The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lost Girl, by D. H. Lawrence
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Title: The Lost Girl
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Release Date: December 3, 2007 [eBook #23727]
Language: English
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THE LOST GIRL
by
D. H. LAWRENCE
New York
Thomas Seltzer
1921
Copyright, 1921,
by Thomas Seltzer, Inc.
All rights reserved
First Printing, February, 1921
Second Printing, February, 1921
Third Printing, September, 1921
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE 7
II THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON 27
III THE MATERNITY NURSE 36
IV TWO WOMEN DIE 49
V THE BEAU 64
VI HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR 95
VII NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA 130
VIII CICCIO 164
IX ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE 191
X THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE 235
XI HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT 273
XII ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED 304
XIII THE WEDDED WIFE 317
XIV THE JOURNEY ACROSS 327
XV THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO 350
XVI SUSPENSE 359
CHAPTER I
THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE
Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of ten
thousand people, and three generations behind it. This space of
three generations argues a certain well-established society. The old
"County" has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to
flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic. Remains one
great and inaccessible magnate, the local coal owner: three
generations old, and clambering on the bottom step of the "County,"
kicking off the mass below. 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
sawdust of timber-merchant, through the lustre of lard and butter
and meat, to the perfume of the chemist and the disinfectant of the
doctor, on to the serene gold-tarnish of bank-managers, cashiers for
the firm, clergymen and such-like, as far as the automobile
refulgence of the general-manager of all the collieries. Here the
_ne plus ultra_. The general manager lives in the shrubberied
seclusion of the so-called Manor. The genuine Hall, abandoned by the
"County," has been taken over as offices by the firm.
Here we are then: a vast substratum of colliers; a thick sprinkling
of tradespeople intermingled with small employers of labour and
diversified by elementary schoolmasters and nonconformist clergy; a
higher layer of bank-managers, rich millers and well-to-do
ironmasters, episcopal clergy and the managers of collieries, then
the rich and sticky cherry of the local coal-owner glistening over
all.
Such the complicated social system of a small industrial town in the
Midlands of England, in this year of grace 1920. But let us go back
a little. Such it was in the last calm year of plenty, 1913.
A calm year of plenty. But one chronic and dreary malady: that of
the odd women. Why, in the name of all prosperity, should every
class but the lowest in such a society hang overburdened with Dead
Sea fruit of odd women, unmarried, unmarriageable women, called old
maids? Why is it that every tradesman, every school-master, every
bank-manager, and every clergyman produces one, two, three or more
old maids? Do the middle-classes, particularly the lower
middle-classes, give birth to more girls than boys? Or do the lower
middle-class men assiduously climb up or down, in marriage, thus
leaving their true partners stranded? Or are middle-class women very
squeamish in their choice of husbands?
However it be, it is a tragedy. Or perhaps it is not.
Perhaps these unmarried women of the middle-classes are the famous
sexless-workers of our ant-industrial society, of which we hear so
much. Perhaps all they lack is an occupation: in short, a job. But
perhaps we might hear their own opinion, before we lay the law down.
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
of these daughters of comfort and woe getting off. They flocked to
the well-to-do weddings with an intoxication of relief. For let
class-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman
left stalely on the shelf, without a chance. They all _wanted_ the
middle-class girls to find husbands. Every one wanted it, including
the girls themselves. Hence the dismalness.
Now James Houghton had only one child: his daughter Alvina. Surely
Alvina Houghton--
But let us retreat to the early eighties, when Alvina was a baby: or
even further back, to the palmy days of James Houghton. In his palmy
days, James Houghton was _crême de la crême_ of Woodhouse 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 distinct _cachet_. Now James Houghton, at the age of
twenty-eight, inherited a splendid business in Manchester goods, in
Woodhouse. He was a tall, thin, elegant young man with side-whiskers,
genuinely refined, somewhat in the Bulwer style. He had a taste for
elegant conversation and elegant literature and elegant Christianity:
a tall, thin, brittle young man, rather fluttering in his manner, full
of facile ideas, and with a beautiful speaking voice: most beautiful.
Withal, of course, a tradesman. He courted a small, dark woman, older
than himself, daughter of a Derbyshire squire. He expected to get at
least ten thousand pounds with her. In which he was disappointed, for
he got only eight hundred. Being of a romantic-commercial nature, he
never forgave her, but always treated her with the most elegant
courtesy. To seehim peel and prepare an apple for her was an exquisite
sight. But that peeled and quartered apple was her portion. This
elegant Adam of commerce gave Eve her own back, nicely cored, and had
no more to do with her. Meanwhile Alvina was born.
Before all this, however, before his marriage, James Houghton had
built Manchester House. It was a vast square building--vast, that
is, for Woodhouse--standing on the main street and high-road of the
small but growing town. The lower front consisted of two fine shops,
one for Manchester goods, one for silk and woollens. This was James
Houghton's commercial 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 continual fantasy for
himself, a fantasy of commerce. He dreamed of silks and poplins,
luscious in texture and of unforeseen exquisiteness: he dreamed of
carriages of the "County" arrested before his windows, of exquisite
women ruffling charmed, entranced to his counter. And charming,
entrancing, he served them his lovely fabrics, which only he and they
could sufficiently appreciate. His fame spread, until Alexandra,
Princess of Wales, and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, the two
best-dressed women in Europe, floated down from heaven to the shop in
Woodhouse, and sallied forth to show what could be done by purchasing
from James Houghton.
We cannot say why James Houghton failed to become the Liberty or the
Snelgrove of his day. Perhaps he had too much imagination. Be that as
it 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 of
muslins and prints, his window on the London side was an autumn evening
of 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 bit
repulsed by the man's dancing in front of his stock, like David before
the ark.
The home to which he brought her was a monument. In the great bedroom
over the shop he had his furniture _built_: built of solid mahogany: oh
too, too solid. No doubt he hopped or skipped himself with satisfaction
into the monstrous matrimonial bed: it could only be mounted by means
of a stool and chair. But the poor, secluded little woman, older than
he, must have climbed up with a heavy heart, to lie and face the gloomy
Bastille of mahogany, the great cupboard opposite, or to turn wearily
sideways to the great cheval mirror, which performed a perpetual and
hideous bow before her grace. Such furniture! It could never be removed
from the room.
The little child was born in the second year. And then James Houghton
decamped to a small, half-furnished bedroom at the other end of the
house, where he slept on a rough board and played the anchorite for the
rest of his days. His wife was left alone with her baby and the
built-in furniture. She developed heart disease, as a result of nervous
repressions.
But like a butterfly James fluttered over his fabrics. He was a tyrant
to his shop-girls. No French marquis in a Dickens' novel could have
been more elegant and _raffiné_ and heartless. The girls detested him.
And yet, his curious refinement and enthusiasm bore them away. They
submitted to him. The shop attracted much curiosity. But the
poor-spirited Woodhouse people were weak buyers. They wearied James
Houghton with their demand for common zephyrs, for red flannel which
they would scallop with black worsted, for black alpacas and bombazines
and merinos. He fluffed out his silk-striped muslins, his India
cotton-prints. But the natives shied off as if he had offered them 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 wear
and tear into the face of James Houghton. At first, of course, he
merely marked down, with discretion, his less-expensive stock of prints
and muslins, nuns-veilings and muslin delaines, with a few fancy
braidings and trimmings in guimp or bronze to enliven the affair. And
Woodhouse bought cautiously.
After the sale, however, James Houghton felt himself at liberty to
plunge into an orgy of new stock. He flitted, with a tense look on his
face, to Manchester. After which huge bundles, bales and boxes arrived
in Woodhouse, and were dumped on the pavement of the shop. Friday
evening came, and with it a revelation in Houghton's window: the first
piqués, the first strangely-woven and honey-combed toilet covers and
bed quilts, the first frill-caps and aprons for maid-servants: a wonder
in white. That was how James advertised it. "A Wonder in White." Who
knows but that he had been reading Wilkie Collins' famous novel!
As the nine days of the wonder-in-white passed and receded, James
disappeared in the direction of London. A few Fridays later he came out
with his Winter Touch. Weird and wonderful winter coats, for
ladies--everything James handled was for ladies, he scorned the coarser
sex--: weird and wonderful winter coats for ladies, of thick, black,
pockmarked cloth, stood and flourished their bear-fur cuffs in the
background, while tippets, boas, muffs and winter-fancies coquetted in
front of the window-space. Friday-night crowds gathered outside: the
gas-lamps shone their brightest: James Houghton hovered in the
background like an author on his first night in the theatre. The
result was a sensation. Ten villages stared and crushed round the plate
glass. It was a sensation: but what sensation! In the breasts of the
crowd, wonder, admiration, _fear_, and ridicule. Let us stress the word
fear. The inhabitants of Woodhouse were afraid lest James Houghton
should impose his standards upon them. His goods were in excellent
taste: but his customers were in as bad taste as possible. They stood
outside and pointed, giggled, and jeered. Poor James, like an author on
his first night, saw his work fall more than flat.
But still he believed in his own excellence: and quite justly. What
he failed to perceive was that the crowd hated excellence. Woodhouse
wanted a gently graduated progress in mediocrity, a mediocrity so
stale and flat that it fell outside the imagination of any sensitive
mortal. Woodhouse wanted a series of vulgar little thrills, as one
tawdry mediocrity was imported from Nottingham or Birmingham to take
the place of some tawdry mediocrity which Nottingham and Birmingham
had already discarded. That Woodhouse, as a very condition of its
own being, hated any approach to originality or real taste, this
James Houghton could never learn. He thought he had not been clever
enough, when he had been far, far too clever already. He always
thought that Dame Fortune was a capricious and fastidious dame, a
sort of Elizabeth of Austria or Alexandra, Princess of Wales,
elegant beyond his grasp. Whereas Dame Fortune, even in London or
Vienna, let alone in Woodhouse, was a vulgar woman of the middle and
lower middle-class, ready to put her heavy foot on anything that was
not vulgar, machine-made, and appropriate to the herd. When he saw
his delicate originalities, as well as his faint flourishes of
draper's fantasy, squashed flat under the calm and solid foot of
vulgar Dame Fortune, he fell into fits of depression bordering on
mysticism, and talked to his wife in a vague way of higher
influences and the angel Israfel. She, poor lady, was thoroughly
scared by Israfel, and completely unhooked by the vagaries of James.
At last--we hurry down the slope of James' misfortunes--the real
days of Houghton's Great Sales began. Houghton's Great Bargain
Events were really events. After some years of hanging on, he let go
splendidly. He marked down his prints, his chintzes, his dimities
and his veilings with a grand and lavish hand. Bang went his blue
pencil through 3/11, and nobly he subscribed 1/0-3/4. Prices fell
like nuts. A lofty one-and-eleven rolled down to six-three, 1/6
magically shrank into 4-3/4d, whilst good solid prints exposed
themselves at 3-3/4d per yard.
Now this was really an opportunity. Moreover the goods, having
become a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, were
beginning to approximate to the public taste. And besides, good
sound stuff it was, no matter what the pattern. And so the little
Woodhouse girls went to school in petties and drawers made of
material which James had destined for fair summer dresses: petties
and drawers of which the little Woodhouse girls were ashamed, for
all that. For if they should chance to turn up their little skirts,
be sure they would raise a chorus among their companions: "Yah-h-h,
yer've got Houghton's threp'ny draws on!"
All this time James Houghton walked on air. He still saw the Fata
Morgana snatching his fabrics round her lovely form, and pointing
him to wealth untold. True, he became also Superintendent of the
Sunday School. But whether this was an act of vanity, or whether it
was an attempt to establish an Entente Cordiale with higher powers,
who shall judge.
Meanwhile his wife became more and more an invalid; the little
Alvina was a pretty, growing child. Woodhouse was really impressed
by the sight of Mrs. Houghton, small, pale and withheld, taking a
walk with 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 and spotted ermine, passing silent and shadowy down the
street, made an impression which the people did not forget.
But Mrs. Houghton had pains at her heart. If, during her walk, she
saw two little boys having a scrimmage, she had to run to them with
pence and entreaty, leaving them dumfounded, whilst she leaned blue
at the lips against a wall. If she saw a carter crack his whip over
the ears of the horse, as the horse laboured uphill, she had to
cover her eyes and avert her face, and all her strength left her.
So she stayed more and more in her room, and the child was given to
the charge of a governess. Miss Frost was a handsome, vigorous young
woman of about thirty years of age, with grey-white hair and
gold-rimmed spectacles. The white hair was not at all tragical: it
was a family _trait_.
Miss Frost mattered more than any one else to Alvina Houghton,
during the first long twenty-five years of the girl's life. The
governess was a strong, generous woman, a musician by nature. She
had a sweet voice, and sang in the choir of the chapel, and took the
first class of girls in the Sunday-School of which James Houghton
was Superintendent. She disliked and rather despised James Houghton,
saw in him elements of a hypocrite, detested his airy and gracious
selfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all, his fairy
fantasy. As James went further into life, he became a dreamer. Sad
indeed that he died before the days of Freud. He enjoyed the most
wonderful and fairy-like dreams, which he could describe perfectly,
in charming, delicate language. At such times his beautifully
modulated voice all but sang, his grey eyes gleamed fiercely under
his bushy, hairy eyebrows, his pale face with its side-whiskers had
a strange _lueur_, his long thin hands fluttered occasionally. He
had become meagre in figure, his skimpy but genteel coat would be
buttoned over his breast, as he recounted his dream-adventures,
adventures that were half Edgar Allan Poe, half Andersen, with
touches of Vathek and Lord Byron and George Macdonald: perhaps more
than a touch of the last. Ladies were always struck by these
accounts. But Miss Frost never felt so strongly moved to impatience
as when she was within hearing.
For twenty years, she and James Houghton treated each other with a
courteous 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 her finding it so. Then he would flit away to the Conservative
Club, with a fleet, light, hurried step, as if pressed by fate. At
the club he played chess--at which he was excellent--and conversed.
Then he flitted back at half-past twelve, to dinner.
The whole morale of the house rested immediately on Miss Frost. She
saw her line in the first year. She must defend the little Alvina,
whom she 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 ones must be sheltered from him. Miss Frost
imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic
government. Her rule was quiet, strong, and generous. She was not
seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of
Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms with her own sure,
radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy,
reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to
give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered
home. She controlled the maid, and suggested the meals--meals which
James ate without knowing what he ate. She brought in flowers and
books, and, very rarely, a visitor. Visitors were out of place in
the dark sombreness of Manchester House. Her flowers charmed the
petulant invalid, her books she sometimes discussed with the airy
James: after which discussions she was invariably filled with
exasperation and impatience, whilst James invariably retired to the
shop, and was heard raising his musical voice, which the work-girls
hated, to one or other of the work-girls.
James certainly had an irritating way of speaking of a book. He
talked of incidents, and effects, and suggestions, as if the whole
thing had just been a sensational-æsthetic attribute to himself. Not
a grain of human feeling in the man, said Miss Frost, flushing pink
with exasperation. 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 himself
could 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 down from five guineas to one guinea, and then, oh ignoble
day, to ten-and-six. He nearly kissed the gipsy woman with a basket
of tin saucepan-lids, when at last she bought it for five shillings,
at the end of one of his winter sales. But even she, in spite of the
bitter sleety day, would not put the coat on in the shop. She
carried it over her arm down to the Miners' Arms. And later, with a
shock that really hurt him, James, peeping bird-like out of his shop
door, saw her sitting driving a dirty rag-and-bone cart with a
green-white, mouldy pony, and flourishing her arms like some wild
and hairy-decorated squaw. For the long bear-fur, wet with sleet,
seemed like a _chevaux de frise_ of long porcupine quills round her
fore-arms and her neck. Yet such good, such wonderful material! James
eyed it for one moment, and then fled like a rabbit to the stove in
his back regions.
The higher powers did not seem to fulfil the terms of treaty which
James hoped for. He began to back out from the Entente. The Sunday
School was a great trial to him. Instead of being carried away by
his grace and eloquence, the nasty louts of colliery boys and girls
openly banged their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to
speak. He said 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 and gall-bladders, the colliery children. The
situation was saved by Miss Frost's sweeping together all the big
girls, under her surveillance, and by her organizing that the tall
and handsome blacksmith who taught the lower boys should extend his
influence over the upper boys. His influence was more than
effectual. It consisted in gripping any recalcitrant boy just above
the knee, and jesting with him in a jocular manner, in the dialect.
The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith's hand need be, and his
dialect was as broad as could be wished. Between the grip and the
homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. So the Sunday
School paid more attention to James, whose prayers were beautiful.
But then one of the boys, a protegé of Miss Frost, having been left
for half an hour in the obscure room with Mrs. Houghton, gave away
the secret of the blacksmith's grip, which secret so haunted the
poor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of her malady, and
made Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Houghton
resented something in the coarse Scotch manner of the minister of
that day. So that the superintendency of the Sunday School came to
an end.
At the same time, Solomon had to divide his baby. That is, he let
the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor and
haberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bear
analysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joiners
appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room in
the shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and sawing,
and suffered. W. H. Johnson came out with a spick-and-span window,
and had his wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a
handsome, loud girl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked
in--even women, buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They
could have bought a tie for four-three from James Houghton. But no,
they would rather give sixpence-halfpenny for W.H. Johnson's fresh
but rubbishy stuff. And James, who had tried to rise to another
successful sale, saw the streams pass into the other doorway, and
heard the heavy feet on the hollow boards of the other shop: his
shop no more.
After this cut at his pride and integrity he lay in retirement for a
while, mystically inclined. Probably he would have come to
Swedenborg, had not his clipt wings spread for a new flight. He hit
upon the brilliant idea of working up his derelict fabrics into
ready-mades: not men'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 was
rigged up the high back of Manchester House. In the great lofts
sewing-machines of various patterns and movements were installed. A
manageress was advertised for, and work-girls were hired. So a new
phase of life started. At half-past six in the morning there was a
clatter of feet and of girls' excited tongues along the back-yard
and up the wooden stair-way outside the back wall. The poor invalid
heard every clack and every vibration. She could never get over her
nervous apprehension of an invasion. Every morning alike, she felt
an invasion of some enemy was breaking in on her. And all day long
the low, steady rumble of sewing-machines overhead seemed like the
low drumming of a bombardment upon her weak heart. To make matters
worse, James Houghton decided that he must have his sewing-machines
driven by some extra-human force. He installed another plant of
machinery--acetylene or some such contrivance--which was intended to
drive all the little machines from one big belt. Hence a further
throbbing and shaking in the upper regions, truly terrible to
endure. But, fortunately or unfortunately, the acetylene plant was
not a success. Girls got their thumbs pierced, and sewing machines
absolutely refused to stop sewing, once they had started, and
absolutely refused to start, once they had stopped. So that after a
while, one loft was reserved for disused and rusty, but expensive
engines.
Dame Fortune, who had refused to be taken by fine fabrics and fancy
trimmings, was just as reluctant to be captured by ready-mades.
Again the good dame was thoroughly lower middle-class. James
Houghton designed "robes." Now Robes were the mode. Perhaps it was
Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who gave glory to the slim,
glove-fitting Princess Robe. Be that as it may, James Houghton
designed robes. His work-girls, a race even more callous than
shop-girls, proclaimed the fact that James tried on his own
inventions upon his own elegant thin person, before the privacy of
his own cheval mirror. And even if he did, why not? Miss Frost,
hearing this legend, looked sideways at the enthusiast.
Let us remark in time that Miss Frost had already ceased to draw any
maintenance from James Houghton. Far from it, she herself
contributed to the upkeep of the domestic hearth and board. She had
fully decided never to leave her two charges. She knew that a
governess was an impossible item in Manchester House, as things
went. And so she trudged the country, giving music lessons to the
daughters of tradesmen and of colliers who boasted pianofortes. She
even taught heavy-handed but dauntless colliers, who were seized
with a passion to "play." Miles she trudged, on her round from
village to village: a white-haired woman with a long, quick stride,
a strong figure, and a quick, handsome smile when once her face
awoke behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Like many short-sighted
people, she had a certain intent look of one who goes her own way.
The miners knew her, and entertained the highest respect and
admiration for her. As they streamed in a grimy stream home from
pit, they diverged like some magic dark river from off the pavement
into the horse-way, to give her room as she approached. And the men
who knew her well enough to salute her, by calling her name "Miss
Frost!" giving it the proper intonation of salute, were fussy men
indeed. "She's a lady if 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 her spectacles, but whose black face she smiled to
she never, or rarely knew. If she did chance to get an inkling, then
gladly she called in reply "Mr. Lamb," or "Mr. Calladine." In her
way she was a proud woman, for she was regarded with cordial
respect, touched with veneration, by at 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
was supposed to be making money. What money she made went chiefly to
support the Houghton household. In the meanwhile she drilled Alvina
thoroughly in theory and pianoforte practice, for Alvina was
naturally musical, and besides this she imparted to the girl the
elements of a young lady's education, including the drawing of
flowers in water-colour, and the translation of a Lamartine poem.
Now incredible as it may seem, fate threw another prop to the
falling house of Houghton, in the person of the manageress of the
work-girls, Miss Pinnegar. James Houghton complained of Fortune, yet
to what other man would Fortune have sent two such women as Miss
Frost and Miss Pinnegar, _gratis_? Yet there they were. And doubtful
if James was ever grateful for their presence.
If Miss Frost saved him from heaven knows what domestic débâcle and
horror, Miss Pinnegar saved him from the workhouse. Let us not mince
matters. For a dozen years Miss Frost supported the heart-stricken,
nervous invalid, Clariss Houghton: for more than twenty years she
cherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the
child alike from a neurotic mother and a father such as James. For
nearly twenty years she saw that food was set on the table, and
clean sheets were spread on the beds: and all the time remained
virtually in the position of an outsider, without one grain of
established authority.
And then to find Miss Pinnegar! In her way, Miss Pinnegar was very
different 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: her grammar was not without reproach. She had pale grey eyes,
and a padding step, and a soft voice, and almost purplish cheeks.
Mrs. Houghton, Miss Frost, 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 æsthetic eye to be offended. But no
doubt it was her voice: her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed
almost like a secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers
disliked being secretly touched, as it were beneath their clothing.
Miss Frost abhorred it: so did Mrs. Houghton. Miss Frost's voice was
clear and straight as a bell-note, open as the day. Yet Alvina,
though in loyalty she adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, did not
really mind the quiet suggestive power of Miss Pinnegar. For Miss
Pinnegar was not vulgarly insinuating. On the contrary, the things
she said were rather clumsy and downright. It was only that she
seemed to weigh what she said, secretly, before she said it, and
then she approached as if she would slip 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 one accepted them
without the slightest challenge. That was just her manner of
approach. In her own way, she was as loyal and unselfish as Miss
Frost. There are such poles of opposition between honesties and
loyalties.
Miss Pinnegar had the _second_ class of girls in the Sunday School,
and she took second, subservient place in Manchester House. By force
of nature, Miss Frost took first place. Only when Miss Pinnegar
spoke to Mr. Houghton--nay, the very way she addressed herself to
him--"What do _you_ think, Mr. Houghton?"--then there seemed to be
assumed an immediacy of correspondence between the two, and an
unquestioned priority in their unison, his and hers, which was a
cruel thorn in Miss Frost's outspoken breast. This sort of secret
intimacy and secret exulting in having, _really_, the chief power,
was most repugnant to the white-haired woman. Not that there was, in
fact, any secrecy, or any form of unwarranted correspondence between
James Houghton and Miss Pinnegar. Far from it. Each of them would
have found any suggestion of such a possibility repulsive in the
extreme. It was simply an implicit correspondence between their two
psyches, an immediacy of understanding which preceded all
expression, tacit, wireless.
Miss Pinnegar lived in: so that the household consisted of the
invalid, who mostly sat, in her black dress with a white lace collar
fastened by a twisted gold brooch, in her own dim room, doing
nothing, nervous and heart-suffering; then James, and the thin young
Alvina, who adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, and then these two
strange women. Miss Pinnegar never lifted up her voice in household
affairs: she seemed, by her silence, to admit her own inadequacy in
culture and intellect, when topics of interest were being discussed,
only coming out now and then with defiant platitudes and
truisms--for almost defiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian
point of view; yet after everything she would turn with her quiet,
triumphant assurance to James Houghton, 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 let
James run the gamut of his creations. Each Friday night new wonders,
robes and ladies' "suits"--the phrase was very new--garnished the
window 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 and
usually hilarious ten minutes on the pavement under the window.
Muffled shrieks of young damsels who had just got their first view,
guffaws of sympathetic youths, continued giggling and expostulation
and "Eh, but what price the umbrella skirt, my girl!" and "You'd
like to marry me in _that_, my boy--what? not half!"--or else "Eh,
now, if you'd seen me in _that_ you'd have fallen in love with me at
first sight, shouldn't you?"--with a probable answer "I should have
fallen over myself making haste to get away"--loud guffaws:--all
this was the regular Friday night's entertainment in Woodhouse.
James Houghton's shop was regarded as a weekly comic issue. His
piqué costumes with glass buttons and sort of steel-trimming collars
and cuffs were immortal.
But why, once more, drag it out. Miss Pinnegar served in the shop on
Friday nights. She stood by her man. Sometimes when the shrieks grew
loudest she came to the shop door and looked with her pale grey eyes
at the ridiculous mob of lasses in tam-o-shanters and youths half
buried in caps. And she imposed a silence. They edged away.
Meanwhile Miss Pinnegar pursued the sober and even tenor of her own
way. 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,
serviceable aprons for the colliers' wives, good print dresses for
servants, and so on. She executed no flights of fancy. She had her
goods made to suit her people. And so, underneath the foam and froth
of James' creative adventure flowed a slow but steady stream of
output and income. The women of Woodhouse came at last to _depend_
on Miss Pinnegar. Growing lads in the pit reduce their garments to
shreds with amazing expedition. "I'll go to Miss Pinnegar for thy
shirts this time, my lad," said the harassed mothers, "and see if
_they'll_ stand thee." It was almost like a threat. But it served
Manchester House.
James bought very little stock in these days: just remnants and
pieces for his immortal robes. It was Miss Pinnegar who saw the
travellers and ordered the unions and calicoes and grey flannel.
James hovered round and said the last word, of course. But what was
his last word but an echo of Miss Pinnegar's penultimate! He was not
interested in unions and twills.
His own stock remained on hand. Time, like a slow whirlpool
churned it over into sight and out of sight, like a mass of dead
sea-weed in a backwash. There was a regular series of sales
fortnightly. The display of "creations" fell off. The new
entertainment was the Friday-night's sale. James would attack some
portion of his stock, make a wild jumble of it, spend a delirious
Wednesday and Thursday marking down, and then open on Friday
afternoon. In the evening there was a crush. A good moiré underskirt
for one-and-eleven-three was not to be neglected, and a handsome
string-lace collarette for six-three would iron out and be worth at
least three-and-six. That was how it went: it would nearly all of
it iron out into something really nice, poor James' crumpled stock.
His fine, semi-transparent face flushed pink, his eyes flashed as he
took in the sixpences and handed back knots of tape or packets of
pins for the notorious farthings. What matter if the farthing change
had originally cost him a halfpenny! His shop was crowded with women
peeping and pawing and turning things over and commenting in loud,
unfeeling tones. For there were still many comic items. Once, for
example, he suddenly heaped up piles of hats, trimmed and untrimmed,
the weirdest, sauciest, most screaming shapes. Woodhouse enjoyed
itself that night.
And all the time, in her quiet, polite, think-the-more fashion Miss
Pinnegar waited on the people, showing them considerable forbearance
and just a tinge of contempt. She became very tired those
evenings--her hair under its invisible hairnet became flatter, her
cheeks hung down purplish and mottled. But while James stood she
stood. The people did not like her, yet she influenced them. And the
stock slowly wilted, withered. Some was scrapped. The shop seemed to
have digested some of its indigestible contents.
James accumulated sixpences in a miserly fashion. Luckily for her
work-girls, Miss Pinnegar took her own orders, and received payments
for her own productions. Some of her regular customers paid her a
shilling a week--or less. But it made a small, steady income. She
reserved her own modest share, paid the expenses of her department,
and left the residue to James.
James had accumulated sixpences, and made a little space in his
shop. He had desisted from "creations." Time now for a new flight.
He decided it was better to be a manufacturer than a tradesman. His
shop, already only half its original size, was again too big. It
might be split once more. Rents had risen in Woodhouse. Why not cut
off another shop from his premises?
No sooner said than done. In came the architect, with whom he had
played many a game of chess. Best, said the architect, take off one
good-sized shop, rather than halve the premises. James would be left
a little cramped, a little tight, with only one-third of his present
space. But as we age we dwindle.
More hammering and alterations, and James found himself cooped in a
long, long narrow shop, very dark at the back, with a high oblong
window and a door that came in at a pinched corner. Next door to him
was a cheerful new grocer of the cheap and florid type. The new
grocer whistled "Just Like the Ivy," and shouted boisterously to his
shop-boy. In his doorway, protruding on James' sensitive vision, was
a pyramid of sixpence-halfpenny tins of salmon, red, shiny tins with
pink halved salmons depicted, and another yellow pyramid of
four-pence-halfpenny tins of pineapple. Bacon dangled in pale rolls
_almost_ over James' doorway, whilst straw and paper, redolent of
cheese, lard, and stale eggs filtered through the threshold.
This was coming down in the world, with a vengeance. But what James
lost downstairs he tried to recover upstairs. Heaven knows what he
would have done, but for Miss Pinnegar. She kept her own work-rooms
against him, with a soft, heavy, silent tenacity that would have
beaten stronger men than James. But his strength lay in his
pliability. He rummaged in the empty lofts, and among the discarded
machinery. He rigged up the engines afresh, bought two new machines,
and started an elastic department, making elastic for garters and
for hat-chins.
He was immensely proud of his first cards of elastic, and saw Dame
Fortune this time fast in his yielding hands. But, becoming used to
disillusionment, he almost welcomed it. Within six months he
realized that every inch of elastic cost him exactly sixty per cent.
more than he 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, which
could be cut up and made into as-yet-unheard-of garments. Miss
Pinnegar kept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much
more than abortive. And then James left her alone.
Meanwhile the shop slowly churned its oddments. Every Thursday
afternoon James sorted out tangles of bits and bobs, antique
garments and occasional finds. With these he trimmed his window, so
that it looked like a historical museum, rather soiled and scrappy.
Indoors he made baskets of assortments: threepenny, sixpenny,
ninepenny and shilling baskets, rather like a bran pie in which
everything was a plum. And then, on Friday evening, thin and alert
he hovered behind the counter, his coat shabbily buttoned over his
narrow chest, his face agitated. He had shaved his side-whiskers,
so that they only grew becomingly as low as his ears. His rather
large, grey moustache was brushed off his mouth. His hair, gone very
thin, was brushed frail and floating over his baldness. But still a
gentleman, still courteous, with a charming voice he suggested the
possibilities of a pad of green parrots' tail-feathers, or of a few
yards of pink-pearl trimming or of old chenille fringe. The women
would pinch the thick, exquisite old chenille fringe, delicate and
faded, curious to feel its softness. But they 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 of strange cord,
in all colours, for old-fashioned braid-patterning, ribbons with
H.M.S. Birkenhead, for boys' sailor caps--everything that nobody
wanted, did the women turn over and over, till they chanced on a
find. And James' quick eyes watched the slow surge of his flotsam,
as the pot boiled but did not boil away. Wonderful that he did not
think of the days when these bits and bobs were new treasures. But
he did not.
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, so
every day, twice a day, James was seen dithering bare-headed and
hastily down the street, as if pressed by fate, to the Conservative
Club, and twice a day he was seen as hastily returning, to his
meals. He was becoming an old man: his daughter was a young woman:
but in his own mind he was just the same, and his daughter was a
little child, his wife a young invalid whom he must charm by some
few delicate attentions--such as the peeled apple.
At the club he got into more mischief. He met men who wanted to
extend a brickfield down by the railway. The brickfield was called
Klondyke. James had now a new direction to run in: down hill towards
Bagthorpe, to Klondyke. Big penny-daisies grew in tufts on the brink
of the yellow clay at Klondyke, yellow eggs-and-bacon spread their
midsummer mats of flower. James came home with clay smeared all over
him, discoursing brilliantly on grit and paste and presses and kilns
and stamps. He carried home a rough and pinkish brick, and gloated
over it. It was a _hard_ brick, it was a non-porous brick. It was an
ugly brick, painfully heavy and parched-looking.
This time he was sure: Dame Fortune would rise like Persephone out
of the earth. He was all the more sure, because other men of the
town were 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 the
end, all things considered, James had lost not more than five per
cent. of his money. In fact, all things considered, he was about
square. And yet he felt Klondyke as the greatest blow of all. Miss
Pinnegar would have aided and abetted him in another scheme, if it
would but have cheered him. Even Miss Frost was nice with him. But
to no purpose. In the year after Klondyke he became an old man, he
seemed to have lost all his feathers, he acquired a plucked,
tottering look.
Yet he roused up, after a coal-strike. Throttle-Ha'penny put new
life into him. During a coal-strike the miners themselves began
digging in the fields, just near the houses, for the surface coal.
They found a plentiful seam of drossy, yellowish coal behind the
Methodist New Connection Chapel. The seam was opened in the side of
a bank, and approached by a footrill, a sloping shaft down which the
men walked. When the strike was over, two or three miners still
remained working the soft, drossy coal, which they sold for
eight-and-sixpence a ton--or sixpence a hundredweight. But a mining
population scorned such dirt, as they called it.
James Houghton, however, was seized with a desire to work the
Connection Meadow seam, as he called it. He gathered two miner
partners--he trotted endlessly up to the field, he talked, as he had
never talked before, with inumerable colliers. Everybody he met he
stopped, to talk Connection Meadow.
And so at last he sank a shaft, sixty feet deep, rigged up a
corrugated-iron engine-house with a winding-engine, and lowered his
men one at a time down the shaft, in a big bucket. The whole affair
was ricketty, amateurish, and twopenny. The name Connection Meadow
was forgotten within three months. Everybody knew the place as
Throttle-Ha'penny. "What!" said a collier to his wife: "have we got
no coal? 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 burn that
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.
But he was too feverishly busy at Throttle-Ha'penny, selling his
hundredweights of ash-pit fodder, as the natives called it, to
realize anything else.
He had three men and two boys working his pit, besides a
superannuated old man driving the winding engine. And in spite of
all jeering, he flourished. Shabby old coal-carts rambled up behind
the New Connection, and filled from the pit-bank. The coal improved
a little in quality: it was cheap and it was handy. James could sell
at last fifty or sixty tons a week: for the stuff was easy getting.
And now at last he 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
Houghton cried 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 himself making 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
a fault in the seam. Then the roof of Throttle-Ha'penny was so loose
and soft, James could not afford timber to hold it up. In short,
when his daughter Alvina was about twenty-seven years old,
Throttle-Ha'penny closed down. There was a sale of poor machinery,
and James Houghton came 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 Friday
evening. For the rest, faded and peaked, he hurried shadowily down
to the club.
CHAPTER II
THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON
The heroine of this story is Alvina Houghton. If we leave her out of
the first chapter of her own story it is because, during the first
twenty-five years of her life, she really was left out of count, or
so overshadowed as to be negligible. She and her mother were the
phantom passengers in the ship of James Houghton's fortunes.
In Manchester House, every voice lowered its tone. And so from the
first Alvina spoke with a quiet, refined, almost convent voice. She
was a thin child with delicate limbs and face, and wide, grey-blue,
ironic eyes. Even as a small girl she had that odd ironic tilt of
the eyelids which gave her a look as if she were hanging back in
mockery. If she were, she was quite unaware of it, for under Miss
Frost's care she received no education in irony or mockery. Miss
Frost was straightforward, good-humoured, and a little earnest.
Consequently Alvina, or Vina as she was called, understood only the
explicit mode of good-humoured straightforwardness.
It was doubtful which shadow was greater over the child: that of
Manchester House, gloomy and a little sinister, or that of Miss
Frost, benevolent and protective. Sufficient that the girl herself
worshipped Miss Frost: or believed she did.
Alvina never went to school. She had her lessons from her beloved
governess, she worked at the piano, she took her walks, and for
social life she went to the Congregational Chapel, and to the
functions connected with the chapel. While she was little, she went
to Sunday School twice and to Chapel once on Sundays. Then
occasionally there was a magic lantern or a penny reading, to which
Miss Frost accompanied her. As she grew older she entered the choir
at chapel, she attended Christian Endeavour and P.S.A., and the
Literary Society on Monday evenings. Chapel provided her with a
whole social activity, in the course of which she met certain groups
of people, made certain friends, found opportunity for strolls into
the country and jaunts to the local entertainments. Over and above
this, every Thursday evening she went to the subscription library to
change the week's supply of books, and there again she met friends
and acquaintances. It is hard to overestimate the value of church or
chapel--but particularly chapel--as a social institution, in places
like Woodhouse. The Congregational Chapel provided Alvina with a
whole outer life, lacking which she would have been poor indeed. She
was not particularly religious by inclination. Perhaps her father's
beautiful prayers put her off. So she neither questioned nor
accepted, but just let be.
