomorrow! Well Ihope by tomorrow you meanWednesday, and not tomorrow'stomorrow, or some other absurd and fanciful date that you've justthought about. But now,do have the thing finished bytomorrow--" here he laid his hand cajoling on Arthur's arm. "Youpromise me it will all be ready by tomorrow, don't you?"
"Yes, I'll do it if anybody could do it."
"Don't say 'if anybody could do it.' Say it shall be done."
"It shall if I can possibly manage it--"
"Oh--very well then. Mind you manage it--and thank you very much. Ishall bemost obliged, if itis done."
Arthur was annoyed, but he was kept to the scratch. And so, early inOctober the place was ready, and Woodhouse was plastered with placardsannouncing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could not but seean irony in the Palace part of the phrase. "We can guarantee thepleasure," he said. "But personally, I feel I can't take theresponsibility for the palace."
But James, to use the vulgar expression, was in his eye-holes. "Oh,father's in his eye-holes," said Alvina to Mr. May.
"Oh!" said Mr. May, puzzled and concerned.
But it merely meant that James was having the time of his life. Hewas drawing out announcements. First was a batch of vermilion strips,with the mystic script, in big black letters: Houghton's PicturePalace, underneath which, quite small: Opens at Lumley on October 7th,at 6:30 P.M. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and black bars sprangfrom the wall at you. Then there were other notices, in delicatepale-blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre notice, giving fullprograms. And beneath these a broad-letter notice announced, in greenletters on a yellow ground: "Final and Ultimate Clearance Sale atHoughton's, Knarborough Road, on Friday, September 30th. Come and BuyWithout Price."
James was in his eye-holes. He collected all his odds and ends fromevery corner of Manchester House. He sorted them in heaps, and markedthe heaps in his own mind. And then he let go. He pasted up notices allover the window and all over the shop: "Take what you want and Pay whatyou Like."
He and Miss Pinnegar kept shop. The women flocked in. They turnedthings over. It nearly killed James to take the prices they offered.But take them he did. But he exacted that they should buy one articleat a time. "One piece at a time, if you don't mind," he said, when theycame up with their three-a-penny handfuls. It was not till later in theevening that he relaxed this rule.
Well, by eleven o'clock he had cleared out a good deal--really, avery great deal--and many women had bought what they didn't want, attheir own figure. Feverish but content, James shut the shop for thelast time. Next day, by eleven, he had removed all his belongings, thedoor that connected the house with the shop was screwed up fast, thegrocer strolled in and looked round his bare extension, took the keyfrom James, and immediately set his boy to paste a new notice in thewindow, tearing down all James's announcements. Poor James had to runround, down Knarborough Road, and down Wellington Street as far as theLivery Stable, then down long narrow passages, before he could get intohis own house, from his own shop.
But he did not mind. Every hour brought the first performance of hisPleasure Palace nearer. He was satisfied with Mr. May: he had to admitthat he was satisfied with Mr. May. The Palace stood firm at last--oh,it was so ricketty when it arrived!--and it glowed with a new coat, allover, of dark-red paint, like ox-blood. It was tittivated up with atouch of lavender and yellow round the door and round the decoratedwooden eaving. It had a new wooden slope up to the doors--and inside, anew wooden floor, with red-velvet seats in front, before the curtain,and old chapel-pews behind. The collier youths recognized the pews.
"Hey! These 'ere's the pews out of the old Primitive Chapel."
"Sorry ah! We'n come ter hear t' parson."
Theme for endless jokes. And the Pleasure Palace was christened, insome lucky stroke, Houghton's Endeavour, a reference to that particularChapel effort called the Christian Endeavour, where Alvina and MissPinnegar both figured.
"Wheer art off, Sorry?"
"Lumley."
"Houghton's Endeavour?"
"Ah."
"Rotten."
So, when one laconic young collier accosted another. But weanticipate.
Mr. May had worked hard to get a program for the first week. Hispictures were: "The Human Bird," which turned out to be a ski-ing filmfrom Norway, purely descriptive; "The Pancake," a humorous film: andthen his grand serial: "The Silent Grip." And then, for Turns, hisfirst item was Miss Poppy Trherne, a lady in innumerable petticoats,who could whirl herself into anything you like, from an arum lily ingreen stockings to a rainbow and a Catherine wheel and acup-and-saucer: marvellous, was Miss Poppy Traherne. The next turn wasThe Baxter Brothers, who ran up and down each other's backs and up anddown each other's front, and stood on each other's heads and on theirown heads, and perched for a moment on each other's shoulders, as ifeach of them was a flight of stairs with a landing, and the three ofthem were three flights, three storeys up, the top flight continuallyrunning down and becoming the bottom flight, while the middle flightcollapsed and became a horizontal corridor.
Alvina had to open the performance by playing an overture called"Welcome All": a ridiculous piece. She was excited and unhappy. On theMonday morning there was a rehearsal, Mr. May conducting. She played"Welcome All," and then took the thumbed sheets which Miss PoppyTraherne carried with her. Miss Poppy was rather exacting. As shewhirled her skirts she kept saying: "A little faster, please"--"Alittle slower"--in a rather haughty, official voice that was somewhatmuffled by the swim of her drapery. "Can you give itexpression?" she cried, as she got the arum lily in full blow,and there was a sound of real ecstasy in her tones. But why she shouldhave called "Stronger! Stronger!" as she came into being as a cup andsaucer, Alvina could not imagine: unless Miss Poppy was fancyingherself a strong cup of tea.
However, she subsided into her mere self, panted frantically, andthen, in a hoarse voice, demanded if she was in the bare front of theshow. She scorned to count "Welcome All." Mr. May said Yes. She was thefirst item. Whereupon she began to raise a dust. Mr. Houghton said,hurriedly interposing, that he meant to make a little opening speech.Miss Poppy eyed him as if he were a cuckoo-clock, and she had to waittill he'd finished cuckooing. Then she said:
"That's not every night. There's six nights to a week." James wasproperly snubbed. It ended by Mr. May metamorphizing himself into a pugdog: he said he had got the "costoom" in his bag: and doing alump-of-sugar scene with one of the Baxter Brothers, as a brief firstitem. Miss Poppy's professional virginity was thus saved fromoutrage.
At the back of the stage there was half-a-yard of curtain screeningthe two dressing-rooms, ladies and gents. In her spare time Alvina satin the ladies' dressing room, or in its lower doorway, for there wasnot room right inside. She watched the ladies making up--she gave someslight assistance. She saw the men's feet, in their shabby pumps, onthe other side of the curtain, and she heard the men's gruff voices.Often a slangy conversation was carried on through the curtain--formost of the turns were acquainted with each other: very affable beforeeach other's faces, very sniffy behind each other's backs.
Poor Alvina was in a state of bewilderment. She was extremelynice--oh, much too nice with the female turns. They treated her with asort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her andwere a little spiteful with her because Mr. May treated her withattention and deference. She felt bewildered, a little excited, and asif she was not herself.
The first evening actually came. Her father had produced a pinkcrêpe de Chine blouse and a back-comb massed withbrilliants--both of which she refused to wear. She stuck to her blackblouse and black shirt, and her simple hair-dressing. Mr. May said "Ofcauce! She wasn't intended to attract attention to herself." MissPinnegar actually walked down the hill with her, and began to cry whenshe saw the oxblood red erection, with its gas-flares in front. It wasthe first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the littlestage door at the back, and up the steps into the scrap ofdressing-room. But she fled out again from the sight of Miss Poppy inher yellow hair and green knickers with green-lace frills. Poor MissPinnegar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the Band ofHope, and really cried. Luckily she had put a veil on.
She went valiantly round to the front entrance, and climbed thesteps. The crowd was just coming. There was James's face peeping insidethe little ticket-window.
"One!" he said officially, pushing out the ticket. And then herecognized her. "Oh," he said, "You're not going to pay."
"Yes I am," she said, and she left her fourpence, and James'scoppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss Pinnegarshoved her forward.
"Ail way down, fourpenny," said the man at the door, poking her inthe direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet. Butshe marched down one of the pews, and took her seat.
The place was crowded with a whooping, whistling, excited audience.The curtain was down. James had let it out to his fellow tradesmen, andit represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat porker anda fat pork-pie, and the pig was saying: "You all know where to find me.Inside the crust at Frank Churchill's, Knarborough Road, Woodhouse."Round about the name of W. H. Johnson floated a bowler hat, acollar-and-necktie, a pair of braces and an umbrella. And so on and soon. It all made you feel very homely. But Miss Pinnegar was sadly hotand squeezed in her pew.
Time came, and the colliers began to drum their feet. It was exactlythe excited, crowded audience Mr. May wanted. He darted out to driveJames round in front of the curtain. But James, fascinated by raking inthe money so fast, could not be shifted from the pay-box, and the twomen nearly had a fight. At last Mr. May was seen shooing James, like ascuffled chicken, down the side gangway and on to the stage.
James before the illuminated curtain of local adverts, bowing andbeginning and not making a single word audible! The crowd quieteditself, the eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James, and beganto shuffle. "Come down, come down!" hissed Mr. May frantically from infront. But James did not move. He would flow on all night. Mr. Maywaved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at the piano, and dartedon to the stage. He raised his voice and drowned James. James ceased towave his penny-blackened hands, Alvina struck up "Welcome All" asloudly and emphatically as she could.
And all the time Miss Pinnegar sat like a sphinx--like a sphinx.What she thought she did not know herself. But stolidly she stared atJames, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina. Sheknew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr. May wasfitted in his pug-dog "Costoom."
A twitch of the curtain. Alvina wound up her final flourish, thecurtain rose, and:
"Well really!" said Miss Pinnegar, out loud.
There was Mr. May as a pug dog begging, too lifelike and tooimpossible. The audience shouted. Alvina sat with her hands in her lap.The Pug was a great success.
Curtain! A few bars of Toreador--and then Miss Poppy's sheets ofmusic. Soft music. Miss Poppy was on the ground under a green scarf.And so the accumulating dilation, on to the whirling climax of theperfect arum lily. Sudden curtain, and a yell of ecstasy from thecolliers. Of all blossoms, the arum, the arum lily is most mystical andportentous.
Now a crash and rumble from Alvina's piano. This is the storm fromwhence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain--Miss Poppy twirlingtill her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow aboveher now darkened legs. The footlights are all but extinguished. MissPoppy is all but extinguished also.
The rainbow is not so moving as the arum lily. But the Catherinewheel, done at the last moment on one leg and then an amazing leap intothe air backwards, again brings down the house.
Miss Poppy herself sets all store on her cup and saucer. But theaudience, vulgar as ever, cannot quite see it.
And so, Alvina slips away with Miss Poppy's music-sheets, while Mr.May sits down like a professional at the piano and makes things fly forthe up-and-down-stairs Baxter Bros. Meanwhile, Alvina's pale facehovering like a ghost in the side darkness, as it were under thestage.
The lamps go out: gurglings and kissings--and then the dither on thescreen: "The Human Bird," in awful shivery letters. It's not a verygood machine, and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audiencedistinctly critical. Lights up--an "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let,penny a bar!" even as in Alvina's dream--and then "The Pancake"--so thefirst half over. Lights up for the interval.
Miss Pinnegar sighed and folded her hands. She looked neither toright nor to left. In spite of herself, in spite of outraged shame anddecency, she was excited. But she felt such excitement was notwholesome. In vain the boy most pertinently yelled "Chot-let" at her.She looked neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina noddingto her with a quick smile from the side gangway under the stage, shealmost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at once. AndAlvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped across in frontof the audience, to the piano, to play the seductive "Dream Waltz!" shelooked almost fussy, like her father. James, needless to say, flitteredand hurried hither and thither around the audience and the stage, likea wagtail on the brink of a pool.
The second half consisted of a comic drama acted by two BaxterBros., disguised as women, and Miss Poppy disguised as a man--with acouple of locals thrown in to do the guardsman and the Count. This wentvery well. The winding up was the first instalment of "The SilentGrip."
When lights went up and Alvina solemnly struck "God Save OurGracious King," the audience was on its feet and not very quiet,evidently hissing with excitement like doughnuts in the pan even whenthe pan is taken off the fire. Mr. Houghton thanked them for theircourtesy and attention, and hoped--And nobody took the slightestnotice.
Miss Pinnegar stayed last, waiting for Alvina. And Alvina, in herexcitement, waited for Mr. May and her father.
Mr. May fairly pranced into the empty hall.
"Well!" he said, shutting both his fists and flourishing them inMiss Pinnegar's face. "How did it go?"
"I think it went very well," she said.
"Very well! I should think so, indeed. It went like a house on fire.What? Didn't it?" And he laughed a high, excited little laugh.
James was counting pennies for his life, in the cash-place, anddropping them into a Gladstone bag. The others had to wait for him. Atlast he locked his bag.
"Well," said Mr. May, "done well?"
"Fairly well," said James, huskily excited. "Fairly well."
"Only fairly? Oh-h!" And Mr. May suddenly picked up the bag. Jamesturned as if he would snatch it from him. "Well! Feel that, for fairlywell!" said Mr. May, handing the bag to Alvina.
"Goodness!" she cried, handing it to Miss Pinnegar.
"Would you believe it?" said Miss Pinnegar, relinquishing it toJames. But she spoke coldly, aloof.
Mr. May turned off the gas at the meter, came talking through thedarkness of the empty theatre, picking his way with a flash-light.
"C'est le premier pas qui coute," he said, in a sort of AmericanFrench, as he locked the doors and put the key in his pocket. Jamestripped silently alongside, bowed under the weight of his Gladstone bagof pennies.
"How much have we taken, father?" asked Alvina gaily.
"I haven't counted," he snapped.
When he got home he hurried upstairs to his bare chamber. He swepthis table clear, and then, in an expert fashion, he seized handfuls ofcoin and piled them in little columns on his board. There was an armyof fat pennies, a dozen to a column, along the back, rows and rows offat brown rank-and-file. In front of these, rows of slim halfpence,like an advance-guard. And commanding all, a stout column ofhalf-crowns, a few stoutish and important florin-figures, like generaland colonels, then quite a file of shillings, like so many captains,and a little cloud of silvery lieutenant sixpences. Right at the end,like a frail drummer boy, a thin stick of three-penny pieces.
There they all were: burly dragoons of stout pennies, heavy andholding their ground, with a screen of halfpenny light infantry,officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn wasflanked by all his staff of florin colonels and shilling captains, fromwhom lightly moved the nimble six-penny lieutenants all ignoring thewan, frail Joey of the threepenny-bits.
Time after time James ran his almighty eye over his army. He lovedthem. He loved to feel that his table was pressed down, that it groanedunder their weight. He loved to see the pence, like innumerable pillarsof cloud, standing waiting to lead on into wildernesses of unopenedresource, while the silver, as pillars of light, should guide the waydown the long night of fortune. Their weight sank sensually into hismuscle, and gave him gratification. The dark redness of bronze, likefull-blooded fleas, seemed alive and pulsing, the silver was magic asif winged.
Mr. May and Alvina became almost inseparable, and Woodhouse buzzedwith scandal. Woodhouse could not believe that Mr. May was absolutelyfinal in his horror of any sort of coming-on-ness in a woman. It couldnot believe that he was onlyso fond of Alvina because she waslike a sister to him, poor, lonely, harassed soul that he was: a puresister who really hadn't any body. For although Mr. May was ratherfond, in an epicurean way, of his own body, yet other people's bodiesrather made him shudder. So that his grand utterance on Alvina was:"She's not physical, she's mental."
He even explained to her one day how it was, in his naïvefashion.
"There are two kinds of friendships," he said, "physical and mental.The physical is a thing of the moment. Of cauce you quitelikethe individual, you remain quite nice with them, and so on,--to keepthe thing as decent as possible. It is quite decent, so long as youkeep it so. But it is a thing of the moment. Which you know. It maylast a week or two, or a month or two. But you know from the beginningit is going to end--quite finally--quite soon. You take it for what itis. But it's so different with the mental friendships.They arelasting. They are eternal--if anything human (he said yuman) ever iseternal, evercan be eternal." He pressed his hands together inan odd cherubic manner. He was quite sincere: if man evercan bequite sincere.
Alvina was quite content to be one of his mental and eternalfriends, or ratherfriendships--since she existed inabstractu as far as he was concerned. For she did not find himat all physically moving. Physically he was not there: he was oddly anabsentee. But his naïveté roused the serpent's tooth of herbitter irony.
"And your wife?" she said to him.
"Oh, my wife! Dreadful thought!There I made the greatmistake of trying to find the two in one person! Anddidn't Ifall between two stools! Oh dear,didn't I? Oh, I fell betweenthe two stools beautifully, beautifully! Andthen--she nearlyset the stools on top of me. I thought I should never get up again.When I was physical, she was mental--Bernard Shaw and cold baths forsupper!--and when I was mental she was physical, and threw her armsround my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning, when Iwas on the alert for business. Yes, invariably. What do you think ofit? Could the devil himself have invented anything more trying? Oh dearme, don't mention it. Oh, what a time I had! Wonder I'm alive. Yes,really! Although you smile."
Alvina did more than smile. She laughed outright. And yet sheremained good friends with the odd little man.
He bought himself a new, smart overcoat, that fitted his figure, anda new velour hat. And she even noticed, one day when he was curlinghimself up cosily on the sofa, that he had pale blue silk underwear,and purple silk suspenders. She wondered where he got them, and how heafforded them. But there they were.
James seemed for the time being wrapt in hisundertaking--particularly in the takings part of it. He seemed for thetime being contented--or nearly so, nearly so. Certainly there wasmoney coming in. But then he had to pay off all he had borrowed to buyhis erection and its furnishings, and a bulk of pennies sublimated intoa very small £.S.D. account, at the bank.
The Endeavour was successful--yes, it was successful. But notoverwhelmingly so. On wet nights Woodhouse did not care to trail downto Lumley. And then Lumley was one of those depressed, negative spotson the face of the earth which have no pull at all. In that region ofsharp hills with fine hill-brows, and shallow, rather drearycanal-valleys, it was the places on the hill-brows, like Woodhouse andHathersedge and Rapton which flourished, while the dreary places downalong the canals existed only for work-places, not for life andpleasure. It was just like James to have planted his endeavour down inthe stagnant dust and rust of potteries and foundries, where noillusion could bloom.
He had dreamed of crowded houses every night, and of raised prices.But there was no probability of his being able to raise his prices. Hehad to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rate fromthe start. His hope now lay in the tramway which was being built fromKnarborough away through the country--a black country indeed--throughWoodhouse and Lumley and Hathersedge, to Rap-ton. When once thistramway-system was working, he would have a supply of youths and lassesalways on tap, as it were. So he spread his rainbow wings towards thefuture, and began to say:
"When we've got the trams, I shall buy a new machine and finerlenses, and I shall extend my premises."
Mr. May did not talk business to Alvina. He was terribly secretivewith respect to business. But he said to her once, in the early yearfollowing their opening:
"Well, how do you think we're doing, Miss Houghton?"
"We're not doing any better than we did at first, I think," shesaid. "No," he answered. "No! That's true. That's perfectly true. Butwhy? They seem to like the programs."
"I think they do," said Alvina. "I think they like them when they'rethere. But isn't it funny, they don't seem to want to come to them. Iknow they always talk as if we were second-rate. And they only comebecause they can't get to the Empire, or up to Hathersedge. We're astop-gap. I know we are."
Mr. May looked down in the mouth. He cocked his blue eyes at her,miserable and frightened. Failure began to frighten him abjectly. "Whydo you think that is?" he said.
"I don't believe they like the turns," she said.
"But look how they applaud them!Look how pleased theyare!"
"I know. I know they like them once they're there, and they seethem. But they don't come again. They crowd the Empire--and the Empireis only pictures now: and it's much cheaper to run."
He watched her dismally.
"I can't believe they want nothing but pictures. I can't believethey want everything in the flat," he said, coaxing and miserable. Hehimself was not interested in the film. His interest was still thehuman interest in living performers and their living feats. "Why," hecontinued, "they are ever so much more excited after a good turn, thanafter any film."
"I know they are," said Alvina. "But I don't believe they want to beexcited in that way."
"In what way?" asked Mr. May plaintively.
"By the things which the artistes do. I believe they'rejealous."
"Oh nonsense!" exploded Mr. May, starting as if he had been shot.Then he laid his hand on her arm. "But forgive my rudeness! I don'tmean it, ofcauce! But do you mean to say that these collierlouts and factory girls are jealous of the things the artistes do,because they could never do them themselves?"
"I'm sure they are," said Alvina.
"But Ican't believe it," said Mr. May, pouting up his mouthand smiling at her as if she were a whimsical child. "What a lowopinion you have of human nature!"
"Have I?" laughed Alvina. "I've never reckoned it up. But I'm surethat these common people here are jealous if anybody does anything orhas anything they can't have themselves."
"I can't believe it," protested Mr. May "Could they be sosilly! And then why aren't they jealous of the extraordinarythings which are done on the film?"
"Because they don't see the flesh-and-blood people. I'm sure that'sit. The film is only pictures, like pictures in theDailyMirror. And pictures don't have any feelings apart from their ownfeelings. I mean the feelings of the people who watch them. Picturesdon't have any life except in the people who watch them. And that's whythey like them. Because they make them feel that they areeverything."
"The pictures make the colliers and lasses feel that they themselvesare everything? But how? They identify themselves with the heroes andheroines on the screen?"
"Yes--they take it all to themselves--and there isn't anythingexcept themselves. I know it's like that. It's because they can spreadthemselves over a film, and theycan't over a living performer.They're up against the performer himself. And they hate it."
Mr. May watched her long and dismally
"Ican't believe people are like that!--sane people!" hesaid. "Why, to me the whole joy is in the living personality, thecuriouspersonality of the artiste. That's what I enjoy somuch."
"I know. But that's where you're different from them."
"Butam I?"
"Yes. You're not as up to the mark as they are."
"Not up to the mark? What do you mean? Do you mean they are moreintelligent?"
"No, but they're more modern. You like things which aren't yourself.But they don't. They hate to admire anything that they can't take tothemselves. They hate anything that isn't themselves. And that's whythey like pictures. It's all themselves to them, all the time."
He still puzzled.
"You know I don't follow you," he said, a little mocking, as if shewere making a fool of herself.
"Because you don't know them. You don't know the common people. Youdon't know how conceited they are."
He watched her a long time.
"And you think we ought to cut out the variety, and give nothing butpictures, like the Empire?" he said.
"I believe it takes best," she said.
"And costs less," he answered. "Butthen! It's so dull. Oh myword, it's so dull. I don't think I could bear it."
"And our pictures aren't good enough," she said. "We should have toget a new machine, and pay for the expensive films. Our pictures doshake, and our films are rather ragged."
"But then,surely they're good enough!" he said.
That was how matters stood. The Endeavour paid its way, and madejust a margin of profit--no more. Spring went on to summer, and thenthere was a very shadowy margin of profit. But James was not at alldaunted. He was waiting now for the trams, and building up hopes sincehe could not build in bricks and mortar.
The navvies were busy in troops along the Knarborough Road, and downLumley Hill. Alvina became quite used to them. As she went down thehill soon after six o'clock in the evening, she met them trooping home.And some of them she liked. There was an outlawed look about them asthey swung along the pavement--some of them; and there was a certainlurking set of the head which rather frightened her because itfascinated her. There was one tall young fellow with a red face andfair hair, who looked as if he had fronted the seas and the arctic sun.He looked at her. They knew each other quite well, in passing. And hewould glance at perky Mr. May. Alvina tried to fathom what the youngfellow's look meant. She wondered what he thought of Mr. May.
She was surprised to hear Mr. May's opinion of the navvy.
"He's a handsome young man, now!" exclaimed her companion oneevening as the navvies passed. And all three turned round, to find allthree turning round. Alvina laughed, and made eyes. At that moment shewould cheerfully have gone along with the navvy. She was getting sotired of Mr. May's quiet prance.
On the whole, Alvina enjoyed the cinema and the life it brought her.She accepted it. And she became somewhat vulgarized in her bearing. Shewasdéclassée: she had lost her class altogether.The other daughters of respectable tradesmen avoided her now, or spoketo her only from a distance. She was supposed to be "carrying on" withMr. May.
Alvina did not care. She rather liked it. She liked beingdéclassé. She liked feeling an outsider. At lastshe seemed to stand on her own ground. She laughed to herself as shewent back and forth from Woodhouse to Lumley, between Manchester Houseand the Pleasure Palace. She laughed when she saw her father'stheatre-notices plastered about. She laughed when she saw his thrillingannouncements in theWoodhouse Weekly. She laughed when she knewthat all the Woodhouse youths recognized her, and looked on her as oneof their inferior entertainers. She was off the map: and she likedit.
For after all, she got a good deal of fun out of it. There was notonly the continual activity. There were the artistes. Every week shemet a new set of stars--three or four as a rule. She rehearsed withthem on Monday afternoons, and she saw them every evening, and twice aweek at matinees. James now gave two performances each evening--and healways hadsome audience. So that Alvina had opportunity to comeinto contact with all the odd people of the inferior stage. She foundthey were very much of a type: a little frowsy, a little flea-bitten asa rule, indifferent to ordinary morality, and philosophical even ifirritable. They were often very irritable. And they had always acertain fund of callous philosophy. Alvina did notlikethem--you were not supposed, really, to get deeply emotional over them.But she found it amusing to see them all and know them all. It was sodifferent from Woodhouse, where everything was priced and ticketed.These people were nomads. They didn't care a straw who you were or whoyou weren't. They had a most irritable professional vanity, and thatwas all. It was most odd to watch them. They weren't very squeamish. Ifthe young gentlemen liked to peep round the curtain when the young ladywas in her knickers: oh, well, she rather roundly told them off,perhaps, but nobody minded. The fact that ladies wore knickers andblack silk stockings thrilled nobody, any more than grease-paint orfalse moustaches thrilled. It was all part of the stock-in-trade. Asfor immorality--well, what did it amount to? Not a great deal. Most ofthe men cared far more about a drop of whiskey than about any morecarnal vice, and most of the girls were good pals with each other, menwere only there to act with: even if the act was a private love-farceof an improper description. What's the odds? You couldn't get excitedabout it: not as a rule.
Mr. May usually took rooms for the artistes in a house down inLumley. When any one particular was coming, he would go to a ratherbetter-class widow in Woodhouse. He never let Alvina take any part inthe making of these arrangements, except with the widow in Woodhouse,who had long ago been a servant at Manchester House, and even now camein to do cleaning.
Odd, eccentric people they were, these entertainers. Most of themhad a streak of imagination, and most of them drank. Most of them weremiddle-aged. Most of them had an abstracted manner; in ordinary life,they seemed left aside, somehow. Odd, extraneous creatures, often alittle depressed, feeling life slip away from them. The cinema waskilling them.
Alvina had quite a serious flirtation with a man who played a fluteand piccolo. He was about fifty years old, still handsome, and growingstout. When sober, he was completely reserved. When rather drunk, hetalked charmingly and amusingly--oh, most charmingly. Alvina quiteloved him. But alas,how he drank! But what a charm he had! Hewent, and she saw him no more.
The usual rather American-looking, clean-shaven, slightly pastyyoung man left Alvina quite cold, though he had an amiable and trulychivalrousgalanterie. He was quite likeable. But sounattractive. Alvina was more fascinated by the odd fish: like the ladywho did marvellous things with six ferrets, or the Jap who was tattooedall over, and had the most amazing strong wrists, so that he couldthrow down any collier, with one turn of the hand. Queer cutsthese!--but just a little bit beyond her. She watched them rather froma distance. She wished she could jump across the distance. Particularlywith the Jap, who was almost quite naked, but clothed with the mostexquisite tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle that flew withterrible spread wings between his shoulders, or the strange mazypattern that netted the roundness of his buttocks. He was not verylarge, but nicely shaped, and with no hair on his smooth, tattooedbody. He was almost blue in colour--that is, his tattooing was blue,with pickings of brilliant vermilion: as for instance round thenipples, and in a strange red serpent's-jaws over the navel. A serpentwent round his loins and haunches. He told her how many times he hadhad blood-poisoning, during the process of his tattooing. He was aqueer, black-eyed creature, with a look of silence and toad-likelewdness. He frightened her. But when he was dressed in common clothes,and was just a cheap, shoddy-looking European Jap, he was morefrightening still. For his face--he was not tattooed above a certainring low on his neck--was yellow and flat and basking with one eyeopen, like some age-old serpent. She felt he was smiling horribly allthe time: lewd, unthinkable. A strange sight he was in Woodhouse, on asunny morning; a shabby-looking bit of riff-raff of the East, ratherdown at the heel. Who could have imagined the terrible eagle of hisshoulders, the serpent of his loins, his supple, magic skin?
The summer passed again, and autumn. Winter was a better time forJames Houghton. The trams, moreover, would begin to run in January.
He wanted to arrange a good program for the week when the tramsstarted. A long time head, Mr. May prepared it. The one item was theNatcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe. The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe consisted offive persons, Madame Rochard and four young men. They were a strictlyRed Indian troupe. But one of the young men, the German Swiss, was afamous yodeller, and another, the French Swiss, was a good comic with aFrench accent, whilst Madame and the German did a screaming two-personfarce. Their great turn, of course, was the Natcha-Kee-Tawara RedIndian scene.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were due in the third week in January,arriving from the Potteries on the Sunday evening. When Alvina came infrom Chapel that Sunday evening, she found her widow, Mrs. Rollings,seated in the living room talking with James, who had an anxious look.Since opening the Pleasure Palace James was less regular at Chapel. Andmoreover, he was getting old and shaky, and Sunday was the one eveninghe might spend in peace. Add that on this particular black Sunday nightit was sleeting dismally outside, and James had already a bit of acough, and we shall see that he did right to stay at home.
Mrs. Rollings sat nursing a bottle. She was to go to the chemist forsome cough-cure, because Madame had got a bad cold. The chemist wasgone to Chapel--he wouldn't open till eight.
Madame and the four young men had arrived at about six. Madame, saidMrs. Rollings, was a little fat woman, and she was complaining all thetime that she had got a cold on her chest, laying her hand on her chestand trying her breathing and going "He-e-e-er! Herr!" to see if shecould breathe properly. She, Mrs. Rollings, had suggested that Madameshould put her feet in hot mustard and water, but Madame said she musthave something to clear her chest. The four young men were four nicecivil young fellows. They evidently liked Madame. Madame had insistedon cooking the chops for the young men. She herself had eaten one, butshe laid her hand on her chest when she swallowed. One of the young menhad gone out to get her some brandy, and he had come back withhalf-a-dozen large bottles of Bass as well.
Mr. Houghton was very much concerned over Madame's cold. He askedthe same questions again and again, to try and make sure how bad itwas. But Mrs. Rollings didn't seem quite to know. James wrinkled hisbrow. Supposing Madame could not take her part! He was mostanxious.
"Do you think you might go across with Mrs. Rollings and see howthis woman is, Alvina?" he said to his daughter.
"I should think you'll never turn Alvina out on such a night," saidMiss Pinnegar. "And besides, it isn't right. Where is Mr. May? It's hisbusiness to go."
"Oh!" returned Alvina. "I don't mind going. Wait a minute,I'll see if we haven't got some of those pastilles for burning. If it'svery bad, I can make one of those plasters mother used."
And she ran upstairs. She was curious to see what Madame and herfour young men were like.
With Mrs. Rollings she called at the chemist's back door, and thenthey hurried through the sleet to the widow's dwelling. It was not far.As they went up the entry they heard the sound of voices. But in thekitchen all was quiet. The voices came from the front room.
Mrs. Rollings tapped.
"Come in!" said a rather sharp voice. Alvina entered on the widow'sheels.
"I've brought you the cough stuff," said the widow. "And MissHuff'n's come as well, to see how you was."
Four young men were sitting round the table in their shirt-sleeves,with bottles of Bass. There was much cigarette smoke. By the fire,which was burning brightly, sat a plump, pale woman with dark brighteyes and finely-drawn eyebrows: she might be any age between forty andfifty. There were grey threads in her tidy black hair. She was neatlydressed in a well-made black dress with a small lace collar. There wasa slight look of self-commiseration on her face. She had a cigarettebetween her drooped fingers.
She rose as if with difficulty, and held out her plump hand, onwhich four or five rings showed. She had dropped the cigaretteunnoticed into the hearth.
"How do you do," she said. "I didn't catch your name." Madame'svoice was a little plaintive and plangent now, like a bronze reedmournfully vibrating.
"Alvina Houghton," said Alvina.
"Daughter of him as owns the thee-etter where you're goin' to act,"interposed the widow.
"Oh yes! Yes! I see. Miss Houghton. I didn't know how it was said.Huffton--yes? Miss Houghton. I've got a bad cold on my chest--" layingher plump hand with the rings on her plump bosom. "But let me introduceyou to my young men--" A wave of the plump hand, whose forefinger wasvery slightly cigarette-stained, towards the table.
The four young men had risen, and stood looking at Alvina andMadame. The room was small, rather bare, with horse-hair andwhite-crochet antimacassars and a linoleum floor. The table also wascovered with a brightly-patterned American oil-cloth, shiny but clean.A naked gas-jet hung over it. For furniture, there were just chairs,arm-chairs, table, and a horse-hair antimacassar-ed sofa. Yet thelittle room seemed very full--full of people, young men with smartwaistcoats and ties, but without coats.
"That is Max," said Madame. "I shall tell you only their names, andnot their family names, because that is easier for you--"
In the meantime Max had bowed. He was a tall Swiss with almond eyesand a flattish face and a rather stiff, ramrod figure.
"And that is Louis--" Louis bowed gracefully. He was a SwissFrenchman, moderately tall, with prominent cheek-bones and a wing ofglossy black hair falling on his temple.
"And that is Géoffroi--Geoffrey--" Geoffrey made his bow--abroad-shouldered, watchful, taciturn man from Alpine France.
"And that is Francesco--Frank--" Francesco gave a faint curl of hislip, half smile, as he saluted her involuntarily in a military fashion.He was dark, rather tall and loose, with yellow-tawny eyes. He was anItalian from the south. Madame gave another look at him. "He doesn'tlike his English name of Frank. You will see, he pulls a face. No, hedoesn't like it. We call him Ciccio also--" But Ciccio was dropping hishead sheepishly, with the same faint smile on his face, half grimace,and stooping to his chair, wanting to sit down.
"These are my family of young men," said Madame. "We are drawn fromthree races, though only Ciccio is not of our mountains. Will youplease to sit down."
They all took their chairs. There was a pause.
"My young men drink a little beer, after their horrible journey. Asa rule, I do not like them to drink. But tonight they have a littlebeer. I do not take any myself, because I am afraid of inflamingmyself." She laid her hand on her breast, and took long, uneasybreaths. "I feel it. I feel ithere." She patted her breast. "Itmakes me afraid for tomorrow. Will you perhaps take a glass of beer?Ciccio, ask for another glass--" Ciccio, at the end of the table, didnot rise, but looked round at Alvina as if he presumed there would beno need for him to move. The odd, supercilious curl of the lippersisted. Madame glared at him. But he turned the handsome side of hischeek towards her, with the faintest flicker of a sneer.
"No, thank you. I never take beer," said Alvina hurriedly.
"No? Never? Oh!" Madame folded her hands, but her black eyes stilldarted venom at Ciccio. The rest of the young men fingered theirglasses and put their cigarettes to their lips and blew the smoke downtheir noses, uncomfortably.
Madame closed her eyes and leaned back a moment. Then her facelooked transparent and pallid, there were dark rings under her eyes,the beautifully-brushed hair shone dark like black glass above herears. She was obviously unwell. The young men looked at her, andmuttered to one another.
"I'm afraid your cold is rather bad," said Alvina. "Will you let metake your temperature?"
Madame started and looked frightened.
"Oh, I don't think you should trouble to do that," she said.
Max, the tall, highly-coloured Swiss, turned to her, saying:
"Yes, you must have your temperature taken, and then we s'll know,shan't we. I had a hundred and five when we were in Redruth."
Alvina had taken the thermometer from her pocket. Ciccio meanwhilemuttered something in French--evidently something rude--meant forMax.
"What shall I do if I can't work tomorrow!" moaned Madame, seeingAlvina hold up the thermometer towards the light. "Max, what shall wedo?"
"You will stay in bed, and we must do the White Prisoner scene,"said Max, rather staccato and official.
Ciccio curled his lip and put his head aside. Alvina went across toMadame with the thermometer. Madame lifted her plump hand and fendedoff Alvina, while she made her last declaration:
"Never--never have I missed my work, for a single day, for tenyears. Never. If I am going to lie abandoned, I had better die atonce."
"Lie abandoned!" said Max. "You know you won't do no such thing.What are you talking about?"
"Take the thermometer," said Geoffrey roughly, but with feeling.
"Tomorrow, see, you will be well quite certain!" said Louis. Madamemournfully shook her head, opened her mouth, and sat back with closedeyes and the stump of the thermometer comically protruding from acorner of her lips. Meanwhile Alvina took her plump white wrist andfelt her pulse.
"We can practise--" began Geoffrey.
"Sh!" said Max, holding up his finger and looking anxiously atAlvina and Madame, who still leaned back with the stump of thethermometer jauntily perking up from her pursed mouth, while her facewas rather ghastly.
Max and Louis watched anxiously. Geoffrey sat blowing the smoke downhis nose, while Ciccio callously lit another cigarette, striking amatch on his boot-heel and puffing from under the tip of his ratherlong nose. Then he took the cigarette from his mouth, turned his head,slowly spat on the floor, and rubbed his foot on his spit. Max flappedhis eyelids and looked all disdain, murmuring something about "einschmutziges italienisches Volk," whilst Louis, refusing either to seeor to hear, framed the word "chien" on his lips.
Then quick as lightning both turned their attention again toMadame.
Her temperature was a hundred and two.
"You'd better go to bed," said Alvina. "Have you eatenanything?"
"One little mouthful," said Madame plaintively.
Max sat looking pale and stricken, Louis had hurried forward to takeMadame's hand. He kissed it quickly, then turned aside his head becauseof the tears in his eyes. Geoffrey gulped beer in large throatfuls, andCiccio, with his head bent, was watching from under his eyebrows.
"I'll run round for the doctor--" said Alvina.
"Don't! Don't do that, my dear! Don't you go and do that! I'm likelyto a temperature--"
"Liable to a temperature," murmured Louis pathetically. "I'll go tobed," said Madame, obediently rising.
"Wait a bit. I'll see if there's a fire in the bedroom," saidAlvina.
"Oh, my dear, you are too good. Open the door for her, Ciccio--"
Ciccio reached across at the door, but was too late. Max hadhastened to usher Alvina out. Madame sank back in her chair.
"Never for ten years," she was wailing. "Quoi faire, h, quoi faire!Que ferez-vous, mes pauvres, sans votre Kishwégin. Que vais-jefaire, mourir dans un tel pays! La bonne demoiselle--la bonnedemoiselleelle a du coeur. Elle pourrait aussi être belle, s'il yavait un peu plus de chair. Max, liebster, schau ich Behr elend aus?Ach, oh jeh, oh jeh!"
"Ach nein, Madame, ach nein. Nicht so furchtbar elend," saidMax.
"Manca it cuore solamente al Ciccio," moaned Madame. "Che naturapovera, senza sentimento--niente di bello. Ahimé, che amico, cheragazzo duro, aspero--"
"Trova?" said Ciccio, with a curl of the lip. He looked, as hedropped his long, beautiful lashes, as if he might weep for all that,if he were not bound to be misbehaving just now.
So Madame moaned in four languages as she posed pallid in herarm-chair. Usually she spoke in French only, with her young men. Butthis was an extra occasion.
"La pauvre Kishwégin!" murmured Madame. "Elle va finir aumonde. Elle passe--la pauvre Kishwégin."
Kishwégin was Madame's Red Indian name, the name under whichshe danced her Squaw's fire-dance.
Now that she knew she was ill, Madame seemed to become more ill. Herbreath came in little pants. She had a pain in her side. A feverishflush seemed to mount her cheek. The young men were all extremelyuncomfortable. Louis did not conceal his tears. Only Ciccio kept thethin smile on his lips, and added to Madame's annoyance and pain.
Alvina came down to take her to bed. The young men all rose, andkissed Madame's hand as she went out: her poor jewelled hand, that wasfaintly perfumed with eau de Cologne. She spoke an appropriategood-night, to each of them.
"Good-night, my faithful Max, I trust myself to you. Good-night,Louis, the tender heart. Good-night valiant Geoffrey. Ah Ciccio, do notadd to the weight of my heart. Be goodbraves," all, be brothersin one accord. One little prayer for poor Kishwégin.Good-night!"
After which valediction she slowly climbed the stairs, putting herhand on her knee at each step, with the effort.
"No--no," she said to Max, who would have followed to herassistance. "Do not come up. No--no!"
Her bedroom was tidy and proper.
"Tonight," she moaned, "I shan't be able to see that the boys' roomsare well in order. They are not to be trusted, no. They need anoverseeing eye: especially Ciccio; especially Ciccio!"
She sank down by the fire and began to undo her dress.
"You must let me help you," said Alvina. "You know I have been anurse."
"Ah, you are too kind, too kind, dear young lady. I am a lonely oldwoman. I am not used to attentions. Best leave me."
"Let me help you," said Alvina.
"Alas, ahimé! Who would have thought Kishwégin wouldneed help. I danced last night with the boys in the theatre in Leek:and tonight I am put to bed in--what is the name of this place,dear?--It seems I don't remember it."
"Woodhouse," said Alvina.
"Woodhouse! Woodhouse! Is there not something called Woodlouse? Ibelieve. Ugh, horrible! Why is it horrible?"
Alvina quickly undressed the plump, trim little woman. She seemed sosoft. Alvina could not imagine how she could be a dancer on the stage,strenuous. But Madame's softness could flash into wild energy, suddenconvulsive power, like a cuttle-fish. Alvina brushed out the long blackhair, and plaited it lightly. Then she got Madame into bed.
"Ah," sighed Madame, "the good bed! The good bed! But cold--it is socold. Would you hang up my dress, dear, and fold my stockings?"
Alvina quickly folded and put aside the dainty underclothing. queer,dainty woman, was Madame, even to her wonderful threaded black-and-goldgarters.
"My poor boys--no Kishwégin tomorrow! You don't think I needsee a priest, dear? A priest!" said Madame, her teeth chattering.
"Priest! Oh no! You'll be better when we can get you warm. I thinkit's only a chill. Mrs. Rollings is warming a blanket--"
Alvina ran downstairs. Max opened the sitting-room door and stoodwatching at the sound of footsteps. His rather bony fists were clenchedbeneath his loose shirt-cuffs, his eyebrows tragically lifted.
"Is she much ill?" he asked.
"I don't know. But I don't think so. Do you mind heating the blanketwhile Mrs. Rollings makes thin gruel?"
Max and Louis stood heating blankets. Louis' trousers were cutrather tight at the waist, and gave him a female look. Max was straightand stiff. Mrs. Rollings asked Geoffrey to fill the coal-scuttles andcarry one upstairs. Geoffrey obediently went out with a lantern to thecoal-shed. Afterwards he was to carry up the horse-hair arm-chair.
"I must go home for some things," said Alvina to Ciccio. "Will youcome and carry them for me?"
He started up, and with one movement threw away his cigarette. Hedid not look at Alvina. His beautiful lashes seemed to screen his eyes.He was fairly tall, but loosely built for an Italian, with slightlysloping shoulders. Alvina noticed the brown, slender Mediterraneanhand, as he put his fingers to his lips. It was a hand such as she didnot know, prehensile and tender and dusky. With an odd graceful slouchhe went into the passage and reached for his coat.
He did not say a word, but held aloof as he walked with Alvina.
"I'm sorry for Madame," said Alvina, as she hurried ratherbreathless through the night. "She does think for you men."
But Ciccio vouchsafed no answer, and walked with his hands in thepockets of his water-proof, wincing from the weather.
"I'm afraid she will never be able to dance tomorrow," said Alvina."You think she won't be able?" he said.
"I'm almost sure she won't."
After which he said nothing, and Alvina also kept silence till theycame to the black dark passage and encumbered yard at the back of thehouse.
"I don't think you can see at all," she said. "It's this way." Shegroped for him in the dark, and met his groping hand.
"This way," she said.
It was curious how light his fingers were in their clasp--almostlike a child's touch. So they came under the light from the window ofthe sitting-room.
Alvina hurried indoors, and the young man followed.
"I shall have to stay with Madame tonight," she explained hurriedly."She's feverish, but she may throw it off if we can get her into asweat." And Alvina ran upstairs collecting things necessary. Cicciostood back near the door, and answered all Miss Pinnegar's entreatiesto come to the fire with a shake of the head and a slight smile of thelips, bashful and stupid.
"But do come and warm yourself before you go out again," said MissPinnegar, looking at the man as he drooped his head in the distance. Hestill shook dissent, but opened his mouth at last.
"It makes it colder after," he said, showing his teeth in a slight,stupid smile.
"Oh well, if you think so," said Miss Pinnegar, nettled. Shecouldn't make heads or tails of him, and didn't try,
When they got back, Madame was light-headed, and talking excitedlyof her dance, her young men. The three young men were terrified. Theyhad got the blankets scorching hot. Alvina smeared the plasters andapplied them to Madame's side, where the pain was. What awhite-skinned, soft, plump child she seemed! Her pain meant a touch ofpleurisy, for sure. The men hovered outside the door. Alvina wrappedthe poor patient in the hot blankets, got a few spoonfuls of hot grueland whiskey down her throat, fastened her down in bed, lowered thelight and banished the men from the stairs. Then she sat down to watch.Madame chafed, moaned, murmured feverishly. Alvina soothed her, and puther hands in bed. And at last the poor dear became quiet. Her brow wasfaintly moist. She fell into a quiet sleep, perspiring freely. Alvinawatched her still, soothed her when she suddenly started and began tobreak out of the bed-clothes, quieted her, pressed her gently, firmlydown, folded her tight and made her submit to the perspiration againstwhich, in convulsive starts, she fought and strove, crying that she wassuffocating, she was too hot, too hot.
"Lie still, lie still," said Alvina. "You must keep warm."
Poor Madame moaned. How she hated seething in the bath of her ownperspiration. Her wilful nature rebelled strongly. She would havethrown aside her coverings and gasped into the cold air, if Alvina hadnot pressed her down with that soft, inevitable pressure.
So the hours passed, till about one o'clock, when the perspirationbecame less profuse, and the patient was really better, really quieter.Then Alvina went downstairs for a moment. She saw the light stillburning in the front room. Tapping, she entered. There sat Max by thefire, a picture of misery, with Louis opposite him, nodding asleepafter his tears. On the sofa Geoffrey snored lightly, while Ciccio satwith his head on the table, his arms spread out, dead asleep. Again shenoticed the tender, dusky Mediterranean hands, the slender wrists,slender for a man naturally loose and muscular.
"Haven't you gone to bed?" whispered Alvina. "Why?"
Louis started awake. Max, the only stubborn watcher, shook his headlugubriously.
"But she's better," whispered Alvina. "She's perspired. She'sbetter. She's sleeping naturally."
Max stared with round, sleep-whitened, owlish eyes, pessimistic andsceptical:
"Yes," persisted Alvina. "Come and look at her. But don't wake her,whatever you do."
Max took off his slippers and rose to his tall height. Louis, like ascared chicken, followed. Each man held his slippers in his hand. Theynoiselessly entered and peeped stealthily over the heaped bedclothes.Madame was lying, looking a little flushed and very girlish, sleepinglightly, with a strand of black hair stuck to her cheek, and her lipslightly parted.
Max watched her for some moments. Then suddenly he straightenedhimself, pushed back his brown hair that was brushed up in the Germanfashion, and crossed himself, dropping his knee as before an altar;crossed himself and dropped his knee once more; and then a third timecrossed himself and inclined before the altar. Then he straightenedhimself again, and turned aside.
Louis also crossed himself. His tears burst out. He bowed and tookthe edge of a blanket to his lips, kissing it reverently. Then hecovered his face with his hand.
Meanwhile Madame slept lightly and innocently on.
Alvina turned to go. Max silently followed, leading Louis by thearm. When they got downstairs, Max and Louis threw themselves in eachother's arms, and kissed each other on either cheek, gravely, inContinental fashion.
"She is better," said Max gravely, in French.
"Thanks to God," replied Louis.
Alvina witnessed all this with some amazement. The men did not heedher. Max went over and shook Geoffrey, Louis put his hand on Ciccio'sshoulder. The sleepers were difficult to wake. The wakers shook thesleeping, but in vain. At last Geoffrey began to stir. But in vainLouis lifted Ciccio's shoulders from the table. The head and the handsdropped inert. The long black lashes lay motionless, the rather long,fine Greek nose drew the same light breaths, the mouth remained shut.Strange fine black hair, he had, close as fur, animal, and naked,frail-seeming, tawny hands. There was a silver ring on one hand.
Alvina suddenly seized one of the inert hands that slid on thetablecloth as Louis shook the young man's shoulders. Tight she pressedthe hand. Ciccio opened his tawny-yellowish eyes, that seemed to havebeen put in with a dirty finger, as the saying goes, owing to thesootiness of the lashes and brows. He was quite drunk with his firstsleep, and saw nothing.
"Wake up," said Alvina, laughing, pressing his hand again.
He lifted his head once more, suddenly clasped her hand, his eyescame to consciousness, his hand relaxed, he recognized her, and he satback in his chair, turning his face aside and lowering his lashes.
"Get up, great beast," Louis was saying softly in French, pushinghim as ox-drivers sometimes push their oxen. Ciccio staggered to hisfeet.
"She is better," they told him. "We are going to bed."
They took their candles and trooped off upstairs, each one bowing toAlvina as he passed. Max solemnly, Louis gallant, the other two dumband sleepy. They occupied the two attic chambers.
Alvina carried up the loose bed from the sofa, and slept on thefloor before the fire in Madame's room.
Madame slept well and long, rousing and stirring and settling offagain. It was eight o'clock before she asked her first question. Alvinawas already up.
"Oh--alors--Then I am better, I am quite well. I can dancetoday."
"I don't think today," said Alvina. "But perhaps tomorrow."
"No, today," said Madame. "I can dance today, because I am quitewell. I am Kishwégin."
"You are better. But you must lie still today. Yes, really--you willfind you are weak when you try to stand."
Madame watched Alvina's thin face with sullen eyes.
"You are an Englishwoman, severe and materialist," she said.
Alvina started and looked round at her with wide blue eyes.
"Why?" she said. There was a wan, pathetic look about her, a sort ofheroism which Madame detested, but which now she found touching."Come!" said Madame, stretching out her plump jewelled hand. "Come, Iam an ungrateful woman. Come, they are not good for you, the people, Isee it. Come to me."
Alvina went slowly to Madame, and took the outstretched hand. Madamekissed her hand, then drew her down and kissed her on either cheek,gravely, as the young men had kissed each other.
"You have been good to Kishwégin, and Kishwégin has aheart that remembers. There, Miss Houghton, I shall do what you tellme. Kishwégin obeys you." And Madame patted Alvina's hand andnodded her head sagely.
"Shall I take your temperature?" said Alvina.
"Yes, my dear, you shall. You shall bid me, and I shall obey."
So Madame lay back on her pillow, submissively pursing thethermometer between her lips and watching Alvina with black eyes.
"It's all right," said Alvina, as she looked at the thermometer."Normal."
"Normal!" re-echoed Madame's rather guttural voice. "Good! Well,then when shall I dance?"
Alvina turned and looked at her.
"I think, truly," said Alvina, "it shouldn't be before Thursday orFriday."
"Thursday!" repeated Madame. "You say Thursday?" There was a note ofstrong rebellion in her voice.
"You'll be so weak. You've only just escaped pleurisy. I can onlysay what I truly think, can't I?"
"Ah, you Englishwomen," said Madame, watching with black eyes. "Ithink you like to have your own way. In all things, to have your ownway. And over all people. You are so good, to have your own way. Yes,you good Englishwomen. Thursday. Very well, it shall be Thursday. TillThursday, then, Kishwégin does not exist."
And she subsided, already rather weak, upon her pillow again. Whenshe had taken her tea and was washed and her room was tidied, shesummoned the young men. Alvina had warned Max that she wanted Madame tobe kept as quiet as possible this day.
As soon as the first of the four appeared, in his shirt-sleeves andhis slippers, in the doorway, Madame said:
"Ah, there you are, my young men! Come in! Come in! It is notKishwégin addresses you. Kishwégin does not exist tillThursday, as the English demoiselle makes it." She held out her hand,faintly perfumed with eau de Cologne--the whole room smelled of eau deCologne--and Max stooped his brittle spine and kissed it. She touchedhis cheek gently with her other hand.
"My faithful Max, my support."
Louis came smiling with a bunch of violets and pinky anemones. Helaid them down on the bed before her, and took her hand, bowing andkissing it reverently.
"You are better, dear Madame?" he said, smiling long at her.
"Better, yes, gentle Louis. And better for thy flowers, chivalricheart." She put the violets and anemones to her face with both hands,and then gently laid them aside to extend her hand to Geoffrey.
"The good Geoffrey will do his best, while there is noKishwégin?" she said as he stooped to her salute.
"Bien sûr," Madame."
"Ciccio, a button off thy shirt-cuff. Where is my needle?" Shelooked round the room as Ciccio kissed her hand.
"Did you want anything?" said Alvina, who had not followed theFrench.
"My needle, to sew on this button. It is there, in the silkbag."
"I will do it," said Alvina.
"Thank you."
While Alvina sewed on the button, Madame spoke to her young men,principally to Max. They were to obey Max, she said, for he was theireldest brother. This afternoon they would practise well the scene ofthe White Prisoner. Very carefully they must practise, and they mustfind some one who would play the young squaw--for in this scene she hadpractically nothing to do, the young squaw, but just sit and stand.Miss Houghton--but ah, Miss Houghton must play the piano, she could nottake the part of the young squaw. Some other then.
While the interview was going on, Mr. May arrived, full of concern."Shan't we have the procession!" he cried.
"Ah, the procession!" cried Madame.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe upon request would signalize its entryinto any town by a procession. The young men were dressed as Indianbraves, and headed by Kishwégin they rode on horsebackthrough the main streets. Ciccio, who was the crack horseman, havingserved a very well-known horsey Marchese in an Italian cavalryregiment, did a bit of show riding.