She grew up a slim girl, rather distinguished in appearance, with a
slender face, a fine, slightly arched nose, and beautiful grey-blue
eyes over which the lids tilted with a very odd, sardonic tilt. The
sardonic quality was, however, quite in abeyance. She was ladylike,
not vehement at all. In the street her walk had a delicate,
lingering motion, her face looked still. In conversation she had
rather a quick, hurried manner, with intervals of well-bred repose
and attention. Her voice was like her father's, flexible and
curiously attractive.
Sometimes, however, she would have fits of boisterous hilarity, not
quite natural, with a strange note half pathetic, half jeering. Her
father tended to a supercilious, sneering tone. In Vina it came out
in mad bursts of hilarious jeering. This made Miss Frost uneasy. She
would watch the girl's strange face, that could take on a gargoyle
look. She would see the eyes rolling strangely under sardonic
eyelids, and then Miss Frost would feel that never, never had she
known anything so utterly alien and incomprehensible and
unsympathetic as her own beloved Vina. For twenty years the strong,
protective governess reared and tended her lamb, her dove, only to
see the lamb open a wolf's mouth, to hear the dove utter the wild
cackle of a daw or a magpie, a strange sound of derision. At such
times Miss Frost's heart went cold within her. She dared not
realize. And she chid and checked her ward, restored her to the
usual impulsive, affectionate demureness. Then she dismissed the
whole matter. It was just an accidental aberration on the girl's
part from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly
the qualities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she
was taught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined
creature of her governess' desire. But there was an odd, derisive
look at the back of her eyes, a look of old knowledge and
deliberate derision. She herself 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 were
destined to join the ranks of the old maids, so many of whom found
cold comfort in the Chapel. For she had no suitors. True there were
extraordinarily few young men of her class--for whatever her
condition, she had certain breeding and inherent culture--in
Woodhouse. The young men of the same social standing as herself were
in some curious way outsiders to her. Knowing nothing, yet her
ancient sapience went deep, deeper than Woodhouse could fathom. The
young men did not like her for it. They did not like the tilt of her
eyelids.
Miss Frost, with anxious foreseeing, persuaded the girl to take over
some pupils, to teach them the piano. The work was distasteful to
Alvina. 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 medical
degree. Before going back to Australia, he came to spend some months
practising with old Dr. Fordham in Woodhouse--Dr. Fordham being in
some way connected with his mother.
Alexander Graham called to see Mrs. Houghton. Mrs. Houghton did not
like him. She said he was creepy. He was a man of medium height,
dark in colouring, with very dark eyes, and a body which seemed to
move inside his clothing. He was amiable and polite, laughed often,
showing his teeth. It was his teeth which Miss Frost could not
stand. She seemed to see a strong mouthful of cruel, compact teeth.
She declared he 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 stay
together in the parlour, laughing and talking by the hour. What they
could find to talk about was a mystery. Yet there they were,
laughing and chatting, with a running insinuating sound through it
all which made Miss Frost pace up and down unable to bear herself.
The man was always running in when Miss Frost was out. He contrived
to meet Alvina in the evening, to take a walk with her. He went a
long walk with her one night, and wanted to make love to her. But
her upbringing 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 eyes
shining, the delicate nostrils dilated, as of one who scents battle
and laughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud,
sinister recklessness. His hands trembled with desire.
So they were engaged. He bought her a ring, an emerald set in tiny
diamonds. Miss Frost looked grave and silent, but would not openly
deny her approval.
"You like him, don't you? You don't dislike him?" Alvina insisted.
"I don't dislike him," replied Miss Frost. "How can I? He is a
perfect stranger to me."
And with this Alvina subtly contented herself. Her father treated
the young man with suave attention, punctuated by fits of jerky
hostility and jealousy. Her mother merely sighed, and took sal
volatile.
To tell the truth, Alvina herself was a little repelled by the man's
love-making. She found him fascinating, but a trifle repulsive. And
she was not sure whether she hated the repulsive element, or whether
she rather gloried in it. She kept her look of arch, half-derisive
recklessness, which was so unbearably painful to Miss Frost, and so
exciting to the dark little man. It was a strange look in a refined,
really virgin girl--oddly sinister. And her voice had a curious
bronze-like resonance that acted straight on the nerves of her
hearers: unpleasantly on most English nerves, but like fire on the
different susceptibilities of the young man--the darkie, as people
called him.
But after all, he had only six weeks in England, before sailing to
Sydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry before he
sailed. Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people
first, she said.
So the time passed, and he sailed. Alvina missed him, missed the
extreme excitement of him rather than the human being he was. Miss
Frost set to work to regain her influence over her ward, to remove
that arch, reckless, almost lewd look from the girl's face. It was a
question of heart against sensuality. Miss Frost tried and tried to
wake again the girl's loving heart--which loving heart was certainly
not occupied by _that man_. It was a hard task, an anxious, bitter
task Miss Frost had set herself.
But at last she succeeded. Alvina seemed to thaw. The hard shining
of her eyes softened again to a sort of demureness and tenderness.
The influence of the man was revoked, the girl was left uninhabited,
empty and uneasy.
She was due to follow her Alexander in three months' time, to
Sydney. Came letters from him, en route--and then a cablegram from
Australia. He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing her
trousseau, to follow. But owing to her change of heart, she lingered
indecisive.
"_Do_ you love him, dear?" said Miss Frost with emphasis, knitting
her thick, passionate, earnest eyebrows. "Do you love him
sufficiently? _That's_ the point."
The way Miss Frost put the question implied that Alvina did not and
could not love him--because Miss Frost could not. Alvina lifted her
large, blue eyes, confused, half-tender towards her governess, half
shining with unconscious derision.
"I don't really know," she said, laughing hurriedly. "I don't
really."
Miss Frost scrutinized her, and replied with a meaningful:
"Well--!"
To Miss Frost it was clear as daylight. To Alvina not so. In her
periods of lucidity, when she saw as clear as daylight also, she
certainly did not love the little man. She felt him a terrible
outsider, an inferior, to tell the truth. She wondered how he could
have the slightest attraction for her. In fact she could not
understand it at all. She was as free of him as if he had never
existed. The square green emerald on her finger was almost
non-sensical. She was quite, quite sure of herself.
And then, most irritating, a complete _volte face_ in her feelings.
The clear-as-daylight mood disappeared as daylight is bound to
disappear. She found herself in a night where the little man loomed
large, terribly large, potent and magical, while Miss Frost had
dwindled to nothingness. At such times she wished with all her force
that she could travel like a cablegram to Australia. She felt it was
the only way. She felt the dark, passionate receptivity of Alexander
overwhelmed her, enveloped her even from the Antipodes. She felt
herself going distracted--she felt she was going out of her mind.
For she 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
in going so far--a great risk. You would be entirely unprotected."
"I don't mind being unprotected," said Alvina perversely.
"Because you don't understand what it means," said her father.
He looked at her quickly. Perhaps he understood her better than the
others.
"Personally," said Miss Pinnegar, speaking of Alexander, "I don't
care for him. But every one has their own taste."
Alvina felt she was being overborne, and that she was letting
herself be overborne. She was half relieved. She seemed to nestle
into the well-known surety of Woodhouse. The other unknown had
frightened her.
Miss Frost now took a definite line.
"I feel you don't love him, dear. I'm almost sure you don't. So now
you have to choose. Your mother dreads your going--she dreads it. I
am certain you would never see her again. She says she can't bear
it--she can't bear the thought of you out there with Alexander. It
makes her shudder. 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 to
believe that she did not love him. She was quite sure she did not
love him. But out of a certain perversity, she wanted to go.
Came his letter from Sydney, and one from his parents to her and one
to her parents. All seemed straightforward--not _very_ cordial, but
sufficiently. Over Alexander's letter Miss Frost shed bitter tears.
To her it seemed so shallow and heartless, with terms of endearment
stuck in like exclamation marks. He semed to have no thought, no
feeling for the girl herself. All he wanted was to hurry her out
there. He did not even mention the grief of her parting from her
English parents and friends: 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 in Sydney--Your ever-loving Alexander." A selfish,
sensual creature, who would forget the dear little Vina in three
months, if she did not turn up, and who would neglect her in six
months, if she did. Probably Miss Frost was right.
Alvina knew the tears she was costing all round. She went upstairs
and looked at his photograph--his dark and impertinent muzzle. Who
was _he_, after all? She did not know him. With cold eyes she looked
at him, and found him repugnant.
She went across to her governess's room, and found Miss Frost in a
strange mood of trepidation.
"Don't trust me, dear, don't trust what I say," poor Miss Frost
ejaculated hurriedly, even wildly. "Don't notice what I have said.
Act for yourself, dear. Act for yourself entirely. I am sure I am
wrong in trying to influence you. I know I am wrong. It is wrong and
foolish of me. Act just for yourself, dear--the rest doesn't matter.
The rest doesn't matter. Don't take _any_ notice of what I have
said. I know I am wrong."
For the first time in her life Alvina saw her beloved governess
flustered, the beautiful white hair looking a little draggled, the
grey, near-sighted eyes, so deep and kind behind the gold-rimmed
glasses, now distracted and scared. Alvina immediately burst into
tears and flung herself into the arms of Miss Frost. Miss Frost also
cried as if her heart would break, catching her indrawn breath with
a strange sound of anguish, forlornness, the terrible crying of a
woman with a loving heart, whose heart has never been able to relax.
Alvina was hushed. In a second, she became the elder of the two. The
terrible poignancy of the woman of fifty-two, who now at last had
broken down, silenced the girl of twenty-three, and roused all her
passionate tenderness. The terrible sound of "Never now, never
now--it is too late," which seemed to ring in the curious, indrawn
cries of the elder woman, filled the girl with a deep wisdom. She
knew the same would ring in her mother's dying cry. Married or
unmarried, it was the same--the same anguish, realized in all its
pain after the age of fifty--the loss in never having been able to
relax, to submit.
Alvina felt very strong and rich in the fact of her youth. For her
it 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 know
I don't care for him. He is nothing to me."
Miss Frost became gradually silent, and turned aside her face. After
this there was a hush in the house. Alvina announced her intention
of breaking off her engagement. Her mother kissed her, and cried,
and said, with the selfishness of an invalid:
"I couldn't have parted with you, I couldn't." Whilst the father
said:
"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
had escaped some very trying ordeal. For some days she went about
happily, in pure relief. She loved everybody. She was charming and
sunny and gentle with everybody, particularly with Miss Frost, whom
she loved with a deep, tender, rather sore love. Poor Miss Frost
seemed to have lost a part of her confidence, to have taken on a new
wistfulness, a new silence and remoteness. It was as if she found
her busy contact with life a strain now. Perhaps she was getting
old. Perhaps her proud heart had given way.
Alvina had kept a little photograph of the man. She would often go
and look at it. Love?--no, it was not love! It was something more
primitive still. It was curiosity, deep, radical, burning curiosity.
How she looked and looked at his dark, impertinent-seeming face. A
flicker of derision came into her eyes. Yet still she looked.
In the same manner she would look into the faces of the young men of
Woodhouse. But she never found there what she found in her
photograph. They all seemed like blank sheets of paper in
comparison. There was a curious pale surface-look in the faces of
the young men of Woodhouse: or, if there was some underneath
suggestive power, it was a little abject or humiliating, inferior,
common. They were all either blank or common.
CHAPTER III
THE MATERNITY NURSE
Of course Alvina made everybody pay for her mood of submission and
sweetness. In a month's time she was quite intolerable.
"I can't stay here all my life," she declared, stretching her eyes
in a way that irritated the other inmates of Manchester House
extremely. "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'm
buried alive--simply buried alive. And it's more than I can stand.
It is, really."
There was an odd clang, like a taunt, in her voice. She was trying
them all.
"But what do you want, dear?" asked Miss Frost, knitting her dark
brows in agitation.
"I want to go away," said Alvina bluntly.
Miss Frost gave a slight gesture with her right hand, of helpless
impatience. It was so characteristic, that Alvina almost laughed.
"But where do you want to go?" asked Miss Frost.
"I don't know. I don't care," said Alvina. "Anywhere, if I can get
out 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 a
rude laugh. "Australia isn't the only other place besides
Woodhouse."
Miss Pinnegar was naturally offended. But the curious insolence
which sometimes came out in the girl was inherited direct from her
father.
"You see, dear," said Miss Frost, agitated: "if you knew what you
wanted, 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-aged
disapproving woman, and looked at her charge. She believed that
Alvina was just speaking at random. Yet she dared not check her, in
her present mood.
Alvina was indeed speaking at random. She had never thought of being
a nurse--the idea had never entered her head. If it had she would
certainly never have entertained it. But she had heard Alexander
speak of Nurse This and Sister That. And so she had rapped out her
declaration. And having rapped it out, she prepared herself to stick
to it. Nothing like leaping before you look.
"A nurse!" repeated Miss Frost. "But do you feel yourself fitted to
be a nurse? Do you think you could bear it?"
"Yes, I'm sure I could," retorted Alvina. "I want to be a maternity
nurse--" She looked strangely, even outrageously, at her governess.
"I want to be a maternity nurse. Then I shouldn't have to attend
operations." And she laughed quickly.
Miss Frost's right hand beat like a wounded bird. It was reminiscent
of the way she beat time, insistently, when she was giving music
lessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beat
without time or reason. Alvina smiled brightly and cruelly.
"Whatever put such an idea into your head, Vina?" asked poor Miss
Frost.
"I don't know," said Alvina, still more archly and brightly.
"Of course 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 went away.
Alvina floated off to her room, and sat by the window looking down
on the street. The bright, arch look was still on her face. But her
heart was sore. She wanted to cry, and fling herself on the breast
of her darling. But she couldn't. No, for her life she couldn't.
Some little 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
break down, to burst into tears and tenderness and reconciliation.
But no--she did not break down. She persisted. They all waited for
the old loving Vina to be herself again. But the new and
recalcitrant Vina still shone hard. She found a copy of _The
Lancet_, and saw an advertisement of a home in Islington where
maternity nurses would be fully trained and equipped in six months'
time. The fee was sixty guineas. Alvina declared her intention of
departing to this training home. She had two hundred pounds of her
own, bequeathed by her grandfather.
In Manchester House they were all horrified--not moved with grief,
this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate
step to take. Which it was. And which, in her curious perverseness,
Alvina must have intended it to be. Mrs. Houghton assumed a remote
air of silence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She
lapsed far 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 with Miss Pinnegar, this speech seemed to contain a veiled
threat.
"A maternity nurse!" said James Houghton. "A maternity nurse! What
exactly do you mean by a maternity nurse?"
"A trained mid-wife," said Miss Pinnegar curtly. "That's it, isn't
it? 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 to
his forehead, and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair
uncover his baldness. "I can't understand that any young girl of
any--any upbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose
such a--such an--occupation. I can't understand it."
"Can't you?" said Alvina brightly.
"Oh well, if she _does_--" said Miss Pinnegar cryptically.
Miss Frost said very little. But she had serious confidential talks
with Dr. Fordham. Dr. Fordham didn't approve, certainly he
didn't--but neither did he see any great harm in it. At that time it
was rather the thing for young ladies to enter the nursing
profession, if their hopes had been blighted or checked in another
direction! And so, enquiries were made. Enquiries were made.
The upshot was, that Alvina was to go to Islington for her six
months' training. There was a great bustle, preparing her nursing
outfit. Instead of a trousseau, nurse's uniforms in fine
blue-and-white stripe, 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, a blue silk fall.
Well and good! Alvina expected to become frightened, as the time
drew near. But no, she wasn't a bit frightened. Miss Frost watched
her narrowly. 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 in her voice, taunting. She kissed them all good-bye,
brightly and sprightlily, and off she set. She wasn't nervous.
She came to St. Pancras, she got her cab, she drove off to her
destination--and as she drove, she looked out of the window. Horrid,
vast, stony, dilapidated, crumbly-stuccoed streets and squares of
Islington, grey, grey, greyer by far than Woodhouse, and
interminable. How exceedingly sordid and disgusting! But instead of
being repelled and heartbroken, Alvina enjoyed it. She felt her
trunk rumble on the top of the cab, and still she looked out on the
ghastly dilapidated flat facades of Islington, and still she smiled
brightly, as if there were 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--and yew-hedges and cottage windows, she
would have broken down. As it was, she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed
glimpsing in through uncurtained windows, into sordid rooms where
human beings moved as if sordidly unaware. She enjoyed the smell of
a toasted bloater, rather burnt. So common! so indescribably common!
And she detested bloaters, because of the 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 a perverse pleasure.
The cab stopped at a yellow house at the corner of a square where
some shabby bare trees were flecked with bits of blown paper, bits
of paper and refuse cluttered inside the round railings of each
tree. She went 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 dull drab, and floored with cocoa-matting,
otherwise bare. Then up bare stairs to a room where a stout, pale,
common woman with two warts on her face, was drinking tea. It was
three o'clock. This was the matron. The matron soon deposited her in
a bedroom, not very small, but bare and hard and dusty-seeming, and
there left her. Alvina sat down on her chair, looked at her box
opposite her, looked round the uninviting room, and smiled to
herself. Then she rose and went to the window: a very dirty window,
looking down into a sort of well of an area, with other wells
ranging along, and straight opposite like a reflection another solid
range of back-premises, with iron stair-ways and horrid little doors
and washing and little W. C.'s and people creeping up and down like
vermin. Alvina shivered a little, but still smiled. Then slowly she
began to take off her hat. She put it down on the drab-painted chest
of drawers.
Presently the servant came in with a tray, set it down, lit a naked
gas-jet, which roared faintly, and drew down a crackly dark-green
blind, which showed a tendency to fly back again alertly to the
ceiling.
"Thank you," said Alvina, and the girl departed.
Then Miss Houghton drank her black tea and ate her bread and
margarine.
Surely enough books have been written about heroines in similar
circumstances. There is no need to go into the details of Alvina's
six months in Islington.
The food was objectionable--yet Alvina got fat on it. The air was
filthy--and yet never had her colour been so warm and fresh, her
skin so soft. Her companions were almost without exception vulgar
and coarse--yet never had she got on so well with women of her own
age--or older than herself. She was ready with a laugh and a word,
and though she was unable to venture on indecencies herself, yet she
had an amazing faculty for _looking_ knowing and indecent beyond
words, rolling her eyes and pitching her eyebrows in a certain
way--oh, it was quite sufficient for her companions! And yet, if
they had ever actually demanded a dirty story or a really open
indecency from her, she would have been floored.
But she enjoyed it. Amazing how she enjoyed it. She did not care
_how_ revolting and indecent these nurses were--she put on a look as
if she were in with it all, and it all passed off as easy as
winking. She swung her haunches and arched her eyes with the best
of them. And they behaved as if she were exactly one of themselves.
And yet, with the curious cold tact of women, they left her alone,
one and all, in private: just ignored her.
It is truly incredible how Alvina became blooming and bouncing at
this time. Nothing shocked her, nothing upset her. She was always
ready with her hard, nurse's laugh and her nurse's quips. No one was
better than she at _double-entendres._ No one could better give the
nurse's leer. She had it all in a fortnight. And never once did she
feel anything but exhilarated and in full swing. It seemed to her
she had not a moment's time to brood or reflect about things--she
was too much in the swing. Every moment, in the swing, living, or
active in full swing. When she got into bed she went to sleep. When
she awoke, it was morning, and she got up. As soon as she was up and
dressed she had somebody to answer, something to say, something to
do. Time passed like an express train--and she seemed to have known
no other life than this.
Not far away was a lying-in hospital. A dreadful place it was. There
she had to go, right off, and help with cases. There she had to
attend lectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and
students. Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When
she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their
sort: just their very 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 profoundly
and awfully shocked. Her whole state was perhaps largely the result
of shock: a sort of play-acting based on hysteria. But the dreadful
things she saw in the lying-in hospital, and afterwards, went deep,
and finished her youth and her tutelage for ever. How many infernos
deeper than Miss Frost could ever know, did she not travel? the
inferno of the human animal, the human organism in its convulsions,
the human social beast in its abjection and its degradation.
For in her latter half she had to visit the slum cases. And such
cases! A woman lying on a bare, filthy floor, a few old coats thrown
over her, and vermin crawling everywhere, in spite of sanitary
inspectors. But what did the woman, the sufferer, herself care! She
ground her teeth and screamed and yelled with pains. In her calm
periods she lay stupid and indifferent--or she cursed a little. But
abject, stupid indifference was the bottom of it all: abject, brutal
indifference to everything--yes, everything. Just a piece of female
functioning, no more.
Alvina was supposed to receive a certain fee for these cases she
attended in their homes. A small proportion of her fee she kept for
herself, the rest she handed over to the Home. That was the
agreement. She received her grudged fee callously, threatened and
exacted it when it 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 you were one of themselves. It was one of the
hardest lessons Alvina had to learn--to bully these people, in their
own hovels, into some sort of obedience 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 as hard 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, and you had to take them
at their own worth in their own way. What else! If one should be
gentle, one was gentle. The difficulty did not lie there. The
difficulty lay in being sufficiently rough and hard: that was the
trouble. It cost a great struggle to be hard and callous enough.
Glad she would have been to be allowed to treat them quietly and
gently, with consideration. But pah--it was not their line. They
wanted to be callous, and if you were not callous to match, they
made a fool of you and prevented your doing your work.
Was Alvina her own real self all this time? The mighty question
arises upon us, what is one's own real self? It certainly is not
what we think we are and ought to be. Alvina had been bred to think
of herself as a delicate, tender, chaste creature with unselfish
inclinations and a pure, "high" mind. Well, so she was, in the
more-or-less exhausted part of herself. But high-mindedness had
really come to an end with James Houghton, had really reached the
point, not only of pathetic, but of dry and anti-human, repulsive
quixotry. In Alvina high-mindedness was already stretched beyond the
breaking point. Being a woman of some flexibility of temper,
wrought through generations to a fine, pliant hardness, she flew
back. She went right back on high-mindedness. Did she thereby betray
it?
We think not. If we turn over the head of the penny and look at the
tail, we don't thereby deny or betray the head. We do but adjust it
to its own complement. And so with high-mindedness. It is but one
side of the medal--the crowned reverse. On the obverse the three
legs still go kicking the soft-footed spin of the universe, the
dolphin flirts and the crab leers.
So Alvina spun her medal, and her medal came down tails. Heads or
tails? 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. She _was_
her own fate. She went through her training experiences like another
being. She was not herself, said Everybody. When she came home to
Woodhouse at Easter, in her bonnet and cloak, everybody was simply
knocked out. Imagine that this frail, pallid, diffident girl, so
ladylike, was now a rather fat, warm-coloured young woman, strapping
and strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagine her mother's
startled, almost expiring:
"Why, Vina dear!"
Vina laughed. She knew how they were all feeling.
"At least it agrees with your _health_," 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, at
breakfast, as Alvina ate rather rapidly and rather well, the
white-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 look
with 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 Doctor
Headley and Doctor James. She spoke of theatres and music-halls with
these young men, and the jolly good time she had with them. And her
blue-grey eyes seemed to have become harder and greyer, lighter
somehow. In her wistfulness and her tender pathos, Alvina's eyes
would deepen their blue, so beautiful. And now, in her floridity,
they were bright and arch and light-grey. The deep, tender, flowery
blue was gone for ever. They were luminous and crystalline, like the
eyes of a changeling.
Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from question. She wanted, she
_needed_ to ask of her charge: "Alvina, have you betrayed yourself
with any of these young men?" But coldly her heart abstained from
asking--or even from seriously thinking. She left the matter
untouched for the moment. She was already too much shocked.
Certainly Alvina represented the young doctors as very nice, but
rather fast young fellows. "My word, you have to have your wits
about you with them!" Imagine such a speech from a girl tenderly
nurtured: a speech uttered in her own home, and accompanied by a
florid laugh, which would lead a chaste, generous woman like Miss
Frost to imagine--well, she merely abstained from imagining
anything. She had that strength of mind. She never for one moment
attempted to answer the question to herself, as to whether Alvina
had betrayed herself with any of these young doctors, or not. The
question remained stated, but completely unanswered--coldly awaiting
its answer. Only when Miss Frost kissed Alvina good-bye at the
station, tears came to her eyes, and she said hurriedly, in a low
voice:
"Remember we are all praying for you, dear!"
"No, don't do that!" cried Alvina involuntarily, without knowing
what she said.
And then the train moved out, and she saw her darling standing there
on the station, the pale, well-modelled face looking out from behind
the gold-rimmed spectacles, wistfully, the strong, rather stout
figure standing very still and unchangeable, under its coat and
skirt of dark purple, the white hair glistening under the folded
dark hat. Alvina threw herself down on the seat of her carriage. She
loved her darling. She would love her through eternity. She knew she
was right--amply and beautifully right, her darling, her beloved
Miss Frost. Eternally and gloriously right.
And yet--and yet--it was a right which was fulfilled. There were
other rights. There was another side to the medal. Purity and
high-mindedness--the beautiful, but unbearable tyranny. The
beautiful, unbearable tyranny of Miss Frost! It was time now for
Miss Frost to die. It was time for that perfected flower to be
gathered to immortality. A lovely _immortel_. But an obstruction to
other, purple and carmine blossoms which were in bud on the stem. A
lovely edelweiss--but time it was gathered into eternity.
Black-purple and red anemones were due, real Adonis blood, and
strange individual orchids, spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss
Frost to die. She, Alvina, who loved her as no one else would ever
love her, with that love which goes to the core of the universe,
knew that it was time for her darling to be folded, oh, so gently
and softly, into immortality. Mortality was busy with the day after
her day. It was time for Miss Frost to die. As Alvina 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 her
confinement cases. The doctors she knew hailed her. On the whole,
these young men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a
whole. Why drag in respect? Human functions were too obviously
established to make any great fuss about. And so the doctors put
their arms round Alvina's waist, because she was plump, and they
kissed her face, because the skin was soft. And she laughed and
squirmed a little, so that they felt all the more her warmth and
softness under their arm's pressure.
"It's no use, you know," she said, laughing rather breathless, but
looking into their eyes with a curious definite look of unchangeable
resistance. 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, with
the 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 the
least. She almost encouraged them. She laughed and arched her eyes
and flirted. But her backbone became only the stronger and firmer.
Soft and supple as she was, her backbone never yielded for an
instant. It could not. She had to confess that she liked the young
doctors. They were alert, their faces were clean and bright-looking.
She liked the sort of intimacy with them, when they kissed her and
wrestled with her in the empty laboratories or corridors--often in
the intervals of most critical and appalling cases. She liked their
arm round her waist, the kisses as she reached back her face,
straining away, the sometimes desperate struggles. They took
unpardonable liberties. They pinched her haunches and attacked her
in unheard-of ways. Sometimes her blood really came up in the fight,
and she felt as if, with her hands, she could tear any man, any male
creature, limb from limb. A super-human, voltaic force filled her.
For a moment she surged in massive, inhuman, female strength. The
men always wilted. And invariably, when they wilted, she touched
them with a sudden gentle touch, pitying. So that she always
remained friends with them. When her curious Amazonic power left her
again, and she was just a mere woman, she made shy eyes at them once
more, and treated them with the inevitable female-to-male homage.
The men liked her. They cocked their eyes at her, when she was not
looking, and wondered at her. They wondered over her. They had been
beaten by her, every one of them. But they did not openly know it.
They looked at her, as if she were Woman itself, some creature not
quite personal. What they noticed, all of them, was the way her
brown hair looped over her ears. There was something chaste, and
noble, and war-like about it. The remote quality which hung about
her in the midst of her intimacies and her frequencies, nothing high
or lofty, but something 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. She
would not intrigue into marriage, or try and make use of them in any
way. She didn't care about them. And so, because of her isolate
self-sufficiency in the fray, her wild, overweening backbone, they
were ready to attend on her and serve her. Headley in particular
hoped he might overcome her. He was a well-built fellow with sandy
hair and a pugnacious face. The battle-spirit was really roused in
him, and he heartily liked the woman. If he could have overcome her
he would have been mad to marry her.
With him, she summoned up all her mettle. She had never to be off
her guard for a single minute. The treacherous suddenness of his
attack--for he was treachery itself--had to be met by the voltaic
suddenness of her resistance and counter-attack. It was nothing less
than magical the way the soft, slumbering body of the woman could
leap in one jet into terrible, overwhelming voltaic force, something
strange and massive, at the first treacherous touch of the man's
determined hand. His strength was so different from hers--quick,
muscular, lambent. But hers was deep and heaving, like the strange
heaving of an earthquake, or the heave of a bull as it rises from
earth. And by sheer non-human power, electric and paralysing, she
could overcome the brawny red-headed fellow.
He was nearly a match for her. But she did not like him. The two
were enemies--and good acquaintances. They were more or less
matched. But as he found himself continually foiled, he became
sulky, like a bear 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 to
catch her out with his quickness. She liked his fine, slim limbs,
and his exaggerated generosity. He would ask her out to ridiculously
expensive suppers, and send her sweets and flowers, fabulously
recherché. He was always immaculately well-dressed.
"Of course, as a lady _and_ a nurse," he said to her, "you are two
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 of
middle height, with those blue eyes of a little boy which are so
knowing: particularly of a woman's secrets. It is a strange thing
that these childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of
the other sex. Young was certainly innocent as far as acts went. Yet
his hair was going thin at the crown already.
He also played with her--being a doctor, and she a nurse who
encouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her: and did _not_
rouse her to contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness
of a little boy'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 cajole him like a cherub, into a fall. And
though she would have like to do so, yet that inflexible stiffness
of her backbone prevented her. She could 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 it
worth 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
as to sin in act. If the thought was the same as the act, how much
more was her behaviour equivalent to a whole committal? She wished
she were wholly committed. She wished she had gone the whole length.
But sophistry and wishing did her no good. There she was, still
isolate. And still there was that in her which would preserve her
intact, sophistry and deliberate intention notwithstanding. Her time
was up. She was returning to Woodhouse virgin as she had left it. In
a measure she felt herself beaten. Why? Who knows. But so it was,
she felt herself beaten, condemned to go back to what she was
before. Fate had been too strong for her and her desires: fate which
was not an external association of forces, but which was integral in
her own nature. Her own inscrutable nature was her fate: sore
against her will.
It was August when she came home, in her nurse's uniform. She was
beaten by fate, as far as chastity and virginity went. But she came
home with high material hopes. Here was James Houghton's own
daughter. She had an affluent future ahead of her. A fully-qualified
maternity nurse, she was going to bring all the babies of the
district easily and triumphantly into the world. She was going to
charge the regulation fee of two guineas a case: and even on a
modest estimate of ten babies a month, she would have twenty
guineas. For well-to-do mothers she would charge from three to five
guineas. At this calculation she would make an easy three hundred a
year, without slaving either. She would be independent, she could
laugh every one in the face.
She bounced back into Woodhouse to make her fortune.
CHAPTER IV
TWO WOMEN DIE
It goes without saying that Alvina Houghton did not make her fortune
as a maternity nurse. Being her father's daughter, we might almost
expect 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 a
two-guinea nurse, for a confinement? And who who was going to engage
Alvina Houghton, even if they were ready to stretch their
purse-strings? After all, they all knew her as _Miss_ Houghton, with
a stress on the _Miss_, and they could not conceive of her as Nurse
Houghton. Besides, there seemed something positively indecent in
technically engaging one who was so much part of themselves. They
all preferred either a simple mid-wife, or a nurse procured out of
the unknown by the doctor.
If Alvina wanted to make her fortune--or even her living--she should
have 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 a maternity nurse in order to practise in Woodhouse, just as
James Houghton had purchased his elegancies to sell in Woodhouse.
And father and daughter alike calmly expected Woodhouse demand to
rise to their supply. 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,
her colour, and her flesh. Gradually she shrank back to the old,
slim, reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face.
And now it seemed her face was a little too long, a little gaunt.
And in her civilian clothes she seemed a little dowdy, shabby. And
altogether, she looked older: she looked more than her age, which
was only twenty-four years. Here was the old Alvina come back, rather
battered and deteriorated, apparently. There was even a tiny touch of
the trollops in her dowdiness--so the shrewd-eyed collier-wives
decided. But she was a lady still, and unbeaten. Undeniably she was a
lady. And that was rather irritating to the well-to-do and florid
daughter of W.H. Johnson, next door but one. Undeniably a lady, and
undeniably unmastered. This last was irritating to the good-natured
but easy-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
and expect to be patted. And Alvina did not pat them. To be sure, a
pat from such a shabbily-black-kid-gloved hand would not have been so
flattering--she need not imagine it! The way she hung back and looked
at them, the young men, as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and
yet with the well-bred indifference of a lady--well, it was almost
offensive.
As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for the time being from her
interest in young men. Manchester House had settled down on her like
a doom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to worm
one's encumbered way in the gloom--unless one liked to go miles
round a back street, to the yard entry. There was James Houghton,
faintly powdered with 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 at all the first time he came in, after her
return. And when she reminded him of her presence, with her--"Hello,
father!"--he merely glancied hurriedly at her, as if vexed with her
interruption, and said:
"Well, Alvina, you're back. You're back to find us busy." And he
went off into his ecstasy again.
Mrs. Houghton was now very weak, and so nervous in her weakness that
she could not bear the slightest sound. Her greatest horror was lest
her husband should come into the room. On his entry she became blue
at the lips immediately, so he had to hurry out again. At last he
stayed away, only hurriedly asking, each time he came into the
house, "How is Mrs. Houghton? Ha!" Then off into uninterrupted
Throttle-Ha'penny ecstasy once more.
When Alvina went up to her mother's room, on her return, all the
poor 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 Alvina
like a blow.
"Why not, mother?" she asked.
But for her mother she had to remove her nurse's uniform. And at the
same time, she had to constitute herself nurse. Miss Frost, and a
woman who came in, and the servant had been nursing the invalid
between them. Miss Frost was worn and rather heavy: her old buoyancy
and brightness was gone. She had become irritable also. She was very
glad that Alvina had 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 and
technical with her mother. The two loved one another, with a curious
impersonal love which had not a single word to exchange: an almost
after-death love. In these days Mrs. Houghton never talked--unless
to fret a little. So Alvina sat for many hours in the lofty, sombre
bedroom, looking out silently on the street, or hurriedly rising to
attend the sick woman. For continually came the fretful murmur:
"Vina!"
To sit still--who knows the long discipline of it, nowadays, as our
mothers and grandmothers knew. To sit still, for days, months, and
years--perforce to sit still, with some dignity of tranquil bearing.
Alvina was old-fashioned. She had the old, womanly faculty for
sitting quiet and collected--not indeed for a life-time, but for
long spells together. And so it was during these months nursing her
mother. She attended constantly on the invalid: she did a good deal
of work about the house: she took her walks and occupied her place
in the choir on Sunday mornings. And yet, from August to January,
she seemed to be seated in her chair in the bedroom, sometimes
reading, but mostly quite still, her hands quietly in her lap, her
mind subdued by musing. She did not even think, not even remember.
Even such activity would have made her presence too disturbing in
the room. She sat quite still, with all her activities in
abeyance--except that strange will-to-passivity which was by no
means a relaxation, but a severe, deep, soul-discipline.
For the moment there was a sense of prosperity--or probable
prosperity, in the house. And there was an abundance of
Throttle-Ha'penny coal. It was dirty ashy stuff. The lower bars of
the grate were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which
it was fatal to try to poke away. For if you poked and poked, you
raised white cumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a
few darkening and sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous
application, you could keep the room moderately warm, without
feeling you were consuming the house's meat and drink in the grate.
Which was one blessing.
The days, the months darkened past, and Alvina returned to her old
thinness and pallor. Her fore-arms were thin, they rested very still
in her lap, there was a ladylike stillness about them as she took
her walk, in her lingering, yet watchful fashion. She saw
everything. Yet she passed without attracting any attention.
Early in the year her mother died. Her father came and wept
self-conscious tears, Miss Frost cried a little, painfully. And
Alvina cried 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. After all, it was not for her to reconstruct her parents'
lives. She came after them. Her day was not their day, their life
was not hers. Returning up-channel to re-discover their course was
quite another matter from flowing down-stream into the unknown, as
they had done thirty years before. This supercilious and impertinent
exploration of the generation gone by, by the present generation, is
nothing to our credit. As a matter of fact, no generation repeats
the mistakes of the generation ahead, any more than any river
repeats its course. So the young need not be so proud of their
superiority over the old. The young generation glibly makes its own
mistakes: and _how_ detestable these new mistakes are, why, only the
future will be able to tell us. But be sure they are quite as
detestable, quite as full of lies and hypocrisy, as any of the
mistakes of our parents. There is no such thing as _absolute_
wisdom.
Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for ever
an 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 be
otherwise. That is organically inevitable. The business of the
daughter is with her own fate, not with her mother's.
Miss Frost however meditated bitterly on the fate of the poor dead
woman. Bitterly she brooded on the lot of woman. Here was Clariss
Houghton, married, and a mother--and dead. What a life! Who was
responsible? James Houghton. What ought James Houghton to have done
differently? Everything. In short, he should have been somebody
else, and not himself. Which is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of
idealism. The universe should be something else, and not what it is:
so the nonsense of idealistic conclusion. The cat should not catch
the mouse, the mouse should not nibble holes in the table-cloth, and
so on and so on, in the House that Jack Built.
But Miss Frost sat by the dead in grief and despair. This was the
end 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 and
end of a man's life, to make some woman, or parcel of women, happy?
Why? Why should anybody expect to be _made happy_, and develop
heart-disease if she isn't? Surely Clariss' heart-disease was a more
emphatic sign of obstinate self-importance than ever James'
shop-windows were. She expected to be _made happy_. Every woman in
Europe and America expects it. On her own head then if she is made
unhappy: for her expectation is arrogant and impertinent. The be-all
and end-all of life doesn't lie in feminine happiness--or in any
happiness. Happiness is a sort of soap-tablet--he won't be happy
till he gets it, and when he's got it, the precious baby, it'll cost
him his eyes and his stomach. Could anything be more puerile than a
mankind howling because it isn't happy: like a baby in the bath!
Poor Clariss, however, was dead--and if she had developed
heart-disease because she wasn't happy, well, she had died of her
own heart-disease, poor thing. Wherein lies every moral that mankind
can wish to draw.
Miss Frost wept in anguish, and saw nothing but another woman
betrayed to sorrow and a slow death. Sorrow and a slow death,
because a man had married her. Miss Frost wept also for herself, for
her own sorrow and slow death. Sorrow and slow death, because a man
had _not_ married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with these
exigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? Our mothers pined because
our fathers drank and were rakes. Our wives pine because we are
virtuous but inadequate. Who is this sphinx, this woman? Where is
the Oedipus that will solve her riddle of happiness, and then
strangle her?--only to marry his own mother!
In the months that followed her mother's death, Alvina went on the
same, in abeyance. She took over the housekeeping, and received one
or two overflow pupils from Miss Frost, young girls to whom she gave
lessons in the dark drawing-room of Manchester House. She was
busy--chiefly with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to put in
order after her mother's death.
She sorted all her mother's clothes--expensive, old-fashioned
clothes, hardly worn. What was to be done with them? She gave them
away, without consulting anybody. She kept a few private things, she
inherited a few pieces of jewellery. Remarkable how little trace her
mother left--hardly a trace.
She decided to move into the big, monumental bedroom in front of the
house. She liked space, she liked the windows. She was strictly
mistress, too. So she took her place. Her mother's little
sitting-room was 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 up
house, in the beginning. And now he begrudged the household
expenses, begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have
liked to introduce margarine instead of butter. This last
degradation the women refused. 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 Miss
Frost, and Miss Frost called her "Dear!" with all the old protective
gentleness. But there was a difference. Underneath her appearance of
appeal, Alvina was almost coldly independent. She did what she
thought she would. The old manner of intimacy persisted between her
and her darling. And perhaps neither of them knew that the intimacy
itself had gone. But it had. There was no spontaneous interchange
between them. It was a kind of deadlock. Each knew the great love
she felt for the other. But now it was a love static, inoperative.
The warm flow did not run any more. Yet each would have died for the
other, would have done anything to spare the other hurt.
Miss Frost was becoming tired, dragged looking. She would sink into
a 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 her music, try to make everything smooth. And continually
the young woman exhorted the elder to work less, to give up her
pupils. But Miss Frost answered quickly, nervously:
"When I don't work I shan't live."
"But why--?" came the long query from Alvina. And in her
expostulation 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 sympathy
with Miss Pinnegar--it was so easy to get on with her, she left so
much unsaid. What was left unsaid mattered more to Alvina now than
anything that was expressed. She began to hate outspokenness and
direct speaking-forth of the whole mind. It nauseated her. She
wanted tacit admission of difference, not open, wholehearted
communication. And Miss Pinnegar made this admission all along. She
never made you feel for an instant that she was one with you. She
was never even near. She kept quietly on her own ground, and left
you on yours. And across the space came her quiet commonplaces--but
fraught with space.
With Miss Frost all was openness, explicit and downright. Not that
Miss Frost trespassed. She was far more well-bred than Miss
Pinnegar. But her very breeding had that Protestant, northern
quality which assumes that we have all the same high standards,
really, and all the same divine nature, intrinsically. It is a fine
assumption. But willy-nilly, it sickened Alvina at this time.
She preferred Miss Pinnegar, and admired Miss Pinnegar's humble
wisdom 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 all
sorts."
Such bits of homely wisdom were like relief from cramp and pain, to
Alvina. "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 Miss
Frost's. It took every sort to make all sorts. Why have standards
and a regulation pattern? Why have a human criterion? There's the
point! Why, in the name of all the free heavens, have human
criteria? Why? Simply for bullying and narrowness.
Alvina felt at her ease with Miss Pinnegar. The two women talked
away to one another, in their quiet moments: and slipped apart like
conspirators when Miss Frost came in: as if there was something to
be ashamed of. If there was, heaven knows what it might have been,
for their talk was ordinary enough. But Alvina liked to be with Miss
Pinnegar in the kitchen. Miss Pinnegar wasn't competent and
masterful like Miss Frost: she was ordinary and uninspired, with
quiet, unobserved movements. But she was deep, and there was some
secret satisfaction in her very quality of secrecy.
So the days and weeks and months slipped by, and Alvina was hidden
like a mole in the dark chambers of Manchester House, busy with
cooking and cleaning and arranging, getting the house in her own
order, and attending to her pupils. She took her walk in the
afternoon. Once and only once she went to Throttle-Ha'penny, and,
seized with sudden curiosity, insisted on being wound down in the
iron bucket to the little workings underneath. Everything was quite
tidy in the short gang-ways down below, timbered and in sound order.
The miners were competent enough. But water dripped dismally in
places, and there was a stale feeling in the air.
Her father accompanied her, pointed her to the seam of
yellow-flecked coal, the shale and the bind, the direction of the
trend. He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the whole
affair, and seemed like some not quite trustworthy conjuror who had
conjured it all up by sleight of hand. In the background the miners
stood grey and ghostly, in the candle-light, and seemed to listen
sardonically. One of them, facile in his subordinate way as James in
his authoritative, kept chiming in:
"Ay, that's the road it goes, Miss Huffen--yis, yo'll see th' roof
theer 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 you
plumb, as if th' roof had laid its egg on you. Ay, it runs a bit
thin down 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 easy
workin'--you don't have to knock your guts out. There's no need for
shots, Miss Huffen--we bring it down--you see here--" And he
stooped, pointing to a shallow, shelving excavation which he was
making under the coal. The working was low, you must stoop all the
time. The roof and the timbered sides of the way seemed to press on
you. It was as if she 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, and pointing with his knotted hand. The
thick-wicked tallow candles guttered and smelled. There was a
thickness in the air, a sense of dark, fluid presence in the thick
atmosphere, the dark, fluid, viscous voice of the collier making a
broad-vowelled, clapping sound in her ear. He seemed to linger near
her as if he knew--as if he knew--what? Something for ever
unknowable and inadmissible, something that belonged purely to the
underground: to the slaves who work underground: knowledge
humiliated, subjected, but ponderous and inevitable. And still his
voice went on clapping in her ear, and still his presence edged 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, her
mind dissolved, she felt she could cling like a bat in the long
swoon of the crannied, underworld darkness. Cling like a bat and
sway for ever swooning in the draughts of the darkness--
When she was up on the earth again she blinked and peered at the
world in amazement. What a pretty, luminous place it was, carved in
substantial luminosity. What a strange and lovely place, bubbling
iridescent-golden on the surface of the underworld. Iridescent
golden--could anything be more fascinating! Like lovely glancing
surface on fluid pitch. But a velvet surface. A velvet surface of
golden light, velvet-pile of gold and pale luminosity, and strange
beautiful elevations of houses and trees, and depressions of fields
and roads, all golden and floating like atmospheric majolica. Never
had the common ugliness of Woodhouse seemed so entrancing. She
thought she had never seen such beauty--a lovely luminous majolica,
living and palpitating, the glossy, svelte world-surface, the
exquisite face of all the darkness. It was like a vision. Perhaps
gnomes and subterranean workers, enslaved in the era of light, see
with such eyes. Perhaps that is why they are absolutely blind to
conventional ugliness. For truly nothing could be more hideous than
Woodhouse, as the miners had built it and disposed it. And yet, the
very cabbage-stumps and rotten fences of the gardens, the very
back-yards were instinct with magic, molten as they seemed with the
bubbling-up of the under-darkness, bubbling up of majolica weight
and luminosity, quite ignorant of the sky, heavy and satisfying.
Slaves of the underworld! She watched the swing of the grey colliers
along 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 to her to loom tall and grey, in their enslaved magic.
Slaves who would cause the superimposed day-order to fall. Not
because, individually, they wanted to. But because, collectively,
something bubbled up in them, the force of darkness which had no
master and no control. It would bubble and stir in them as
earthquakes stir the earth. It would be simply disastrous, because
it had no master. There was no dark master in the world. The puerile
world went on crying out for a new Jesus, another Saviour from the
sky, another heavenly superman. When what 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 pallid
from under their dirt. Their walk was heavy-footed and slurring,
their bearing stiff and grotesque. A stream they were--yet they
seemed to her to loom like strange, valid figures of fairy-lore,
unrealized and as yet unexperienced. The miners, the iron-workers,
those who fashion the stuff 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 in the midst. The curious, dark, inexplicable and yet
insatiable craving--as if for an earthquake. To feel the earth heave
and shudder and shatter the world from beneath. To go down in the
débâcle.
And so, in spite of everything, poverty, dowdiness, obscurity, and
nothingness, she was content to stay in abeyance at home for the
time. True, she was filled with the same old, slow, dreadful craving
of the Midlands: a craving insatiable and inexplicable. But the very
craving kept her still. For at this time she did not translate it
into a desire, or need, for love. At the back of her mind somewhere
was the fixed idea, the fixed intention of finding love, a man. But
as yet, at this period, the idea was in abeyance, it did not act.
The craving that possessed 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 and
noon, deepened and strengthened. A restlessness came over everybody.
There was another short strike among the miners. James Houghton,
like an excited beetle, scurried to and fro, feeling he was making
his fortune. Never had Woodhouse been so thronged on Fridays with
purchasers and money-spenders. The place seemed surcharged with
life.
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, who had
seemed almost to blossom again in the long hot days, regaining a
free cheerfulness that amounted almost to liveliness, and who even
caused a sort of scandal by her intimacy with a rather handsome but
common stranger, an insurance agent who had come into the place with
a good, unused tenor voice--now she wilted again. She had given the
rather florid young man tea in her room, and had laboured away at
his fine, metallic voice, correcting him and teaching him and
laughing with him and spending really a remarkable number of hours
alone with him in her room in Woodhouse--for she had given up
tramping the country, and had 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. They would prolong their tête-à-tête
and their singing on till ten o'clock at night, and Miss Frost would
return to Manchester House flushed and handsome and a little shy,
while the young man, who was common, took on a new boldness in the
streets. He had auburn hair, high colouring, and a rather
challenging bearing. He took on a new boldness, his own estimate of
himself rose considerably, with Miss Frost and his trained voice to
justify him. He was a little insolent and condescending to the
natives, who disliked him. For their lives they could not imagine
what Miss Frost could find in him. They began even 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 her flowers. The
scandal was as unjust as most scandals are. Yet truly, all that
summer and autumn Miss Frost had a new and slightly aggressive
cheerfulness and humour. And Manchester House saw little of her,
comparatively.
And then, at the end of September, the young man was removed by his
Insurance Company to another district. And at the end of October set
in the most abominable and unbearable weather, deluges of rain and
north winds, cutting the tender, summer-unfolded people to pieces.
Miss Frost wilted at once. A silence came over her. She shuddered
when she had to leave the fire. She went in the morning to her room,
and stayed there all the day, in a hot, close atmosphere, shuddering
when her pupils brought the outside weather with them to her.
She was always subject to bronchitis. In November she had a bad
bronchitis cold. Then suddenly one morning she could not get up.
Alvina went in and found her semi-conscious.
The girl was almost mad. She flew to the rescue. She despatched her
father instantly for the doctor, she heaped the sticks in the
bedroom grate and made a bright fire, she brough hot milk and
brandy.
"Thank you, dear, thank you. It's a bronchial cold," whispered Miss
Frost hurriedly, trying to sip the milk. She could not. She didn't
want it.
"I've sent for the doctor," said Alvina, in her cool voice, wherein
none 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 of
Alvina during the next two days. She was so swift and sensitive in
her nursing, she seemed to have second sight. She talked to nobody.
In her silence her soul was alone with the soul of her darling. The
long semi-consciousness and the tearing pain of pneumonia, the
anguished sickness.
But sometimes the grey eyes would open and smile with delicate
winsomeness at Alvina, and Alvina smiled back, with a cheery,
answering winsomeness. But that costs something.
On the evening of the second day, Miss Frost got her hand from under
the bedclothes, and laid it on Alvina's hand. Alvina leaned down to
her.
"Everything is for you, my love," whispered Miss Frost, looking with
strange eyes on Alvina's face.
"Don't talk, Miss Frost," moaned Alvina.
"Everything is for you," murmured the sick woman--"except--" and she
enumerated some tiny legacies which showed her generous, thoughtful
nature.
"Yes, I shall remember," said Alvina, beyond tears now.
Miss Frost smiled with her old bright, wonderful look, that had a
touch of queenliness in it.
"Kiss me, dear," she whispered.
Alvina kissed her, and could not suppress the whimpering of her
too-much grief.
The night passed slowly. Sometimes the grey eyes of the sick woman
rested dark, dilated, haggard on Alvina's face, with a heavy, almost
accusing look, sinister. Then they closed again. And sometimes they
looked pathetic, with a mute, stricken appeal. Then again they
closed--only to open again tense with pain. Alvina wiped her
blood-phlegmed lips.
In the morning she died--lay there haggard, death-smeared, with her
lovely white hair smeared also, and disorderly: she who had been so
beautiful and clean always.
Alvina knew death--which is untellable. She knew that her darling
carried 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 into
death--the agony of self-reproach, regret; the agony of remembrance;
the agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome, and sinisterly
accusing, and pathetically, despairingly appealing--probe after
probe of mortal agony, which throughout eternity would never lose
its power to pierce to the quick!
Alvina seemed to keep strangely calm and aloof all the days after
the death. Only when she was alone she suffered till she felt her
heart really broke.
"I shall never feel anything any more," she said in her abrupt way
to 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--But
time--time brings back--"
"Oh well--but I don't believe it," said Alvina.
People thought her rather hard. To one of her gossips Miss Pinnegar
confessed:
"I thought she'd have felt it more. She cared more for her than she
did for her own mother--and her mother knew it. Mrs. Houghton
complained bitterly, sometimes, that _she_ had _no_ love. They were
everything to one another, Miss Frost and Alvina. I should have
thought she'd have felt it more. But you never know. A good thing if
she doesn't, really."
Miss Pinnegar herself did not care one little bit that Miss Frost
was dead. She did not feel herself implicated.
The nearest relatives came down, and everything was settled. The
will was found, just a brief line on a piece of notepaper expressing
a wish that Alvina should have everything. Alvina herself told the
verbal requests. All was quietly fulfilled.
As it might well be. For there was nothing to leave. Just
sixty-three pounds in the bank--no more: then the clothes, piano,
books and music. Miss Frost's brother had these latter, at his own
request: the books and music, and the piano. Alvina inherited the
few simple trinkets, and about forty-five pounds in money.
"Poor Miss Frost," cried Mrs. Lawson, weeping rather bitterly--"she
saved nothing for herself. You can see why she never wanted to grow
old, so that she couldn't work. You can see. It's a shame, it's a
shame, one of the best women that ever trod earth."
Manchester House settled down to its deeper silence, its darker
gloom. Miss Frost was irreparably gone. With her, the reality went
out of the house. It seemed to be silently waiting to disappear. And
Alvina and Miss Pinnegar might move about and talk in vain. They
could never remove the sense of waiting to finish: it was all just
waiting to finish. And the three, James and Alvina and Miss
Pinnegar, waited lingering through the months, for the house to come
to an end. With Miss Frost its spirit passed away: it was no more.
Dark, empty-feeling, it seemed all the time like a house just before
a sale.
CHAPTER V
THE BEAU
Throttle-Ha'penny worked fitfully through the winter, and in the
spring broke down. By this time James Houghton had a pathetic,
childish look which touched the hearts of Alvina and Miss Pinnegar.
They began to treat him with a certain feminine indulgence, as he
fluttered round, agitated and bewildered. He was like a bird that
has flown into a room and is exhausted, enfeebled by its attempts to
fly through the false freedom of the window-glass. Sometimes he
would sit moping in a corner, with his head under his wing. But Miss
Pinnegar chased him forth, like the stealthy cat she was, chased him
up to the work-room to consider some detail of work, chased him into
the shop to turn over the old débris of the stock. At one time he
showed the alarming symptom of brooding over his wife's death. Miss
Pinnegar was thoroughly scared. But she was not inventive. It was
left to Alvina to suggest: "Why doesn't father let the shop, and
some of the house?"
Let the shop! Let the last inch of frontage on the street! James
thought of it. Let the shop! Permit the name of Houghton to
disappear from the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a
nameless nobody, occupying obscure premises?
He thought about it. And thinking about it, became so indignant at the
thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within his frail
frame. And then he came out with the most original of all his schemes.
Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house for the better
classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs of these
gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be
fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The
shop should be turned into an elegant hall-entrance, carpeted, with a
hall-porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the round
arch of which the words: "Manchester House" should appear large and
distinguished, making an arch also, whilst underneath, more refined and
smaller, should show the words: "Private Hotel." James was to be
proprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending to
correspondence: Miss Pinnegar was to be manageress, superintending the
servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the
equivocal position of "hostess." She was to shake hands with the
guests: she was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. For
in the prospectus James would include: "Trained nurse always on the
premises."
"Why!" cried Miss Pinnegar, for once brutally and angrily hostile to
him: "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 up
ideas and expenses. There would be the handsome entrance and hall:
there would be an extension of the kitchen and scullery: there would
be an installing of new hot-water and sanitary arrangements: there
would be a light lift-arrangment from the kitchen: there would be a
handsome glazed balcony or loggia or terrace on the first floor at
the back, over the whole length of the back-yard. This loggia would
give a wonderful outlook to the south-west and the west. In the
immediate foreground, to be sure, would be the yard of the
livery-stables and the rather slummy dwellings of the colliers,
sloping downhill. But these could be easily overlooked, for the eye
would instinctively wander across the green and shallow valley, to
the long upslope opposite, showing the Manor set in its clump of
trees, and farms and haystacks pleasantly dotted, and moderately far
off coal-mines with twinkling headstocks and narrow railwaylines
crossing the arable fields, and heaps of burning slag. The balcony
or covered terrace--James settled down at last to the word
_terrace_--was to be one of the features of the house: _the_
feature. It was to be fitted up as a sort of elegant lounging
restaurant. Elegant teas, at two-and-six per head, and elegant
suppers, at five shillings without wine, were to be served here.
As a teetotaller and a man of ascetic views, James, in his first
shallow moments, before he thought about it, assumed that his house
should be entirely non-alcoholic. A temperance house! Already he
winced. We all know what a provincial Temperance Hotel is. Besides,
there is magic in the sound of wine. _Wines Served_. The legend
attracted him immensely--as a teetotaller, it had a mysterious,
hypnotic influence. He must have wines. He knew nothing about them.
But Alfred Swayn, from the Liquor Vaults, would put him in the
running in five minutes.
It was most curious to see Miss Pinnegar turtle up at the mention of
this scheme. When first it was disclosed to her, her colour came up
like a turkey's in a flush of indignant anger.
"It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous!" she blurted, bridling and
ducking her head and turning aside, like an indignant turkey.
"Ridiculous! Why? Will you explain why!" retorted James, turtling
also.
"It's absolutely ridiculous!" she repeated, unable to do more than
splutter.
"Well, we'll see," said James, rising to superiority.
And again he began to dart absorbedly about, like a bird building a
nest. Miss Pinnegar watched him with a sort of sullen fury. She went
to the shop door to peep out after him. She saw him slip into the
Liquor Vaults, 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 really
too 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
a fool of. I shall be no manageress, I tell you. It's absolutely
ridiculous. Who does he think will come to the place? He's out of
his mind--and it's drink; that's what it is! Going into the Liquor
Vaults at ten o'clock in the morning! That's where he gets his
ideas--out of whiskey--or brandy! But he's not going to make a fool
of me--"
"Oh dear!" sighed Alvina, laughing herself into composure and a
little weariness. "I know it's _perfectly_ ridiculous. We shall have
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.
"But father," said Alvina, "there'll be nobody to come."
"Plenty of people--plenty of people," said her father. "Look at The
Shakespeare's Head, in Knarborough."
"Knarborough! Is this Knarborough!" blurted Miss Pinnegar. "Where
are the business men here? Where are the foreigners coming here for
business, where's our lace-trade and our stocking-trade?"
"There _are_ business men," said James. "And there are ladies."
"Who," retorted Miss Pinnegar, "is going to give half-a-crown for a
tea? They expect tea and bread-and-butter for fourpence, and cake
for sixpence, and apricots or pineapple for ninepence, and
ham-and-tongue for a shilling, and fried ham and eggs and jam and
cake as much as they can eat for one-and-two. If they expect a
knife-and-fork tea for a shilling, what are you going to give them
for half-a-crown?"
"I know what I shall offer," said James. "And we may make it two
shillings." Through his mind flitted the idea of 1/11-1/2--but he
rejected it. "You don't realize that I'm catering for a higher class
of custom--"
"But there _isn't_ any higher class in Woodhouse, father," said
Alvina, 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?" asked
Alvina mockingly.
James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he were
preoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate little
boy 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 of
opposition. She would pitch her dead negative will obstinately
against him. She would not speak to him, she would not observe his
presence, she was stone deaf and stone blind: there _was_ no James.
This nettled 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 was frustrated by lower beings, above whom it was his
duty to rise, to soar. So he soared to serene heights, and his
Private Hotel seemed a celestial injunction, an erection on a higher
plane.
He saw the architect: and then, with his plans and schemes, he saw
the builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six or
seven hundred--but James had better see the plumber and fitter who
was going to instal the new hot water and sanitary system. James was
a little dashed. He had calculated much less. Having only a few
hundred pounds in possession after Throttle-Ha'penny, he was
prepared to mortgage Manchester House if he could keep in hand a
sufficent sum of money for the running of his establishment for a
year. He knew he would have to sacrifice Miss Pinnegar's work-room.
He knew, and he feared Miss Pinnegar's violent and unmitigated
hostility. Still--his obstinate spirit rose--he was quite prepared
to risk everything on this last throw.
Miss Allsop, daughter of the builder, called to see Alvina. The
Allsops were great Chapel people, and Cassie Allsop was one of the
old maids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about
forty-two years old. In private, she was tyrannously exacting with
the servants, and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces.
But in public she had this nipped, wistful look.
Alvina was surprised by this visit. When she found Miss Allsop at
the 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 the house.
"I called," said Miss Allsop, coming to the point at once, and
speaking in her Sunday-school-teacher voice, "to ask you if you know
about this Private Hotel scheme of your father's?"
"Yes," said Alvina.
"Oh, you do! Well, we wondered. Mr. Houghton came to father about
the building alterations yesterday. They'll be awfully expensive."
"Will they?" said Alvina, making big, mocking eyes.
"Yes, very. What do _you_ think of the scheme?"
"I?--well--!" Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh. "To tell
the truth I haven't thought much about it at all."
"Well I think you should," said Miss Allsop severely. "Father's sure
it won't pay--and it will cost I don't know how much. It is bound
to be a dead loss. And your father's getting on. You'll be left
stranded in the world without a penny to bless yourself with. I
think it's an awful outlook for you."
"Do you?" said Alvina.
Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the old
maids.
"Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I could to prevent him, if I
were you."
Miss Allsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in her
mood. An old maid along with Cassie Allsop!--and James Houghton
fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester
House up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification,
in which _her_ peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and
spitefully. "Oh well, so be it," said her spirit vindictively. "Let
the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself." Her old anger
against her father arose again.
Arthur Witham, the plumber, came in with James Houghton to examine
the house. Arthur Witham was also one of the Chapel men--as had been
his common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father
had left each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur,
the eldest, had already increased ten-fold. He was sly and slow and
uneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent. But he was not
bad-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 he
could.
Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in
the scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She liked
his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business,
very watchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered
and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear--she
handed him a candle--and she laughed to herself seeing his tight,
well-shaped hind-quarters protruding from under the sink like the
wrong end of a dog from a kennel. He was keen after money, was
Arthur--and bossy, creeping slyly after his own self-importance and
power. He wanted power--and he would creep quietly after it till he
got it: as much as he 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 and
afterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a little
aloof, and silent. When the tour of inspection was almost over, she
said innocently:
"Won't it cost a great deal?"
Arthur Witham slowly shook his head. Then he looked at her. She
smiled rather archly into his eyes.
"It won't be done for nothing," he said, looking at her again.
"We can 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 going
she heard him say: "Well, I'll work it out, Mr. Houghton. I'll work
it out, and let you know tonight. I'll get the figures by tonight."
The younger man's tone was a little off-hand, just a little
supercilious with her father, she thought. James's star was setting.
In the afternoon, directly after dinner, Alvina went out. She
entered the shop, where sheets of lead and tins of paint and putty
stood 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 a shrew, 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: rather
attractive-looking.
"I don't know what you'll think of me, and what I've come for," said
Alvina, 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, laughing
nervously.
Arthur's blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Witham advanced into the
shop.
"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 on
with this scheme. It's bound to fail. And Miss Pinnegar and I can't
have 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 some
reason, she liked her. And of course, Alvina was considered a lady
in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to, with James's declining
fortunes: she was merely _considered_ a lady. The consideration was
no longer indisputable.
"Shall you come in a minute?" said Lottie Witham, lifting the flap
of 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 the
embrasure of the counter. She felt as if she were really venturing
on new ground. She was led into the new drawing-room, done in new
peacock-and-bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and brass and white
walls. This was the Withams' new house, and Lottie was proud of it.
The two women had a short confidential chat. Arthur lingered in the
doorway a while, then went away.
Alvina did not really like Lottie Witham. Yet the other woman was
sharp 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 way
that he was worried almost out of his life. His two women left him
alone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned his
scheme--he was simply driven out of it by untoward circumstances.
Lottie Witham came to tea, and was shown over Manchester House. She
had no opinion at all of Manchester House--wouldn't hang a cat in
such a gloomy hole. _Still_, she was rather impressed by the sense
of superiority.
"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she stood in Alvina's bedroom,
and looked at the enormous furniture, the lofty tableland of the
bed.
"Oh my goodness! I wouldn't sleep in _that_ for a trifle, by myself!
Aren't you frightened out of your life? Even if I had Arthur at one
side of me, I should be that frightened on the other side I
shouldn't know what to do. Do you sleep here by yourself?"
"Yes," said Alvina laughing. "I haven't got an Arthur, even for one
side."
"Oh, my word, you'd want a husband on both sides, in that bed," said
Lottie 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
hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched
closely to learn from her guest the secret of repose. The
indefinable repose and inevitability of a lady--even of a lady who
is nervous and agitated--this was the problem which occupied
Lottie's shrewd and active, but lower-class mind. She even did not
resent Alvina's laughing attempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur:
because Alvina was a lady, and her tactics must be studied.
Alvina really liked Arthur, and thought a good deal about
him--heaven knows why. He and Lottie were quite happy together, and
he was absorbed in his petty ambitions. In his limited way, he was
invincibly ambitious. He would end by making a sufficient fortune,
and by being a town councillor and a J.P. But beyond Woodhouse he
did not exist. Why then should Alvina be attracted by him? Perhaps
because of his "closeness," and his secret determinedness.
When she met him in the street she would stop him--though he was
always busy--and make him exchange a few words with her. And when
she had tea at his house, she would try to rouse his attention. But
though he looked at her, steadily, with his blue eyes, from under
his long lashes, still, she knew, he looked at her objectively. He
never conceived any connection with her whatsoever.
It was Lottie who had a scheming mind. In the family of three
brothers there was one--not black sheep, but white. There was one
who was climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second
brother. He had been a school-teacher in Woodhouse: had gone out to
South Africa and occupied a post in a sort of Grammar School in one
of the cities of Cape Colony. He had accumulated some money, to add
to his patrimony. Now he was in England, at Oxford, where he would
take his belated degree. When he had got his degree, he would return
to South Africa to become head of his school, at seven hundred a
year.
Albert was thirty-two years old, and unmarried. Lottie was
determined he should take back to the Cape a suitable wife:
presumably Alvina. He spent his vacations in Woodhouse--and he was
only in his first year at Oxford. Well now, what could be more
suitable--a young man at Oxford, a young lady in Woodhouse. Lottie
told Alvina all about him, and Alvina was quite excited to meet him.
She imagined him a taller, more fascinating, educated Arthur.
For the fear of being an old maid, the fear of her own virginity was
really gaining on Alvina. There was a terrible sombre futility,
nothingness, in Manchester House. She was twenty-six years old. Her
life was utterly barren now Miss Frost had gone. She was shabby and
penniless, a mere household drudge: for James begrudged even a girl
to help in the kitchen. She was looking faded and worn. Panic, the
terrible and deadly panic which overcomes so many unmarried women at
about the age of thirty, was beginning to overcome her. She would
not care about marriage, if even she had a lover. But some sort of
_terror_ hunted her to the search of a lover. She would become
loose, she would become a prostitute, she said to herself, rather
than die off like Cassie Allsop and the rest, wither slowly and
ignominiously and hideously on the tree. She would rather kill
herself.
But it needs a certain natural gift to become a loose woman or a
prostitute. 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 loose and promiscuous men! Why, then you can't be a
prostitute, if you try your head off: nor even a loose woman. Since
_willing_ won't do it. It requires a second party to come to an
agreement.
Therefore all Alvina's desperate and profligate schemes and ideas
fell to nought before the inexorable in her nature. And the
inexorable in her nature was highly exclusive and selective, an
inevitable negation of looseness or prostitution. Hence men were
afraid of her--of her power, once they had committed themselves. She
would involve and lead a man on, she would destroy him rather than
not get of him what she wanted. And what she wanted was something
serious and risky. Not mere marriage--oh dear no! But a profound and
dangerous inter-relationship. As well ask the paddlers in the small
surf of passion to plunge themselves into the heaving gulf of
mid-ocean. Bah, with their trousers turned up to their knees it was
enough for them to wet their toes in the dangerous sea. They were
having nothing to do with such desperate nereids as Alvina.
She had cast her mind on Arthur. Truly ridiculous. But there was
something compact and energetic and wilful about him that she
magnified ten-fold and so obtained, imaginatively, an attractive
lover. She brooded her days shabbily away in Manchester House, busy
with housework drudgery. Since the collapse of Throttle-Ha'penny,
James Houghton had become so stingy that it was like an inflammation
in him. A silver sixpence had a pale and celestial radiance which he
could not forego, a nebulous whiteness which made him feel he had
heaven in his hold. How then could he let it go. Even a brown penny
seemed alive and pulsing with mysterious blood, potent, magical. He
loved the flock of his busy pennies, in the shop, as if they had
been divine bees bringing him sustenance from the infinite. But the
pennies he saw dribbling away in household expenses troubled him
acutely, as if they were live things leaving his fold. It was a
constant struggle to get from him enough money for necessities.
And so the household diet became meagre in the extreme, the coal was
eked out inch by inch, and when Alvina must have her boots mended
she must draw on her own little stock of money. For James Houghton
had the impudence to make her an allowance of two shillings a week.
She was very angry. Yet her anger was of that dangerous,
half-ironical sort which wears away its subject and has no outward
effect. A feeling of half-bitter mockery kept her going. In the
ponderous, rather sordid nullity of Manchester House she became
shadowy and absorbed, absorbed in nothing in particular, yet
absorbed. She was always more or less busy: and certainly there was
always something to be done, whether she did it or not.
The shop was opened once a week, on Friday evenings. James Houghton
prowled round the warehouses in Knarborough and picked up job lots
of stuff, with which he replenished his shabby window. But his heart
was not in the business. Mere tenacity made him hover on with it.
In midsummer Albert Witham came to Woodhouse, and Alvina was invited
to tea. She was very much excited. All the time imagining Albert a
taller, finer Arthur, she had abstained from actually fixing her
mind upon this latter little man. Picture her disappointment when
she found Albert quite unattractive. He was tall and thin and
brittle, with a pale, rather dry, flattish face, and with curious
pale eyes. His impression was one of uncanny flatness, something
like a lemon sole. Curiously flat and fish-like he was, one might
have imagined his backbone to be spread like the backbone of a sole
or a plaice. His teeth were sound, but rather large and yellowish
and flat. A most curious person.
He spoke in a slightly mouthing way, not well bred in spite of
Oxford. There was a distinct Woodhouse twang. He would never be a
gentleman if he lived for ever. Yet he was not ordinary. Really an
odd fish: quite interesting, if one could get over the feeling that
one was looking at him through the glass wall of an aquarium: that
most horrifying of all boundaries between two worlds. In an aquarium
fish seem to come smiling broadly to the doorway, and there to stand
talking to one, in a mouthing fashion, awful to behold. For one
hears no sound from all their mouthing and staring conversation. Now
although Albert Witham had a good strong voice, which rang like
water among rocks in her ear, still she seemed never to hear a word
he was saying. He smiled down at her and fixed her and swayed his
head, and said quite original things, really. For he was a genuine
odd fish. And yet she seemed to hear no sound, no word from him:
nothing came to her. Perhaps as a matter of fact fish do actually
pronounce streams of watery words, to which we, with our
aerial-resonant ears, are deaf for ever.
The odd thing was that this odd fish seemed from the very first to
imagine she had accepted him as a follower. And he was quite
prepared to follow. Nay, from the very first moment he was smiling
on her with a sort of complacent delight--compassionate, one might
almost say--as if there was a full understanding between them. If
only she could have got into the right state of mind, she would
really rather have liked him. He smiled at her, and said really
interesting things between his big teeth. 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 nicely
coloured. 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 like a fish in his own little element. Strange it all was,
like Alice in Wonderland. Alvina understood now Lottie's strained
sort of thinness, a haggard, sinewy, sea-weedy look. The poor thing
was all the time swimming for her life.
For Alvina it was a most curious tea-party. She listened and smiled
and made vague answers to Albert, who leaned his broad, thin,
brittle shoulders towards her. Lottie seemed rather shadowily to
preside. But it was Arthur who came out into communication. And now,
uttering his rather 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 and amazingly bullying, who had tyrannized for many years
over the Sunday School children during morning service. He had been
an odd-looking creature with round grey whiskers: to Alvina, always
a creature, never a man: an atrocious leprechaun from under the
Chapel floor. And how he used to dig the children in the back with
his horrible iron thumb, if the poor things happened to whisper or
nod in chapel!
These were his children--most curious chips of the old block. Who
ever would have believed she would have been taking tea with them.
"Why don'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 a
bicycle."
"I don't believe I ever should," laughed Alvina.
"You don't mean to say you're nervous?" said Arthur rudely and
sneeringly.
"I _am_," she persisted.
"You needn't be nervous with me," smiled Albert broadly, with his
odd, genuine gallantry. "I'll hold you on."
"But I haven't got a bicycle," said Alvina, feeling she was slowly
colouring to a deep, uneasy blush.
"You can have mine to learn on," said Lottie. "Albert will look
after it."
"There's your chance," said Arthur rudely. "Take it while you've got
it."
Now Alvina did not want to learn to ride a bicycle. The two Miss
Carlins, two more old maids, had made themselves ridiculous for
ever by becoming twin cycle fiends. And the horrible energetic
strain of peddling a bicycle over miles and miles of high-way did
not attract Alvina at all. She was completely indifferent to
sight-seeing and scouring about. She liked taking a walk, in her
lingering indifferent fashion. But rushing about in any way was
hateful to her. And then, to be taught to ride a bicycle by Albert
Witham! Her very soul stood still.
"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' yourself
all 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," he
retorted.
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't
believe it, since you say I do nothing," she added, laughing
confusedly to 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 to
get a bit of exercise out of doors. Come down to the Coach Road
tomorrow afternoon, and let me give you a lesson. Go on--"
Now the coach-road was a level drive between beautiful park-like
grass-stretches, down in the valley. It was a delightful place for
learning to ride a bicycle, but open in full view of all the world.