Mr. May was very keen on the procession. He had the horses inreadiness. The morning was faintly sunny, after the sleet and badweather. And now he arrived to find Madame in bed and the young menholding council with her.
"How very unfortunate!" cried Mr. May. "How very unfortunate!"
"Dreadful! Dreadful!" wailed Madame from the bed.
"But can't we doanything?"
"Yes--you can do the White Prisoner scene--the young men can dothat, if you find a dummy squaw. Ah, I think I must get up afterall."
Alvina saw the look of fret and exhaustion in Madame's face.
"Won't you all go downstairs now?" said Alvina. "Mr. Max knows whatyou must do."
And she shooed the five men out of the bedroom.
"I must get up. I won't dance. I will be a dummy. But I must bethere. It is too dre-eadful, too dre-eadful!" wailed Madame.
"Don't take any notice of them. They can manage by themselves. Menare such babies. Let them carry it through by themselves."
"Children--they are all children!" wailed Madame. "All children! Andso, what will they do without their oldgouvernante? My poorbraves, what will they do without Kishwégin? It is toodreadful, too dre-eadful, yes. The poor Mr. May--sodisappointed."
"Then let him be disappointed," cried Alvina, as she forcibly tuckedup Madame and made her lie still.
"You are hard! You are a hard Englishwoman. All alike. All alike!"Madame subsided fretfully and weakly. Alvina moved softly about. And ina few minutes Madame was sleeping again.
Alvina went downstairs. Mr. May was listening to Max, who wastelling in German all about the White Prisoner scene. Mr. May had spenthis boyhood in a German school. He cocked his head on one side, and,laying his hand on Max's arm, entertained him in odd German. The otherswere silent. Ciccio made no pretence of listening, but smoked andstared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey half understood, so Louisnodded with a look of deep comprehension, whilst Geoffrey utteredshort, snappy "Ja!--Ja!--Doch!--Eben!" rather irrelevant.
"I'll be the squaw," cried Mr. May in English, breaking off andturning round to the company. He perked up his head in an odd,parrot-like fashion. "I'll be the squaw! What's her name?Kishwégin? I'll be Kishwégin." And he bridled and beamedself-consciously.
The two tall Swiss looked down on him, faintly smiling. Ciccio,sitting with his arms on his knees on the sofa, screwed round his headand watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, expressionlessattention.
"Let us go," said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance. "Let us goand rehearsethis morning, and let us do the procession thisafternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. There! What? Isn'tthat exactly the idea? Well! Will you be ready at once,now?"
He looked excitedly at the young men. They nodded with slow gravity,as if they were alreadybraves. And they turned to put on theirboots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lumley, Mr. May prancinglike a little circus-pony beside Alvina, the four young men rollingahead.
"What do you think of it?" cried Mr. May. "We've saved thesituation--what? Don't you think so? Don't you think we cancongratulate ourselves."
They found Mr. Houghton fussing about in the theatre. He was ontenterhooks of agitation, knowing Madame was ill.
Max gave a brilliant display of yodelling.
"But I mustexplain to them," cried Mr. May. "I mustexplain to them what yodel means."
And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth hishand.
"In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciersreign over luscious meadows full of flowers, if you should chance toawaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm amid the mountainpastures, you--er--you--let me see--if you--no--if you should chance tospend the night in some lonely wooden farm, amid the uplandpastures, dawn will awake you with a wild, inhuman song, you will openyour eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams, your ears willbe ringing with weird singing, that has no words and no meaning, butsounds as if some wild and icy god were warbling to himself as hewandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth across the flowers tothe blue snow, and you see, far off, a small figure of a man movingamong the grass. It is a peasant singing his mountain song, warblinglike some creature that lifted up its voice on the edge of the eternalsnows, before the human race began--"
During this oration James Houghton sat with his chin in his hand,devoured with bitter jealousy, measuring Mr. May's eloquence. And thenhe started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume, whiteshirt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois leatherstitched with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked ankles andheavy shoes, warbled his native Yodel strains, a piercing anddisturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen tempered and fierce andmountainous. There was a fierce, icy passion in the man. Alvina beganto understand Madame's subjection to him.
Louis and Geoffrey did a farce dialogue, two foreigners at the samemoment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other andprotesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Ciccio, who stoodsolid and ridiculous. Mr. Houghton nodded slowly and gravely, as if togive his measured approval.
Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practised themusic Madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, shewelcomed the accompaniment: if not, she dispensed with it.
"Am I all right?" said a smirking voice.
And there was Kishwégin, dusky, coy, with long black hair anda short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: so coy, andso smirking. Alvina burst out laughing.
"But shan't I do?" protested Mr. May, hurt.
"Yes, you're wonderful," said Alvina, choking. "But I mustlaugh."
"But why? Tell me why?" asked Mr. May anxiously "Is it myappearance you laugh at, or is it onlyme? If it's me Idon't mind. But if it's my appearance, tell me so."
Here an appalling figure of Ciccio in war-paint strolled on to thestage. He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, wasdusky-red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle's feathers--only twofeathers--and a face wonderfully and terribly painted with white, red,yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with himself. Hiscurious soft slouch, and curious way of lifting his lip from his whiteteeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing.
"You haven't got the girdle," he said, touching Mr. May's plumpwaist--"and some flowers in your hair."
Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. A bear on its hind legs,slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretching a pawtowards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a laughcame from its muzzle.
"You won't have to dance," said Geoffrey out of the bear.
"Come and put in the flowers," said Mr. May anxiously, toAlvina.
In the dressing-room, the dividing-curtain was drawn. Max, indeerskin trousers but with unpainted torso looked very white andstrange as he put the last touches of war-paint on Louis' face. Heglanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a sortof nobility about his erect white form and stiffly-carried head, thesemi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior.
Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis arose, abravelike Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tatteredhunting-shirt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. Hewas the white prisoner.
They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watched. It was soon done. Aback cloth of tree-trunks and dark forest: a wigwam, a fire, and acradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain todissociate the twobraves from their war-paint. The lines weredrawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and horrible,so that even in the quiet work of scene-shifting Louis' stiffish,female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst Ciccio's moremuscular slouch made her feel slue would not trust him for one singlemoment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel, underneath theircivilization.
The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwégin alone atthe door of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional pushto the hanging cradle, and, if only Madame were taking the part,crooning an Indian cradle-song. Enter thebrave Louis with hiswhite prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side.Kishwégin gravely salutes her husband--the bound prisoner isseated by the fire--Kishwégin serves food, and asks permissionto feed the prisoner. Thebrave Louis, hearing a sound, startsup with his bow and arrow. There is a dumb scene of sympathy betweenKishwégin and the prisoner--the prisoner wants his bonds cut.Re-enter thebrave Louis--he is angry withKishwégin--enter thebrave Ciccio hauling a bear,apparently dead. Kishwégin examines the bear, Ciccio examinesthe prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him stand, makes himcaper unwillingly. Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. Themen rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there isa muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and at thesame moment the bear strikes him down. Ciccio springs forward and stabsthe bear, then closes with it. Kishwégin runs and cuts theprisoner's bonds. He rises, and stands trying to lift his numbed andpowerless arms, while the bear slowly crushes Ciccio, andKishwégin kneels over her husband. The bear drops Cicciolifeless, and turns to Kishwégin. At that moment Max manages tokill the bear--he takes Kishwégin by the hand and kneels withher beside the dead Louis.
It was wonderful how well the men played their different parts. ButMr. May was a little too frisky as Kishwégin. However, it woulddo.
Ciccio got dressed as soon as possible, to go and look at the horseshired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him, Mr. May andthe others were busy.
"You know I think it's quite wonderful, your scene," she said toCiccio.
He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky-set eyes restedon her good-naturedly, without seeing her, his lip curled in aself-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile.
"Not without Madame," he said, with the slow, half-sneering, stupidsmile. "Without Madame--" he lifted his shoulders and spread his handsand tilted his brows--"fool's play, you know."
"No," said Alvina. "I think Mr. May is good, considering. What doesMadamedo?" she asked a little jealously.
"Do?" He looked down at her with the same long, half-sardonic lookof his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casually at a bird whichflutters past. And again he made his shrugging motion. "She does itall, really. The others--they are nothing--what they are Madame hasmade them. And now they think they've done it all, you see. You see,that's it."
"But how has Madame made it all? Thought it out, you mean?"
"Thought it out, yes. And thendone it. You should see herdance--ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring himin! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand--" And Cicciostood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on one side,rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose at Alvina, andhe clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his eyebrows and hiseyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance, and all the time hislips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little assertive shake of his head,finishing, there came a great yell of laughter from the oppositepavement, where a gang of pottery lasses, in aprons all spattered withgrey clay, and hair and boots and skin spattered with pallid spots, hadstood to watch. The girls opposite shrieked again, for all the worldlike a gang of grey baboons. Ciccio turned round and looked at themwith a sneer along his nose. They yelled the louder. And he washorribly uncomfortable, walking there beside Alvina with his rathersmall and effeminately-shod feet.
"How stupid they are," said Alvina. "I've got used to them."
"They should be--" he lifted his hand with a sharp, viciousmovement--"smacked" he concluded, lowering his hand again. "Whois going to do it?" said Alvina.
He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one handoutspread in the air, as if to say: "There you are! You've got to thankthe fools who've failed to do it."
"Why do you all love Madame so much?" Alvina asked.
"How, love?" he said, making a little grimace. "We like her--we loveher--as if she were a mother. You saylove--" He raised hisshoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down atAlvina from under his dusky eye-lashes, as if watching her sideways,and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeeringsmile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a greatinstinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious andconstrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture. Forhim, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech. Gestureand grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things, if youwould but accept them.
But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She couldhear Mr. May's verdict of him: "Like a child, you know, just ascharming and just as tiresome and just as stupid."
"Where is your home?" she asked him.
"In Italy." She felt a fool.
"Which part?" she insisted.
"Naples," he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly. "Itmust be lovely," she said.
"Ha--!" He threw his head on one side and spread out his hands, asif to say--"What do you want, if you don't find Naples lovely."
"I should like to see it. But I shouldn't like to die," she said."What?"
"They say 'See Naples and die,'" she laughed.
He opened his mouth, and understood. Then he smiled at herdirectly.
"You know what that means?" he said cutely. "It means see Naples anddie afterwards. Don't diebefore you've seen it." He smiled witha knowing smile.
"I see! I see!" she cried. "I never thought of that."
He was pleased with her surprise and amusement.
"Ah Naples!" he said. "She is lovely--" He spread his hand acrossthe air in front of him--"The sea--and Posilippo--and Sorrento--andCapri--Ah-h! You've never been out of England?"
"No," she said. "I should love to go."
He looked down into her eyes. It was his instinct to say at once hewould take her.
"You've seen nothing--nothing," he said to her.
"But if Naples is so lovely, how could you leave it?" she asked."What?"
She repeated her question. For answer, he looked at her, held outhis hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tips of hisfingers, said, with a fine, handsome smile:
"Pennies! Money! You can't earn money in Naples. Ah, Naples isbeautiful, but she is poor. You live in the sun, and you earn fourteen,fifteen pence a day--"
"Not enough," she said.
He put his head on one side and tilted his brows, as if to say "Whatare you to do?" And the smile on his mouth was sad, fine, and charming.There was an indefinable air of sadness or wistfulness about him,something so robust and fragile at the same time, that she was drawn ina strange way.
"But you'll go back?" she said.
"Where?"
"To Italy. To Naples."
"Yes, I shall go back to Italy," he said, as if unwilling to commithimself. "But perhaps I shan't go back to Naples."
"Never?"
"Ah, never! I don't say never. I shall go to Naples, to see mymother's sister. But I shan't go to live--"
"Have you a mother and father?"
"I? No! I have a brother and two sisters--in America. Parents, none.They are dead."
"And you wander about the world--" she said.
He looked at her, and made a slight, sad gesture, indifferent also."But you have Madame for a mother," she said.
He made another gesture this time: pressed down the corners of hismouth as if he didn't like it. Then he turned with the slow, finesmile.
"Does a man want two mothers? Eh?" he said, as if he posed aconundrum.
"I shouldn't think so," laughed Alvina.
He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood. "Mymother is dead, see!" he said. "Frenchwomen--Frenchwomen they havetheir babies till they are a hundred--"
"What do you mean?" said Alvina, laughing.
"A Frenchman is a little man when he's seven years old--and if hismother comes, he is a little baby boy when he's seventy. Do you knowthat?"
"Ididn't know it," said Alvina.
"But now--you do," he said, lurching round a corner with her.
They had come to the stables. Three of the horses were there,including the thoroughbred Ciccio was going to ride. He stood andexamined the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strangesounds, patted them, stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand downthem, over them, under them, and felt their legs.
Then, he looked up from stooping there under the horses, with along, slow look of his yellow eyes, at Alvina. She felt unconsciouslyflattered. His long, yellow look lingered, holding her eyes. Shewondered what he was thinking. Yet he never spoke. He turned again tothe horses. They seemed to understand him, to prick up alert.
"This is mine," he said, with his hand on the neck of the oldthoroughbred. It was a bay with a white blaze.
"I think he's nice," she said. "He seems so sensitive."
"In England," he answered suddenly, "horses live a long time,because theydon't live--never alive--see? In Englandrailway-engines are alive, and horses go on wheels." He smiled into hereyes as if she understood. She was a trifle nervous as he smiled at herfrom out of the stable, so yellow-eyed and half-mysterious, derisive.Her impulse was to turn and go away from the stable. But a deeperimpulse made her smile into his face, as she said to him:
"They like you to touch them."
"Who?" His eyes kept hers. Curious howdark they seemed, withonly a yellow ring of pupil. He was looking right into her, beyond herusual self, impersonal.
"The horses," she said. She was afraid of his long, cat-like look.Yet she felt convinced of his ultimate good-nature. He seemed to her tobe the only passionately good-natured man she had ever seen. Shewatched him vaguely, with strange vague trust, implicit belief in him.In him--in what?
That afternoon the colliers trooping home in the winter afternoonwere rejoiced with a spectacle: Kishwégin, in her deerskin,fringed gaiters and fringed frock of deerskin, her long hair down herback, and with marvellous cloths and trappings on her steed, ridingastride on a tall white horse, followed by Max in chieftain's robes andchieftain's long head-dress of dyed feathers, then by the others inwar-paint and feathers and brilliant Navajo blankets. They carried bowsand spears. Ciccio was without his blanket, naked to the waist, inwar-paint, and brandishing a long spear. He dashed up from the rear,saluted the chieftain with his arm and his spear on high as he sweptpast, suddenly drew up his rearing steed, and trotted slowly backagain, making his horse perform its paces. He was extraordinarilyvelvety and alive on horseback.
Crowds of excited, shouting children ran chattering along thepavements. The colliers, as they tramped grey and heavy, in anintermittent stream uphill from the low grey west, stood on thepavement in wonder as the cavalcade approached and passed, jingling thesilver bells of its trappings, vibrating the wonderful colours of thebarred blankets and saddle cloths, the scarlet wool of theaccoutrements, the bright tips of feathers. Women shrieked as Ciccio,in his war-paint, wheeled near the pavement. Children screamed and ran.The colliers shouted. Ciccio smiled in his terrifying war-paint,brandished his spear and trotted softly, like a flower on its stem,round to the procession.
Miss Pinnegar and Alvina and James Houghton had come round intoKnarborough Road to watch. It was a great moment. Looking along theroad they saw all the shop-keepers at their doors, the pavements eager.And then, in the distance, the white horse jingling its trappings ofscarlet hair and bells, with the dusky Kishwégin sitting on thesaddle-blanket of brilliant, lurid stripes, sitting impassive and alldusky above that intermittent flashing of colour: then the chieftain,dark-faced, erect, easy, swathed in a white blanket, with scarlet andblack stripes, and all his strange crest of white, tip-dyed feathersswaying down his back: as he came nearer one saw the wolfskin and thebrilliant moccasins against the black sides of his horse: Louis andGeoffrey followed, lurid, horrid in the face, wearing blankets withstroke after stroke of blazing colour upon their duskiness, and sittingstern, holding their spears: lastly, Ciccio, on his bay horse with agreen seat, flickering hither and thither in the rear, his feathersswaying, his horse sweating, his face ghastlily smiling in itswar-paint. So they advanced down the grey pallor of Knarborough Road,in the late wintry afternoon. Somewhere the sun was setting, and faroverhead was a flush of orange.
"Well I never!" murmured Miss Pinnegar. "Well I never!"
The strange savageness of the striped Navajo blankets seemed to herunsettling, advancing down Knarborough Road: she examinedKishwégin curiously.
"Can youbelieve that that's Mr. May--he's exactly like agirl. Well, well--it makes you wonder what is and what isn't. Butaren't they good? What? Most striking. Exactly like Indians. You can'tbelieve your eyes. My word what a terrifying race they--" Here sheuttered a scream and ran back clutching the wall as Ciccio swept past,brushing her with his horse's tail, and actually swinging his spear soas to touch Alvina and James Houghton lightly with the butt of it.James too started with a cry, the mob at the corner screamed. ButAlvina caught the slow, mischievous smile as the painted horror showedhis teeth in passing; she was able to flash back an excited laugh. Shefelt his yellow-tawny eyes linger on her, in that one second, as ifnegligently.
"I call that too much!" Miss Pinnegar was crying, thoroughly upset."Now that was unnecessary! Why it was enough to scare one to death.Besides, it's dangerous. It ought to be put a stop to. I don't believein letting these show-people have liberties."
The cavalcade was slowly passing, with its uneasy horses and itsflare of striped colour and its silent riders. Ciccio was trottingsoftly back, on his green saddle-cloth, suave as velvet, his dusky,naked torso beautiful.
"Eh, you'd think he'd get his death," the women in the crowd weresaying.
"A proper savage one, that. Makes your blood run cold--"
"Ay, an' a man for all that, take's painted face for what's worth. Atidy man, I say."
He did not look at Alvina. The faint, mischievous smile uncoveredhis teeth. He fell in suddenly behind Geoffrey, with a jerk of hissteed, calling out to Geoffrey in Italian.
It was becoming cold. The cavalcade fell into a trot, Mr. Mayshaking rather badly. Ciccio halted, rested his lance against alamp-post, switched his green blanket from beneath him, flung it roundhim as he sat, and darted off. They had all disappeared over the browof Lumley Hill, descending. He was gone too. In the wintry twilight thecrowd began, lingeringly, to turn away. And in some strange way, itmanifested its disapproval of the spectacle: as grown-up men and women,they were a little bit insulted by such a show. It was an anachronism.They wanted a direct appeal to the mind. Miss Pinnegar expressedit.
"Well," she said, when she was safely back in Manchester House, withthe gas lighted, and as she was pouring the boiling water into thetea-pot, "You may say what you like. It's interesting in a way, just toshow what savage Red-Indians were like. But it's childish. It's onlychildishness. I can't understand, myself, how people can go on likingshows. Nothing happens. It's not like the cinema, where you see it alland take it all in at once; you know everything at a glance. You don'tknow anything by looking at these people. You know they're only mendressed up, for money. I can't see why you should encourage it. I don'thold with idle show-people, parading round, I don't, myself. I like togo to the cinema once a week. It's instruction, you take it all in at aglance, all you need to know, and it lasts you for a week. You can getto know everything about people's actual lives from the cinema. I don'tsee why you want people dressing up and showing off."
They sat down to their tea and toast and marmalade, during thisharangue. Miss Pinnegar was always like a douche of cold water toAlvina, bringing her back to consciousness after a deliciousexcitement. In a minute Madame and Ciccio and all seemed to becomeunreal--the actual unrealities: while the ragged dithering pictures ofthe film were actual, real as the day. And Alvina was always put outwhen this happened. She really hated Miss Pinnegar. Yet she had nothingto answer. They were unreal, Madame and Ciccio and the rest. Ciccio wasjust a fantasy blown in on the wind, to blow away again. The real,permanent thing was Woodhouse, thesemper idem Knarborough Road,and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester House, with the stuffy,padding Miss Pinnegar, and her father, whose fingers, whose very soulseemed dirty with pennies. These were the solid, permanent fact. Thesewere life itself. And Ciccio, splashing up on his bay horse and greencloth, he was a mountebank and an extraneous nonentity, a coloured oldrag blown down the Knarborough Road into Limbo. Into Limbo. Whilst MissPinnegar and her father sat frowstily on for ever, eating their toastand cutting off the crust, and sipping their third cup of tea. Theywould never blow away--never, never. Woodhouse was there to eternity.And the Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe was blowing like a rag of old paperinto Limbo. Nothingness! Poor Madame! Poor gallant histrionic Madame!The frowsy Miss Pinnegar could crumple her up and throw her down theutilitarian drain, and have done with her. Whilst Miss Pinnegar livedon for ever.
This put Alvina into a sharp temper.
"Miss Pinnegar," she said. "I do think you go on in the mostunattractive way sometimes. You're a regular spoil-sport."
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. "I don't approve of your way ofsport, I'm afraid."
"You can't disapprove of it as much as I hate your spoil-sportexistence," said Alvina in a flare.
"Alvina, are you mad!" said her father.
"Wonder I'm not," said Alvina, "considering what my life is."
Madame did not pick up her spirits, after her cold. For two days shelay in bed, attended by Mrs. Rollings and Alvina and the young men. Butshe was most careful never to give any room for scandal. The young menmight not approach her save in the presence of some third party. Andthen it was strictly a visit of ceremony or business.
"Oh, your Woodhouse, how glad I shall be when I have left it," shesaid to Alvina. "I feel it is unlucky for me."
"Do you?" said Alvina. "But if you'd had this bad cold in someplaces, you might have been much worse, don't you think."
"Oh my dear!" cried Madame. "Do you think I could confuse you in mydislike of this Woodhouse? Oh no! You are not Woodhouse. On thecontrary, I think it is unkind for you also, this place. Youlook--also--what shall I say--thin, not very happy."
It was a note of interrogation.
"I'm sure I dislike Woodhouse much more than you can," repliedAlvina.
"I am sure. Yes! I am sure. I see it. Why don't you go away? Whydon't you marry?"
"Nobody wants to marry me," said Alvina.
Madame looked at her searchingly, with shrewd black eyes under herarched eyebrows.
"How!" she exclaimed. "How don't they? You are not bad looking, onlya little too thin--too haggard--"
She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortably.
"Is therenobody?" persisted Madame.
"Not now," said Alvina. "Absolutely nobody." She looked with aconfused laugh into Madame's strict black eyes. "You see I didn't carefor the Woodhouse young men, either. Icouldn't."
Madame nodded slowly up and down. A secret satisfaction came overher pallid, waxy countenance, in which her black eyes were like twinswift extraneous creatures: oddly like two bright little dark animalsin the snow.
"Sure!" she said, sapient. "Sure! How could you? But there are othermen besides these here--" She waved her hand to the window. "I don'tmeet them, do I?" said Alvina.
"No, not often. But sometimes! sometimes!"
There was a silence between the two women, very pregnant."Englishwomen," said Madame, "are so practical. Why are they?"
"I suppose they can't help it," said Alvina. "But they're not halfso practical and clever asyou, Madame."
"Oh la--la! I am practical differently. I am practicalim-practically--" she stumbled over the words. "But your Sue now, inJude the Obscure--is it not an interesting book? And is she not alwaystoo prac-tically practical. If she had been impractically practical shecould have been quite happy. Do you know what I mean?--no. But she isridiculous. Sue: so Anna Karénine. Ridiculous both. Don't youthink?"
"Why?" said Alvina.
"Why did they both make everybody unhappy, when they had the manthey wanted, and enough money? I think they are both so silly. If theyhad been beaten, they would have lost all their practical ideas andtroubles, merely forgot them, and been happy enough. I am a woman whosays it. Such ideas they have are not tragical. No, not at all. Theyare nonsense, you see, nonsense. That is all. Nonsense. Sue and Anna,they are--non-sensical. That is all. No tragedy whatsoever. Nonsense. Iam a woman. I know men also. And I know nonsense when I see it.Englishwomen are all nonsense: the worst women in the world fornonsense."
"Well, I am English," said Alvina.
"Yes, my dear, you are English. But you are not necessarily sononsensical. Why are you at all?"
"Nonsensical?" laughed Alvina. "But I don't know what you call mynonsense."
"Ah," said Madame wearily. "They never understand. But I like you,my dear. I am an old woman--"
"Younger than I," said Alvina.
"Younger than you, because I am practical from the heart, and notonly from the head. You are not practical from the heart. And yet youhave a heart."
"But all Englishwomen have good hearts," protested Alvina.
"No! No!" objected Madame. "They are all ve-ry kind, and ve-rypractical with their kindness. But they have no heart in all theirkindness. It is all head, all head: the kindness of the head."
"I can't agree with you," said Alvina.
"No. No. I don't expect it. But I don't mind. You are very kind tome, and I thank you. But it is from the head, you see. And so I thankyou from the head. From the heart--no."
Madame plucked her white fingers together and laid them on herbreast with a gesture of repudiation. Her black eyes staredspitefully.
"But Madame," said Alvina, nettled, "I should never be half such agood business woman as you. Isn't that from the head?"
"Ha! Of course! Of course you wouldn't be a good business woman.Because you are kind from the head. I--" she tapped her forehead andshook her head--"I am not kind from the head. From the head I ambusiness-woman, good business-woman. Of course I am a goodbusiness-woman--of course! But--" here she changed her expression,widened her eyes, and laid her hand on her breast--"when the heartspeaks--then I listen with the heart. I do not listen with the head.The heart hears the heart. The head--that is another thing. But youhave blue eyes, you cannot understand. Only dark eyes--" She paused andmused.
"And what about yellow eyes?" asked Alvina, laughing.
Madame darted a look at her, her lips curling with a very faint,fine smile of derision. Yet for the first time her black eyes dilatedand became warm.
"Yellow eyes like Ciccio's?" she said, with her great watchful eyesand her smiling, subtle mouth. "They are the darkest of all." And sheshook her head roguishly.
"Are they!" said Alvina confusedly, feeling a blush burning up herthroat into her face.
"Ha--ha!" laughed Madame. "Ha-ha! I am an old woman, you see. Myheart is old enough to be kind, and my head is old enough to be clever.My heart is kind to few people--very few--especially in this England.My young men know that. But perhaps to you it is kind."
"Thank you," said Alvina.
"There! From the headThank you. It is not well done, yousee. You see!"
But Alvina ran away in confusion. She felt Madame was having her ona string.
Mr. May enjoyed himself hugely playing Kishwégin. When Madamecame downstairs Louis, who was a good satirical mimic, imitated him.Alvina happened to come into their sitting-room in the midst of theirbursts of laughter. They all stopped and looked at her cautiously.
"Continuez! Continuez!" said Madame to Louis. And to Alvina: "Sitdown, my dear, and see what a good actor we have in our Louis."
Louis glanced round, laid his head a little on one side and drew inhis chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail slightly,he commenced to play the false Kishwégin. He sidled and bridledand ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the tallFrenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Houghton's managerthat Madame wept again with laughter, whilst Max leaned back againstthe wall and giggled continuously like some pot involuntarily boiling.Geoffrey spread his shut fists across the table and shouted withlaughter, Ciccio threw back his head and showed all his teeth in a loudlaugh of delighted derision. Alvina laughed also. But she flushed.There was a certain biting, annihilating quality in Louis' derision ofthe absentee. And the others enjoyed it so much. At moments Alvinacaught her lip between her teeth, it was so screamingly funny, and soannihilating. She laughed in spite of herself. In spite of herself shewas shaken into a convulsion of laughter. Louis was masterful--hemastered her psyche. She laughed till her head lay helpless on thechair, she could not move. Helpless, inert she lay, in her orgasm oflaughter. The end of Mr. May. Yet she was hurt.
And then Madame wiped her own shrewd black eyes, and nodded slowapproval. Suddenly Louis started and held up a warning finger. They allat once covered their smiles and pulled themselves together. OnlyAlvina lay silently laughing.
"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Rollings!" they heard Mr. May's voice. "Yourcompany is lively. Is Miss Houghton here? May I go through?" They heardhis quick little step and his quick little tap.
"Come in," called Madame.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras all sat with straight faces. Only poor Alvinalay back in her chair in a new weak convulsion. Mr. May glanced quicklyround, and advanced to Madame.
"Oh, good-morning, Madame, so glad to see you downstairs," he said,taking her hand and bowing ceremoniously. "Excuse my intruding on yourmirth!" He looked archly round. Alvina was still incompetent. She layleaning sideways in her chair, and could not even speak to him.
"It was evidently a good joke," he said. "May I hear it too?"
"Oh," said Madame, drawling. "It was no joke. It was only Louismaking a fool of himself, doing a turn."
"Must have been a good one," said Mr. May. "Can't we put it on?"
"No," drawled Madame, "it was nothing--just a nonsensical mood ofthe moment. Won't you sit down? You would like a littlewhiskey?--yes?"
Max poured out whiskey and water for Mr. May.
Alvina sat with her face averted, quiet, but unable to speak to Mr.May. Max and Louis had become polite. Geoffrey stared with his big,dark-blue eyes stolidly at the newcomer. Ciccio leaned with his arms onhis knees, looking sideways under his long lashes at the inertAlvina.
"Well," said Madame, "and are you satisfied with your houses?"
"Oh yes," said Mr. May. "Quite! The two nights have been excellent.Excellent!"
"Ah--I am glad. And Miss Houghton tells me I should not dancetomorrow, it is too soon."
"Miss Houghtonknows," said Mr. May archly.
"Of course!" said Madame. "I must do as she tells me."
"Why yes, since it is for your good, and not hers."
"Of course! Of course! It is very kind of her."
"Miss Houghton ismost kind--toevery one," said Mr.May.
"I am sure," said Madame. "And I am very glad you have been such agood Kishwégin. That is very nice also."
"Yes," replied Mr. May. "I begin to wonder if I have mistaken myvocation. I should have beenon the boards, instead of behindthem."
"No doubt," said Madame. "But it is a little late--"
The eyes of the foreigners, watching him, flattered Mr. May.
"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Yes. Popular taste is a mysteriousthing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work asmuch as they did?"
Madame watched him with her black eyes.
"No," she replied. "They don't. The pictures are driving us away.Perhaps we shall last for ten years more. And after that, we arefinished."
"You think so," said Mr. May, looking serious.
"I am sure," she said, nodding sagely.
"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry and petulant.
"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. The pictures are cheap, andthey are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of theheart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these. Andso they like them, and they don't like us, because they mustfeel the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them fromthe spirit. There!"
"And they don't want to appreciate and to feel?" said Mr. May.
"No. They don't want. They want it all through the eye, andfinished--so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In allcountries, the same. And so--in ten years' time--no moreKishwégin at all."
"No. Then what future have you?" said Mr. May gloomily.
"I may be dead--who knows. If not, I shall have my little apartmentin Lausanne, or in Bellizona, and I shall be a bourgeoise once more,and the good Catholic which I am."
"Which I am also," said Mr. May.
"So! Are you? An American Catholic?"
"Well--English--Irish--American."
"So!"
Mr. May never felt more gloomy in his life than he did that day.Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head?
There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara group either. ForThursday, there was to be a change of program--"Kishwégin'sWedding--" (with the white prisoner, be it said)--was to take the placeof the previous scene. Max of course was the director of the rehearsal.Madame would not come near the theatre when she herself was not to beacting.
Though very quiet and unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenlyassume an air ofhauteur and overbearing which was really veryannoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put intounholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal hiscontempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the Cockneyword.
"Bah! quelle tête de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuousand angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the thingssaid to him, had once more failed to understand.
"Comment?" queried Ciccio, in his slow, derisive way.
"Comment." sneered sneered Max, in echo. "What? What?Why whatdid I say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if thatseems more suitable to you."
"To whom? To me or to you?" said Ciccio, sidling up.
"To you, lout of an Italian."
Max's colour was up, he held himself erect, his brown hair seemed torise erect from his forehead, his blue eyes glared fierce.
"That is to say, to me, from an uncivilized German pig, ah? ah?"
All this in French. Alvina, as she sat at the piano, saw Max talland blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious andconvulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in ordinarydress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves. Ciccio wasclutching a property knife.
"Now! None of that! None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. ButCiccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quiteunconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife.
"A dirty Eyetalian," said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. "Theyunderstand nothing."
But the last word was smothered in Ciccio's spring and stab. Maxhalf started on to his guard, received the blow on his collar-bone,near the pommel of the shoulder, reeled round on top of Mr. May, whilstCiccio sprang like a cat down from the stage and bounded across thetheatre and out of the door, leaving the knife rattling on the boardsbehind him. Max recovered and sprang like a demon, white with rage,straight out into the theatre after him.
"Stop--stop--!" cried Mr. May.
"Hake, Max! Max, Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louissprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with thespring of a man.
Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the piano below, started upand overturned her chair as Ciccio rushed past her. Now Max, white,with set blue eyes, was upon her.
"Don't--!" she cried, lifting her hand to stop his progress. He sawher, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap over the seats and avoidher, when Louis caught him and flung his arms round him.
"Max--attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, to sais que je t'aime. Tule sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le patir."
Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking downwith hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled asfiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was pantingand beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by thearm.
"Let him go, brother, he isn't worth it. What does he understand,Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from thesouth, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what theyare doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It was adummy knife, but it was a heavy blow--the dog of an Italian. Let ussee."
So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge ofhis waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining theshirt. "Are you cut, brother, brother?" said Louis. "Let us see."
Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat andpushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin broken."If the bone isn't broken!" said Louis anxiously. "If the bone isn'tbroken! Lift thy arm, frére--lift. It hurts you--so--No--no--itis not broken--no--the bone is not broken."
"There is no bone broken, I know," said Max.
"The animal. He hasn't donethat, at least."
"Where do you imagine he's gone?" asked Mr. May.
The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There wasno more rehearsal.
"We had best go home and speak to Madame," said Mr. May, who wasvery frightened for his evening performance.
They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He wasgone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from thedressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, whichshe had on her arm.
Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one comein at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings hadtold her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves andgone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, withoutsaying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her shoes, she hadher hat on, when the others arrived.
"What is it?" she cried.
She heard a hurried explanation from Louis.
"Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn't worth all my pains!" criedpoor Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. "Why, Max, whydidst thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountaintemper of thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in theNatchaKee-Tawara there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but onetribe, the tribe of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirtyItalian, or a dog of an Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Toomuch, too much of an animal, too littleesprit." But thou, Max,art almost as bad. Thy temper is a devil's, which maybe is worse thanan animal's. Ah, this Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Wouldwe were away from it. Will the week never pass? We shall have to findCiccio. Without him the company is ruined--until I get a substitute. Imust get a substitute. And how?--and where?--in this country?--tell methat. I am tired of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe ofKishwe--no, never. I have had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us breakup, let us part, my braves, let us say adieu here in thisfuneste Woodhouse."
"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Louis, "let us hope. Let us swear acloser fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwégin. Let us never part.Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost notwant to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou--"
Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside hisface, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May. Ina while Madame came out to them.
"Oh," she said. "You have not gone away! We are wondering which wayCiccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey willgo on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough or toMarchay?"
"Ask the policeman in the market-place," said Alvina. "He's sure tohave noticed him, because Ciccio's yellow bicycle is so uncommon."
Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed amongthemselves where Ciccio might be.
Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down theKnarborough Road. It was raining slightly.
"Ah!" said Madame. "And now how to find him, in that great town. Iam afraid he will leave us without pity."
"Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes," saidLouis. "They were always good friends."
They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders."Always good friends," he said. "Yes. He will perhaps wait for me athis cousin's in Battersea." In Knarborough, I don't know."
"How much money had he?" asked Mr. May.
Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.
"Who knows?" she said.
"These Italians," said Louis, turning to Mr. May. "They have alwaysmoney. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they canhelp. They are like this--" And he made the Neapolitan gesture drawingin the air with his fingers.
"But would he abandon you all without a word?" cried Mr. May. "Yes!Yes!" said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. "He would. Healone would do such a thing. But he would do it."
"And what point would he make for?"
"What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, tohis cousin--and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough moneyto buy land, or whatever it is."
"And so good-bye to him," said Mr. May bitterly.
"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madame, looking at Geoffrey. Geoffreyshrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade away.
"No," he said. "I don't know. He will leave a message at Battersea,I know. But I don't know if he will go to Italy."
"And you don't know where to find him in Knarborough?" asked Mr.May, sharply, very much on the spot.
"No--I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London."It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May.
"Alors!" said Madame, cutting through this futility. "Go thou toKnarborough, Geoffrey, and see--and be back at the theatre for work. Gonow. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him tocome out of kindness to me. Tell him."
And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ridethrough the rain to Knarborough.
"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is alittle more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they willremember."
Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not carevery much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, buthe never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio wasdissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling himaway from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for threeyears or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the Neapolitanwould go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to Italy. It was so,and Geoffrey was philosophical about it.
He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out themusic-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them.They gave him a welcome and a whiskey--but none of them had seenCiccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. Hewent the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings strange andfamiliar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he went to theItalians down in the Marsh--he knew these people always ask for oneanother. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland Station, and thento the Great Central Station, asking the porters on the Londondeparture platform if they had seen his pal, a man with a yellowbicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose.
Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back toWoodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He pressedslowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darknessof the industrial country. He had continually to cross the newtram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge thebrilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their wayacross-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, andhis back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the newtram-track.
As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill andDurbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead--another cyclist. He moved to hisside of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strongacetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw thehumped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on thelow racing machine.
"Hi Cic'--! Ciccio!" he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle.
"Ha-er-er!" he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, waydown the darkness.
He turned--saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round,and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey. "Toi!" saidCiccio.
"Hé! Où vas-tu?"
"Hé!" ejaculated Ciccio.
Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variouslyejaculated.
"Coming back?" asked Geoffrey.
"Where've you been?" retorted Ciccio.
"Knarborough--looking for thee. Where have you--?"
"Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses."
"Come off?"
"Hé!"
"Hurt?"
"Nothing."
"Max is all right."
"Merde!"
"Come on, come back with me."
"Nay." Ciccio shook his head.
"Madame's crying. Wants thee to come back."
Ciccio shook his head.
"Come on, Cic'--" said Geoffrey.
Ciccio shook his head.
"Never?" said Geoffrey.
"Basta--had enough," said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace. "Comefor a bit, and we'll clear together."
Ciccio again shook his head.
"What, is it adieu?"
Ciccio did not speak.
"Don't go, comrade," said Geoffrey.
"Faut," said Ciccio, slightly derisive.
"Eh alors! I'd like to come with thee. What?"
"Where?"
"Doesn't matter. Thou'rt going to Italy?"
"Who knows!--seems so."
"I'd like to go back."
"Eh alors!" Ciccio half veered round.
"Wait for me a few days," said Geoffrey.
"Where?"
"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym's, Hampden Street.Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?"
"I'll think about it."
"Eleven o'clock, eh?"
"I'll think about it."
"Friends ever--Ciccio--eh?" Geoffrey held out his hand.
Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissedfarewell, on either cheek.
"Tomorrow, Cic'--"
"Au revoir, Gigi."
Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffreywaited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him inthe rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He wentstraight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on tenterhooks tillten o'clock.
She heard the news, and said:
"Tomorrow I go to fetch him." And with this she went to bed.
In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvinaappeared at nine o'clock.
"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go toKnarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because Ihaven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell theyoung men, and we will go now, on the tram-car."
"But I am not properly dressed," said Alvina.
"Who will see?" said Madame. "Come, let us go."
They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of HampdenStreet at five minutes to eleven.
"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these youngmen, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you havecaught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him--who knows? Perhaps hewill go off to Italy all the same."
They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. Andthen they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturingtown. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode upmuddily on his bicycle.
"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee atthe Geisha Restaurant--or tea or something," said Madame.
Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At lastGeoffrey returned, shaking his head.
"He won't come?" cried Madame.
"No."
"He says he is going back to Italy?"
"To London."
"It is the same. You can never trust them. Is he quite obstinate?"Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings ofdefection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited.
"We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all," shesaid fretfully.
Geoffrey watched her stolidly, impassively.
"Dost thou want to go with him?" she asked suddenly.
Geoffrey smiled sheepishly, and his colour deepened. But he did notspeak.
"Go then--" she said. "Go then! Go with him! But for the sake of myhonour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Houghton'sfather lose these two nights? Where is your shame? Finish this week andthen go, go--But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have finishedwith him. But let him finish this engagement. Don't put me to shame,don't destroy my honour, and the honour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Tellhim that."
Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic littleblack hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat-and-skirt, stoodthere at the street-corner staring before her, shivering a little withcold, but saying no word of any sort.
Again Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. His face wasimpassive.
"He says he doesn't want," he said.
"Ah!" she cried suddenly in French, "the ungrateful, the animal! Heshall suffer. See if he shall not suffer. The low canaille, withoutfaith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, such canaille should bebeaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Will no one beathim for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves England heshall feel the hand of Kishwégin, and it shall be heavier thanthe Black Hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a woman's wordto be broken against her will. Ah, canaille, canaille! Neither faithnor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Trust them not, dogs of thesouth." She took a few agitated steps down the pavement. Then sheraised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger and bitterdisappointment.
"Wait a bit," said Alvina. "I'll go." She was touched.
"No. Don't you!" cried Madame.
"Yes I will," she said. The light of battle was in her eyes. "You'llcome with me to the door," she said to Geoffrey.
Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way up a long narrow stair,covered with yellow-and-brown oilcloth, rather worn, on to the top ofthe house.
"Ciccio," he said, outside the door.
"Oui!" came the curly voice of Ciccio.
Geoffrey opened the door. Ciccio was sitting on a narrow bed, in arather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof.
"Don't come in," said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulderat him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and stoodwith her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the bed, acigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare boards betweenhis feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood watching him withwide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly, and saying nothing. He lookedup at her steadily, on his guard, from under his long black lashes.
"Won't you come?" she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. Heflicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger. Shewondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long, so verylong. Still she smiled at him, and still he gave no sign.
"Do come!" she urged, never taking her eyes from him.
He made not the slightest movement, but sat with his hands droppedbetween his knees, watching her, the cigarette wavering up its bluethread of smoke.
"Won't you?" she said, as she stood with her back to the door."Won't you come?" She smiled strangely and vividly.
Suddenly she took a pace forward, stooped, watching his face as iftimidly, caught his brown hand in her own and lifted it towardsherself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was notwithdrawn.
"You will come, won't you?" she said, smiling gently into hisstrange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the darkpupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his softening roundeyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of its silent,gentler moments. And suddenly she kissed his hand, kissed it twice,quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a silver ring. Even asshe kissed his fingers with her lips, the silver ring seemed to her asymbol of his subjection, inferiority. She drew his hand slightly. Andhe rose to his feet.
She turned round and took the door-handle, still holding his fingersin her left hand.
"You are coming, aren't you?" she said, looking over her shoulderinto his eyes. And taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let gohis hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, and taking hiscoat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders and drew it on. Then hepicked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked cigarette, whichlay smoking still. He followed her out of the room, walking with hishead rather forward, in the half loutish, sensual-subjected way of theItalians.
As they entered the street, they saw the trim, French figure ofMadame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very white underher spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Ciccio followingbehind Alvina in his dark, hang-dog fashion, and she did not move amuscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She was watchinghis face.
"Te voila donc!" she said, without expression. "Allons boire uncafé, hé? Let us go and drink some coffee." She had nowput an inflection of tenderness into her voice. But her eyes were blackwith anger. Ciccio smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, andturned to walk alongside.
Madame said nothing as they went. Geoffrey passed on his bicycle,calling out that he would go straight to Woodhouse.
When the three sat with their cups of coffee, Madame pushed up herveil just above her eyes, so that it was a black band above her brows.Her face was pale and full like a child's, but almost stonilyexpressionless, her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched bothCiccio and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks.
"Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you?" shesaid, with an amiable intonation which her strange black looksbelied.
"Yes," said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, whileCiccio sat sheepishly, turning aside his ducked head, the slow, stupid,yet fine smile on his lips.
"And no more trouble with Max, hein?--you Ciccio?" said Madame,still with the amiable intonation and the same black, watching eyes."No more of these stupid scenes, hein? What? Do you answer me.
"No more from me," he said, looking up at her with a narrow, catlikelook in his derisive eyes.
"Ho? No? No more? Good then! It is good! We are glad, aren't we,Miss Houghton, that Ciccio has come back and there are to be no morerows?--hein?--aren't we?"
"I'm awfully glad," said Alvina.
"Awfully glad--yes--awfully glad! You hear, you Ciccio. And youremember another time. What? Don't you? Hé"
He looked up at her, the slow, derisive smile curling his lips."Sure," he said slowly, with subtle intonation.
"Yes. Good! Well then! Well then! We are all friends. We are allfriends, aren't we, all the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Hé? What youthink? What you say?"
"Yes," said Ciccio, again looking up at her with his yellow,glinting eyes.
"All right! All right then! It is all right--forgotten--" Madamesounded quite frank and restored. But the sullen watchfulness in hereyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio's, as he glanced at her, showedanother state behind the obviousness of the words. "And Miss Houghtonis one of us! Yes? She has united us once more, and so she has becomeone of us." Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round whiteface.
"I should love to be one of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras," saidAlvina.
"Yes--well--why not? Why not become one? Why not? What you say,Ciccio? You can play the piano, perhaps do other things. Perhaps betterthan Kishwégin. What you say, Ciccio, should she not join us? Isshe not one of us?"
He smiled and showed his teeth but did not answer.
"Well, what is it? Say then? Shall she not?"
"Yes," said Ciccio, unwilling to commit himself.
"Yes, so I say! So I say. Quite a good idea! We will think of it,and speak perhaps to your father, and you shall come! Yes."
So the two women returned to Woodhouse by the tram-car, while Cicciorode home on his bicycle. It was surprising how little Madame andAlvina found to say to one another.
Madame effected the reunion of her troupe, and all seemed prettymuch as before. She had decided to dance the next night, the Saturdaynight. On Sunday the party would leave for Warsall, about thirty milesaway, to fulfil their next engagement.
That evening Ciccio, whenever he had a moment to spare, watchedAlvina. She knew it. But she could not make out what his watchingmeant. In the same way he might have watched a serpent, had he foundone gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively, butpersistently. And yet he did not want to meet her glance. He avoidedher, and watched her. As she saw him standing, in his negligent,muscular, slouching fashion, with his head dropped forward, and hiseyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. But there was a sort offinesse about his face. His skin was delicately tawny, andslightly lustrous. The eyes were set in so dark, that one expected themto be black and flashing. And then one met the yellow pupils,sulphureous and remote. It was like meeting a lion. His long, finenose, his rather long, rounded chin and curling lips seemed refinedthrough ages of forgotten culture. He was waiting: silent there, withsomething muscular and remote about his very droop, he was waiting.What for? Alvina could not guess. She wanted to meet his eye, to havean open understanding with him. But he would not. When she went up totalk to him, he answered in his stupid fashion, with a smile of themouth and no change of the eyes, saying nothing at all. Obstinately heheld away from her. When he was in his war-paint, for one moment shehated his muscular, handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid andfull. The fine sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer,more manly. Ciccio's velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of hismuscles, so full and softly powerful, sickened her.
She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancingKishwégin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvinahad avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina--elusive and yetconscious, a distance, and yet a connection.
Madame danced beautifully. No denying it, she was an artist. Shebecame something quite different: fresh, virginal, pristine, a magiccreature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and attractive.Her braves became glamorous and heroic at once, and magically she casther spell over them. It was all very well for Alvina to bang the pianocrossly. She could not put out the glow which surroundedKishwégin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now: withoutwar-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time suggestive, adark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and remote. Astranger--and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano, almost intears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had nothing to dowith it.
Madame, with her long dark hair hanging in finely-brushed tresses,her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How softshe was on her feet. How humble and remote she seemed, as across achasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an eternity ofinaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the dead bear wasexquisite: her dark, secretive curiosity, her admiration of themassive, male strength of the creature, her quivers of triumph over thedead beast, her cruel exultation, and her fear that he was not reallydead. It was a lovely sight, suggesting the world's morning, before Evehad bitten any white-fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky,dark-eyed, and still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the whiteprisoner! Now indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Herfascination was ruthless. She kneeled by the dead brave, her husband,as she had knelt by the bear: in fear and admiration and doubt andexultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot. Dead meatlike the bear! And a flash of delight went over her, that changed intoa sob of mortal anguish. And then, flickering, wicked, doubtful, shewatched Ciccio wrestling with the bear.
She was the clue to all the action, was Kishwégin. And herdarkbraves seemed to become darker, more secret, malevolent,burning with a cruel fire, and at the same time wistful, knowing theirend. Ciccio laughed in a strange way, as he wrestled with the bear, ashe had never laughed on the previous evenings. The sound went out intothe audience, a soft, malevolent, derisive sound. And when the bear wassupposed to have crushed him, and he was to have fallen, he reeled outof the bear's arms and said to Madame, in his derisive voice:
"Vivo sempre, Madame." And then he fell.
Madame stopped as if shot, hearing his words: "I am still alive,Madame." She remained suspended motionless, suddenly wilted. Then allat once her hand went to her mouth with a scream:
"The Bear!"
So the scene concluded itself. But instead of the tender,half-wistful triumph of Kishwégin, a triumph electric as itshould have been when she took the white man's hand and kissed it,there was a doubt, a hesitancy, a nullity, and Max did not quite knowwhat to do.
After the performance, neither Madame nor Max dared say anything toCiccio about his innovation into the play. Louis felt he had tospeak--it was left to him.
"I say, Cic'--" he said, "why did you change the scene? It mighthave spoiled everything if Madame wasn't such a genius. Why did you saythat?"
"Why," said Ciccio, answering Louis' French in Italian, "I am tiredof being dead, you see."
Madame and Max heard in silence.
When Alvina had playedGod Save the King she went roundbehind the stage. But Ciccio and Geoffrey had already packed up theproperty, and left. Madame was talking to James Houghton. Louis and Maxwere busy together. Mr. May came to Alvina.
"Well," he said. "That closes another week. I think we've done verywell, in face of difficulties, don't you?"
"Wonderfully," she said.
But poor Mr. May spoke and looked pathetically. He seemed to feelforlorn. Alvina was not attending to him. Her eye was roving. She tookno notice of him.
Madame came up.
"Well, Miss Houghton," she said, "time to say good-bye, Isuppose."
"How do you feel after dancing?" asked Alvina.
"Well--not so strong as usual--but not so bad, you know. I shall beall right--thanks to you. I think your father is more ill than I. To mehe looks very ill."
"Father wears himself away," said Alvina.
"Yes, and when we are no longer young, there is not so much to wear.Well, I must thank you once more--"
"What time do you leave in the morning?"
"By the train at half-past ten. If it doesn't rain, the young menwill cycle--perhaps all of them. Then they will go when theylike--"
"I will come round to say good-bye--" said Alvina.
"Oh no--don't disturb yourself--"
"Yes, I want to take home the things--the kettle for the bronchitis,and those things--"
"Oh thank you very much--but don't trouble yourself. I will sendCiccio with them--or one of the others--"
"I should like to say good-bye to you all," persisted Alvina. Madameglanced round at Max and Louis.
"Are we not all here? No. The two have gone. No! Well! Well whattime will you come?"
"About nine?"
"Very well, and I leave at ten. Very well. Then au revoir till themorning. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Alvina. Her colour was rather flushed.
She walked up with Mr. May, and hardly noticed he was there. Aftersupper, when James Houghton had gone up to count his pennies, Alvinasaid to Miss Pinnegar:
"Don't you think father looks rather seedy, Miss Pinnegar?"
"I've been thinking so a long time," said Miss Pinnegar tartly."What do you think he ought to do?"
"He's killing himself down there, in all weathers and freezing inthat box-office, and then the bad atmosphere. He's killing himself,that's all."
"What can we do?"
"Nothing so long as there's that place down there. Nothing at all."Alvina thought so too. So she went to bed.
She was up in time, and watching the clock. It was a grey morning,but not raining. At five minutes to nine, she hurried off to Mrs.Rollings. In the back yard the bicycles were out, glittering and muddyaccording to their owners. Ciccio was crouching mending a tire,crouching balanced on his toes, near the earth. He turned like aquick-eared animal glancing up as she approached, but did not rise.
"Are you getting ready to go?" she said, looking down at him. Hescrewed his head round to her unwillingly, upside down, his chin tiltedup at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes rested on hisface, puzzled. His chin seemed so large, aggressive. He was a littlebit repellent and brutal, inverted. Yet she continued:
"Would you help me to carry back the things we brought forMadame?"
He rose to his feet, but did not look at her. He was wearing brokencycling shoes. He stood looking at his bicycle tube.
"Not just yet," she said. "I want to say good-bye to Madame. Willyou come in half an hour?"
"Yes, I will come," he said, still watching his bicycle tube, whichsprawled nakedly on the floor. The forward drop of his head wascuriously beautiful to her, the straight, powerful nape of the neck,the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The way theneck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. There wassomething mindless butintent about the forward reach of hishead. His face seemed colourless, neutral-tinted andexpressionless.
She went indoors. The young men were moving about makingpreparations.
"Come upstairs, Miss Houghton!" called Madame's voice from above.Alvina mounted, to find Madame packing.
"It is an uneasy moment, when we are busy to move," said Madame,looking up at Alvina as if she were a stranger.
"I'm afraid I'm in the way. But I won't stay a minute."
"Oh, it is all right. Here are the things you brought--" Madameindicated a little pile--"and thank youvery much,verymuch. I feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one littletoken of my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionairesin the Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Just a little remembrance of our troublesomevisit to Woodhouse."
She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, wovenin a weird, lovely pattern, with soft deerskin soles and sides.
"They belong to Kishwégin, so it is Kishwégin whogives them to you, because she is grateful to you for saving her life,or at least from a long illness."
"Oh--but I don't want to take them--" said Alvina.
"You don't like them? Why?"
"I think they're lovely, lovely! But I don't want to take them fromyou--"
"If I give them, you do not take them from me. You receive them.He?" And Madame pressed back the slippers, opening her plump jewelledhands in a gesture of finality.
"But I don't like to takethese," said Alvina. "I feel theybelong to Natcha-Kee-Tawara. And I don't want to rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara,do I? Do take them back."
"No, I have given them. You cannot rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara in taking apair of shoes--impossible!"
"And I'm sure they are much too small for me."
"Ha!" exclaimed Madame. "It is that! Try."
"I know they are," said Alvina, laughing confusedly.
She sat down and took off her own shoe. The moccasin was a littletoo short--just a little. But it was charming on the foot,charming.
"Yes," said Madame. "It is too short. Very well. I must find yousomething else."
"Please don't," said Alvina. "Please don't find me anything. I don'twant anything. Please!"
"What?" said Madame, eyeing her closely. "You don't want? Why? Youdon't want anything from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, or from Kishwégin?He? From which?"
"Don't give me anything, please," said Alvina.
"All right! All right then. I won't. I won't give you anything. Ican't give you anything you want from Natcha-Kee-Tawara."
And Madame busied herself again with the packing.
"I'm awfully sorry you are going," said Alvina.
"Sorry? Why? Yes, so am I sorry we shan't see you any more. Yes, soI am. But perhaps we shall see you another time--he? I shall send you apost-card. Perhaps I shall send one of the young men on his bicycle, tobring you something which I shall buy for you. Yes? Shall I?"
"Oh! I should be awfully glad--but don't buy--" Alvina checkedherself in time. "Don't buy anything. Send me a little thing fromNatcha-Kee-Tawara. Ilove the slippers--"
"But they are too small," said Madame, who had been watching herwith black eyes that read every motive. Madame too had her avariciousside, and was glad to get back the slippers. "Very well--very well, Iwill do that. I will send you some small thing from Natcha-Kee-Tawara,and one of the young men shall bring it. Perhaps Ciccio?Hé?"
"Thank youso much," said Alvina, holding out her hand."Goodbye. I'm so sorry you're going."
"Well--well! We are not going so very far. Not so very far. Perhapswe shall see each other another day. It may be. Good-bye!"
Madame took Alvina's hand, and smiled at her winsomely all at once,kindly, from her inscrutable black eyes. A sudden unusual kindness.Alvina flushed with surprise and a desire to cry.
"Yes. I am sorry you are not with Natcha-Kee-Tawara. But we shallsee. Good-bye. I shall do my packing."
Alvina carried down the things she had to remove. Then she went tosay good-bye to the young men, who were in various stages of theirtoilet. Max alone was quite presentable.
Ciccio was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire. Shewatched his brown thumbs press it into place. He was quick and sure,much more capable, and even masterful, than you would have supposed,seeing his tawny Mediterranean hands. He spun the wheel round, pattingit lightly.
"Is it finished?"
"Yes, I think." He reached his pump and blew up the tire. Shewatched his softly-applied force. What physical, muscular force therewas in him. Then he swung round the bicycle, and stood it again on itswheels. After which he quickly folded his tools.
"Will you come now?" she said.
He turned, rubbing his hands together, and drying them on an oldcloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his cap, andpicked up the things from the table.
"Where are you going?" Max asked.
Ciccio jerked his head towards Alvina.
"Oh, allow me to carry them, Miss Houghton. He is not fit--" saidMax.
True, Ciccio had no collar on, and his shoes were burst.
"I don't mind," said Alvina hastily. "He knows where they go. Hebrought them before."
"But I will carry them. I am dressed. Allow me--" and he began totake the things. "You get dressed, Ciccio."
Ciccio looked at Alvina.
"Do you want?" he said, as if waiting for orders.
"Do let Ciccio take them," said Alvina to Max. "Thank you ever somuch. But let him take them."
So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morning streets, with theItalian, who was down at heel and encumbered with an armful ofsick-room apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he saidnothing.
"We will go in this way," she said, suddenly opening the hall door.She had unlocked it before she went out, for that entrance was hardlyever used. So she showed the Italian into the sombre drawing-room, withits high black bookshelves with rows and rows of calf-bound volumes,its old red and flowered carpet, its grand piano littered with music.Ciccio put down the things as she directed, and stood with his cap inhis hands, looking aside.
"Thank you so much," she said, lingering.
He curled his lips in a faint deprecatory smile.
"Nothing," he murmured.
His eye had wandered uncomfortably up to a portrait on the wall."That was my mother," said Alvina.
He glanced down at her, but did not answer.
"I am so sorry you're going away," she said nervously. She stoodlooking up at him with wide blue eyes.
The faint smile grew on the lower part of his face, which he keptaverted. Then he looked at her.
"We have to move," he said, with his eyes watching her reservedly,his mouth twisting with a half-bashful smile.
"Do you like continually going away?" she said, her wide blue eyesfixed on his face.
He nodded slightly.
"We have to do it. I like it."
What he said meant nothing to him. He now watched her fixedly, witha slightly mocking look, and a reserve he would not relinquish. "Do youthink I shall ever see you again?" she said.
"Should you like--?" he answered, with a sly smile and a faintshrug.
"I should like awfully--" a flush grew on her cheek. She heard MissPinnegar's scarcely audible step approaching.
He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up thecorners of his eyes slyly, his nose seeming slyly to sharpen.
"All right. Next week, eh? In the morning?"
"Do!" cried Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar came through the door. Heglanced quickly over his shoulder.
"Oh!" cried Miss Pinnegar. "I couldn't imagine who it was." She eyedthe young fellow sharply.
"Couldn't you?" said Alvina. "We brought back these things."
"Oh yes. Well--you'd better come into the other room, to the fire,"said Miss Pinnegar.
"I shall go along. Good-bye!" said Ciccio, and with a slight bow toAlvina, and a still slighter to Miss Pinnegar, he was out of the roomand out of the front door, as if turning tail.
"I suppose they're going this morning," said Miss Pinnegar.
Alvina wept when the Natchas had gone. She loved them so much, shewanted to be with them. Even Ciccio she regarded as only one of theNatchas. She looked forward to his coming as to a visit from thetroupe.
How dull the theatre was without them! She was tired of theEndeavour. She wished it did not exist. The rehearsal on the Mondaymorning bored her terribly. Her father was nervous and irritable. Theprevious week had tried him sorely. He had worked himself into a stateof nervous apprehension such as nothing would have justified, unlessperhaps, if the wooden walls of the Endeavour had burnt to the ground,with James inside victimized like another Samson. He had developed anervous horror of all artistes. He did not feel safe for one singlemoment whilst he depended on a single one of them.
"We shall have to convert into all pictures," he said in a nervousfever to Mr. May. "Don't make any more engagements after the end ofnext month."
"Really!" said Mr. May. "Really! Have you quite decided?"
"Yes quite! Yes quite!" James fluttered. "I have written about a newmachine, and the supply of films from Chanticlers."
"Really!" said Mr. May. "Oh well then, in that case--" But he wasfilled with dismay and chagrin.
"Of cauce," he said later to Alvina, "I can'tpossibly stopon if we are nothing but a picture show!" And he arched his blanchedand dismal eyelids with ghastly finality.
"Why?" cried Alvina.
"Oh--why!" He was rather ironic. "Well, it's not my line atall. I'm not afilm-operator!" And he put his head on oneside with a grimace of contempt and superiority.
"But you are, as well," said Alvina.
"Yes,as well. But notonly! Youmay wash thedishes in the scullery. But you're not only thechar, areyou?"
"But is it the same?" cried Alvina.
"Of cauce!" cried Mr. May. "Ofcauce it's the same."
Alvina laughed, a little heartlessly, into his pallid, strickeneyes. "But what will you do?" she asked.
"I shall have to look for something else," said the injured butdauntless little man. "There's nothingelse, is there?"
"Wouldn't you stay on?" she asked.
"I wouldn't think of it. I wouldn't think of it." He turtled like aninjured pigeon.
"Well," she said, looking laconically into his face: "It's betweenyou and father--"
"Ofcauce!" he said. "Naturally! Where else--!" But his tonewas a little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes onAlvina.
Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to MissPinnegar.
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, judicious but aloof, "it's a move in theright direction. But I doubt if it'll do any good."
"Do you?" said Alvina. "Why?"
"I don't believe in the place, and I never did," declared MissPinnegar. "I don't believe any good will come of it."
"But why?" persisted Alvina. "What makes you feel so sure aboutit?"
"I don't know. But that's how I feel. And I have from the first. Itwas wrong from the first. It was wrong to begin it."
"But why?" insisted Alvina, laughing.
"Your father had no business to be led into it. He'd no business totouch this show business. It isn't like him. It doesn't belong to him.He's gone against his own nature and his own life."
"Oh but," said Alvina, "father was a showman even in the shop. Healways was. Mother said he was like a showman in a booth."
Miss Pinnegar was taken aback.
"Well!" she said sharply. "Ifthat's what you've seen inhim!"--there was a pause. "And in that case," she continued tartly, "Ithink some of the showman has come out in his daughter! orshow-woman!--which doesn't improve it, to my idea."
"Why is it any worse?" said Alvina. "I enjoy it--and so doesfather."
"No," cried Miss Pinnegar. "There you're wrong! There you make amistake. It's all against his better nature."
"Really!" said Alvina, in surprise. "What a new idea! But which isfather's better nature?"
"You may not know it," said Miss Pinnegar coldly, "and if so, I cannever tell you. But that doesn't alter it." She lapsed into deadsilence for a moment. Then suddenly she broke out, vicious and cold:"He'll go on till he's killed himself, andthen he'll know."
The little adverbthen came whistling across the space like abullet. It made Alvina pause. Was her father going to die? Shereflected. Well, all men must die.
She forgot the question in others that occupied her. First, couldshe bear it, when the Endeavour was turned into another cheap and nastyfilm-shop? The strange figures of the artistes passing under herobservation had really entertained her, week by week. Some weeks theyhad bored her, some weeks she had detested them, but there was always achance in the coming week. Think of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras!
She thought too much of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She knew it. And shetried to force her mind to the contemplation of the new state ofthings, when she banged at the piano to a set of dithering and boringpictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr. May--or a newoperator, a new manager. The new manager!--she thought of him for amoment--and thought of the mechanical factory-faced persons whomanaged Wright's and the Woodhouse Empire.
But her mind fell away from this barren study. She was obsessed bythe Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. They seemed to have fascinated her. Which ofthem it was, or what it was that had cast the spell over her, she didnot know. But she was as if hypnotized. She longed to be with them. Hersoul gravitated towards them all the time.
Monday passed, and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: andWednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping theirpromise--either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their promise?She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her soul was stubbornwithin her.
On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the Endeavour. Mr.May found James Houghton fainting in the box-office after theperformance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina, northe performance. He sent the chocolate-and-orange boy across to thePear Tree for brandy.
James revived. "I'm all right," he said, in a brittle fashion. "I'mall right. Don't bother." So he sat with his head on his hand in thebox-office, and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the film.
When the interval arrived, Mr. May hurried to the box-office, anarrow hole that James could just sit in, and there he found theinvalid in the same posture, semi-conscious. He gave him morebrandy.
"I'm all right, I tell you," said James, his eyes flaring. "Leave mealone." But he looked anything but all right.
Mr. May hurried for Alvina. When the daughter entered the ticketplace, her father was again in a state of torpor.
"Father," she said, shaking his shoulder gently. "What's thematter." He murmured something, but was incoherent. She looked at hisface. It was grey and blank.
"We shall have to get him home," she said. "We shall have to get acab."
"Give him a little brandy," said Mr. May.
The boy was sent for the cab, James swallowed a spoonful of brandy.He came to himself irritably.
"What? What," he said. "I won't have all this fuss. Go on with theperformance, there's no need to bother about me." His eye was wild."You must go home, father," said Alvina.
"Leave me alone! Will you leave me alone! Hectored by women all mylife--hectored by women--first one, then another. I won't stand it--Iwon't stand it--" He looked at Alvina with a look of frenzy as helapsed again, fell with his head on his hands on his ticket-board.Alvina looked at Mr. May.
"We must get him home," she said. She covered him up with a coat,and sat by him. The performance went on without music. At last the cabcame. James, unconscious, was driven up to Woodhouse. He had to becarried indoors. Alvina hurried ahead to make a light in the darkpassage.
"Father's ill!" she announced to Miss Pinnegar.
"Didn't I say so!" said Miss Pinnegar, starting from her chair.
The two women went out to meet the cab-man, who had James in hisarms.
"Can you manage?" cried Alvina, showing a light.
"He doesn't weigh much," said the man.
"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-to-tu!" went Miss Pinnegar's tongue, in a rapidtut-tut of distress. "What have I said, now," she exclaimed. "What haveI said all along?"
James was laid on the sofa. His eyes were half-shut. They made himdrink brandy, the boy was sent for the doctor, Alvina's bed was warmed.The sick man was got to bed. And then started another vigil. Alvina satup in the sick room. James started and muttered, but did not regainconsciousness. Dawn came, and he was the same. Pneumonia and pleurisyand a touch of meningitis. Alvina drank her tea, took a littlebreakfast, and went to bed at about nine o'clock in the morning,leaving James in charge of Miss Pinnegar. Time was all deranged.
Miss Pinnegar was a nervous nurse. She sat in horror andapprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James interror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what shecould. But one would have said she was repulsed, she found her taskunconsciously repugnant.
During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings came up and said thatthe Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to MissHoughton.
"Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Houghton is seriously ill," saidMiss Pinnegar sharply.
When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon she founda package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame: "To MissHoughton, with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks fromKishwégin."
The comb with its carved, beast-faced serpent was her portion.Alvina asked if there had been any other message. None.
Mr. May came in, and stayed for a dismal half-hour. Then Alvina wentback to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious. MissPinnegar come down, red eyed and sullen looking. The condition of Jamesgave little room for hope.
In the early morning he died. Alvina called Mrs. Rollings, and theycomposed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and not light.Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly chamberat the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could not. Athalf-past seven she arose, and started the business of the new day. Thedoctor came--she went to the registrar--and so on.
Mr. May came. It was decided to keep open the theatre. He would findsome one else for the piano, some one else to issue the tickets.
In the afternoon arrived Frederick Houghton, James's cousin andnearest relative. He was a middle-aged, blond, florid, church-goingdraper from Knarborough, well-to-do and verybourgeois. He triedto talk to Alvina in a fatherly fashion, or a friendly, or a helpfulfashion. But Alvina could not listen to him. He got on her nerves.
Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She wasin the drawing-room with her cousin, to give the interview its properair of solemnity. She saw Ciccio rearing his yellow bicycle against thewall, and going with his head forward along the narrow, dark way of theback yard, to the scullery door.
"Excuse me a minute," she said to her cousin, who looked upirritably as she left the room.
She was just in time to open the door as Ciccio tapped. She stood onthe doorstep above him. He looked up, with a faint smile, from underhis black lashes.
"How nice of you to come," she said. But her face was blanched andtired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in theirtiredness, as she glanced down at Ciccio. He seemed to her faraway.
"Madame asks how is Mr. Houghton," he said.
"Father! He died this morning," she said quietly.
"He died!" exclaimed the Italian, a flash of fear and dismay goingover his face.
"Yes--this morning." She had neither tears nor emotion, but justlooked down on him abstractedly, from her height on the kitchen step.He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his eyesagain, and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from across adistance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a wide,abstract distance.
He turned and looked down the dark yard, towards the gate where hecould just see the pale grey tire of his bicycle, and the yellowmudguard. He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went for ever.Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina, as ifstudying her curiously. She remained there on the door-step, neutral,blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to see him.He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes, until shemet his look. And then he gave the faintest gesture with his head, asof summons towards him. Her soul started, and died in her. And again hegave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head, backwards andsideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too was closed andexpressionless. But in his eyes, which kept hers, there was a darkflicker of ascendancy. He was going to triumph over her. She knew it.And her soul sank as if it sank out of her body. It sank away out ofher body, left her there powerless, soulless.
And yet as he turned, with his head stretched forward, to move away:as he glanced slightly over his shoulder: she stepped down from thestep, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the darkyard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was a cornermade by a shed. Here he turned, lingeringly, to her, and she lingeredin front of him.
Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awfulsubmission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him, like avictim. There was a faint smile in his eyes. He stretched forward overher.
"You love me? Yes?--Yes?" he said, in a voice that seemed like apalpable contact on her.
"Yes," she whispered involuntarily, soulless, like a victim. He puthis arm round her, subtly, and lifted her.
"Yes," he re-echoed, almost mocking in his triumph. "Yes. Yes!" Andsmiling, he kissed her, delicately, with a certain finesse ofknowledge. She moaned in spirit, in his arms, felt herself dead, dead.And he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse which seemedlike coals of fire on her head.
They heard footsteps. Miss Pinnegar was coming to look for her.Ciccio set her down, looked long into her eyes, inscrutably, smiling,and said:
"I come tomorrow."
With which he ducked and ran out of the yard, picking up his bicyclelike a feather, and, taking no notice of Miss Pinnegar, letting theyard-door bang to behind him.
"Alvina!" said Miss Pinnegar.
But Alvina did not answer. She turned, slipped past, ran indoors andupstairs to the little bare bedroom she had made her own. She lockedthe door and kneeled down on the floor, bowing down her head to herknees in a paroxysm on the floor. In a paroxysm--because she loved him.She doubled herself up in a paroxysm on her knees on the floor--becauseshe loved him. It was far more like pain, like agony, than like joy.She swayed herself to and fro in a paroxysm of unbearable sensation,because she loved him.
Miss Pinnegar came and knocked at the door.
"Alvina! Alvina! Oh, you are there! Whatever are you doing? Aren'tyou coming down to speak to your cousin?"
"Soon," said Alvina.
And taking a pillow from the bed, she crushed it against herself andswayed herself unconsciously, in her orgasm of unbearable feeling.Right in her bowels she felt it--the terrible, unbearable feeling. Howcould she bear it.
She crouched over until she became still. A moment of stillnessseemed to cover her like sleep: an eternity of sleep in that onesecond. Then she roused and got up. She went to the mirror, still,evanescent, and tidied her hair, smoothed her face. She was so still,so remote, she felt that nothing, nothing could ever touch her.
And so she went downstairs, to that horrible cousin of her father's.She seemed so intangible, remote and virginal, that her cousin and MissPinnegar both failed to make anything of her. She answered theirquestions simply, but did not talk. They talked to each other. And atlast the cousin went away, with a profound dislike of Miss Alvina.
She did not notice. She was only glad he was gone. And she wentabout for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept deeply thatnight, without dreams.
The next day was Saturday. It came with a great storm of wind andrain and hail: a fury. Alvina looked out in dismay. She knew Cicciowould not be able to come--he could not cycle, and it was impossible toget by train and return the same day. She was almost relieved. She wasrelieved by the intermission of fate, she was thankful for the day ofneutrality.
In the early afternoon came a telegram: Coming both tomorrow morningdeepest sympathy Madame. Tomorrow was Sunday: and the funeral was inthe afternoon. Alvina felt a burning inside her, thinking of Ciccio.She winced--and yet she wanted him to come. Terribly she wanted him tocome.
She showed the telegram to Miss Pinnegar.
"Good gracious!" said the weary Miss Pinnegar. "Fancy those people.And I warrant they'll want to be at the funeral. As if he was anythingtothem--"
"I think it's very nice of her," said Alvina.
"Oh well," said Miss Pinnegar. "If you think so. I don't fancy hewould have wanted such people following, myself. And what does she meanbyboth. Who's the other?" Miss Pinnegar looked sharply atAlvina.
"Ciccio," said Alvina.
"The Italian! Why goodness me! What'she coming for? I can'tmake you out, Alvina. Is that his name, Chicho? I never heard such aname. Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. There won't be room forthem in the cabs."
"We'll order another."
"More expense. I never knew such impertinent people--"
But Alvina did not hear her. On the next morning she dressed herselfcarefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Carefully she did herhair. Ciccio and Madame were coming. The thought of Ciccio made hershudder. She hung about, waiting. Luckily none of the funeral guestswould arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless, musing, bythe fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to Miss Pinnegarand Mrs. Rollings. Miss Pinnegar, red-eyed and yellow-skinned, wasirritable beyond words.
It was nearly mid-day when Alvina heard the gate. She hurried toopen the front door. Madame was in her little black hat and her blackspotted veil, Ciccio in a black overcoat was closing the yard doorbehind her.
"Oh, my dear girl!" Madame cried, trotting forward with outstretchedblack-kid hands, one of which held an umbrella: "I am so shocked--I amso shocked to hear of your poor father. Am I to believe it?--am Ireally? No, I can't."
She lifted her veil, kissed Alvina, and dabbed her eyes. Ciccio cameup the steps. He took off his hat to Alvina, smiled slightly as hepassed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door andushered them into the drawing-room.
Madame looked round like a bird, examining the room and thefurniture. She was evidently a little impressed. But all the time shewas uttering her condolences.
"Tell me, poor girl, how it happened?"
"There isn't much to tell," said Alvina, and she gave the briefaccount of James's illness and death.
"Worn out! Worn out!" Madame said, nodding slowly up and down. Herblack veil, pushed up, sagged over her brows like a mourning band. "Youcannot afford to waste the stamina. And will you keep on thetheatre--with Mr. May--?"
Ciccio was sitting looking towards the fire. His presence madeAlvina tremble. She noticed how the fine black hair of his head showedno parting at all--it just grew like a close cap, and was pushed asideat the forehead. Sometimes he looked at her, as Madame talked, andagain looked at her, and looked away.
At last Madame came to a halt. There was a long pause. "You willstay to the funeral?" said Alvina.
"Oh my dear, we shall be too much--"
"No," said Alvina. "I have arranged for you--"
"There! You think of everything. But I will come, not Ciccio. Hewill not trouble you."
Ciccio looked up at Alvina.
"I should like him to come," said Alvina simply. But a deep flushbegan to mount her face. She did not know where it came from, she feltso cold. And she wanted to cry.
Madame watched her closely.
"Siamo di accordo," came the voice of Ciccio.
Alvina and Madame both looked at him. He sat constrained, with hisface averted, his eyes dropped, but smiling.
Madame looked closely at Alvina.
"Is it true what he says?" she asked.
"I don't understand him," said Alvina. "I don't understand what hesaid."
"That you have agreed with him--"
Madame and Ciccio both watched Alvina as she sat in her new blackdress. Her eyes involuntarily turned to his.
"I don't know," she said vaguely. "Have I--?" and she looked at him.Madame kept silence for some moments. Then she said gravely:"Well!--yes!--well!" She looked from one to another. "Well, there is alot to consider. But if you have decided--"
Neither of them answered. Madame suddenly rose and went to Alvina.She kissed her on either cheek.
"I shall protect you," she said.
Then she returned to her seat.
"What have you said to Miss Houghton?" she said suddenly to Ciccio,tackling him direct, and speaking coldly.
He looked at Madame with a faint derisive smile. Then he turned toAlvina. She bent her head and blushed.
"Speak then," said Madame, "you have a reason." She seemedmistrustful of him.
But he turned aside his face, and refused to speak, sitting as if hewere unaware of Madame's presence.
"Oh well," said Madame. "I shall be there, Signorino."
She spoke with a half-playful threat. Ciccio curled his lip. "You donot know him yet," she said, turning to Alvina.
"I know that," said Alvina, offended. Then she added: "Wouldn't youlike to take off your hat?"
"If you truly wish me to stay," said Madame.
"Yes, please do. And will you hang your coat in the hall?" she saidto Ciccio.
"Oh!" said Madame roughly. "He will not stay to eat. He will go outto somewhere."
Alvina looked at him.
"Would you rather?" she said.
He looked at her with sardonic yellow eyes.
"If you want," he said, the awkward, derisive smile curling his lipsand showing his teeth.
She had a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? Thethought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched hersardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world facethat decided her--for it sent the deep spasm across her.
"I'd like you to stay," she said.
A smile of triumph went over his face. Madame watched him stonily asshe stood beside her chair, one hand lightly balanced on her hip.Alvina was reminded of Kishwégin. But even in Madame's stonymistrust there was an element of attraction towards him. He had takenhis cigarette case from his pocket.
"On ne fume pas dans le salon," said Madame brutally.
"Will you put your coat in the passage?--and do smoke if you wish,"said Alvina.
He rose to his feet and took off his overcoat. His face wasobstinate and mocking. He was rather floridly dressed, though in black,and wore boots of black patent leather with tan uppers. Handsome hewas--but undeniably in bad taste. The silver ring was still on hisfinger--and his close, fine, unparted hair went badly with smartEnglish clothes. He looked common--Alvina confessed it. And her heartsank. But what was she to do? He evidently was not happy. Obstinacymade him stick out the situation.
Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the deadJames. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face, and crossedherself as she wept.
"Un bel homme, cependant," she whispered. "Mort en un jour. C'esttrop fort, voyez!" And she sniggered with fear and sobs.
They went down to Alvina's bare room. Madame glanced round, as shedid in every room she entered.
"This was father's bedroom," said Alvina. "The other was mine. Hewouldn't have it anything but like this--bare."
"Nature of a monk, a hermit," whispered Madame. "Who would havethought it! Ah, the men, the men!"
And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the smallmirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stoodwaiting.
"And now--" whispered Madame, suddenly turning: "What about thisCiccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voiceabove a whisper, upstairs there. But so it was.
She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvinalooked back at her, but did not know what to say.
"What about him, hein? Will you marry him? Why will you?"
"I suppose because I like him," said Alvina, flushing.
Madame made a little grimace.
"Oh yes!" she whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. "Ohyes!--because you like him! But you know nothingofhim--nothing. How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a realbad character. How would you like him then?"
"He isn't, is he?" said Alvina.
"I don't know. I don't know. He may be. Even I, I don't knowhim--no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He isa man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist's model. Hesticks to nothing--"
"How old is he?" asked Alvina.
"He is twenty-five--a boy only. And you? You are older."
"Thirty," confessed Alvina.
"Thirty! Well now--so much difference! How can you trust him? Howcan you? Why does he want to marry you--why?"
"I don't know--" said Alvina.
"No, and I don't know. But I know something of these Italian men,who are labourers in every country, just labourers and under-menalways, always down, down, down--" And Madame pressed her spread palmsdownwards. "And so--when they have a chance to come up--" she raisedher hand with a spring--"they are very conceited, and they take theirchance. He will want to rise, by you, and you will go down, with him.That is how it is. I have seen it before--yes--more than onetime--"
"But," said Alvina, laughing ruefully. "He can't rise much becauseof me, can he?"
"How not? How not? In the first place, you are English, and hethinks to rise by that. Then you are not of the lower class, you are ofthe higher class, the class of the masters, such as employ Ciccio andmen like him. How will he not rise in the world by you? Yes, he willrise very much. Or he will draw you down, down--Yes, one or another.And then he thinks that now you have money--now your father is dead--"here Madame glanced apprehensively at the closed door--"and they alllike money, yes, very much, all Italians--"
"Do they?" said Alvina, scared. "I'm sure there won'tbe anymoney. I'm sure father is in debt."
"What? You think? Do you? Really? Oh poor Miss Houghton! Well--andwill you tell Ciccio that? Eh? Hein?"
"Yes--certainly--if it matters," said poor Alvina.
"Of course it matters. Of course it matters very much. It matters tohim. Because he will not have much. He saves, saves, saves, as they alldo, to go back to Italy and buy a piece of land. And if he has you, itwill cost him much more, he cannot continue with Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Allwill be much more difficult--"
"Oh, I will tell him in time," said Alvina, pale at the lips.
"You will tell him! Yes. That is better. And then you will see. Buthe is obstinate--as a mule. And if he will still have you, then youmust think. Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man, adirty Eyetalian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not pleasant foryou, who have not known it. I also have not known it. But I haveseen--" Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while Madame dartedlooks, as from bright, deep black glass.
"Yes," said Alvina. "I should hate being a labourer's wife in anasty little house in a street--"
"In a house?" cried Madame. "It would not be in a house. They livemany together in one house. It would be two rooms, or even one room, inanother house with many people not quite clean, you see--"
Alvina shook her head.
"I couldn't stand that," she said finally.
"No!" Madame nodded approval. "No! you could not. They live in a badway, the Italians. They do not know the English home--never. They don'tlike it. Nor do they know the Swiss clean and proper house. No. Theydon't understand. They run into their holes to sleep or to shelter, andthat is all."
"The same in Italy?" said Alvina.
"Even more--because there it is sunny very often--"
"And you don't need a house," said Alvina. "I should like that."
"Yes, it is nice--but you don't know the life. And you would bealone with people like animals. And if you go to Italy he will beatyou--he will beat you--"
"If I let him," said Alvina.
"But you can't help it, away there from everybody. Nobody will helpyou. If you are a wife in Italy, nobody will help you. You are hisproperty, when you marry by Italian law. It is not like England. Thereis no divorce in Italy. And if he beats you, you are helpless--"
"But why should he beat me?" said Alvina. "Why should he wantto?"
"They do. They are so jealous. And then they go into theirungovernable tempers, horrible tempers--"
"Only when they are provoked," said Alvina, thinking of Max. "Yes,but you will not know what provokes him. Who can say when he will beprovoked? And then he beats you--"
There seemed to be a gathering triumph in Madame's bright blackeyes. Alvina looked at her, and turned to the door.
"At any rate I know now," she said, in rather a flat voice.
"And it istrue. It is all of it true," whispered Madamevindictively. Alvina wanted to run from her.
"Imust go to the kitchen," she said. "Shall we go down?"
Alvina did not go into the drawing-room with Madame. She was toomuch upset, and she had almost a horror of seeing Ciccio at thatmoment.
Miss Pinnegar, her face stained carmine by the fire, was helpingMrs. Rollings with the dinner.
"Are they both staying, or only one?" she said tartly.
"Both," said Alvina, busying herself with the gravy, to hide herdistress and confusion.
"The man as well," said Miss Pinnegar. "What does the woman want tobringhim for? I'm sure I don't know what your father would saya common show-fellow,looks what he is--and staying todinner."
Miss Pinnegar was thoroughly out of temper as she tried thepotatoes. Alvina set the table. Then she went to the drawing-room."Will you come to dinner?" she said to her two guests.
Ciccio rose, threw his cigarette into the fire, and looked round.Outside was a faint, watery sunshine: but at least it was out of doors.He felt himself imprisoned and out of his element. He had anirresistible impulse to go.
When he got into the hall he laid his hand on his hat. The stupid,constrained smile was on his face.
"I'll go now," he said.
"We have set the table for you," said Alvina.
"Stop now, since you have stopped for so long," said Madame, dartingher black looks at him.
But he hurried on his coat, looking stupid. Madame lifted hereyebrows disdainfully.
"This is polite behaviour!" she said sarcastically.
Alvina stood at a loss.
"You return to the funeral?" said Madame coldly.
He shook his head.
"When you are ready to go," he said.
"At four o'clock," said Madame, "when the funeral has come home.Then we shall be in time for the train."
He nodded, smiled stupidly, opened the door, and went.
"This is just like him, to be so--so--" Madame could not expressherself as she walked down to the kitchen.
"Miss Pinnegar, this is Madame," said Alvina.
"How do you do?" said Miss Pinnegar, a little distant andcondescending. Madame eyed her keenly.
"Where is the man? I don't know his name," said Miss Pinnegar. "Hewouldn't stay," said Alvina. "Whatis his name, Madame?"
"Marasca--Francesco. Francesco Marasca--Neapolitan."
"Marasca!" echoed Alvina.
"It has a bad sound--a sound of a bad augury, bad sign," saidMadame. "Ma-rà-sca!" She shook her head at the taste of thesyllables.
"Why do you think so?" said Alvina. "Do you think there is a meaningin sounds? goodness and badness?"
"Yes," said Madame. "Certainly. Some sounds are good, they are forlife, for creating, and some sounds are bad, they are for destroying.Ma-rà-sca!--that is bad, like swearing."
"But what sort of badness? What does it do?" said Alvina.
"What does it do? It sends life down--down--instead of lifting itup."
"Why should things always go up? Why should life always go up?" saidAlvina.
"I don't know," said Madame, cutting her meat quickly. There was apause.
"And what about other names," interrupted Miss Pinnegar, a littlelofty. "What about Houghton, for example?"
Madame put down her fork, but kept her knife in her hand. She lookedacross the room, not at Miss Pinnegar.
"Houghton--! Huff-ton!" she said. "When it is said, it has a soundagainst: that is, against the neighbour, against humanity. Butwhen it is writtenHough-ton! then it is different, it isfor."
"It is always pronouncedHuff-ton," said Miss Pinnegar.
"By us," said Alvina.
"We ought to know," said Miss Pinnegar.
Madame turned to look at the unhappy, elderly woman. "You are arelative of the family?" she said.
"No, not a relative. But I've been here many years," said MissPinnegar.
"Oh, yes!" said Madame. Miss Pinnegar was frightfully affronted. Themeal, with the three women at table, passed painfully.
Miss Pinnegar rose to go upstairs and weep. She felt very forlorn.Alvina rose to wipe the dishes, hastily, because the funeral guestswould all be coming. Madame went into the drawing-room to smoke her slycigarette.
Mr. May was the first to turn up for the lugubrious affair: verytight and tailored, but a little extinguished, all in black. He neverwore black, and was very unhappy in it, being almost morbidly sensitiveto the impression the colour made on him. He was set to entertainMadame.
She did not pretend distress, but sat black-eyed and watchful, verymuch her business self.
"What about the theatre?--will it go on?" she asked.
"Well I don't know. I don't know Miss Houghton's intentions," saidMr. May. He was a little stilted today.
"It's hers?" said Madame.
"Why, as far as I understand--"
"And if she wants to sell out--?"
Mr. May spread his hands, and looked dismal, but distant. "Youshould form a company, and carry on--" said Madame.
Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing himself up in an oddfashion, so that he looked as if he were trussed. But Madame's shrewdblack eyes and busy mind did not let him off.
"Buy Miss Houghton out--" said Madame shrewdly.
"Of cauce," said Mr. May. "Miss Houghton herself must decide."
"Oh sure--! You--are you married?"
"Yes."
"Your wife here?"
"My wife is in London."
"And children--?"
"A daughter."
Madame slowly nodded her head up and down, as if she put thousandsof two-and-two's together.
"You think there will be much to come to Miss Houghton?" she said."Do you mean property? I really can't say. I haven't enquired."
"No, but you have a good idea, eh?"
"I'm afraid I haven't."
"No! Well! It won't be much, then?"
"Really, I don't know. I should say, not alargefortune--!"
"No--eh?" Madame kept him fixed with her black eyes. "Do you thinkthe other one will get anything?"
"Theother one--?" queried Mr. May, with an uprising cadence.Madame nodded slightly towards the kitchen.
"The old one--the Miss--Miss Pin--Pinny--what you call her."
"Miss Pinnegar! The manageress of the work-girls? Really, I don'tknow at all--" Mr. May was most freezing.
"Ha--ha! Ha--ha!" mused Madame quietly. Then she asked: "Whichwork-girls do you say?"
And she listened astutely to Mr. May's forced account of theworkroom upstairs, extorting all the details she desired to gather.Then there was a pause. Madame glanced round the room.
"Nice house!" she said. "Is it their own?"
"So Ibelieve--"
Again Madame nodded sagely. "Debts perhaps--eh? Mortgage--" and shelooked slyly sardonic.
"Really!" said Mr. May, bouncing to his feet. "Do you mind if I goto speak to Mrs. Rollings--"
"Oh no--go along," said Madame, and Mr. May skipped out in atemper.
Madame was left alone in her comfortable chair, studying details ofthe room and making accounts in her own mind, until the actual funeralguests began to arrive. And then she had the satisfaction of sizingthem up. Several arrived with wreaths. The coffin had been carried downand laid in the small sitting-room--Mrs. Houghton's sitting-room. Itwas covered with white wreaths and streamers of purple ribbon. Therewas a crush and a confusion.
And then at last the hearse and the cabs had arrived--the coffin wascarried out--Alvina followed, on the arm of her father's cousin, whomshe disliked. Miss Pinnegar marshalled the other mourners. It was awretched business.
But it was a great funeral. There were nine cabs, besides thehearse--Woodhouse had revived its ancient respect for the house ofHoughton. A posse of minor tradesmen followed the cabs--all in blackand with black gloves. The richer tradesmen sat in the cabs.
Poor Alvina, this was the only day in all her life when she was thecentre of public attention. For once, every eye was upon her, everymind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina! said every member of theWoodhouse "middle class": Poor Alvina Houghton, said every collier'swife. Poor thing, left alone--and hardly a penny to bless herself with.Lucky if she's not left with a pile of debts. James Houghton ranthrough some money in his day. Ay, if she had her rights she'd be arich woman. Why, her mother brought three or four thousands with her.Ay, but James sank it all in Throttle-Ha'penny and Klondyke and theEndeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He paid his way. I'm notso sure about that. Look how he served his wife, and now Alvina. I'mnot so sure he was his own worst enemy. He was bad enough enemy to hisown flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll spend no more money, anyhow. No, hewent sudden, didn't he? But he was getting very frail, if you noticed.Oh yes, why he fair seemed to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon asthat place pays its way? What, the Endeavour?--they say it does. Theysay it makes a nice bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ay, it is.Perhaps it won't be now Mr. Houghton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder ifhewill leave much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got'smortgaged up to the hilt. He'll leave debts, you see if he doesn't.What is she going to do then? She'll have to go out of ManchesterHouse--her and Miss Pinnegar. Wonder what she'll do. Perhaps she'lltake up that nursing. She never made much of that, did she--and spent asight of money on her training, they say. She's a bit like her fatherin the business line--all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turnup and marry her. I don't know, she doesn't seem to hook on, does she?Why she's never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged once.Ay, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was on. Canyou remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she? No, Inever knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, you know,learning for his head master's place. Why didn't she marry him then?Perhaps he never asked her. Ay, there's that to it. She'd have lookeddown her nose at him, times gone by. Ay, but that's all over, my boy.She'd snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that manager.Why,that's something awful. Haven't you ever watched her in theCinema? She never lets him alone. And it's anybody alike. Oh, shedoesn't respect herself. I don't consider. No girl who respectedherself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller'shead. Does she, though? Ay, any performer or anybody. She's a tidy age,though. She's not much chance of getting off. How old do you reckon sheis? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, shelooks it.She does beguy--a dragged old maid. Oh but she sprightles up a bitsometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on to somebody. I wonderwhy she never did take? It's funny. Oh, she was too high and mightybefore, and now it's too late. Nobody wants her. And she's got norelations to go to either, has she? No, that's her father's cousin whoshe's walking with. Look, they're coming. He's a fine-looking man,isn't he? You'd have thought they'd have buried Miss Frost beside Mrs.Houghton. You would, wouldn't you? I should think Alvina will lie byMiss Frost. They say the grave was made for both of them. Ay, she was alot more of a mother to her than her own mother. Shewas good tothem, Miss Frost was. Alvina thought the world of her. That's herstone--look, down there. Not a very grand one, considering. No, itisn't. Look, there's room for Alvina's name underneath. Sh!--
Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity themany faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her ownface. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out of herdarkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her--how she disliked hispresence.
In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and herfather. She felt so desolate--it all seemed so empty. Bitterly shecried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying startedMiss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all ratherhorrible. The afterwards--the horrible afterwards.
There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, coldday. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the opengrave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black seal-skin furswere not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by the grave,and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in the coldwind. She had watched them for her mother--and for Miss Frost. She felta sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would have to part. MissPinnegar had been so fond of her father, in a quaint, reserved way.Poor Miss Pinnegar, that was all life had offered her. Well, after all,it had been a home and a home life. To which home and home life Alvinanow clung with a desperate yearning, knowing inevitably she was goingto lose it, now her father was gone. Strange, that he was gone. But hewas weary, worn very thin and weary. He had lived his day. Howdifferent it all was, now, at his death, from the time when Alvina knewhim as a little child and thought him such a fine gentleman. You liveand learn and lose.
For one moment she looked at Madame, who was shuddering with cold,her face hidden behind her black spotted veil. But Madame seemedimmensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio--what was his name? She couldnot think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's slowenunciation. Marasca--maraschino. Marasca! Maraschino! What wasmaraschino? Where had she heard it. Cudgelling her brains, sheremembered the doctors, and the suppers after the theatre. Andmaraschino--why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the innocentDr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to smack hislips, saying the wordmaraschino. Yet she didn't think much ofit. Hot, bitterish stuff--nothing: not like green Chartreuse, which Dr.James gave her. Maraschino! Yes, that was it. Made from cherries. Well,Ciccio's name was nearly the same. Ridiculous! But she supposed Italianwords were a good deal alike.
Ciccio, the marasca, the bitter cherry, was standing on the edge ofthe crowd, looking on. He had no connection whatever with theproceedings--stood outside, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bitten bythe wind, and hating the people who stared at him. He saw the trim,plump figure of Madame, like some trim plump partridge among a flock ofbarn-yard fowls. And he depended on her presence. Without her, he wouldhave felt too horribly uncomfortable on that raw hillside. She and hewere in some way allied. But these others, how alien and uncouth hefelt them. Impressed by their fine clothes, the English working-classeswere none the less barbarians to him, uncivilized: just as he was tothem an uncivilized animal. Uncouth, they seemed to him, all raw anglesand harshness, like their own weather. Not that he thought about them.But he felt it in his flesh, the harshness and discomfort of them. AndAlvina was one of them. As she stood there by the grave, pale andpinched and reserved looking, she was of a piece with the hideous coldgrey discomfort of the whole scene. Never had anything been moreuncongenial to him. He was dying to get away--to clear out. That wasall he wanted. Only some southern obstinacy made him watch, from theduskiness of his face, the pale, reserved girl at the grave. Perhaps heeven disliked her, at that time. But he watched in his dislike.
When the ceremony was over, and the mourners turned away to go backto the cabs, Madame pressed forward to Alvina.
"I shall say good-bye now, Miss Houghton. We must go to the stationfor the train. And thank you, thank you. Good-bye."
"But--" Alvina looked round.
"Ciccio is there. I see him. We must catch the train."
"Oh but--won't you drive? Won't you ask Ciccio to drive with you inthe cab? Where is he?"
Madame pointed him out as he hung back among the graves, his blackhat cocked a little on one side. He was watching. Alvina broke awayfrom her cousin, and went to him.
"Madame is going to drive to the station," she said. "She wants youto get in with her."
He looked round at the cabs.
"All right," he said, and he picked his way across the graves toMadame, following Alvina.
"So, we go together in the cab," said Madame to him. Then: "Goodbye,my dear Miss Houghton. Perhaps we shall meet once more. Who knows? Myheart is with you, my dear." She put her arms round Alvina and kissedher, a little theatrically. The cousin looked on, very much aloof.Ciccio stood by.
"Come then, Ciccio," said Madame.
"Good-bye," said Alvina to him. "You'll come again, won't you?" Shelooked at him from her strained, pale face.
"All right," he said, shaking her hand loosely. It soundedhopelessly indefinite.
"You will come, won't you?" she repeated, staring at him withstrained, unseeing blue eyes.
"All right," he said, ducking and turning away.
She stood quite still for a moment, quite lost. Then she went onwith her cousin to her cab, home to the funeral tea.
"Good-bye!" Madame fluttered a black-edged handkerchief. But Ciccio,most uncomfortable in his four-wheeler, kept hidden.
The funeral tea, with its baked meats and sweets, was a terribleaffair. But it came to an end, as everything comes to an end, and MissPinnegar and Alvina were left alone in the emptiness of ManchesterHouse.
"If you weren't here, Miss Pinnegar, I should be quite by myself,"said Alvina, blanched and strained.
"Yes. And so should I without you," said Miss Pinnegar doggedly.They looked at each other. And that night both slept in Miss Pinnegar'sbed, out of sheer terror of the empty house.
During the days following the funeral, no one could have been moretiresome than Alvina. James had left everything to his daughter,excepting some rights in the work-shop, which were Miss Pinnegar's. Butthe question was, how much did "everything" amount to? There wassomething less than a hundred pounds in the bank. There was a mortgageon Manchester House. There were substantial bills owing on account ofthe Endeavour. Alvina had about a hundred pounds left from theinsurance money, when all funeral expenses were paid. Of that she wassure, and of nothing else.
For the rest, she was almost driven mad by people coming to talk toher. The lawyer came, the clergyman came, her cousin came, the old,stout, prosperous tradesmen of Woodhouse came, Mr. May came, MissPinnegar came. And they all had schemes, and they all had advice. Thechief plan was that the theatre should be sold up: and that ManchesterHouse should be sold, reserving a lease on the top floor, where MissPinnegar's work-rooms were: that Miss Pinnegar and Alvina should moveinto a small house, Miss Pinnegar keeping the workroom, Alvina givingmusic-lessons: that the two women should be partners in thework-shop.
There were other plans, of course. There was a faction against thechapel faction, which favoured the plan sketched out above. The theatrefaction, including Mr. May and some of the more florid tradesmen,favoured the risking of everything in the Endeavour. Alvina was to bethe proprietress of the Endeavour, she was to run it on some sort ofsuccessful lines, and abandon all other enterprise. Minor plansincluded the election of Alvina to the post of parish nurse, at sixpounds a month: a small private school; a small haberdashery shop; anda position in the office of her cousin's Knarborough business. To oneand all Alvina answered with a tantalizing: "I don't know what I'mgoing to do. I don't know. I can't say yet. I shall see. I shall see."Till one and all became angry with her. They were all so benevolent,and all so sure that they were proposing the very best thing she coulddo. And they were all nettled, even indignant that she did not jump attheir proposals. She listened to them all. She even invited theiradvice. Continually she said: "Well, what doyou think of it?"And she repeated the chapel plan to the theatre group, the theatre planto the chapel party, the nursing to the pianoforte proposers, thehaberdashery shop to the private school advocates. "Tell me whatyou think," she said repeatedly. And they all told her theythoughttheir plan was best. And bit by bit she told everyadvocate the proposal of every other advocate. "Well, Lawyer Beebythinks--" and "Well now, Mr. Clay, the minister, advises--" and so onand so on, till it was all buzzing through thirty benevolent andofficious heads. And thirty benevolently-officious wills were strivingto plant each one its own particular scheme of benevolence. And Alvina,naive and pathetic, egged them all on in their strife, without evenknowing what she was doing. One thing only was certain. Some obstinatewill in her own self absolutely refused to have her mind made up. Shewouldnot have her mind made up for her, and she would not makeit up for herself. And so everybody began to say "I'm getting tired ofher. You talk to her, and you get no forrarder. She slips off tosomething else. I'm not going to bother with her any more." In truth,Woodhouse was in a fever, for three weeks or more, arranging Alvina'sunarrangeable future for her. Offers of charity were innumerable--forthree weeks.
Meanwhile, the lawyer went on with the proving of the will and thedrawing up of a final account of James's property; Mr. May went on withthe Endeavour, though Alvina did not go down to play; Miss Pinnegarwent on with the work-girls: and Alvina went on unmaking her mind.
Ciccio did not come during the first week. Alvina had a post-cardfrom Madame, from Cheshire: rather far off. But such was the buzz andexcitement over her material future, such a fever was worked up roundabout her that Alvina, the petty-propertied heroine of the moment, wasquite carried away in a storm of schemes and benevolent suggestions.She answered Madame's post-card, but did not give much thought to theNatcha-Kee-Tawaras. As a matter of fact, she was enjoying a real momentof importance, there at the centre of Wood-house's rather domineeringbenevolence: a benevolence which she unconsciously, but systematicallyfrustrated. All this scheming for selling out and making reservationsand hanging on and fixing prices and getting private bids forManchester House and for the Endeavour, the excitement of forming aLimited Company to run the Endeavour, of seeing a lawyer about the saleof Manchester House and the auctioneer about the sale of the furniture,of receiving men who wanted to pick up the machines upstairs cheap, andof keeping everything dangling, deciding nothing, putting everythingoff till she had seen somebody else, this for the moment fascinatedher, went to her head. It was not until the second week had passed thather excitement began to merge into irritation, and not until the thirdweek had gone by that she began to feel herself entangled in anasphyxiating web of indecision, and her heart began to sing becauseCiccio had never turned up. Now she would have given anything to seethe Natcha-Kee-Tawaras again. But she did not know where they were. Nowshe began to loathe the excitement of her property: doubtfully hers,every stick of it. Now she would give anything to get away fromWoodhouse, from the horrible buzz and entanglement of her sordidaffairs. Now again her wild recklessness came over her.
She suddenly said she was going away somewhere: she would not saywhere. She cashed all the money she could: a hundred-and-twenty-fivepounds. She took the train to Cheshire, to the last address of theNatcha-Kee-Tawaras: she followed them to Stockport: and back toChinley: and there she was stuck for the night. Next day she dashedback almost to Woodhouse, and swerved round to Sheffield. There, inthat black town, thank heaven, she saw their announcement on the wall.She took a taxi to their theatre, and then on to their lodgings. Thefirst thing she saw was Louis, in his shirt sleeves, on the landingabove.
She laughed with excitement and pleasure. She seemed another woman.Madame looked up, almost annoyed, when she entered.
"I couldn't keep away from you, Madame," she cried.
"Evidently," said Madame.
Madame was darning socks for the young men. She was a wonderfulmother for them, sewed for them, cooked for them, looked after themmost carefully. Not many minutes was Madame idle.
"Do you mind?" said Alvina.
Madame darned for some moments without answering. "And how iseverything at Woodhouse?" she asked.
"I couldn't bear it any longer. I couldn't bear it. So I collectedall the money I could, and ran away. Nobody knows where I am."
Madame looked up with bright, black, censorious eyes, at the flushedgirl opposite. Alvina had a certain strangeness and brightness, whichMadame did not know, and a frankness which the Frenchwoman mistrusted,but found disarming.
"And all the business, the will and all?" said Madame.
"They're still fussing about it."
"And there is some money?"
"I have got a hundred pounds here," laughed Alvina. "What there willbe when everything is settled, I don't know. But not very much, I'msure of that."
"How much do you think? A thousand pounds?"
"Oh, it's just possible, you know. But it's just as likely therewon't be another penny--"
Madame nodded slowly, as always when she did her calculations. "Andif there is nothing, what do you intend?" said Madame. "I don't know,"said Alvina brightly.
"And if there is something?"
"I don't know either. But I thought, if you would let me play foryou, I could keep myself for some time with my own money. You saidperhaps I might be with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. I wish you would letme."
Madame bent her head so that nothing showed but the bright blackfolds of her hair. Then she looked up, with a slow, subtle, ratherjeering smile.
"Ciccio didn't come to see you, hein?"
"No," said Alvina. "Yet he promised."
Again Madame smiled sardonically.
"Do you call it a promise?" she said. "You are easy to be satisfiedwith a word. A hundred pounds? No more?"
"A hundred and twenty--"
"Where is it?"
"In my bag at the station--in notes. And I've got a little here--"Alvina opened her purse, and took out some little gold and silver.
"At the station!" exclaimed Madame, smiling grimly: "Then perhapsyou have nothing."
"Oh, I think it's quite safe, don't you--?"
"Yes--maybe--since it is England. And you think a hundred and twentypounds is enough?"
"What for?"
"To satisfy Ciccio."
"I wasn't thinking of him," cried Alvina.
"No?" said Madame ironically. "I can propose it to him. Wait onemoment." She went to the door and called Ciccio.
He entered, looking not very good-tempered.
"Be so good, my dear," said Madame to him, "to go to the station andfetch Miss Houghton's little bag. You have got the ticket, have you?"Alvina handed the luggage ticket to Madame. "Midland Railway," saidMadame. "And, Ciccio, you are listening--? Mind! There is a hundred andtwenty pounds of Miss Houghton's money in the bag. You hear? Mind it isnot lost."
"It's all I have," said Alvina.
"For the time, for the time--till the will is proved, it is all thecash she has. So mind doubly. You hear?"
"All right," said Ciccio.
"Tell him what sort of a bag, Miss Houghton," said Madame. Alvinatold him. He ducked and went. Madame listened for his final departure.Then she nodded sagely at Alvina.
"Take off your hat and coat, my dear. Soon we will have tea--whenCic' returns. Let him think, let him think what he likes. So much moneyis certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It will make allthe difference that there is so much cash--yes, so much--"
"But would itreally make a difference to him?" criedAlvina.
"Oh my dear!" exclaimed Madame. "Why should it not? We are on earth,where we must eat. We are not in Paradise. If it were a thousandpounds, then he would want very badly to marry you. But a hundred andtwenty is better than a blow to the eye, eh? Why sure!"
"It's dreadful, though--!" said Alvina.
"Oh la-la! Dreadful! If it was Max, who is sentimental, then no, themoney is nothing. But all the others--why, you see, they are men, andthey know which side to butter their bread. Men are like cats, my dear,they don't like their bread without butter. Why should they? Nor do I,nor do I."
"Can I help with the darning?" said Alvina.
"Hein? I shall give you Ciccio's socks, yes? He pushes holes in thetoes--you see?" Madame poked two fingers through the hole in the toe ofa red-and-black sock, and smiled a little maliciously at Alvina.
"I don't mind which sock I darn," she said.
"No? You don't? Well then, I give you another. But if you like Iwill speak to him--"
"What to say?" asked Alvina.
"To say that you have so much money, and hope to have more. And thatyou like him--Yes? Am I right? You like him very much?--hein? Is itso?"
"And then what?" said Alvina.
"That he should tell me if he should like to marry you also--quitesimply. What? Yes?"
"No," said Alvina. "Don't say anything--not yet."
"Hé? Not yet? Not yet. All right, not yet then. You willsee--"
Alvina sat darning the sock and smiling at her own shamelessness.The point that amused her most of all was the fact that she was not byany means sure she wanted to marry him. There was Madame spinning herweb like a plump prolific black spider. There was Ciccio, the unrestfulfly. And there was herself, who didn't know in the least what she wasdoing. There sat two of them, Madame and herself, darning socks in astuffy little bedroom with a gas fire, as if they had been born to it.And after all, Woodhouse wasn't fifty miles away.
Madame went downstairs to get tea ready. Wherever she was, shesuperintended the cooking and the preparation of meals for her youngmen, scrupulous and quick. She called Alvina downstairs. Ciccio came inwith the bag.
"See, my dear, that your money is safe," said Madame.