Alvina would have died of shame. She began to laugh nervously and
hurriedly 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 the
nervousness." 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't _say_ you are," interposed Arthur. "Women's faults
mustn'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
the jaws of a pair of insentient iron pincers. She rose, saying she
must go.
Albert rose also, and reached for his straw hat, with its coloured
band.
"I'll stroll up with you, if you don't mind," he said. And he took
his place at her side along the Knarborough Road, where everybody
turned to look. For, of course, he had a sort of fame in Woodhouse.
She went with him laughing and chatting. But she did not feel at all
comfortable. He seemed so pleased. Only he was not pleased with
_her_. He was pleased with himself on her account: inordinately
pleased with himself. In his world, as in a fish's, there was but
his own swimming self: and if he chanced to have something swimming
alongside and doing him credit, why, so much the more complacently
he smiled.
He walked stiff and erect, with his head pressed rather back, so
that he always seemed to be advancing from the head and shoulders,
in a flat kind of advance, horizontal. He did not seem to be walking
with his whole body. His manner was oddly gallant, with a gallantry
that completely missed the individual in the woman, circled round
her and flew home gratified to his own hive. The way he raised his
hat, the way he inclined and smiled flatly, even rather excitedly,
as he talked, was all 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 was
locked. She heard her father's step at last tripping down the shop.
"Good-evening, Mr. Houghton," said Albert suavely and with a certain
confidence, as James peered out.
"Oh, good-evening!" said James, letting Alvina pass, and shutting
the door in Albert's face.
"Who was that?" he asked her sharply.
"Albert Witham," she replied.
"What has _he_ got to do with you?" said James shrewishly.
"Nothing, I hope."
She fled into the obscurity of Manchester House, out of the grey
summer evening. The Withams threw her off her pivot, and made her
feel she was not herself. She felt she didn't know, she couldn't
feel, she was just scattered and decentralized. And she was rather
afraid of the Witham brothers. She might be their victim. She
intended to avoid them.
The following days she saw Albert, in his Norfolk jacket and flannel
trousers and his straw hat, strolling past several times and looking
in through the shop door and up at the upper windows. But she hid
herself thoroughly. When she went out, it was by the back way. So
she avoided him.
But on Sunday evening, there he sat, rather stiff and brittle in the
old Withams' pew, his head pressed a little back, so that his face
and neck seemed slightly flattened. He wore very low, turn-down
starched collars that showed all his neck. And he kept looking up at
her during the service--she sat in the choir-loft--gazing up at her
with apparently love-lorn eyes and a faint, intimate smile--the sort
of _je-sais-tout_ look of a private swain. Arthur also occasionally
cast a judicious eye on her, as if she were a chimney that needed
repairing, and he must estimate the cost, and whether it was worth
it.
Sure enough, as she came out through the narrow choir gate into
Knarborough 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
way that showed he didn't imagine he _could_ presume.
"Oh, not at all," said Alvina airily. He smiled with assurance.
"You haven't got any engagement, then, for this evening?" he said.
"No," she replied simply.
"We might take a walk. What do you think?" he said, glancing down
the road in either direction.
What, after all, was she to think? All the girls were pairing off
with 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, and
proposed to take her the not-very-original walk up Flint's Lane, and
along the railway line--the colliery railway, that is--then back up
the Marlpool Road: a sort of circle. She agreed.
They did not find a great deal to talk about. She questioned him
about his plans, and about the Cape. But save for bare outlines,
which he 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's--or
go home," 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.
"Goodness knows!" 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 all right," she said. "Thanks."
"Go on," he said, pressing a little nearer to her, and offering his
arm. "There's nothing against it, is there?"
"Oh, it's not that," she said.
And feeling in a false position, she took his arm, rather
unwillingly. He drew a little nearer to her, and walked with a
slight prance.
"We get on better, don't we?" he said, giving her hand the tiniest
squeeze 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 married
now."
"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 neither
of us was properly inclined."
"I should think so," she said.
"And yet," he admitted slyly, "I should _like_ to marry--" To this
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 you _haven't_ met
him?" His voice seemed smiling with a sort of triumph, as if he had
caught 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
the shop-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.
"Good-night."
What she felt chiefly about him was a decentralized perplexity, very
much 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 quite motionless.
"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.
"Of course 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 like
him."
"Ah--!" cried Alvina, sinking on the sofa with a laugh. "That's it."
"Of course you couldn't have anything to do with him if you don't
care for him," pronounced Miss Pinnegar.
Albert continued to hang around. He did not make any direct attack
for a few days. Suddenly one evening he appeared at the back door
with a bunch of white stocks in his hand. His face lit up with a
sudden, odd smile when she opened the door--a broad, pale-gleaming,
remarkable smile.
"Lottie wanted to know if you'd come to tea tomorrow," he said
straight out, looking at her with the pale light in his eyes, that
smiled palely right into her eyes, but did not see her at all. He
was waiting 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, still
holding his bunch of white stocks.
James Houghton screwed round in his chair and peered over his
spectacles 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 the
intruder.
"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 his
broad, pleased, pale-gleaming smile from father to daughter, he
said:
"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-toothed ferrets. Then he looked as suspiciously at the hand
which Albert at last extended to him. He shook it slightly, and
said:
"Take a seat."
"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you in your reading," said Albert, still
having 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 the table.
"Haven't they a lovely scent?" she said.
"Do you think so?" he replied, again with the excited smile. There
was 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 a
man who can't get away from himself. You meet a lot of people like
that. 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. That
self-consciousness. It hampers them, and interferes with their power
of action. Now I wonder why self-consciousness should hinder a man
in his action? Why does it cause misgiving? I think I'm
self-conscious, but I don't think I have so many misgivings. I don't
see that they're necessary."
"Certainly I think Tommy is a weak character. I believe he's a
despicable character," said James.
"No, I don't know so much about that," said Albert. "I shouldn't say
weak, exactly. He's only weak in one direction. No, what I wonder is
why he feels guilty. If you feel self-conscious, there's no need to
feel 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 his
own mind, he certainly can't be much of a man."
"I don't see it," replied Albert. "What's the matter is that he
feels guilty for not knowing his own mind. That's the unnecessary
part. The guilty feeling--"
Albert seemed insistent on this point, which had no particular
interest for James.
"Where we've got to make a change," said Albert, "is in the feeling
that 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
own special feelings, and his own right to them. That's where it is
with education. You ought not to want all your children to feel
alike. Their natures are all different, and so they should all feel
different, about practically everything."
"There would be no end to the confusion," said James.
"There needn't be any confusion to speak of. You agree to a number
of rules and conventions and laws, for social purposes. But in
private you feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to
feel something else."
"I don't know," said James. "There are certain feelings common to
humanity, such as love, and honour, and truth."
"Would you call them feelings?" said Albert. "I should say what is
common is the idea. The idea is common to humanity, once you've put
it into words. But the feeling varies with every man. The same idea
represents 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 do anything with education. We don't want to produce
mass feelings. Don't you agree?"
Poor James was too bewildered to know whether to agree or not to
agree.
"Shall we have a light, Alvina?" he said to his daughter.
Alvina lit the incandescent gas-jet that hung in the middle of the
room. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard-looking as
she reached up to it. But Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly.
It seemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all.
He did not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what
he was thinking about. And therefore she hardly heard what he said.
Yet she 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
talking animatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he
talked in the direction of his interlocutor, he did not speak _to_
him: merely said his words towards him. James, however, was such an
airy feather himself he did not remark this, but only felt a little
self-important at 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 justified again. She was not interested.
The man was quite nicely dressed, in the regulation tweed jacket and
flannel trousers and brown shoes. He was even rather smart, judging
from his yellow socks and yellow-and-brown tie. Miss Pinnegar eyed
him with approval when she came in.
"Good-evening!" she said, just a trifle condescendingly, as she
shook hands. "How do you find Woodhouse, after being away so long?"
Her way 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, after
a new country. But it has its attractions." Here he smiled
meaningful.
"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar. "I suppose the old connections count for
something."
"They do. Oh decidedly they do. There's no associations like the old
ones." He smiled flatly as he looked towards Alvina.
"You find it so, do you!" returned Miss Pinnegar. "You don't find
that the new connections make up for the old?"
"Not altogether, they don't. There's something missing--" Again he
looked 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 be
sailing back to the Cape." He smiled as if in anticipation. Yet it
was hard 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 own interest."
Alvina had taken up a piece of sewing. She sat under the light,
brooding a little. What _had_ all this to do with her. The man
talked on, and beamed in her direction. And she felt a little
important. But moved or touched?--not the least in the world.
She wondered if any one would ask him to supper--bread and cheese
and 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 Miss Pinnegar.
Alvina piloted the man through the long, dark, encumbered way of the
shop. 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.
Good-night!" She gave him her hand and turned quickly into the shop,
closing the door. He remained standing in the porch, staring at the
closed door. Then, lifting his lip, he turned away.
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar decidedly, as Alvina re-entered. "You can
say what you like--but I think he's _very pleasant_, _very_
pleasant."
"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 saw
him sauntering down the street in all his leisure, a sort of anger
possessed her. On Sunday, she slipped down from the choir into the
Chapel, and out through the main entrance, whilst he awaited her at
the small exit. And by good luck, when he called one evening in the
week, she was out. She returned down the yard. And there, through
the uncurtained window, she saw him sitting awaiting her. Without a
thought, she turned on her heel and fled away. She did not come in
till he had gone.
"How late you are!" said Miss Pinnegar. "Mr. Witham was here till
ten minutes ago."
"Yes," laughed Alvina. "I came down the yard and saw him. So I went
back 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's
task of attending to the Chapel flowers once a quarter. She had been
round the gardens of her friends, and gathered the scarlet and hot
yellow and purple flowers of August, asters, red stocks, tall
Japanese sunflowers, coreopsis, geraniums. With these in her basket
she slipped out towards evening, to the Chapel. She knew Mr.
Calladine, the caretaker would not lock up till she had been.
The moment she got inside the Chapel--it was a big, airy, pleasant
building--she heard hammering from the organ-loft, and saw the
flicker of a candle. Some workman busy before Sunday. She shut the
baize door behind her, and hurried across to the vestry, for vases,
then out to the tap, for water. All was warm and still.
It was full early evening. The yellow light streamed through the
side windows, the big stained-glass window at the end was deep and
full of glowing colour, in which the yellows and reds were richest.
Above in the organ-loft the hammering continued. She arranged her
flowers in many vases, till the communion table was like the window,
a tangle of strong yellow, and crimson, and purple, and
bronze-green. She tried to keep the effect light and kaleidoscopic,
an interplay of tossed pieces of strong, hot colour, vibrating and
lightly intermingled. It was very gorgeous, for a communion table.
But the day of white lilies was over.
Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble, up in the
organ-loft, followed by a cursing.
"Are you hurt?" called Alvina, looking up into space. The candle had
disappeared.
But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the Chapel
to the stairs in the side porch, and ran up to the organ. She went
round the side--and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves sitting
crouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the
wall of 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 infuriated
voice of Arthur Witham, "and about broke my leg."
Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was
sitting 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 were
savage with anger. Her face was near his.
"It is bad," he said furious because of the shock. The shock had
thrown him off his balance.
"Let me see," she said.
He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the
ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel
if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with
blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed
her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might,
as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her
hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are
when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of
consciousness only, and for the rest unconscious.
Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could
not bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his
sensitive, unbearable parts.
"The bone isn't broken," she said professionally. "But you'd better
get the stocking out of it."
Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled down
his stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain.
"Can you show a light?" he said.
She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on a
little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst he
examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It
was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He sat
looking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the candle-light.
"It's not so very bad, when the pain goes off," she said, noticing
the black hairs of his shin. "We'd better tie it up. Have you got a
handkerchief?"
"It's in my jacket," he said.
She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little, by being
completely oblivious of her. She got his handkerchief and wiped her
fingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for the
wound.
"Shall I tie it up, then?" she said.
But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his leg, looking at his
hurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards his
ankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him.
"Shall I tie it up, then?" she repeated at length, a little
impatient. So he put his leg a little forward.
She looked at the wound, and wiped it a little. Then she folded the
pad of her own handkerchief, and laid it over the hurt. And again he
did the same thing, he took her hand as if it were a plaster, and
applied it to his wound, pressing it cautiously but firmly down. She
was 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 firm
compression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her hand
pressed her into oblivion.
"Tie it up," he said briskly.
And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage with numb fingers. He
seemed to have taken the use out of her.
When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organ
which 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," he
said, towards the steps. Then stubbornly, he rigged them up again,
and stared 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 them
steps a minute! There isn't more than a minute's fixing to do. It's
all done, but fixing."
"Hadn't you better leave it," she said.
"Would you mind holding the steps, so that they don't let me down
again," he said. Then he took the candle, and hobbled stubbornly and
angrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he
worked, tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the ricketty steps
and stared at him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers.
Strange the difference--she could not help thinking it--between the
vulnerable hairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the
shapeless form of these workmen's trousers. The kernel, the man
himself--seemed so tender--the covering so stiff and insentient.
And was he not going to speak to her--not one human word of
recognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After
all he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently
but firmly down, down over his bruise, how he had taken the virtue
out of her, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he
going to relapse into his tough and ugly workman's hide, and treat
her as if _she_ were a pair of steps, which might let him down or
hold him up, as might be.
As she stood clinging to the steps she felt weak and a little
hysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own back
from him. After all he had taken the virtue from her, he might have
the grace 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 the
bottom he crouched over his leg and felt the bandage.
"That gives you what for," he said, as if it were her fault.
"Is the bandage 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 his
tools. "I'll make my way home."
"So will I," she answered.
She took the candle and went a little in front. He hurried into his
coat 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 with
blood, as was the cuff of her dress--a black-and-white striped
cotton dress.
"Is it hurt?" he said.
"No, but look at it. Look here!" She showed the bloodstains on her
dress.
"It'll wash out," he said, frightened of her.
"Yes, so it will. But for the present it's there. Don't you think
you 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 a
little automaton! Seriously, quite seriously he said it to her--"We
s'll have folks talking!" She laughed in a breathless, hurried way,
as they tramped downstairs.
At the bottom of the stairs Calladine, the caretaker, met them. He
was 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
to Alvina's still fluttering laughter.
"That's a nice rotten pair of steps you've got up there for a
death-trap," said Arthur angrily. "Come down on top of me, and I'm
lucky I haven't got my leg broken. It _is_ near enough."
"Come down with you, did they?" said Calladine good-humouredly. "I
never 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 his
trouser leg. But Alvina had given the candle to Calladine, and fled.
She had a last view of Arthur stooping over his precious leg, while
Calladine stooped his length and held down the candle.
When she got home she took off her dress and washed herself hard and
washed the stained sleeve, thoroughly, thoroughly, and threw away
the wash 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 was
Saturday evening, and her father had opened the shop, Miss Pinnegar
had gone to Knarborough. She would be back at nine o'clock. Alvina
set about to make a mock woodcock, or a mock something or other,
with cheese and an egg and bits of toast. Her eyes were dilated and
as if amused, mocking, her face quivered a little with irony that
was not all enjoyable.
"I'm glad you've come," said Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar entered. "The
supper's just done. I'll ask father if he'll close the shop."
Of course James would not close the shop, though he was merely
wasting light. He nipped in to eat his supper, and started out again
with a mouthful the moment he heard the ping of the bell. He kept
his customers chatting as long as he could. His love for
conversation had degenerated into a spasmodic passion for chatter.
Alvina looked across at Miss Pinnegar, as the two sat at the meagre
supper-table. Her eyes were dilated and arched with a mocking,
almost satanic look.
"I've made up my mind about Albert Witham," said Alvina. Miss
Pinnegar 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. I
never could. And I won't try. There! Isn't that plain?" And she went
off into her hurried laugh, partly at herself, partly at Arthur,
partly at Albert, partly at Miss Pinnegar.
"Oh, well, if you're so sure--" said Miss Pinnegar rather bitingly.
"I _am_ quite sure--" said Alvina. "I'm quite certain."
"Cock-sure people are often most mistaken," said Miss Pinnegar.
"I'd rather have my own mistakes than somebody else's rights," said
Alvina.
"Then don't expect anybody to pay for your mistakes," said Miss
Pinnegar.
"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 on
the wall. She was thinking busily: but heaven knows what she was
thinking. She had sharpened the edge of her temper. She was waiting
till tomorrow. She was waiting till she saw Albert Witham. She
wanted to finish off with him. She was keen to cut clean through any
correspondence with him. She stared for many hours at the light of
the street-lamp, and there was a narrowed look in her eyes.
The next day she did not go to Morning Service, but stayed at home
to cook the dinner. In the evening she sat in her place in the
choir. In the Withams' pew sat Lottie and Albert--no Arthur. Albert
kept glancing up. Alvina could not bear the sight of him--she simply
could not bear the sight of him. Yet in her low, sweet voice she
sang the alto to the hymns, right to the vesper:
"Lord keep us safe this night
Secure from all our fears,
May angels guard us while we sleep
Till morning light appears--"
As she sang her alto, and as the soft and emotional harmony of the
vesper swelled luxuriously through the chapel, she was peeping over
her folded hands at Lottie's hat. She could not bear Lottie's hats.
There was something aggressive and vulgar about them. And she simply
detested the look of the back of Albert's head, as he too stooped to
the vesper prayer. It looked mean and rather common. She remembered
Arthur had the same look, bending to prayer. There!--why had she not
seen it before! That petty, vulgar little look! How could she have
thought twice of Arthur. She had made a fool of herself, as usual.
Him and his little leg. She grimaced round the chapel, waiting for
people to bob up their heads and take their departure.
At the gate Albert was waiting for her. He came forward lifting his
hat 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 for
you 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 of
anger, 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. "Why
should you mean anything by them!" He smiled down on her.
She looked him 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. He
stood eyeing her insolently up and down.
"Good-night," she said. His sneering made her furious. Putting her
umbrella between him and her, she walked off.
"Good-night then," he replied, unseen by her. But his voice was
sneering 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 was
done--and done for ever. _Vogue la galère._
CHAPTER VI
HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR
The trouble with her ship was that it would _not_ sail. It rode
water-logged in the rotting port of home. All very well to have
wild, reckless moods of irony and independence, if you have to pay
for them by withering dustily on the shelf.
Alvina fell again into humility and fear: she began to show symptoms
of her mother's heart trouble. For day followed day, month followed
month, season after season went by, and she grubbed away like a
housemaid in Manchester House, she hurried round doing the shopping,
she sang in the choir on Sundays, she attended the various chapel
events, she went out to visit friends, and laughed and talked and
played games. But all the time, what was there actually in her life?
Not much. She was withering towards old-maiddom. Already in her
twenty-eighth year, she spent her days grubbing in the house, whilst
her father became an elderly, frail man still too lively in mind and
spirit. Miss Pinnegar began to grow grey and elderly too, money
became scarcer and scarcer, there was a black day ahead when her
father would die and the home be broken up, and she would have to
tackle life as a worker.
There lay the only alternative: in work. She might slave her days
away teaching the piano, as Miss Frost had done: she might find a
subordinate 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 into the routine of her job, as did so many women, and grow old
and die, chattering and fluttering. She would have what is called
her independence. But, seriously faced with that treasure, and
without the option of refusing it, strange how hideous she found it.
Work!--a job! More even than she rebelled against the Withams did
she rebel against a job. Albert Witham was distasteful to her--or
rather, he was not exactly distasteful, he was chiefly incongruous.
She could never get over the feeling that he was mouthing and
smiling at her 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 dishuman element, who knows? Anyway it would be some
sort of an adventure: better than a job. She rebelled with all her
backbone against the word _job_. Even the substitutes, _employment_
or _work_, were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not
want to work for a wage. It was too humiliating. Could anything be
more _infra dig_ than the performing of a set of special actions day
in day out, for a life-time, in order to receive some shillings
every seventh day. Shameful! A condition of shame. The most vulgar,
sordid and humiliating of 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 serve some mechanical routine of
modern work.
She trembled with anger, impotence, and fear. For months, the
thought of Albert was a torment to her. She might have married him.
He would have been strange, a strange fish. But were it not better
to take the strange leap, over into his element, than to condemn
oneself to the routine of a job? He would have been curious and
dishuman. But after all, it would have been an experience. In a way,
she liked him. There was something odd and integral about him, which
she liked. He was not a liar. In his own line, he was honest and
direct. Then he would take her to South Africa: a whole new
_milieu_. And perhaps she would have children. She shivered a
little. No, not his children! He seemed so curiously 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 the strangeness of
it. Once she could plunge through the wall of the aquarium! Once she
could kiss him!
Therefore Miss Pinnegar's quiet harping on the string was
unbearable.
"I can't understand that you disliked Mr. Witham so much?" said Miss
Pinnegar.
"We never can understand those things," said Alvina. "I can't
understand 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.
"And is there need to understand the other?"
"Certainly. I can see nothing wrong with him," said Miss Pinnegar.
Alvina went away in silence. This was in the first months after she
had given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again--would not
return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the Woodhouse
Withams there was a decided coldness. They never looked at her
now--nor she 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
smile to him. She would take the plunge, once and for all--and kiss
him and marry him and bear the little half-fishes, his children. She
worked herself into quite a fever of anticipation.
But when she saw him, the first evening, sitting stiff and staring
flatly in front of him in Chapel, staring away from everything in
the world, at heaven knows what--just as fishes stare--then his
dishumanness came over her again like an arrest, and arrested all
her flights of fancy. He stared flatly in front of him, and flatly
set a wall of oblivion between him and her. She trembled and let be.
After Christmas, however, she had nothing at all to think forward
to. And it was then she seemed to shrink: she seemed positively to
shrink.
"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 rather mockingly.
"There is no need to make provision for me," said Miss Pinnegar.
And after this, she was a long time before she forgave Alvina, and
was really friendly again. Perhaps she would never have forgiven her
if she had not found her weeping rather bitterly in her mother's
abandoned sitting-room.
Now so far, the story of Alvina is commonplace enough. It is more or
less the story of thousands of girls. They all find work. It is the
ordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with an
ordinary girl we should have to carry on mildly and dully down the
long years of employment; or, at the best, marriage with some dull
school-teacher or office-clerk.
But we protest that Alvina is not ordinary. Ordinary people,
ordinary fates. But extraordinary people, extraordinary fates. Or
else no fate at all. The all-to-one-pattern modern system is too
much for most extraordinary individuals. It just kills them off or
throws them disused aside.
There have been enough stories about ordinary people. I should think
the Duke of Clarence must even have found malmsey nauseating, when
he choked and went purple and was really asphyxiated in a butt of
it. And ordinary people are no malmsey. Just ordinary tap-water. And
we have been drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual
floods of ordinariness, that tap-water tends to become a really
hateful fluid to us. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. We
detest ordinary people. We are in peril of our lives from them: and
in peril of our souls too, for they would damn us one and all to the
ordinary. Every individual should, by nature, have his extraordinary
points. But nowadays you may look for them with a microscope, they
are so worn-down by the regular machine-friction of our average and
mechanical days.
There was no hope for Alvina in the ordinary. If help came, it would
have to come from the extraordinary. Hence the extreme peril of her
case. Hence the bitter fear and humiliation she felt as she drudged
shabbily on in Manchester House, hiding herself as much as possible
from public view. Men can suck the heady juice of exalted
self-importance from the bitter weed of failure--failures are
usually the 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 to establish her own life on the face of the earth.
And this is humiliating, the ultimate humiliation.
And so the slow years crept round, and the completed coil of each
one was a further heavy, strangling noose. Alvina had passed her
twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and even her
twenty-ninth year. She was in her thirtieth. It ought to be a
laughing matter. But it isn't.
Ach, schon zwanzig
Ach, schon zwanzig
Immer noch durch's Leben tanz' ich
Jeder, Jeder will mich küssen
Mir das Leben zu versüssen.
Ach, schon dreissig
Ach, schon dreissig
Immer Mädchen, Mädchen heiss' ich.
In dem Zopf schon graue Härchen
Ach, wie schnell vergehn die Jährchen.
Ach, schon vierzig
Ach, schon vierzig
Und noch immer Keiner find 'sich.
Im gesicht schon graue Flecken
Ach, das muss im Spiegel stecken.
Ach, schon fünfzig
Ach, schon fünfzig
Und noch immer Keiner will 'mich;
Soll ich mich mit Bänden zieren
Soll 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 were
already showing. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of
as a girl. And the slow-footed years, so heavy in passing, were so
imperceptibly numerous in their accumulation.
But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and dreary
conclusion. Presumably, the _ordinary_ old-maid heroine nowadays is
destined to die in her fifties, she is not allowed to be the
long-liver of the by-gone novels. Let the song suffice her.
James Houghton had still another kick in him. He had one last scheme
up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular
novelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink,
like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he
pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he had
escaped, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like
a frail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs,
and making little splashes in warehouse-oddments. Miss Pinnegar
thought he had really gone quiet.
But alas, at that degenerated and shabby, down-at-heel club he met
another tempter: a plump man who had been in the music-hall line as
a sort of agent. This man had catered for the little shows of
little towns. He had been in America, out West, doing shows there.
He had trailed his way back to England, where he had left his wife
and daughter. But he did not resume his family life. Wherever he
was, his wife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or
less stranded in Woodhouse. He had _nearly_ fixed himself up with a
music-hall in the Potteries--as manager: he had all-but got such
another place at Ickley, in Derbyshire: he had forced his way
through the industrial and mining townlets, prospecting for any sort
of music-hall or show from which he could get a picking. And now, in
very low 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. In
James's younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody.
And now he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with
sardonic contempt, from under his heavy, heavy-lidded dark eyes. He
was rather stout, frail in health, but silent and insuperable, was
A. W. Jordan.
"I missed a chance there," said James, fluttering. "I missed a rare
chance there. I ought to have been first with a cinema."
He admitted as much to Mr. May, the stranger who was looking for
some sort of "managing" job. Mr. May, who also was plump and who
could hold his tongue, but whose pink, fat face and light-blue eyes
had a loud look, for all that, put the speech in his pipe and smoked
it. Not that he smoked a pipe: always cigarettes. But he seized on
James's admission, as something to be made the most of.
Now Mr. May's mind, though quick, was pedestrian, not winged. He had
come to Woodhouse not to look at Jordan's "Empire," but at the
temporary wooden structure that stood in the old Cattle
Market--"Wright's Cinematograph and Variety Theatre." Wright's was
not a superior show, like the Woodhouse Empire. Yet it was always
packed with colliers 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 family affair. Mr. and Mrs. Wright and a son and two
daughters with their husbands: a tight old lock-up family concern.
Yet it was the kind of show that appealed to Mr. May: pictures
between the turns. The cinematograph was but an item in the program,
amidst the more thrilling incidents--to Mr. May--of conjurors,
popular songs, five-minute farces, performing birds, and comics. Mr.
May was too human to believe that a show 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 variety
sort, he had a heavy conscience in the direction of his wife and
daughter. Having been so long in America, he had acquired American
qualities, one of which was this heavy sort of private innocence,
coupled with complacent and natural unscrupulousness in "matters of
business." A man of some odd sensitiveness in material things, he
liked to have his clothes neat and spick, his linen immaculate, his
face clean-shaved like a cherub. But alas, his clothes were now
old-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartness was
detrimental to his chances, in spite of their scrupulous look of
having come almost new out of the bandbox that morning. His rather
small felt hats still curved jauntily over his full pink face. But
his eyes looked lugubrious, as if he felt he had not deserved so
much bad luck, and there were bilious lines beneath them.
So Mr. May, in his room in the Moon and Stars, which was the best inn
in Woodhouse--he must have a good hötel--lugubriously considered his
position. Woodhouse offered little or nothing. He must go to Alfreton.
And would he find anything there? Ah, where, where in this hateful
world was there refuge for a man saddled with responsibilities, who
wanted to do his best and was given no opportunity? Mr. May had
travelled in his Pullman car and gone straight to the best hotel in the
town, like any other American with money--in America. He had done it
smart, too. And now, in this grubby penny-picking England, he saw his
boots being worn-down at the heel, and was afraid of being stranded
without cash even for a railway ticket. If he had to clear out without
paying his hotel bill--well, that was the world's fault. He had to
live. But he must perforce keep enough in hand for a ticket to
Birmingham. He always said his wife was in London. And he always walked
down to Lumley to post his letters. He was full of evasions.
So again he walked down to Lumley to post his letters. And he looked
at Lumley. And he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It
was a long straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a
pale-grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys
bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short
cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty
place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond
that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking
factories were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church
could be seen sticking up proudly and vulgarly on an eminence, above
trees and meadow-slopes, was an idyllic heaven.
Mr. May turned in to the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey. And of
course he entered into conversation.
"You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley," he said, in his odd,
refined-showman's voice. "Have you _nothing at all_ in the way of
amusement?"
"They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathersedge."
"But couldn't you support some place of your own--some _rival_ to
Wright's Variety?"
"Ay--'appen--if somebody started it."
And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting a
cinema 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, he became a new man. He fluttered like a boy, he fluttered
as if he had just grown wings.
"Let us go down," said Mr. May, "and look at a site. You pledge
yourself to nothing--you don't compromise yourself. You merely have
a site in your mind."
And so it came to pass that, next morning, this oddly assorted
couple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby, in his
black coat and dark grey trousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bent
forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if
pursued by 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 he walked he glanced alertly hither and thither, and saluted
everybody.
By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and his
head back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a
consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suit
fitted exactly--save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket
and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade
as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe
like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suède uppers: but a
_little_ down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he
looked very spruce, though a _little_ behind the fashions: very pink
faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath: very much on the
spot, although the spot was the wrong one.
They discoursed amiably as they went, James bending forward, Mr. May
bending back. Mr. May took the refined man-of-the-world tone.
"Of course," he said--he used the two words very often, and
pronounced the second, rather mincingly, to rhyme with _sauce_: "Of
course," said Mr. May, "it's a disgusting place--_disgusting_! I
never was in a worse, in all the _cauce_ of my travels. But
_then_--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 point
altogether. What we want--" began James.
"Is an audience--of _cauce_--! And we have it--! Virgin soil--!
"Yes, decidedly. Untouched! An unspoiled market."
"An unspoiled market!" reiterated Mr. May, in full confirmation,
though with a faint flicker of a smile. "How very _fortunate_ for
us."
"Properly handled," said James. "Properly handled."
"Why yes--of _cauce_! Why _shouldn't_ we handle it properly!"
"Oh, we shall manage that, we shall manage that," came the quick,
slightly husky voice of James.
"Of _cauce_ we shall! Why bless my life, if we can't manage an
audience in Lumley, what _can_ we do."
"We have a guide in the matter of their taste," said James. "We can
see what Wright's are doing--and Jordan's--and we can go to
Hathersedge and Knarborough and Alfreton--beforehand, that is--"
"Why certainly--if you think it's _necessary_. I'll do all that for
you. _And_ I'll interview the managers and the performers
themselves--as if I were a journalist, don't you see. I've done a
fair amount of journalism, and nothing easier than to get cards from
various newspapers."
"Yes, that's a good suggestion," said James. "As if you were going
to write an account in the newspapers--excellent."
"And so simple! You pick up just _all_ the information you require."
"Decidedly--decidedly!" said James.
And so behold our two heroes sniffing round the sordid backs and
wasted meadows and marshy places of Lumley. They found one barren
patch where two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling
potatoes, sitting on the bottom step of her caravan. A half-caste
girl came up with a large pale-blue enamelled jug of water. In the
background were two booths covered up with coloured canvas.
Hammering was heard inside.
"Good-morning!" said Mr. May, stopping before the woman. "'Tisn't
fair 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 under
the canvas that covered one booth. The negro was thin, and looked
young but rather frail, and limped. His face was very like that of
the young negro in Watteau's drawing--pathetic, wistful,
north-bitten. In an instant Mr. May had taken all in: the man was
the woman's husband--they were acclimatized in these regions: the
booth where he had been hammering was a Hoop-La. The other would be
a cocoanut-shy. Feeling the instant American dislike for the
presence of a negro, Mr. May moved off with James.
They found out that the woman was a Lumley woman, that she had two
children, that the negro was a most quiet and respectable chap, but
that the family kept to itself, and didn't mix up with Lumley.
"I should think so," said Mr. May, a little disgusted even at the
suggestion.
Then he proceeded to find out how long they had stood on this
ground--three months--how long they would remain--only another week,
then they were moving off to Alfreton fair--who was the owner of the
pitch--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 we _fortunate_!" cried Mr. May, perking up
the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and brisk
perkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o'clock
whiskey terribly--terribly--his pick-me-up! And he daren't confess
it to James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and
hollow way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous
exhaustion in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his
short nose. The smell of the place was distasteful to him. The
_disgusting_ beer that the colliers drank. Oh!--he _was_ so tired.
He sank back with his whiskey and stared blankly, dismally in front
of him. Beneath his eyes he looked more bilious still. He felt
thoroughly out of luck, and petulant.
None the less he sallied out with all his old bright perkiness, the
next time he had to meet James. He hadn't yet broached the question
of costs. When would he be able to get an advance from James? He
_must_ hurry the matter forward. He brushed his crisp, curly brown
hair carefully before the mirror. How grey he was at the temples! No
wonder, dear me, with such a life! He was in his shirt-sleeves. His
waistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had
filled out--but he hadn't developed a corporation. Not at all. He
looked at himself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinner. He
was one of those men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so
that their tail sticks out a little behind, jauntily. How
wonderfully the satin of his waistcoat had worn! He looked at his
shirt-cuffs. They were going. Luckily, when he had had the shirts
made he had secured enough material for the renewing of cuffs and
neckbands. He put on his coat, from which he had flicked the
faintest suspicion of dust, and again settled himself to go out and
meet James on the question of an advance. He simply must have an
advance.
He didn't get it that day, none the less. The next morning he was
ringing for his tea at six o'clock. And before ten he had already
flitted to Lumley and back, he had already had a word with Mr. Bows,
about that pitch, and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with
the quiet, frail, sad negro, about Alfreton fair, and the chance of
buying some sort of collapsible building, for his cinematograph.
With all this news he met James--not at the shabby club, but in the
deserted reading-room of the so-called Artizans Hall--where never an
artizan entered, but only men of James's class. Here they took the
chessboard and pretended to start a game. But their conversation
was rapid 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 going
to look round for an erection"--curious that he always called it an
erection--"we shall have to know what we are going to spend."
"Yes--yes. Well--" said James vaguely, nervously, giving a glance at
Mr. May. Whilst Mr. May abstractedly fingered his black knight.
"You see at the moment," said Mr. May, "I have no funds that I can
represent in cash. I have no doubt a little _later_--if we need
it--I can find a few hundreds. Many things are _due_--numbers of
things. But it is so difficult to _collect_ one's dues, particularly
from America." He lifted his blue eyes to James Houghton. "Of course
we can _delay_ for some time, until I get my supplies. Or I can act
just as your manager--you can _employ_ me--"
He watched James's face. James looked down at the chessboard. He was
fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partner. He wanted to
be in this all by himself. He hated partners.
"You will agree to be manager, at a fixed salary?" said James
hurriedly and huskily, his fine fingers slowly rubbing each other,
along the sides.
"Why yes, willingly, if you'll give me the option of becoming your
partner 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 I
enter an engagement as your manager, at a salary, let us say, of--of
what, 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.
"How much?" 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. Of
course it's ridiculously low. In America I _never_ accepted less
than three hundred dollars a month, and that was my poorest and
lowest. But of _cauce_, 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 you _can_ think of," retorted Mr. May,
rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a doddering
provincial, and by his own sudden collapse into mean subordination.
"I can't make it more than ten pounds a month," said James sharply.
"What!" screamed Mr. May. "What am I to live on? What is my wife to
live 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 at
the beginning. If you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashion in the
beginning, you will get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month! Why it's
impossible! Ten pounds a month! But how am I to _live_?"
James's head still vibrated in a negative fashion. And the two men
came to no agreement _that_ morning. Mr. May went home more sick and
weary than ever, and took his whiskey more biliously. But James was
lit with the light of battle.
Poor Mr. May had to gather together his wits and his sprightliness
for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in
other ways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten
pounds--but really, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous in
your life, _ten pounds!_--dirty old screw, dirty, screwing old
woman! He would accept the ten pounds; but he would get his own
back.
He flitted down once more to the negro, to ask him of a certain
wooden show-house, with section sides and roof, an old travelling
theatre which stood closed on Selverhay Common, and might probably
be sold. He pressed across once more to Mr. Bows. He wrote various
letters and drew up certain notes. And the next morning, by eight
o'clock, he was on his way to Selverhay: walking, poor man, the long
and uninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod
feet, through country that had been once beautiful but was now
scrubbled all over 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 depressing than 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't rotten?
He crouched and probed and pierced with his pen-knife, till a
country-policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got off his
bicycle 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, holding
his pen-knife in his hand.