Alvina unfastened her bag and counted the crisp white notes.
"And now," said Madame, "I shall lock it in my little bank, yes,where it will be safe. And I shall give you a receipt, which the youngmen will witness."
The party sat down to tea, in the stuffy sitting-room.
"Now, boys," said Madame, "what do you say? Shall Miss Houghton jointhe Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Shall she be our pianist?"
The eyes of the four young men rested on Alvina. Max, as being theresponsible party, looked business-like. Louis was tender, Geoffreyround-eyed and inquisitive, Ciccio furtive.
"With great pleasure," said Max. "But can the Natcha-Kee-Tawarasafford to pay a pianist for themselves?"
"No," said Madame. "No. I think not. Miss Houghton will come for onemonth, to prove, and in that time she shall pay for herself. Yes? Soshe fancies it."
"Can we pay her expenses?" said Max.
"No," said Alvina. "Let me pay everything for myself, for a month. Ishould like to be with you, awfully--"
She looked across with a look half mischievous, half beseeching atthe erect Max. He bowed as he sat at table.
"I think we shall all be honoured," he said.
"Certainly," said Louis, bowing also over his tea-cup.
Geoffrey inclined his head, and Ciccio lowered his eyelashes inindication of agreement.
"Now then," said Madame briskly, "we are all agreed. Tonight we willhave a bottle of wine on it. Yes, gentlemen? What d'you say?Chianti--hein?"
They all bowed above the table.
"And Miss Houghton shall have her professional name, eh? Because wecannot say Miss Houghton--what?"
"Do call me Alvina," said Alvina.
"Alvina--Al-vy-na! No, excuse me, my dear, I don't like it. I don'tlike this 'vy' sound. Tonight we shall find a name."
After tea they inquired for a room for Alvina. There was none in thehouse. But two doors away was another decent lodging-house, where abedroom on the top floor was found for her.
"I think you are very well here," said Madame.
"Quite nice," said Alvina, looking round the hideous little room,and remembering her other term of probation, as a maternity nurse.
She dressed as attractively as possible, in her new dress of blackvoile, and imitating Madame, she put four jewelled rings on herfingers. As a rule she only wore the mourning-rite of black enamel anddiamond, which had been always on Miss Frost's finger. Now she left offthis, and took four diamond rings, and one good sapphire. She looked atherself in her mirror as she had never done before, really interestedin the effect she made. And in her dress she pinned a valuable old rubybrooch.
Then she went down to Madame's house. Madame eyed her shrewdly, withjust a touch of jealousy: the eternal jealousy that must exist betweenthe plump, pale partridge of a Frenchwoman, whose black hair is soglossy and tidy, whose black eyes are so acute, whose black dress is soneat andchic, and the rather thin Englishwoman in soft voile,with soft, rather loose brown hair and demure, blue-grey eyes.
"Oh--a difference--what a difference! When you have a little moreflesh--then--" Madame made a slight click with her tongue. "What a goodbrooch, eh?" Madame fingered the brooch. "Old paste--oldpaste--antique--"
"No," said Alvina. "They are real rubies. It was mygreat-grandmother's."
"Do you mean it? Real? Are you sure--"
"I think I'm quite sure."
Madame scrutinized the jewels with a fine eye.
"Hm!" she said. And Alvina did not know whether she was sceptical,or jealous, or admiring, or really impressed.
"And the diamonds are real?" said Madame, making Alvina hold up herhands.
"I've always understood so," said Alvina.
Madame scrutinized, and slowly nodded her head. Then she looked intoAlvina's eyes, really a little jealous.
"Another four thousand francs there," she said, nodding sagely."Really!" said Alvina.
"For sure. It's enough--it's enough--"
And there was a silence between the two women.
The young men had been out shopping for the supper. Louis, who knewwhere to find French and German stuff, came in with bundles, Ciccioreturned with a couple of flasks, Geoffrey with sundry moist papers ofedibles. Alvina helped Madame to put the anchovies and sardines andtunny and ham and salami on various plates, she broke off a bit of fernfrom one of the flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she set thetable with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the time herrings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed and was gay,she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very deferential toher. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, common, stuffysitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or care. But shefelt excited and gay. She knew the young men were watching her. Maxgave his assistance wherever possible. Geoffrey watched her rings, halfspell-bound. But Alvina was concerned only to flatter the plump, white,soft vanity of Madame. She carefully chose for Madame the finest plate,the clearest glass, the whitest-hafted knife, the most delicate fork.All of which Madame saw, with acute eyes.
At the theatre the same: Alvina played for Kishwégin, onlyfor Kishwégin. And Madame had the time of her life.
"You know, my dear," she said afterward to Alvina, "I understandsympathy in music. Music goes straight to the heart." And she kissedAlvina on both cheeks, throwing her arms round her neckdramatically.
"I'mso glad," said the wily Alvina.
And the young men stirred uneasily, and smiled furtively.
They hurried home to the famous supper. Madame sat at one end of thetable, Alvina at the other. Madame had Max and Louis by her side,Alvina had Ciccio and Geoffrey. Ciccio was on Alvina's right hand: adelicate hint.
They began with hors d'oeuvres and tumblers three parts full ofChianti. Alvina wanted to water her wine, but was not allowed to insultthe sacred liquid. There was a spirit of great liveliness andconviviality. Madame became paler, her eyes blacker, with the wine shedrank, her voice became a little raucous.
"Tonight," she said, "the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras make their feast ofaffiliation. The white daughter has entered the tribe of theHirondelles, swallows that pass from land to land, and build theirnests between roof and wall. A new swallow, a new Huron from the tentsof the pale-face, from the lodges of the north, from the tribe of theYenghees." Madame's black eyes glared with a kind of wild triumph downthe table at Alvina. "Nameless, without having a name, comes the maidenwith the red jewels, dark-hearted, with the red beams. Wine from thepale-face shadows, drunken wine for Kishwégin, strange wine forthe braves in their nostrils, Vaali,à vous."
Madame lifted her glass.
"Vaali, drink to her--Boire à elle--" She thrust her glassforwards in the air. The young men thrust their glasses up towardsAlvina, in a cluster. She could see their mouths all smiling, theirteeth white as they cried in their throats: "Vaali! Vaali! Boireà vous."
Ciccio was near to her. Under the table he laid his hand on herknee. Quickly she put forward her hand to protect herself. He took herhand, and looked at her along the glass as he drank. She saw his throatmove as the wine went down it. He put down his glass, still watchingher.
"Vaali!" he said, in his throat. Then across the table "Hé,Gigi-Viale! Le Petit Chemin! Comment? Me prends-tu?L'allée--"
There came a great burst of laughter from Louis.
"It is good, it is good!" he cried. "Oh Madame! Viale, it is Italianfor the little way, the alley. That is too rich."
Max went off into a high and ribald laugh.
"L'allée italienne!" he said, and shouted with laughter.
"Alley or avenue, what does it matter," cried Madame in French, "solong as it is a good journey."
Here Geoffrey at last saw the joke. With a strange determinedflourish he filled his glass, cocking up his elbow.
"A toi, Cic'--et bon voyage!" he said, and then he tilted up hischin and swallowed in great throatfuls.
"Certainly! Certainly!" cried Madame. "To thy good journey, myCiccio, for thou art not a great traveller--"
"Na, pour ça, y'a plus d'une voie," said Geoffrey.
During this passage in French Alvina sat with very bright eyeslooking from one to another, and not understanding. But she knew it wassomething improper, on her account. Her eyes had a bright,slightly-bewildered look as she turned from one face to another. Cicciohad let go her hand, and was wiping his lips with his fingers. He toowas a little self-conscious.
"Assez de cette éternelle voix italienne," said Madame."Courage, courage au chemin d'Angleterre."
"Assez de cette éternelle voix rauque," said Ciccio, lookinground. Madame suddenly pulled herself together.
"They will not have my name. They will call you Allay!" she said toAlvina. "Is it good? Will it do?"
"Quite," said Alvina.
And she could not understand why Gigi, and then the others afterhim, went off into a shout of laughter. She kept looking round withbright, puzzled eyes. Her face was slightly flushed and tender looking,she looked naïve, young.
"Then you will become one of the tribe of Natcha-Kee-Tawara, of thename Allaye? Yes?"
"Yes," said Alvina.
"And obey the strict rules of the tribe. Do you agree?"
"Yes."
"Then listen." Madame primmed and preened herself like a blackpigeon, and darted glances out of her black eyes.
"We are one tribe, one nation--say it."
"We are one tribe, one nation," repeated Alvina.
"Say all," cried Madame.
"We are one tribe, one nation--" they shouted, with varying accent."Good!" said Madame. "And no-nation do we know but the nation of theHirondelles--"
"No nation do we know but the nation of the Hirondelles," came theragged chant of strong male voices, resonant and gay with mockery.
"Hurons--Hirondelles, meansswallows," said Madame.
"Yes, I know," said Alvina.
"So! you know! Well, then! We know no nation but theHirondelles."
"WE HAVE NO LAW BUT HURON LAW!"
"We have no law but Huron law!" sang the response, in a deep,sardonic chant.
"WE HAVE NO LAWGIVER EXCEPT KISHWÉGIN."
"We have no lawgiver except Kishwégin," they sangsonorous.
"WE HAVE NO HOME BUT THE TENT OF KISHWÉGIN."
"We have no home but the tent of Kishwégin."
"THERE IS NO GOOD BUT THE GOOD OF NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA."
"There is no good but the good of Natcha-Kee-Tawara."
"WE ARE THE HIRONDELLES."
"We are the Hirondelles."
"WE ARE KISHWÉGIN."
"We are Kishwégin."
"WE ARE MONDAGUA."
"We are Mondagua--"
"WE ARE ATONQUOIS--"
"We are Atonquois--"
"WE ARE PACOHUILA--"
"We are Pacohuila--"
"WE ARE WALGATCHKA--"
"We are Walgatchka--"
"WE ARE ALLAYE--"
"We are Allaye--"
"La musica! Pacohuila, la musica!" cried Madame, starting to herfeet and sounding frenzied.
Ciccio got up quickly and took his mandoline from its case.
"A--A--Ai--Aii--eee--ya--" began Madame, with a long, faint wail.And on the wailing mandoline the music started. She began to dance aslight but intense dance. Then she waved for a partner, and set up atarantella wail. Louis threw off his coat and sprang to tarantellaattention, Ciccio rang out the peculiar tarantella, and Madame andLouis danced in the tight space.
"Brava--Brava!" cried the others, when Madame sank into her place.And they crowded forward to kiss her hand. One after the other, theykissed her fingers, whilst she laid her left hand languidly on the headof one man after another, as she sat slightly panting. Ciccio howeverdid not come up, but sat faintly twanging the mandoline. Nor did Alvinaleave her place.
"Pacohuila!" cried Madame, with an imperious gesture. "Allaye!Come--"
Ciccio laid down his mandoline and went to kiss the fingers ofKishwégin. Alvina also went forward. Madame held out her hand.Alvina kissed it. Madame laid her hand on the head of Alvina.
"This is the squaw Allaye, this is the daughter ofKishwégin," she said, in her Tawara manner.
"And where is thebrave of Allaye, where is the arm thatupholds the daughter of Kishwégin, which of the Swallows spreadshis wings over the gentle head of the new one!"
"Pacohuila!" said Louis.
"Pacohuila! Pacohuila! Pacohuila!" said the others.
"Spread soft wings, spread dark-roofed wings, Pacohuila," saidKishwégin, and Ciccio, in his shirt-sleeves solemnly spread hisarms.
"Stoop, stoop, Allaye, beneath the wings of Pacohuila," saidKishwégin, faintly pressing Alvina on the shoulder.
Alvina stooped and crouched under the right arm of Pacohuila. "Hasthe bird flown home?" chanted Kishwégin, to one of the strainsof their music.
"The bird is home--" chanted the men.
"Is the nest warm?" chanted Kishwégin.
"The nest is warm."
"Does the he-bird stoop--?"
"He stoops.
"Who takes Allaye?"
"Pacohuila."
Ciccio gently stooped and raised Alvina to her feet.
"C'est ça!" said Madame, kissing her. "And now, children,unless the Sheffield policeman will knock at our door, we must retireto our wigwams all--"
Ciccio was watching Alvina. Madame made him a secret, imperativegesture that he should accompany the young woman.
"You have your key, Allaye?" she said.
"Did I have a key?" said Alvina.
Madame smiled subtly as she produced a latch-key.
"Kishwégin must open your doors for you all," she said. Then,with a slight flourish, she presented the key to Ciccio. "I give it tohim? Yes?" she added, with her subtle, malicious smile.
Ciccio, smiling slightly, and keeping his head ducked, took the key.Alvina looked brightly, as if bewildered, from one to another.
"Also the light!" said Madame, producing a pocket flashlight, whichshe triumphantly handed to Ciccio. Alvina watched him. She noticed howhe dropped his head forward from his straight, strong shoulders, howbeautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape and back of thehead. It produced a kind of dazed submission in her, the drugged senseof unknown beauty.
"And so good-night, Allaye--bonne nuit, fille des Tawara." Madamekissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks at her.
Eachbrave also kissed her hand, with a profound salute. Thenthe men shook hands warmly with Ciccio, murmuring to him.
He did not put on his hat nor his coat, but ran round as he was tothe neighbouring house with her, and opened the door. She entered, andhe followed, flashing on the light. So she climbed weakly up the dusty,drab stairs, he following. When she came to her door, she turned andlooked at him. His face was scarcely visible, it seemed, and yet sostrange and beautiful. It was the unknown beauty which almost killedher.
"You aren't coming?" she quavered.
He gave an odd, half-gay, half-mocking twitch of his thick darkbrows, and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing ather boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark Southerner he was.Her instinct was to defend herself. When suddenly she found herself inthe dark.
She gasped. And as she gasped, he quite gently put her inside herroom, and closed the door, keeping one arm round her all the time. Shefelt his heavy muscular predominance. So he took her in both arms,powerful, mysterious, horrible in the pitch dark. Yet the sense of theunknown beauty of him weighed her down like some force. If for onemoment she would have escaped from that black spell of his beauty, shewould have been free. But she could not. He was awful to her, shamelessso that she died under his shamelessness, his smiling, progressiveshamelessness. Yet she could not see him ugly. If only she could, forone second, have seen him ugly, he would not have killed her and madeher his slave as he did. But the spell was on her, of his darkness andunfathomed handsomeness. And he killed her. He simply took her andassassinated her. How she suffered no one can tell. Yet all the time,his lustrous dark beauty, unbearable.
When later she pressed her face on his chest and cried, he held hergently as if she was a child, but took no notice, and she felt in thedarkness that he smiled. It was utterly dark, and she knew he smiled,and she began to get hysterical. But he only kissed her, his smilingdeepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but sensible, ashe carried her away once more. He intended her to be his slave, sheknew. And he seemed to throw her down and suffocate her like a wave.And she could have fought, if only the sense of his dark, richhandsomeness had not numbed her like a venom. So she washed suffocatedin his passion.
In the morning when it was light he turned and looked at her fromunder his long black lashes, a long, steady, cruel, faintly-smilinglook from his tawny eyes, searching her as if to see whether she werestill alive. And she looked back at him, heavy-eyed and half subjected.He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her. And she turned her faceto the wall, feeling beaten. Yet not quite beaten to death. Save forthe fatal numbness of her love for him, she could still have escapedhim. But she lay inert, as if envenomed. He wanted to make her hisslave.
When she went down to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras for breakfast she foundthem waiting for her. She was rather frail and tender-looking, withwondering eyes that showed she had been crying.
"Come, daughter of the Tawaras," said Madame brightly to her. "Wehave been waiting for you. Good-morning, and all happiness, eh? Look,it is a gift-day for you--"
Madame smilingly led Alvina to her place. Beside her plate was abunch of violets, a bunch of carnations, a pair of exquisite beadmoccasins, and a pair of fine doeskin gloves delicately decorated withfeather-work on the cuffs. The slippers were from Kishwégin, thegloves from Mondagua, the carnations from Atonquois, the violets fromWalgatchka--allTo the Daughter of the Tawaras, Allaye, as itsaid on the little cards.
"The gift of Pacohuila you know," said Madame, smiling. "Thebrothers of Pacohuila are your brothers."
One by one they went to her and each one laid the back of herfingers against his forehead, saying in turn:
"I am your brother Mondagua, Allaye!"
"I am your brother Atonquois, Allaye!"
"I am your brother Walgatchka, Allaye, best brother, you know--" Sospoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, almost solemn eyes ofaffection. Alvina smiled a little wanly, wondering where she was. Itwas all so solemn. Was it all mockery, play-acting? She felt bitterlyinclined to cry.
Meanwhile Madame came in with the coffee, which she always madeherself, and the party sat down to breakfast. Ciccio sat on Alvina'sright, but he seemed to avoid looking at her or speaking to her. Allthe time he looked across the table, with the half-asserted, knowinglook in his eyes, at Gigi: and all the time he addressed himself toGigi, with the throaty, rich, plangent quality in his voice, thatAlvina could not bear, it seemed terrible to her: and he spoke inFrench: and the two men seemed to be exchanging unspeakablecommunications. So that Alvina, for all her wistfulness andsubjectedness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon aspossible from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and publicrecognition from Ciccio--none of which she got. She returned to her ownhouse, to her own room, anxious to tidy everything, not wishing to haveher landlady in the room. And she half expected Ciccio to come to speakto her.
As she was busy washing a garment in the bowl, her landlady knockedand entered. She was a rough and rather beery-looking Yorkshire woman,not attractive.
"Oh, yo'n made yer bed then, han' yer!"
"Yes," said Alvina. "I've done everything."
"I see yer han. Yo'n bin sharp."
Alvina did not answer.
"Seems yer doin' yersen a bit o' weshin'."
Still Alvina didn't answer.
"Yo' can 'ing it i' th' back yard."
"I think it'll dry here," said Alvina.
"Isna much dryin' up here. Send us howd when 't's ready. Yo'll'appen be wantin' it. I can dry it off for yer t' kitchen. You don'ttake a drop o' nothink, do yer?"
"No," said Alvina. "I don't like it."
"Summat a bit stronger 'n 't bottle, my sakes alive! Well, yo munha'e yer fling, like t' rest. But coom na, which on 'em is it? Icatched sight on 'im goin' out, but I didna ma'e out then which on 'emit wor. He--eh, it's a pity you don't take a drop of nothink, it's aworld's pity. Is it the fairest on 'em, the tallest."
"No," said Alvina. "The darkest one."
"Oh ay! Well, 's a strappin' anuff feller, for them as goes thatroad. I thought Madame was partikler. I s'll charge yer a bit more, yerknow. I s'll 'ave to make a bit out of it. I'm partikler as a rule. Idon't like 'em comin' in an' goin' out, you know. Things get said. Youlook so quiet, you do. Come now, it's worth a hextra quart to me, elseI shan't have it, I shan't. You can't make as free as all that with thehouse, you know, be it what it may--"
She stood red-faced and dour in the doorway. Alvina quietly gave herhalf-a-sovereign.
"Nay, lass," said the woman, "if you share niver a drop o' th'lashins, you mun split it. Five shillin's is oceans, ma wench. I'm notdown on you--not me. On'y we've got to keep up appearances a bit, youknow. Dash my rags, it's a caution!"
"I haven't got five shillings--" said Alvina.
"Yer've not? All right, gi'e 's ha 'efcrown today, an' t'othertermorrer. It'll keep, it'll keep. God bless you for a good wench. A'open 'eart 's worth all your bum-righteousness. It is for me. An' asight more. You're all right, ma wench, you're all right--"
And the rather bleary woman went nodding away.
Alvina ought to have minded. But she didn't. She even laughed intoher ricketty mirror. At the back of her thoughts, all she minded wasthat Ciccio did not pay her some attention. She really expected him nowto come to speak to her. If she could have imagined how far he was fromany such intention.
So she loitered unwillingly at her window high over the grey, hard,cobbled street, and saw her landlady hastening along the black asphaltpavement, her dirty apron thrown discreetly over what was mostobviously a quart jug. She followed the squat, intent figure with hereye, to the public-house at the corner. And then she saw Ciccio humpedover his yellow bicycle, going for a steep and perilous ride withGigi.
Still she lingered in her sordid room. She could feel Madame wasexpecting her. But she felt inert, weak, incommunicative. Only a realfear of offending Madame drove her down at last.
Max opened the door to let her in.
"Ah!" he said. "You've come. We were wondering about you."
"Thank you," she said, as she passed into the dirty hall where stilltwo bicycles stood.
"Madame is in the kitchen," he said.
Alvina found Madame trussed in a large white apron, busy rubbing ayellow-fleshed hen with lemon, previous to boiling.
"Ah!" said Madame. "So there you are! I have been out and done myshopping, and already begun to prepare the dinner. Yes, you may helpme. Can you wash leeks? Yes? Every grain of sand? Shall I trust youthen--?"
Madame usually had a kitchen to herself, in the morning. She eitherousted her landlady, or used her as second cook. For Madame was agourmet, if not gourmand. If she inclined towards self-indulgence inany direction, it was in the direction of food. Sheloved a goodtable. And hence the Tawaras saved less money than they might. She wasan exacting, tormenting, bullying cook. Alvina, who knew well enoughhow to prepare a simple dinner, was offended by Madame's exactions.Madame turning back the green leaves of a leek, and hunting a speck ofearth down into the white, like a flea in a bed, was too much forAlvina.
"I'm afraid I shall never be particular enough," she said. "Can't Ido anything else for you?"
"For me? I need nothing to be done for me. But for the youngmen--yes, I will show you in one minute--"
And she took Alvina upstairs to her room, and gave her a pair of thethin leather trousers fringed with hair, belonging to one of thebraves. A seam had ripped. Madame gave Alvina a fine awl and some waxedthread.
"The leather is not good in these things of Gigi's," she said. "Itis badly prepared. See, like this." And she showed Alvina another placewhere the garment was repaired. "Keep on your apron. At the weekend youmust fetch more clothes, not spoil this beautiful gown of voile. Wherehave you left your diamonds? What? In your room? Are they locked? Oh mydear--!" Madame turned pale and darted looks of fire at Alvina. "Ifthey are stolen--!" she cried. "Oh! I have become quite weak, hearingyou!" She panted and shook her head. "If they are not stolen, you havethe Holy Saints alone to be thankful for keeping them. But run,run!"
And Madame really stamped her foot.
"Bring me everything you've got--everything that isvaluable. I shall lock it up. Howcan you--"
Alvina was hustled off to her lodging. Fortunately nothing was gone.She brought all to Madame, and Madame fingered the treasureslovingly.
"Now what you want you must ask me for," she said.
With what close curiosity Madame examined the ruby brooch. "You canhave that if you like, Madame," said Alvina.
"You mean--what?"
"I will give you that brooch if you like to take it--"
"Give me this--!" cried Madame, and a flash went over her face. Thenshe changed into a sort of wheedling. "No--no. I shan't take it! Ishan't take it. You don't want to give away such a thing."
"I don't mind," said Alvina. "Do take it if you like it."
"Oh no! Oh no! I can't take it. A beautiful thing it is, really. Itwould be worth over a thousand francs, because I believe it is quitegenuine."
"I'm sure it's genuine," said Alvina. "Do have it since you likeit."
"Oh, I can't! I can't!--"
"Yes do--"
"The beautiful red stones!--antique gems, antique gems--! And do youreally give it to me?"
"Yes, I should like to."
"You are a girl with a noble heart--" Madame threw her arms roundAlvina's neck, and kissed her. Alvina felt very cool about it. Madamelocked up the jewels quickly, after one last look.
"My fowl," she said, "which must not boil too fast."
At length Alvina was called down to dinner. The young men were attable, talking as young men do, not very interestingly. After the meal,Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise vibratethrough the house.
"I shall go and look at the town," said Alvina.
"And who shall go with you?" asked Madame.
"I will go alone," said Alvina, "unless you will come, Madame."
"Alas no, I can't. I can't come. Will you really go alone?"
"Yes, I want to go to the women's shops," said Alvina.
"You want to! All right then! And you will come home at tea-time,yes?"
As soon as Alvina had gone out Ciccio put away his mandoline and lita cigarette. Then after a while he hailed Geoffrey, and the two youngmen sallied forth. Alvina, emerging from a draper's shop inRotherhampton Broadway, found them loitering on the pavement outside.And they strolled along with her. So she went into a shop that soldladies' underwear, leaving them on the pavement. She stayed as long asshe could. But there they were when she came out. They had endlesslounging patience.
"I thought you would be gone on," she said.
"No hurry," said Ciccio, and he took away her parcels from her, asif he had a right. She wished he wouldn't tilt the flap of his blackhat over one eye, and she wished there wasn't quite so much waist-linein the cut of his coat, and that he didn't smoke cigarettes against theend of his nose in the street. But wishing wouldn't alter him. Hestrayed alongside as if he half belonged, and half didn't--mostirritating.
She wasted as much time as possible in the shops, then they took thetram home again. Ciccio paid the three fares, laying his handrestrainingly on Gigi's hand, when Gigi's hand sought pence in histrouser pocket, and throwing his arm over his friend's shoulder, inaffectionate but vulgar triumph, when the fares were paid. Alvina wason her high horse.
They tried to talk to her, they tried to ingratiate themselves--butshe wasn't having any. She talked with icy pleasantness. And so theteatime passed, and the time after tea. The performance went rathermechanically, at the theatre, and the supper at home, with bottled beerand boiled ham, was a conventionally cheerful affair. Even Madame was alittle afraid of Alvina this evening.
"I am tired, I shall go early to my room," said Alvina.
"Yes, I think we are all tired," said Madame.
"Why is it?" said Max metaphysically--"why is it that two merryevenings never follow one behind the other."
"Max, beer makes thee afarceur of a fine quality," saidMadame. Alvina rose.
"Please don't get up," she said to the others. "I have my key andcan see quite well," she said. "Good-night all."
They rose and bowed their good-nights. But Ciccio, with an obstinateand ugly little smile on his face, followed her.
"Please don't come," she said, turning at the street door. Butobstinately he lounged into the street with her. He followed her to herdoor.
"Did you bring the flash-light?" she said. "The stair is sodark."
He looked at her, and turned as if to get the light. Quickly sheopened the house-door and slipped inside, shutting it sharply in hisface. He stood for some moments looking at the door, and an ugly littlelook mounted his straight nose. He too turned indoors.
Alvina hurried to bed and slept well. And the next day the same, shewas all icy pleasantness. The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were a little bit putout by her. She was a spoke in their wheel, a scotch to their facility.She made them irritable. And that evening--it was Friday--Ciccio didnot rise to accompany her to her house. And she knew they were relievedthat she had gone.
That did not please her. The next day, which was Saturday, the lastand greatest day of the week, she found herself again somewhat of anoutsider in the troupe. The tribe had assembled in its old unison. Shewas the intruder, the interloper. And Ciccio never looked at her, onlyshowed her the half-averted side of his cheek, on which was a slightlyjeering, ugly look.
"Will you go to Woodhouse tomorrow?" Madame asked her, rathercoolly. They none of them called her Allaye any more.
"I'd better fetch some things, hadn't I?" said Alvina.
"Certainly, if you think you will stay with us."
This was a nasty slap in the face for her. But:
"I want to," she said.
"Yes! Then you will go to Woodhouse tomorrow, and come to Mansfieldon Monday morning? Like that shall it be? You will stay one night atWoodhouse?"
Through Alvina's mind flitted the rapid thought--"They want anevening without me." Her pride mounted obstinately. She very nearlysaid--"I may stay in Woodhouse altogether." But she held hertongue.
After all, they were very common people. They ought to be glad tohave her. Look how Madame snapped up that brooch! And look what anuncouth lout Ciccio was! After all, she was demeaning herselfshamefully staying with them in common, sordid lodgings. After all, shehad been bred up differently from that. They had horribly lowstandards--such low standards--not only of morality, but of lifealtogether. Really, she had come down in the world, conforming to suchstandards of life. She evoked the images of her mother and Miss Frost:ladies, and noble women both. Whatever could she be thinking ofherself!
However, there was time for her to retrace her steps. She had notgiven herself away. Except to Ciccio. And her heart burned when shethought of him, partly with anger and mortification, partly, alas, withundeniable and unsatisfied love. Let her bridle as she might, her heartburned, and she wanted to look at him, she wanted him to notice her.And instinct told her that he might ignore her for ever. She went toher room an unhappy woman, and wept and fretted till morning, chafingbetween humiliation and yearning.
Alvina rose chastened and wistful. As she was doing her hair, sheheard the plaintive nasal sound of Ciccio's mandoline. She looked downthe mixed vista of back-yards and little gardens, and was able to catchsight of a portion of Ciccio, who was sitting on a box in theblue-brick yard of his house, bare-headed and in his shirt-sleeves,twitching away at the wailing mandoline. It was not a warm morning, butthere was a streak of sunshine. Alvina had noticed that Ciccio did notseem to feel the cold, unless it were a wind or a driving rain. He wasplaying the wildly-yearning Neapolitan songs, of which Alvina knewnothing. But, although she only saw a section of him, the glimpse ofhis head was enough to rouse in her that overwhelming fascination,which came and went in spells. His remoteness, his southernness,something velvety and dark. So easily she might miss him altogether!Within a hair's-breadth she had let him disappear.
She hurried down. Geoffrey opened the door to her. She smiled at himin a quick, luminous smile, a magic change in her.
"I could hear Ciccio playing," she said.
Geoffrey spread his rather thick lips in a smile, and jerked hishead in the direction of the back door, with a deep, intimate look intoAlvina's eyes, as if to say his friend was love-sick.
"Shall I go through?" said Alvina.
Geoffrey laid his large hand on her shoulder for a moment, lookedinto her eyes, and nodded. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with arather flat, handsome face, well-coloured, and with the look of theAlpine ox about him, slow, eternal, even a little mysterious. Alvinawas startled by the deep, mysterious look in his dark-fringed ox-eyes.The odd arch of his eyebrows made him suddenly seem not quite human toher. She smiled to him again, startled. But he only inclined his head,and with his heavy hand on her shoulder gently impelled her towardsCiccio.
When she came out at the back she smiled straight into Ciccio'sface, with her sudden, luminous smile. His hand on the mandolinetrembled into silence. He sat looking at her with an instantre-establishment of knowledge. And yet she shrank from the long,inscrutable gaze of his black-set, tawny eyes. She resented him alittle. And yet she went forward to him and stood so that her dresstouched him. And still he gazed up at her, with the heavy, unspeakinglook, that seemed to bear her down: he seemed like some creature thatwas watching her for his purposes. She looked aside at the blackgarden, which had a wiry gooseberry bush.
"You will come with me to Woodhouse?" she said.
He did not answer till she turned to him again. Then, as she met hiseyes,
"To Woodhouse?" he said, watching her, to fix her.
"Yes," she said, a little pale at the lips.
And she saw his eternal smile of triumph slowly growing round hismouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred histawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched her as acat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of ferocity. In hiseyes was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something fathomless, deepening blackand abysmal, but somehow sweet to her.
"Will you?" she repeated.
But his eyes had already begun to glimmer their consent. He turnedaside his face, as if unwilling to give a straight answer.
"Yes," he said.
"Play something to me," she cried.
He lifted his face to her, and shook his head slightly.
"Yes do," she said, looking down on him.
And he bent his head to the mandoline, and suddenly began to sing aNeapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at heragain as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a curiousmocking caress as the mutedvoix blanche came through his lipsat her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The soundpenetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the highthread of his voice. She could see the Adam's apple move in his throat,his brows tilted as he looked along his lashes at her all the time.Here was the strange sphinx singing again, and herself between itspaws! She seemed almost to melt into his power.
Madame intervened to save her.
"What, serenade before breakfast! You have strong stomachs, I say.Eggs and ham are more the question, hein? Come, you smell them, don'tyou?"
A flicker of contempt and derision went over Ciccio's face as hebroke off and looked aside.
"I prefer the serenade," said Alvina. "I've had ham and eggsbefore."
"You do, hein? Well--always, you won't. And now you must eat the hamand eggs, however. Yes? Isn't it so?"
Ciccio rose to his feet, and looked at Alvina: as he would havelooked at Gigi, had Gigi been there. His eyes said unspeakable thingsabout Madame. Alvina flashed a laugh, suddenly. And a good-humoured,half-mocking smile came over his face too.
They turned to follow Madame into the house. And as Alvina wentbefore him, she felt his fingers stroke the nape of her neck, and passin a soft touch right down her back. She started as if some unseencreature had stroked her with its paw, and she glanced swiftly round,to see the face of Ciccio mischievous behind her shoulder.
"Now I think," said Madame, "that today we all take the same train.We go by the Great Central as far as the junction, together. Then you,Allaye, go on to Knarborough, and we leave you until tomorrow. And nowthere is not much time."
"I am going to Woodhouse," said Ciccio in French.
"You also! By the train, or the bicycle?"
"Train," said Ciccio.
"Waste so much money?"
Ciccio raised his shoulders slightly.
When breakfast was over, and Alvina had gone to her room, Geoffreywent out into the back yard, where the bicycles stood.
"Cic'," he said. "I should like to go with thee to Woodhouse. Comeon bicycle with me."
Ciccio shook his head.
"I'm going in train withher," he said.
Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger.
"I would like to see how it is, there,chez elle," hesaid.
"Askher," said Ciccio.
Geoffrey watched him suddenly.
"Thou forsakest me," he said. "I would like to see it, there."
"Ask her," repeated Ciccio. "Then come on bicycle."
"You're content to leave me," muttered Geoffrey.
Ciccio touched his friend on his broad cheek, and smiled at him withaffection.
"I don't leave thee, Gigi. I asked thy advice. You said, Go. Butcome. Go and ask her, and then come. Come on bicycle, eh? Ask her! Goon! Go and ask her."
Alvina was surprised to hear a tap at her door, and Gigi's voice, inhis strong foreign accent:
"Mees Houghton, I carry your bag."
She opened her door in surprise. She was all ready.
"There it is," she said, smiling at him.
But he confronted her like a powerful ox, full of dangerous force.Her smile had reassured him.
"Na, Allaye," he said, "tell me something."
"What?" laughed Alvina.
"Can I come to Woodhouse?"
"When?"
"Today. Can I come on bicycle, to tea, eh? At your house with youand Ciccio? Eh?"
He was smiling with a thick, doubtful, half sullen smile.
"Do!" said Alvina.
He looked at her with his large, dark-blue eyes.
"Really, eh?" he said, holding out his large hand.
She shook hands with him warmly.
"Yes, really!" she said. "I wish you would."
"Good," he said, a broad smile on his thick mouth. And all the timehe watched her curiously, from his large eyes.
"Ciccio--a good chap, eh?" he said.
"Is he?" laughed Alvina.
"Ha-a--!" Gigi shook his head solemnly. "The best!" He made suchsolemn eyes, Alvina laughed. He laughed too, and picked up her bag asif it were a bubble.
"Na Cic'--" he said, as he saw Ciccio in the street. "Sommesd'accord."
"Ben!" said Ciccio, holding out his hand for the bag. "Donne."
"Ne-ne," said Gigi, shrugging.
Alvina found herself on the new and busy station that Sundaymorning, one of the little theatrical company. It was an oddexperience. They were so obviously a theatrical company--people apartfrom the world. Madame was darting her black eyes here and there,behind her spotted veil, and standing with the ostensibleself-possession of her profession. Max was circling round with largestrides, round a big black box on which the red words Natcha-Kee-Tawarashowed mystic, and round the small bunch of stage fittings at the endof the platform. Louis was waiting to get the tickets, Gigi and Cicciowere bringing up the bicycles. They were a whole train of departure inthemselves, busy, bustling, cheerful--and curiously apart,vagrants.
Alvina strolled away towards the half-open bookstall. Geoffrey wasstanding monumental between her and the company. She returned tohim.
"What time shall we expect you?" she said.
He smiled at her in his broad, friendly fashion.
"Expect me to be there? Why--" he rolled his eyes and proceeded tocalculate. "At four o'clock."
"Just about the time when we get there," she said.
He looked at her sagely, and nodded.
They were a good-humoured company in the railway carriage. The mensmoked cigarettes and tapped off the ash on the heels of their boots,Madame watched every traveller with professional curiosity. Maxscrutinized the newspaper, Lloyds, and pointed out items to Louis, whoread them over Max's shoulder, Ciccio suddenly smacked Geoffrey on thethigh, and looked laughing into his face. So till they arrived at thejunction. And then there was a kissing and a taking of farewells, as ifthe company were separating for ever. Louis darted into the refreshmentbar and returned with little pies and oranges, which he deposited inthe carriage, Madame presented Alvina with a packet of chocolate. Andit was "Good-bye, good-bye, Allaye! Good-bye, Ciccio! Bon voyage. Havea good time, both."
So Alvina sped on in the fast train to Knarborough with Ciccio.
"Ido like them all," she said.
He opened his mouth slightly and lifted his head up and down. Shesaw in the movement how affectionate he was, and in his own way, howemotional. He loved them all. She put her hand to his. He gave her handone sudden squeeze, of physical understanding, then left it as ifnothing had happened. There were other people in the carriage withthem. She could not help feeling how sudden and lovely that moment'sgrasp of his hand was: so warm, so whole.
And thus they watched the Sunday morning landscape slip by, as theyran into Knarborough. They went out to a little restaurant to eat. Itwas one o'clock.
"Isn't it strange, that we are travelling together like this?" shesaid, as she sat opposite him.
He smiled, looking into her eyes.
"You think it's strange?" he said, showing his teeth slightly."Don't you?" she cried.
He gave a slight, laconic laugh.
"And I can hardly bear it that I love you so much," she said,quavering, across the potatoes.
He glanced furtively round, to see if any one was listening, if anyone might hear. He would have hated it. But no one was near. Beneaththe tiny table, he took her two knees between his knees, and pressedthem with a slow, immensely powerful pressure. Helplessly she put herhand across the table to him. He covered it for one moment with hishand, then ignored it. But her knees were still between the powerful,living vice of his knees.
"Eat!" he said to her, smiling, motioning to her plate. And herelaxed her.
They decided to go out to Woodhouse on the tram-car, a long hour'sride. Sitting on the top of the covered car, in the atmosphere ofstrong tobacco smoke, he seemed self-conscious, withdrawn into his owncover, so obviously a dark-skinned foreigner. And Alvina, as she satbeside him, was reminded of the woman with the negro husband, down inLumley. She understood the woman's reserve. She herself felt, in thesame way, something of an outcast, because of the man at her side. Anoutcast! And glad to be an outcast. She clung to Ciccio's dark,despised foreign nature. She loved it, she worshipped it, she defiedall the other world. Dark, he sat beside her, drawn in to himself,overcast by his presumed inferiority among these northern industrialpeople. And she was with him, on his side, outside the pale of her ownpeople.
There were already acquaintances on the tram. She nodded in answerto their salutation, but so obviously from a distance, that they keptturning round to eye her and Ciccio. But they left her alone. Thebreach between her and them was established for ever--and it was herwill which established it.
So up and down the weary hills of the hilly, industrial countryside,till at last they drew near to Woodhouse. They passed the ruins ofThrottle-Ha'penny, and Alvina glanced at it indifferent. They ran alongthe Knarborough Road. A fair number of Woodhouse young people werestrolling along the pavements in their Sunday clothes. She knew themall. She knew Lizzie Bates's fox furs, and Fanny Clough's lilaccostume, and Mrs. Smitham's winged hat. She knew them all. And almostinevitably the old Woodhouse feeling began to steal over her, she wasglad they could not see her, she was a little ashamed of Ciccio. Shewished, for the moment, Ciccio were not there. And .as the time came toget down, she looked anxiously back and forth to see at which halt shehad better descend--where fewer people would notice her. But then shethrew her scruples to the wind, and descended into the staring, Sundayafternoon street, attended by Ciccio, who carried her bag. She knew shewas a marked figure.
They slipped round to Manchester House. Miss Pinnegar expectedAlvina, but by the train, which came later. So she had to be knockedup, for she was lying down. She opened the door looking a littlepatched in her cheeks, because of her curious colouring, and a littleforlorn, and a little dumpy, and a little irritable.
"I didn't know there'd be two of you," was her greeting.
"Didn't you," said Alvina, kissing her. "Ciccio came to carry mybag."
"Oh," said Miss Pinnegar. "How do you do?" and she thrust out herhand to him. He shook it loosely.
"I had your wire," said Miss Pinnegar. "You said the train. Mrs.Rollings is coming in at four again--"
"Oh all right--" said Alvina.
The house was silent and afternoon-like. Ciccio took off his coatand sat down in Mr. Houghton's chair. Alvina told him to smoke. He keptsilent and reserved. Miss Pinnegar, a poor, patch-cheeked, ratherround-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she did notquite know what to say or do.
She followed Alvina upstairs to her room.
"I can't think why you bringhim here," snapped MissPinnegar. "I don't know what you're thinking about. The whole place istalking already."
"I don't care," said Alvina. "I like him."
"Oh--for shame!" cried Miss Pinnegar, lifting her hand with MissFrost's helpless, involuntary movement. "What do you think of yourself?And your father a month dead."
"It doesn't matter. Fatheris dead. And I'm sure the deaddon't mind."
"I neverknew such things as you say."
"Why? I mean them."
Miss Pinnegar stood blank and helpless.
"You're not asking him to stay the night," she blurted.
"Yes. And I'm going back with him to Madame tomorrow. You know I'mpart of the company now, as pianist."
"And are you going to marry him?"
"I don't know."
"Howcan you say you don't know! Why, it's awful. You make mefeel I shall go out of my mind."
"But Idon't know," said Alvina.
"It's incredible! Simply incredible! I believe you're out of yoursenses. I used to think sometimes there was something wrong with yourmother. And that's what it is with you. You're not quite right in yourmind. You need to be looked after."
"Do I, Miss Pinnegar! Ah, well, don't you trouble to look after me,will you?"
"No one will if I don't."
"I hope no one will."
There was a pause.
"I'm ashamed to live another day in Woodhouse," said MissPinnegar.
"I'm leaving it for ever," said Alvina.
"I should think so," said Miss Pinnegar.
Suddenly she sank into a chair, and burst into tears, wailing:
"Your poor father! Your poor father!"
"I'm sure the dead are all right. Why must you pity him?"
"You're a lost girl!" cried Miss Pinnegar.
"Am I really?" laughed Alvina. It sounded funny.
"Yes, you're a lost girl," sobbed Miss Pinnegar, on a final note ofdespair.
"I like being lost," said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled andforlorn. Alvina went to her and laid her hand on her shoulder.
"Don't fret, Miss Pinnegar," she said. "Don't be silly. I love to bewith Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the end I shall marry him. But if Idon't--" her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnegar's heavy arm till ithurt--"I wouldn't lose a minute of him, no, not for anything wouldI."
Poor Miss Pinnegar dwindled, convinced.
"You make it hard forme, in Woodhouse," she said, hopeless."Never mind," said Alvina, kissing her. "Woodhouse isn't heaven andearth."
"It's been my home for forty years."
"It's been mine for thirty. That's why I'm glad to leave it." Therewas a pause.
"I've been thinking," said Miss Pinnegar, "about opening a littlebusiness in Tamworth. You know the Watsons are there."
"I believe you'd be happy," said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar pulled herself together. She had energy and couragestill.
"I don't want to stay here, anyhow," she said. "Woodhouse hasnothing for me any more."
"Of course it hasn't," said Alvina. "I think you'd be happier awayfrom it."
"Yes--probably I should--now!"
None the less, poor Miss Pinnegar was grey-haired, she was almost adumpy, odd old woman.
They went downstairs. Miss Pinnegar put on the kettle. "Would youlike to see the house?" said Alvina to Ciccio.
He nodded. And she took him from room to room. His eyes lookedquickly and curiously over everything, noticing things, but withoutcriticism.
"This was my mother's little sitting-room," she said. "She sat herefor years, in this chair."
"Always here?" he said, looking into Alvina's face.
"Yes. She was ill with her heart. This is another photograph of her.I'm not like her."
"Who isthat?" he asked, pointing to a photograph of thehandsome, white-haired Miss Frost.
"That was Miss Frost, my governess. She lived here till she died. Iloved her--she meant everything to me."
"She also dead--?"
"Yes, five years ago."
They went to the drawing-room. He laid his hand on the keys of thepiano, sounding a chord.
"Play," she said.
He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wished her to play. Shesat and played one of Kishwégin's pieces. He listened, faintlysmiling. "Fine piano--eh?" he said, looking into her face.
"I like the tone," she said.
"Is it yours?"
"The piano? Yes. I suppose everything is mine--in name at least. Idon't know how father's affairs are really."
He looked at her, and again his eye wandered over the room. He saw alittle coloured portrait of a child with a fleece of brownish-gold hairand surprised eyes, in a pale-blue stiff frock with a broad dark-bluesash.
"You?" he said.
"Do you recognize me?" she said. "Aren't I comical?"
She took him upstairs--first to the monumental bedroom. "This wasmother's room," she said. "Now it is mine."
He looked at her, then at the things in the room, then out of thewindow, then at her again. She flushed, and hurried to show him hisroom, and the bath-room. Then she went downstairs.
He kept glancing up at the height of the ceilings, the size of therooms, taking in the size and proportion of the house, and the qualityof the fittings.
"It is a big house," he said. "Yours?"
"Mine in name," said Alvina. "Father left all to me--and his debtsas well, you see."
"Much debts?"
"Oh yes! I don't quite know how much. But perhaps more debts thanthere is property. I shall go and see the lawyer in the morning.Perhaps there will be nothing at all left for me, when everything ispaid."
She had stopped on the stairs, telling him this, turning round tohim, who was on the steps above. He looked down on her, calculating.Then he smiled sourly.
"Bad job, eh, if it is all gone--!" he said.
"I don't mind, really, if I can live," she said.
He spread his hands, deprecating, not understanding. Then he glancedup the stairs and along the corridor again, and downstairs into thehall.
"A fine big house. Grand if it was yours," he said.
"I wish it were," she said rather pathetically, "if you like it somuch." He shrugged his shoulders.
"He!" he said. "How not like it!"
"I don't like it," she said. "Think it's a gloomy miserable hole. Ihate it. I've lived here all my life and seen everything bad happenhere. I hate it."
"Why?" he said, with a curious, sarcastic intonation.
"It's a bad job it isn't yours, for certain," he said, as theyentered the living-room, where Miss Pinnegar sat cutting bread andbutter.
"What?" said Miss Pinnegar sharply.
"The house," said Alvina.
"Oh well, we don't know. We'll hope for the best," replied MissPinnegar, arranging the bread and butter on the plate. Then, rathertart, she added: "Itis a bad job. And a good many things are abad job, besides that. If Miss Houghton had what sheought tohave, things would be very different, I assure you."
"Oh yes," said Ciccio, to whom this address was directed.
"Very different indeed. If all the money hadn't been--lost--in theway it has, Miss Houghton wouldn't be playing the piano, for one thing,in a cinematograph show."
"No, perhaps not," said Ciccio.
"Certainly not. It's not the right thing for her to be doing,atall!"
"You think not?" said Ciccio.
"Do you imagine it is?" said Miss Pinnegar, turning point blank onhim as he sat by the fire.
He looked curiously at Miss Pinnegar, grinning slightly. "He!" hesaid. "How do I know!"
"I should have thought it was obvious," said Miss Pinnegar. "He!" heejaculated, not fully understanding.
"But of course those that are used to nothing better can't seeanything but what they're used to," she said, rising and shaking thecrumbs from her black silk apron, into the fire. He watched her.
Miss Pinnegar went away into the scullery. Alvina was laying a firein the drawing-room. She came with a dust-pan to take some coal fromthe fire of the living-room.
"What do you want?" said Ciccio, rising. And he took the shovel fromher hand.
"Big, hot fires, aren't they?" he said, as he lifted the burningcoals from the glowing mass of the grate.
"Enough," said Alvina. "Enough! We'll put it in the drawing-room."He carried the shovel of flaming, smoking coals to the other room, andthrew them in the grate on the sticks, watching Alvina put on morepieces of coal.
"Fine, a fire! Quick work, eh? A beautiful thing, a fire! You knowwhat they say in my place: You can live without food, but you can'tlive without fire."
"But I thought it was always hot in Naples," said Alvina.
"No, it isn't. And my village, you know, when I was small boy, thatwas in the mountains, an hour quick train from Naples. Cold in thewinter, hot in the summer--"
"As cold as England?" said Alvina.
"Hé--and colder. The wolves come down. You could hear themcrying in the night, in the frost--"
"How terrifying--!" said Alvina.
"And they will kill the dogs! Always they kill the dogs. You know,they hate dogs, wolves do." He made a queer noise, to show how wolveshate dogs. Alvina understood, and laughed.
"So should I, if I was a wolf," she said.
"Yes--eh?" His eyes gleamed on her for a moment. "Ah but, the poordogs! You find them bitten--carried away among the trees or the stones,hard to find them, poor things, the next day."
"How frightened they must be--!" said Alvina.
"Frightened--hu!" he made sudden gesticulations and ejaculations,which added volumes to his few words.
"And did you like it, your village?" she said.
He put his head on one side in deprecation.
"No," he said, "because, you see--he, there is nothing to do--nomoney--work--work--work--no life--you see nothing. When I was a smallboy my father, he died, and my mother comes with me to Naples. Then Igo with the little boats on the sea--fishing, carrying people--" Heflourished his hand as if to make her understand all the things thatmust be wordless. He smiled at her--but there was a faint, poignantsadness and remoteness in him, a beauty of old fatality, and ultimateindifference to fate.
"And were you very poor?"
"Poor?--why yes! Nothing. Rags--no shoes--bread, little fish fromthe sea--shell-fish--"
His hands flickered, his eyes rested on her with a profound look ofknowledge. And it seemed, in spite of all, one state she was very muchthe same to him as another, poverty was as much life as affluence. Onlyhe had a sort of jealous idea that it was humiliating to be poor, andso, for vanity's sake, he would have possessions. The countlessgenerations of civilization behind him had left him an instinct of theworld's meaninglessness. Only his little modern education made moneyand independence anidée fixe. Old instinct told him theworld was nothing. But modern education, so shallow, was much moreefficacious than instinct. It drove him to make a show of himself tothe world. Alvina watching him, as if hypnotized, saw his old beauty,formed through civilization after civilization; and at the same timeshe saw his modern vulgarian-ism, and decadence.
"And when you go back, you will go back to your old village?" shesaid.
He made a gesture with his head and shoulders, evasive,noncommittal.
"I don't know, you see," he said.
"What is the name of it?"
"Pescocalascio." He said the word subduedly, unwillingly. "Tell meagain," said Alvina.
"Pescocalascio."
She repeated it.
"And tell me how you spell it," she said.
He fumbled in his pocket for a pencil and a piece of paper. She roseand brought him an old sketch-book. He wrote, slowly, but with thebeautiful Italian hand, the name of his village.
"And write your name," she said.
"Marasca Francesco," he wrote.
"And write the name of your father and mother," she said. He lookedat her enquiringly.
"I want to see them," she said.
"Marasca Giovanni," he wrote, and under that "Califano Maria."
She looked at the four names, in the graceful Italian script. Andone after the other she read them out. He corrected her, smilinggravely. When she said them properly, he nodded.
"Yes," he said. "That's it. You say it well."
At that moment Miss Pinnegar came in to say Mrs. Rollings had seenanother of the young men riding down the street.
"That's Gigi! He doesn't know how to come here," said Ciccio,quickly taking his hat and going out to find his friend.
Geoffrey arrived, his broad face hot and perspiring.
"Couldn't you find it?" said Alvina.
"I find the house, but I couldn't find no door," said Geoffrey.
They all laughed, and sat down to tea. Geoffrey and Ciccio talked toeach other in French, and kept each other in countenance. Fortunatelyfor them, Madame had seen to their table-manners. But still they werefar too free and easy to suit Miss Pinnegar.
"Do you know," said Ciccio in French to Geoffrey, "what a fine housethis is?"
"No," said Geoffrey, rolling his large eyes round the room, andspeaking with his cheek stuffed out with food. "Is it?"
"Ah--if it washers, you know--"
And so, after tea, Ciccio said to Alvina:
"Shall you let Geoffrey see the house?"
The tour commenced again. Geoffrey, with his thick legs plantedapart, gazed round the rooms, and made his comments in French toCiccio. When they climbed the stairs, he fingered the big, smoothmahogany bannister-rail. In the bedroom he stared almost dismayed atthe colossal bed and cupboard. In the bath-room he turned on theold-fashioned, silver taps.
"Here is my room--" said Ciccio in French.
"Assez éloigné!" replied Gigi. Ciccio also glancedalong the corridor. "Yes," he said. "But an open course--"
"Look, my boy--if you could marrythis--" meaning the house."Ha, she doesn't know if it's hers any more! Perhaps the debts coverevery bit of it."
"Don't say so! Na, that's a pity, that's a pity! La pauvrefille--pauvre demoiselle!" lamented Geoffrey.
"Isn't it a pity! What dost say?"
"A thousand pities! A thousand pities! Look, my boy, love needs nohavings, but marriage does. Love is for all, even the grasshoppers. Butmarriage means a kitchen. That's how it is. La pauvre demoiselle; c'estmalheur pour elle."
"That's true," said Ciccio. "Et aussi pour moi. For me as well."
"For thee as well, cher! Perhaps--" said Geoffrey, laying his arm onCiccio's shoulder, and giving him a sudden hug. They smiled to eachother.
"Who knows!" said Ciccio.
"Who knows, truly, my Cic'."
As they went downstairs to rejoin Alvina, whom they heard playing onthe piano in the drawing-room, Geoffrey peeped once more into the bigbedroom.
"Tu n'es jamais monté si haut, mon beau. Pour moi, çaserait difficile de m'élever. J'aurais bien peur, moi. Tu totrouves aussi un peu ébahi, hein? n'est-ce pas?"
"Y'a place pour trois," said Ciccio.
"Non, je crêverais, la haut. Pas pour moi!"
And they went laughing downstairs.
Miss Pinnegar was sitting with Alvina, determined not to go toChapel this evening. She sat, rather hulked, reading a novel. Alvinaflirted with the two men, played the piano to them, and suggested agame of cards.
"Oh, Alvina, you will never bring out the cards tonight!"expostulated poor Miss Pinnegar.
"But, Miss Pinnegar, it can't possibly hurt anybody."
"You know what I think--and what your father thought--and yourmother and Miss Frost--"
"You see I think it's only prejudice," said Alvina.
"Oh very well!" said Miss Pinnegar angrily.
And closing her book, she rose and went to the other room.
Alvina brought out the cards, and a little box of pence whichremained from Endeavour harvests. At that moment there was a knock. Itwas Mr. May. Miss Pinnegar brought him in, in triumph.
"Oh!" he said. "Company! I heard you'd come, Miss Houghton, so Ihastened to pay my compliments. I didn't know you hadcompany. How do you do, Francesco! How do you do, Geoffrey.Comment allez-vous, alors?"
"Bien!" said Geoffrey. "You are going to take a hand?"
"Cards on Sunday evening! Dear me, what a revolution! Of course, I'mnotbigoted. If Miss Houghton asks me--"
Miss Pinnegar looked solemnly at Alvina.
"Yes, do take a hand, Mr. May," said Alvina.
"Thank you, I will then, if I may. Especially as I see thosetempting piles of pennies and ha'pennies. Who is bank, may I ask? IsMiss Pinnegar going to play too?"
But Miss Pinnegar had turned her poor, bowed back, and departed."I'm afraid she's offended," said Alvina.
"But why? We don't puther soul in danger, do we now? I'm agood Catholic, you know, Ican't do with these provincial littlecreeds. Who deals? Do you, Miss Houghton? But I'm afraid we shall havea ratherdry game? What? Isn't that your opinion?"
The other men laughed.
"If Miss Houghton would justallow me to run round and bringsomething in. Yes? May I? That would beso much more cheerful.What is your choice, gentlemen?"
"Beer," said Ciccio, and Geoffrey nodded.
"Beer! Oh really! Extraor'nary! I always take a little whiskeymyself. What kind of beer? Ale?--or bitter? I'm afraid I'd better bringbottles. Now how can I secrete them? You haven't a small travellingcase, Miss Houghton? Then I shall look as if I'd just been taking ajourney. Which I have--to the Sun and back: and ifthatisn't far enough, even for Miss Pinnegar and John Wesley, why, I'msorry."
Alvina produced the travelling case.
"Excellent!" he said. "Excellent! It will hold half-a-dozenbeautifully. Now--" he fell into a whisper--"hadn't I better sneak outat the front door, and so escape the clutches of the watch-dog?"
Out he went, on tip-toe, the other two men grinning at him.Fortunately there were glasses, the best old glasses, in the sidecupboard in the drawing room. But unfortunately, when Mr. May returned,a corkscrew was in request. So Alvina stole to the kitchen. MissPinnegar sat dumped by the fire, with her spectacles and her book. Shewatched like a lynx as Alvina returned. And she saw the tell-talecorkscrew. So she dumped a little deeper in her chair.
"There was a sound of revelry by night!" For Mr. May, after a longdepression, was in high feather. They shouted, positively shouted overtheir cards, they roared with excitement, expostulation, and laughter.Miss Pinnegar sat through it all. But at one point she could bear it nolonger.
The drawing-room door opened, and the dumpy, hulked, faded woman ina black serge dress stood like a rather squat avenging angel in thedoorway.
"What would yourfather say to this?" she said sternly.
The company suspended their laughter and their cards, and lookedaround. Miss Pinnegar wilted and felt strange under so many eyes."Father!" said Alvina. "But why father?"
"You lost girl!" said Miss Pinnegar, backing out and closing thedoor. Mr. May laughed so much that he knocked his whiskey over."There," he cried, helpless, "look what she's cost me!" And he went offinto another paroxysm, swelling like a turkey.
Ciccio opened his mouth, laughing silently.
"Lost girl! Lost girl! How lost, when you are at home?" saidGeoffrey, making large eyes and looking hither and thither as ifhe had lost something.
They all went off again in a muffled burst.
"No but, really," said Mr. May, "drinking and card-playing withstrange men in the drawing-room on Sunday evening, ofcauce it'sscandalous. It'sterrible! I don't know how ever you'll besaved, after such a sin. And in Manchester House, too--!" He went offinto another silent, turkey-scarlet burst of mirth, wriggling in hischair and squealing faintly: "Oh, I love it, I love it!You lostgirl! Why ofcauce she's lost! And Miss Pinnegar has onlyjust found it out Whowouldn't be lost? Why even Miss Pinnegarwould be lost if she could. Ofcauce she would! Quitenatch'ral!"
Mr. May wiped his eyes, with his handkerchief which hadunfortunately mopped up his whiskey.
So they played on, till Mr. May and Geoffrey had won all thepennies, except twopence of Ciccio's. Alvina was in debt.
"Well I think it's been a most agreeable game," said Mr. May. "Mostagreeable! Don't you all?"
The two other men smiled and nodded.
"I'm only sorry to think Miss Houghton haslost so steadilyall evening. Really quite remarkable. Butthen--you see--Icomfort myself with the reflection 'Lucky in cards, unlucky in love.'I'm certainlyhounded with misfortune in love. And I'msure Miss Houghton would rather be unlucky in cards than inlove. What, isn't it so?"
"Of course," said Alvina.
"There, you see,of cauce! Well, all we can do after that isto wish her success in love. Isn't that so, gentlemen? I'm surewe are all quite willing to do our best to contribute to it.Isn't it so, gentlemen? Aren't we all ready to do our best tocontribute to Miss Houghton's happiness in love? Well then, let usdrink to it." He lifted his glass, and bowed to Alvina. "Withevery wish for your success in love, Miss Houghton, and yourdevoted servant--" He bowed and drank.
Geoffrey made large eyes at her as he held up his glass.
"I know you'll come out all right in love,I know," hesaid heavily. "And you, Ciccio? Aren't you drinking?" said Mr. May.
Ciccio held up his glass, looked at Alvina, made a little mouth ather, comical, and drank his beer.
"Well," said Mr. May, "beer must confirm it, since wordswon't."
"What time is it?" said Alvina. "We must have supper."
It was past nine o'clock. Alvina rose and went to the kitchen, themen trailing after her. Miss Pinnegar was not there. She was notanywhere.
"Has she gone to bed?" said Mr. May. And he crept stealthilyupstairs on tip-toe, a comical, flush-faced, tubby little man. He wasfamiliar with the house. He returned prancing.
"I heard her cough," he said. "There's a light under her door. She'sgone to bed. Now haven't I always said she was a good soul? I shalldrink her health. Miss Pinnegar--" and he bowed stiffly in thedirection of the stair--"your health, and agood night'srest"
After which, giggling gaily, he seated himself at the head of thetable and began to carve the cold mutton.
"And where are the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras this week?" he asked. Theytold him.
"Oh? And you two are cycling back to the camp of Kishwégintonight? We mustn't prolong our cheerfulnesstoo far."
"Ciccio is staying to help me with my bag tomorrow," said Alvina."You know I've joined the Tawaras permanently--as pianist."
"No, I didn't know that! Oh really! Really! Oh! Well! I see!Permanently! Yes, I am surprised! Yes! As pianist? And if I might ask,what is your share of the tribal income?"
"That isn't met," said Alvina.
"No! Exactly! Exactly! Itwouldn't be settled yet. And yousay it is a permanent engagement? Ofcauce, at such afigure."
"Yes, it is a permanent engagement," said Alvina.
"Really! What a blow you give me! You won't come back to theEndeavour? What? Not at all?"
"No," said Alvina. "I shall sell out of the Endeavour."
"Really! You've decided, have you? Oh! This is news to me. And isthis quite final, too?"
"Quite," said Alvina.
"I see! Putting two and two together, if I may say so--" and heglanced from her to the young men--"Isee. Most decidedly, mostone-sidedly, if I may use the vulgarism, Isee--e--e! Oh! butwhat a blow you give me! What a blow you give me!"
"Why?" said Alvina.
"What's to become of the Endeavour? and consequently, of poorme?"
"Can't you keep it going?--form a company?"
"I'm afraid I can't. I've done my best. But I'm afraid, you know,you've landed me."
"I'm so sorry," said Alvina. "I hope not."
"Thank you for thehope," said Mr. May sarcastically.
"They say hope is sweet. I begin to find it a littlebitter!"
Poor man, he had already gone quite yellow in the face. Ciccio andGeoffrey watched him with dark-seeing eyes.
"And when are you going to let this fatal decision take effect?"asked Mr. May.
"I'm going to see the lawyer tomorrow, and I'm going to tell him tosell everything and clear up as soon as possible," said Alvina. "Selleverything! This house, and all it contains?"
"Yes," said Alvina. "Everything."
"Really!" Mr. May seemed smitten quite dumb. "I feel as if the worldhad suddenly come to an end," he said.
"But hasn't your world often come to an end before?" saidAlvina.
"Well--I suppose, once or twice. Butnever quite on top ofme, you see, before--"
There was a silence.
"And have you told Miss Pinnegar?" said Mr. May.
"Not finally. But she has decided to open a little business inTam-worth, where she has relations."
"Has she! And are youreally going totour with theseyoung people--?" he indicated Ciccio and Gigi. "And atnosalary!" His voice rose. "Why! It's almostWhite Slave Traffic,"on Madame's part. Upon my word!"
"I don't think so," said Alvina. "Don't you see that'sinsulting."
"Insulting! Well, I don't know. I think it's thetruth--"
"Not to be said to me, for all that," said Alvina, quivering withanger.
"Oh!" perked Mr. May, yellow with strange rage. "Oh! I mustn't saywhat I think! Oh!"
"Not if you think those things--" said Alvina.
"Oh really! The difficulty is, you see, I'm afraid Ido thinkthem--" Alvina watched him with big, heavy eyes.
"Go away," she said. "Go away! I won't be insulted by you."
"Noindeed!" cried Mr. May, starting to his feet, his eyesalmost bolting from his head. "Noindeed! I wouldn'tthink of insulting you in the presence of these two younggentlemen."
Ciccio rose slowly, and with a slow, repeated motion of the head,indicated the door.
"Allez!" he said.
"Certainement!" cried Mr. May, flying at Ciccio, verbally,like an enraged hen yellow at the gills. "Certainement! Je m'envais. Cette compagnie n'est pas de ma choix."
"Allez!" said Ciccio, more loudly.
And Mr. May strutted out of the room like a bird bursting with itsown rage. Ciccio stood with his hands on the table, listening. Theyheard Mr. May slam the front door.
"Gone!" said Geoffrey.
Ciccio smiled sneeringly.
"Voyez, un cochon de lait," said Gigi amply and calmly.
Ciccio sat down in his chair. Geoffrey poured out some beer for him,saying:
"Drink, my Cic', the bubble has burst, prfff!" And Gigi knocked inhis own puffed cheek with his fist. "Allaye, my dear, your health! Weare the Tawaras. We are Allaye! We are Pacohuila! We are Walgatchka!Allons! The milk-pig is stewed and eaten. Voila!" He drank, smilingbroadly.
"One by one," said Geoffrey, who was a little drunk: "One by one weput them out of the field, they arehors de combat. Who remains?Pacohuila, Walgatchka, Allaye--"
He smiled very broadly. Alvina was sitting sunk in thought andtorpor after her sudden anger.
"Allaye, what do you think about? You are the bride of Tawara," saidGeoffrey.
Alvina looked at him, smiling rather wanly.
"And who is Tawara?" she asked.
He raised his shoulders and spread his hands and swayed his headfrom side to side, for all the world like a comic mandarin.
"There!" he cried. "The question! Who is Tawara? Who? Tell me!Ciccio is he--and I am he--and Max and Louis--" he spread his hand tothe distant members of the tribe.
"I can't be the bride of all four of you," said Alvina,laughing.
"No--no! No--no! Such a thing does not come into my mind. But youare the Bride of Tawara. You dwell in the tent of Pacohuila. And comesthe day, should it ever be so, there is no room for you in the tent ofPacohuila, then the lodge of Walgatchka the bear is open for you. Open,yes, wide open--" He spread his arms from his ample chest, at the endof the table. "Open, and when Allaye enters, it is the lodge of Allaye,Walgatchka is the bear that serves Allaye. By the law of the Pale Face,by the law of the Yenghees, by the law of the Fransayes, Walgatchkashall be husband-bear to Allaye, that day she lifts the door-curtain ofhis tent--"
He rolled his eyes and looked around. Alvina watched him. "But Imight be afraid of a husband-bear," she said.
Geoffrey got on to his feet.
"By the Manitou," he said, "the head of the bear Walgatchka ishumble--" here Geoffrey bowed his head--"his teeth are as soft aslilies--" here he opened his mouth and put his finger on his smallclose teeth--"his hands are as soft as bees that stroke a flower--"here he spread his hands and went and suddenly flopped on his kneesbeside Alvina, showing his hands and his teeth still, and rolling hiseyes. "Allaye can have no fear at all of the bear Walgatchka," he said,looking up at her comically.
Ciccio, who had been watching and slightly grinning, here rose tohis feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up.
"Basta!" he said. "Tu es saoul. You are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. Howare you going to ride to Mansfield, hein?--great beast."
"Ciccio," said Geoffrey solemnly. "I love thee, I love thee as abrother, and also more. I love thee as a brother, my Ciccio, as thouknowest. But--" and he puffed fiercely--"I am the slave of Allaye, I amthe tame bear of Allaye."
"Get up," said Ciccio, "get up! Per bacco! She doesn't want a tamebear." He smiled down on his friend.
Geoffrey rose to his feet and flung his arms round Ciccio.
"Cic'," he besought him. "Cic'--I love thee as a brother. But let mebe the tame bear of Allaye, let me be the gentle bear of Allaye."
"All right," said Ciccio. "Thou art the tame bear of Allaye."Geoffrey strained Ciccio to his breast.
"Thank you! Thank you! Salute me, my own friend."
And Ciccio kissed him on either cheek. Whereupon Geoffreyimmediately flopped on his knees again before Alvina, and presented herhis broad, rich-coloured cheek.
"Salute your bear, Allaye," he cried. "Salute your slave, the tamebear Walgatchka, who is a wild bear for all except Allaye and hisbrother Pacohuila the Puma." Geoffrey growled realistically as a wildbear as he kneeled before Alvina, presenting his cheek.
Alvina looked at Ciccio, who stood above, watching. Then she lightlykissed him on the cheek, and said:
"Won't you go to bed and sleep?"
Geoffrey staggered to his feet, shaking his head.
"No--no--" he said. "No--no! Walgatchka must travel to the tent ofKishwégin, to the Camp of the Tawaras."
"Not tonight,mon brave," said Ciccio. "Tonight we stay here,hein. Why separate, hein?--frère?"
Geoffrey again clasped Ciccio in his arms.
"Pacohuila and Walgatchka are blood-brothers, two bodies, one blood.One blood, in two bodies; one stream, in two valleys: one lake, betweentwo mountains."
Here Geoffrey gazed with large, heavy eyes on Ciccio. Alvina broughta candle and lighted it.
"You will manage in the one room?" she said. "I will give youanother pillow."
She led the way upstairs. Geoffrey followed, heavily. ThenCiccio.
On the landing Alvina gave them the pillow and the candle, smiled,bade them good-night in a whisper, and went downstairs again. Shecleared away the supper and carried away all glasses and bottles fromthe drawing-room. Then she washed up, removing all traces of the feast.The cards she restored to their old mahogany box. Manchester Houselooked itself again.
She turned off the gas at the meter, and went upstairs to bed. Fromthe far room she could hear the gentle, but profound vibrations ofGeoffrey's snoring. She was tired after her day: too tired to troubleabout anything any more.
But in the morning she was first downstairs. She heard MissPinnegar, and hurried. Hastily she opened the windows and doors todrive away the smell of beer and smoke. She heard the men rumbling inthe bath-room. And quickly she prepared breakfast and made a fire. Mrs.Rollings would not appear till later in the day. At a quarter to sevenMiss Pinnegar came down, and went into the scullery to make hertea.
"Did both the men stay?" she asked.
"Yes, they both slept in the end room," said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar said no more, but padded with her tea and her boiledegg into the living room. In the morning she was wordless.
Ciccio came down, in his shirt-sleeves as usual, but wearing acollar. He greeted Miss Pinnegar politely.
"Good-morning!" she said, and went on with her tea.
Geoffrey appeared. Miss Pinnegar glanced once at him, sullenly, andbriefly answered his good-morning. Then she went on with her egg, slowand persistent in her movements, mum.
The men went out to attend to Geoffrey's bicycle. The morning wasslow and grey, obscure. As they pumped up the tires, they heard someone padding behind. Miss Pinnegar came and unbolted the yard door, butignored their presence. Then they saw her return and slowly mount theouter stair-ladder, which went up to the top floor. Two minutesafterwards they were startled by the irruption of the work-girls. Asfor the work-girls, they gave quite loud, startled squeals, suddenlyseeing the two men on their right hand, in the obscure morning. Andthey lingered on the stair-way to gaze in rapt curiosity, poking andwhispering, until Miss Pinnegar appeared overhead, and sharply rang abell which hung beside the entrance door of the workrooms.
After which excitements Geoffrey and Ciccio went in to breakfast,which Alvina had prepared.
"You have done it all, eh?" said Ciccio, glancing round.
"Yes. I've made breakfast for years, now," said Alvina.
"Not many more times here, eh?" he said, smiling significantly. "Ihope not," said Alvina.
Ciccio sat down almost like a husband--as if it were his right.Geoffrey was very quiet this morning. He ate his breakfast, and rose togo.
"I shall see you soon," he said, smiling sheepishly and bowing toAlvina. Ciccio accompanied him to the street.
When Ciccio returned, Alvina was once more washing dishes. "Whattime shall we go?" he said.
"We'll catch the one train. I must see the lawyer this morning."
"And what shall you say to him?"
"I shall tell him to sell everything--"
"And marry me?"
She started, and looked at him.
"You don't want to marry, do you?" she said.
"Yes, I do."
"Wouldn't you rather wait, and see--"
"What?" he said.
"See if there is any money."
He watched her steadily, and his brow darkened.
"Why?" he said.
She began to tremble.
"You'd like it better if there was money"
A slow, sinister smile came on his mouth. His eyes never smiled,except to Geoffrey, when a flood of warm, laughing light sometimessuffused them.
"You think I should!"
"Yes. It's true, isn't it? You would!"
He turned his eyes aside, and looked at her hands as she washed theforks. They trembled slightly. Then he looked back at her eyes again,that were watching him large and wistful and a little accusing.
His impudent laugh came on his face.
"Yes," he said, "it is always better if there is money" He put hishand on her, and she winced. "But I marry you for love, you know. Youknow what love is--" And he put his arms round her, and laughed downinto her face.
She strained away.
"But you can have love without marriage," she said. "You knowthat."
"All right! All right! Give me love, eh? I want that."
She struggled against him.
"But not now," she said.
She saw the light in his eyes fix determinedly, and he nodded."Now!" he said. "Now!"
His yellow-tawny eyes looked down into hers, alien andoverbearing.
"I can't," she struggled. "I can't now."
He laughed in a sinister way: yet with a certain warm-heartedness."Come to that big room--" he said.
Her face flew fixed into opposition.
"I can't now, really," she said grimly.
His eyes looked down at hers. Her eyes looked back at him, hard andcold and determined. They remained motionless for some seconds. Then, astray wisp of her hair catching his attention, desire filled his heart,warm and full, obliterating his anger in the combat. For a moment hesoftened. He saw her hardness becoming more assertive, and he waveredin sudden dislike, and almost dropped her. Then again the desireflushed his heart, his smile became reckless of her, and he picked herright up.
"Yes," he said. "Now."
For a second, she struggled frenziedly. But almost instantly sherecognized how much stronger he was, and she was still, mute andmotionless with anger. White, and mute, and motionless, she was takento her room. And at the back of her mind all the time she wondered athis deliberate recklessness of her. Recklessly, he had his will ofher--but deliberately, and thoroughly, not rushing to the issue, buttaking everything he wanted of her, progressively, and fully, leavingher stark, with nothing, nothing of herself--nothing.
When she could lie still she turned away from him, still mute. Andhe lay with his arms over her, motionless. Noises went on, in thestreet, overhead in the workroom. But theirs was complete silence.
At last he rose and looked at her.
"Love is a fine thing, Allaye," he said.
She lay mute and unmoving. He approached, laid his hand on herbreast, and kissed her.
"Love," he said, asserting, and laughing.
But still she was completely mute and motionless. He threwbedclothes over her and went downstairs, whistling softly.
She knew she would have to break her own trance of obstinacy. So shesnuggled down into the bedclothes, shivering deliciously, for her skinhad become chilled. She didn't care a bit, really, about her owndownfall. She snuggled deliciously in the sheets, and admitted toherself that she loved him. In truth, she loved him--and she waslaughing to herself.
Luxuriously, she resented having to get up and tackle her heap ofbroken garments. But she did it. She took other clothes, adjusted herhair, tied on her apron, and went downstairs once more. She could notfind Ciccio: he had gone out. A stray cat darted from the scullery, andbroke a plate in her leap. Alvina found her washing-up water cold. Sheput on more, and began to dry her dishes.
Ciccio returned shortly, and stood in the doorway looking at her.She turned to him, unexpectedly laughing.
"What do you think of yourself?" she laughed.
"Well," he said, with a little nod, and a furtive look of triumphabout him, evasive. He went past her and into the room. Her insideburned with love for him: so elusive, so beautiful, in his silentpassing out of her sight. She wiped her dishes happily. Why was she soabsurdly happy, she asked herself? And why did she still fight so hardagainst the sense of his dark, unseizable beauty? Unseizable, for everunseizable! That made her almost his slave. She fought against her owndesire to fall at his feet. Ridiculous to be so happy.
She sang to herself as she went about her work downstairs. Then shewent upstairs, to do the bedrooms and pack her bag. At ten o'clock shewas to go to the family lawyer.
She lingered over her possessions: what to take, and what not totake. And so doing she wasted her time. It was already ten o'clock whenshe hurried downstairs. He was sitting quite still, waiting. He lookedup at her.
"Now I must hurry," she said. "I don't think I shall be more than anhour."
He put on his hat and went out with her.
"I shall tell the lawyer I am engaged to you. Shall I?" sheasked.
"Yes," he said. "Tell him what you like." He was indifferent.
"Because," said Alvina gaily, "we can please ourselves what we do,whatever we say. I shall say we think of getting married in the summer,when we know each other better, and going to Italy."
"Why shall you say all that?" said Ciccio.
"Because I shallhave to give some account of myself, orthey'll make me do something I don't want to do. You might come to thelawyer's with me, will you? He's an awfully nice old man. Then he'dbelieve in you."
But Ciccio shook his head.
"No," he said. "I shan't go. He doesn't want to seeme."
"Well, if you don't want to. But I remember your name, FrancescoMarasca, and I remember Pescocalascio."
Ciccio heard in silence, as they walked the half-empty,Monday-morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina. Somehurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at Ciccio. Cicciohowever stood aside and turned his back.
"Oh yes," Alvina said. "I am staying with friends, here and there,for a few weeks. No, I don't know when I shall be back. Good-bye!"
"You're looking well, Alvina," people said to her. "I think you'relooking wonderful. A change does you good."
"It does, doesn't it," said Alvina brightly. And she was pleased shewas looking well.
"Well, good-bye for a minute," she said, glancing smiling into hiseyes and nodding to him, as she left him at the gate of the lawyer'shouse, by the ivy-covered wall.
The lawyer was a little man, all grey. Alvina had known him sinceshe was a child: but rather as an official than an individual. Shearrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinized hersharply, officially, before beginning.
"Well, Miss Houghton, and what news have you?"
"I don't think I've any, Mr. Beeby. I came to you for news."
"Ah!" said the lawyer, and he fingered a paper-weight that covered apile of papers. "I'm afraid there is nothing very pleasant,unfortunately. And nothing very unpleasant either, for that matter." Hegave her a shrewd little smile.
"Is the will proved?"
"Not yet. But I expect it will be through in a few days' time."
"And are all the claims in?"
"Yes. Ithink so. I think so!" And again he laid his hand onthe pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran through the edgeswith the tips of his fingers.
"All those?" said Alvina.
"Yes," he said quietly. It sounded ominous.
"Many!" said Alvina.
"A fair amount! A fair amount! Let me show you a statement."
He rose and brought her a paper. She made out, with the lawyer'shelp, that the claims against her father's property exceeded the grossestimate of his property by some seven hundred pounds.
"Does it mean we owe seven hundred pounds?" she asked.
"That is only on theestimate of the property. It might, ofcourse, realize much more, when sold--or it might realize less."
"How awful!" said Alvina, her courage sinking.
"Unfortunate! Unfortunate! However, I don't think the realization ofthe property would amount to less than the estimate. I don't thinkso."
"But even then," said Alvina. "There is sure to be somethingowing--"
She saw herself saddled with her father's debts.
"I'm afraid so," said the lawyer.
"And then what?" said Alvina.
"Oh--the creditors will have to be satisfied with a little less thanthey claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you see. I don't expectthey will complain a great deal. In fact, some of them will be lessbadly off than they feared. No, on that score we need not troublefurther. Useless if we do, anyhow. But now, about yourself. Would youlike me to try to compound with the creditors, so that you could havesome sort of provision? They are mostly people who know you, know yourcondition: and I might try--"
"Try what?" said Alvina.
"To make some sort of compound. Perhaps you might retain a lease ofMiss Pinnegar's workrooms. Perhaps even something might be done aboutthe cinematograph. What would you like--?"
Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivysprays, and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not, shecould not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had confidentlyexpected a few hundred pounds: even a thousand or more. And that wouldmake hersomething of a catch, to people who had nothing. Butnow!--nothing!--nothing at the back of her but her hundred pounds. Whenthat was gone--!
In her dilemma she looked at the lawyer.
"You didn't expect it would be quite so bad?" he said.
"I think I didn't," she said.
"No. Well--it might have been worse."
Again he waited. And again she looked at him vacantly
"What do you think?" he said.
For answer, she only looked at him with wide eyes.
"Perhaps you would rather decide later."
"No," she said. "No. It's no use deciding later."
The lawyer watched her with curious eyes, his hand beat a littleimpatiently.
"I will do my best," he said, "to get what I can for you."
"Oh well!" she said. "Better let everything go. I don'twantto hang on. Don't bother about me at all. I shall go away, anyhow."
"You will go away?" said the lawyer, and he studied hisfinger-nails. "Yes. I shan't stay here."
"Oh! And may I ask if you have any definite idea, where you willgo?"
"I've got an engagement as pianist, with a travelling theatricalcompany"
"Oh indeed!" said the lawyer, scrutinizing her sharply. She staredaway vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of hisfinger-nails once more. "And at a sufficient salary?"
"Quite sufficient, thank you," said Alvina.
"Oh! Well! Well now!--" He fidgetted a little. "You see, we are allold neighbours and connected with your father for many years. We--thatis the persons interested, and myself--would not like to think that youwere driven out of Woodhouse--er--er--destitute. If--er--we could cometo some composition--make some arrangement that would be agreeable toyou, and would, in some measure, secure you a means oflivelihood--"
He watched Alvina with sharp blue eyes. Alvina looked back at him,still vacantly.
"No--thanks awfully!" she said. "But don't bother. I'm goingaway"
"With the travelling theatrical company?"
"Yes."
The lawyer studied his finger-nails intensely
"Well," he said, feeling with a finger-tip an imaginary roughness ofone nail-edge. "Well, in that case--In that case--Supposing you havemade an irrevocable decision--"
He looked up at her sharply. She nodded slowly, like a porcelainmandarin.
"In that case," he said, "we must proceed with the valuation and thepreparation for the sale."
"Yes," she said faintly.
"You realize," he said, "that everything in Manchester House, exceptyour private personal property, and that of Miss Pinnegar, belongs tothe claimants, your father's creditors, and may not be removed from thehouse."
"Yes," she said.
"And it will be necessary to make an account of everything in thehouse. So if you and Miss Pinnegar will put your possessions strictlyapart--But I shall see Miss Pinnegar during the course of the day.Would you ask her to call about seven--I think she is free then--"
Alvina sat trembling.
"I shall pack my things today," she said.
"Of course," said the lawyer, "any little things to which you may beattached the claimants would no doubt wish you to regard as your own.For anything of greater value--your piano, for example--I should haveto make a personal request--"
"Oh, I don't want anything--" said Alvina.
"No? Well! You will see. You will be here a few days?"
"No," said Alvina. "I'm going away today."
"Today! Is that also irrevocable?"
"Yes. I must go this afternoon."
"On account of your engagement? May I ask where your company isperforming this week? Far away?"
"Mansfield!"
"Oh! Well then, in case I particularly wished to see you, you couldcome over?"
"If necessary" said Alvina. "But I don't want to come to Woodhouseunless it is necessary. Can't we write?"
"Yes--certainly! Certainly!--most things! Certainly! And now--"
He went into certain technical matters, and Alvina signed somedocuments. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an hour inthe room.
"Well, good-morning, Miss Houghton. You will hear from me, and Ifrom you. I wish you a pleasant experience in your new occupation. Youare not leaving Woodhouse for ever."
"Good-bye!" she said. And she hurried to the road.
Try as she might, she felt as if she had had a blow which knockedher down. She felt she had had a blow.
At the lawyer's gate she stood a minute. There, across a littlehollow, rose the cemetery hill. There were her graves: her mother's,Miss Frost's, her father's. Looking, she made out the white cross atMiss Frost's grave, the grey stone at her parents'. Then she turnedslowly, under the church wall, back to Manchester House.
She felt humiliated. She felt she did not want to see anybody atall. She did not want to see Miss Pinnegar, nor the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras:and least of all, Ciccio. She felt strange in Woodhouse, almost as ifthe ground had risen from under her feet and hit her over the mouth.The fact that Manchester House and its very furniture was under seal tobe sold on behalf of her father's creditors made her feel as if all herWoodhouse life had suddenly gone smash. She loathed the thought ofManchester House. She loathed staying another minute in it.
And yet she did not want to go to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras either. Thechurch clock above her clanged eleven. She ought to take thetwelve-forty train to Mansfield. Yet instead of going home she turnedoff down the alley towards the fields and the brook.
How many times had she gone that road! How many times had she seenMiss Frost bravely striding home that way, from her music-pupils. Howmany years had she noticed a particular wild cherry-tree come intoblossom, a particular bit of black-thorn scatter its whiteness in amongthe pleached twigs of a hawthorn hedge. How often, how many springs hadMiss Frost come home with a bit of this black-thorn in her hand!
Alvina didnot want to go to Mansfield that afternoon. Shefelt insulted. She knew she would be much cheaper in Madame's eyes. Sheknew her own position with the troupe would be humiliating. It would beopenly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeninglyhumiliating to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour ofWoodhouse's calculated benevolence. She hardly knew which was worse:the cool look of insolent half-contempt, half-satisfaction with whichMadame would receive the news of her financial downfall, or theofficious patronage which she would meet from the Woodhouse magnates.She knew exactly how Madame's black eyes would shine, how her mouthwould curl with a sneering, slightly triumphant smile, as she heard thenews. And she could hear the bullying tone in which Henry Wagstaffwould dictate the Woodhouse benevolence to her. She wanted to go awayfrom them all--from them all--for ever.
Even from Ciccio. For she felt he insulted her too. Subtly, they alldid it. They had regard for her possibilities as an heiress. Fivehundred, even two hundred pounds would have made all the difference.Useless to deny it. Even to Ciccio. Ciccio would have had a lifelongrespect for her, if she had come with even so paltry a sum as twohundred pounds. Now she had nothing, he would coolly withhold thisrespect. She felt he might jeer at her. And she could not get away fromthis feeling.
Mercifully she had the bit of ready money. And she had a fewtrinkets which might be sold. Nothing else. Mercifully, for the meremoment, she was independent.
Whatever else she did, she must go back and pack. She must pack hertwo boxes, and leave them ready. For she felt that once she had left,she could never come back to Woodhouse again. If England had cliffs allround--why, when there was nowhere else to go and no getting beyond,she could walk over one of the cliffs. Meanwhile, she had her short runbefore her. She banked hard on her independence.
So she turned back to the town. She would not be able to take thetwelve-forty train, for it was already mid-day. But she was glad. Shewanted some time to herself. She would send Ciccio on. Slowly sheclimbed the familiar hill--slowly--and rather bitterly. She felt hernative place insulted her: and she felt the Natchas insulted her. Inthe midst of the insult she remained isolated upon herself, and shewished to be alone.
She found Ciccio waiting at the end of the yard: eternally waiting,it seemed. He was impatient.
"You've been a long time," he said.
"Yes," she answered.
"We shall have to make haste to catch the train."
"I can't go by this train. I shall have to come on later. You canjust eat a mouthful of lunch, and go now."
They went indoors. Miss Pinnegar had not yet come down. Mrs.Rollings was busily peeling potatoes.
"Mr. Marasca is going by the train, he'll have to have a little coldmeat," said Alvina. "Would you mind putting it ready while I goupstairs?"
"Sharpses and Fullbankses sent them bills," said Mrs. Rollings.Alvina opened them, and turned pale. It was thirty pounds, the totalfuneral expenses. She had completely forgotten them.
"And Mr. Atterwell wants to know what you'd like put on th'headstone for your father--if you'd write it down."
"All right."
Mrs. Rollings popped on the potatoes for Miss Pinnegar's dinner, andspread the cloth for Ciccio. When he was eating, Miss Pinnegar came in.She inquired for Alvina--and went upstairs.
"Have you had your dinner?" she said. For there was Alvina sittingwriting a letter.
"I'm going by a later train," said Alvina.
"Both of you?"
"No. He's going now."
Miss Pinnegar came downstairs again, and went through to thescullery. When Alvina came down, she returned to the living room.
"Give this letter to Madame," Alvina said to Ciccio. "I shall be atthe hall by seven tonight. I shall go straight there."
"Why can't you come now?" said Ciccio.
"I can't possibly," said Alvina. "The lawyer has just told mefather's debts come to much more than everything is worth. Nothing isours--not even the plate you're eating from. Everything is under sealto be sold to pay off what is owing. So I've got to get my own clothesand boots together, or they'll be sold with the rest. Mr. Beeby wantsyou to go round at seven this evening, Miss Pinnegar--before Iforget."
"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "Really! The house and the furnitureand everything got to be sold up? Then we're on the streets! I can'tbelieve it."
"So he told me," said Alvina.
"But how positively awful," said Miss Pinnegar, sinking motionlessinto a chair.
"It's not more than I expected," said Alvina. "I'm putting my thingsinto my two trunks, and I shall just ask Mrs. Slaney to store them forme. Then I've the bag I shall travel with."
"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "I can't believe it! And when havewe got to get out?"
"Oh, I don't think there's a desperate hurry. They'll take aninventory of all the things, and we can live on here till they'reactually ready for the sale."
"And when will that be?"
"I don't know. A week or two."
"And is the cinematograph to be sold the same?"
"Yes--everything! The piano--even mother's portrait--"
"It's impossible to believe it," said Miss Pinnegar. "It'simpossible. He can never have left things so bad."
"Ciccio," said Alvina. "You'll really have to go if you are to catchthe train. You'll give Madame my letter, won't you? I should hate youto miss the train. I know she can't bear me already, for all the fussand upset I cause."
Ciccio rose slowly, wiping his mouth.
"You'll be there at seven o'clock?" he said.
"At the theatre," she replied.
And without more ado, he left.
Mrs. Rollings came in.
"You've heard?" said Miss Pinnegar dramatically.
"I heard somethink," said Mrs. Rollings.
"Sold up! Everything to be sold up. Every stick and rag! I neverthought I should live to see the day," said Miss Pinnegar.
"You might almost have expected it," said Mrs. Rollings. "But you'reall right, yourself, Miss Pinnegar. Your money isn't with his, isit?"
"No," said Miss Pinnegar. "What little I have put by is safe. Butit's not enough to live on. It's not enough to keep me, even supposingI only live another ten years. If I only spend a pound a week, it costsfifty-two pounds a year. And for ten years, look at it, it's fivehundred and twenty pounds. And you couldn't say less. And I haven'thalf that amount. I never had more than a wage, you know. Why, MissFrost earned a good deal more than I do. Andshe didn't leavemuch more than fifty. Where's the money to come from--?"
"But if you've enough to start a little business--" said Alvina.
"Yes, it's what I shallhave to do. It's what I shall have todo. And then what about you? What about you?"
"Oh, don't bother about me," said Alvina.
"Yes, it's all very well, don't bother. But when you come to my age,you know you'vegot to bother, and bother a great deal, ifyou're not going to find yourself in a position you'd be sorry for. Youhave to bother. Andyou'll have to bother before you'vedone."
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," said Alvina. "Ha,sufficient for a good many days, it seems to me."
Miss Pinnegar was in a real temper. To Alvina this seemed an odd wayof taking it. The three women sat down to an uncomfortable dinner ofcold meat and hot potatoes and warmed-up pudding.
"But whatever you do," pronounced Miss Pinnegar; "whatever you do,and however you strive, in this life, you're knocked down in the end.You're always knocked down."
"It doesn't matter," said Alvina, "if it's only in the end. Itdoesn't matter if you've had your life."
"You've never had your life, till you're dead," said Miss Pinnegar."And if you work and strive, you've a right to the fruits of yourwork."
"It doesn't matter," said Alvina laconically, "so long as you'veenjoyed working and striving."
But Miss Pinnegar was too angry to be philosophic. Alvina knew itwas useless to be either angry or otherwise emotional. None the less,she also felt as if she had been knocked down. And she almost enviedpoor Miss Pinnegar the prospect of a little, day-by-day haberdasheryshop in Tamworth. Her own problem seemed so much more menacing. "Answeror die," said the Sphinx of fate. Miss Pinnegar could answer her ownfate according to its question. She could say "haberdashery shop," andher sphinx would recognize this answer as true to nature, and would besatisfied. But every individual has his own, or her own fate, and herown sphinx. Alvina's sphinx was an old, deep thoroughbred, she wouldtake no mongrel answers. And her thoroughbred teeth were long andsharp. To Alvina, the last of the fantastic but purebred race ofHoughton, the problem of her fate was terribly abstruse.
The only thing to do was not to solve it: to stray on, and answerfate with whatever came into one's head. No good striving with fate.Trust to a lucky shot, or take the consequences.
"Miss Pinnegar," said Alvina. "Have we any money in hand?"
"There is about twenty pounds in the bank. It's all shown in mybooks," said Miss Pinnegar.
"We couldn't take it, could we?"
"Every penny shows in the books."
Alvina pondered again.
"Are there more bills to come in?" she asked. "I mean my bills. Do Iowe anything?"
"I don't think you do," said Miss Pinnegar.
"I'm going to keep the insurance money, any way. They can say whatthey like. I've got it, and I'm going to keep it."
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, "it's not my business. But there'sSharps and Fullbanks to pay."
"I'll pay those," said Alvina. "You tell Atterwell what to put onfather's stone. How much does it cost?"
"Five shillings a letter, you remember."
"Well, we'll just put the name and the date. How much will that be?James Houghton. Born 17th January--"
"You'll have to put 'Also of,'" said Miss Pinnegar.
"Also of--" said Alvina. "One--two--three--four--five--six--Sixletters--thirty shillings. Seems an awful lot forAlso of--"
"But you can't leave it out," said Miss Pinnegar. "You can'teconomize over that."
"I begrudge it," said Alvina.
For days, after joining the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, Alvina was veryquiet, subdued, and rather remote, sensible of her humiliating positionas a hanger-on. They none of them took much notice of her. They driftedon, rather disjointedly. The cordiality, thejoie de vivre didnot revive. Madame was a little irritable, and very exacting, andinclined to be spiteful. Ciccio went his way with Geoffrey.
In the second week, Madame found out that a man had beensurreptitiously inquiring about them at their lodgings, from thelandlady and the landlady's blowsy daughter. It must have been adetective--some shoddy detective. Madame waited. Then she sent Max overto Mansfield, on some fictitious errand. Yes, the lousy-looking dogs ofdetectives had been there too, making the most minute enquiries as tothe behaviour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, what they did, how theirsleeping was arranged, how Madame addressed the men, what attitude themen took towards Alvina.
Madame waited again. And again, when they moved to Doncaster, thesame two mongrel-looking fellows were lurking in the street, and plyingthe inmates of their lodging-house with questions. All the Natchascaught sight of the men. And Madame cleverly wormed out of therighteous and respectable landlady what the men had asked. Once more itwas about the sleeping accommodation--whether the landlady heardanything in the night--whether she noticed anything in the bedrooms, inthe beds.
No doubt about it, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were under suspicion. Theywere being followed, and watched. What for? Madame made a shrewd guess."They want to say we are immoral foreigners," she said.
"But what have our personal morals got to do with them?" said Maxangrily.
"Yes--but the English! They are so pure," said Madame.
"You know," said Louis, "somebody must have put them up to it--"
"Perhaps," said Madame, "somebody on account of Allaye." Alvina wentwhite.
"Yes," said Geoffrey. "White Slave Traffic! Mr. May said it." Madameslowly nodded.
"Mr. May!" she said. "Mr. May! It is he. He knows all aboutmorals--and immortals. Yes, I know. Yes--yes--yes! He suspects all ourimmoral doings,mes braves."
"But there aren't any, except mine," cried Alvina, pale to the lips."You! You! There you are!" Madame smiled archly, and rathermockingly.
"What are we to do?" said Max, pale on the cheekbones.
"Curse them! Curse them!" Louis was muttering, in his rollingaccent.
"Wait," said Madame. "Wait. They will not do anything to us. You areonly dirty foreigners,mes braves. At the most they will ask usonly to leave their pure country."
"We don't interfere with none of them," cried Max.
"Curse them," muttered Louis.
"Never mind,mon cher. You are in a pure country. Let uswait."
"If you think it's me," said Alvina, "I can go away."
"Oh, my dear, you are only the excuse," said Madame, smilingindulgently at her. "Let us wait, and see."
She took it smilingly. But her cheeks were white as paper, and hereyes black as drops of ink, with anger.
"Wait and see!" she chanted ironically. "Wait and see! If we mustleave the dear country--thenadieu!" And she gravely bowed to animaginary England.
"I feel it's my fault. I feel I ought to go away," cried Alvina, whowas terribly distressed, seeing Madame's glitter and pallor, and theblack brows of the men. Never had Ciccio's brow looked so ominouslyblack. And Alvina felt it was all her fault. Never had she experiencedsuch a horrible feeling: as if something repulsive were creeping on herfrom behind. Every minute of these weeks was a horror to her: the senseof the low-down dogs of detectives hanging round, sliding behind them,trying to get hold of some clear proof of immorality on their part. Andthen--the unknown vengeance of the authorities. All the repulsivesecrecy, and all the absolute power of the police authorities. Thesense of a great malevolent power which had them all the time in itsgrip, and was watching, feeling, waiting to strike the morbid blow: thesense of the utter helplessness of individuals who were not evenaccused, only watched and enmeshed! the feeling that they, theNatcha-Kee-Tawaras, herself included, must be monsters of hideous vice,to have provoked all this: and yet the sane knowledge that they, noneof them, were monsters of vice; this was quite killing. The sight of apoliceman would send up Alvina's heart in a flame of fear, agony; yetshe knew she had nothing legally to be afraid of. Every knock at thedoor was horrible.
She simply could not understand it. Yet there it was: they werewatched, followed. Of that there was no question. And all she couldimagine was that the troupe was secretly accused of White Slave Trafficby somebody in Woodhouse. Probably Mr. May had gone the round of thebenevolent magnates of Woodhouse, concerning himself with her virtue,and currying favour with his concern. Of this she became convinced,that it was concern for her virtue which had started the wholebusiness: and that the first instigator was Mr. May, who had got roundsome vulgar magistrate or County Councillor.
Madame did not consider Alvina's view very seriously. She thought itwas some personal malevolence against the Tawaras themselves, probablyput up by some other professionals, with whom Madame was notpopular.
Be that as it may, for some weeks they went about in the shadow ofthis repulsive finger which was following after them, to touch them anddestroy them with the black smear of shame. The men were silent andinclined to be sulky. They seemed to hold together. They seemed to beunited into a strong, four-square silence and tension. They kept tothemselves--and Alvina kept to herself--and Madame kept to herself. Sothey went about.
And slowly the cloud melted. It never broke. Alvina felt that thevery force of the sullen, silent fearlessness and fury in the Tawarashad prevented its bursting. Once there had been a weakening, acringing, they would all have been lost. But their hearts hardened withblack, indomitable anger. And the cloud melted, it passed away. Therewas no sign.
Early summer was now at hand. Alvina no longer felt at home with theNatchas. While the trouble was hanging over, they seemed to ignore heraltogether. The men hardly spoke to her. They hardly spoke to Madame,for that matter. They kept within the four-square enclosure ofthemselves.
But Alvina felt herself particularly excluded, left out. And whenthe trouble of the detectives began to pass off, and the men becamemore cheerful again, wanted her to jest and be familiar with them, sheresponded verbally, but in her heart there was no response.
Madame had been quite generous with her. She allowed her to pay forher room, and the expense of travelling. But she had her food with therest. Wherever she was, Madame bought the food for the party, andcooked it herself. And Alvina came in with the rest: she paid noboard.
She waited, however, for Madame to suggest a small salary--or atleast, that the troupe should pay her living expenses. But Madame didnot make such a suggestion. So Alvina knew that she was not very badlywanted. And she guarded her money, and watched for some otheropportunity.
It became her habit to go every morning to the public library of thetown in which she found herself, to look through the advertisements:advertisements for maternity nurses, for nursery governesses, pianists,travelling companions, even ladies' maids. For some weeks she foundnothing, though she wrote several letters.
One morning Ciccio, who had begun to hang round her again,accompanied her as she set out to the library. But her heart was closedagainst him.
"Why are you going to the library?" he asked her. It was inLancaster.
"To look at the papers and magazines."
"Ha-a! To find a job, eh?"
His cuteness startled her for a moment.
"If I found one I should take it," she said.
"He! I know that," he said.
It so happened that that very morning she saw on the notice-board ofthe library an announcement that the Borough Council wished to engagethe services of an experienced maternity nurse, applications to be madeto the medical board. Alvina wrote down the directions. Ciccio watchedher.
"What is a maternity nurse?" he said.
"Anaccoucheuse!" she said. "The nurse who attends whenbabies are born."
"Do you know how to do that?" he said, incredulous, and jeeringslightly.
"I was trained to do it," she said.
He said no more, but walked by her side as she returned to thelodgings. As they drew near the lodgings, he said:
"You don't want to stop with us any more?"
"I can't," she said.
He made a slight, mocking gesture.
"'I can't,'" he repeated. "Why do you always say you can't?"
"Because I can't," she said.
"Pff--!" he went, with a whistling sound of contempt.
But she went indoors to her room. Fortunately, when she had finallycleared her things from Manchester House, she had brought with her hernurse's certificate, and recommendations from doctors. She wrote outher application, took the tram to the Town Hall and dropped it in theletter-box there. Then she wired home to her doctor for anotherreference. After which she went to the library and got out a book onher subject. If summoned, she would have to go before the medical boardon Monday. She had a week. She read and pondered hard, recalling allher previous experience and knowledge.
She wondered if she ought to appear before the board in uniform. Hernurse's dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney's, inWoodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse wasfinished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to someboot-and-shoe people: at least the boot-and-shoe people had the house.They had given four thousand pounds for it--which was above thelawyer's estimate. On the other hand, the theatre was sold for almostnothing. It all worked out that some thirty-three pounds, which thecreditors made up to fifty pounds, remained for Alvina. She insisted onMiss Pinnegar's having half of this. And so that was all over. MissPinnegar was already in Tamworth, and her little shop would be openednext week. She wrote happily and excitedly about it.
Sometimes fate acts swiftly and without a hitch. On Thursday Alvinareceived her notice that she was to appear before the Board on thefollowing Monday. And yet she could not bring herself to speak of it toMadame till the Saturday evening. When they were all at supper, shesaid:
"Madame, I applied for a post of maternity nurse, to the Borough ofLancaster."
Madame raised her eyebrows. Ciccio had said nothing.
"Oh really! You never told me."
"I thought it would be no use if it all came to nothing. They wantme to go and see them on Monday, and then they will decide--"
"Really! Do they! On Monday? And then if you get this work you willstay here? Yes?"
"Yes, of course."
"Of course! Of course! Yes! H'm! And if not?"
The two women looked at each other.
"What?" said Alvina.
"If youdon't get it--! You are notsure?"
"No," said Alvina. "I am not a bit sure."
"Well then--! Now! And if you don't get it--?"
"What shall I do, you mean?"
"Yes, what shall you do?"
"I don't know."
"How! you don't know! Shall you come back to us, then?"
"I will if you like--"
"If I like! IfI like! Come, it is not a question of ifI like. It is what do you want to do yourself."
"I feel you don't want me very badly," said Alvina.
"Why? Why do you feel? Who makes you? Which of us makes you feel so?Tell me."
"Nobody in particular. But I feel it."
"Oh we-ell! If nobody makes you, and yet you feel it, it must be inyourself, don't you see? Eh? Isn't it so?"
"Perhaps it is," admitted Alvina.
"We-ell then! We-ell--" So Madame gave her her congé. "But ifyou like to come back--if youlaike--then--" Madame shrugged hershoulders--"you must come, I suppose."
"Thank you," said Alvina.
The young men were watching. They seemed indifferent. Ciccio turnedaside, with his faint, stupid smile.
In the morning Madame gave Alvina all her belongings, from thelittle safe she called her bank.
"There is the money--so--and so--and so--that is correct. Pleasecount it once more!--" Alvina counted it and kept it clutched in herhand. "And there are your rings, and your chain, and yourlocketsee--all--everything--! But not the brooch. Where is the brooch?Here! Shall I give it back, hein?"
"I gave it to you," said Alvina, offended. She looked into Madame'sblack eyes. Madame dropped her eyes.
"Yes, you gave it. But I thought, you see, as you have now not muchmo-oney, perhaps you would like to take it again--"
"No, thank you," said Alvina, and she went away, leaving Madame withthe red brooch in her plump hand.
"Thank goodness I've given her something valuable," thought Alvinato herself, as she went trembling to her room.
She had packed her bag. She had to find new rooms. She bade goodbyeto the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. Her face was cold and distant, but shesmiled slightly as she bade them good-bye.
"And perhaps," said Madame, "per-haps you will come to Wigantomorrow afternoon--or evening? Yes?"
"Thank you," said Alvina.
She went out and found a little hotel, where she took her room forthe night, explaining the cause of her visit to Lancaster. Her heartwas hard and burning. A deep, burning, silent anger against everythingpossessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind.
And therefore, the next day, everything went as if by magic. She haddecided that at the least sign of indifference from the medical boardpeople she would walk away, take her bag, and go to Windermere. She hadnever been to the Lakes. And Windermere was not far off. She would notendure one single hint of contumely from any one else. She would gostraight to Windermere, to see the big lake. Why not do as she wished!She could be quite happy by herself among the lakes. And she would beabsolutely free, absolutely free. She rather looked forward to leavingthe Town Hall, hurrying to take her bag and off to the station andfreedom. Hadn't she still got about a hundred pounds? Why bother forone moment? To be quite alone in the whole world--and quite, quitefree, with her hundred pounds--the prospect attracted hersincerely.
And therefore, everything went charmingly at the Town Hall. Themedical board were charming to her--charming. There was no hesitationat all. From the first moment she was engaged. And she was given apleasant room in a hospital in a garden, and the matron was charming toher, and the doctors most courteous.
When could she undertake to commence her duties? When did they wanther? The verymoment she could come. She could begintomorrow--but she had no uniform. Oh, the matron would lend her uniformand aprons, till her box arrived.
So there she was--by afternoon installed in her pleasant little roomlooking on the garden, and dressed in a nurse's uniform. It was allsudden like magic. She had wired to Madame, she had wired for her box.She was another person.
Needless to say, she was glad. Needless to say that, in the morning,when she had thoroughly bathed, and dressed in clean clothes, and puton the white dress, the white apron, and the white cap, she feltanother person. So clean, she felt, so thankful! Her skin seemedcaressed and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt. Itwas so different from being with the Natchas.
In the garden the snowballs, guelder-roses, swayed softly amonggreen foliage, there was pink may-blossom, and single scarletmay-blossom, and underneath the young green of the trees, irisesrearing purple and moth-white. A young gardener was working--and aconvalescent slowly trailed a few paces.
Having ten minutes still, Alvina sat down and wrote to Ciccio: "I amglad I have got this post as nurse here. Every one is most kind, and Ifeel at home already. I feel quite happy here. I shall think of my dayswith the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, and of you, who were such a stranger tome. Good-bye.--A. H."
This she addressed and posted. No doubt Madame would find occasionto read it. But let her.
Alvina now settled down to her new work. There was of course a greatdeal to do, for she had work both in the hospital and out in the town,though chiefly out in the town. She went rapidly from case to case, asshe was summoned. And she was summoned at all hours. So that it wastiring work, which left her no time to herself, except just insnatches.
She had no serious acquaintance with anybody, she was too busy. Thematron and sisters and doctors and patients were all part of her day'swork, and she regarded them as such. The men she chiefly ignored: shefelt much more friendly with the matron. She had many a cup of tea andmany a chat in the matron's room, in the quiet, sunny afternoons whenthe work was not pressing. Alvina took her quiet moments when shecould: for she never knew when she would be rung up by one or other ofthe doctors in the town.
And so, from the matron, she learned to crochet. It was work she hadnever taken to. But now she had her ball of cotton and her hook, andshe worked away as she chatted. She was in good health, and she wasgetting fatter again. With the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, she had improved agood deal, her colour and her strength had returned. But undoubtedlythe nursing life, arduous as it was, suited her best. She became ahandsome, reposeful woman, jolly with the other nurses, really happywith her friend the matron, who was well-bred and wise, and neverover-intimate.