"Oh," he said, "good-morning." He settled his waistcoat and glanced
over the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "I was
taking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. I'm
afraid 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.
The policeman did not deign to answer.
"Could you tell me where I can find out about it, anyway?" Mr. May
used his most affable, man of the world manner. But the policeman
continued to stare him up and down, as if he were some marvellous
specimen 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 was
with great difficulty he preserved his man-to-man openness and
brightness.
"They aren't here," said the constable.
"Oh indeed! Where _are_ they? And _who_ are they?"
The policeman eyed him more suspiciously than ever.
"Cowlard's their name. An' they live in Offerton when they aren't
travelling."
"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 a
criminal or a fool.
"Yes. There _is_ a station there?"
"Ay--biggest next to Chesterfield--"
Suddenly it dawned on Mr. May.
"Oh-h!" he said. "You mean _Alfreton_--"
"Alfreton, yes." The policeman was now convinced the man was a
wrong-'un. But fortunately he was not a pushing constable, he did
not want to rise in the police-scale: thought himself safest at the
bottom.
"And which is the way to the station here?" asked Mr. May.
"Do yer want 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 hour
or 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 by
the time you get down."
"To where?"
"Bull'ill."
"Oh Bull'ill! Well, perhaps I'll try. Could you tell me the way?"
When, after an hour's painful walk, Mr. May came to Bullwell Station
and found there was no train till six in the evening, he felt he
was earning every penny he would ever get from Mr. Houghton.
The first intelligence which Miss Pinnegar and Alvina gathered of
the coming adventure was given them when James announced that he had
let the shop to Marsden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed to
take over James's premises at the same rent as that of the premises
he already occupied, and moreover to do all alterations and put in
all fixtures himself. This was a grand scoop for James: not a penny
was it going 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 Miss
Pinnegar.
"Certainly it isn't," said James, rubbing his hands: a sign that he
was 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 away
to find Mr. May.
James was now nearly seventy years old. Yet he nipped about like a
leaf 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 it
is, now."
"I can't imagine," laughed Alvina. "But I'll bet it's something
awful--else he'd have told us."
"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar slowly. "Most likely he would. I wonder
what it can be."
"I haven't an idea," said Alvina.
Both women were so retired, they had heard nothing of James's little
trips 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, was
looking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreement, he
had ventured on whiskey and soda in honour, and James had actually
taken a glass of port.
"Alvina!" Miss Pinnegar called discreetly down the shop. "Alvina!
Quick!"
Alvina flew down to peep round the corner of the shop window. There
stood the two men, Mr. May like a perky, pink-faced grey bird
standing cocking his head in attention to James Houghton, and
occasionally catching James by the lapel of his coat, in a vain
desire to get a word in, whilst James's head nodded and his face
simply wagged with excited speech, as he skipped from foot to foot,
and shifted round his listener.
"Who _ever_ can that common-looking man be?" said Miss Pinnegar, her
heart going down to her boots.
"I can't imagine," said Alvina, laughing at the comic sight.
"Don't you think he's dreadful?" said the poor elderly woman.
"Perfectly impossible. 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 Miss
Pinnegar.
The two men had moved a few steps further towards home, and the
women prepared to flee indoors. Of course it was frightfully wrong
to be standing peeping in the high street at all. But who could
consider the proprieties now?
"They've stopped again," said Miss Pinnegar, recalling Alvina.
The two men were having a few more excited words, their voices just
audible.
"I do wonder who he can be," murmured Miss Pinnegar miserably.
"In the 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 I _can't_ believe it, I can't."
But now Mr. May had laid his detaining hand on James's arm. And now
he was shaking his employer by the hand. And now James, in his cheap
little cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a
graceful wave of his grey-suède-gloved hand, was turning back to the
Moon and Stars, strutting, whilst James was running home on
tip-toe, in his natural hurry.
Alvina hastily retreated, but Miss Pinnegar stood it out. James
started as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her
confronting him.
"Oh--Miss Pinnegar!" he said, and made to slip by her.
"Who was that man?" she asked sharply, as if James were a child whom
she 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 see
a sight. The sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty
little hat and the grey suède hands retreating quite surprised him.
He was angry at being introduced to the sight.
"Oh," he said. "That's my manager." And he turned hastily down the
shop, asking for his dinner.
Miss Pinnegar stood for some moments in pure oblivion in the shop
entrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recovered, she felt
she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened
herself once more, though the effort cost her a year of her life.
She had never collapsed, 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
the inevitable. He was eating his dinner, and seemed oblivious of
her entry. There was a smell of Irish stew.
"What manager?" said Miss Pinnegar, short, silent, and inevitable in
the doorway.
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 Irish
stew.
"Mr. Houghton!" said Miss Pinnegar, in a sudden changed voice. She
had gone a livid yellow colour. And she gave a queer, sharp little
rap on the table with her hand.
James started. He looked up bewildered, as one startled out of
sleep.
"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. James
shrank.
"What manager?" he re-echoed. "My manager. The manager of my
cinema."
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 womanhood
was silently discharged at him, like a black bolt of silent
electricity. But Miss Pinnegar, the engine of wrath, felt she would
burst.
"Cinema! Cinema! Do you mean to tell me--" but she was really
suffocated, the vessels of her heart and breast were bursting. She
had to lean her hand on the table.
It was a terrible moment. She looked ghastly and terrible, with her
mask-like face and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. Some fearful
thunderbolt seemed to fall. James withered, and was still. There was
silence for minutes, a suspension.
And in those minutes, she finished with him. She finished with him
for 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 if she were alone.
Poor Alvina, for whom this had been a dreadful and uncalled-for
moment, had looked from one to another, and had also dropped her
head to her plate. James too, with bent head, had forgotten to eat.
Miss Pinnegar ate very slowly, alone.
"Don't you want your dinner, Alvina?" she said at length.
"Not as much as I did," said Alvina.
"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. She sounded short, almost like Miss
Frost. 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 with
a 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 Miss
Pinnegar.
"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 as
James had eaten his plum tart, he ran away.
"What can he have been doing?" said Alvina when he had gone.
"Buying a cinema show--and that man we saw is his manager. It's
quite simple."
"But what are we going to do with a cinema show?" said Alvina.
"It's what is _he_ going to do. It doesn't concern me. It's no
concern of mine. I shall not lend him anything, I shall not think
about it, it will be the same to me as if there _were_ no cinema.
Which is 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
me to introduce myself into them."
"They don't concern _me_ 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 gone
cold, they would never warm up again. As well try to warm up a
frozen mouse. It only putrifies.
But poor Miss Pinnegar after this looked older, and seemed to get a
little round-backed. And the things she said reminded Alvina so
often of Miss Frost.
James fluttered into conversation with his daughter the next
evening, after Miss Pinnegar had retired.
"I told you I had bought a cinematograph building," said James. "We
are 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. The
building--it is a frame-section travelling theatre--will arrive on
Thursday--next Thursday."
"But who is in with you, father?"
"I am quite alone--quite alone," said James Houghton. "I have found
an 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 cash
and issue tickets: if she will take over the ticket-office: and you
will play the piano: and if Mr. May learns the control of the
machine--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 I
wouldn'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! She
hurried off to her bedroom to laugh and cry at once. She just saw
herself at that piano, banging off the _Merry Widow Waltz_, and, in
tender moments, _The Rosary_. Time after time, _The Rosary_. While
the pictures flickered and the audience gave shouts and some grubby
boy called "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let,
penny a bar!" away she banged at another tune.
What a sight for the gods! She burst out laughing. And at the same
time, she thought of her mother and Miss Frost, and she cried as if
her heart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous
tunes came into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with most
priceless variations. _Linger Longer Lucy_, for example. She began
to spin imaginary harmonies and variations in her head, upon the
theme of _Linger 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 Dream
Waltzes and Maiden's Prayers, and the awful songs.
"For in Spooney-ooney Island
Is there any one cares for me?
In Spooney-ooney Island
Why surely there ought to be--"
Poor Miss Frost! Alvina imagined herself leading a chorus of
collier louts, in a bad atmosphere of "Woodbines" and oranges,
during the intervals 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 shady
Calling 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-dovey--
How'd you like to spoon with me?
(_Oh-h--Go on!_)"
Alvina worked herself into quite a fever, with her imaginings.
In the 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're going to play the piano. It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace!
It's a disgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead.
He's lost every bit of shame--every bit--if he ever had any--which I
doubt very much. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I am not concerned.
And I'm sorry for 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 was
introduced 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 to _look_ at: just an old wooden
travelling theatre. But _then_--all we need is to make a start."
"And you are going to work the film?" she asked.
"Yes," he said with pride, "I spend every evening with the operator
at Marsh's in Knarborough. Very interesting I find it--very
interesting indeed. And _you_ are going to play the piano?" he said,
perking his head on one side and looking at her archly.
"So father says," she answered.
"But what do _you_ say?" queried Mr. May.
"I suppose I don't have any say."
"Oh but _surely_. 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 turned to
Mr. Houghton with a note of query.
"Alvina can play as well as anybody in Woodhouse," said James. "We
mustn't add to our expenses. And wages in particular--"
"But surely Miss Houghton will have her wage. The labourer is worthy
of his hire. Surely! Even of _her_ hire, to put it in the feminine.
And for the same wage you could get some unimportant fellow with
strong wrists. I'm afraid it will tire Miss Houghton to death--"
"I don't think so," said James. "I don't think so. Many of the turns
she will not need to accompany--"
"Well, if it comes to that," said Mr. May, "I can accompany some of
them myself, when I'm not operating the film. I'm not an expert
pianist--but I can play a little, you know--" And he trilled his
fingers up and down an imaginary keyboard in front of Alvina,
cocking his eye at her smiling a little archly.
"I'm sure," he continued, "I can accompany anything except a man
juggling dinner-plates--and then I'd be afraid of making him drop
the plates. But songs--oh, songs! _Con molto espressione!_"
And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, and smiled his rather
fat cheeks at Alvina.
She began to like him. There was something a little dainty about
him, 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. Miss
Pinnegar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her. But he
was very happy sitting chatting tête-à-tête with Alvina.
"Where is your wife?" said Alvina to him.
"My wife! Oh, don't speak of _her_," he said comically. "She's in
London."
"Why not speak of her?" asked Alvina.
"Oh, every reason for not speaking of her. We don't get on at _all_
well, she and I."
"What a pity," said Alvina.
"Dreadful pity! But what are you to do?" He laughed comically. Then
he became grave. "No," he said. "She's an impossible person."
"I see," said Alvina.
"I'm sure you _don't_ see," said Mr. May. "Don't--" and here he laid
his hand on Alvina's arm--"don't run away with the idea that she's
_immoral_! You'd never make a greater mistake. Oh dear me, no.
Morality's her strongest point. Live on three lettuce leaves, and
give the rest to the char. That's her. Oh, dreadful times we had in
those first years. We only lived together for three years. But dear
_me_! 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'd
answer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to bed--that will be my
supper.' She was one of these advanced vegetarian women, don't you
know."
"How extraordinary!" said Alvina.
"Extraordinary! I should think so. Extraordinary hard lines on _me_.
And she wouldn't let _me_ eat either. She followed me to the kitchen in
a _fury_ while I cooked for myself. Why imagine! I prepared a dish of
champignons: oh, most _beautiful_ champignons, beautiful--and I put
them on the stove to fry in butter: beautiful young champignons. I'm
hanged if she didn't go into the kitchen while my back was turned, and
pour a pint of old carrot-water into the pan. I was _furious_.
Imagine!--beautiful fresh young champignons--"
"Fresh mushrooms," said Alvina.
"Mushrooms--most beautiful things in the world. Oh! don't you think
so?" And he rolled his eyes oddly to heaven.
"They _are_ good," said Alvina.
"I should say so. And swamped--_swamped_ with her dirty old carrot
water. Oh I was so angry. And all she could say was, 'Well, I
didn't want to waste it!' Didn't want to waste her old carrot water,
and so _ruined_ my champignons. _Can_ you imagine such a person?"
"It must have been trying."
"I should think it was. I lost weight. I lost I don't know how many
pounds, the first year I was married to that woman. She hated me to
eat. Why, one of her great accusations against me, at the last, was
when she said: 'I've looked round the larder,' she said to me, 'and
seen it was quite empty, and I thought to myself: _Now_ he _can't_
cook a supper! And _then_ you did!' There! What do you think of
that? The spite of it! 'And _then_ you did!'"
"What did she expect you to live on?" asked Alvina.
"Nibble a lettuce leaf with her, and drink water from the tap--and
then elevate myself with a Bernard Shaw pamphlet. That was the sort
of woman she was. All it gave _me_ was gas in the stomach."
"So overbearing!" said Alvina.
"Oh!" he turned his eyes to heaven, and spread his hands. "I didn't
believe 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, you can't imagine such a state. Worse than the Spanish
Inquisition. And I stood 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 I _support_ her, of
cauce."
"And your daughter?"
"Oh, she's the dearest child in the world. I saw her at a friend's
when I came back from America. Dearest little thing in the world.
But of _cauce_ suspicious of me. Treats me as if she didn't _know_
me--"
"What a pity!"
"Oh--unbearable!" He spread his plump, manicured hands, on one
finger of which was a green intaglio ring.
"How old is your daughter?"
"Fourteen."
"What is her name?"
"Gemma. She was born in Rome, where I was managing for Miss Maud
Callum, the _danseuse_."
Curious the intimacy Mr. May established with Alvina at once. But
it was all purely verbal, descriptive. He made no physical advances.
On the contrary, he was like a dove-grey, disconsolate bird pecking
the crumbs of Alvina's sympathy, and cocking his eye all the time to
watch that she did not advance one step towards him. If he had seen
the least sign of coming-on-ness in her, he would have fluttered off
in a great dither. Nothing _horrified_ him more than a woman who was
coming-on towards him. It horrified him, it exasperated him, it made
him hate the whole tribe of women: horrific two-legged cats without
whiskers. If he had been a bird, his innate horror of a cat would
have been such. He liked the _angel_, and particularly the
angel-mother in woman. Oh!--that he worshipped. But coming-on-ness!
So he never wanted to be seen out-of-doors with Alvina; if he met
her in the street he bowed and passed on: bowed very deep and
reverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back a little
more strutty and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back
on her in public.
But Miss Pinnegar, a regular old, grey, dangerous she-puss, eyed him
from the corner of her pale eye, as he turned tail.
"So unmanly!" she murmured. "In his dress, in his way, in
everything--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 was
up 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 and thither, 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 he was angry or displeased, and sharp, snip-snap
came his words, rather like scissors.
"But how is it--" he attacked Arthur Witham--"that the gas isn't
connected with the main yet? It was to be ready yesterday."
"We've had to wait for the fixings for them brackets," said Arthur.
"_Had_ to _wait_ for _fixings_! But didn't you know a fortnight 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 you
just thought about those that are coming, or have you made sure?"
Arthur looked at him sullenly. He hated him. But Mr. May's sharp
touch was not to be foiled.
"I hope you'll go further than _thinking_," said Mr. May. "Thinking
seems such a slow process. And when do you expect the fittings--?"
"Tomorrow."
"What! Another day! Another day _still!_ But you're strangely
indifferent to time, in your line of business. Oh! _Tomorrow!_
Imagine it! Two days late already, and then _tomorrow!_ Well I hope
by tomorrow you mean _Wednesday_, and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or
some other absurd and fanciful date that you've just _thought
about_. But now, _do_ have the thing finished by tomorrow--" here he
laid his hand cajoling on Arthur's arm. "You promise 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.
I shall be _most_ obliged, if it _is_ done."
Arthur was annoyed, but he was kept to the scratch. And so, early in
October the place was ready, and Woodhouse was plastered with
placards announcing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could
not but see an irony in the Palace part of the phrase. "We can
guarantee the _pleasure_," he said. "But personally, I feel I can't
take the responsibility 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. He
was drawing out announcements. First was a batch of vermilion
strips, with the mystic script, in big black letters: Houghton's
Picture Palace, underneath which, quite small: Opens at Lumley on
October 7th, at 6:30 P.M. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and
black bars sprang from the wall at you. Then there were other
notices, in delicate pale-blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre
notice, giving full programs. And beneath these a broad-letter
notice announced, in green letters on a yellow ground: "Final and
Ultimate Clearance Sale at Houghton's, Knarborough Road, on Friday,
September 30th. Come and Buy Without Price."
James was in his eye-holes. He collected all his odds and ends from
every corner of Manchester House. He sorted them in heaps, and
marked the heaps in his own mind. And then he let go. He pasted up
notices all over the window and all over the shop: "Take what you
want and Pay what you Like."
He and Miss Pinnegar kept shop. The women flocked in. They turned
things over. It nearly killed James to take the prices they offered.
But take them he did. But he exacted that they should buy one
article at a time. "One piece at a time, if you don't mind," he
said, when they came up with their three-a-penny handfuls. It was
not till later in the evening that he relaxed this rule.
Well, by eleven o'clock he had cleared out a good deal--really, a
very great deal--and many women had bought what they didn't want, at
their own figure. Feverish but content, James shut the shop for the
last time. Next day, by eleven, he had removed all his belongings,
the door that connected the house with the shop was screwed up fast,
the grocer strolled in and looked round his bare extension, took the
key from James, and immediately set his boy to paste a new notice in
the window, tearing down all James's announcements. Poor James had
to run round, down Knarborough Road, and down Wellington Street as
far as the Livery Stable, then down long narrow passages, before he
could get into his own house, from his own shop.
But he did not mind. Every hour brought the first performance of his
Pleasure Palace nearer. He was satisfied with Mr. May: he had to
admit that 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, all over, of dark-red paint, like ox-blood. It was
tittivated up with a touch of lavender and yellow round the door and
round the decorated wooden eaving. It had a new wooden slope up to
the doors--and inside, a new 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, in
some lucky stroke, Houghton's Endeavour, a reference to that
particular Chapel effort called the Christian Endeavour, where
Alvina and Miss Pinnegar both figured.
"Wheer art off, Sorry?"
"Lumley."
"Houghton's Endeavour?"
"Ah."
"Rotten."
So, when one laconic young collier accosted another. But we
anticipate.
Mr. May had worked hard to get a program for the first week. His
pictures were: "The Human Bird," which turned out to be a ski-ing
film from Norway, purely descriptive; "The Pancake," a humorous
film: and then his grand serial: "The Silent Grip." And then, for
Turns, his first item was Miss Poppy Traherne, a lady in innumerable
petticoats, who could whirl herself into anything you like, from an
arum lily in green stockings to a rainbow and a Catherine wheel and
a cup-and-saucer: marvellous, was Miss Poppy Traherne. The next turn
was The Baxter Brothers, who ran up and down each other's backs and
up and down each other's front, and stood on each other's heads and
on their own heads, and perched for a moment on each other's
shoulders, as if each of them was a flight of stairs with a landing,
and the three of them were three flights, three storeys up, the top
flight continually running down and becoming the bottom flight,
while the middle flight collapsed 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
the Monday morning there was a rehearsal, Mr. May conducting. She
played "Welcome All," and then took the thumbed sheets which Miss
Poppy Traherne carried with her. Miss Poppy was rather exacting. As
she whirled her skirts she kept saying: "A little faster,
please"--"A little slower"--in a rather haughty, official voice that
was somewhat muffled by the swim of her drapery. "Can you give it
_expression_?" 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 should
have called "Stronger! Stronger!" as she came into being as a cup
and saucer, Alvina could not imagine: unless Miss Poppy was fancying
herself a strong cup of tea.
However, she subsided into her mere self, panted frantically, and
then, in a hoarse voice, demanded if she was in the bare front of
the show. She scorned to count "Welcome All." Mr. May said Yes. She
was the first 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 wait till he'd finished cuckooing. Then she said:
"That's not every night. There's six nights to a week." James was
properly snubbed. It ended by Mr. May metamorphizing himself into a
pug dog: he said he had got the "costoom" in his bag: and doing a
lump-of-sugar scene with one of the Baxter Brothers, as a brief
first item. Miss Poppy's professional virginity was thus saved from
outrage.
At the back of the stage there was half-a-yard of curtain screening
the two dressing-rooms, ladies and gents. In her spare time Alvina
sat in the ladies' dressing room, or in its lower doorway, for there
was not room right inside. She watched the ladies making up--she
gave some slight assistance. She saw the men's feet, in their shabby
pumps, on the other side of the curtain, and she heard the men's
gruff voices. Often a slangy conversation was carried on through the
curtain--for most of the turns were acquainted with each other: very
affable before each other's faces, very sniffy behind each other's
backs.
Poor Alvina was in a state of bewilderment. She was extremely
nice--oh, much too nice with the female turns. They treated her with
a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her
and were a little spiteful with her because Mr. May treated her with
attention and deference. She felt bewildered, a little excited, and
as if she was not herself.
The first evening actually came. Her father had produced a pink
crêpe de Chine blouse and a back-comb massed with brilliants--both
of which she refused to wear. She stuck to her black blouse and
black shirt, and her simple hair-dressing. Mr. May said "Of cauce!
She wasn't intended to attract attention to herself." Miss Pinnegar
actually walked down the hill with her, and began to cry when she
saw the ox-blood red erection, with its gas-flares in front. It was
the first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the
little stage door at the back, and up the steps into the scrap of
dressing-room. But she fled out again from the sight of Miss Poppy
in her yellow hair and green knickers with green-lace frills. Poor
Miss Pinnegar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the
Band of Hope, and really cried. Luckily she had put a veil on.
She went valiantly round to the front entrance, and climbed the
steps. The crowd was just coming. There was James's face peeping
inside the little ticket-window.
"One!" he said officially, pushing out the ticket. And then he
recognized her. "Oh," he said, "_You're_ not going to pay."
"Yes I am," she said, and she left her fourpence, and James's
coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss
Pinnegar shoved her forward.
"Arf way down, fourpenny," said the man at the door, poking her in
the direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet.
But she 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,
and it represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat
porker and a 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, a collar-and-necktie, a pair of braces and an umbrella.
And so on and so on. It all made you feel very homely. But Miss
Pinnegar was sadly hot and squeezed in her pew.
Time came, and the colliers began to drum their feet. It was exactly
the excited, crowded audience Mr. May wanted. He darted out to drive
James round in front of the curtain. But James, fascinated by raking
in the money so fast, could not be shifted from the pay-box, and the
two men nearly had a fight. At last Mr. May was seen shooing James,
like a scuffled chicken, down the side gangway and on to the stage.
James before the illuminated curtain of local adverts, bowing and
beginning and not making a single word audible! The crowd quieted
itself, the eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James, and
began to shuffle. "Come down, come down!" hissed Mr. May frantically
from in front. But James did not move. He would flow on all night.
Mr. May waved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at the piano,
and darted on to the stage. He raised his voice and drowned James.
James ceased to wave his penny-blackened hands, Alvina struck up
"Welcome All" as loudly 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
at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina.
She knew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr. May
was fitted in his pug-dog "Costoom."
A twitch of the curtain. Alvina wound up her final flourish, the
curtain rose, and:
"Well really!" said Miss Pinnegar, out loud.
There was Mr. May as a pug dog begging, too lifelike and too
impossible. 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 of
music. Soft music. Miss Poppy was on the ground under a green scarf.
And so the accumulating dilation, on to the whirling climax of the
perfect arum lily. Sudden curtain, and a yell of ecstasy from the
colliers. Of all blossoms, the arum, the arum lily is most mystical
and portentous.
Now a crash and rumble from Alvina's piano. This is the storm from
whence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain--Miss Poppy twirling
till her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow
above her now darkened legs. The footlights are all but
extinguished. Miss Poppy is all but extinguished also.
The rainbow is not so moving as the arum lily. But the Catherine
wheel, done at the last moment on one leg and then an amazing leap
into the air backwards, again brings down the house.
Miss Poppy herself sets all store on her cup and saucer. But the
audience, 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
for the up-and-down-stairs Baxter Bros. Meanwhile, Alvina's pale
face hovering like a ghost in the side darkness, as it were under
the stage.
The lamps go out: gurglings and kissings--and then the dither on the
screen: "The Human Bird," in awful shivery letters. It's not a very
good machine, and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audience
distinctly 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
the first half over. Lights up for the interval.
Miss Pinnegar sighed and folded her hands. She looked neither to
right nor to left. In spite of herself, in spite of outraged shame
and decency, she was excited. But she felt such excitement was not
wholesome. In vain the boy most pertinently yelled "Chot-let" at
her. She looked neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina
nodding to her with a quick smile from the side gangway under the
stage, she almost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at
once. And Alvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped
across in front of the audience, to the piano, to play the seductive
"Dream Waltz!" she looked almost fussy, like her father. James,
needless to say, flittered and hurried hither and thither around the
audience and the stage, like a wagtail on the brink of a pool.
The second half consisted of a comic drama acted by two Baxter
Bros., disguised as women, and Miss Poppy disguised as a man--with a
couple of locals thrown in to do the guardsman and the Count. This
went very well. The winding up was the first instalment of "The
Silent Grip."
When lights went up and Alvina solemnly struck "God Save Our
Gracious King," the audience was on its feet and not very quiet,
evidently hissing with excitement like doughnuts in the pan even
when the pan is taken off the fire. Mr. Houghton thanked them for
their courtesy and attention, and hoped--And nobody took the
slightest notice.
Miss Pinnegar stayed last, waiting for Alvina. And Alvina, in her
excitement, 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 in
Miss 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, and
dropping them into a Gladstone bag. The others had to wait for him.
At last 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. James
turned as if he would snatch it from him. "Well! Feel that, for
fairly well!" 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 to
James. But she spoke coldly, aloof.
Mr. May turned off the gas at the meter, came talking through the
darkness of the empty theatre, picking his way with a flash-light.
"C'est le premier pas qui coute," he said, in a sort of American
French, as he locked the doors and put the key in his pocket. James
tripped silently alongside, bowed under the weight of his Gladstone
bag of 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 swept
his table clear, and then, in an expert fashion, he seized handfuls
of coin and piled them in little columns on his board. There was an
army of fat pennies, a dozen to a column, along the back, rows and
rows of fat brown rank-and-file. In front of these, rows of slim
halfpence, like an advance-guard. And commanding all, a stout column
of half-crowns, a few stoutish and important florin-figures, like
general and 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 threepenny
pieces.
There they all were: burly dragoons of stout pennies, heavy and
holding their ground, with a screen of halfpenny light infantry,
officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn was
flanked by all his staff of florin colonels and shilling captains,
from whom lightly moved the nimble sixpenny lieutenants all
ignoring the wan, frail Joey of the threepenny-bits.
Time after time James ran his almighty eye over his army. He loved
them. He loved to feel that his table was pressed down, that it
groaned under their weight. He loved to see the pence, like
innumerable pillars of cloud, standing waiting to lead on into
wildernesses of unopened resource, while the silver, as pillars of
light, should guide the way down the long night of fortune. Their
weight sank sensually into his muscle, and gave him gratification.
The dark redness of bronze, like full-blooded fleas, seemed alive
and pulsing, the silver was magic as if winged.
CHAPTER VII
NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA
Mr. May and Alvina became almost inseparable, and Woodhouse buzzed
with scandal. Woodhouse could not believe that Mr. May was
absolutely final in his horror of any sort of coming-on-ness in a
woman. It could not believe that he was only _so_ fond of Alvina
because she was like a sister to him, poor, lonely, harassed soul
that he was: a pure sister who really hadn't any body. For although
Mr. May was rather fond, in an epicurean way, of his own body, yet
other people's bodies rather 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 naïve fashion.
"There are two kinds of friendships," he said, "physical and mental.
The physical is a thing of the moment. Of cauce you quite _like_ the
individual, you remain quite nice with them, and so on,--to keep the
thing as decent as possible. It _is_ quite decent, so long as you
keep it so. But it is a thing of the moment. Which you know. It may
last a week or two, or a month or two. But you know from the
beginning it is going to end--quite finally--quite soon. You take it
for what it is. But it's so different with the mental friendships.
_They_ are lasting. They are eternal--if anything human (he said
yuman) ever is eternal, ever _can_ be eternal." He pressed his hands
together in an odd cherubic manner. He was quite sincere: if man
ever _can_ be quite sincere.
Alvina was quite content to be one of his mental and eternal
friends, or rather _friendships_--since she existed _in abstractu_
as far as he was concerned. For she did not find him at all
physically moving. Physically he was not there: he was oddly an
absentee. But his naïveté roused the serpent's tooth of her bitter
irony.
"And your wife?" she said to him.
"Oh, my wife! Dreadful thought! _There_ I made the great mistake of
trying to find the two in one person! And _didn't_ I fall between
two stools! Oh dear, _didn't_ I? Oh, I fell between the two stools
beautifully, beautifully! And _then_--she nearly set 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 for
supper!--and when I was mental she was physical, and threw her arms
round my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning, when
I was on the alert for business. Yes, invariably. What do you think
of it? Could the devil himself have invented anything more trying?
Oh dear me, 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 she
remained good friends with the odd little man.
He bought himself a new, smart overcoat, that fitted his figure, and
a new velour hat. And she even noticed, one day when he was curling
himself up cosily on the sofa, that he had pale blue silk underwear,
and purple silk suspenders. She wondered where he got them, and how
he afforded them. But there they were.
James seemed for the time being wrapt in his
undertaking--particularly in the takings part of it. He seemed for
the time being contented--or nearly so, nearly so. Certainly there
was money coming in. But then he had to pay off all he had borrowed
to buy his erection and its furnishings, and a bulk of pennies
sublimated into a very small £.s.d. account, at the bank.
The Endeavour was successful--yes, it was successful. But not
overwhelmingly so. On wet nights Woodhouse did not care to trail
down to Lumley. And then Lumley was one of those depressed, negative
spots on the face of the earth which have no pull at all. In that
region of sharp hills with fine hill-brows, and shallow, rather
dreary canal-valleys, it was the places on the hill-brows, like
Woodhouse and Hathersedge and Rapton which flourished, while the
dreary places down along the canals existed only for work-places,
not for life and pleasure. It was just like James to have planted
his endeavour down in the stagnant dust and rust of potteries and
foundries, where no illusion 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.
He had to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rate
from the start. His hope now lay in the tramway which was being
built from Knarborough away through the country--a black country
indeed--through Woodhouse and Lumley and Hathersedge, to Rapton.
When once this tramway-system was working, he would have a supply of
youths and lasses always on tap, as it were. So he spread his
rainbow wings towards the future, and began to say:
"When we've got the trams, I shall buy a new machine and finer
lenses, and I shall extend my premises."
Mr. May did not talk business to Alvina. He was terribly secretive
with respect to business. But he said to her once, in the early year
following 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," she
said.
"No," he answered. "No! That's true. That's perfectly true. But why?
They seem to like the programs."
"I think they do," said Alvina. "I think they like them when they're
there. But isn't it funny, they don't seem to want to come to them.
I know they always talk as if we were second-rate. And they only
come because they can't get to the Empire, or up to Hathersedge.
We're a stop-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.
"Why do 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 they are!"
"I know. I know they like them once they're there, and they see
them. But they don't come again. They crowd the Empire--and the
Empire is 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 believe
they want everything in the flat," he said, coaxing and miserable.
He himself was not interested in the film. His interest was still
the human interest in living performers and their living feats.
"Why," he continued, "they are ever so much more excited after a
good turn, than after any film."
"I know they are," said Alvina. "But I don't believe they want to be
excited in that way."
"In what way?" asked Mr. May plaintively.
"By the things which the artistes do. I believe they're jealous."
"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't
mean it, of _cauce_! But do you mean to say that these collier louts
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 I _can't_ believe it," said Mr. May, pouting up his mouth and
smiling at her as if she were a whimsical child. "What a low opinion
you have of human nature!"
"Have I?" laughed Alvina. "I've never reckoned it up. But I'm sure
that these common people here are jealous if anybody does anything
or has anything they can't have themselves."
"I can't believe it," protested Mr. May. "Could they be so _silly_!
And then why aren't they jealous of the extraordinary things which
are done on the film?"
"Because they don't see the flesh-and-blood people. I'm sure that's
it. The film is only pictures, like pictures in the _Daily Mirror_.
And pictures don't have any feelings apart from their own feelings.
I mean the feelings of the people who watch them. Pictures don't
have any life except in the people who watch them. And that's why
they like them. Because they make them feel that they are
everything."
"The pictures make the colliers and lasses feel that they themselves
are everything? But how? They identify themselves with the heroes
and heroines on the screen?"
"Yes--they take it all to themselves--and there isn't anything
except themselves. I know it's like that. It's because they can
spread themselves over a film, and they _can't_ over a living
performer. They're up against the performer himself. And they hate
it."
Mr. May watched her long and dismally.
"I _can't_ believe people are like that!--sane people!" he said.
"Why, to me the whole joy is in the living personality, the curious
_personality_ of the artiste. That's what I enjoy so much."
"I know. But that's where you're different from them."
"But _am_ 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 more
intelligent?"
"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 to
themselves. They hate anything that isn't themselves. And that's why
they 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 she
were making a fool of herself.
"Because you don't know them. You don't know the common people. You
don'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 but
pictures, like the Empire?" he said.
"I believe it takes best," she said.
"And costs less," he answered. "But _then_! It's so dull. Oh my
_word_, it's so dull. I don't think I could bear it."
"And our pictures aren't good enough," she said. "We should have to
get a new machine, and pay for the expensive films. Our pictures do
shake, 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 made
just a margin of profit--no more. Spring went on to summer, and then
there was a very shadowy margin of profit. But James was not at all
daunted. He was waiting now for the trams, and building up hopes
since he could not build in bricks and mortar.
The navvies were busy in troops along the Knarborough Road, and down
Lumley Hill. Alvina became quite used to them. As she went down the
hill 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 as they swung along the pavement--some of them; and there was a
certain lurking set of the head which rather frightened her because
it fascinated her. There was one tall young fellow with a red face
and fair 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 he would glance at perky Mr. May. Alvina tried to
fathom what the young fellow'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 one
evening as the navvies passed. And all three turned round, to find
all three turning round. Alvina laughed, and made eyes. At that
moment she would cheerfully have gone along with the navvy. She was
getting so tired 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.
She was _déclassée_: she had lost her class altogether. The other
daughters of respectable tradesmen avoided her now, or spoke to her
only from a distance. She was supposed to be "carrying on" with Mr.
May.
Alvina did not care. She rather liked it. She liked being
_déclassée_. She liked feeling an outsider. At last she seemed to
stand on her own ground. She laughed to herself as she went back and
forth from Woodhouse to Lumley, between Manchester House and the
Pleasure Palace. She laughed when she saw her father's theatre-notices
plastered about. She laughed when she saw his thrilling announcements
in the _Woodhouse Weekly_. She laughed when she knew that all the
Woodhouse youths recognized her, and looked on her as one of their
inferior entertainers. She was off the map: and she liked it.
For after all, she got a good deal of fun out of it. There was not
only the continual activity. There were the artistes. Every week she
met a new set of stars--three or four as a rule. She rehearsed with
them on Monday afternoons, and she saw them every evening, and twice
a week at matinees. James now gave two performances each
evening--and he always had _some_ audience. So that Alvina had
opportunity to come into contact with all the odd people of the
inferior stage. She found they were very much of a type: a little
frowsy, a little flea-bitten as a rule, indifferent to ordinary
morality, and philosophical even if irritable. They were often very
irritable. And they had always a certain fund of callous
philosophy. Alvina did not _like_ them--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 so different from
Woodhouse, where everything was priced and ticketed. These people
were nomads. They didn't care a straw who you were or who you
weren't. They had a most irritable professional vanity, and that was
all. It was most odd to watch them. They weren't very squeamish. If
the young gentlemen liked to peep round the curtain when the young
lady was in her knickers: oh, well, she rather roundly told them
off, perhaps, but nobody minded. The fact that ladies wore knickers
and black silk stockings thrilled nobody, any more than grease-paint
or false moustaches thrilled. It was all part of the stock-in-trade.
As for immorality--well, what did it amount to? Not a great deal.
Most of the men cared far more about a drop of whiskey than about
any more carnal vice, and most of the girls were good pals with each
other, men were only there to act with: even if the act was a
private love-farce of an improper description. What's the odds? You
couldn't get excited about it: not as a rule.
Mr. May usually took rooms for the artistes in a house down in
Lumley. When any one particular was coming, he would go to a rather
better-class widow in Woodhouse. He never let Alvina take any part
in the making of these arrangements, except with the widow in
Woodhouse, who had long ago been a servant at Manchester House, and
even now came in to do cleaning.
Odd, eccentric people they were, these entertainers. Most of them
had a streak of imagination, and most of them drank. Most of them
were middle-aged. Most of them had an abstracted manner; in ordinary
life, they seemed left aside, somehow. Odd, extraneous creatures,
often a little depressed, feeling life slip away from them. The
cinema was killing them.
Alvina had quite a serious flirtation with a man who played a flute
and piccolo. He was about fifty years old, still handsome, and
growing stout. When sober, he was completely reserved. When rather
drunk, he talked charmingly and amusingly--oh, most charmingly.