The doctor with whom Alvina had most to do was a Dr. Mitchell, aScotchman. He had a large practice among the poor, and was an energeticman. He was about fifty-four years old, tall, largely-built, with agood figure, but with extraordinarily large feet and hands. His facewas red and clean-shaven, his eyes blue, his teeth very good. Helaughed and talked rather mouthingly. Alvina, who knew what the nursestold her, knew that he had come as a poor boy and bottle-washer to Dr.Robertson, a fellow-Scotchman, and that he had made his way upgradually till he became a doctor himself, and had an independentpractice. Now he was quite rich--and a bachelor. But the nurses did notset their bonnets at him very much, because he was rather mouthy andoverbearing.
In the houses of the poor he was a great autocrat.
"What is that stuff you've got there!" he inquired largely, seeing abottle of somebody's Soothing Syrup by a poor woman's bedside. "Take itand throw it down the sink, and the next time you want a soothing syrupput a little boot-blacking in hot water. It'll do you just as muchgood."
Imagine the slow, pompous, large-mouthed way in which the red-faced,handsomely-built man pronounced these words, and you realize why thepoor set such store by him.
He was eagle-eyed. Wherever he went, there was a scuffle directlyhis foot was heard on the stairs. And he knew they were hidingsomething. He sniffed the air: he glanced round with a sharp eye: andduring the course of his visit picked up a blue mug which was pushedbehind the looking-glass. He peered inside--and smelled it.
"Stout?" he said, in a tone of indignant inquiry: God-Almighty wouldpresumably take on just such a tone, finding the core of an apple flungaway among the dead-nettle of paradise: "Stout! Have you been drinkingstout?" This as he gazed down on the wan mother in the bed.
"They gave me a drop, doctor. I felt that low."
The doctor marched out of the room, still holding the mug in hishand. The sick woman watched him with haunted eyes. The attendant womenthrew up their hands and looked at one another. Was he going for ever?There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue mugdownstairs. He returned with a solemn stride.
"There!" he said. "And the next person that gives you stout will bethrown down along with the mug."
"Oh doctor, the bit o' comfort!" wailed the sick woman. "It ud neverdo me no harm."
"Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yours! Harm! Do you knowbetter than I do? What have I come here for? To be told by you whatwill do you harm and what won't? It appears to me you need no doctorhere, you know everything already--"
"Oh no, doctor. It's not like that. But when you feel as if you'dsink through the bed, an' you don't know what to do withyourself--"
"Take a little beef-tea, or a little rice pudding. Takenourishment, don't take that muck. Do you hear--" charging uponthe attendant women, who shrank against the wall--"she's to havenothing alcoholic at all, and don't let me catch you giving ither."
"They say there's nobbut fower per cent. i' stout," retorted thedaring female.
"Fower per cent," mimicked the doctor brutally. "Why, what does anignorant creature like you know about fower per cent."
The woman muttered a little under her breath.
"What? Speak out. Let me hear what you've got to say, my woman. I'veno doubt it's something for my benefit--"
But the affronted woman rushed out of the room, and burst into tearson the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told thepatient how she was to behave, concluding:
"Nourishment! Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don't tell meyou can't take it. Push it down if it won't go down by itself--"
"Oh doctor--"
"Don't sayoh doctor to me. Do as I tell you. That'syour business." After which he marched out, and the rattle ofhis motor car was shortly heard.
Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the peoplestood it. But soon she realized that they loved it--particularly thewomen.
"Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell's been. I'm scared to death ofhim, for fear he's going to shout at me."
"Why does everybody put up with him?" asked innocent Alvina.
"Oh, he's good-hearted, nurse, hedoes feel for you."
And everywhere it was the same: "Oh, he's got a heart, you know.He's rough, but he's got a heart. I'd rather have him than your smarmyslormin sort. Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell, I don't care whatyou say."
But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart whichhad all the women scurrying like chickens was not particularlyattractive.
The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him ifpossible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had tosubmit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer,invariably, was:
"And keep off the beer."
"Oh ay!"
"Keep off the beer, or I shan't set foot in this house again."
"Tha's got a red enough face on thee, tha nedna shout."
"My face is red with exposure to all weathers, attending ignorantpeople like you. I never touch alcohol in any form."
"No, an' I dunna. I drink a drop o' beer, if that's what you ca'touchin' alcohol. An' I'm none th' wuss for it, tha sees."
"You've heard what I've told you."
"Ah, I have."
"And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself.I shan't attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs.Larrick"--this to the wife.
"I do, doctor. And I know it's true what you say. An' I'm at himnight an' day about it--"
"Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. Hemustn't thinkI'm going to be running after him, if he disobeysmy orders." And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began tocomplain.
None the less the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell.If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to hearthe housewife chuntering.
"Oh my lawd, come in nurse! What a day! Doctor's not been yet. Andhe's bound to come now I've just cleaned up, trapesin' wi' his gretfeet. He's got the biggest understandin's of any man i' Lancaster. Myhusband says they're the best pair o' pasties th' kingdom. An' he doesmake such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th' mat,marches straight up your clean stairs--"
"Why don't you tell him to wipe his feet?" said Alvina.
"Oh my word! Fancy me telling him! He'd jump down my throat withboth feet afore I'd opened my mouth. He's not to be spoken to, heisn't. He's my-lord, he is. You mustn't look, or you're done for."
Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for brow-beating them,and having a heart over and above.
Sometimes he was given a good hit--though nearly always by a man. Ithappened he was in a workman's house when the man was at dinner.
"Canna yer gi'e a man summat better nor this 'ere pap, Missis?" saidthe hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding.
"Oh go on," cried the wife. "I hadna time for owt else." Dr.Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway.
"Rice pudding!" he exclaimed largely. "You couldn't have anythingmore wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of mylife--every day of my life, I do."
The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustachecopiously with it. He did not answer.
"Do you doctor!" cried the woman. "And never no different."
"Never," said the doctor.
"Fancy that! You're that fond of them?"
"I find they agree with me. They are light and digestible. And mystomach is as weak as a baby's."
The labourer wiped his big moustache on his sleeve.
"Mine isna, tha sees," he said, "so pap's no use. 'S watter ter me.I want ter feel as I've had summat: a bit o' suetty dumplin' an' a pinto' hale, summat ter fill th' hole up. An' tha'd be th' same if tha didmy work."
"If I did your work," sneered the doctor. "Why I do ten times thework that any one of you does. It's just the work that has ruined mydigestion, the never getting a quiet meal, and never a whole night'srest. When do you thinkI can sit at table and digest my dinner?I have to be off looking after people like you--"
"Eh, tha can ta'e th' titty-bottle wi' thee," said the labourer.
But Dr. Mitchell was furious for weeks over this. It put him in ablack rage to have his great manliness insulted. Alvina was quietlyamused.
The doctor began by being rather lordly and condescending with her.But luckily she felt she knew her work at least as well as he knew it.She smiled and let him condescend. Certainly she neither feared noreven admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him: thegreat, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and hisstomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness and hisgood heart which was as selfish as it could be. Nothing can be morecocksuredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its ownbeneficence. He was a little too much the teetotaller on the one handto be so largely manly on the other. Alvina preferred the labourerswith their awful long moustaches that got full of food. And he was alittle too loud-mouthedly lordly to be in human good taste.
As a matter of fact, he was conscious of the fact that he had risento be a gentleman. Now if a man is conscious of being agentleman, he is bound to be a little less than aman.But if he is gnawed with anxiety lest he maynot be a gentleman,he is only pitiable. There is a third case, however. If a man mustloftily, by his manner, assert that he isnow a gentleman, heshows himself a clown. For Alvina, poor Dr. Mitchell fell into thisthird category, of clowns. She tolerated him good-humouredly, as womenso often tolerate ninnies andposeurs. She smiled to herselfwhen she saw his large and important presence on the board. She smiledwhen she saw him at a sale, buying the grandest pieces of antiquefurniture. She smiled when he talked of going up to Scotland, forgrouse shooting, or of snatching an hour on Sunday morning, for golf.And she talked him over, with quiet, delicate malice, with the matron.He was no favourite at the hospital.
Gradually Dr. Mitchell's manner changed towards her. From hisimperious condescension he took to a tone of uneasy equality. This didnot suit him. Dr. Mitchell had no equals: he had only the vast stratumof inferiors, towards whom he exercised his quite profitablebeneficence--it brought him in about two thousand a year: and then hissuperiors, people who had been born with money. It was the tradesmenand professionals who had started at the bottom and clambered to themotor-car footing, who distressed him. And therefore, whilst he treatedAlvina on this uneasy tradesman footing, he felt himself in a falseposition.
She kept her attitude of quiet amusement, and little by little hesank. From being a lofty creature soaring over her head, he was nowlike a big fish poking its nose above water and making eyes at her. Hetreated her with rather presuming deference.
"You look tired this morning," he barked at her one hot day. "Ithink it's thunder," she said.
"Thunder! Work, you mean," and he gave a slight smile. "I'm going todrive you back."
"Oh no, thanks, don't trouble! I've got to call on the way."
"Where have you got to call?"
She told him.
"Very well. That takes you no more than five minutes. I'll wait foryou. Now take your cloak."
She was surprised. Yet, like other women, she submitted.
As they drove he saw a man with a barrow of cucumbers. He stoppedthe car and leaned towards the man.
"Take that barrow-load of poison andbury it!" he shouted, inhis strong voice. The busy street hesitated.
"What's that, mister?" replied the mystified hawker.
Dr. Mitchell pointed to the green pile of cucumbers.
"Take that barrow-load of poison, and bury it," he called, "beforeyou do anybody any more harm with it."
"What barrow-load of poison's that?" asked the hawker, approaching.A crowd began to gather.
"What barrow-load of poison is that!" repeated the doctor. "Why yourbarrow-load of cucumbers."
"Oh," said the man, scrutinizing his cucumbers carefully. To besure, some were a little yellow at the end. "How's that? Cumbers isright enough: fresh from market this morning."
"Fresh or not fresh," said the doctor, mouthing his wordsdistinctly, "you might as well put poison into your stomach, as thosethings. Cucumbers are the worst thing you can eat."
"Oh!" said the man, stuttering. "That's 'appen for them as doesn'tlike them. I niver knowed a cumber dome no harm, an' I eat 'emlike a happle." Whereupon the hawker took a "cumber" from his barrow,bit off the end, and chewed it till the sap squirted. "What's wrongwith that?" he said, holding up the bitten cucumber.
"I'm not talking about what's wrong with that," said the doctor. "Mybusiness is what's wrong with the stomach it goes into. I'm a doctor.And I know that those things cause me half my work. They cause half theinternal troubles people suffer from in summertime."
"Oh ay! That's no loss to you, is it? Me an' you's partners. Morecumbers I sell, more graft for you, 'cordin' to that. What's wrongthen.Cum-bers! Fine fresh Cum-berrrs! All fresh and juisty, allcheap and tasty--!" yelled the man.
"I am a doctor not only to cure illness, but to prevent it where Ican. And cucumbers are poison to everybody."
"Cum-bers! Cum-bers! Fresh cumbers!" yelled the man.
Dr. Mitchell started his car.
"When will they learn intelligence?" he said to Alvina, smiling andshowing his white, even teeth.
"I don't care, you know, myself," she said. "I should always letpeople do what they wanted--"
"Even if you knew it would do them harm?" he queried, smiling withamiable condescension.
"Yes, why not! It's their own affair. And they'll do themselves harmone way or another."
"And you wouldn't try to prevent it?"
"You might as well try to stop the sea with your fingers."
"You think so?" smiled the doctor. "I see, you are a pessimist. Youare a pessimist with regard to human nature."
"Am I?" smiled Alvina, thinking the rose would smell as sweet. Itseemed to please the doctor to find that Alvina was a pessimist withregard to human nature. It seemed to give her an air of distinction. Inhis eyes, she seemed distinguished. He was in a fair way to dote onher.
She, of course, when he began to admire her, liked him much better,and even saw graceful, boyish attractions in him. There was reallysomething childish about him. And this something childish, since itlooked up to her as if she were the saving grace, naturally flatteredher and made her feel gentler towards him.
He got in the habit of picking her up in his car, when he could. Andhe would tap at the matron's door, smiling and showing all hisbeautiful teeth, just about tea-time.
"May I come in?" His voice sounded almost flirty.
"Certainly."
"I see you're having tea! Very nice, a cup of tea at this hour!"
"Have one too, doctor."
"I will with pleasure." And he sat down wreathed with smiles. Alvinarose to get a cup. "I didn't intend to disturb you, nurse," he said."Men are always intruders," he smiled to the matron.
"Sometimes," said the matron, "women are charmed to be intrudedupon."
"Oh really!" his eyes sparkled. "Perhapsyou wouldn't say so,nurse?" he said, turning to Alvina. Alvina was just reaching at thecupboard. Very charming she looked, in her fresh dress and cap and softbrown hair, very attractive her figure, with its full, soft loins. Sheturned round to him.
"Oh yes," she said. "I quite agree with the matron."
"Oh, you do!" He did not quite know how to take it. "But you mindbeing disturbed at your tea, I am sure."
"No," said Alvina. "We are so used to being disturbed."
"Rather weak, doctor?" said the matron, pouring the tea. "Very weak,please."
The doctor was a little laboured in his gallantry, but unmistakablygallant. When he was gone, the matron looked demure, and Alvinaconfused. Each waited for the other to speak.
"Don't you think Dr. Mitchell is quite coming out?" said Alvina.
"Quite!Quite the ladies' man! I wonder who it is can bebringing him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure." Shelooked wickedly at Alvina.
"No, don't look at me," laughed Alvina, "I know nothing aboutit."
"Do you think it may beme!" said the matron, mischievous."I'm sure of it, matron! He begins to show some taste at last."
"There now!" said the matron. "I shall put my cap straight." And shewent to the mirror, fluffing her hair and settling her cap.
"There!" she said, bobbing a little curtsey to Alvina.
They both laughed, and went off to work.
But there was no mistake, Dr. Mitchell was beginning to expand. WithAlvina he quite unbent, and seemed even to sun himself when she wasnear, to attract her attention. He smiled and smirked and became oddlyself-conscious: rather uncomfortable. He liked to hang over her chair,and he made a great event of offering her a cigarette whenever theymet, although he himself never smoked. He had a gold cigarettecase.
One day he asked her in to see his garden. He had a pleasant oldsquare house with a big walled garden. He showed her his flowers andhis wall-fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade heradmire his asparagus. And then he gave her tea in the drawing-room,with strawberries and cream and cakes, of all of which he ate nothing.But he smiled expansively all the time. He was a made man: and now hewas really letting himself go, luxuriating in everything; above all, inAlvina, who poured tea gracefully from the old Georgian tea-pot, andsmiled so pleasantly above the Queen Anne tea-cups.
And she, wicked that she was, admired every detail of hisdrawing-room. It was a pleasant room indeed, with roses outside theFrench door, and a lawn in sunshine beyond, with bright red flowers inbeds. But indoors, it was insistently antique. Alvina admired theJacobean sideboard and the Jacobean arm-chairs and the Hepplewhitewall-chairs and the Sheraton settee and the Chippendale stands and theAxminster carpet and the bronze clock with Shakespeare and Ariostoreclining on it--yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the clock--andthe ormolu cabinet and the bead-work foot-stools and the dreadfulSèvres dish with a cherub in it and--but why enumerate. Sheadmiredeverything! And Dr. Mitchell's heart expanded in hisbosom till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at her feet ordid something extraordinary. He had never even imagined what it was tobe so expanded: what a delicious feeling. He could have kissed her feetin an ecstasy of wild expansion. But habit, so far, prevented his doingmore than beam.
Another day he said to her, when they were talking of age:
"You are as young as you feel. Why, when I was twenty I felt I hadall the cares and responsibility of the world on my shoulders. And nowI am middle-aged more or less, I feel as light as if I were justbeginning life." He beamed down at her.
"Perhaps you are only just beginning your own life," she said. "Youhave lived for your work till now."
"It may be that," he said. "It may be that up till now I have livedfor others, for my patients. And now perhaps I may be allowed to live alittle more for myself." He beamed with real luxury, saw the realluxury of life begin.
"Why shouldn't you?" said Alvina.
"Oh yes, I intend to," he said, with confidence.
He really, by degrees, made up his mind to marry now, and to retirein part from his work. That is, he would hire another assistant, andgive himself a fair amount of leisure. He was inordinately proud of hishouse. And now he looked forward to the treat of his life: hanginground the woman he had made his wife, following her about, feelingproud of her and his house, talking to her from morning till night,really finding himself in her. When he had to go his rounds she wouldgo with him in the car: he made up his mind she would be willing toaccompany him. He would teach her to drive, and they would sit side byside, she driving him and waiting for him. And he would run out of thehouses of his patients, and find her sitting there, and he would get inbeside her and feel so snug and so sure and so happy as she drove himoff to the next case, he informing her about his work.
And if ever she did not go out with him, she would be there on thedoorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car. And they wouldhave long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he luxuriatedin her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they would be snugfor hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to bed. And in themorning he need not rush off. He would loiter about with her, theywould loiter down the garden looking at every new flower and every newfruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and no cap on her hair, hewould never be able to tear himself away from her. Every morning itwould be unbearable to have to tear himself away from her, and everyhour he would be rushing back to her. They would be simply everythingto one another. And how he would enjoy it! Ah!
He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would takeher away from him. That was his first thought. But then--! Ah well, hewould have to leave it till the time. Love's young dream is never sodelicious as at the virgin age of fifty-three.
But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he hadput a plain question. It was August Bank Holiday, that for ever blackday of the declaration of war, when his question was put. For this yearof our story is the fatal year 1914.
There was quite a stir in the town over the declaration of war. Butmost people felt that the news was only intended to give an extrathrill to the all-important event of Bank Holiday. Half the world hadgone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the Lakes orinto the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fête,notwithstanding. And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a realholiday mood.
So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at theHospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three, fortea.
"What do you think of this new war?" said Alvina.
"Oh, it will be over in six weeks," said the doctor easily. Andthere they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered ifit would affect the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She had never heard any more ofthem.
"Where would you have liked to go today?" said the doctor, turningto smile at her as he drove the car.
"I think to Windermere--into the Lakes," she said.
"We might make a tour of the Lakes before long," he said. She wasnot thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech. "Hownice!" she said vaguely.
"We could go in the car, and take them as we chose," said thedoctor.
"Yes," she said, wondering at him now.
When they had had tea, quietly and gallantlytête-à-tête in his drawing-room, he asked her if shewould like to see the other rooms of the house. She thanked him, and heshowed her the substantial oak dining-room, and the little room withmedical works and a revolving chair, which he called his study: thenthe kitchen and the pantry, the housekeeper looking askance; thenupstairs to his bedroom, which was very fine with old mahoganytall-boys and silver candle-sticks on the dressing-table, and brusheswith green ivory backs, and a hygienic white bed and straw mats: thenthe visitors' bedroom corresponding, with its old satin-wood furnitureand cream-coloured chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a palecarpet with reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do likethat, isn't that beautiful, I've never seen anything like that! camethe gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina. And he smiled andgloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and howdark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had impressedCiccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel themselvesmasters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She smiled to herselfrather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling unaccountably uneasyand wistful, yearning into the distance again: a trick she thought shehad happily lost.
The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a bigman, and he always wore navy blue suits, well-tailored and immaculate.Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue suits, especiallyif they had reddish faces and rather big feet and if their hair waswearing thin, were a special type all to themselves, solid and rathernamby-pamby and tiresome.
"What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roofmakes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and thefascinating little window!" She crouched in the hollow of the smalldormer window. "Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I know Ishould want this room for my own."
"Then have it," he said. "Have it forone of your own."
She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He wasleaning forward to her, smiling, self-conscious, tentative, and eager.She thought it best to laugh it off.
"I was only talking like a child, from the imagination," shesaid.
"I quite understand that," he replied deliberately. "But I amspeaking what Imean--"
She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smilingand smirking broadly at her.
"Won't you marry me, and come and have this garret for your own?" Hespoke as if he were offering her a chocolate. He smiled with curiousuncertainty.
"I don't know," she said vaguely.
His smile broadened.
"Well now," he said, "make up your mind. I'm not good attalking about love, you know. But I think I'm pretty good atfeeling it, you know. I want you to come here and be happy: withme." He added the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and asif to commit himself finally.
"But I've never thought about it," she said, rapidly cogitating.
"I know you haven't. But think about it now--" He began to be hugelypleased with himself. "Think about it now. And tell me if you could putup withme, as well as the garret." He beamed and put his head alittle on one side--rather like Mr. May, for one second. But he wasmuch more dangerous than Mr. May. He was overbearing, and had thedevil's own temper if he was thwarted. This she knew. He was a big manin a navy blue suit, with very white teeth.
Again she thought she had better laugh it off.
"It's you Iam thinking about," she laughed, flirting still."It's you Iam wondering about."
"Well," he said, rather pleased with himself, "you wonder about metill you've made up your mind--"
"I will--" she said, seizing the opportunity. "I'll wonder about youtill I've made up my mind--shall I?"
"Yes," he said. "That's what I wish you to do. And the next time Iask you, you'll let me know. That's it, isn't it?" He smiledindulgently down on her: thought her face young and charming,charming.
"Yes," she said. "But don't ask me too soon, will you?"
"How, too soon--?" He smiled delightedly.
"You'll give me time to wonder about you, won't you? You won't askme again this month, will you?"
"This month?" His eyes beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed theprocrastination as much as she did. "But the month's only just begun!However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won't ask you again thismonth."
"And I'll promise to wonder about you all the month," she laughed."That's a bargain," he said.
They went downstairs, and Alvina returned to her duties. She wasvery much excited, very much excited indeed. A big, well-to-do man in anavy blue suit, of handsome appearance, aged fifty-three, with whiteteeth and a delicate stomach: itwas exciting. A sure position,a very nice home and lovely things in it, once they were dragged abouta bit. And of course he'd adore her. That went without saying. She wasas fussy as if some one had given her a lovely new pair of boots. Shewas really fussy and pleased with herself andquite decidedshe'd take it all on. That was how it put itself to her: she would takeit all on.
Of course there was the man himself to consider. But he was quitepresentable. There was nothing at all against it: nothing at all. If hehad pressed her during the first half of the month of August, he wouldalmost certainly have got her. But he only beamed in anticipation.
Meanwhile the stir and restlessness of the war had begun, and wasmaking itself felt even in Lancaster. And the excitement and the uneasebegan to wear through Alvina's rather glamorous fussiness. Some of herold fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had been as ifasleep these months, now woke rather irritably, and chafed against itscollar. Who was this elderly man, that she should marry him? Who washe, that she should be kissed by him. Actually kissed and fondled byhim! Repulsive. She avoided him like the plague. Fancy reposing againsthis broad, navy blue waistcoat! She started as if she had been stung.Fancy seeing his red, smiling face just above hers, coming down toembrace her! She pushed it away with her open hand. And she ran away,to avoid the thought.
And yet! And yet! She would be so comfortable, she would be sowell-off for the rest of her life. The hateful problem of materialcircumstance would be solved for ever. And she knew well how hatefulmaterial circumstances can make life.
Therefore, she could not decide in a hurry. But she bore poor Dr.Mitchell a deep grudge, that he could not grant her all the advantagesof his offer, and excuse her the acceptance of him himself. She darednot decide in a hurry. And this very fear, like a yoke on her, made herresent the man who drove her to decision.
Sometimes she rebelled. Sometimes she laughed unpleasantly in theman's face: though she dared not gotoo far: for she was alittle afraid of him and his rabid temper, also. In her moments ofsullen rebellion she thought of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. She thought of themdeeply. She wondered where they were, what they were doing, how the warhad affected them. Poor Geoffrey was a Frenchman--he would have to goto France to fight. Max and Louis were Swiss, it would not affect them:nor Ciccio, who was Italian. She wondered if the troupe was in England:if they would continue together when Geoffrey was gone. She wondered ifthey thought of her. She felt they did. She felt they did not forgether. She felt there was a connection.
In fact, during the latter part of August she wondered a good dealmore about the Natchas than about Dr. Mitchell. But wondering about theNatchas would not help her. She felt, if she knew where they were, shewould fly to them. But then she knew she wouldn't.
When she was at the station she saw crowds and bustle. People wereseeing their young men off. Beer was flowing: sailors on the train weretipsy: women were holding young men by the lapel of the coat. And whenthe train drew away, the young men waving, the women cried aloud andsobbed after them.
A chill ran down Alvina's spine. This was another matter, apart fromher Dr. Mitchell. It made him feel very unreal, trivial. She did notknow what she was going to do. She realized she must do something--takesome part in the wild dislocation of life. She knew that she would putoff Dr. Mitchell again.
She talked the matter over with the matron. The matron advised herto procrastinate. Why not volunteer for war-service? True, she was amaternity nurse, and this was hardly the qualification needed for thenursing of soldiers. But still, shewas a nurse.
Alvina felt this was the thing to do. Everywhere was a stir and aseethe of excitement. Men were active, women were needed too. She putdown her name on the list of volunteers for active service. This was onthe last day of August.
On the first of September Dr. Mitchell was round at the hospitalearly, when Alvina was just beginning her morning duties there. He wentinto the matron's room, and asked for Nurse Houghton. The matron leftthem together.
The doctor was excited. He smiled broadly, but with a tension ofnervous excitement. Alvina was troubled. Her heart beat fast.
"Now!" said Dr. Mitchell. "What have you to say to me?"
She looked up at him with confused eyes. He smiled excitedly andmeaningful at her, and came a little nearer.
"Today is the day when you answer, isn't it?" he said. "Now then,let me hear what you have to say."
But she only watched him with large, troubled eyes, and did notspeak. He came still nearer to her.
"Well then," he said, "I am to take it that silence gives consent."And he laughed nervously, with nervous anticipation, as he tried to puthis arm round her. But she stepped suddenly back.
"No, not yet," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"I haven't given my answer," she said.
"Give it then," he said, testily.
"I've volunteered for active service," she stammered. "I felt Iought to do something."
"Why?" he asked. He could put a nasty intonation into thatmonosyllable. "I should have thought you would answer me first."
She did not answer, but watched him. She did not like him.
"I only signed yesterday," she said.
"Why didn't you leave it till tomorrow? It would have lookedbetter." He was angry. But he saw a half-frightened, half-guilty lookon her face, and during the weeks of anticipation he had worked himselfup.
"But put that aside," he smiled again, a little dangerously. "Youhave still to answer my question. Having volunteered for war servicedoesn't prevent your being engaged to me, does it?"
Alvina watched him with large eyes. And again he came very near toher, so that his blue-serge waistcoat seemed to impinge on her, and hispurplish red face was above her.
"I'd rather not be engaged, under the circumstances," she said."Why?" came the nasty monosyllable. "What have the circumstances got todo with it?"
"Everything is so uncertain," she said. "I'd rather wait."
"Wait! Haven't you waited long enough? There's nothing at all toprevent your getting engaged to me now. Nothing whatsoever! Come now.I'm old enough not to be played with. And I'm much too much in lovewith you to let you go on indefinitely like this. Come now!" He smiledimminent, and held out his large hand for her hand. "Let me put thering on your finger. It will be the proudest day of my life when I makeyou my wife. Give me your hand--"
Alvina was wavering. For one thing, mere curiosity made her want tosee the ring. She half lifted her hand. And but for the knowledge thathe would kiss her, she would have given it. But he would kiss her--andagainst that she obstinately set her will. She put her hand behind herback, and looked obstinately into his eyes.
"Don't play a game with me," he said dangerously.
But she only continued to look mockingly and obstinately into hiseyes.
"Come," he said, beckoning for her to give her hand.
With a barely perceptible shake of the head, she refused, staring athim all the time. His ungovernable temper got the better of him. He sawred, and without knowing, seized her by the shoulder, swung her back,and thrust her, pressed her against the wall as if he would push herthrough it. His face was blind with anger, like a hot, red sun.Suddenly, almost instantaneously, he came to himself again and drewback his hands, shaking his right hand as if some rat had bittenit.
"I'm sorry!" he shouted, beside himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't meanit. I'm sorry." He dithered before her.
She recovered her equilibrium, and, pale to the lips, looked at himwith sombre eyes.
"I'm sorry!" he continued loudly, in his strange frenzy like a smallboy. "Don't remember! Don't remember! Don't think I did it."
His face was a kind of blank, and unconsciously he wrung the handthat had gripped her, as if it pained him. She watched him, andwondered why on earth all this frenzy. She was left rather cold, shedid not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her.There was nothing so very unnatural, after all, in being bumped upsuddenly against the wall. Certainly her shoulder hurt where he hadgripped it. But there were plenty of worse hurts in the world. Shewatched him with wide, distant eyes.
And he fell on his knees before her, as she backed against thebookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress-bottom, drawingit to him. Which made her rather abashed, and much moreuncomfortable.
"Forgive me!" he said. "Don't remember! Forgive me! Love me! Loveme! Forgive me and love me! Forgive me and love me!"
As Alvina was looking down dismayed on the great, red-faced, elderlyman, who in his crying-out showed his white teeth like a child, and asshe was gently trying to draw her skirt from his clutch, the dooropened, and there stood the matron, in her big frilled cap. Alvinaglanced at her, flushed crimson and looked down to the man She touchedhis face with her hand.
"Never mind," she said. "It's nothing. Don't think about it." Hecaught her hand and clung to it.
"Love me! Love me! Love me!" he cried.
The matron softly closed the door again, withdrawing.
"Love me! Love me!"
Alvina was absolutely dumbfounded by this scene. She had no idea mendid such things. It did not touch her, it dumbfounded her.
The doctor, clinging to her hand, struggled to his feet and flunghis arms round her, clasping her wildly to him.
"You love me! You love me, don't you?" he said, vibrating and besidehimself as he pressed her to his breast and hid his face against herhair. At such a moment, what was the good of saying she didn't? But shedidn't. Pity for his shame, however, kept her silent, motionless andsilent in his arms, smothered against the blue-serge waistcoat of hisbroad breast.
He was beginning to come to himself. He became silent. But he stillstrained her fast, he had no idea of letting her go.
"You will take my ring, won't you?" he said at last, still in thestrange, lamentable voice. "You will take my ring."
"Yes," she said coldly. Anything for a quiet emergence from thisscene.
He fumbled feverishly in his pocket with one hand, holding her stillfast by the other arm. And with one hand he managed to extract the ringfrom its case, letting the case roll away on the floor. It was adiamond solitaire.
"Which finger? Which finger is it?" he asked, beginning to smilerather weakly. She extricated her hand, and held out her engagementfinger. Upon it was the mourning-ring Miss Frost had always worn. Thedoctor slipped the diamond solitaire above the mourning ring, andfolded Alvina to his breast again.
"Now," he said, almost in his normal voice. "Now I know you loveme." The pleased self-satisfaction in his voice made her angry. Shemanaged to extricate herself.
"You will come along with me now?" he said.
"I can't," she answered. "I must get back to my work here."
"Nurse Allen can do that."
"I'd rather not."
"Where are you going today?"
She told him her cases.
"Well, you will come and have tea with me. I shall expect you tohave tea with me every day."
But Alvina was straightening her crushed cap before the mirror, anddid not answer.
"We can see as much as we like of each other now we're engaged," hesaid, smiling with satisfaction.
"I wonder where the matron is," said Alvina, suddenly going into thecool white corridor. He followed her. And they met the matron justcoming out of the ward.
"Matron!" said Dr. Mitchell, with a return of his old mouthingimportance. "You may congratulate Nurse Houghton and me on ourengagement--" He smiled largely.
"I may congratulateyou, you mean," said the matron.
"Yes, of course. And both of us, since we are now one," hereplied.
"Not quite, yet," said the matron gravely.
And at length she managed to get rid of him.
At once she went to look for Alvina, who had gone to her duties.
"Well, Isuppose it is all right," said the matrongravely.
"No it isn't," said Alvina. 'I shall never marry him."
"Ah, never is a long while! Did he hear me come in?"
"No, I'm sure he didn't."
"Thank goodness for that.'
"Yes indeed! It was perfectly horrible. Following me round on hisknees and shouting for me to love him! Perfectly horrible!"
"Well," said the matron. 'You never know what men will do tillyou've known them. And then you need be surprised at nothing,nothing. I'm surprised at nothing they do--"
"I must say," said Alvina, "I was surprised. Very unpleasantly."
"But you accepted him--'
"Anything to quieten him--like a hysterical child."
"Yes, but I'm not sure you haven't taken a very risky way ofquietening him, giving him what he wanted--"
"I think," said Alvina, "I can look after myself. I may be moved anyday now."
"Well--!" said the matron. "He may prevent your getting moved, youknow. He's on the board. And if he says you are indispensable--"
This was a new idea for Alvina to cogitate. She had counted on aspeedy escape. She put his ring in her apron pocket, and there sheforgot it until he pounced on her in the afternoon, in the house of oneof her patients. He waited for her, to take her off.
"Where is your ring?" he said.
And she realized that it lay in the pocket of a soiled, discardedapron--perhaps lost for ever.
"I shan't wear it on duty," she said. "You know that."
She had to go to tea with him. She avoided his love-making, bytelling him any sort of spooniness revolted her. And he was too much anold bachelor to take easily to a fondling habit--before marriage, atleast. So he mercifully left her alone: he was on the whole devoutlythankful she wanted to be left alone. But he wanted her to be there.That was his greatest craving. He wanted her to be always there. And sohe craved for marriage: to possess her entirely, and to have her alwaysthere with him, so that he was never alone. Alone and apart from allthe world: but by her side, always by her side.
"Now when shall we fix the marriage?" he said. "It is no goodputting it back. We both know what we are doing. And now the engagementis announced--"
He looked at her anxiously. She could see the hysterical little boyunder the great, authoritative man.
"Oh, not till after Christmas!" she said.
"After Christmas!" he started as if he had been bitten. "Nonsense!It's nonsense to wait so long. Next month, at the latest."
"Oh no," she said. "I don't think so soon."
"Why not? The sooner the better. You had better send in yourresignation at once, so that you're free."
"Oh but is there any need? I may be transferred for warservice."
"That's not likely. You're our only maternity nurse--"
And so the days went by. She had tea with him practically everyafternoon, and she got used to him. They discussed the furnishing--shecould not help suggesting a few alterations, a few arrangementsaccording toher idea. And he drew up a plan of a wedding tourin Scotland. Yet she was quite certain she would not marry him. Thematron laughed at her certainty. "You will drift into it," she said."He is tying you down by too many little threads."
"Ah, well, you'll see!" said Alvina.
"Yes," said the matron. "Ishall see."
And it was true that Alvina's will was indeterminate, at this time.She wasresolved not to marry. But her will, like a spring thatis hitched somehow, did not fly direct against the doctor. She had sentin her resignation, as he suggested. But not that she might be free tomarry him, but that she might be at liberty to flee him. So she toldherself. Yet she worked into his hands.
One day she sat with the doctor in the car near the station--it wastowards the end of September--held up by a squad of soldiers in khaki,who were marching off with their band wildly playing, to embark on thespecial troop train that was coming down from the north. The town wasin great excitement. War-fever was spreading everywhere. Men wererushing to enlist--and being constantly rejected, for it was still thedays of regular standards.
As the crowds surged on the pavement, as the soldiers tramped to thestation, as the traffic waited, there came a certain flow in theopposite direction. The 4:15 train had come in. People were strugglingalong with luggage, children were running with spades and buckets, cabswere crawling along with families: it was the seaside people cominghome. Alvina watched the two crowds mingle.
And as she watched she saw two men, one carrying a mandoline caseand a suit-case which she knew. It was Ciccio. She did not know theother man; some theatrical individual. The two men halted almost nearthe car, to watch the band go by. Alvina saw Ciccio quite near to her.She would have liked to squirt water down his brown, handsome,oblivious neck. She felt she hated him. He stood there, watching themusic, his lips curling in his faintly-derisive Italian manner, as hetalked to the other man. His eyelashes were as long and dark as ever,his eyes had still the attractive look of being set in with a smuttyfinger. He had got the same brownish suit on, which she disliked, thesame black hat set slightly, jauntily over one eye. He looked common:and yet with that peculiar southern aloofness which gave him a certainbeauty and distinction in her eyes. She felt she hated him, rather. Shefelt she had been let down by him.
The band had passed. A child ran against the wheel of the standingcar. Alvina suddenly reached forward and made a loud, screechingflourish on the hooter. Every one looked round, including the laden,tramping soldiers.
"We can't move yet," said Dr. Mitchell.
But Alvina was looking at Ciccio at that moment. He had turned withthe rest, looking inquiringly at the car. And his quick eyes, thewhites of which showed so white against his duskiness, the yellowpupils so non-human, met hers with a quick flash of recognition. Hismouth began to curl in a smile of greeting. But she stared at himwithout moving a muscle, just blankly stared, abstracting every scrapof feeling, even of animosity or coldness, out of her gaze. She saw thesmile die on his lips, his eyes glance sideways, and again sideways,with that curious animal shyness which characterized him. It was as ifhe did not want to see her looking at him, and ran from side to sidelike a caged weasel, avoiding her blank, glaucous look.
She turned pleasantly to Dr. Mitchell.
"What did you say?" she asked sweetly.
Alvina found it pleasant to be respected as she was respected inLancaster. It is not only the prophet who hath honoursave inhis own country: it is every one with individuality. In this northerntown Alvina found that her individuality really told. Already shebelonged to the revered caste of medicine-men. And into the bargain shewas a personality, a person.
Well and good. She was not going to cheapen herself. She felt thateven in the eyes of the natives--the well-to-do part, at least--shelost alittle of her distinction when she was engaged to Dr.Mitchell. The engagement had been announced inThe Times, TheMorning Post, The Manchester Guardian, and the localNews.No fear about its being known. And it cast a slight slur of vulgarfamiliarity over her. In Woodhouse, she knew, it elevated her in thecommon esteem tremendously. But she was no longer in Woodhouse. She wasin Lancaster. And in Lancaster her engagement pigeon-holed her. Apartfrom Dr. Mitchell she had a magic potentiality. Connected with him, shewas a known and labelled quantity.
This she gathered from her contact with the local gentry. The matronwas a woman of family, who somehow managed, in her big, white, frilledcap, to be distinguished like an abbess of old. The really toney womenof the place came to take tea in her room, and these little teas in thehospital were like a little elegant female conspiracy. There was aslight flavour of art and literature about. The matron had known WalterPater, in the somewhat remote past.
Alvina was admitted to these teas with the few women who formed thetoney intellectual elite of this northern town. There was a certainfreemasonry in the matron's room. The matron, a lady-doctor, aclergyman's daughter, and the wives of two industrial magnates of theplace, these five, and then Alvina, formed the little group. They didnot meet a great deal outside the hospital. But they always met withthat curious female freemasonry which can form a law unto itself evenamong most conventional women. They talked as they would never talkbefore men, or before feminine outsiders. They threw aside the wholevestment of convention. They discussed plainly the things they thoughtabout--even the most secret--and they were quite calm about the thingsthey did--even the most impossible. Alvina felt that her transgressionwas a very mild affair, and that her engagement was reallyinfradig.
"And are you going to marry him?" asked Mrs. Tuke, with a long, coollook.
"I can'timagine myself--" said Alvina.
"Oh, but so many things happen outside one's imagination. That'swhere your body has you. I can'timagine that I'm going to havea child--" She lowered her eyelids wearily and sardonically over herlarge eyes.
Mrs. Tuke was the wife of the son of a local manufacturer. She wasabout twenty-eight years old, pale, with great dark-grey eyes and anarched nose and black hair, very like a head on one of the lovelySyracusan coins. The odd look of a smile which wasn't a smile, at thecorners of the mouth, the arched nose, and the slowness of the big,full, classic eyes gave her the dangerous Greek look of the Syracusanwomen of the past: the dangerous, heavily-civilized women of oldSicily: those who laughed about the latomia.
"But do you think you can have a child without wanting itatall?" asked Alvina.
"Oh, but there isn'tone bit of me wants it, notonebit. Myflesh doesn't want it. And my mind doesn't--yetthere it is!" She spread her fine hands with a flicker ofinevitability.
"Something must want it," said Alvina.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Tuke. "The universe is one big machine, and we'rejust part of it." She flicked out her grey silk handkerchief, anddabbed her nose, watching with big, black-grey eyes the fresh face ofAlvina.
"There's notone bit of me concerned in having this child,"she persisted to Alvina. "My flesh isn't concerned, and my mind isn't.And yet!--le voilà!--I'm justplanté. Ican'timagine why I married Tommy. And yet--I did--!" She shookher head as if it was all just beyond her, and the pseudo-smile at thecorners of her ageless mouth deepened.
Alvina was to nurse Mrs. Tuke. The baby was expected at the end ofAugust. But already the middle of September was here, and the baby hadnot arrived.
The Tukes were not very rich--the young ones, that is. Tommy wantedto compose music, so he lived on what his father gave him. His fathergave him a little house outside the town, a house furnished withexpensive bits of old furniture, in a way that the townspeople thoughtinsane. But there you are--Effie would insist on dabbing a rare bit ofyellow brocade on the wall, instead of a picture, and in paintingapple-green shelves in the recesses of the whitewashed wall of thedining-room. Then she enamelled the hall-furniture yellow, anddecorated it with curious green and lavender lines and flowers, and hadunearthly cushions and Sardinian pottery with unspeakable peakedgriffins.
What were you to make of such a woman! Alvina slept in her housethese days, instead of at the hospital. For Effie was a very badsleeper. She would sit up in bed, the two glossy black plaits hangingbeside her white, arch face, wrapping loosely round her dressing-gownof a sort of plumbago-coloured, dark-grey silk lined with fine silk ofmetallic blue, and there, ivory and jet-black and grey like black-lead,she would sit in the white bed-clothes flicking her handkerchief andrevealing a flicker of kingfisher-blue silk and white silk night dress,complaining of her neuritis nerve and her own impossible condition, andbegging Alvina to stay with her another half-hour, and suddenlystudying the big, blood-red stone on her finger as if she was readingsomething in it.
"I believe I shall be like the woman in theCent Nouvellesand carry my child for five years. Do you know that story? She saidthat eating a parsley leaf on which bits of snow were sticking startedthe child in her. It might just as well--"
Alvina would laugh and get tired. There was about her a kind of halfbitter sanity and nonchalance which the nervous woman liked.
One night as they were sitting thus in the bedroom, at nearly eleveno'clock, they started and listened. Dogs in the distance had alsostarted to yelp. A mandoline was wailing its vibration in the nightoutside, rapidly, delicately quivering. Alvina went pale. She knew itwas Ciccio. She had seen him lurking in the streets of the town, buthad never spoken to him.
"What's this?" cried Mrs. Tuke, cocking her head on one side."Music! A mandoline! How extraordinary! Do you think it's aserenade?--" And she lifted her brows archly.
"I should think it is," said Alvina.
"How extraordinary! What a moment to choose to serenade the lady!Isn't it like life--! Imust look at it--"
She got out of bed with some difficulty, wrapped her dressing-gownround her, pushed her feet into slippers, and went to the window. Sheopened the sash. It was a lovely moonlight night of September. Belowlay the little front garden, with its short drive and its iron gatesthat closed on the high-road. From the shadow of the high-road came thenoise of the mandoline.
"Hello, Tommy!" called Mrs. Tuke to her husband, whom she saw on thedrive below her. "How's your musical ear--?"
"All right. Doesn't it disturb you?" came the man's voice from themoonlight below.
"Not a bit. I like it. I'm waiting for the voice. 'O Richard, Omon roi!'---" But the music had stopped.
"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke. "You've frightened him off! And we'redying to be serenaded, aren't we, nurse?" She turned to Alvina. "Dogive me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won't you open the otherwindow and look out there--?"
Alvina went to the second window. She stood looking out.
"Do play again!" Mrs. Tuke called into the night. "Do singsomething." And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose thathung in the moonlight from the wall, and with a flash of her white armshe flung it toward the garden wall--ineffectually, of course.
"Won't you play again?" she called into the night, to the unseen."Tommy, go indoors, the bird won't sing when you're about."
"It's an Italian by the sound of him. Nothing I hate more thanemotional Italian music. Perfectly nauseating."
"Never mind, dear. I know it sounds as if all their insides werecoming out of their mouth. But we want to be serenaded, don't we,nurse?--"
Alvina stood at her window, but did not answer.
"Ah-h?" came the odd query from Mrs. Tuke. "Don't you like it?"
"Yes," said Alvina. "Very much."
"And aren't you dying for the song?"
"Quite."
"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke, into the moonlight. "Una canzonebella-bella--molto bella--"
She pronounced her syllables one by one, calling into the night. Itsounded comical. There came a rude laugh from the drive below.
"Go indoors, Tommy! He won't sing if you're there. Nothing will singif you're there," called the young woman.
They heard a footstep on the gravel, and then the slam of the halldoor.
"Now!" cried Mrs. Tuke.
They waited. And sure enough, came the fine tinkle of the mandoline,and after a few moments, the song. It was one of the well-knownNeapolitan songs, and Ciccio sang it as it should be sung.
Mrs. Tuke went across to Alvina.
"Doesn't he put his bowels into it--?" she said, laying her hand onher own full figure, and rolling her eyes mockingly. "I'm sure it'smore effective than senna-pods."
Then she returned to her own window, huddled her furs over herbreast, and rested her white elbows in the moonlight.
"Torn' a Surrientu,Fammi campar--"
The song suddenly ended, in a clamorous, animal sort of yearning.Mrs. Tuke was quite still, resting her chin on her fingers. Alvina alsowas still. Then Mrs. Tuke slowly reached for the rose-buds on the oldwall.
"Molta bella!" she cried, half ironically. "Molta bella! Je vousenvoie une rose--" And she threw the roses out on to the drive. A man'sfigure was seen hovering outside the gate, on the high-road. "Entrez!"called Mrs. Tuke. "Entrez! Prenez votre rose. Come in and take yourrose."
The man's voice called something from the distance.
"What?" cried Mrs. Tuke.
"Je ne peux pas entrer."
"Vous ne pouvez pas entrer? Pourquoi alors! La porte n'est pasfermée a clef. Entrez donc!"
"Non. On n'entre pas--" called the well-known voice of Ciccio.
"Quoi faire, alors! Alvina, take him the rose to the gate, will you?Yes do! Their singing is horrible, I think. I can't go down to him. Butdo take him the roses, and see what he looks like. Yes do!" Mrs. Tuke'seyes were arched and excited. Alvina looked at her slowly. Alvina alsowas smiling to herself.
She went slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. From abush at the side she pulled two sweet-smelling roses. Then in the driveshe picked up Effie's flowers. Ciccio was standing outside thegate.
"Allaye!" he said, in a soft, yearning voice.
"Mrs. Tuke sent you these roses," said Alvina, putting the flowersthrough the bars of the gate.
"Allaye!" he said, caressing her hand, kissing it with a soft,passionate, yearning mouth. Alvina shivered. Quickly he opened the gateand drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wall, and puthis arms round her, lifting her from her feet with passionateyearning.
"Allaye!" he said. "I love you, Allaye, my beautiful, Allaye. I loveyou, Allaye!" He held her fast to his breast and began to walk awaywith her. His throbbing, muscular power seemed completely to envelopher. He was just walking away with her down the road, clinging fast toher, enveloping her.
"Nurse! Nurse! I can't see you! Nurse!--" came the long call of Mrs.Tuke through the night. Dogs began to bark.
"Put me down," murmured Alvina. "Put me down, Ciccio."
"Come with me to Italy. Come with me to Italy, Allaye. I can't go toItaly by myself, Allaye. Come with me, be married to me--Allaye,Allaye--"
His voice was a strange, hoarse whisper just above her face, hestill held her in his throbbing, heavy embrace.
"Yes--yes!" she whispered. "Yes--yes! But put me down, Ciccio. Putme down."
"Come to Italy with me, Allaye. Come with me," he still reiterated,in a voice hoarse with pain and yearning.
"Nurse! Nurse! Wherever are you? Nurse! I want you," sang theuneasy, querulous voice of Mrs. Tuke.
"Do put me down!" murmured Alvina, stirring in his arms.
He slowly relaxed his clasp, and she slid down like rain to earth.But still he clung to her.
"Come with me, Allaye! Come with me to Italy!" he said.
She saw his face, beautiful, non-human in the moonlight, and sheshuddered slightly.
"Yes!" she said. "I will come. But let me go now. Where is yourmandoline?"
He turned round and looked up the road.
"Nurse! You absolutelymust come. I can't bear it," cried thestrange voice of Mrs. Tuke.
Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, andthrough the gate into the drive.
"You must come!" came the voice in pain from the upper window.Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tuke crouched in a chair, with adrawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly gripped her,she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists hard on herface. "The pains have begun," said Alvina, hurrying to her.
"Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it!" cried the womanin travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she could.And from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the Neapolitansong, animal and inhuman on the night.
"E to dic' Io part', addio!T'alluntare di sta core,Nel paese del amoreTien' o cor' di non turnar'--Ma nun me lasciar'--"
It was almost unendurable. But suddenly Mrs. Tuke became quitestill, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two jet-blackplaits dropping on either side of her ivory face, her big eyes fixedstaring into space. At the line--
Ma nun me lasciar'--
she began to murmur softly to herself--"Yes, it's dreadful! It'shorrible! I can't understand it. What does it mean, that noise? It's asbad as these pains. What does it mean? What does he say? I canunderstand a little Italian--" She paused. And again came the suddencomplaint:
Ma nun me lasciar'--
"Ma nun me lasciar'--!" she murmured, repeating the music. "Thatmeans--Don't leave me! Don't leave me! But why? Why shouldn't one humanbeing go away from another? What does it mean? Thatawful noise!Isn't love the most horrible thing! I think it's horrible. It just doesone in, and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm howling withone sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two hellish animalshowling through the night! I'm not myself, he's not himself. Oh, Ithink it's horrible. What does he look like, Nurse? Is he beautiful? Ishe a great hefty brute?"
She looked with big, slow, enigmatic eyes at Alvina.
"He's a man I knew before," said Alvina.
Mrs. Tuke's face woke from its half-trance.
"Really! Oh! A man you knew before! Where?"
"It's a long story," said Alvina. "In a travelling music-halltroupe."
"In a travelling music-hall troupe! How extraordinary! Why, how didyou come across such an individual--?"
Alvina explained as briefly as possible. Mrs. Tuke watched her.
"Really!" she said. "You've done all those things!" And shescrutinized Alvina's face. "You've had some effect on him, that'sevident," she said. Then she shuddered, and dabbed her nose with herhandkerchief. "Oh, the flesh is abeastly thing!" she cried. "Tomake a man howl outside there like that, because you're here. And tomake me howl because I've got a child inside me. It's unbearable! Whatdoes he look like, really?"
"I don't know," said Alvina. "Not extraordinary. Rather a heftybrute--"
Mrs. Tuke glanced at her, to detect the irony.
"I should like to see him," she said. "Do you think I might?"
"I don't know," said Alvina, non-committal.
"Do you think he might come up? Ask him. Do let me see him."
"Do you really want to?" said Alvina.
"Of course--" Mrs. Tuke watched Alvina with big, dark, slow eyes.Then she dragged herself to her feet. Alvina helped her into bed.
"Do ask him to come up for a minute," Effie said. "We'll give him aglass of Tommy's famous port. Do let me see him. Yes do!" She stretchedout her long white arm to Alvina, with sudden imploring.
Alvina laughed, and turned doubtfully away.
The night was silent outside. But she found Ciccio leaning against agate-pillar. He started up.
"Allaye!" he said.
"Will you come in for a moment? I can't leave Mrs. Tuke."
Ciccio obediently followed Alvina into the house and up the stairs,without a word. He was ushered into the bedroom. He drew back when hesaw Effie in the bed, sitting with her long plaits and her dark eyes,and the subtle-seeming smile at the corners of her mouth.
"Do come in!" she said. "I want to thank you for the music. Nursesays it was for her, but I enjoyed it also. Would you tell me thewords? I think it's a wonderful song."
Ciccio hung back against the door, his head dropped, and the shy,suspicious, faintly malicious smile on his face.
"Have a glass of port, do!" said Effie. "Nurse, give us all one. Ishould like one too. And a biscuit." Again she stretched out her longwhite arm from the sudden blue lining of her wrap, suddenly, as iftaken with the desire. Ciccio shifted on his feet, watching Alvina pourout the port.
He swallowed his in one swallow, and put aside his glass.
"Have some more!" said Effie, watching over the top of herglass.
He smiled faintly, stupidly, and shook his head.
"Won't you? Now tell me the words of the song--"
He looked at her from out of the dusky hollows of his brow, and didnot answer. The faint, stupid half-smile, half-sneer was on his lips."Won't you tell them me? I understood one line--"
Ciccio smiled more pronouncedly as he watched her, but did notspeak.
"I understood one line," said Effie, making big eyes at him. "Manon me lasciare--Don't leave me! There, isn't that it?"
He smiled, stirred on his feet, and nodded.
"Don't leave me! There, I knew it was that. Why don't you want Nurseto leave you? Do you want her to be with youevery minute?"
He smiled a little contemptuously, awkwardly, and turned aside hisface, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance. Itwas swift, and full of the terrible yearning which so horrifiedher.
At the same moment a spasm crossed her face, her expression wentblank.
"Shall we go down?" said Alvina to Ciccio.
He turned immediately, with his cap in his hand, and followed. Inthe hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline from thechest. He could hear the stifled cries and exclamations from Mrs. Tuke.At the same moment the door of the study opened, and the musician, aburly fellow with troubled hair, came out.
"Is that Mrs. Tuke?" he snapped anxiously.
"Yes. The pains have begun," said Alvina.
"Oh God! And have you left her!" He was quite irascible. "Only for aminute," said Alvina.
But with aPf! of angry indignation, he was climbing thestairs. "She is going to have a child," said Alvina to Ciccio. "I shallhave to go back to her." And she held out her hand.
He did not take her hand, but looked down into her face with thesame slightly distorted look of overwhelming yearning, yearning heavyand unbearable, in which he was carried towards her as on a flood.
"Allaye!" he said, with a faint lift of the lip that showed histeeth, like a pained animal: a curious sort of smile. He could not goaway. "I shall have to go back to her," she said.
"Shall you come with me to Italy, Allaye?"
"Yes. Where is Madame?"
"Gone! Gigi--all gone."
"Gone where?"
"Gone back to France--called up."
"And Madame and Louis and Max?"
"Switzerland."
He stood helplessly looking at her.
"Well, I must go," she said.
He watched her with his yellow eyes, from under his long blacklashes, like some chained animal, haunted by doom. She turned and lefthim standing.
She found Mrs. Tuke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets, andcrying: "No, Tommy dear. I'm awfully fond of you, you know I am. But goaway. Oh God, go away. And put a space between us. Put a space betweenus!" she almost shrieked.
He pushed up his hair. He had been working on a big choral workwhich he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented.
"Can't you stand my presence!" he shouted, and dasheddownstairs.
"Nurse!" cried Effie. "It'sno use trying to get a grip onlife. You're just at the mercy ofForces," she shriekedangrily.
"Why not?" said Alvina. "There are good life-forces. Even the willof God is a life-force."
"You don't understand! I want to bemyself And I'mnotmyself. I'm just torn to pieces byForces. It's horrible--"
"Well, it's not my fault. I didn't make the universe," said Alvina."If you have to be torn to pieces by forces, well, you have. Otherforces will put you together again."
"I don't want them to. I want to be myself. I don't want to benailed together like a chair, with a hammer. I want to be myself."
"You won't be nailed together like a chair. You should have faith inlife."
"But I hate life. It's nothing but a mass of forces.I amintelligent. Life isn't intelligent. Look at it at this moment. Do youcall this intelligent? Oh--Oh! It's horrible! Oh--!" She was wild andsweating with her pains. Tommy flounced out downstairs, beside himself.He was heard talking to some one in the moonlight outside. To Ciccio.He had already telephoned wildly for the doctor. But the doctor hadreplied that Nurse would ring him up.
The moment Mrs. Tuke recovered her breath she began again.
"I hate life, and faith, and such things. Faith is only fear. Andlife is a mass of unintelligent forces to which intelligent beings aresubmitted. Prostituted. Oh--oh!!--prostituted--"
"Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence," saidAlvina.
"Bigger than intelligence!" shrieked Effie. "Nothing isbigger than intelligence. Your man is a hefty brute. His yellow eyesaren't intelligent. They'reanimal--"
"No," said Alvina. "Something else. I wish he didn't attractme--"
"There! Because you're not content to be at the mercy ofForces!" cried Effie. "I'm not. I'm not. I want to be myself.And so forces tear me to pieces! Tear me to pie--eee--Oh-h-h!No!--"
Downstairs Tommy had walked Ciccio back into the house again, andthe two men were drinking port in the study, discussing Italy, forwhich Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated allItalian music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all throughthe night, Tommy being strictly forbidden to interfere upstairs, oreven to fetch the doctor. They drank three and a half bottles of port,and were discovered in the morning by Alvina fast asleep in the study,with the electric light still burning. Tommy slept with his fair andruffled head hanging over the edge of the couch like some great loosefruit, Ciccio was on the floor, face downwards, his face in his foldedarms.
Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the inert Ciccio. In theend, she had to leave him and rouse Tommy first: who in rousing felloff the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably. So that heturned on Alvina in a fury, and asked her what the hell she thought shewas doing. In answer to which Alvina held up a finger warningly, andTommy, suddenly remembering, fell back as if he had been struck.
"She is sleeping now," said Alvina.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" he cried.
"It isn't born yet," she said.
"Oh God, it's an accursed fugue!" cried the bemused Tommy. Afterwhich they proceeded to wake Ciccio, who was like the dead doll inPetrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he smiledat Alvina, and said: "Allaye!"
The dark, waking smile upset her badly.
The upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough withouttelling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for aweek-end, to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage waspresumably with Dr. Mitchell--though she had given him no definiteword. However, her month's notice was up, so she was legally free. Andtherefore she packed a rather large bag with all her ordinary things,and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the nursing paraphernaliabehind.
She knew Scarborough quite well: and quite quickly found rooms whichshe had occupied before, in a boarding-house where she had stayed withMiss Frost long ago. Having recovered from her journey, she went out onto the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the sea was beforeher. What was she to do?
She had run away from both men--from Ciccio as well as fromMitchell. She had spent the last fortnight more or less avoiding thepair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free fromMrs. Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men. Mrs. Tukehad a baby daughter, and was getting well. Ciccio was living with theTukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him and had half engaged him as asort of personal attendant: the sort of thing Tommy would do, nothaving paid his butcher's bills.
So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sickof being badgered about. She didn't really want to marry anybody. Whyshould she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself. How sickshe was of other people and their importunities! What was she to do?She decided to offer herself again, in a little while, for warservice--in a new town this time. Meanwhile she wanted to be byherself.
She made excursions, she walked on the moors, in the brief butlovely days of early October. For three days it was all so sweet andlovely--perfect liberty, pure, almost paradisal.
The fourth day it rained: simply rained all day long, and was cold,dismal, disheartening beyond words. There she sat, stranded in thedismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o'clock,having decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in thewar-hospitals at once: not to leave off until she had found it.
But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fiance, waswith her on the quay of some harbour, and was reproaching her bitterly,even reviling her, for having come too late, so that they had missedtheir ship. They were there to catch the boat--and she, fordilatoriness, was an hour late, and she could see the broad stern ofthe steamer not far off. Just an hour late. She showed Alexander herwatch--exactly ten o'clock, instead of nine. And he was more angry thanever, because her watch was slow. He pointed to the harbour clock--itwas ten minutes past ten.
When she woke up she was thinking of Alexander. It was such a longtime since she had thought of him. She wondered if he had a right to beangry with her.
The day was still grey, with sweepy rain-clouds on thesea--gruesome, objectionable. It was a prolongation of yesterday. Well,despair was no good, and being miserable was no good either. She got nosatisfaction out of either mood. The only thing to do was to act: seizehold of life and wring its neck.
She took the time-table that hung in the hall: the time-table, thatmagic carpet of today. When in doubt, move. This was the maxim. Move.Where to?
Another click of a resolution. She would wire to Ciccio and meethim--where? York--Leeds--Halifax--? She looked up the places in thetime-table, and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram, that shewould be at Leeds that evening. Would he get it in time? Chance it.
She hurried off and sent the telegram. Then she took a littleluggage, told the people of her house she would be back next day, andset off. She did not like whirling in the direction of Lancaster. Butno matter.
She waited a long time for the train from the north to come in. Thefirst person she saw was Tommy. He waved to her and jumped from themoving train.
"I say!" he said. "So glad to see you! Ciccio is with me. Effieinsisted on my coming to see you."
There was Ciccio climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant! Thiswas too much for her.
"So you came with your valet?" she said, as Ciccio stood with thebag.
"Not a bit," said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man'sshoulder. "We're the best of friends. I don't carry bags because myheart is rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you betterin uniform. Black doesn't suit you. You don'tmind--"
"Yes, I do. But I've only got black clothes, except uniforms."
"Well look here now--! You're not going on anywhere tonight, areyou?"
"It is too late."
"Well now, let's turn into the hotel and have a talk. I'm actingunder Effie's orders, as you may gather--"
At the hotel Tommy gave her a letter from his wife: to the tuneof--don't marry this Italian, you'll put yourself in a wretched hole,and one wants to avoid getting into holes.I know--concludedEffie, on a sinister note.
Tommy sang another tune. Ciccio was a lovely chap, a rare chap, atreat. He, Tommy, could quite understand any woman's wanting to marryhim--didn't agree a bit with Effie. But marriage, you know, was sofinal. And then with this war on: you never knew how things might turnout: a foreigner and all that. And then--you won't mind what I say--?We won't talk about class and that rot. If the man's good enough, he'sgood enough by himself. But is he your intellectual equal, nurse? Afterall, it's a big point. You don't want to marry a man you can't talk to.Ciccio's a treat to be with, because he's so natural. But it isn't amental treat--
Alvina thought of Mrs. Tuke, who complained that Tommy talked musicand pseudo-philosophyby the hour when he was wound up. She sawEffie's long, outstretched arm of repudiation and weariness.
"Of course!"--another of Mrs. Tuke's exclamations. "Why notbe atavistic if youcan be, and follow at a man's heeljust because he's a man. Be like barbarous women, a slave."
During all this, Ciccio stayed out of the room, as bidden. It wasnot till Alvina sat before her mirror that he opened her door softly,and entered.
"I come in," he said, and he closed the door.
Alvina remained with her hair-brush suspended, watching him. He cameto her, smiling softly, to take her in his arms. But she put the chairbetween them.
"Why did you bring Mr. Tuke?" she said.
He lifted his shoulders.
"I haven't brought him," he said, watching her.
"Why did you show him the telegram?"
"It was Mrs. Tuke took it."
"Why did you give it her?"
"It was she who gave it me, in her room. She kept it in her roomtill I came and took it."
"All right," said Alvina. "Go back to the Tukes." And she beganagain to brush her hair.
Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes.
"What you mean?" he said. "I shan't go, Allaye. You come withme."
"Ha!" she sniffed scornfully. "I shall go where I like."
But slowly he shook his head.
"You'll come, Allaye," he said. "You come with me, with Ciccio." Sheshuddered at the soft, plaintive entreaty.
"How can I go with you? How can I depend on you at all?"
Again he shook his head. His eyes had a curious yellow fire,beseeching, plaintive, with a demon quality of yearning compulsion.
"Yes, you come with me, Allaye. You come with me, to Italy. Youdon't go to that other man. He is too old, not healthy. You come withme to Italy. Why do you send a telegram?"
Alvina sat down and covered her face, trembling.
"I can't! I can't! I can't!" she moaned. "I can't do it."
"Yes, you come with me. I have money. You come with me, to my placein the mountains, to my uncle's house. Fine house, you like it. Comewith me, Allaye."
She could not look at him.
"Why do you want me?" she said.
"Why I want you?" He gave a curious laugh, almost of ridicule. "Idon't know that. You ask me another, eh?"
She was silent, sitting looking downwards.
"I can't, I think," she said abstractedly, looking up at him.
He smiled, a fine, subtle smile, like a demon's, but inexpressiblygentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he wasreaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could she recoil.
"You come, Allaye," he said softly, with his foreign intonation."You come. You come to Italy with me. Yes?" He put his hand on her, andshe started as if she had been struck. But his hands, with the soft,powerful clasp, only closed her faster.
"Yes?" he said. "Yes? All right, eh? All right!"--he had a strangemesmeric power over her, as if he possessed the sensual secrets, andshe was to be subjected.
"I can't," she moaned, trying to struggle. But she waspowerless.
Dark and insidious he was: he had no regard for her. How could aman's movements be so soft and gentle, and yet so inhumanly regardless!He had no regard for her. Why didn't she revolt? Why couldn't she? Shewas as if bewitched. She couldn't fight against her bewitchment. Why?Because he seemed to her beautiful, so beautiful. And this left hernumb, submissive. Why must she see him beautiful? Why was shewill-less? She felt herself like one of the old sacred prostitutes: asacred prostitute.
In the morning, very early, they left for Scarborough, leaving aletter for the sleeping Tommy. In Scarborough they went to theregistrar's office: they could be married in a fortnight's time. And sothe fortnight passed, and she was under his spell. Only she knew it.She felt extinguished. Ciccio talked to her: but only ordinary things.There was no wonderful intimacy of speech, such as she had alwaysimagined, and always craved for. No. He loved her--but it was in adark, mesmeric way, which did not let her be herself. His love did notstimulate her or excite her. It extinguished her. She had to be thequiescent, obscure woman: she felt as if she were veiled. Her thoughtswere dim, in the dim back regions of consciousness--yet, somewhere, shealmost exulted. Atavism! Mrs. Tuke's word would play in her mind. Wasit atavism, this sinking into extinction under the spell of Ciccio? Wasit atavism, this strange, sleep-like submission to his being? Perhapsit was. Perhaps it was. But it was also heavy and sweet and rich.Somewhere, she was content. Somewhere even she was vastly proud of thedark veiled eternal loneliness she felt, under his shadow.
And so it had to be. She shuddered when she touched him, because hewas so beautiful, and she was so submitted. She quivered when he movedas if she were his shadow. Yet her mind remained distantly clear. Shewould criticize him, find fault with him, the things he did. Butultimately she could find no fault with him. She had lost thepower. She didn't care. She had lost the power to care about hisfaults. Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference! She was drugged. Andshe knew it. Would she ever wake out of her dark, warm coma? Sheshuddered, and hoped not. Mrs. Tuke would say atavism. Atavism! Theword recurred curiously.
But under all her questionings she felt well; a nonchalance deep assleep, a passivity and indifference so dark and sweet she felt it mustbe evil. Evil! She was evil. And yet she had no power to be otherwise.They were legally married. And she was glad. She was relieved byknowing she could not escape. She was Mrs. Marasca. What was the goodof trying to be Miss Houghton any longer? Marasca, the bitter cherry.Some dark poison fruit she had eaten. How glad she was she had eatenit! How beautiful he was! And no one saw it but herself. For her it wasso potent it made her tremble when she noticed him. His beauty, hisdark shadow. Ciccio really was much handsomer since his marriage. Heseemed to emerge. Before, he had seemed to make himself invisible inthe streets, in England, altogether. But now something unfolded in him,he was a potent, glamorous presence, people turned to watch him. Therewas a certain dark, leopard-like pride in the air about him, somethingthat the English people watched.
He wanted to go to Italy. And now it washis will whichcounted. Alvina, as his wife, must submit. He took her to London theday after the marriage. He wanted to get away to Italy. He did not likebeing in England, a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spycraze.
In London they stayed at his cousin's house. His cousin kept arestaurant in Battersea, and was a flourishing London Italian, a realLondon product with all the good English virtues of cleanliness andhonesty added to an Italian shrewdness. His name was Giuseppe Califano,and he was pale, and he had four children of whom he was very proud. Hereceived Alvina with an affable respect, as if she were an asset in thefamily, but as if he were a little uneasy and disapproving. She hadcome down in marrying Ciccio. She had lost caste. He ratherseemed to exult over her degradation. For he was a northernizedItalian, he had accepted English standards. His children were Englishbrats. He almost patronized Alvina.
But then a long, slow look from her remote blue eyes brought him upsharp, and he envied Ciccio suddenly, he was almost in love with herhimself. She disturbed him. She disturbed him in his new English aplombof a Londonrestaurateur, and she disturbed in him the oldItalian dark soul, to which he was renegade. He tried treating her asan English lady. But the slow, remote look in her eyes made this fallRat. He had to be Italian.
And he was jealous of Ciccio. In Ciccio's face was a lurking smile,and round his fine nose there seemed a subtle, semi-defiant triumph.After all, he had triumphed over his well-to-do, Anglicized cousin.With a stealthy, leopard-like pride Ciccio went through the streets ofLondon in those wild early days of war. He was the one victor, archingstealthily over the vanquished north.
Alvina saw nothing of all these complexities. For the time being,she was all dark and potent. Things were curious to her. It was curiousto be in Battersea, in this English-Italian household, where thechildren spoke English more readily than Italian. It was strange to behigh over the restaurant, to see the trees of the park, to hear theclang of trams. It was strange to walk out and come to the river. Itwas strange to feel the seethe of war and dread in the air. But she didnot question. She seemed steeped in the passional influence of the man,as in some narcotic. She even forgot Mrs. Tuke's atavism. Vague andunquestioning she went through the days, she accompanied Ciccio intotown, she went with him to make purchases, or she sat by his side inthe music hall, or she stayed in her room and sewed, or she sat atmeals with the Califanos, a vague brightness on her face. And Mrs.Califano was very nice to her, very gentle, though with a suspicion ofmalicious triumph, mockery, beneath her gentleness. Still, she was niceand womanly, hovering as she was between her English emancipation andher Italian subordination. She half pitied Alvina, and was more thanhalf jealous of her.
Alvina was aware of nothing--only of the presence of Ciccio. It washis physical presence which cast a spell over her. She lived within hisaura. And she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark natureover her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly within hispresence, quivering within his influence, as if his blood beat in her.She knew she was subjected. One tiny corner of her knew, andwatched.
He was very happy, and his face had a real beauty. His eyes glowedwith lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, happy wildcreature seen remote under a bush. And he was very good to her. Histenderness made her quiver into a swoon of complete self-forgetfulness,as if the flood-gates of her depths opened. The depth of his warm,mindless, enveloping love was immeasurable. She felt she could sinkforever into his warm, pulsating embrace.
Afterwards, later on, when she was inclined to criticize him, shewould remember the moment when she saw his face at the ItalianConsulate in London. There were many people at the consulate,clamouring for passports--a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They hadwaited their turn and got inside--Ciccio was not good at pushing hisway. And inside a courteous tall old man with a white beard had liftedthe flap for Alvina to go inside the office and sit down to fill theform. She thanked the old man, who bowed as if he had a reputation tokeep up.
Ciccio followed, and it was he who had to sit down and fill up theform, because she did not understand the Italian questions. She stoodat his side, watching the excited, laughing, noisy, east-end Italiansat the desk. The whole place had a certain free-and-easy confusion, ahuman, unofficial, muddling liveliness which was not quite likeEngland, even though it was in the middle of London.
"What was your mother's name?" Ciccio was asking her. She turned tohim. He sat with the pen perched flourishingly at the end of hisfingers, suspended in the serious and artistic business of filling in aform. And his face had a dark luminousness, like a dark transparencewhich was shut and has now expanded. She quivered, as if it was morethan she could bear. For his face was open like a flower right to thedepths of his soul, a dark, lovely translucency, vulnerable to the deepquick of his soul. The lovely, rich darkness of his southern nature, sodifferent from her own, exposing itself now in its passionalvulnerability, made her go white with a kind of fear. For an instant,her face seemed drawn and old as she looked down at him, answering hisquestions. Then her eyes became sightless with tears, she stooped as ifto look at his writing, and quickly kissed his fingers that held thepen, there in the midst of the crowded, vulgar Consulate.
He stayed suspended, again looking up at her with the bright,unfolded eyes of a wild creature which plays and is not seen. A faintsmile, very beautiful to her, was on his face. What did he see when helooked at her? She did not know, she did not know. And she would neverknow. For an instant, she swore inside herself that God himself shouldnot take her away from this man. She would commit herself to himthrough every eternity. And then the vagueness came over her again, sheturned aside, photographically seeing the crowd in the Consulate, butreally unconscious. His movement as he rose seemed to move her in hersleep, she turned to him at once.
It was early in November before they could leave for Italy, and herdim, lustrous state lasted all the time. She found herself at CharingCross in the early morning, in all the bustle of catching theContinental train. Giuseppe was there, and Gemma his wife, and two ofthe children, besides three other Italian friends of Ciccio. They allcrowded up the platform. Giuseppe had insisted that Ciccio should takesecond-class tickets. They were very early. Alvina and Ciccio wereinstalled in a second-class compartment, with all their packages,Ciccio was pale, yellowish under his tawny skin, and nervous. He stoodexcitedly on the platform talking in Italian--or rather, in his owndialect--whilst Alvina sat quite still in her corner. Sometimes one ofthe women or one of the children came to say a few words to her, orGiuseppe hurried to her with illustrated papers. They treated her as ifshe were some sort of invalid or angel, now she was leaving. But mostof their attention they gave to Ciccio, talking at him rapidly all atonce, whilst he answered, and glanced in this way and that, under hisfine lashes, and smiled his old, nervous, meaningless smile. He wascuriously upset.
Time came to shut the doors. The women and children kissed Alvina,saying:
"You'll be all right, eh? Going to Italy--!" And then profound andmeaningful nods, which she could not interpret, but which were fraughtsurely with good-fellowship.
Then they all kissed Ciccio. The men took him in their arms andkissed him on either cheek, the children lifted their faces in eageranticipation of the double kiss. Strange, how eager they were for thisembrace--how they all kept taking Ciccio's hand, one after the other,whilst he smiled constrainedly and nervously.
The train began to move. Giuseppe ran alongside, holding Ciccio'shand still; the women and children were crying and waving theirhandkerchiefs, the other men were shouting messages, making strange,eager gestures. And Alvina sat quite still, wonderingly. And so thebig, heavy train drew out, leaving the others small and dim on theplatform. It was foggy, the river was a sea of yellow beneath theponderous iron bridge. The morning was dim and dank.
The train was very full. Next to Alvina sat a trim French-womanreadingL'Aiglon. There was a terrible encumbrance of packagesand luggage everywhere. Opposite her sat Ciccio, his black overcoatopen over his pale-grey suit, his black hat a little over his left eye.He glanced at her from time to time, smiling constrainedly. Sheremained very still. They ran through Bromley and out into the opencountry. It was grey, with shivers of grey sunshine. On the downs therewas thin snow. The air in the train was hot, heavy with the crowd andtense with excitement and uneasiness. The train seemed to rushponderously, massively, across the Weald.'
And so, through Folkestone to the sea. There was sun in the sky now,and white clouds, in the sort of hollow sky-dome above the grey earthwith its horizon walls of fog. The air was still. The sea heaved with asucking noise inside the dock. Alvina and Ciccio sat aft on thesecond-class deck, their bags near them. He put a white muffler roundhimself, Alvina hugged herself in her beaver scarf and muff. She lookedtender and beautiful in her still vagueness, and Ciccio, hovering abouther, was beautiful too, his estrangement gave him a certain wistfulnobility which for the moment put him beyond all class inferiority. Thepassengers glanced at them across the magic of estrangement.
The sea was very still. The sun was fairly high in the open sky,where white cloud-tops showed against the pale, wintry blue. Across thesea came a silver sun-track. And Alvina and Ciccio looked at the sun,which stood a little to the right of the ship's course.
"The sun!" said Ciccio, nodding towards the orb and smiling to her."I love it," she said.
He smiled again, silently. He was strangely moved: she did not knowwhy.
The wind was cold over the wintry sea, though the sun's beams werewarm. They rose, walked round the cabins. Other ships were atsea--destroyers and battleships, grey, low, and sinister on the water.Then a tall bright schooner glimmered far down the channel. Some brownfishing smacks kept together. All was very still in the wintry sunshineof the Channel.
So they turned to walk to the stern of the boat. And Alvina's heartsuddenly contracted. She caught Ciccio's arm, as the boat rolledgently. For there behind, behind all the sunshine, was England.England, beyond the water, rising with ash-grey, corpse-grey cliffs,and streaks of snow on the downs above. England, like a long, ash-greycoffin slowly submerging. She watched it, fascinated and terrified. Itseemed to repudiate the sunshine, to remain unilluminated, long andash-grey and dead, with streaks of snow like cerements. That wasEngland! Her thoughts flew to Woodhouse, the grey centre of it all.Home!
Her heart died within her. Never had she felt so utterly strange andfar-off. Ciccio at her side was as nothing, as spell-bound she watched,away off, behind all the sunshine and the sea, the grey, snow-streakedsubstance of England slowly receding and sinking, submerging. She feltshe could not believe it. It was like looking at something else. What?It was like a long, ash-grey coffin, winter, slowly submerging in thesea. England?
She turned again to the sun. But clouds and veils were alreadyweaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreover. Shesat very still for a long time, almost an eternity. And when she lookedround again there was only a bank of mist behind, beyond the sea: abank of mist, and a few grey, stalking ships. She must watch for thecoast of France.
And there it was already, looming up grey and amorphous, patchedwith snow. It had a grey, heaped, sordid look in the November light.She had imagined Boulogne gay and brilliant. Whereas it was more greyand dismal than England. But not that magical, mystic, phantomlook.
The ship slowly put about, and backed into the harbour. She watchedthe quay approach. Ciccio was gathering up the luggage. Then came thefirst cry one ever hears: "Porteur! Porteur! Want aporteur?" A porter in a blouse strung the luggage on his strap,and Ciccio and Alvina entered the crush for the exit and the passportinspection. There was a tense, eager, frightened crowd, and officialsshouting directions in French and English. Alvina found herself at lastbefore a table where bearded men in uniforms were splashing open thebig pink sheets of the English passports: she felt strange and uneasy,that her passport was unimpressive and Italian. The officialscrutinized her, and asked questions of Ciccio. Nobody asked heranything--she might have been Ciccio's shadow. So they went through tothe vast, crowded cavern of a Customs house, where they found theirporter waving to them in the mob. Ciccio fought in the mob while theporter whisked off Alvina to get seats in the big train. And at lastshe was planted once more in a seat, with Ciccio's place reservedbeside her. And there she sat, looking across the railway lines at theharbour, in the last burst of grey sunshine. Men looked at her,officials stared at her, soldiers made remarks about her. And at last,after an eternity, Ciccio came along the platform, the porter trottingbehind.
They sat and ate the food they had brought, and drank wine and tea.And after weary hours the train set off through snow-patched country toParis. Everywhere was crowded, the train was stuffy without being warm.Next to Alvina sat a large, fat, youngish Frenchman who overflowed overher in a hot fashion. Darkness began to fall. The train was very late.There were strange and frightening delays. Strange lights appeared inthe sky, everybody seemed to be listening for strange noises. It wasall such a whirl and confusion that Alvina lost count, relapsed into asort of stupidity. Gleams, flashes, noises and then at last the frenzyof Paris.
It was night, a black city, and snow falling, and no train thatnight across to the Gare de Lyon. In a state of semi-stupefaction afterall the questionings and examinings and blusterings, they were finallyallowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant another wild tusslewith a Paris taxi-driver, in the filtering snow. So they were depositedin the Gare de Lyon.
And the first person who rushed upon them was Geoffrey, in a rathergrimy private's uniform. He had already seen some hard service, and hada wild, bewildered look. He kissed Ciccio and burst into tears on hisshoulder, there in the great turmoil of the entrance hall of the Garede Lyon. People looked, but nobody seemed surprised. Geoffrey sobbed,and the tears came silently down Ciccio's cheeks.
"I've waited for you since five o'clock, and I've got to go backnow. Ciccio! Ciccio! I wanted so badly to see you. I shall never seethee again, brother, my brother!" cried Gigi, and a sob shook him.
"Gigi! Mon Gigi. Tu as donc reçu ma lettre?"
"Yesterday. O Ciccio, Ciccio, I shall die without thee!"
"But no, Gigi, frère. You won't die."
"Yes, Ciccio, I shall. I know I shall."
"I sayno, brother," said Ciccio. But a spasm suddenly tookhim, he pulled off his hat and put it over his face and sobbed intoit.
"Adieu, ami! Adieu!" cried Gigi, clutching the other man's arm.Ciccio took his hat from his tear-stained face and put it on his head.Then the two men embraced.
"Toujours à toi!" said Geoffrey, with a strange,solemn salute in front of Ciccio and Alvina. Then he turned on his heeland marched rapidly out of the station, his soiled soldier's overcoatflapping in the wind at the door. Ciccio watched him go. Then he turnedand looked with haunted eyes into the eyes of Alvina. And then theyhurried down the desolate platform in the darkness. Many people,Italians, largely, were camped waiting there, while bits of snowwavered down. Ciccio bought food and hired cushions. The train backedin. There was a horrible fight for seats, men scrambling throughwindows. Alvina got a place--but Ciccio had to stay in thecorridor.
Then the long night journey through France, slow and blind. Thetrain was now so hot that the iron plate on the floor burnt Alvina'sfeet. Outside she saw glimpses of snow. A fat Italian hotel-keeper puton a smoking cap, covered the light, and spread himself before Alvina.In the next carriage a child was screaming. It screamed all thenight--all the way from Paris to Chambéry it screamed. The traincame to sudden halts, and stood still in the snow. The hotel-keepersnored. Alvina became almost comatose, in the burning heat of thecarriage. And again the train rumbled on. And again she saw glimpses ofstations, glimpses of snow, through the chinks in the curtainedwindows. And again there was a jerk and a sudden halt, a drowsy mutterfrom the sleepers, somebody uncovering the light, and somebody coveringit again, somebody looking out, somebody tramping down the corridor,the child screaming.
The child belonged to two poor Italians--Milanese--a shred of a thinlittle man, and a rather loose woman. They had five tiny children, allboys: and the four who could stand on their feet all wore scarlet caps.The fifth was a baby. Alvina had seen a French official yelling at thepoor shred of a young father on the platform.
When morning came, and the bleary people pulled the curtains, it wasa clear dawn, and they were in the south of France. There was no signof snow. The landscape was half southern, half Alpine. White houseswith brownish tiles stood among almond trees and cactus. It wasbeautiful, and Alvina felt she had known it all before, in a happierlife. The morning was graceful almost as spring. She went out in thecorridor to talk to Ciccio.
He was on his feet with his back to the inner window, rollingslightly to the motion of the train. His face was pale, he had thatsombre, haunted, unhappy look. Alvina, thrilled by the southerncountry, was smiling excitedly.
"This is my first morning abroad," she said.
"Yes," he answered.
"I love it here," she said. "Isn't this like Italy?"
He looked darkly out of the window, and shook his head.
But the sombre look remained on his face. She watched him. And herheart sank as she had never known it sink before.
"Are you thinking of Gigi?" she said.
He looked at her, with a faint, unhappy, bitter smile, but he saidnothing. He seemed far off from her. A wild unhappiness beat inside herbreast. She went down the corridor, away from him, to avoid this newagony, which after all was not her agony. She listened to the chatterof French and Italian in the corridor. She felt the excitement andterror of France, inside the railway carriage: and outside she sawwhite oxen slowly ploughing, beneath the lingering yellow poplars ofthe sub-Alps, she saw peasants looking up, she saw a woman holding ababy to her breast, watching the train, she saw the excited, yeastycrowds at the station. And they passed a river, and a great lake. Andit all seemed bigger, nobler than England. She felt vaster influencesspreading around, the Past was greater, more magnificent in theseregions. For the first time the nostalgia of the vast Roman and classicworld took possession of her. And she found it splendid. For the firsttime she opened her eyes on a continent, the Alpine core of acontinent. And for the first time she realized what it was to escapefrom the smallish perfection of England, into the grander imperfectionof a great continent.
Near Chambéry they went down for breakfast to the restaurantcar. And secretly, she was very happy. Ciccio's distress made heruneasy. But underneath she was extraordinarily relieved and glad.Ciccio did not trouble her very much. The sense of the bigness of thelands about her, the excitement of travelling with Continental people,the pleasantness of her coffee and rolls and honey, the feeling thatvast events were taking place--all this stimulated her. She hadbrushed, as it were, the fringe of the terror of the war and theinvasion. Fear was seething around her. And yet she was excited andglad. The vast world was in one of its convulsions, and she was movingamongst it. Somewhere, she believed in the convulsion, the event elatedher.
The train began to climb up to Modane. How wonderful the Alpswere!--what a bigness, an unbreakable power was in the mountains! Upand up the train crept, and she looked at the rocky slopes, theglistening peaks of snow in the blue heaven, the hollow valleys withfir trees and low-roofed houses. There were quarries near the railway,and men working. There was a strange mountain town, dirty-looking. Andstill the train climbed up and up, in the hot morning sunshine,creeping slowly round the mountain loops, so that a little brown dogfrom one of the cottages ran alongside the train for a long way,barking at Alvina, even running ahead of the creeping, snorting train,and barking at the people ahead. Alvina, looking out, saw the twounfamiliar engines snorting out their smoke round the bend ahead. Andthe morning wore away to midday.
Ciccio became excited as they neared Modane, the frontier station.His eye lit up again, he pulled himself together for the entrance intoItaly. Slowly the train rolled in to the dismal station. And then aconfusion indescribable, of porters and masses of luggage, theunspeakable crush and crowd at the customs barriers, the more intensecrowd through the passport office, all like a madness.
They were out on the platform again, they had secured their places.Ciccio wanted to have luncheon in the station restaurant. They wentthrough the passages. And there in the dirty station gangways and bigcorridors dozens of Italians were lying on the ground, men, women,children, camping with their bundles and packages in heaps. They wereeither emigrants or refugees. Alvina had never seen people herd aboutlike cattle, dumb, brute cattle. It impressed her. She could not graspthat an Italian labourer would lie down just where he was tired, in thestreet, on a station, in any corner, like a dog.
In the afternoon they were slipping down the Alps towards Turin. Andeverywhere was snow--deep, white, wonderful snow, beautiful and fresh,glistening in the afternoon light all down the mountain slopes, on therailway track, almost seeming to touch the train. And twilight wasfalling. And at the stations people crowded in once more.
It had been dark a long time when they reached Turin. Many peoplealighted from the train, many surged to get in. But Ciccio and Alvinahad seats side by side. They were becoming tired now. But they were inItaly. Once more they went down for a meal. And then the train set offagain in the night for Alessandria and Genoa, Pisa and Rome.
It was night, the train ran better, there was a more easy sense inItaly. Ciccio talked a little with other travelling companions. AndAlvina settled her cushion, and slept more or less till Genoa. Afterthe long wait at Genoa she dozed off again. She woke to see the sea inthe moonlight beneath her--a lovely silvery sea, coming right to thecarriage. The train seemed to be tripping on the edge of theMediterranean, round bays, and between dark rocks and under castles, anight-time fairy-land, for hours. She watched spell-bound: spell-boundby the magic of the world itself. And she thought to herself "Whateverlife may be, and whatever horror men have made of it, the world is alovely place, a magic place, something to marvel over. The world is anamazing place."
This thought dozed her off again. Yet she had a consciousness oftunnels and hills and of broad marshes pallid under a moon and a comingdawn. And in the dawn there was Pisa. She watched the word hanging inthe station in the dimness: "Pisa." Ciccio told her people werechanging for Florence. It all seemed wonderful to her--wonderful. Shesat and watched the black station--then she heard the sound of thechild's trumpet. And it did not occur to her to connect the train'smoving on with the sound of the trumpet.
But she saw the golden dawn, a golden sun coming out of levelcountry. She loved it. She loved being in Italy. She loved the loungingcarelessness of the train, she liked having Italian money, hearing theItalians round her--though they were neither as beautiful nor asmelodious as she expected. She loved watching the glowing antiquelandscape. She read and read again: "E pericoloso sporgersi," and "Evietato fumare," and the other little magical notices on the carriages.Ciccio told her what they meant, and how to say them. And sympatheticItalians opposite at once asked him if they were married and who andwhat his bride was, and they gazed at her with bright, approving eyes,though she felt terribly bedraggled and travel-worn.
"You come from England? Yes! Nice contry!" said a man in a corner,leaning forward to make this display of his linguistic capacity. "Notso nice as this," said Alvina.
"Eh?"
Alvina repeated herself.
"Not so nice? Oh? No! Fog, eh!" The fat man whisked his fingers inthe air, to indicate fog in the atmosphere. "But nice contry!Very--convenient."
He sat up in triumph, having achieved this word. And theconversation once more became a spatter of Italian. The women were veryinterested. They looked at Alvina, at every atom of her. And shedivined that they were wondering if she was already with child. Sureenough, they were asking Ciccio in Italian if she was "making him ababy." But he shook his head and did not know, just a bit constrained.So they ate slices of sausages and bread and fried rice-balls, withwonderfully greasy fingers, and they drank red wine in big throatfulsout of bottles, and they offered their fare to Ciccio and Alvina, andwere charmed when she said to Ciccio shewould have some breadand sausage. He picked the strips off the sausage for her with hisfingers, and made her a sandwich with a roll. The women watched herbite it, and bright-eyed and pleased they said, nodding theirheads--
"Buono? Buono?"
And she, who knew this word, understood, and replied:
"Yes, good! Buono!" nodding her head likewise. Which caused immensesatisfaction. The women showed the whole paper of sausage slices, andnodded and beamed and said:
"Se vuole ancora--!"
And Alvina bit her wide sandwich, and smiled, and said:
"Yes, awfully nice!"
And the women looked at each other and said something, and Cicciointerposed, shaking his head. But one woman ostentatiously wiped abottle mouth with a clean handkerchief, and offered the bottle toAlvina, saying:
"Vino buono. Vecchio! Vecchio!" nodding violently and indicatingthat she should drink. She looked at Ciccio, and he looked back at her,doubtingly.
"Shall I drink some?" she said.
"If you like," he replied, making an Italian gesture ofindifference.
So she drank some of the wine, and it dribbled on to her chin. Shewas not good at managing a bottle. But she liked the feeling of warmthit gave her. She was very tired.
"Si piace? Piace?"
"Do you like it," interpreted Ciccio.
"Yes, very much. What is very much?" she asked of Ciccio."Molto."
"Si, molto. Of course, I knew molto, from music," she added.
The women made noises, and smiled and nodded, and so the trainpulsed on till they came to Rome. There was again the wild scramblewith luggage, a general leave taking, and then the masses of people onthe station at Rome.Roma! Roma! What was it to Alvina but aname, and a crowded, excited station, and Ciccio running after theluggage, and the pair of them eating in a station restaurant?
Almost immediately after eating, they were in the train once more,with new fellow travellers, running south this time towards Naples. Ina daze of increasing weariness Alvina watched the dreary, to hersordid-seeming Campagna that skirts the railway, the broken aqueducttrailing in the near distance over the stricken plain. She saw atram-car, far out from everywhere, running up to cross the railway. Shesaw it was going to Frascati.
And slowly the hills approached--they passed the vines of thefoothills, the reeds, and were among the mountains. Wonderful littletowns perched fortified on rocks and peaks, mountains rose straight upoff the level plain, like old topographical prints, rivers wandered inthe wild, rocky places, it all seemed ancient and shaggy, savage still,under all its remote civilization, this region of the Alban Mountainssouth of Rome. So the train clambered up and down, and went roundcorners.
They had not far to go now. Alvina was almost too tired to care whatit would be like. They were going to Ciccio's native village. They wereto stay in the house of his uncle, his mother's brother. This uncle hadbeen a model in London. He had built a house on the land left byCiccio's grandfather. He lived alone now, for his wife was dead and hischildren were abroad. Giuseppe was his son: Giuseppe of Battersea, inwhose house Alvina had stayed.
This much Alvina knew. She knew that a portion of the land down atPescocalascio belonged to Ciccio: a bit of half-savage, ancient earththat had been left to his mother by old Francesco Califano, herhard-grinding peasant father. This land remained integral in theproperty, and was worked by Ciccio's two uncles, Pancrazio andGiovanni. Pancrazio was the well-to-do uncle, who had been a model andhad built a "villa." Giovanni was not much good. That was how Ciccioput it.
They expected Pancrazio to meet them at the station. Cicciocollected his bundles and put his hat straight and peered out of thewindow into the steep mountains of the afternoon. There was a town inthe opening between steep hills, a town on a flat plain that ran intothe mountains like a gulf. The train drew up. They had arrived.
Alvina was so tired she could hardly climb down to the platform. Itwas about four o'clock. Ciccio looked up and down for Pancrazio, butcould not see him. So he put his luggage into a pile on the platform,told Alvina to stand by it, whilst he went off for the registeredboxes. A porter came and asked her questions, of which she understoodnothing. Then at last came Ciccio, shouldering one small trunk, whilsta porter followed, shouldering another. Out they trotted, leavingAlvina abandoned with the pile of hand luggage. She waited. The traindrew out. Ciccio and the porter came bustling back. They took her outthrough the little gate, to where, in the flat desert space behind therailway, stood two great drab motor-omnibuses, and a rank of opencarriages. Ciccio was handing up the handbags to the roof of one of thebig post-omnibuses. When it was finished the man on the roof came down,and Ciccio gave him and the station porter each sixpence. Thestation-porter immediately threw his coin on the ground with a gestureof indignant contempt, spread his arms wide and expostulated violently.Ciccio expostulated back again, and they pecked at each other,verbally, like two birds. It ended by the rolling up of the burly,black moustached driver of the omnibus. Whereupon Ciccio quite amicablygave the porter two nickel twopences in addition to the sixpence,whereupon the porter quite lovingly wished him "buon' viaggio."
So Alvina was stowed into the body of the omnibus, with Ciccio ather side. They were no sooner seated than a voice was heard, inbeautifully-modulated English:
"You are here! Why how have I missed you?"
It was Pancrazio, a smallish, rather battered-looking, shabbyItalian of sixty or more, with a big moustache and reddish-rimmed eyesand a deeply-lined face. He was presented to Alvina.
"How have I missed you?" he said. "I was on the station when thetrain came, and I did not see you."
But it was evident he had taken wine. He had no further opportunityto talk. The compartment was full of large, mountain-peasants withblack hats and big cloaks and overcoats. They found Pancrazio a seat atthe far end, and there he sat, with his deeply-lined, impassive faceand slightly glazed eyes. He had yellow-brown eyes like Ciccio. But inthe uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way, the eyes lookeddull like those of some old, rakish tom-cat, they were slightly rimmedwith red. A curious person! And his English, though slow, wasbeautifully pronounced. He glanced at Alvina with slow, impersonalglances, not at all a stare. And he sat for the most part impassive andabstract as a Red Indian.
At the last moment a large black priest was crammed in, and the doorshut behind him. Every available seat was let down and occupied. Thesecond great post-omnibus rolled away, and then the one for Molafollowed, rolling Alvina and Ciccio over the next stage of theirjourney.
The sun was already slanting to the mountain tops, shadows werefalling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged at a great speedalong a straight white road, which cut through the cultivated levelstraight towards the core of the mountain. By the road-side, peasantmen in cloaks, peasant women in full-gathered dresses with whitebodices or blouses having great full sleeves, tramped in the ridge ofgrass, driving cows or goats, or leading heavily-laden asses. The womenhad coloured kerchiefs on their heads, like the women Alvina rememberedat the Sunday-School treats, who used to tell fortunes with greenlittle love-birds. And they all tramped along towards the blue shadowof the closing-in mountains, leaving the peaks of the town behind onthe left.
At a branch-road the 'bus suddenly stopped, and there it sat calmlyin the road beside an icy brook, in the falling twilight. Greatmoth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood; thepeasants left behind began to come up again, in picturesque groups. Theicy brook tinkled, goats, pigs and cows wandered and shook their bellsalong the grassy borders of the road and the flat, unbroken fields,being driven slowly home. Peasants jumped out of the omnibus on to theroad, to chat--and a sharp air came in. High overhead, as the sun wentdown, was the curious icy radiance of snow mountains, and a pinkness,while shadow deepened in the valley.
At last, after about half an hour, the youth who was conductor ofthe omnibus came running down the wild side-road, everybody clamberedin, and away the vehicle charged, into the neck of the plain. With agrowl and a rush it swooped up the first loop of the ascent. Greatprecipices rose on the right, the ruddiness of sunset above them. Theroad wound and swirled, trying to get up the pass. The omnibus peggedslowly up, then charged round a corner, swirled into another loop, andpegged heavily once more. It seemed dark between the closing-inmountains. The rocks rose very high, the road looped and swerved fromone side of the wide defile to the other, the vehicle pulsed andpersisted. Sometimes there was a house, sometimes a wood of oak-trees,sometimes the glimpse of a ravine, then the tall white glisten of snowabove the earthly blackness. And still they went on and on, up thedarkness.
Peering ahead, Alvina thought she saw the hollow between the peaks,which was the top of the pass. And every time the omnibus took a newturn, she thought it was coming out on the top of this hollow betweenthe heights. But no--the road coiled right away again.
A wild little village came in sight. This was the destination. Againno. Only the tall, handsome mountain youth who had sat across from her,descended grumbling because the 'bus had brought him past his road, thedriver having refused to pull up. Everybody expostulated with him, andhe dropped into the shadow. The big priest squeezed into his place. The'bus wound on and on, and always towards that hollow sky-line betweenthe high peaks.
At last they ran up between buildings nipped between highrock-faces, and out into a little market-place, the crown of the pass.The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended. There shewas, in a wild centre of an old, unfinished little mountain town. Thefacade of a church rose from a small eminence. A white road ran to theright, where a great open valley showed faintly beyond and beneath.Low, squalid sort of buildings stood around--with some high buildings.And there were bare little trees. The stars were in the sky, the airwas icy. People stood darkly, excitedly about, women with an odd,shell-pattern head-dress of gofered linen, something like aparlour-maid's cap, came and stared hard. They were hard-faced mountainwomen.
Pancrazio was talking to Ciccio in dialect.
"I couldn't get a cart to come down," he said in English. "But Ishall find one here. Now what will you do? Put the luggage in Grazia'splace while you wait?--"
They went across the open place to a sort of shop called the PostRestaurant. It was a little hole with an earthen floor and a smell ofcats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier, in whichcharcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Ciccio ordered coffeewith rum--and the hard-faced Grazia, in her unfresh head-dress, dabbledthe little dirty coffee-cups in dirty water, took the coffee-pot out ofthe ashes, poured in the old black boiling coffee three parts full, andslopped the cup over with rum. Then she dashed in a spoonful of sugar,to add to the pool in the saucer, and her customers were served.
However, Ciccio drank up, so Alvina did likewise, burning her lipssmartly. Ciccio paid and ducked his way out.
"Now what will you buy?" asked Pancrazio.
"Buy?" said Ciccio.
"Food," said Pancrazio. "Have you brought food?"
"No," said Ciccio.
So they trailed up stony dark ways to a butcher, and got a big redslice of meat; to a baker, and got enormous flat loaves. Sugar andcoffee they bought. And Pancrazio lamented in his elegant English thatno butter was to be obtained. Everywhere the hard-faced women came andstared into Alvina's face, asking questions. And both Ciccio andPancrazio answered rather coldly, with somehauteur. There wasevidently not too much intimacy between the people of Pescocalascio andthese semi-townfolk of Ossona. Alvina felt as if she were in a strange,hostile country, in the darkness of the savage little mountaintown.
At last they were ready. They mounted into a two-wheeled cart,Alvina and Ciccio behind, Pancrazio and the driver in front, theluggage promiscuous. The bigger things were left for the morrow. It wasicy cold, with a flashing darkness. The moon would not rise tilllater.
And so, without any light but that of the stars, the cart wentspanking and rattling downhill, down the pale road which wound down thehead of the valley to the gulf of darkness below. Down in the darknessinto the darkness they rattled, wildly, and without heed, the youngdriver making strange noises to his dim horse, cracking a whip andasking endless questions of Pancrazio.
Alvina sat close to Ciccio. He remained almost impassive. The windwas cold, the stars flashed. And they rattled down the rough, broadroad under the rocks, down and down in the darkness. Ciccio satcrouching forwards, staring ahead. Alvina was aware of mountains,rocks, and stars.
"I didn't know it was sowild!" she said.
"It is not much," he said. There was a sad, plangent note in hisvoice. He put his hand upon her.
"You don't like it?" he said.
"I think it's lovely--wonderful," she said, dazed.
He held her passionately. But she did not feel she neededprotecting. It was all wonderful and amazing to her. She could notunderstand why he seemed upset and in a sort of despair. To her therewas magnificence in the lustrous stars and the steepnesses, magic,rather terrible and grand.
They came down to the level valley bed, and went rolling along.There was a house, and a lurid red fire burning outside against thewall, and dark figures about it.
"What is that?" she said. "What are they doing?"
"I don't know," said Ciccio. "Cosa fanno li--eh?"
"Ka--? Fanno it buga'--" said the driver.
"They are doing some washing," said Pancrazio, explanatory."Washing!" said Alvina.
"Boiling the clothes," said Ciccio.
On the cart rattled and bumped, in the cold night, down the highwayin the valley. Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes.Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. She felt she was quite, quitelost. She had gone out of the world, over the border, into some placeof mystery. She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to England--alllost.
They passed through a darkness of woods, with a swift sound of coldwater. And then suddenly the cart pulled up. Some one came out of alighted doorway in the darkness.
"We must get down here--the cart doesn't go any further," saidPancrazio.
"Are we there?" said Alvina.
"No, it is about a mile. But we must leave the cart."
Ciccio asked questions in Italian. Alvina climbed down.
"Good-evening! Are you cold?" came a loud, raucous, American-Italianfemale voice. It was another relation of Ciccio's. Alvina stared andlooked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who stoodin the light of the doorway.
"Rather cold," she said.
"Come in, and warm yourself," said the young woman.
"My sister's husband lives here," explained Pancrazio.
Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of inn.On the earthen floor glowed a great round pan of charcoal, which lookedlike a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at a table playingcards by the light of a small lamp, a man was pouring wine. The roomseemed like a cave.
"Warm yourself," said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc offire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down. Themen in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards. Cicciocame in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively, watchingAlvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature. Words ofAmerican sounded among the Italian dialect.
There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came andsaid to her:
"They want to know if we will stay the night here."
"I would rather go on home," she said.
He averted his face at the word home.
"You see," said Pancrazio, "I think you might be more comfortablehere, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care forit--"
Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows intheir black hats. She was thinking how she would be "more comfortable"here.
"I would rather go on," she said.
"Then we will get the donkey," said Pancrazio stoically. And Alvinafollowed him out on to the high-road.
From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying alantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes. Hislegs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide straps,and he was shod in silent skin sandals.
"This is my brother Giovanni," said Pancrazio. "He is not quitesensible." Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect.
Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern toPancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with theass. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the lanternthe things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather precariousheap. Pancrazio tested the rope again.
"There! Go on, and I shall come in a minute."
"Ay-er-er!" cried Giovanni at the ass, striking the flank of thebeast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark highway,stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading theass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the quietstep of the ass.
She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried thelantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There weretrees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisywater. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountainhigh-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead.
"How strange it is!" said Alvina to Ciccio. "Are you glad you havecome home?"
"It isn't my home," he replied, as if the word fretted him. "Yes, Ilike to see it again. But it isn't the place for young people to livein. You will see how you like it."
She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. Thelatter now came running to catch them up.
"I think you will be tired," he said. "You ought to have stayed atmy relation's house down there."
"No, I am not tired," said Alvina. "But I'm hungry."
"Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house."
They plodded in the darkness of the valley high-road. Pancrazio tookthe lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A greatflat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little valise.Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing him thelantern. Ciccio picked up the bread and put it under his arm.
"Break me a little piece," said Alvina.
And in the darkness they both chewed bread.
After a while, Pancrazio halted with the ass just ahead, and tookthe lantern from Giovanni.
"We must leave the road here," he said.
And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a smalltrack descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvinaventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light.In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all pickedtheir way down into the great white-bouldered bed of a mountain river.It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars.There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial-sounding. The placeseemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes,along the far shore.
Pancrazio swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through theuneven boulders till they came to the river itself--not very wide, butrushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over. Alvinacrossed rather tremulous, followed by Pancrazio with the light, andCiccio with the bread and the valise. They could hear the click of theass and the ejaculations of Giovanni.
Pancrazio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw thedim ass come up, wander uneasily to the stream, plant his fore legs,and sniff the water, his nose right down.
"Er! Err!" cried Pancrazio, striking the beast on the flank.
But it only lifted its nose and turned aside. It would not take thestream. Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turnedupstream.
"Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense," his voicefloated angrily across the chill darkness.
Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony river-bed, inthe strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the mencrawl upstream with the lantern.
Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stoopingdown to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up withthe load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And the assseemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long deliberation hedrew back. Angry language sounded through the crystal air. The groupwith the lantern moved again upstream, becoming smaller.
Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lantern looked small up thedistance. But there--a clocking, shouting, splashing sound. "He isgoing over," said Ciccio.
Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern. "Oh thestupid beast! I could kill him!" cried he.
"Isn't he used to the water?" said Alvina.
"Yes, he is. But he won't go except where he thinks he will go. Youmight kill him before he should go."
They picked their way across the river bed, to the wild scrub andbushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which cameup clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And thenthey took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks. Alvina feltthe uneven scramble a great effort. But she got up. Again they waitedfor the ass. And then again they struck off to the right, under sometrees.
A house appeared dimly.
"Is that it?" said Alvina.
"No. It belongs to me. But that is not my house. A few stepsfurther. Now we are on my land."
They were treading a rough sort of grass-land--and still climbing.It ended in a sudden little scramble between big stones, and suddenlythey were on the threshold of a quite important-looking house: but itwas all dark.
"Oh!" exclaimed Pancrazio, "they have done nothing that I toldthem." He made queer noises of exasperation.
"What?" said Alvina.
"Neither made a fire nor anything. Wait a minute--"
The ass came up. Ciccio, Alvina, Giovanni and the ass waited in thefrosty starlight under the wild house. Pancrazio disappeared round theback. Ciccio talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy, as if he feltdepressed.
Pancrazio returned with the lantern, and opened the big door. Alvinafollowed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farmimplements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, andwhence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse oflantern-light, as Pancrazio pulled the string and entered the kitchen:a dim-walled room with a vaulted roof and a great dark, open hearth,fireless: a bare room, with a little rough dark furniture: an unsweptstone floor: iron-barred windows, rather small, in the deep-thicknessof the wall, one-half shut with a drab shutter. It was rather like aroom on the stage, gloomy, not meant to be lived in.
"I will make a light," said Pancrazio, taking a lamp from themantelpiece, and proceeding to wind it up.
Ciccio stood behind Alvina, silent. He had put down the bread andvalise on a wooden chest. She turned to him.
"It's a beautiful room," she said.
Which, with its high, vaulted roof, its dirty whitewash, its greatblack chimney, it really was. But Ciccio did not understand. He smiledgloomily.
The lamp was lighted. Alvina looked round in wonder.
"Now I will make a fire. You, Ciccio, will help Giovanni with thedonkey," said Pancrazio, scuttling with the lantern.
Alvina looked at the room. There was a wooden settle in front of thehearth, stretching its back to the room. There was a little table undera square, recessed window, on whose sloping ledge were newspapers,scattered letters, nails and a hammer. On the table were dried beansand two maize cobs. In a corner were shelves, with two chipped enamelplates, and a small table underneath, on which stood a bucket of waterwith a dipper. Then there was a wooden chest, two little chairs, and alitter of faggots, cane, wine-twigs, bare maize-hubs, oak-twigs fillingthe corner by the hearth.
Pancrazio came scrambling in with fresh faggots.
"They have not done what I told them, the tiresome people!" he said."I told them to make a fire and prepare the house. You will beuncomfortable in my poor home. I have no woman, nothing, everything iswrong--"
He broke the pieces of cane and kindled them in the hearth. Soonthere was a good blaze. Ciccio came in with the bags and the food.
"I had better go upstairs and take my things off," said Alvina. "Iam so hungry."
"You had better keep your coat on," said Pancrazio. "The room iscold." Which it was, ice-cold. She shuddered a little. She took off herhat and fur.
"Shall we fry some meat?" said Pancrazio.
He took a frying-pan, found lard in the wooden chest--it was thefood-chest--and proceeded to fry pieces of meat in a frying-pan overthe fire. Alvina wanted to lay the table. But there was no cloth.