Alvina quite loved him. But alas, _how_ he drank! But what a charm
he had! He went, and she saw him no more.
The usual rather American-looking, clean-shaven, slightly pasty
young man left Alvina quite cold, though he had an amiable and truly
chivalrous _galanterie_. He was quite likeable. But so unattractive.
Alvina was more fascinated by the odd fish: like the lady who did
marvellous things with six ferrets, or the Jap who was tattooed all
over, and had the most amazing strong wrists, so that he could throw
down any collier, with one turn of the hand. Queer cuts these!--but
just a little bit beyond her. She watched them rather from a
distance. She wished she could jump across the distance.
Particularly with the Jap, who was almost quite naked, but clothed
with the most exquisite tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle
that flew with terrible spread wings between his shoulders, or the
strange mazy pattern that netted the roundness of his buttocks. He
was not very large, but nicely shaped, and with no hair on his
smooth, tattooed body. He was almost blue in colour--that is, his
tattooing was blue, with pickings of brilliant vermilion: as for
instance round the nipples, and in a strange red serpent's-jaws over
the navel. A serpent went round his loins and haunches. He told her
how many times he had had blood-poisoning, during the process of his
tattooing. He was a queer, black-eyed creature, with a look of
silence and toad-like lewdness. He frightened her. But when he was
dressed in common clothes, and was just a cheap, shoddy-looking
European Jap, he was more frightening still. For his face--he was
not tattooed above a certain ring low on his neck--was yellow and
flat and basking with one eye open, like some age-old serpent. She
felt he was smiling horribly all the time: lewd, unthinkable. A
strange sight he was in Woodhouse, on a sunny morning; a
shabby-looking bit of riff-raff of the East, rather down at the
heel. Who could have imagined the terrible eagle of his shoulders,
the serpent of his loins, his supple, magic skin?
The summer passed again, and autumn. Winter was a better time for
James Houghton. The trams, moreover, would begin to run in January.
He wanted to arrange a good program for the week when the trams
started. A long time ahead, Mr. May prepared it. The one item was
the Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe. The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe consisted
of five persons, Madame Rochard and four young men. They were a
strictly Red Indian troupe. But one of the young men, the German
Swiss, was a famous yodeller, and another, the French Swiss, was a
good comic with a French accent, whilst Madame and the German did a
screaming two-person farce. Their great turn, of course, was the
Natcha-Kee-Tawara Red Indian scene.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were due in the third week in January,
arriving from the Potteries on the Sunday evening. When Alvina came
in from 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. And moreover, he was getting old and shaky, and
Sunday was the one evening he might spend in peace. Add that on this
particular black Sunday night it was sleeting dismally outside, and
James had already a bit of a cough, 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 for
some cough-cure, because Madame had got a bad cold. The chemist was
gone to Chapel--he wouldn't open till eight.
Madame and the four young men had arrived at about six. Madame, said
Mrs. Rollings, was a little fat woman, and she was complaining all
the time that she had got a cold on her chest, laying her hand on
her chest and trying her breathing and going "He-e-e-er! Herr!" to
see if she could breathe properly. She, Mrs. Rollings, had suggested
that Madame should put her feet in hot mustard and water, but Madame
said she must have something to clear her chest. The four young men
were four nice civil young fellows. They evidently liked Madame.
Madame had insisted on cooking the chops for the young men. She
herself had eaten one, but she laid her hand on her chest when she
swallowed. One of the young men had gone out to get her some brandy,
and he had come back with half-a-dozen large bottles of Bass as
well.
Mr. Houghton was very much concerned over Madame's cold. He asked
the same questions again and again, to try and make sure how bad it
was. But Mrs. Rollings didn't seem quite to know. James wrinkled his
brow. Supposing Madame could not take her part! He was most anxious.
"Do you think you might go across with Mrs. Rollings and see how
this woman is, Alvina?" he said to his daughter.
"I should think you'll never turn Alvina out on such a night," said
Miss Pinnegar. "And besides, it isn't right. Where is Mr. May? It's
his business 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's
very bad, I can make one of those plasters mother used."
And she ran upstairs. She was curious to see what Madame and her
four young men were like.
With Mrs. Rollings she called at the chemist's back door, and then
they 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 the kitchen 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's
heels.
"I've brought you the cough stuff," said the widow. "And Miss
Huff'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 bright
eyes and finely-drawn eyebrows: she might be any age between forty
and fifty. There were grey threads in her tidy black hair. She was
neatly dressed in a well-made black dress with a small lace collar.
There was a slight look of self-commiseration on her face. She had a
cigarette between her drooped fingers.
She rose as if with difficulty, and held out her plump hand, on
which four or five rings showed. She had dropped the cigarette
unnoticed into the hearth.
"How do you do," she said. "I didn't catch your name." Madame's
voice was a little plaintive and plangent now, like a bronze reed
mournfully 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.
Huff-ton--yes? Miss Houghton. I've got a bad cold on my chest--"
laying her plump hand with the rings on her plump bosom. "But let me
introduce you to my young men--" A wave of the plump hand, whose
forefinger was very slightly cigarette-stained, towards the table.
The four young men had risen, and stood looking at Alvina and
Madame. The room was small, rather bare, with horse-hair and
white-crochet antimacassars and a linoleum floor. The table also was
covered 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 the little room seemed very full--full of people, young men with
smart waistcoats and ties, but without coats.
"That is Max," said Madame. "I shall tell you only their names, and
not their family names, because that is easier for you--"
In the meantime Max had bowed. He was a tall Swiss with almond eyes
and a flattish face and a rather stiff, ramrod figure.
"And that is Louis--" Louis bowed gracefully. He was a Swiss
Frenchman, moderately tall, with prominent cheekbones and a wing
of glossy black hair falling on his temple.
"And that is Géoffroi--Geoffrey--" Geoffrey made his bow--a
broad-shouldered, watchful, taciturn man from Alpine France.
"And that is Francesco--Frank--" Francesco gave a faint curl of his
lip, half smile, as he saluted her involuntarily in a military
fashion. He was dark, rather tall and loose, with yellow-tawny eyes.
He was an Italian from the south. Madame gave another look at him.
"He doesn't like his English name of Frank. You will see, he pulls a
face. No, he doesn't like it. We call him Ciccio also--" But Ciccio
was dropping his head 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 from
three races, though only Ciccio is not of our mountains. Will you
please to sit down."
They all took their chairs. There was a pause.
"My young men drink a little beer, after their horrible journey. As
a rule, I do not like them to drink. But tonight they have a little
beer. I do not take any myself, because I am afraid of inflaming
myself." She laid her hand on her breast, and took long, uneasy
breaths. "I feel it. I feel it _here_." She patted her breast. "It
makes me afraid for tomorrow. Will you perhaps take a glass of beer?
Ciccio, ask for another glass--" Ciccio, at the end of the table,
did not rise, but looked round at Alvina as if he presumed there
would be no need for him to move. The odd, supercilious curl of the
lip persisted. Madame glared at him. But he turned the handsome side
of his cheek 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 still
darted venom at Ciccio. The rest of the young men fingered their
glasses and put their cigarettes to their lips and blew the smoke
down their noses, uncomfortably.
Madame closed her eyes and leaned back a moment. Then her face
looked transparent and pallid, there were dark rings under her eyes,
the beautifully-brushed hair shone dark like black glass above her
ears. She was obviously unwell. The young men looked at her, and
muttered to one another.
"I'm afraid your cold is rather bad," said Alvina. "Will you let me
take 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 meanwhile
muttered something in French--evidently something rude--meant for
Max.
"What shall I do if I can't work tomorrow!" moaned Madame, seeing
Alvina hold up the thermometer towards the light. "Max, what shall
we do?"
"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 to
Madame with the thermometer. Madame lifted her plump hand and fended
off Alvina, while she made her last declaration:
"Never--never have I missed my work, for a single day, for ten
years. Never. If I am going to lie abandoned, I had better die at
once."
"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. Madame
mournfully shook her head, opened her mouth, and sat back with
closed eyes and the stump of the thermometer comically protruding
from a corner of her lips. Meanwhile Alvina took her plump white
wrist and felt her pulse.
"We can practise--" began Geoffrey.
"Sh!" said Max, holding up his finger and looking anxiously at
Alvina and Madame, who still leaned back with the stump of the
thermometer jauntily perking up from her pursed mouth, while her
face was rather ghastly.
Max and Louis watched anxiously. Geoffrey sat blowing the smoke down
his nose, while Ciccio callously lit another cigarette, striking a
match on his boot-heel and puffing from under the tip of his rather
long 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
flapped his eyelids and looked all disdain, murmuring something
about "ein schmutziges italienisches Volk," whilst Louis, refusing
either to see or to hear, framed the word "chien" on his lips.
Then quick as lightning both turned their attention again to Madame.
Her temperature was a hundred and two.
"You'd better go to bed," said Alvina. "Have you eaten anything?"
"One little mouthful," said Madame plaintively.
Max sat looking pale and stricken, Louis had hurried forward to take
Madame's hand. He kissed it quickly, then turned aside his head
because of the tears in his eyes. Geoffrey gulped beer in large
throatfuls, and Ciccio, 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 likely
to a temperature--"
"Liable to a temperature," murmured Louis pathetically.
"I'll go to bed," said Madame, obediently rising.
"Wait a bit. I'll see if there's a fire in the bedroom," said
Alvina.
"Oh, my dear, you are too good. Open the door for her, Ciccio--"
Ciccio reached across at the door, but was too late. Max had
hastened to usher Alvina out. Madame sank back in her chair.
"Never for ten years," she was wailing. "Quoi faire, ah, quoi
faire! Que ferez-vous, mes pauvres, sans votre Kishwégin. Que
vais-je faire, mourir dans un tel pays! La bonne demoiselle--la
bonne demoiselle--elle a du coeur. Elle pourrait aussi être belle,
s'il y avait un peu plus de chair. Max, liebster, schau ich sehr
elend aus? Ach, oh jeh, oh jeh!"
"Ach nein, Madame, ach nein. Nicht so furchtbar elend," said Max.
"Manca il cuore solamente al Ciccio," moaned Madame. "Che natura
povera, senza sentimento--niente di bello. Ahimé, che amico, che
ragazzo duro, aspero--"
"Trova?" said Ciccio, with a curl of the lip. He looked, as he
dropped 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 her
arm-chair. Usually she spoke in French only, with her young men. But
this was an extra occasion.
"La pauvre Kishwégin!" murmured Madame. "Elle va finir au monde.
Elle passe--la pauvre Kishwégin."
Kishwégin was Madame's Red Indian name, the name under which she
danced her Squaw's fire-dance.
Now that she knew she was ill, Madame seemed to become more ill. Her
breath came in little pants. She had a pain in her side. A feverish
flush seemed to mount her cheek. The young men were all extremely
uncomfortable. Louis did not conceal his tears. Only Ciccio kept the
thin 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, and
kissed Madame's hand as she went out: her poor jewelled hand, that
was faintly perfumed with eau de Cologne. She spoke an appropriate
good-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
not add to the weight of my heart. Be good _braves_, all, be
brothers in one accord. One little prayer for poor Kishwégin.
Good-night!"
After which valediction she slowly climbed the stairs, putting her
hand on her knee at each step, with the effort.
"No--no," she said to Max, who would have followed to her
assistance. "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'
rooms are well in order. They are not to be trusted, no. They need
an overseeing 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 a
nurse."
"Ah, you are too kind, too kind, dear young lady. I am a lonely old
woman. I am not used to attentions. Best leave me."
"Let me help you," said Alvina.
"Alas, ahimé! Who would have thought Kishwégin would need 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? I
believe. Ugh, horrible! Why is it horrible?"
Alvina quickly undressed the plump, trim little woman. She seemed so
soft. Alvina could not imagine how she could be a dancer on the
stage, strenuous. But Madame's softness could flash into wild
energy, sudden convulsive power, like a cuttle-fish. Alvina brushed
out the long black hair, and plaited it lightly. Then she got Madame
into bed.
"Ah," sighed Madame, "the good bed! The good bed! But cold--it is so
cold. 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-gold garters.
"My poor boys--no Kishwégin tomorrow! You don't think I need see a
priest, dear? A priest!" said Madame, her teeth chattering.
"Priest! Oh no! You'll be better when we can get you warm. I think
it's only a chill. Mrs. Rollings is warming a blanket--"
Alvina ran downstairs. Max opened the sitting-room door and stood
watching at the sound of footsteps. His rather bony fists were
clenched beneath 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
blanket while Mrs. Rollings makes thin gruel?"
Max and Louis stood heating blankets. Louis' trousers were cut
rather tight at the waist, and gave him a female look. Max was
straight and stiff. Mrs. Rollings asked Geoffrey to fill the
coal-scuttles and carry one upstairs. Geoffrey obediently went out
with a lantern to the coal-shed. Afterwards he was to carry up the
horse-hair arm-chair.
"I must go home for some things," said Alvina to Ciccio. "Will you
come and carry them for me?"
He started up, and with one movement threw away his cigarette. He
did not look at Alvina. His beautiful lashes seemed to screen his
eyes. He was fairly tall, but loosely built for an Italian, with
slightly sloping shoulders. Alvina noticed the brown, slender
Mediterranean hand, as he put his fingers to his lips. It was a hand
such as she did not know, prehensile and tender and dusky. With an
odd graceful slouch he 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 rather
breathless through the night. "She does think for you men."
But Ciccio vouchsafed no answer, and walked with his hands in the
pockets 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 they
came to the black dark passage and encumbered yard at the back of
the house.
"I don't think you can see at all," she said. "It's this way." She
groped 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--almost
like a child's touch. So they came under the light from the window
of the 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 a
sweat." And Alvina ran upstairs collecting things necessary. Ciccio
stood back near the door, and answered all Miss Pinnegar's
entreaties to come to the fire with a shake of the head and a slight
smile of the lips, bashful and stupid.
"But do come and warm yourself before you go out again," said Miss
Pinnegar, looking at the man as he drooped his head in the distance.
He still 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. She
couldn't make heads or tails of him, and didn't try.
When they got back, Madame was light-headed, and talking excitedly
of her dance, her young men. The three young men were terrified.
They had got the blankets scorching hot. Alvina smeared the plasters
and applied them to Madame's side, where the pain was. What a
white-skinned, soft, plump child she seemed! Her pain meant a touch
of pleurisy, for sure. The men hovered outside the door. Alvina
wrapped the poor patient in the hot blankets, got a few spoonfuls of
hot gruel and whiskey down her throat, fastened her down in bed,
lowered the light and banished the men from the stairs. Then she sat
down to watch. Madame chafed, moaned, murmured feverishly. Alvina
soothed her, and put her hands in bed. And at last the poor dear
became quiet. Her brow was faintly moist. She fell into a quiet
sleep, perspiring freely. Alvina watched her still, soothed her when
she suddenly started and began to break out of the bedclothes,
quieted her, pressed her gently, firmly down, folded her tight and
made her submit to the perspiration against which, in convulsive
starts, she fought and strove, crying that she was suffocating, 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 own
perspiration. Her wilful nature rebelled strongly. She would have
thrown aside her coverings and gasped into the cold air, if Alvina
had not pressed her down with that soft, inevitable pressure.
So the hours passed, till about one o'clock, when the perspiration
became less profuse, and the patient was really better, really
quieter. Then Alvina went downstairs for a moment. She saw the light
still burning in the front room. Tapping, she entered. There sat Max
by the fire, a picture of misery, with Louis opposite him, nodding
asleep after his tears. On the sofa Geoffrey snored lightly, while
Ciccio sat with his head on the table, his arms spread out, dead
asleep. Again she noticed 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 head
lugubriously.
"But she's better," whispered Alvina. "She's perspired. She's
better. She's sleeping naturally."
Max stared with round, sleep-whitened, owlish eyes, pessimistic and
sceptical:
"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 a
scared chicken, followed. Each man held his slippers in his hand.
They noiselessly entered and peeped stealthily over the heaped
bedclothes. Madame was lying, looking a little flushed and very
girlish, sleeping lightly, with a strand of black hair stuck to her
cheek, and her lips lightly parted.
Max watched her for some moments. Then suddenly he straightened
himself, pushed back his brown hair that was brushed up in the
German fashion, and crossed himself, dropping his knee as before an
altar; crossed himself and dropped his knee once more; and then a
third time crossed himself and inclined before the altar. Then he
straightened himself again, and turned aside.
Louis also crossed himself. His tears burst out. He bowed and took
the edge of a blanket to his lips, kissing it reverently. Then he
covered his face with his hand.
Meanwhile Madame slept lightly and innocently on.
Alvina turned to go. Max silently followed, leading Louis by the
arm. When they got downstairs, Max and Louis threw themselves in
each other's arms, and kissed each other on either cheek, gravely,
in Continental 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 heed
her. Max went over and shook Geoffrey, Louis put his hand on
Ciccio's shoulder. The sleepers were difficult to wake. The wakers
shook the sleeping, but in vain. At last Geoffrey began to stir.
But in vain Louis lifted Ciccio's shoulders from the table. The head
and the hands dropped 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 the
table-cloth as Louis shook the young man's shoulders. Tight she
pressed the hand. Ciccio opened his tawny-yellowish eyes, that
seemed to have been put in with a dirty finger, as the saying goes,
owing to the sootiness of the lashes and brows. He was quite drunk
with his first sleep, and saw nothing.
"Wake up," said Alvina, laughing, pressing his hand again.
He lifted his head once more, suddenly clasped her hand, his eyes
came to consciousness, his hand relaxed, he recognized her, and he
sat back in his chair, turning his face aside and lowering his
lashes.
"Get up, great beast," Louis was saying softly in French, pushing
him as ox-drivers sometimes push their oxen. Ciccio staggered to his
feet.
"She is better," they told him. "We are going to bed."
They took their candles and trooped off upstairs, each one bowing to
Alvina as he passed. Max solemnly, Louis gallant, the other two dumb
and sleepy. They occupied the two attic chambers.
Alvina carried up the loose bed from the sofa, and slept on the
floor before the fire in Madame's room.
Madame slept well and long, rousing and stirring and settling off
again. It was eight o'clock before she asked her first question.
Alvina was already up.
"Oh--alors--Then I am better, I am quite well. I can dance today."
"I don't think today," said Alvina. "But perhaps tomorrow."
"No, today," said Madame. "I can dance today, because I am quite
well. I am Kishwégin."
"You are better. But you must lie still today. Yes, really--you will
find 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 of
heroism which Madame detested, but which now she found touching.
"Come!" said Madame, stretching out her plump jewelled hand. "Come,
I am an ungrateful woman. Come, they are not good for you, the
people, I see it. Come to me."
Alvina went slowly to Madame, and took the outstretched hand. Madame
kissed 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 a heart that
remembers. There, Miss Houghton, I shall do what you tell me.
Kishwégin obeys you." And Madame patted Alvina's hand and nodded 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 the
thermometer 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 or
Friday."
"Thursday!" repeated Madame. "You say Thursday?" There was a note of
strong rebellion in her voice.
"You'll be so weak. You've only just escaped pleurisy. I can only
say what I truly think, can't I?"
"Ah, you Englishwomen," said Madame, watching with black eyes. "I
think you like to have your own way. In all things, to have your own
way. And over all people. You are so good, to have your own way.
Yes, you good Englishwomen. Thursday. Very well, it shall be
Thursday. Till Thursday, then, Kishwégin does not exist."
And she subsided, already rather weak, upon her pillow again. When
she had taken her tea and was washed and her room was tidied, she
summoned the young men. Alvina had warned Max that she wanted
Madame to be kept as quiet as possible this day.
As soon as the first of the four appeared, in his shirt-sleeves and
his slippers, in the doorway, Madame said:
"Ah, there you are, my young men! Come in! Come in! It is not
Kishwégin addresses you. Kishwégin does not exist till Thursday, as
the English demoiselle makes it." She held out her hand, faintly
perfumed with eau de Cologne--the whole room smelled of eau de
Cologne--and Max stooped his brittle spine and kissed it. She
touched his cheek gently with her other hand.
"My faithful Max, my support."
Louis came smiling with a bunch of violets and pinky anemones. He
laid them down on the bed before her, and took her hand, bowing and
kissing it reverently.
"You are better, dear Madame?" he said, smiling long at her.
"Better, yes, gentle Louis. And better for thy flowers, chivalric
heart." 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 no Kishwégin?"
she said as he stooped to her salute.
"Bien sûr, Madame."
"Ciccio, a button off thy shirt-cuff. Where is my needle?" She
looked round the room as Ciccio kissed her hand.
"Did you want anything?" said Alvina, who had not followed the
French.
"My needle, to sew on this button. It is there, in the silk bag."
"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
their eldest brother. This afternoon they would practise well the
scene of the White Prisoner. Very carefully they must practise, and
they must find some one who would play the young squaw--for in this
scene she had practically nothing to do, the young squaw, but just
sit and stand. Miss Houghton--but ah, Miss Houghton must play the
piano, she could not take 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 entry
into any town by a procession. The young men were dressed as Indian
_braves_, and headed by Kishwégin they rode on horseback through the
main streets. Ciccio, who was the crack horseman, having served a
very well-known horsey Marchese in an Italian cavalry regiment, did
a bit of show riding.
Mr. May was very keen on the procession. He had the horses in
readiness. The morning was faintly sunny, after the sleet and bad
weather. And now he arrived to find Madame in bed and the young men
holding council with her.
"How _very_ unfortunate!" cried Mr. May. "How _very_ unfortunate!"
"Dreadful! Dreadful!" wailed Madame from the bed.
"But can't we do _anything_?"
"Yes--you can do the White Prisoner scene--the young men can do
that, if you find a dummy squaw. Ah, I think I must get up after
all."
Alvina saw the look of fret and exhaustion in Madame's face.
"Won't you all go downstairs now?" said Alvina. "Mr. Max knows what
you 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 be
there. It is too dre-eadful, too dre-eadful!" wailed Madame.
"Don't take any notice of them. They can manage by themselves. Men
are such babies. Let them carry it through by themselves."
"Children--they are all children!" wailed Madame. "All children! And
so, what will they do without their old _gouvernante_? My poor
_braves_, what will they do without Kishwégin? It is too dreadful,
too dre-eadful, yes. The poor Mr. May--so _disappointed_."
"Then let him _be_ disappointed," cried Alvina, as she forcibly
tucked up 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 in a few minutes Madame was sleeping again.
Alvina went downstairs. Mr. May was listening to Max, who was
telling in German all about the White Prisoner scene. Mr. May had
spent his 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 others were silent. Ciccio made no pretence of
listening, but smoked and stared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey
half understood, so Louis nodded with a look of deep comprehension,
whilst Geoffrey uttered short, snappy "Ja!--Ja!--Doch!--Eben!"
rather irrelevant.
"I'll be the squaw," cried Mr. May in English, breaking off and
turning 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 beamed
self-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
head and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable,
expressionless attention.
"Let us go," said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance. "Let us go
and rehearse _this morning_, and let us do the procession this
afternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. There! What?
Isn't that 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 already _braves_. And they turned to put on their
boots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lumley, Mr. May prancing
like a little circus-pony beside Alvina, the four young men rolling
ahead.
"What do you think of it?" cried Mr. May. "We've saved the
situation--what? Don't you think so? Don't you think we can
congratulate ourselves."
They found Mr. Houghton fussing about in the theatre. He was on
tenterhooks of agitation, knowing Madame was ill.
Max gave a brilliant display of yodelling.
"But I must _explain_ to them," cried Mr. May. "I must _explain_ to
them what yodel means."
And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth his
hand.
"In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciers
reign over luscious meadows full of flowers, if you should chance to
awaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm amid the mountain
pastures, you--er--you--let me see--if you--no--if you should chance
to _spend the night_ in some lonely wooden farm, amid the upland
pastures, dawn will awake you with a wild, inhuman song, you will
open your eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams, your
ears will be ringing with weird singing, that has no words and no
meaning, but sounds as if some wild and icy god were warbling to
himself as he wandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth
across the flowers to the blue snow, and you see, far off, a small
figure of a man moving among the grass. It is a peasant singing his
mountain song, warbling like some creature that lifted up its voice
on the edge of the eternal snows, 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
then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume,
white shirt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois
leather stitched with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked
ankles and heavy shoes, warbled his native Yodel strains, a piercing
and disturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen tempered and
fierce and mountainous. There was a fierce, icy passion in the man.
Alvina began to understand Madame's subjection to him.
Louis and Geoffrey did a farce dialogue, two foreigners at the same
moment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other and
protesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Ciccio, who
stood solid and ridiculous. Mr. Houghton nodded slowly and gravely,
as if to give his measured approval.
Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practised the
music Madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, she
welcomed 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 and a
short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: _so_ coy,
and _so_ smirking. Alvina burst out laughing.
"But shan't I do?" protested Mr. May, hurt.
"Yes, you're wonderful," said Alvina, choking. "But I _must_ laugh."
"But why? Tell me why?" asked Mr. May anxiously. "Is it my
_appearance_ you laugh at, or is it only _me_? If it's me I don't
mind. But if it's my appearance, tell me so."
Here an appalling figure of Ciccio in war-paint strolled on to the
stage. He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, was
dusky-red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle's feathers--only
two feathers--and a face wonderfully and terribly painted with
white, red, yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with
himself. His curious soft slouch, and curious way of lifting his lip
from his white teeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing.
"You haven't got the girdle," he said, touching Mr. May's plump
waist--"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 paw
towards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a
laugh came 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, to Alvina.
In the dressing-room, the dividing-curtain was drawn. Max, in
deerskin trousers but with unpainted torso looked very white and
strange as he put the last touches of war-paint on Louis' face. He
glanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a
sort of nobility about his erect white form and stiffly-carried
head, the semi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior.
Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis arose, a _brave_ like
Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tattered
hunting-shirt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. He
was the white prisoner.
They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watched. It was soon done. A
back cloth of tree-trunks and dark forest: a wigwam, a fire, and a
cradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain to
dissociate the two _braves_ from their war-paint. The lines were
drawn 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 more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him
for one single moment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel,
underneath their civilization.
The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwégin alone at the door
of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional push to the
hanging cradle, and, if only Madame were taking the part, crooning
an Indian cradle-song. Enter the _brave_ Louis with his white
prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side. Kishwégin
gravely salutes her husband--the bound prisoner is seated by the
fire--Kishwégin serves food, and asks permission to feed the
prisoner. The _brave_ Louis, hearing a sound, starts up with his bow
and arrow. There is a dumb scene of sympathy between Kishwégin and
the prisoner--the prisoner wants his bonds cut. Re-enter the _brave_
Louis--he is angry with Kishwégin--enter the _brave_ Ciccio hauling
a bear, apparently dead. Kishwégin examines the bear, Ciccio
examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him
stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwégin swings the cradle. The
prisoner is tripped up--falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the
fallen bear. Kishwégin carries food to Ciccio. The two _braves_
converse in dumb show, Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. The
men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there
is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and
at the same moment the bear strikes him down. Ciccio springs forward
and stabs the bear, then closes with it. Kishwégin runs and cuts the
prisoner's bonds. He rises, and stands trying to lift his numbed and
powerless arms, while the bear slowly crushes Ciccio, and Kishwégin
kneels over her husband. The bear drops Ciccio lifeless, and turns
to Kishwégin. At that moment Max manages to kill the bear--he takes
Kishwégin by the hand and kneels with her beside the dead Louis.
It was wonderful how well the men played their different parts. But
Mr. May was a little too frisky as Kishwégin. However, it would do.
Ciccio got dressed as soon as possible, to go and look at the horses
hired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him, Mr. May
and the others were busy.
"You know I think it's quite wonderful, your scene," she said to
Ciccio.
He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky-set eyes rested
on her good-naturedly, without seeing her, his lip curled in a
self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile.
"Not without Madame," he said, with the slow, half-sneering, stupid
smile. "Without Madame--" he lifted his shoulders and spread his
hands and tilted his brows--"fool's play, you know."
"No," said Alvina. "I think Mr. May is good, considering. What does
Madame _do_?" she asked a little jealously.
"Do?" He looked down at her with the same long, half-sardonic look
of his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casually at a bird which
flutters past. And again he made his shrugging motion. "She does it
all, really. The others--they are nothing--what they are Madame has
made 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 then _done_ it. You should see her
dance--ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him
in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand--" And
Ciccio stood 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, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his
eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance,
and all the time his lips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little
assertive shake of his head, finishing, there came a great yell of
laughter from the opposite pavement, where a gang of pottery lasses,
in aprons all spattered with grey clay, and hair and boots and skin
spattered with pallid spots, had stood to watch. The girls opposite
shrieked again, for all the world like a gang of grey baboons.
Ciccio turned round and looked at them with a sneer along his nose.
They yelled the louder. And he was horribly uncomfortable, walking
there beside Alvina with his rather small 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, vicious
movement--"_smacked_," he concluded, lowering his hand again.
"Who is going to do it?" said Alvina.
He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand
outspread in the air, as if to say: "There you are! You've got to
thank the 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 love
her--as if she were a mother. You say _love_--" He raised his
shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at
Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways,
and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering
smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a great
instinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious
and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture.
For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech.
Gesture and grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things,
if you would but accept them.
But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She could
hear Mr. May's verdict of him: "Like a child, you know, just as
charming 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.
"It must be lovely," she said.
"Ha--!" He threw his head on one side and spread out his hands, as
if 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 her directly.
"You know what that means?" he said cutely. "It means see Naples and
die afterwards. Don't die _before_ you've seen it." He smiled with a
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 across
the air in front of him--"The sea--and Posilippo--and Sorrento--and
Capri--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 he
would 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 out
his hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tips of his
fingers, said, with a fine, handsome smile:
"Pennies! Money! You can't earn money in Naples. Ah, Naples is
beautiful, 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 "What
are 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 in a 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 commit
himself. "But perhaps I shan't go back to Naples."
"Never?"
"Ah, never! I don't say never. I shall go to Naples, to see my
mother'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 his
mouth as if he didn't like it. Then he turned with the slow, fine
smile.
"Does a man want two mothers? Eh?" he said, as if he posed a
conundrum.
"I shouldn't think so," laughed Alvina.
He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood.
"My mother is dead, see!" he said. "Frenchwomen--Frenchwomen--they
have their 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 his
mother comes, he is a little baby boy when he's seventy. Do you know
that?"
"I _didn'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 and
examined the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strange
sounds, patted them, stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand
down them, over them, under them, and felt their legs.
Then, he looked up from stooping there under the horses, with a
long, slow look of his yellow eyes, at Alvina. She felt
unconsciously flattered. His long, yellow look lingered, holding her
eyes. She wondered what he was thinking. Yet he never spoke. He
turned again to the horses. They seemed to understand him, to prick
up alert.
"This is mine," he said, with his hand on the neck of the old
thoroughbred. 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 they _don't_ live--never alive--see? In England
railway-engines are alive, and horses go on wheels." He smiled into
her eyes as if she understood. She was a trifle nervous as he smiled
at her from out of the stable, so yellow-eyed and half-mysterious,
derisive. Her impulse was to turn and go away from the stable. But a
deeper impulse made her smile into his face, as she said to him:
"They like you to touch them."
"Who?" His eyes kept hers. Curious how _dark_ they seemed, with only
a yellow ring of pupil. He was looking right into her, beyond her
usual 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
to be the only passionately good-natured man she had ever seen. She
watched him vaguely, with strange vague trust, implicit belief in
him. In him--in what?
That afternoon the colliers trooping home in the winter afternoon
were rejoiced with a spectacle: Kishwégin, in her deerskin, fringed
gaiters and fringed frock of deerskin, her long hair down her back,
and with marvellous cloths and trappings on her steed, riding
astride on a tall white horse, followed by Max in chieftain's robes
and chieftain's long head-dress of dyed feathers, then by the others
in war-paint and feathers and brilliant Navajo blankets. They
carried bows and spears. Ciccio was without his blanket, naked to
the waist, in war-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 swept past, suddenly drew up his rearing steed, and
trotted slowly back again, making his horse perform its paces. He
was extraordinarily velvety and alive on horseback.
Crowds of excited, shouting children ran chattering along the
pavements. The colliers, as they tramped grey and heavy, in an
intermittent stream uphill from the low grey west, stood on the
pavement in wonder as the cavalcade approached and passed, jingling
the silver bells of its trappings, vibrating the wonderful colours
of the barred blankets and saddle cloths, the scarlet wool of the
accoutrements, 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 into
Knarborough Road to watch. It was a great moment. Looking along the
road they saw all the shopkeepers at their doors, the pavements
eager. And then, in the distance, the white horse jingling its
trappings of scarlet hair and bells, with the dusky Kishwégin
sitting on the saddle-blanket of brilliant, lurid stripes, sitting
impassive and all dusky above that intermittent flashing of colour:
then the chieftain, dark-faced, erect, easy, swathed in a white
blanket, with scarlet and black stripes, and all his strange crest
of white, tip-dyed feathers swaying down his back: as he came nearer
one saw the wolfskin and the brilliant moccasins against the black
sides of his horse; Louis and Goeffrey followed, lurid, horrid in
the face, wearing blankets with stroke after stroke of blazing
colour upon their duskiness, and sitting stern, holding their
spears: lastly, Ciccio, on his bay horse with a green seat,
flickering hither and thither in the rear, his feathers swaying, his
horse sweating, his face ghastlily smiling in its war-paint. So they
advanced down the grey pallor of Knarborough Road, in the late
wintry afternoon. Somewhere the sun was setting, and far overhead
was a flush of orange.
"Well I never!" murmured Miss Pinnegar. "Well I never!"
The strange savageness of the striped Navajo blankets seemed to her
unsettling, advancing down Knarborough Road: she examined Kishwégin
curiously.
"Can you _believe_ that that's Mr. May--he's exactly like a girl.
Well, well--it makes you wonder what is and what isn't. But _aren't_
they good? What? Most striking. Exactly like Indians. You can't
believe your eyes. My word what a terrifying race they--" Here she
uttered a scream and ran back clutching the wall as Ciccio swept
past, brushing her with his horse's tail, and actually swinging his
spear so as to touch Alvina and James Houghton lightly with the butt
of it. James too started with a cry, the mob at the corner screamed.
But Alvina caught the slow, mischievous smile as the painted horror
showed his teeth in passing; she was able to flash back an excited
laugh. She felt his yellow-tawny eyes linger on her, in that one
second, as if negligently.
"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
believe in letting these show-people have liberties."
The cavalcade was slowly passing, with its uneasy horses and its
flare of striped colour and its silent riders. Ciccio was trotting
softly 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 were
saying.
"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. A
tidy man, _I_ say."
He did not look at Alvina. The faint, mischievous smile uncovered
his teeth. He fell in suddenly behind Geoffrey, with a jerk of his
steed, calling out to Geoffrey in Italian.
It was becoming cold. The cavalcade fell into a trot, Mr. May
shaking rather badly. Ciccio halted, rested his lance against a
lamp-post, switched his green blanket from beneath him, flung it
round him as he sat, and darted off. They had all disappeared over
the brow of Lumley Hill, descending. He was gone too. In the wintry
twilight the crowd began, lingeringly, to turn away. And in some
strange way, it manifested 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 expressed it.
"Well," she said, when she was safely back in Manchester House, with
the gas lighted, and as she was pouring the boiling water into the
tea-pot, "You may say what you like. It's interesting in a way, just
to show what savage Red-Indians were like. But it's childish. It's
only childishness. I can't understand, myself, how people can go on
liking shows. Nothing happens. It's not like the cinema, where you
see it all and take it all in at once; you _know_ everything at a
glance. You don't know anything by looking at these people. You know
they're only men dressed up, for money. I can't see why you should
encourage it. I don't hold with idle show-people, parading round, I
don't, myself. I like to go to the cinema once a week. It's
instruction, you take it all in at a glance, all you need to know,
and it lasts you for a week. You can get to know everything about
people's actual lives from the cinema. I don't see why you want
people dressing up and showing off."
They sat down to their tea and toast and marmalade, during this
harangue. Miss Pinnegar was always like a douche of cold water to
Alvina, bringing her back to consciousness after a delicious
excitement. In a minute Madame and Ciccio and all seemed to become
unreal--the actual unrealities: while the ragged dithering pictures
of the film were actual, real as the day. And Alvina was always put
out when this happened. She really hated Miss Pinnegar. Yet she had
nothing to answer. They _were_ unreal, Madame and Ciccio and the
rest. Ciccio was just a fantasy blown in on the wind, to blow away
again. The real, permanent thing was Woodhouse, the _semper idem_
Knarborough Road, and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester
House, with the stuffy, padding Miss Pinnegar, and her father, whose
fingers, whose very soul seemed dirty with pennies. These were the
solid, permanent fact. These were life itself. And Ciccio, splashing
up on his bay horse and green cloth, he was a mountebank and an
extraneous nonentity, a coloured old rag blown down the Knarborough
Road into Limbo. Into Limbo. Whilst Miss Pinnegar and her father sat
frowsily on for ever, eating their toast and cutting off the crust,
and sipping their third cup of tea. They would never blow
away--never, never. Woodhouse was there to eternity. And the
Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe was blowing like a rag of old paper into
Limbo. Nothingness! Poor Madame! Poor gallant histrionic Madame! The
frowsy Miss Pinnegar could crumple her up and throw her down the
utilitarian drain, and have done with her. Whilst Miss Pinnegar
lived on for ever.
This put Alvina into a sharp temper.
"Miss Pinnegar," she said. "I do think you go on in the most
unattractive way sometimes. You're a regular spoil-sport."
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. "I don't approve of your way of
sport, I'm afraid."
"You can't disapprove of it as much as I hate your spoil-sport
existence," said Alvina in a flare.
"Alvina, are you mad!" said her father.
"Wonder I'm not," said Alvina, "considering what my life is."
CHAPTER VIII
CICCIO
Madame did not pick up her spirits, after her cold. For two days she
lay in bed, attended by Mrs. Rollings and Alvina and the young men.
But she was most careful never to give any room for scandal. The
young men might not approach her save in the presence of some third
party. And then it was strictly a visit of ceremony or business.
"Oh, your Woodhouse, how glad I shall be when I have left it," she
said to Alvina. "I feel it is unlucky for me."
"Do you?" said Alvina. "But if you'd had this bad cold in some
places, you might have been much worse, don't you think."
"Oh my dear!" cried Madame. "Do you think I could confuse you in my
dislike of this Woodhouse? Oh no! You are not Woodhouse. On the
contrary, I think it is unkind for you also, this place. You
look--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," replied
Alvina.
"I am sure. Yes! I am sure. I see it. Why don't you go away? Why
don't you marry?"
"Nobody wants to marry me," said Alvina.
Madame looked at her searchingly, with shrewd black eyes under her
arched eyebrows.
"How!" she exclaimed. "How don't they? You are not bad looking, only
a little too thin--too haggard--"
She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortably.
"Is there _nobody_?" persisted Madame.
"Not now," said Alvina. "Absolutely nobody." She looked with a
confused laugh into Madame's strict black eyes. "You see I didn't
care for the Woodhouse young men, either. I _couldn't_."
Madame nodded slowly up and down. A secret satisfaction came over
her pallid, waxy countenance, in which her black eyes were like twin
swift extraneous creatures: oddly like two bright little dark
animals in the snow.
"Sure!" she said, sapient. "Sure! How could you? But there are other
men besides these here--" She waved her hand to the window.
"I don't meet 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 half
so practical and clever as _you_, Madame."
"Oh la--la! I am practical differently. I am practical
impractically--" she stumbled over the words. "But your Sue now, in
Jude the Obscure--is it not an interesting book? And is she not
always too practically practical. If she had been impractically
practical she could have been quite happy. Do you know what I
mean?--no. But she is ridiculous. Sue: so Anna Karénine. Ridiculous
both. Don't you think?"
"Why?" said Alvina.
"Why did they both make everybody unhappy, when they had the man
they wanted, and enough money? I think they are both so silly. If
they had been beaten, they would have lost all their practical ideas
and troubles, merely forgot them, and been happy enough. I am a
woman who says it. Such ideas they have are not tragical. No, not at
all. They are nonsense, you see, nonsense. That is all. Nonsense.
Sue and Anna, they are--non-sensical. That is all. No tragedy
whatsoever. Nonsense. I am a woman. I know men also. And I know
nonsense when I see it. Englishwomen are all nonsense: the worst
women in the world for nonsense."
"Well, I am English," said Alvina.
"Yes, my dear, you are English. But you are not necessarily so
non-sensical. Why are you at all?"
"Nonsensical?" laughed Alvina. "But I don't know what you call my
nonsense."
"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 not
only from the head. You are not practical from the heart. And yet
you have a heart."
"But all Englishwomen have good hearts," protested Alvina.
"No! No!" objected Madame. "They are all ve-ry kind, and ve-ry
practical with their kindness. But they have no heart in all their
kindness. 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 to
me, and I thank you. But it is from the head, you see. And so I
thank you from the head. From the heart--no."
Madame plucked her white fingers together and laid them on her
breast with a gesture of repudiation. Her black eyes stared
spitefully.
"But Madame," said Alvina, nettled, "I should never be half such a
good 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 and
shook her head--"I am not kind from the head. From the head I am
business-woman, good business-woman. Of course I am a good
business-woman--of course! But--" here she changed her expression,
widened her eyes, and laid her hand on her breast--"when the heart
speaks--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 you
have blue eyes, you cannot understand. Only dark eyes--" She paused
and mused.
"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
dilated and became warm.
"Yellow eyes like Ciccio's?" she said, with her great watchful eyes
and her smiling, subtle mouth. "They are the darkest of all." And
she shook her head roguishly.
"Are they!" said Alvina confusedly, feeling a blush burning up her
throat into her face.
"Ha--ha!" laughed Madame. "Ha-ha! I am an old woman, you see. My
heart 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 head _Thank you_. It is not well done, you see. You
see!"
But Alvina ran away in confusion. She felt Madame was having her on
a string.
Mr. May enjoyed himself hugely playing Kishwégin. When Madame came
downstairs Louis, who was a good satirical mimic, imitated him.
Alvina happened to come into their sitting-room in the midst of
their bursts of laughter. They all stopped and looked at her
cautiously.
"Continuez! Continuez!" said Madame to Louis. And to Alvina: "Sit
down, 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 in
his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail
slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishwégin. He sidled and
bridled and ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the
tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Houghton's
manager that Madame wept again with laughter, whilst Max leaned back
against the wall and giggled continuously like some pot
involuntarily boiling. Geoffrey spread his shut fists across the
table and shouted with laughter, Ciccio threw back his head and
showed all his teeth in a loud laugh of delighted derision. Alvina
laughed also. But she flushed. There was a certain biting,
annihilating quality in Louis' derision of the absentee. And the
others enjoyed it so much. At moments Alvina caught her lip between
her teeth, it was so screamingly funny, and so annihilating. She
laughed in spite of herself. In spite of herself she was shaken into
a convulsion of laughter. Louis was masterful--he mastered her
psyche. She laughed till her head lay helpless on the chair, she
could not move. Helpless, inert she lay, in her orgasm of laughter.
The end of Mr. May. Yet she was hurt.
And then Madame wiped her own shrewd black eyes, and nodded slow
approval. Suddenly Louis started and held up a warning finger. They
all at once covered their smiles and pulled themselves together.
Only Alvina lay silently laughing.
"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Rollings!" they heard Mr. May's voice. "Your
company is lively. Is Miss Houghton here? May I go through?"
They heard his quick little step and his quick little tap.
"Come in," called Madame.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras all sat with straight faces. Only poor Alvina
lay back in her chair in a new weak convulsion. Mr. May glanced
quickly round, 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
your mirth!" He looked archly round. Alvina was still incompetent.
She lay leaning 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 Louis
making 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 non-sensical mood of
the moment. Won't you sit down? You would like a little
whiskey?--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
on his knees, looking sideways under his long lashes at the inert
Alvina.
"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 dance
tomorrow, it is too soon."
"Miss Houghton _knows_," 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 is _most_ kind--to _every one_," said Mr. May.
"I am sure," said Madame. "And I am very glad you have been such a
good Kishwégin. That is very nice also."
"Yes," replied Mr. May. "I begin to wonder if I have mistaken my
vocation. I should have been _on_ the boards, instead of behind
them."
"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 mysterious
thing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work
as much 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 are
finished."
"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, and
they are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of the
heart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these.
And so they like them, and they don't like us, because they must
_feel_ the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them from
the 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, and
finished--so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In
all countries, the same. And so--in ten years' time--no more
Kishwégin 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 apartment
in 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. For
Thursday, there was to be a change of program--"Kishwégin's
Wedding--" (with the white prisoner, be if said)--was to take the
place of 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 be acting.
Though very quiet and unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly
assume an air of _hauteur_ and overbearing which was really very
annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put into
unholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal his
contempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the Cockney
word.
"Bah! quelle tête de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuous and
angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the things
said to him, had once more failed to understand.
"Comment?" queried Ciccio, in his slow, derisive way.
"_Comment_!" sneered Max, in echo. "_What?_ _What?_ Why what _did_ I
say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if that seems 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 to
rise 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 tall
and blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious
and convulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in
ordinary dress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves.
Ciccio was clutching a property knife.
"Now! None of that! None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. But
Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite
unconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife.
"A dirty Eyetalian," said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. "They
understand nothing."
But the last word was smothered in Ciccio's spring and stab. Max
half 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,
whilst Ciccio sprang like a cat down from the stage and bounded
across the theatre and out of the door, leaving the knife rattling
on the boards behind him. Max recovered and sprang like a demon,
white with rage, straight out into the theatre after him.
"Stop--stop--!" cried Mr. May.
"Halte, Max! Max, Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis
sprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with the
spring of a man.
Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the piano below, started up
and 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 saw
her, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap over the seats and avoid
her, when Louis caught him and flung his arms round him.
"Max--attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, tu sais que je t'aime. Tu
le sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le partir."
Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking down
with hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled
as fiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was
panting and beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by
the arm.
"Let him go, brother, he isn't worth it. What does he understand,
Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from the
south, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what
they are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It
was a dummy knife, but it was a heavy blow--the dog of an Italian.
Let us see."
So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge of
his waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining the
shirt.
"Are you cut, brother, brother?" said Louis. "Let us see."
Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat and
pushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin
broken.
"If the bone isn't broken!" said Louis anxiously. "If the bone isn't
broken! Lift thy arm, frère--lift. It hurts you--so--. No--no--it is
not broken--no--the bone is not broken."
"There is no bone broken, I know," said Max.
"The animal. He hasn't done _that_, at least."
"Where do you imagine he's gone?" asked Mr. May.
The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There was
no more rehearsal.
"We had best go home and speak to Madame," said Mr. May, who was
very frightened for his evening performance.
They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He was
gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from the
dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat,
which she had on her arm.
Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one come
in at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings had
told her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves
and gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle,
without saying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her
shoes, she had her 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!" cried poor
Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. "Why, Max, why didst
thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of
thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara
there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but one tribe, the tribe
of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirty Italian, or a dog of an
Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an
animal, too little _esprit_. But thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy
temper is a devil's, which maybe is worse than an animal's. Ah, this
Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Would we were away from it.
Will the week never pass? We shall have to find Ciccio. Without him the
company is ruined--until I get a substitute. I must get a substitute.
And how?--and where?--in this country?--tell me that. I am tired of
Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe of Kishwe--no, never. I have
had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us break up, let us part, _mes
braves_, let us say adieu here in this _funeste_ Woodhouse."
"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Louis, "let us hope. Let us swear a
closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwégin. Let us never part.
Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost not
want to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou--"
Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside his
face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May.
In a while Madame came out to them.
"Oh," she said. "You have not gone away! We are wondering which way
Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey
will go on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough
or to Marchay?"
"Ask the policeman in the market-place," said Alvina. "He's sure to
have noticed him, because Ciccio's yellow bicycle is so uncommon."
Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among
themselves where Ciccio might be.
Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the
Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly.
"Ah!" said Madame. "And now how to find him, in that great town. I
am afraid he will leave us without pity."
"Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes," said
Louis. "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 at
his 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 always
money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can
help. They are like this--" And he made the Neapolitan gesture
drawing in 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.
He alone 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, to
his cousin--and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough
money to 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.
Geoffrey shrugged 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 to
Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see--and be back at the theatre for work.
Go now. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him
to come out of kindness to me. Tell him."
And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride
through the rain to Knarborough.
"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is a
little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will
remember."
Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care
very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian,
but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was
dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling
him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for
three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the
Neapolitan would 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 the
music-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 seen
Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses.
He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings
strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he
went to the Italians down in the Marsh--he knew these people always
ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland
Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters
on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man
with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose.
Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to
Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He
pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into
the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross
the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to
dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their way
across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and
his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new
tram-track.
As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and
Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead--another cyclist. He moved to his
side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong
acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the
humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on
the low racing machine.
"Hi Cic'--! Ciccio!" he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle.
"Ha-er-er!" he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way
down 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!" said Ciccio.
"Hé! Où vas-tu?"
"Hé!" ejaculated Ciccio.
Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously
ejaculated.
"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.
"Come for 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, 6 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 kissed
farewell, on either cheek.
"Tomorrow, Cic'--"
"Au revoir, Gigi."
Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey
waited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him
in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He
went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on
tenterhooks till ten 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. Alvina
appeared at nine o'clock.
"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go to
Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because
I haven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell
the young 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 Hampden
Street at five minutes to eleven.
"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these young
men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have
caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him--who knows? Perhaps
he will go off to Italy all the same."
They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And
then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing
town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode
up muddily on his bicycle.
"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at
the Geisha Restaurant--or tea or something," said Madame.
Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last
Geoffrey 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 of
defection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited.
"We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all," she
said 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 not
speak.
"Go then--" she said. "Go then! Go with him! But for the sake of my
honour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Houghton's
father lose these two nights? Where is your shame? Finish this week
and then go, go--But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have
finished with 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. Tell him that."
Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic little
black hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat-and-skirt, stood
there at the street-corner staring before her, shivering a little
with cold, but saying no word of any sort.
Again Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. His face was impassive.
"He says he doesn't want," he said.
"Ah!" she cried suddenly in French, "the ungrateful, the animal! He
shall suffer. See if he shall not suffer. The low canaille, without
faith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, such canaille should
be beaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Will no one
beat him for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves
England he shall feel the hand of Kishwégin, and it shall be heavier
than the Black Hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a
woman's word to be broken against her will. Ah, canaille, canaille!
Neither faith nor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Trust them
not, dogs of the south." She took a few agitated steps down the
pavement. Then she raised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger
and bitter disappointment.
"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'll
come 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 oil-cloth, rather worn, on to the top
of the 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 a
rather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof.
"Don't come in," said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulder
at him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and
stood with her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the
bed, a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare
boards between his feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood
watching him with wide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly, and
saying nothing. He looked up at her steadily, on his guard, from
under his long black lashes.
"Won't you come?" she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. He
flicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger. She
wondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long, so very
long. 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 dropped
between his knees, watching her, the cigarette wavering up its blue
thread 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 if
timidly, caught his brown hand in her own and lifted it towards
herself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was not
withdrawn.
"You will come, won't you?" she said, smiling gently into his
strange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the
dark pupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his
softening round eyes, 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 as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the
silver ring seemed to her a symbol of his subjection, inferiority.
She drew his hand slightly. And he rose to his feet.
She turned round and took the door-handle, still holding his fingers
in her left hand.
"You are coming, aren't you?" she said, looking over her shoulder
into his eyes. And taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let
go his hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, and
taking his coat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders and drew it
on. Then he picked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked
cigarette, which lay smoking still. He followed her out of the room,
walking with his head rather forward, in the half loutish,
sensual-subjected way of the Italians.
As they entered the street, they saw the trim, French figure of
Madame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very white
under her spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Ciccio
following behind Alvina in his dark, hangdog fashion, and she did
not move a muscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She
was watching his face.
"Te voilà donc!" she said, without expression. "Allons boire un
café, hé? Let us go and drink some coffee." She had now put an
inflection of tenderness into her voice. But her eyes were black
with anger. Ciccio smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, and
turned 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 her
veil 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 stonily
expressionless, her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched
both Ciccio and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks.
"Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you?" she
said, with an amiable intonation which her strange black looks
belied.
"Yes," said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, while
Ciccio 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,
cat-like look 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
more rows?--hein?--aren't we?"
"_I'm_ awfully glad," said Alvina.
"Awfully glad--yes--awfully glad! You hear, you Ciccio. And you
remember 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 all
friends, aren't we, all the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Hé? What you think?
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--" Madame
sounded quite frank and restored. But the sullen watchfulness in her
eyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio's, as he glanced at her,
showed another state behind the obviousness of the words. "And Miss
Houghton is one of us! Yes? She has united us once more, and so she
has become one of us." Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round
white face.
"I should love to be one of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras," said Alvina.
"Yes--well--why not? Why not become one? Why not? What you say,
Ciccio? You can play the piano, perhaps do other things. Perhaps
better than Kishwégin. What you say, Ciccio, should she not join us?
Is she 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 Ciccio
rode home on his bicycle. It was surprising how little Madame and
Alvina found to say to one another.
Madame effected the reunion of her troupe, and all seemed pretty
much as before. She had decided to dance the next night, the
Saturday night. On Sunday the party would leave for Warsall, about
thirty miles away, to fulfil their next engagement.
That evening Ciccio, whenever he had a moment to spare, watched
Alvina. She knew it. But she could not make out what his watching
meant. In the same way he might have watched a serpent, had he found
one gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively,
but persistently. And yet he did not want to meet her glance. He
avoided her, and watched her. As she saw him standing, in his
negligent, muscular, slouching fashion, with his head dropped
forward, and his eyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. But
there was a sort of _finesse_ about his face. His skin was
delicately tawny, and slightly lustrous. The eyes were set in so
dark, that one expected them to be black and flashing. And then one
met the yellow pupils, sulphureous and remote. It was like meeting a
lion. His long, fine nose, his rather long, rounded chin and curling
lips seemed refined through ages of forgotten culture. He was
waiting: silent there, with something muscular and remote about his
very droop, he was waiting. What for? Alvina could not guess. She
wanted to meet his eye, to have an open understanding with him. But
he would not. When she went up to talk to him, he answered in his
stupid fashion, with a smile of the mouth and no change of the eyes,
saying nothing at all. Obstinately he held away from her. When he
was in his war-paint, for one moment she hated his muscular,
handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid and full. The fine
sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly.
Ciccio's velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so
full and softly powerful, sickened her.
She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing
Kishwégin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had
avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina--elusive and yet
conscious, a distance, and yet a connection.
Madame danced beautifully. No denying it, she was an artist. She
became something quite different: fresh, virginal, pristine, a magic
creature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and
attractive. Her _braves_ became glamorous and heroic at once, and
magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for
Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow
which surrounded Kishwégin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now:
without war-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time
suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and
remote. A stranger--and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano,
almost in tears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had
nothing to do with it.
Madame, with her long dark hair hanging in finely-brushed tresses,
her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How
soft she was on her feet. How humble and remote she seemed, as
across a chasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an
eternity of inaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the
dead bear was exquisite: her dark, secretive curiosity, her
admiration of the massive, male strength of the creature, her
quivers of triumph over the dead beast, her cruel exultation, and
her fear that he was not really dead. It was a lovely sight,
suggesting the world's morning, before Eve had bitten any
white-fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky, dark-eyed, and
still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the white prisoner! Now
indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Her fascination
was ruthless. She kneeled by the dead _brave_, her husband, as she
had knelt by the bear: in fear and admiration and doubt and
exultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot. Dead
meat like the bear! And a flash of delight went over her, that
changed into a sob of mortal anguish. And then, flickering, wicked,
doubtful, she watched Ciccio wrestling with the bear.
She was the clue to all the action, was Kishwégin. And her dark
_braves_ seemed to become darker, more secret, malevolent, burning
with a cruel fire, and at the same time wistful, knowing their end.
Ciccio laughed in a strange way, as he wrestled with the bear, as he
had never laughed on the previous evenings. The sound went out into
the audience, a soft, malevolent, derisive sound. And when the bear
was supposed to have crushed him, and he was to have fallen, he
reeled out of 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
all at 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 it should
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 know what
to do.
After the performance, neither Madame nor Max dared say anything to
Ciccio about his innovation into the play. Louis felt he had to
speak--it was left to him.
"I say, Cic'--" he said, "why did you change the scene? It might
have spoiled everything if Madame wasn't such a genius. Why did you
say that?"
"Why," said Ciccio, answering Louis' French in Italian, "I am tired
of being dead, you see."
Madame and Max heard in silence.
When Alvina had played _God Save the King_ she went round behind the
stage. But Ciccio and Geoffrey had already packed up the property,
and left. Madame was talking to James Houghton. Louis and Max were
busy together. Mr. May came to Alvina.
"Well," he said. "That closes another week. I think we've done very
well, in face of difficulties, don't you?"
"Wonderfully," she said.
But poor Mr. May spoke and looked pathetically. He seemed to feel
forlorn. Alvina was not attending to him. Her eye was roving. She
took no notice of him.
Madame came up.
"Well, Miss Houghton," she said, "time to say good-bye, I suppose."
"How do you feel after dancing?" asked Alvina.
"Well--not so strong as usual--but not so bad, you know. I shall be
all right--thanks to you. I think your father is more ill than I. To
me he 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 men
will cycle--perhaps all of them. Then they will go when they like--"
"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 send
Ciccio with them--or one of the others--"
"I should like to say good-bye to you all," persisted Alvina.
Madame glanced round at Max and Louis.
"Are we not all here? No. The two have gone. No! Well! Well what
time will you come?"
"About nine?"
"Very well, and I leave at ten. Very well. Then _au revoir_ till the
morning. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Alvina. Her colour was rather flushed.
She walked up with Mr. May, and hardly noticed he was there. After
supper, when James Houghton had gone up to count his pennies, Alvina
said 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 in
that 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
muddy according to their owners. Ciccio was crouching mending a
tire, crouching balanced on his toes, near the earth. He turned like
a quick-eared animal glancing up as she approached, but did not
rise.
"Are you getting ready to go?" she said, looking down at him. He
screwed his head round to her unwillingly, upside down, his chin
tilted up at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes
rested on his face, puzzled. His chin seemed so large, aggressive.
He was a little bit repellent and brutal, inverted. Yet she
continued:
"Would you help me to carry back the things we brought for Madame?"
He rose to his feet, but did not look at her. He was wearing broken
cycling shoes. He stood looking at his bicycle tube.
"Not just yet," she said. "I want to say good-bye to Madame. Will
you come in half an hour?"
"Yes, I will come," he said, still watching his bicycle tube, which
sprawled nakedly on the floor. The forward drop of his head was
curiously beautiful to her, the straight, powerful nape of the neck,
the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The way
the neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful.
There was something mindless but _intent_ about the forward reach of
his head. His face seemed colourless, neutral-tinted and
expressionless.
She went indoors. The young men were moving about making
preparations.
"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--" Madame
indicated a little pile--"and thank you _very_ much, _very_ much. I
feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one little token of
my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionaires in the
Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Just a little remembrance of our troublesome
visit to Woodhouse."
She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, woven
in a weird, lovely pattern, with soft deerskin soles and sides.
"They belong to Kishwégin, so it is Kishwégin who gives 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 from
you--"
"If I give them, you do not take them from me. You receive them.
Hé?" And Madame pressed back the slippers, opening her plump
jewelled hands in a gesture of finality.
"But I don't like to take _these_," said Alvina. "I feel they belong
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 a
pair 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 little
too short--just a little. But it was charming on the foot, charming.
"Yes," said Madame. "It is too short. Very well. I must find you
something else."
"Please don't," said Alvina. "Please don't find me anything. I don't
want anything. Please!"
"What?" said Madame, eyeing her closely. "You don't want? Why? You
don't want anything from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, or from Kishwégin? Hé?
From which?"
"Don't give me anything, please," said Alvina.
"All right! All right then. I won't. I won't give you anything. I
can'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, so
I am. But perhaps we shall see you another time--hé? I shall send
you a post-card. Perhaps I shall send one of the young men on his
bicycle, to bring you something which I shall buy for you. Yes?
Shall I?"
"Oh! I should be awfully glad--but don't buy--" Alvina checked
herself in time. "Don't buy anything. Send me a little thing from
Natcha-Kee-Tawara. I _love_ the slippers--"
"But they are too small," said Madame, who had been watching her
with black eyes that read every motive. Madame too had her
avaricious side, and was glad to get back the slippers. "Very
well--very well, I will 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 you _so_ much," said Alvina, holding out her hand. "Good-bye.
I'm so sorry you're going."
"Well--well! We are not going so very far. Not so very far. Perhaps
we 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 shall
see. Good-bye. I shall do my packing."
Alvina carried down the things she had to remove. Then she went to
say good-bye to the young men, who were in various stages of their
toilet. Max alone was quite presentable.
Ciccio was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire. She
watched 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,
patting it lightly.
"Is it finished?"
"Yes, I think." He reached his pump and blew up the tire. She
watched his softly-applied force. What physical, muscular force
there was in him. Then he swung round the bicycle, and stood it
again on its wheels. After which he quickly folded his tools.
"Will you come now?" she said.
He turned, rubbing his hands together, and drying them on an old
cloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his cap, and
picked 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--" said
Max.
True, Ciccio had no collar on, and his shoes were burst.
"I don't mind," said Alvina hastily. "He knows where they go. He
brought them before."
"But I will carry them. I am dressed. Allow me--" and he began to
take 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_ so
much. But let him take them."
So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morning streets, with the
Italian, who was down at heel and encumbered with an armful of
sick-room apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he said
nothing.
"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
hardly ever used. So she showed the Italian into the sombre
drawing-room, with its 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 in his 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 stood
looking up at him with wide blue eyes.
The faint smile grew on the lower part of his face, which he kept
averted. 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 eyes
fixed 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, with
a slightly mocking look, and a reserve he would not relinquish.
"Do you think I shall ever see you again?" she said.
"Should you like--?" he answered, with a sly smile and a faint
shrug.
"I should like awfully--" a flush grew on her cheek. She heard Miss
Pinnegar's scarcely audible step approaching.
He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up the
corners 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. He
glanced quickly over his shoulder.
"Oh!" cried Miss Pinnegar. "I couldn't imagine who it was." She eyed
the 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 to
Alvina, and a still slighter to Miss Pinnegar, he was out of the
room and out of the front door, as if turning tail.
"I suppose they're going this morning," said Miss Pinnegar.
CHAPTER IX
ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE
Alvina wept when the Natchas had gone. She loved them so much, she
wanted to be with them. Even Ciccio she regarded as only one of the
Natchas. She looked forward to his coming as to a visit from the
troupe.
How dull the theatre was without them! She was tired of the
Endeavour. She wished it did not exist. The rehearsal on the Monday
morning bored her terribly. Her father was nervous and irritable.
The previous week had tried him sorely. He had worked himself into a
state of nervous apprehension such as nothing would have justified,
unless perhaps, if the wooden walls of the Endeavour had burnt to
the ground, with James inside victimized like another Samson. He had
developed a nervous horror of all artistes. He did not feel safe for
one single moment whilst he depended on a single one of them.
"We shall have to convert into all pictures," he said in a nervous
fever to Mr. May. "Don't make any more engagements after the end of
next month."
"Really!" said Mr. May. "Really! Have you quite decided?"
"Yes quite! Yes quite!" James fluttered. "I have written about a new
machine, and the supply of films from Chanticlers."
"Really!" said Mr. May. "Oh well then, in that case--" But he was
filled with dismay and chagrin.
"Of cauce," he said later to Alvina, "I can't _possibly_ stop on if
we are nothing but a picture show!" And he arched his blanched and
dismal eyelids with ghastly finality.
"Why?" cried Alvina.
"Oh--why!" He was rather ironic. "Well, it's not my line at _all_.
I'm not a _film-operator_!" And he put his head on one side with a
grimace of contempt and superiority.
"But you are, as well," said Alvina.
"Yes, _as well_. But not _only_! You _may_ wash the dishes in the
scullery. But you're not only the _char_, are you?"
"But is it the same?" cried Alvina.
"Of cauce!" cried Mr. May. "Of _cauce_ it's the same."
Alvina laughed, a little heartlessly, into his pallid, stricken
eyes.
"But what will you do?" she asked.
"I shall have to look for something else," said the injured but
dauntless little man. "There's nothing _else_, is there?"
"Wouldn't you stay on?" she asked.
"I wouldn't think of it. I wouldn't think of it." He turtled like an
injured pigeon.
"Well," she said, looking laconically into his face: "It's between
you and father--"
"Of _cauce_!" he said. "Naturally! Where else--!" But his tone was a
little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes on Alvina.
Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to Miss Pinnegar.
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, judicious but aloof, "it's a move in the
right 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 Miss
Pinnegar. "I don't believe any good will come of it."
"But why?" persisted Alvina. "What makes you feel so sure about it?"
"I don't know. But that's how I feel. And I have from the first. It
was 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 to
touch 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. He
always was. Mother said he was like a showman in a booth."
Miss Pinnegar was taken aback.
"Well!" she said sharply. "If _that's_ what you've seen in
him!"--there was a pause. "And in that case," she continued tartly,
"I think some of the showman has come out in his daughter! or
show-woman!--which doesn't improve it, to my idea."
"Why is it any worse?" said Alvina. "I enjoy it--and so does
father."
"No," cried Miss Pinnegar. "There you're wrong! There you make a
mistake. It's all against his better nature."
"Really!" said Alvina, in surprise. "What a new idea! But which is
father's better nature?"
"You may not know it," said Miss Pinnegar coldly, "and if so, I can
never tell you. But that doesn't alter it." She lapsed into dead
silence for a moment. Then suddenly she broke out, vicious and cold:
"He'll go on till he's killed himself, and _then_ he'll know."
The little adverb _then_ came whistling across the space like a
bullet. It made Alvina pause. Was her father going to die? She
reflected. Well, all men must die.
She forgot the question in others that occupied her. First, could
she bear it, when the Endeavour was turned into another cheap and
nasty film-shop? The strange figures of the artistes passing under
her observation had really entertained her, week by week. Some weeks
they had bored her, some weeks she had detested them, but there was
always a chance in the coming week. Think of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras!
She thought too much of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She knew it. And she
tried to force her mind to the contemplation of the new state of
things, when she banged at the piano to a set of dithering and
boring pictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr. May--or
a new operator, a new manager. The new manager!--she thought of him
for a moment--and thought of the mechanical factory-faced persons
who _managed_ Wright's and the Woodhouse Empire.
But her mind fell away from this barren study. She was obsessed by
the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. They seemed to have fascinated her. Which of
them it was, or what it was that had cast the spell over her, she
did not know. But she was as if hypnotized. She longed to be with
them. Her soul gravitated towards them all the time.
Monday passed, and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: and
Wednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping their
promise--either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their
promise? She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her soul was
stubborn within her.
On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the Endeavour. Mr.
May found James Houghton fainting in the box-office after the
performance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina,
nor the performance. He sent the chocolate-and-orange boy across to
the Pear Tree for brandy.
James revived. "I'm all right," he said, in a brittle fashion. "I'm
all right. Don't bother." So he sat with his head on his hand in the
box-office, and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the film.
When the interval arrived, Mr. May hurried to the box-office, a
narrow hole that James could just sit in, and there he found the
invalid in the same posture, semi-conscious. He gave him more
brandy.
"I'm all right, I tell you," said James, his eyes flaring. "Leave me
alone." But he looked anything but all right.
Mr. May hurried for Alvina. When the daughter entered the ticket
place, her father was again in a state of torpor.
"Father," she said, shaking his shoulder gently. "What's the
matter."
He murmured something, but was incoherent. She looked at his face.
It was grey and blank.
"We shall have to get him home," she said. "We shall have to get a
cab."
"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 the
performance, 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 my
life--hectored by women--first one, then another. I won't stand
it--I won't stand it--" He looked at Alvina with a look of frenzy as
he lapsed 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
cab came. James, unconscious, was driven up to Woodhouse. He had to
be carried indoors. Alvina hurried ahead to make a light in the dark
passage.
"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 his
arms.
"Can you manage?" cried Alvina, showing a light.
"He doesn't weigh much," said the man.
"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!" went Miss Pinnegar's tongue, in a rapid
tut-tut of distress. "What have I said, now," she exclaimed. "What
have I said all along?"
James was laid on the sofa. His eyes were half-shut. They made him
drink 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 sat up in the sick room. James started and muttered, but did
not regain consciousness. Dawn came, and he was the same. Pneumonia
and pleurisy and a touch of meningitis. Alvina drank her tea, took a
little breakfast, 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 and
apprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James in
terror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what she
could. But one would have said she was repulsed, she found her task
unconsciously repugnant.
During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings came up and said that
the Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to Miss
Houghton.
"Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Houghton is seriously ill," said
Miss Pinnegar sharply.
When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon she found
a package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame: "To
Miss Houghton, with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks from
Kishwégin."
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 went
back to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious.
Miss Pinnegar came down, red eyed and sullen looking. The condition
of James gave little room for hope.
In the early morning he died. Alvina called Mrs. Rollings, and they
composed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and not light.
Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly
chamber at the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could
not. At half-past seven she arose, and started the business of the
new day. The doctor came--she went to the registrar--and so on.
Mr. May came. It was decided to keep open the theatre. He would find
some one else for the piano, some one else to issue the tickets.
In the afternoon arrived Frederick Houghton, James's cousin and
nearest relative. He was a middle-aged, blond, florid, church-going
draper from Knarborough, well-to-do and very _bourgeois_. He tried
to talk to Alvina in a fatherly fashion, or a friendly, or a helpful
fashion. But Alvina could not listen to him. He got on her nerves.
Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She was
in the drawing-room with her cousin, to give the interview its
proper air of solemnity. She saw Ciccio rearing his yellow bicycle
against the wall, and going with his head forward along the narrow,
dark way of the back yard, to the scullery door.
"Excuse me a minute," she said to her cousin, who looked up
irritably as she left the room.
She was just in time to open the door as Ciccio tapped. She stood on
the doorstep above him. He looked up, with a faint smile, from under
his black lashes.
"How nice of you to come," she said. But her face was blanched and
tired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in their
tiredness, as she glanced down at Ciccio. He seemed to her far away.
"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 going
over his face.
"Yes--this morning." She had neither tears nor emotion, but just
looked down on him abstractedly, from her height on the kitchen
step. He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his
eyes again, and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from
across a distance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a
wide, abstract distance.
He turned and looked down the dark yard, towards the gate where he
could just see the pale grey tire of his bicycle, and the yellow
mud-guard. He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went for
ever. Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina,
as if studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep,
neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to
see him. He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes,
until she met his look. And then he gave the faintest gesture with his
head, as of summons towards him. Her soul started, and died in her. And
again he gave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head,
backwards and sideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too
was closed and expressionless. But in his eyes, which kept hers, there
was a dark flicker 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 of her 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 the
step, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the
dark yard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was
a corner made by a shed. Here he turned, lingeringly, to her, and
she lingered in front of him.
Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awful
submission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him,
like a victim. There was a faint smile in his eyes. He stretched
forward over her.
"You love me? Yes?--Yes?" he said, in a voice that seemed like a
palpable contact on her.
"Yes," she whispered involuntarily, soulless, like a victim. He put
his arm round her, subtly, and lifted her.
"Yes," he re-echoed, almost mocking in his triumph. "Yes. Yes!" And
smiling, he kissed her, delicately, with a certain finesse of
knowledge. She moaned in spirit, in his arms, felt herself dead,
dead. And he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse which
seemed like 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 bicycle
like a feather, and, taking no notice of Miss Pinnegar, letting the
yard-door bang to behind him.
"Alvina!" said Miss Pinnegar.
But Alvina did not answer. She turned, slipped past, ran indoors and
upstairs to the little bare bedroom she had made her own. She locked
the door and kneeled down on the floor, bowing down her head to her
knees 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--because she 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't
you coming down to speak to your cousin?"
"Soon," said Alvina.
And taking a pillow from the bed, she crushed it against herself and
swayed herself unconsciously, in her orgasm of unbearable feeling.
Right in her bowels she felt it--the terrible, unbearable feeling.
How could she bear it.
She crouched over until she became still. A moment of stillness
seemed to cover her like sleep: an eternity of sleep in that one
second. 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
Miss Pinnegar both failed to make anything of her. She answered
their questions simply, but did not talk. They talked to each other.
And at last the cousin went away, with a profound dislike of Miss
Alvina.
She did not notice. She was only glad he was gone. And she went
about for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept deeply
that night, without dreams.
The next day was Saturday. It came with a great storm of wind and
rain and hail: a fury. Alvina looked out in dismay. She knew Ciccio
would not be able to come--he could not cycle, and it was impossible
to get by train and return the same day. She was almost relieved.
She was relieved by the intermission of fate, she was thankful for
the day of neutrality.
In the early afternoon came a telegram: Coming both tomorrow morning
deepest sympathy Madame. Tomorrow was Sunday: and the funeral was in
the afternoon. Alvina felt a burning inside her, thinking of Ciccio.
She winced--and yet she wanted him to come. Terribly she wanted him
to come.
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
anything to _them_--"
"I think it's very nice of her," said Alvina.
"Oh well," said Miss Pinnegar. "If you think so. I don't fancy he
would have wanted such people following, myself. And what does she
mean by _both_. Who's the other?" Miss Pinnegar looked sharply at
Alvina.