"We will sit here, as I do, to eat," said Pancrazio. He produced twoenamel plates and one soup-plate, three penny iron forks and two oldknives, and a little grey, coarse salt in a wooden bowl. These heplaced on the seat of the settle in front of the fire. Ciccio wassilent.
The settle was dark and greasy. Alvina feared for her clothes. Butshe sat with her enamel plate and her impossible fork, a piece of meatand a chunk of bread, and ate. It was difficult--but the food was good,and the fire blazed. Only there was a film of wood-smoke in the room,rather smarting. Ciccio sat on the settle beside her, and ate in largemouthfuls.
"I think it's fun," said Alvina.
He looked at her with dark, haunted, gloomy eyes. She wondered whatwas the matter with him.
"Don't you think it's fun?" she said, smiling.
He smiled slowly.
"You won't like it," he said.
"Why not?" she cried, in panic lest he prophesied truly.
Pancrazio scuttled in and out with the lantern. He brought wrinkledpears, and green, round grapes, and walnuts, on a white cloth, andpresented them.
"I think my pears are still good," he said. "You must eat them, andexcuse my uncomfortable house."
Giovanni came in with a big bowl of soup and a bottle of milk. Therewas room only for three on the settle before the hearth. He pushed hischair among the litter of fire-kindling, and sat down. He had bright,bluish eyes, and a fattish face--was a man of about fifty, but had asimple, kindly, slightly imbecile face. All the men kept their hatson.
The soup was from Giovanni's cottage. It was for Pancrazio and him.But there was only one spoon. So Pancrazio ate a dozen spoonfuls, andhanded the bowl to Giovanni--who protested and tried to refuse--butaccepted, and ate ten spoonfuls, then handed the bowl back to hisbrother, with the spoon. So they finished the bowl between them. ThenPancrazio found wine--a whitish wine, not very good, for which heapologized. And he invited Alvina to coffee. Which she acceptedgladly.
For though the fire was warm in front, behind was very cold.Pancrazio stuck a long pointed stick down the handle of a saucepan, andgave this utensil to Ciccio, to hold over the fire and scald the milk,whilst he put the tin coffee-pot in the ashes. He took a long iron tubeor blow-pipe, which rested on two little feet at the far end. This hegave to Giovanni to blow the fire.
Giovanni was a fire-worshipper. His eyes sparkled as he took theblowing tube. He put fresh faggots behind the fire--though Pancrazioforbade him. He arranged the burning faggots. And then softly he blew ared-hot fire for the coffee.
"Banta! Basta!" said Ciccio. But Giovanni blew on, his eyessparkling, looking to Alvina. He was making the fire beautiful forher.
There was one cup, one enamelled mug, one little bowl. This was thecoffee-service. Pancrazio noisily ground the coffee. He seemed to doeverything, old, stooping as he was.
At last Giovanni took his leave--the kettle which hung on the hookover the fire was boiling over. Ciccio burnt his hand lifting it off.And at last, at last Alvina could go to bed.
Pancrazio went first with the candle--then Ciccio with the blackkettle--then Alvina. The men still had their hats on. Their bootstramped noisily on the bare stairs.
The bedroom was very cold. It was a fair-sized room with a concretefloor and white walls, and window-door opening on a little balcony.There were two high white beds on opposite sides of the room. Thewash-stand was a little tripod thing.
The air was very cold, freezing, the stone floor was dead cold tothe feet. Ciccio sat down on a chair and began to take off his boots.She went to the window. The moon had risen. There was a flood of lighton dazzling white snow tops, glimmering and marvellous in theevanescent night. She went out for a moment on to the balcony. It was awonder-world: the moon over the snow heights, the pallid valley-bedaway below; the river hoarse, and round about her, scrubby, blue-darkfoot-hills with twiggy trees. Magical it all was--but so cold. "You hadbetter shut the door," said Ciccio.
She came indoors. She was dead tired, and stunned with cold, andhopelessly dirty after that journey. Ciccio had gone to bed withoutwashing.
"Why does the bed rustle?" she asked him.
It was stuffed with dry maize-leaves, the dry sheathes from thecobs--stuffed enormously high. He rustled like a snake among deadfoliage.
Alvina washed her hands. There was nothing to do with the water butthrow it out of the door. Then she washed her face, thoroughly, in goodhot water. What a blessed relief! She sighed as she dried herself.
"It does one good!" she sighed.
Ciccio watched her as she quickly brushed her hair. She was almoststupefied with weariness and the cold, bruising air. Blindly she creptinto the high, rustling bed. But it was made high in the middle. And itwas icy cold. It shocked her almost as if she had fallen into water.She shuddered, and became semi-conscious with fatigue. The blanketswere heavy, heavy. She was dazed with excitement and wonder. She feltvaguely that Ciccio was miserable, and wondered why.
She woke with a start an hour or so later. The moon was in the room.She did not know where she was. And she was frightened. And she wascold. A real terror took hold of her. Ciccio in his bed was quitestill. Everything seemed electric with horror. She felt she would dieinstantly, everything was so terrible around her. She could not move.She felt that everything around her was horrific, extinguishing her,putting her out. Her very being was threatened. In another instant shewould be transfixed.
Making a violent effort she sat up. The silence of Ciccio in his bedwas as horrible as the rest of the night. She had a horror of him also.What would she do, where should she flee? She was lost--lost--lostutterly.
The knowledge sank into her like ice. Then deliberately she got outof bed and went across to him. He was horrible and frightening, but hewas warm. She felt his power and his warmth invade her and extinguishher. The mad and desperate passion that was in him sent her completelyunconscious again, completely unconscious.
There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cutoff from everything she belonged to. Ovid isolated in Thrace' mightwell lament. The soul itself needs its own mysterious nourishment. Thisnourishment lacking, nothing is well.
At Pescocalascio it was the mysterious influence of the mountainsand valleys themselves which seemed always to be annihilating theEnglishwoman: nay, not only her, but the very natives themselves.Ciccio and Pancrazio clung to her, essentially, as if she saved themalso from extinction. It needed all her courage. Truly, she had tosupport the souls of the two men.
At first she did not realize. She was only stunned with thestrangeness of it all: startled, half-enraptured with the terrificbeauty of the place, half-horrified by its savage annihilation of her.But she was stunned. The days went by.
It seems there are places which resist us, which have the power tooverthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country has itspotent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantlyrefuse our living culture. And Alvina had struck one of them, here onthe edge of the Abruzzi.
She was not in the village of Pescocalascio itself. That was a longhour's walk away. Pancrazio's house was the chief of a tiny hamlet ofthree houses, called Califano because the Califanos had made it. Therewas the ancient, savage hole of a house, quite windowless, wherePancrazio and Ciccio's mother had been born: the family home. Thenthere was Pancrazio's villa. And then, a little below, another newish,modern house in a sort of wild meadow, inhabited by the peasants whoworked the land. Ten minutes' walk away was another cluster of seven oreight houses, where Giovanni lived. But there was no shop, no postnearer than Pescocalascio, an hour's heavy road up deep and rocky,wearying tracks.
And yet, what could be more lovely than the sunny days: pure, hot,blue days among the mountain foothills: irregular, steep little hillshalf wild with twiggy brown oak-trees and marshes and broom heaths,half cultivated, in a wild, scattered fashion. Lovely, in the losthollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing with two greatwhite oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wild scrub thatbordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered, massive desertand across stream to the other scrubby savage shore, and so up to thehighroad. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina would accompany him. Heliked it that she was not afraid. And her sense of the beauty of theplace was an infinite relief to him.
Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight.Sometimes Alvina and Pancrazio were late returning with the ass. Andthen gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, alreadybeginning to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again hewould balk the stream, while a violet-blue dusk descended on the white,wide stream-bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark, and inheaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the near mountainswas burning rose, against the dark-blue heavens. How unspeakably lovelyit was, no one could ever tell, the grand, pagan twilight of thevalleys, savage, cold, with a sense of ancient gods who knew the rightfor human sacrifice. It stole away the soul of Alvina. She felttransfigured in it, clairvoyant in another mystery of life. A savagehardness came in her heart. The gods who had demanded human sacrificewere quite right, immutably right. The fierce, savage gods who dippedtheir lips in blood, these were the true gods.
The terror, the agony, the nostalgia of the heathen past was aconstant torture to her mediumistic soul. She did not know what it was.But it was a kind of neuralgia in the very soul, never to be located inthe human body, and yet physical. Coming over the brow of a heathy,rocky hillock, and seeing Ciccio beyond leaning deep over the plough,in his white shirt-sleeves following the slow, waving, moth-pale oxenacross a small track of land turned up in the heathen hollow, her soulwould go all faint, she would almost swoon with realization of theworld that had gone before. And Ciccio was so silent, there seemed somuch dumb magic and anguish in him, as if he were for ever afraid ofhimself and the thing he was. He seemed, in his silence, toconcentrate upon her so terribly. She believed she would notlive.
Sometimes she would go gathering acorns, large, fine acorns, aprecious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object ofveneration. Silently she would crouch filling the pannier. And far offshe would hear the sound of Giovanni chopping wood, of Ciccio callingto the oxen or Pancrazio making noises to the ass, or the sound of apeasant's mattock. Over all the constant speech of the passing river,and the real breathing presence of the upper snows. And a wild,terrible happiness would take hold of her, beyond despair, but verylike despair. No one would ever find her. She had gone beyond the worldinto the pre-world, she had reopened on the old eternity.
And then Maria, the little elvish old wife of Giovanni, would comeup with the cows. One cow she held by a rope round its horns, and shehauled it from the patches of young corn into the rough grass, from thelittle plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria wore thefull-pleated white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a red kerchief onher head. But her dress was dirty, and her face was dirty, and the biggold rings of her ears hung from ears which perhaps had never beenwashed. She was rather smoke-dried too, from perpetual wood-smoke.
Maria in her red kerchief hauling the white cow, and screaming atit, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afraid of cows.And then, screaming high in dialect, Maria would talk to her. Alvinasmiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was not strictly a humanspeech. It was rather like the crying of half-articulate animals. Itcertainly was not Italian. And yet Alvina by dint of constant hearingbegan to pick up the coagulated phrases.
She liked Maria. She liked them all. They were all very kind to her,as far as they knew. But they did not know. And they were kind witheach other. For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines,and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They loved herthat she would strip maize-cobs or pick acorns. But they were allanxious to serve her. And it seemed as if they needed some one toserve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certain magicglamour for them, and so long as she was happy, it was a supreme joyand relief to them to have her there. But it seemed to her she wouldnot live.
And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingledwith sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and thehouse inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by goingabout constantly working, dumb and elemental. But what was Alvina todo?
For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were thekitchen and Alvina's bedroom: and the kitchen, with its little gratedwindows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken pane and mustkeep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a dark cavern vaultedand bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settle before the fire, thehard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keep the fire going, withfaggots of green oak. But the smoke hurt her chest, she was not cleanfor one moment, and she could do nothing else. The bedroom again wasjust impossibly cold. And there was no other place. And from far awaycame the wild braying of an ass, primeval and desperate in thesnow.
The house was quite large; but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on theleft of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of theweather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, was abig, long apartment where Pancrazio kept implements and tools andpotatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hoppedunexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, was thecantina, a dark place with wine-barrels and more agricultural stores.This was the whole of the downstairs.
Going upstairs, half way up, at the turn of the stairs was theopening of a sort of barn, a great wire-netting behind which showed aglow of orange maize-cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were four rooms. ButAlvina's room alone was furnished. Pancrazio slept in the unfurnishedbedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was a room withlitter in it, a chest of drawers, and rubbish of old books andphotographs Pancrazio had brought from England. There was a batteredphotograph of Lord Leighton, among others. The fourth room, approachedthrough the corn-chamber, was always locked.
Outside was just as hopeless. There had been a little garden withinthe stone enclosure. But fowls, geese, and the ass had made an end ofthis. Fowl-droppings were everywhere, indoors and out, the ass left hispile of droppings to steam in the winter air on the threshold, whilehis heart-rending bray rent the air. Roads there were none: only deeptracks, like profound ruts with rocks in them, in the hollows, androcky, grooved tracks over the brows. The hollow grooves were full ofmud and water, and one struggled slipperily from rock to rock, or alongnarrow grass-ledges.
What was to be done, then, on mornings that were dark with sleet?Pancrazio would bring a kettle of hot water at about half-past eight.For had he not travelled Europe with English gentlemen, as a sort ofmodel-valet! Had he not loved his English gentlemen? Even now, he wasinfinitely happier performing these little attentions for Alvina thanattending to his wretched domains.
Ciccio rose early, and went about in the hap-hazard, useless way ofItalians all day long, getting nothing done. Alvina came out of the icybedroom to the black kitchen. Pancrazio would be gallantly heating milkfor her, at the end of a long stick. So she would sit on the settle anddrink her coffee and milk, into which she dipped her dry bread. Thenthe day was before her.
She washed her cup and her enamelled plate, and she tried to cleanthe kitchen. But Pancrazio had on the fire a great black pot, danglingfrom the chain. He was boiling food for the eternal pig--the onlycreature for which any cooking was done. Ciccio was tramping in withfaggots. Pancrazio went in and out, back and forth from his pot.
Alvina stroked her brow and decided on a method. Once she was rid ofPancrazio, she would wash every cup and plate and utensil in boilingwater. Well, at last Pancrazio went off with his great black pan, andshe set to. But there were not six pieces of crockery in the house, andnot more than six cooking utensils. These were soon scrubbed. Then shescrubbed the two little tables and the shelves. She lined thefood-chest with clean paper. She washed the high window-ledges and thenarrow mantel-piece, that had large mounds of dusty candle-wax, indeposits. Then she tackled the settle. She scrubbed it also. Then shelooked at the floor. And even she, English housewife as she was,realized the futility of trying to wash it. As well try to wash theearth itself outside. It was just a piece of stone-laid earth. Sheswept it as well as she could, and made a little order in thefaggot-heap in the corner. Then she washed the little, high-up windows,to try and let in light.
And what was the difference? A dank wet soapy smell, and not muchmore. Maria had kept scuffling admiringly in and out, crying herwonderment and approval. She had most ostentatiously chased out anobtrusive hen, from this temple of cleanliness. And that was all.
It was hopeless. The same black walls, the same floor, the same coldfrom behind, the same green-oak wood-smoke, the same bucket of waterfrom the well--the same come-and-go of aimless busy men, the samecackle of wet hens, the same hopeless nothingness.
Alvina stood up against it for a time. And then she caught a badcold, and was wretched. Probably it was the wood-smoke. But her chestwas raw, she felt weak and miserable. She could not sit in her bedroom,for it was too cold. If she sat in the darkness of the kitchen she washurt with smoke, and perpetually cold behind her neck. And Pancraziorather resented the amount of faggots consumed for nothing. The onlyhope would have been in work. But there was nothing in that house to bedone. How could she even sew?
She was to prepare the mid-day and evening meals. But with no pots,and over a smoking wood fire, what could she prepare? Black and greasy,she boiled potatoes and fried meat in lard, in a long-handled fryingpan. Then Pancrazio decreed that Maria should prepare macaroni with thetomato sauce, and thick vegetable soup, and sometimes polenta. Thiscoarse, heavy food was wearying beyond words.
Alvina began to feel she would die, in the awful comfortlessmeaninglessness of it all. True, sunny days returned and some magic.But she was weak and feverish with her cold, which would not getbetter. So that even in the sunshine the crude comfortlessness andinferior savagery of the place only repelled her.
The others were depressed when she was unhappy.
"Do you wish you were back in England?" Ciccio asked her, with alittle sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looked at him withoutanswering. He ducked and went away.
"We will make a fire-place in the other bedroom," saidPancrazio.
No sooner said than done. Ciccio persuaded Alvina to stay in bed afew days. She was thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rarecomeand-go. Pancrazio, Ciccio, Giovanni, Maria and a mason all setabout the fire-place. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carryingstone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvina's doorway, with herburden perched aloft, to shout a few unintelligible words. In theintervals of lime-carrying she brought the invalid her soup or hercoffee or her hot milk.
It turned out quite a good job--a pleasant room with two windows,that would have all the sun in the afternoon, and would see themountains on one hand, the far-off village perched up on the other.When she was well enough they set off one early Monday morning to themarket in Ossona. They left the house by star-light, but dawn wascoming by the time they reached the river. At the highroad, Pancrazioharnessed the ass, and after endless delay they jogged off to Ossona.The dawning mountains were wonderful, dim-green and mauve and rose, theground rang with frost. Along the roads many peasants were trooping tomarket, women in their best dresses, some of thick heavy silk with thewhite, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green, lavender, dark-red, withgay kerchiefs on the head: men muffled in cloaks, treading silently intheir pointed skin sandals: asses with loads, carts full of peasants, abelated cow.
The market was lovely, there in the crown of the pass, in the oldtown, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pigs, goatsstood and lay about under the bare little trees on the platform highover the valley: some one had kindled a great fire of brush-wood, andmen crowded round, out of the blue frost. From laden asses vegetableswere unloaded, from little carts all kinds of things, boots, pots,tin-ware, hats, sweet-things, and heaps of corn and beans and seeds. Byeight o'clock in the December morning the market was in full swing: agreat crowd of handsome mountain people, all peasants, nearly all incostume, with different head-dresses.
Ciccio and Pancrazio and Alvina went quietly about. They bought potsand pans and vegetables and sweet-things and thick rush matting and twowooden arm-chairs and one old soft arm-chair, going quietly andbargaining modestly among the crowd, as Anglicized Italians do.
The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock, and then, fromthe terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderful sightof all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the black hats of themen, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the pale lovely cattle,the many tethered asses--and she wondered if she would die before shebecame one with it altogether. It was impossible for her to become onewith it altogether. Ciccio would have to take her to England again, orto America. He was always hinting at America.
But then, Italy might enter the war. Even here it was the greattheme of conversation. She looked down on the seethe of the market. Thesun was warm on her. Ciccio and Pancrazio were bargaining for twocowskin rugs: she saw Ciccio standing with his head rather forward. Herhusband! She felt her heart die away within her.
All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did?--the samesort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believed theydid. The same helpless passion for the man, the same remoteness fromthe world's actuality? Probably, under all their tension of money andmoney-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality and rather horriblereligion, probably they felt the same. She was one with them. But shecould never endure it for a life-time. It was only a test on her.Ciccio must take her to America, or England--to America preferably.
And even as he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrillingin her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous toher. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up forher from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty look. Hecaught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicate light for him,there beyond all the women. He came straight towards her, smiling hisslow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if he lost her. She knewhow he loved her--almost inhumanly, elementally, without communication.And she stood with her hand to her side, her face frightened. Shehardly noticed him. It seemed to her she was with child. And yet in thewhole market-place she was aware of nothing but him.
"We have bought the skins," he said. "Twenty-seven lire each."
She looked at him, his dark skin, his golden eyes--so near to her,so unified with her, yet so incommunicably remote. How far off was hisbeing from hers!
"I believe I'm going to have a child," she said.
"Eh?" he ejaculated quickly. But he had understood. His eyes shoneweirdly on her. She felt the strange terror and loveliness of hispassion. And she wished she could lie down there by that town gate, inthe sun, and swoon for ever unconscious. Living was almost too great ademand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her and enveloped her.There was nothing for her but to yield, yield, yield. And yet she couldnot sink to earth.
She saw Pancrazio carrying the skins to the little cart, which wastilted up under a small, pale-stemmed tree on the platform above thevalley. Then she saw him making his way quickly back through the crowd,to rejoin them.
"Did you feel something?" said Ciccio.
"Yes--here--!" she said, pressing her hand on her side as thesensation trilled once more upon her consciousness. She looked at himwith remote, frightened eyes.
"That's good--" he said, his eyes full of a triumphant,incommunicable meaning.
"Well!--And now," said Pancrazio, coming up, "shall we go and eatsomething?"
They jogged home in the little flat cart in the wintry afternoon. Itwas almost night before they had got the ass untackled from the shafts,at the wild lonely house where Pancrazio left the cart. Giovanni wasthere with the lantern. Ciccio went on ahead with Alvina, whilst theothers stood to load up the ass by the high-way.
Ciccio watched Alvina carefully. When they were over the river, andamong the dark scrub, he took her in his arms and kissed her with long,terrible passion. She saw the snow-ridges flare with evening, beyondhis cheek. They had glowed dawn as she crossed the river outwards, theywere white-fiery now in the dusk sky as she returned. What strangevalley of shadow was she threading? What was the terrible man's passionthat haunted her like a dark angel? Why was she so much beyondherself?
Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs stillunstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them, in thecorn-place.
"Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born?" he askedher.
She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning goldmaize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruition. The heapof maize on one side burned like hot sunshine, she felt it really gaveoff warmth, it glowed, it burned. On the other side the filmy, crackly,sere sheaths were also faintly sunny. Again and again the long,red-gold, full ear of corn came clear in his hands, and was put gentlyaside. He looked up at her, with his yellow eyes.
"Yes, I think so," she said. "Will you?"
"Yes, if they let me. I should like it to be born here."
"Would you like to bring up a child here?" she asked.
"You wouldn't be happy here, so long," he said, sadly.
"Would you?"
He slowly shook his head: indefinite.
She was settling down. She had her room upstairs, her cups andplates and spoons, her own things. Pancrazio had gone back to his oldhabit, he went across and ate with Giovanni and Maria, Ciccio andAlvina had their meals in their pleasant room upstairs. They were happyalone. Only sometimes the terrible influence of the place preyed onher.
However, she had a clean room of her own, where she could sew andread. She had written to the matron and Mrs. Tuke, and Mrs. Tuke hadsent books. Also she helped Ciccio when she could, and Maria wasteaching her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread.
This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere, Alvinaand Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last maize. Suddenly,in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out: the drone of abagpipe, and a man's high voice half singing, half yelling a briefverse, at the end of which a wild flourish on some other reedy woodinstrument. Alvina sat still in surprise. It was a strange, high,rapid, yelling music, the very voice of the mountains. Beautiful, inour musical sense of the word, it was not. But oh, the magic, thenostalgia of the untamed, heathen past which it evoked.
"It is for Christmas," said Ciccio. "They will come every daynow."
Alvina rose and went round to the little balcony. Two men stoodbelow, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the elder, had abagpipe whose bag was patched with shirting: the younger was dressed ingreenish clothes, he had his face lifted, and was yelling the verses ofthe unintelligible Christmas ballad: short, rapid verses, followed by abrilliant flourish on a short wooden pipe he held ready in his hand.Alvina felt he was going to be out of breath. But no, rapid and highcame the next verse, verse after verse, with the wild scream on thelittle new pipe in between, over the roar of the bagpipe. And thecrumbs of snow were like a speckled veil, faintly drifting theatmosphere and powdering the littered threshold where they stood--athreshold littered with faggots, leaves, straw, fowls and geese and assdroppings, and rag thrown out from the house, and pieces of paper.
The carol suddenly ended, the young man snatched off his hat toAlvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followed bythe bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly down the inclinebetween the twiggy wild oaks.
"They will come every day now, till Christmas," said Ciccio. "Theygo to every house."
And sure enough, when Alvina went down, in the cold, silent house,and out to the well in the still crumbling snow, she heard the soundfar off, strange, yelling, wonderful: and the same ache for she knewnot what overcame her, so that she felt one might go mad, there in theveiled silence of these mountains, in the great hilly valley cut offfrom the world.
Ciccio worked all day on the land or round about. He was building alittle earth closet also: the obvious and unscreened place outside wasimpossible. It was curious how little he went to Pescocalascio, howlittle he mixed with the natives. He seemed always to withholdsomething from them. Only with his relatives, of whom he had many, hewas more free, in a kind of family intimacy.
Yet even here he was guarded. His uncle at the mill, an unwashed,fat man with a wife who tinkled with gold and grime, and who shouted afew lost words of American, insisted on giving Alvina wine and a sortof cake made with cheese and rice. Ciccio too was feasted, in the darkhole of a room. And the two natives seemed to press their cheer onAlvina and Ciccio whole-heartedly.
"How nice they are!" said Alvina when she had left. "They give sofreely."
But Ciccio smiled a wry smile, silent.
"Why do you make a face?" she said.
"It's because you are a foreigner, and they think you will go awayagain," he said.
"But I should have thought that would make them less generous," shesaid.
"No. They like to give to foreigners. They don't like to give to thepeople here. Giocomo puts water in the wine which he sells to thepeople who go by. And if I leave the donkey in her shed, I give MartaMaria something, or the next time she won't let me have it. Ha, theyare--they are sly ones, the people here."
"They are like that everywhere," said Alvina.
"Yes. But nowhere they say so many bad things about people ashere--nowhere where I have ever been."
It was strange to Alvina to feel the deep-bed-rock distrust whichall the hill-peasants seemed to have of one another. They werewatchful, venomous, dangerous.
"Ah," said Pancrazio, "I am glad there is a woman in my house oncemore."
"But didnobody come in and do for you before?" asked Alvina."Why didn't you pay somebody?"
"Nobody will come," said Pancrazio, in his slow, aristocraticEnglish. "Nobody will come, because I am a man, and if somebody shouldsee her at my house, they will all talk."
"Talk!" Alvina looked at the deeply-lined man of sixty-six. "Butwhat will they say?"
"Many bad things. Many bad things indeed. They are not good peoplehere. All saying bad things, and all jealous. They don't like mebecause I have a house--they think I am too much asignore. Theysay to me 'Why do you think you are a signore?' Oh, they are badpeople, envious, you cannot have anything to do with them."
"They are nice to me," said Alvina.
"They think you will go away. But if you stay, they will say badthings. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people, evil against oneanother, against everybody but strangers who don't know them--"
Alvina felt the curious passion in Pancrazio's voice, the passion ofa man who has lived for many years in England and known the socialconfidence of England, and who, coming back, is deeply injured by theancient malevolence of the remote, somewhat gloomy hill-peasantry. Sheunderstood also why he was so glad to have her in his house, so proud,why he loved serving her. She seemed to see a fairness, a luminousnessin the northern soul, something free, touched with divinity such as"these people here" lacked entirely.
When she went to Ossona with him, she knew everybody questioned himabout her and Ciccio. She began to get the drift of thequestions--which Pancrazio answered with reserve.
"And how long are they staying?"
This was an invariable, envious question. And invariably Pancrazioanswered with a reserved--
"Some months. As long as they like."
And Alvina could feel waves of black envy go out against Pancrazio,because she was domiciled with him, and because she sat with him in theflat cart, driving to Ossona.
Yet Pancrazio himself was a study. He was thin, and very shabby, andrather out of shape. Only in his yellow eyes lurked a strange sardonicfire, and a leer which puzzled her. When Ciccio happened to be out inthe evening he would sit with her and tell her stories of Lord Leightonand Millais and Alma Tadema and other academicians dead and living.There would sometimes be a strange passivity on his worn face, animpassive, almost Red Indian look. And then again he would stir into acurious, arch, malevolent laugh, for all the world like a debauched oldtom-cat. His narration was like this: either simple, bare, stoical,with a touch of nobility; or else satiric, malicious, with a strange,rather repellent jeering.
"Leighton--he wasn't Lord Leighton then--he wouldn't have me to sitfor him, because my figure was too poor, he didn't like it. He likedfair young men, with plenty of flesh. But once, when he was doing apicture--I don't know if you know it? It is a crucifixion, with a manon a cross, and--" He described the picture. "No! Well, the model hadto be tied hanging on to a wooden cross. And it made you suffer! Ah!"Here the odd, arch, diabolic yellow flare lit up through the stoicismof Pancrazio's eyes. "Because Leighton, he was cruel to his model. Hewouldn't let you rest. 'Damn you, you've got to keep still till I'vefinished with you, you devil,' so he said. Well, for this man on thecross, he couldn't get a model who would do it for him. They all triedit once, but they would not go again. So they said to him, he must tryCalifano, because Califano was the only man who would stand it. At lastthen he sent for me. 'I don't like your damned figure, Califano,' hesaid to me 'but nobody will do this if you won't. Now will you do it?''Yes!' I said, 'I will.' So he tied me up on the cross. And he paid mewell, so I stood it. Well, he kept me tied up, hanging you knowforwards naked on this cross, for four hours. And then it was luncheon.And after luncheon he would tie me again. Well, I suffered. I sufferedso much, that I must lean against the wall to support me to walk home.And in the night I could not sleep, I could cry with the pains in myarms and my ribs, I had no sleep. 'You've said you'd do it, so now youmust,' he said to me. 'And I will do it,' I said. And so he tied me up.This cross, you know, was on a little raised place--I don't know whatyou call it--"
"A platform," suggested Alvina.
"A platform. Now one day when he came to do something to me, when Iwas tied up, he slipped back over this platform, and he pulled me, whowas tied on the cross, with him. So we all fell down, he with the nakedman on top of him, and the heavy cross on top of us both. I could notmove, because I was tied. And it was so, with me on top of him, and theheavy cross, that he could not get out. So he had to lie shoutingunderneath me until some one came to the studio to untie me. No, wewere not hurt, because the top of the cross fell so that it did notcrush us. 'Now you have had a taste of the cross,' I said to him. 'Yes,you devil, but I shan't let you off,' he said to me.
"To make the time go he would ask me questions. Once he said, 'Now,Califano, what time is it? I give you three guesses, and if you guessright once I give you sixpence.' So I guessed three o'clock. 'That'sone. Now then, what time is it?' Again, three o'clock. 'That's twoguesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time is it?' So now I wasobstinate, and I saidThree o'clock. He took out his watch. 'Whydamn you, how did you know? I give you a shilling--' It was threeo'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead of sixpence as hehad said--"
It was strange, in the silent winter afternoon, downstairs in theblack kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancrazio and hearingthese stories of English painters. It was strange to look at thebattered figure of Pancrazio, and think how much he had been crucifiedthrough the long years in London, for the sake of late Victorian art.It was strangest of all to see through his yellow, often dull,red-rimmed eyes these blithe and well-conditioned painters. Pancraziolooked on them admiringly and contemptuously, as an old, rakish tom-catmight look on such frivolous well-groomed young gentlemen.
As a matter of fact Pancrazio had never been rakish or debauched,but mountain-moral, timid. So that the queer, half-sinister drop of hiseyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare that cameinto his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a sort ofsulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in his batteredbody and give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt that if she wereleft much alone with him she would need all her English ascendancy notto be afraid of him.
It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Ciccioand Pancrazio set off for Pescocalascio for the first time. Snow hadfallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as theyclimbed. And the sun was very bright. So that the mountains weredazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound between oak-treesand under the broom-scrub, climbing over the jumbled hills that laybetween the mountains, until the village came near. They got on to abroader track, where the path from a distant village joined theirs.They were all talking, in the bright clear air of the morning.
A little man came down an upper path. As he joined them near thevillage he hailed them in English:
"Good morning. Nice morning."
"Does everybody speak English here?" asked Alvina.
"I have been eighteen years in Glasgow. I am only here for atrip."
He was a little Italian shop-keeper from Glasgow. He was mostfriendly, insisted on paying for drinks, and coffee and almond biscuitsfor Alvina. Evidently he also was grateful to Britain.
The village was wonderful. It occupied the crown of an eminence inthe midst of the wide valley. From the terrace of the high-road thevalley spread below, with all its jumble of hills, and two rivers, setin the walls of the mountains, a wide space, but imprisoned. Itglistened with snow under the blue sky. But the lowest hollows werebrown. In the distance, Ossona hung at the edge of a platform. Manyvillages clung like pale swarms of birds to the far slopes, or perchedon the hills beneath. It was a world within a world, a valley of manyhills and townlets and streams shut in beyond access.
Pescocalascio itself was crowded. The roads were sloppy with snow.But none the less, peasants in full dress, their feet soaked in theskin sandals, were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling, bargainingfor cloth, talking all the time. In the shop, which was also a sort ofinn, an ancient woman was making coffee over a charcoal brazier, whilea crowd of peasants sat at the tables at the back, eating the food theyhad brought.
Post was due at midday. Ciccio went to fetch it, whilst Pancraziotook Alvina to the summit, to the castle. There, in the level region,boys were snowballing and shouting. The ancient castle, badly crackedby the last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on the valley of manyhills beneath, Califano a speck down the left, Ossona a blot to theright, suspended, its towers and its castle clear in the light. Behindthe castle of Pescocalascio was a deep, steep valley, almost a gorge,at the bottom of which a river ran, and where Pancrazio pointed out theelectricity works of the village, deep in the gloom. Above this gorge,at the end, rose the long slopes of the mountains, up to the vividsnow--and across again was the wall of the Abruzzi.
They went down, past the ruined houses broken by the earthquake.Ciccio still had not come with the post. A crowd surged at thepost-office door, in a steep, black, wet side-street. Alvina's feetwere sodden. Pancrazio took her to the place where she could drinkcoffee and a strega, to make her warm. On the platform of the highway,above the valley, people were parading in the hot sun. Alvina noticedsome ultra-smart young men. They came up to Pancrazio, speakingEnglish. Alvina hated their Cockney accent and florid showy vulgarpresence. They were more models. Pancrazio was cool with them.
Alvina sat apart from the crowd of peasants, on a chair the oldcrone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancrazio ordered beer forhimself. Ciccio came with letters--long-delayed letters, that had beencensored. Alvina's heart went down.
The first she opened was from Miss Pinnegar--all war and fear andanxiety. The second was a letter, a real insulting letter from Dr.Mitchell. "I little thought, at the time when I was hoping to make youmy wife, that you were carrying on with a dirty Italian organ-grinder.So your fair-seeming face covered the schemes and vice of your truenature. Well, I can only thank Providence which spared me the disgustand shame of marrying you, and I hope that, when I meet you on thestreets of Leicester Square, I shall have forgiven you sufficiently tobe able to throw you a coin--"
Here was a pretty little epistle! In spite of herself, she went paleand trembled. She glanced at Ciccio. Fortunately he was turning roundtalking to another man. She rose and went to the ruddy brazier, as ifto warm her hands. She threw on the screwed-up letter. The old cronesaid something unintelligible to her. She watched the letter catchfire--glanced at the peasants at the table--and out at the wide, wildvalley. The world beyond could not help, but it still had the power toinjure one here. She felt she had received a bitter blow. A blackhatred for the Mitchells of this world filled her.
She could hardly bear to open the third letter. It was from Mrs.Tuke, and again, all war. Would Italy join the Allies? She ought to,her every interest lay that way. Could Alvina bear to be so far off,when such terrible events were happening near home? Could she possiblybe happy? Nurses were so valuable now. She, Mrs. Tuke, had volunteered.She would do whatever she could. She had had to leave off nursingJenifer, who had anexcellent Scotch nurse, much better than amother. Well, Alvina and Mrs. Tuke might yet meet in some hospital inFrance. So the letter ended.
Alvina sat down, pale and trembling. Pancrazio was watching hercuriously.
"Have you bad news?" he asked.
"Only the war."
"Ha!" and the Italian gesture of half-bitter "what can one do?"
They were talking war--all talking war. The dandy young models hadleft England because of the war, expecting Italy to come in. Andeverybody talked, talked, talked. Alvina looked round her. It allseemed alien to her, bruising upon the spirit.
"Do you think I shall ever be able to come here alone and do myshopping by myself?" she asked.
"You must never come alone," said Pancrazio, in his curious,benevolent courtesy. "Either Ciccio or I will come with you. You mustnever come so far alone."
"Why not?" she said.
"You are a stranger here. You are not a contadina--" Alvina couldfeel the oriental idea of women, which still leaves its mark on theMediterranean, threatening her with surveillance and subjection. Shesat in her chair, with cold wet feet, looking at the sunshine outside,the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, the men drinkingat the counter, the cluster of peasant women bargaining fordress-material. Ciccio was still turning talking in the rapid way tohis neighbour. She knew it was war. She noticed the movement of hisfinely-modelled cheek, a little sallow this morning.
And she rose hastily.
"I want to go into the sun," she said.
When she stood above the valley in the strong, tiring light, sheglanced round. Ciccio inside the shop had risen, but he was stillturning to his neighbour and was talking with all his hands and all hisbody. He did not talk with his mind and lips alone. His whole physique,his whole living body spoke and uttered and emphasized itself.
A certain weariness possessed her. She was beginning to realizesomething about him: how he had no sense of home and domestic life, asan Englishman has. Ciccio's home would never be his castle. His castlewas the piazza of Pescocalascio. His home was nothing to him but apossession, and a hole to sleep in. He didn't live in it. He lived inthe open air, and in the community. When the true Italian came out inhim, his veriest home was the piazza of Pescocalascio, the little sortof market-place where the roads met in the village, under the castle,and where the men stood in groups and talked, talked, talked. This waswhere Ciccio belonged: his active, mindful self. His active, mindfulself was none of hers. She only had his passive self, and his familypassion. His masculine mind and intelligence had its home in the littlepublic square of his village. She knew this as she watched him now,with all his body talking politics. He could not break off till he hadfinished. And then, with a swift, intimate handshake to the group withwhom he had been engaged, he came away, putting all his interest offfrom himself.
She tried to make him talk and discuss with her. But he wouldn't. Anobstinate spirit made him darkly refuse masculine conversation withher.
"If Italy goes to war, you will have to join up?" she asked him."Yes," he said, with a smile at the futility of the question. "And Ishall have to stay here?"
He nodded, rather gloomily.
"Do you want to go?" she persisted.
"No, I don't want to go."
"But you think Italy ought to join in?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then youdo want to go--"
"I want to go if Italy goes in--and she ought to go in--"
Curious, he was somewhat afraid of her, he half venerated her, andhalf despised her. When she tried to make him discuss, in the masculineway, he shut obstinately against her, something like a child, and theslow, fine smile of dislike came on his face. Instinctively he shut offall masculine communication from her, particularly politics andreligion. He would discuss both, violently, with other men. In politicshe was something of a Socialist, in religion a free-thinker. But allthis had nothing to do with Alvina. He would not enter on a discussionin English.
Somewhere in her soul, she knew the finality of his refusal to holddiscussion with a woman. So, though at times her heart hardened withindignant anger, she let herself remain outside. The more so, as shefelt that in matters intellectual he was rather stupid. Let him go tothe piazza or to the wine-shop, and talk.
To do him justice, he went little. Pescocalascio was only half hisown village. The nostalgia, the campanilismo from which Italianssuffer, the craving to be in sight of the native church-tower, to standand talk in the native market place or piazza, this was only halfformed in Ciccio, taken away as he had been from Pescocalascio when sosmall a boy. He spent most of his time working in the fields and woods,most of his evenings at home, often weaving a special kind of fish-netor net-basket from fine, frail strips of cane. It was a work he hadlearned at Naples long ago. Alvina meanwhile would sew for the child,or spin wool. She became quite clever at drawing the strands of woolfrom her distaff, rolling them fine and even between her fingers, andkeeping her bobbin rapidly spinning away below, dangling at the end ofthe thread. To tell the truth, she was happy in the quietness withCiccio, now they had their own pleasant room. She loved his presence.She loved the quality of his silence, so rich and physical. She felt hewas never very far away: that he was a good deal a stranger inCalifano, as she was: that he clung to her presence as she to his. ThenPancrazio also contrived to serve her and shelter her, he too, lovedher for being there. They both revered her because she was with child.So that she lived more and more in a little, isolate, illusory,wonderful world then, content, moreover, because the living cost solittle. She had sixty pounds of her own money, always intact in thelittle case. And after all, the highway beyond the river led to Ossona,and Ossona gave access to the railway, and the railway would take heranywhere.
So the month of January passed, with its short days and its bits ofsnow and bursts of sunshine. On sunny days Alvina walked down to thedesolate river-bed, which fascinated her. When Pancrazio was carryingup stone or lime on the ass, she accompanied him. And Pancrazio wasalways carrying up something, for he loved the extraneous jobs likebuilding a fire-place much more than the heavy work of the land. Thenshe would find little tufts of wild narcissus among the rocks,gold-centred pale little things, many on one stem. And their scent waspowerful and magical, like the sound of the men who came all those daysand sang before Christmas. She loved them. There was green helleboretoo, a fascinating plant--and one or two little treasures, the last ofthe rose-coloured Alpine cyclamens, near the earth, with snake-skinleaves, and so rose, so rose, like violets for shadowiness. She sat andcried over the first she found: heaven knows why.
In February, as the days opened, the first almond trees floweredamong grey olives, in warm, level corners between the hills. But it wasMarch before the real flowering began. And then she had continualbowl-fuls of white and blue violets, she had sprays of almond blossom,silver-warm and lustrous, then sprays of peach and apricot, pink andfluttering. It was a great joy to wander looking for flowers. She cameupon a bankside all wide with lavender crocuses. The sun was on themfor the moment, and they were opened flat, great five-pointed,seven-pointed lilac stars, with burning centres, burning with a strangelavender flame, as she had seen some metal burn lilac-flamed in thelaboratory of the hospital at Islington. All down the oak-dry banksidethey burned their great exposed stars. And she felt like going down onher knees and bending her forehead to the earth in an orientalsubmission, they were so royal, so lovely, so supreme. She came againto them in the morning, when the sky was grey, and they were closed,sharp clubs, wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leavesand old grass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripesrunning up their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear proud stripes ona badger's face, or on some proud cat. She took a handful of the sappy,shut, striped flames. In her room they opened into a grand bowl oflilac fire.
March was a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills. Shewandered, extending her range. Sometimes with a strange fear. But itwas a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she went alongthe high-road with her letters, towards the village of Casa Latina. Thehigh-road was depressing, wherever there were houses. For the houseshad that sordid, ramshackle, slummy look almost invariable on anItalian high-road. They were patched with a hideous, greenishmould-colour, blotched, as if with leprosy. It frightened her, tillPancrazio told her it was only the copper sulphate that had sprayed thevines hitched on to the walls. But none the less the houses weresordid, unkempt, shimmy. One house by itself could make a completeslum.
Casa Latina was across the valley, in the shadow. Approaching itwere rows of low cabins--fairly new. They were the one-storey dwellingscommanded after the earthquake. And hideous they were. The villageitself was old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain. Streams ofcold water ran around it. The piazza was gloomy, forsaken. But therewas a great, twin-towered church, wonderful from outside.
She went inside, and was almost sick with repulsion. The place waslarge, whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and ex votoofferings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size and tinselly,that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus on thecrucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on theirknees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded fetish-worship wastoo much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from the contamination ofthe dirty leather door-curtain.
Enough of Casa Latina. She would never go there again. She wasbeginning to feel that, if she lived in this part of the world at all,she must avoid theinside of it. She must never, if she couldhelp it, enter into any interior but her own--neither into house norchurch nor even shop or post-office, if she could help it. The momentshe went through a door the sense of dark repulsiveness came over her.If she was to save her sanity she must keep to the open air, and avoidany contact with human interiors. When she thought of the insides ofthe native people she shuddered with repulsion, as in the great,degraded church of Casa Latina. They were horrible.
Yet the outside world was so fair. Corn and maize were growing greenand silken, vines were in the small bud. Everywhere little grapehyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her of themany-breasted Artemis, a picture of whom, or of whose statue, she hadseen somewhere. Artemis with her clusters of breasts was horrible toher, now she had come south: nauseating beyond words. And the milkygrape hyacinths reminded her.
She turned with thankfulness to the magenta anemones that were sogay. Some one told her that wherever Venus had shed a tear for Adonis,one of these flowers had sprung. They were not tear-like. And yet theirred-purple silkiness had something pre-world about it, at last. Themore she wandered, the more the shadow of the by-gone pagan worldseemed to come over her. Sometimes she felt she would shriek and gomad, so strong was the influence on her, something pre-world and, itseemed to her now, vindictive. She seemed to feel in the air strangeFuries, Lemures, things that had haunted her with their tomb-frenziedvindictiveness since she was a child and had pored over the illustratedClassical Dictionary. Black and cruel presences were in the under-air.They were furtive and slinking. They bewitched you with loveliness, andlurked with fangs to hurt you afterwards. There it was: the fangssheathed in beauty: the beauty first, and then, horribly, inevitably,the fangs.
Being a great deal alone, in the strange place, fancies possessedher, people took on strange shapes. Even Ciccio and Pancrazio. And itcame that she never wandered far from the house, from her room, afterthe first months. She seemed to hide herself in her room. There shesewed and spun wool and read, and learnt Italian. Her men were not atall anxious to teach her Italian. Indeed her chief teacher, at first,was a young fellow called Bussolo. He was a model from London, and hecame down to Califano sometimes, hanging about, anxious to speakEnglish.
Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy with pale grey eyes anda heavy figure. Yet he had a certain penetrating intelligence.
"No, this country is a country for old men. It is only for old men,"he said, talking of Pescocalascio. "You won't stop here. Nobody youngcan stop here."
The odd plangent certitude in his voice penetrated her. And all theyoung people said the same thing. They were all waiting to go away. Butfor the moment the war held them up.
Ciccio and Pancrazio were busy with the vines. As she watched themhoeing, crouching, tying, tending, grafting, mindless and utterlyabsorbed, hour after hour, day after day, thinking vines, living vines,she wondered they didn't begin to sprout vine-buds and vine stems fromtheir own elbows and neck-joints. There was something to her unnaturalin the quality of the attention the men gave to the wine. It was a sortof worship, almost a degradation again. And heaven knows, Pancrazio'swine was poor enough, his grapes almost invariably bruised withhail-stones, and half-rotten instead of ripe.
The loveliness of April came, with hot sunshine. Astonishing theferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to blaze. Alvinawas amazed. The burning day quite carried her away. She loved it: itmade her quite careless about everything, she was just swept along inthe powerful flood of the sunshine. In the end, she felt that intensesunlight had on her the effect of night: a sort of darkness, and asuspension of life. She had to hide in her room till the cold wind blewagain.
Meanwhile the declaration of war drew nearer, and became inevitable.She knew Ciccio would go. And with him went the chance of her escape.She steeled herself to bear the agony of the knowledge that he wouldgo, and she would be left alone in this place, which sometimes shehated with a hatred unspeakable. After a spell of hot, intensely dryweather she felt she would die in this valley, wither and go to powderas some exposed April roses withered and dried into dust against a hotwall. Then the cool wind came in a storm, the next day there was greysky and soft air. The rose-coloured wild gladioli among the young greencorn were a dream of beauty, the morning of the world. The lovely,pristine morning of the world, before our epoch began. Rose-redgladioli among corn, in among the rocks, and small irises, black-purpleand yellow blotched with brown, like a wasp, standing low in littledesert places, that would seem forlorn but for this weird,dark-lustrous magnificence. Then there were the tiny irises, only onefinger tall, growing in dry places, frail as crocuses, and much tinier,and blue, blue as the eye of the morning heaven, which was a morningearlier, more pristine than ours. The lovely translucent pale irises,tiny and morning-blue, they lasted only a few hours. But nothing couldbe more exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that broughtback to Alvina the passionate nostalgia for the place. The humaninfluence was a bit horrible to her. But the flowers that came out anduttered the earth in magical expression, they cast a spell on her,bewitched her and stole her own soul away from her.
She went down to Ciccio where he was weeding armfuls of rose-redgladioli from the half-grown wheat, and cutting the lushness of thefirst weedy herbage. He threw down his sheaves of gladioli, and withhis sickle began to cut the forest of bright yellow corn-marigolds. Helooked intent, he seemed to work feverishly.
"Must they all be cut?" she said, as she went to him.
He threw aside the great armful of yellow flowers, took off his cap,and wiped the sweat from his brow. The sickle dangled loose in hishand.
"We have declared war," he said.
In an instant she realized that she had seen the figure of the oldpost-carrier dodging between the rocks. Rose-red and gold-yellow of theflowers swam in her eyes. Ciccio's dusk-yellow eyes were watching her.She sank on her knees on a sheaf of corn-marigolds. Her eyes, watchinghim, were vulnerable as if stricken to death. Indeed she felt she woulddie.
"You will have to go?" she said.
"Yes, we shall all have to go." There seemed a certain sound oftriumph in his voice. Cruel!
She sank lower on the flowers, and her head dropped. But she wouldnot be beaten. She lifted her face.
"If you are very long," she said, "I shall go to England. I can'tstay here very long without you."
"You will have Pancrazio--and the child," he said.
"Yes. But I shall still be myself. I can't stay here very longwithout you. I shall go to England."
He watched her narrowly.
"I don't think they'll let you," he said.
"Yes they will."
At moments she hated him. He seemed to want to crush her altogether.She was always making little plans in her mind--how she could get outof that great cruel valley and escape to Rome, to English people. Shewould find the English Consul and he would help her. She would doanything rather than be really crushed. She knew how easy it would be,once her spirit broke, for her to die and be buried in the cemetery atPescocalascio.
And they would all be so sentimental about her--just as Pancraziowas. She felt that in some way Pancrazio had killed his wife--notconsciously, but unconsciously, as Ciccio might killher.Pancrazio would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments. And heseemed always anxious to prove that he had been so good to her. Nodoubt he had been good to her, also. But there was somethingunderneath--malevolent in his spirit, some caged-in sort of cruelty,malignant beyond his control. It crept out in his stories. And itrevealed itself in his fear of his dead wife. Alvina knew that in thenight the elderly man was afraid of his dead wife, and of her ghost orher avenging spirit. He would huddle over the fire in fear. In the sameway the cemetery had a fascination of horror for him--as, she noticed,for most of the natives. It was an ugly, square place, all stone slabsand wall-cupboards, enclosed in foursquare stone walls, and lying awaybeneath Pescocalascio village obvious as if it were on a plate.
"That is our cemetery," Pancrazio said, pointing it out to her,"where we shall all be carried some day."
And there was fear, horror in his voice. He told her how the men hadcarried his wife there--a long journey over the hill-tracks, almost twohours.
These were days of waiting--horrible days of waiting for Ciccio tobe called up. One batch of young men left the village--and there was alugubrious sort of saturnalia, men and women alike got rather drunk,the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks of distress.Crowds accompanied them to Ossona, whence they were marched towards therailway. It was a horrible event.
A shiver of horror and death went through the valley. In alugubrious way, they seemed to enjoy it.
"You'll never be satisfied till you've gone," she said to Ciccio."Why don't they be quick and call you?"
"It will be next week," he said, looking at her darkly. In thetwilight he came to her, when she could hardly see him.
"Are you sorry you came here with me, Allaye?" he asked. There wasmalice in the very question.
She put down the spoon and looked up from the fire. He stoodshadowy, his head ducked forward, the firelight faint on his enigmatic,timeless, half-smiling face.
"I'm not sorry," she answered slowly, using all her courage."Because I love you--"
She crouched quite still on the hearth. He turned aside his face.After a moment or two he went out. She stirred her pot slowly andsadly. She had to go downstairs for something.
And there on the landing she saw him standing in the darkness withhis arm over his face, as if fending a blow.
"What is it?" she said, laying her hand on him. He uncovered hisface.
"I would take you away if I could," he said.
"I can wait for you," she answered.
He threw himself in a chair that stood at a table there on the broadlanding, and buried his head in his arms.
"Don't wait for me! Don't wait for me!" he cried, his voice muffled."Why not?" she said, filled with terror. He made no sign. "Why not?"she insisted. And she laid her fingers on his head.
He got up and turned to her.
"I love you, even if it kills me," she said.
But he only turned aside again, leaned his arm against the wall, andhid his face, utterly noiseless.
"What is it?" she said. "What is it? I don't understand." He wipedhis sleeve across his face, and turned to her.
"I haven't any hope," he said, in a dull, dogged voice.
She felt her heart and the child die within her.
"Why?" she said.
Was she to bear a hopeless child?
"Youhave hope. Don't make a scene," she snapped. And shewent downstairs, as she had intended.
And when she got into the kitchen, she forgot what she had come for.She sat in the darkness on the seat, with all life gone dark and still,death and eternity settled down on her. Death and eternity were settleddown on her as she sat alone. And she seemed to hear him moaningupstairs--"I can't come back. I can't come back." She heard it. Sheheard it so distinctly, that she never knew whether it had been anactual utterance, or whether it was her inner ear which had heard theinner, unutterable sound. She wanted to answer, to call to him. But shecould not. Heavy, mute, powerless, there she sat like a lump ofdarkness, in that doomed Italian kitchen. "I can't come back." Sheheard it so fatally.
She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancrazio.
"Oh!" he cried, startled when, having come near the fire, he caughtsight of her. And he said something, frightened, in Italian.
"Is it you? Why are you in the darkness?" he said.
"I am just going upstairs again."
"You frightened me."
She went up to finish the preparing of the meal. Ciccio came down toPancrazio. The latter had brought a newspaper. The two men sat on thesettle, with the lamp between them, reading and talking the news.
Ciccio's group was called up for the following week, as he had said.The departure hung over them like a doom. Those were perhaps the worstdays of all: the days of the impending departure. Neither of them spokeabout it.
But the night before he left she could bear the silence no more.
"You will come back, won't you?" she said, as he sat motionless inhis chair in the bedroom. It was a hot, luminous night. There was stilla late scent of orange blossom from the garden, the nightingale wasshaking the air with his sound. At times other, honey scents waftedfrom the hills.
"You will come back?" she insisted.
"Who knows?" he replied.
"If you make up your mind to come back, you will come back. We haveour fate in our hands," she said.
He smiled slowly.
"You think so?" he said.
"I know it. If you don't come back it will be because you don't wantto--no other reason. It won't be because you can't. It will be becauseyou don't want to."
"Who told you so?" he asked, with the same cruel smile. "I know it,"she said.
"All right," he answered.
But he still sat with his hands abandoned between his knees. "Somake up your mind," she said.
He sat motionless for a long while: while she undressed and brushedher hair and went to bed. And still he sat there unmoving, like acorpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearable presencein the room. She blew out the light, that she need not see him. But inthe darkness it was worse.
At last he stirred--he rose. He came hesitating across to her.
"I'll come back, Allaye," he said quietly. "Be damned to them all."She heard unspeakable pain in his voice.
"To whom?" she said, sitting up.
He did not answer, but put his arms round her.
"I'll come back, and we'll go to America," he said.
"You'll come back to me," she whispered, in an ecstasy of pain andrelief. It was not her affair, where they should go, so long as hereally returned to her.
"I'll come back," he said.
"Sure?" she whispered, straining him to her.
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