"Ciccio," said Alvina.
"The Italian! Why goodness me! What's _he_ coming for? I can't make
you out, Alvina. Is that his name, Chicho? I never heard such a
name. Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. There won't be room
for them 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 herself
carefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Carefully she did
her hair. Ciccio and Madame were coming. The thought of Ciccio made
her shudder. She hung about, waiting. Luckily none of the funeral
guests would arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless,
musing, by the fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to
Miss Pinnegar and Mrs. Rollings. Miss Pinnegar, red-eyed and
yellow-skinned, was irritable beyond words.
It was nearly mid-day when Alvina heard the gate. She hurried to
open the front door. Madame was in her little black hat and her
black spotted veil, Ciccio in a black overcoat was closing the yard
door behind her.
"Oh, my dear girl!" Madame cried, trotting forward with outstretched
black-kid hands, one of which held an umbrella: "I am so shocked--I
am so shocked to hear of your poor father. Am I to believe it?--am I
really? No, I can't."
She lifted her veil, kissed Alvina, and dabbed her eyes. Ciccio came
up the steps. He took off his hat to Alvina, smiled slightly as he
passed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door
and ushered them into the drawing-room.
Madame looked round like a bird, examining the room and the
furniture. She was evidently a little impressed. But all the time
she was uttering her condolences.
"Tell me, poor girl, how it happened?"
"There isn't much to tell," said Alvina, and she gave the brief
account of James's illness and death.
"Worn out! Worn out!" Madame said, nodding slowly up and down. Her
black veil, pushed up, sagged over her brows like a mourning band.
"You cannot afford to waste the stamina. And will you keep on the
theatre--with Mr. May--?"
Ciccio was sitting looking towards the fire. His presence made
Alvina tremble. She noticed how the fine black hair of his head
showed no parting at all--it just grew like a close cap, and was
pushed aside at the forehead. Sometimes he looked at her, as Madame
talked, and again looked at her, and looked away.
At last Madame came to a halt. There was a long pause.
"You will stay 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. He
will not trouble you."
Ciccio looked up at Alvina.
"I should like him to come," said Alvina simply. But a deep flush
began to mount her face. She did not know where it came from, she
felt so 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 his
face 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 he
said."
"That you have agreed with him--"
Madame and Ciccio both watched Alvina as she sat in her new black
dress. 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
a lot 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 to
Alvina. She bent her head and blushed.
"Speak then," said Madame, "you have a reason." She seemed
mistrustful of him.
But he turned aside his face, and refused to speak, sitting as if he
were 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 do not know him yet," she said, turning to Alvina.
"I know that," said Alvina, offended. Then she added: "Wouldn't you
like 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 said
to Ciccio.
"Oh!" said Madame roughly. "He will not stay to eat. He will go out
to 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 lips
and showing his teeth.
She had a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The
thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her
sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world
face that 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 as
she stood beside her chair, one hand lightly balanced on her hip.
Alvina was reminded of Kishwégin. But even in Madame's stony
mistrust there was an element of attraction towards him. He had
taken his 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 was
obstinate and mocking. He was rather floridly dressed, though in
black, and wore boots of black patent leather with tan uppers.
Handsome he was--but undeniably in bad taste. The silver ring was
still on his finger--and his close, fine, unparted hair went badly
with smart English clothes. He looked common--Alvina confessed it.
And her heart sank. But what was she to do? He evidently was not
happy. Obstinacy made him stick out the situation.
Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the dead
James. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face, and crossed
herself as she wept.
"Un bel homme, cependant," she whispered. "Mort en un jour. C'est
trop fort, voyez!" And she sniggered with fear and sobs.
They went down to Alvina's bare room. Madame glanced round, as she
did in every room she entered.
"This was father's bedroom," said Alvina. "The other was mine. He
wouldn't have it anything but like this--bare."
"Nature of a monk, a hermit," whispered Madame. "Who would have
thought it! Ah, the men, the men!"
And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the small
mirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stood
waiting.
"And now--" whispered Madame, suddenly turning: "What about this
Ciccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voice
above a whisper, upstairs there. But so it was.
She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvina
looked 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. "Oh
yes!--because you like him! But you know nothing _of_ him--nothing.
How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a real bad
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 know
him--no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He
is a man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist's model. He
sticks 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? How
can 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-men
always, always down, down, down--" And Madame pressed her spread
palms downwards. "And so--when they have a chance to come up--" she
raised her hand with a spring--"they are very conceited, and they
take their chance. 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 one time--"
"But," said Alvina, laughing ruefully. "He can't rise much because
of me, can he?"
"How not? How not? In the first place, you are English, and he
thinks to rise by that. Then you are not of the lower class, you are
of the higher class, the class of the masters, such as employ Ciccio
and men like him. How will he not rise in the world by you? Yes, he
will rise 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 all like money, yes, very much, all Italians--"
"Do they?" said Alvina, scared. "I'm sure there won't _be_ any
money. I'm sure father is in debt."
"What? You think? Do you? Really? Oh poor Miss Houghton! Well--and
will 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 to
him. Because he will not have much. He saves, saves, saves, as they
all do, to go back to Italy and buy a piece of land. And if he has
you, it will cost him much more, he cannot continue with
Natcha-Kee-Tawara. All will 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. But
he is obstinate--as a mule. And if he will still have you, then you
must think. Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man,
a dirty Eyetalian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not
pleasant for you, who have not known it. I also have not known it.
But I have seen--" Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while
Madame darted looks, as from bright, deep black glass.
"Yes," said Alvina. "I should hate being a labourer's wife in a
nasty little house in a street--"
"In a house?" cried Madame. "It would not be in a house. They live
many together in one house. It would be two rooms, or even one room,
in another 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 bad
way, the Italians. They do not know the English home--never. They
don't like it. Nor do they know the Swiss clean and proper house.
No. They don't understand. They run into their holes to sleep or to
shelter, and that 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 be
alone with people like animals. And if you go to Italy he will beat
you--he will beat you--"
"If I let him," said Alvina.
"But you can't help it, away there from everybody. Nobody will help
you. If you are a wife in Italy, nobody will help you. You are his
property, when you marry by Italian law. It is not like England.
There is no divorce in Italy. And if he beats you, you are
helpless--"
"But why should he beat me?" said Alvina. "Why should he want to?"
"They do. They are so jealous. And then they go into their
ungovernable 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 be provoked? And then he beats you--"
There seemed to be a gathering triumph in Madame's bright black
eyes. Alvina looked at her, and turned to the door.
"At any rate I know now," she said, in rather a flat voice.
"And it is _true_. It is all of it true," whispered Madame
vindictively. Alvina wanted to run from her.
"I _must_ go to the kitchen," she said. "Shall we go down?"
Alvina did not go into the drawing-room with Madame. She was too
much upset, and she had almost a horror of seeing Ciccio at that
moment.
Miss Pinnegar, her face stained carmine by the fire, was helping
Mrs. Rollings with the dinner.
"Are they both staying, or only one?" she said tartly.
"Both," said Alvina, busying herself with the gravy, to hide her
distress and confusion.
"The man as well," said Miss Pinnegar. "What does the woman want to
bring _him_ for? I'm sure I don't know what your father would say--a
common show-fellow, _looks_ what he is--and staying to dinner."
Miss Pinnegar was thoroughly out of temper as she tried the
potatoes. 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 an
irresistible 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, darting
her black looks at him.
But he hurried on his coat, looking stupid. Madame lifted her
eyebrows 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 express
herself as she walked down to the kitchen.
"Miss Pinnegar, this is Madame," said Alvina.
"How do you do?" said Miss Pinnegar, a little distant and
condescending. Madame eyed her keenly.
"Where is the man? I don't know his name," said Miss Pinnegar.
"He wouldn't stay," said Alvina. "What _is_ his name, Madame?"
"Marasca--Francesco. Francesco Marasca--Neapolitan."
"Marasca!" echoed Alvina.
"It has a bad sound--a sound of a bad augury, bad sign," said
Madame. "Ma-rà-sca!" She shook her head at the taste of the
syllables.
"Why do you think so?" said Alvina. "Do you think there is a meaning
in sounds? goodness and badness?"
"Yes," said Madame. "Certainly. Some sounds are good, they are for
life, 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 it
up."
"Why should things always go up? Why should life always go up?" said
Alvina.
"I don't know," said Madame, cutting her meat quickly. There was a
pause.
"And what about other names," interrupted Miss Pinnegar, a little
lofty. "What about Houghton, for example?"
Madame put down her fork, but kept her knife in her hand. She looked
across the room, not at Miss Pinnegar.
"Houghton--! Huff-ton!" she said. "When it is said, it has a sound
_against_: that is, against the neighbour, against humanity. But
when it is written _Hough-ton!_ then it is different, it is _for_."
"It is always pronounced _Huff-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 a relative of the family?" she said.
"No, not a relative. But I've been here many years," said Miss
Pinnegar.
"Oh, yes!" said Madame. Miss Pinnegar was frightfully affronted. The
meal, 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 guests
would all be coming. Madame went into the drawing-room to smoke her
sly cigarette.
Mr. May was the first to turn up for the lugubrious affair: very
tight and tailored, but a little extinguished, all in black. He
never wore black, and was very unhappy in it, being almost morbidly
sensitive to the impression the colour made on him. He was set to
entertain Madame.
She did not pretend distress, but sat black-eyed and watchful, very
much 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," said
Mr. 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.
"You should form a company, and carry on--" said Madame.
Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing himself up in an odd
fashion, so that he looked as if he were trussed. But Madame's
shrewd black 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 thousands
of 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 a _large_ fortune--!"
"No--eh?" Madame kept him fixed with her black eyes. "Do you think
the other one will get anything?"
"The _other 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't
know at all--" Mr. May was most freezing.
"Ha--ha! Ha--ha!" mused Madame quietly. Then she asked: "Which
work-girls do you say?"
And she listened astutely to Mr. May's forced account of the
work-room 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 I _believe_--"
Again Madame nodded sagely. "Debts perhaps--eh? Mortgage--" and she
looked slyly sardonic.
"Really!" said Mr. May, bouncing to his feet. "Do you mind if I go
to speak to Mrs. Rollings--"
"Oh no--go along," said Madame, and Mr. May skipped out in a temper.
Madame was left alone in her comfortable chair, studying details of
the room and making accounts in her own mind, until the actual
funeral guests began to arrive. And then she had the satisfaction of
sizing them up. Several arrived with wreaths. The coffin had been
carried down and laid in the small sitting-room--Mrs. Houghton's
sitting-room. It was covered with white wreaths and streamers of
purple ribbon. There was a crush and a confusion.
And then at last the hearse and the cabs had arrived--the coffin was
carried out--Alvina followed, on the arm of her father's cousin,
whom she disliked. Miss Pinnegar marshalled the other mourners. It
was a wretched business.
But it was a great funeral. There were nine cabs, besides the
hearse--Woodhouse had revived its ancient respect for the house of
Houghton. A posse of minor tradesmen followed the cabs--all in black
and with black gloves. The richer tradesmen sat in the cabs.
Poor Alvina, this was the only day in all her life when she was the
centre of public attention. For once, every eye was upon her, every
mind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina! said every member of the
Woodhouse "middle class": Poor Alvina Houghton, said every collier's
wife. 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
ran through some money in his day. Ay, if she had her rights she'd
be a rich woman. Why, her mother brought three or four thousands
with her. Ay, but James sank it all in Throttle-Ha'penny and
Klondyke and the Endeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He
paid his way. I'm not so sure about that. Look how he served his
wife, and now Alvina. I'm not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He
was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll
spend no more money, anyhow. No, he went 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 as that place pays its way?
What, the Endeavour?--they say it does. They say 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 if he _will_ leave
much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got's mortgaged 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 Manchester House--her and Miss
Pinnegar. Wonder what she'll do. Perhaps she'll take up that
nursing. She never made much of that, did she--and spent a sight of
money on her training, they say. She's a bit like her father in the
business line--all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turn up
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. Can you remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she?
No, I never 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
looked down 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 the Cinema? She never lets him alone. And it's anybody alike. Oh,
she doesn't respect herself. I don't consider. No girl who respected
herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller's
head. 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 she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she
_looks_ it. She does beguy--a dragged old maid. Oh but she
sprightles up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on
to somebody. I wonder why she never did take? It's funny. Oh, she
was too high and mighty before, and now it's too late. Nobody wants
her. And she's got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that's
her father's cousin who she'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 by Miss Frost. They say the grave was
made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her
than her own mother. She _was_ good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvina
thought the world of her. That's her stone--look, down there. Not a
very grand one, considering. No, it isn't. Look, there's room for
Alvina's name underneath. Sh!--
Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the
many faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her
own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out
of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her--how she disliked
his presence.
In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and her
father. She felt so desolate--it all seemed so empty. Bitterly she
cried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying started
Miss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather
horrible. The afterwards--the horrible afterwards.
There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold
day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the open
grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black seal-skin
furs were not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by
the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in
the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother--and for Miss
Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would
have to part. Miss Pinnegar 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 Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning,
knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was
gone. Strange, that he was gone. But he was weary, worn very thin
and weary. He had lived his day. How different it all was, now, at
his death, from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and
thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and 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 seemed
immensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio--what was his name? She
could not think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's
slow enunciation. Marasca--maraschino. Marasca! Maraschino! What was
maraschino? Where had she heard it. Cudgelling her brains, she
remembered the doctors, and the suppers after the theatre. And
maraschino--why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the
innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to
smack his lips, saying the word _maraschino_. Yet she didn't think
much of it. 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 Italian words were a good deal alike.
Ciccio, the marasca, the bitter cherry, was standing on the edge of
the crowd, looking on. He had no connection whatever with the
proceedings--stood outside, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bitten by
the 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
of barn-yard fowls. And he depended on her presence. Without her, he
would have felt too horribly uncomfortable on that raw hillside. She
and he were in some way allied. But these others, how alien and
uncouth he felt them. Impressed by their fine clothes, the English
working-classes were none the less barbarians to him, uncivilized:
just as he was to them an uncivilized animal. Uncouth, they seemed
to him, all raw angles and harshness, like their own weather. Not
that he thought about them. But he felt it in his flesh, the
harshness and discomfort of them. And Alvina was one of them. As she
stood there by the grave, pale and pinched and reserved looking, she
was of a piece with the hideous cold grey discomfort of the whole
scene. Never had anything been more uncongenial to him. He was dying
to get away--to clear out. That was all he wanted. Only some
southern obstinacy made him watch, from the duskiness of his face,
the pale, reserved girl at the grave. Perhaps he even disliked her,
at that time. But he watched in his dislike.
When the ceremony was over, and the mourners turned away to go back
to the cabs, Madame pressed forward to Alvina.
"I shall say good-bye now, Miss Houghton. We must go to the station
for 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 in
the cab? Where is he?"
Madame pointed him out as he hung back among the graves, his black
hat cocked a little on one side. He was watching. Alvina broke away
from her cousin, and went to him.
"Madame is going to drive to the station," she said. "She wants you
to get in with her."
He looked round at the cabs.
"All right," he said, and he picked his way across the graves to
Madame, following Alvina.
"So, we go together in the cab," said Madame to him. Then:
"Good-bye, my dear Miss Houghton. Perhaps we shall meet once more.
Who knows? My heart is with you, my dear." She put her arms round
Alvina and kissed her, 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?" She
looked at him from her strained, pale face.
"All right," he said, shaking her hand loosely. It sounded
hopelessly indefinite.
"You will come, won't you?" she repeated, staring at him with
strained, unseeing blue eyes.
"All right," he said, ducking and turning away.
She stood quite still for a moment, quite lost. Then she went on
with 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 terrible
affair. But it came to an end, as everything comes to an end, and
Miss Pinnegar and Alvina were left alone in the emptiness of
Manchester House.
"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's bed, out of sheer terror of the empty house.
During the days following the funeral, no one could have been more
tiresome than Alvina. James had left everything to his daughter,
excepting some rights in the work-shop, which were Miss Pinnegar's.
But the question was, how much did "everything" amount to? There
was something less than a hundred pounds in the bank. There was a
mortgage on Manchester House. There were substantial bills owing on
account of the Endeavour. Alvina had about a hundred pounds left
from the insurance money, when all funeral expenses were paid. Of
that she was sure, and of nothing else.
For the rest, she was almost driven mad by people coming to talk to
her. The lawyer came, the clergyman came, her cousin came, the old,
stout, prosperous tradesmen of Woodhouse came, Mr. May came, Miss
Pinnegar came. And they all had schemes, and they all had advice.
The chief plan was that the theatre should be sold up: and that
Manchester House should be sold, reserving a lease on the top floor,
where Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms were: that Miss Pinnegar and Alvina
should move into a small house, Miss Pinnegar keeping the work-room,
Alvina giving music-lessons: that the two women should be partners
in the work-shop.
There were other plans, of course. There was a faction against the
chapel faction, which favoured the plan sketched out above. The
theatre faction, including Mr. May and some of the more florid
tradesmen, favoured the risking of everything in the Endeavour.
Alvina was to be the proprietress of the Endeavour, she was to run
it on some sort of successful lines, and abandon all other
enterprise. Minor plans included the election of Alvina to the post
of parish nurse, at six pounds a month: a small private school; a
small haberdashery shop; and a position in the office of her
cousin's Knarborough business. To one and all Alvina answered with a
tantalizing: "I don't know what I'm going 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 could do. And they were
all nettled, even indignant that she did not jump at their
proposals. She listened to them all. She even invited their advice.
Continually she said: "Well, what do _you_ think of it?" And she
repeated the chapel plan to the theatre group, the theatre plan to
the chapel party, the nursing to the pianoforte proposers, the
haberdashery shop to the private school advocates. "Tell me what
_you_ think," she said repeatedly. And they all told her they
thought _their_ plan was best. And bit by bit she told every
advocate the proposal of every other advocate "Well, Lawyer Beeby
thinks--" and "Well now, Mr. Clay, the minister, advises--" and so
on and so on, till it was all buzzing through thirty benevolent and
officious heads. And thirty benevolently-officious wills were
striving to plant each one its own particular scheme of benevolence.
And Alvina, naïve and pathetic, egged them all on in their strife,
without even knowing what she was doing. One thing only was certain.
Some obstinate will in her own self absolutely refused to have her
mind made up. She would _not_ have her mind made up for her, and she
would not make it up for herself. And so everybody began to say "I'm
getting tired of her. You talk to her, and you get no forrarder. She
slips off to something 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's unarrangeable future for her. Offers of charity
were innumerable--for three weeks.
Meanwhile, the lawyer went on with the proving of the will and the
drawing up of a final account of James's property; Mr. May went on
with the Endeavour, though Alvina did not go down to play; Miss
Pinnegar went on with the work-girls: and Alvina went on unmaking
her mind.
Ciccio did not come during the first week. Alvina had a post-card
from Madame, from Cheshire: rather far off. But such was the buzz
and excitement over her material future, such a fever was worked up
round about her that Alvina, the petty-propertied heroine of the
moment, was quite carried away in a storm of schemes and benevolent
suggestions. She answered Madame's post-card, but did not give much
thought to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. As a matter of fact, she was
enjoying a real moment of importance, there at the centre of
Woodhouse's rather domineering benevolence: a benevolence which she
unconsciously, but systematically frustrated. All this scheming for
selling out and making reservations and hanging on and fixing prices
and getting private bids for Manchester House and for the Endeavour,
the excitement of forming a Limited Company to run the Endeavour, of
seeing a lawyer about the sale of Manchester House and the
auctioneer about the sale of the furniture, of receiving men who
wanted to pick up the machines upstairs cheap, and of keeping
everything dangling, deciding nothing, putting everything off till
she had seen somebody else, this for the moment fascinated her, went
to her head. It was not until the second week had passed that her
excitement began to merge into irritation, and not until the third
week had gone by that she began to feel herself entangled in an
asphyxiating web of indecision, and her heart began to sing because
Ciccio had never turned up. Now she would have given anything to see
the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras again. But she did not know where they were.
Now she began to loathe the excitement of her property: doubtfully
hers, every stick of it. Now she would give anything to get away
from Woodhouse, from the horrible buzz and entanglement of her
sordid affairs. Now again her wild recklessness came over her.
She suddenly said she was going away somewhere: she would not say
where. She cashed all the money she could: a hundred-and-twenty-five
pounds. She took the train to Cheshire, to the last address of the
Natcha-Kee-Tawaras: she followed them to Stockport: and back to
Chinley: and there she was stuck for the night. Next day she dashed
back almost to Woodhouse, and swerved round to Sheffield. There, in
that black town, thank heaven, she saw their announcement on the
wall. She took a taxi to their theatre, and then on to their
lodgings. The first thing she saw was Louis, in his shirt sleeves,
on the landing above.
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 wonderful
mother for them, sewed for them, cooked for them, looked after them
most carefully. Not many minutes was Madame idle.
"Do you mind?" said Alvina.
Madame darned for some moments without answering.
"And how is everything at Woodhouse?" she asked.
"I couldn't bear it any longer. I couldn't bear it. So I collected
all the money I could, and ran away. Nobody knows where I am."
Madame looked up with bright, black, censorious eyes, at the flushed
girl opposite. Alvina had a certain strangeness and brightness,
which Madame 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 will
be when everything is settled, I don't know. But not very much, I'm
sure of that."
"How much do you think? A thousand pounds?"
"Oh, it's just possible, you know. But it's just as likely there
won't be another penny--"
Madame nodded slowly, as always when she did her calculations.
"And if 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 for
you, I could keep myself for some time with my own money. You said
perhaps I might be with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. I wish you would let
me."
Madame bent her head so that nothing showed but the bright black
folds of her hair. Then she looked up, with a slow, subtle, rather
jeering 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 satisfied
with 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 perhaps
you have nothing."
"Oh, I think it's quite safe, don't you--?"
"Yes--maybe--since it is England. And you think a hundred and twenty
pounds 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 one
moment." 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 and
fetch Miss Houghton's little bag. You have got the ticket, have
you?" Alvina handed the luggage ticket to Madame. "Midland Railway,"
said Madame. "And, Ciccio, you are listening--? Mind! There is a
hundred and twenty pounds of Miss Houghton's money in the bag. You
hear? Mind it is not lost."
"It's all I have," said Alvina.
"For the time, for the time--till the will is proved, it is all the
cash she has. So mind doubly. You hear?"
"All right," said Ciccio.
"Tell him what sort of a bag, Miss Houghton," said Madame.
Alvina told 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--when
Cic' returns. Let him think, let him think what he likes. So much
money is certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It will
make all the difference that there is so much cash--yes, so much--"
"But would it _really_ make a difference to him?" cried Alvina.
"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 thousand
pounds, then he would want very badly to marry you. But a hundred
and twenty 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, the
money is nothing. But all the others--why, you see, they are men,
and they 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 the
toes--you see?" Madame poked two fingers through the hole in the
toe of a 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 I
will speak to him--"
"What to say?" asked Alvina.
"To say that you have so much money, and hope to have more. And that
you like him--Yes? Am I right? You like him very much?--hein? Is it
so?"
"And then what?" said Alvina.
"That he should tell me if he should like to marry you also--quite
simply. What? Yes?"
"No," said Alvina. "Don't say anything--not yet."
"Hé? Not yet? Not yet. All right, not yet then. You will see--"
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
by any means sure she wanted to marry him. There was Madame spinning
her web like a plump prolific black spider. There was Ciccio, the
unrestful fly. And there was herself, who didn't know in the least
what she was doing. There sat two of them, Madame and herself,
darning socks in a stuffy 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, she
superintended the cooking and the preparation of meals for her young
men, scrupulous and quick. She called Alvina downstairs. Ciccio came
in with 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
young men will witness."
The party sat down to tea, in the stuffy sitting-room.
"Now, boys," said Madame, "what do you say? Shall Miss Houghton join
the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Shall she be our pianist?"
The eyes of the four young men rested on Alvina. Max, as being the
responsible party, looked business-like. Louis was tender, Geoffrey
round-eyed and inquisitive, Ciccio furtive.
"With great pleasure," said Max. "But can the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras
afford to pay a pianist for themselves?"
"No," said Madame. "No. I think not. Miss Houghton will come for one
month, to prove, and in that time she shall pay for herself. Yes? So
she fancies it."
"Can we pay her expenses?" said Max.
"No," said Alvina. "Let me pay everything for myself, for a month. I
should like to be with you, awfully--"
She looked across with a look half mischievous, half beseeching at
the 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 in
indication of agreement.
"Now then," said Madame briskly, "we are all agreed. Tonight we will
have 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 we
cannot 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't
like this 'vy' sound. Tonight we shall find a name."
After tea they inquired for a room for Alvina. There was none in the
house. But two doors away was another decent lodging-house, where a
bedroom 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 black
voile, and imitating Madame, she put four jewelled rings on her
fingers. As a rule she only wore the mourning-ring of black enamel
and diamond, which had been always on Miss Frost's finger. Now she
left off this, and took four diamond rings, and one good sapphire.
She looked at herself in her mirror as she had never done before,
really interested in the effect she made. And in her dress she
pinned a valuable old ruby brooch.
Then she went down to Madame's house. Madame eyed her shrewdly, with
just a touch of jealousy: the eternal jealousy that must exist
between the plump, pale partridge of a Frenchwoman, whose black hair
is so glossy and tidy, whose black eyes are so acute, whose black
dress is so neat and _chic_, 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 more
flesh--then--" Madame made a slight click with her tongue. "What a
good brooch, eh?" Madame fingered the brooch. "Old paste--old
paste--antique--"
"No," said Alvina. "They are real rubies. It was my
great-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 her
hands.
"I've always understood so," said Alvina.
Madame scrutinized, and slowly nodded her head. Then she looked into
Alvina'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 knew
where to find French and German stuff, came in with bundles, Ciccio
returned with a couple of flasks, Geoffrey with sundry moist papers
of edibles. Alvina helped Madame to put the anchovies and sardines
and tunny and ham and salami on various plates, she broke off a bit
of fern from one of the flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she
set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the
time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed
and was gay, she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very
deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous,
common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or
care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were
watching her. Max gave his assistance wherever possible. Geoffrey
watched her rings, half spell-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, only for
Kishwégin. And Madame had the time of her life.
"You know, my dear," she said afterward to Alvina, "I understand
sympathy in music. Music goes straight to the heart." And she kissed
Alvina on both cheeks, throwing her arms round her neck
dramatically.
"I'm _so_ 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 the
table, Alvina at the other. Madame had Max and Louis by her side,
Alvina had Ciccio and Geoffrey. Ciccio was on Alvina's right hand: a
delicate hint.
They began with hors d'oeuvres and tumblers three parts full of
Chianti. Alvina wanted to water her wine, but was not allowed to
insult the sacred liquid. There was a spirit of great liveliness and
conviviality. Madame became paler, her eyes blacker, with the wine
she drank, her voice became a little raucous.
"Tonight," she said, "the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras make their feast of
affiliation. The white daughter has entered the tribe of the
Hirondelles, swallows that pass from land to land, and build their
nests between roof and wall. A new swallow, a new Huron from the
tents of the pale-face, from the lodges of the north, from the tribe
of the Yenghees." Madame's black eyes glared with a kind of wild
triumph down the table at Alvina. "Nameless, without having a name,
comes the maiden with the red jewels, dark-hearted, with the red
beams. Wine from the pale-face shadows, drunken wine for Kishwégin,
strange wine for the _braves_ in their nostrils, Vaali, _à vous_."
Madame lifted her glass.
"Vaali, drink to her--Boire à elle--" She thrust her glass forwards
in the air. The young men thrust their glasses up towards Alvina, in
a cluster. She could see their mouths all smiling, their teeth white
as they cried in their throats: "Vaali! Vaali! Boire à vous."
Ciccio was near to her. Under the table he laid his hand on her
knee. Quickly she put forward her hand to protect herself. He took
her hand, and looked at her along the glass as he drank. She saw his
throat move as the wine went down it. He put down his glass, still
watching her.
"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 Italian
for 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, "so
long as it is a good journey."
Here Geoffrey at last saw the joke. With a strange determined
flourish he filled his glass, cocking up his elbow.
"A toi, Cic'--et bon voyage!" he said, and then he tilted up his
chin and swallowed in great throatfuls.
"Certainly! Certainly!" cried Madame. "To thy good journey, my
Ciccio, 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 eyes
looking from one to another, and not understanding. But she knew it
was something improper, on her account. Her eyes had a bright,
slightly-bewildered look as she turned from one face to another.
Ciccio had let go her hand, and was wiping his lips with his
fingers. He too was 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, looking round.
Madame suddenly pulled herself together.
"They will not have my name. They will call you Allay!" she said to
Alvina. "Is it good? Will it do?"
"Quite," said Alvina.
And she could not understand why Gigi, and then the others after
him, went off into a shout of laughter. She kept looking round with
bright, 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 the
name 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 black
pigeon, 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 the
Hirondelles--"
"No nation do we know but the nation of the Hirondelles," came the
ragged chant of strong male voices, resonant and gay with mockery.
"Hurons--Hirondelles, means _swallows_," said Madame.
"Yes, I know," said Alvina.
"So! you know! Well, then! We know no nation but the Hirondelles. 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 sang sonorous.
"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 her
feet 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 a
slight but intense dance. Then she waved for a partner, and set up a
tarantella wail. Louis threw off his coat and sprang to tarantella
attention, Ciccio rang out the peculiar tarantella, and Madame and
Louis 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, they
kissed her fingers, whilst she laid her left hand languidly on the
head of one man after another, as she sat slightly panting. Ciccio
however did not come up, but sat faintly twanging the mandoline. Nor
did Alvina leave her place.
"Pacohuila!" cried Madame, with an imperious gesture. "Allaye!
Come--"
Ciccio laid down his mandoline and went to kiss the fingers of
Kishwégin. 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 of Kishwégin," she
said, in her Tawara manner.
"And where is the _brave_ of Allaye, where is the arm that upholds
the daughter of Kishwégin, which of the Swallows spreads his 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," said
Kishwégin, and Ciccio, in his shirt-sleeves solemnly spread his
arms.
"Stoop, stoop, Allaye, beneath the wings of Pacohuila," said
Kishwégin, faintly pressing Alvina on the shoulder.
Alvina stooped and crouched under the right arm of Pacohuila.
"Has the bird flown home?" chanted Kishwégin, to one of the strains
of 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 retire to our
wigwams all--"
Ciccio was watching Alvina. Madame made him a secret, imperative
gesture 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 to him?
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 flash-light, which
she triumphantly handed to Ciccio. Alvina watched him. She noticed
how he dropped his head forward from his straight, strong shoulders,
how beautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape and back
of the head. It produced a kind of dazed submission in her, the
drugged sense of unknown beauty.
"And so good-night, Allaye--bonne nuit, fille des Tawara." Madame
kissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks at her.
Each _brave_ also kissed her hand, with a profound salute. Then the
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 to
the neighbouring house with her, and opened the door. She entered,
and he followed, flashing on the light. So she climbed weakly up the
dusty, drab stairs, he following. When she came to her door, she
turned and looked at him. His face was scarcely visible, it seemed,
and yet so strange and beautiful. It was the unknown beauty which
almost killed her.
"You aren't coming?" she quavered.
He gave an odd, half-gay, half-mocking twitch of his thick dark
brows, and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing
at her boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark Southerner he
was. Her instinct was to defend herself. When suddenly she found
herself in the dark.
She gasped. And as she gasped, he quite gently put her inside her
room, and closed the door, keeping one arm round her all the time.
She felt his heavy muscular predominance. So he took her in both
arms, powerful, mysterious, horrible in the pitch dark. Yet the
sense of the unknown beauty of him weighed her down like some force.
If for one moment she could have escaped from that black spell of
his beauty, she would have been free. But she could not. He was
awful to her, shameless so that she died under his shamelessness,
his smiling, progressive shamelessness. Yet she could not see him
ugly. If only she could, for one second, have seen him ugly, he
would not have killed her and made her his slave as he did. But the
spell was on her, of his darkness and unfathomed handsomeness. And
he killed her. He simply took her and assassinated 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 her
gently as if she was a child, but took no notice, and she felt in
the darkness that he smiled. It was utterly dark, and she knew he
smiled, and she began to get hysterical. But he only kissed her, his
smiling deepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but
sensible, as he carried her away once more. He intended her to be
his slave, she knew. 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, rich handsomeness had not numbed her like a venom. So she was
suffocated in his passion.
In the morning when it was light he turned and looked at her from
under his long black lashes, a long, steady, cruel, faintly-smiling
look from his tawny eyes, searching her as if to see whether she
were still 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 face to the wall, feeling beaten. Yet not quite beaten
to death. Save for the fatal numbness of her love for him, she could
still have escaped him. But she lay inert, as if envenomed. He
wanted to make her his slave.
When she went down to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras for breakfast she found
them waiting for her. She was rather frail and tender-looking, with
wondering eyes that showed she had been crying.
"Come, daughter of the Tawaras," said Madame brightly to her. "We
have 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 a
bunch of violets, a bunch of carnations, a pair of exquisite bead
moccasins, and a pair of fine doeskin gloves delicately decorated
with feather-work on the cuffs. The slippers were from Kishwégin,
the gloves from Mondagua, the carnations from Atonquois, the violets
from Walgatchka--all _To the Daughter of the Tawaras, Allaye_, as it
said on the little cards.
"The gift of Pacohuila you know," said Madame, smiling. "The
brothers of Pacohuila are your brothers."
One by one they went to her and each one laid the back of her
fingers 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--" So
spoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, almost solemn eyes of
affection. Alvina smiled a little wanly, wondering where she was. It
was all so solemn. Was it all mockery, play-acting? She felt
bitterly inclined to cry.
Meanwhile Madame came in with the coffee, which she always made
herself, and the party sat down to breakfast. Ciccio sat on Alvina's
right, but he seemed to avoid looking at her or speaking to her. All
the time he looked across the table, with the half-asserted, knowing
look in his eyes, at Gigi: and all the time he addressed himself to
Gigi, with the throaty, rich, plangent quality in his voice, that
Alvina could not bear, it seemed terrible to her: and he spoke in
French: and the two men seemed to be exchanging unspeakable
communications. So that Alvina, for all her wistfulness and
subjectedness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon as
possible from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and
public recognition from Ciccio--none of which she got. She returned
to her own house, to her own room, anxious to tidy everything, not
wishing to have her landlady in the room. And she half expected
Ciccio to come to speak to her.
As she was busy washing a garment in the bowl, her landlady knocked
and 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 i' t' kitchen. You
don't take 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 mun
ha'e yer fling, like t' rest. But coom na, which on 'em is it? I
catched sight on 'im goin' out, but I didna ma'e out then which on
'em it wor. He--eh, it's a pity you don't take a drop of nothink,
it's a world'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 that
road. I thought Madame was partikler. I s'll charge yer a bit more,
yer know. I s'll 'ave to make a bit out of it. _I'm_ partikler as a
rule. I don't like 'em comin' in an' goin' out, you know. Things get
said. You look so quiet, you do. Come now, it's worth a hextra quart
to me, else I shan't have it, I shan't. You can't make as free as
all that with the house, you know, be it what it may--"
She stood red-faced and dour in the doorway. Alvina quietly gave her
half-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
not down on you--not me. On'y we've got to keep up appearances a
bit, you know. 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'other
termorrer. 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'
a sight 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 into
her ricketty mirror. At the back of her thoughts, all she minded was
that Ciccio did not pay her some attention. She really expected him
now to come to speak to her. If she could have imagined how far he
was from any such intention.
So she loitered unwillingly at her window high over the grey, hard,
cobbled street, and saw her landlady hastening along the black
asphalt pavement, her dirty apron thrown discreetly over what was
most obviously a quart jug. She followed the squat, intent figure
with her eye, to the public-house at the corner. And then she saw
Ciccio humped over his yellow bicycle, going for a steep and
perilous ride with Gigi.
Still she lingered in her sordid room. She could feel Madame was
expecting her. But she felt inert, weak, incommunicative. Only a
real fear 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 still
two bicycles stood.
"Madame is in the kitchen," he said.
Alvina found Madame trussed in a large white apron, busy rubbing a
yellow-fleshed hen with lemon, previous to boiling.
"Ah!" said Madame. "So there you are! I have been out and done my
shopping, and already begun to prepare the dinner. Yes, you may help
me. Can you wash leeks? Yes? Every grain of sand? Shall I trust you
then--?"
Madame usually had a kitchen to herself, in the morning. She either
ousted her landlady, or used her as second cook. For Madame was a
gourmet, if not gourmand. If she inclined towards self-indulgence in
any direction, it was in the direction of food. She _loved_ a good
table. And hence the Tawaras saved less money than they might. She
was an exacting, tormenting, bullying cook. Alvina, who knew well
enough how to prepare a simple dinner, was offended by Madame's
exactions. Madame turning back the green leaves of a leek, and
hunting a speck of earth down into the white, like a flea in a bed,
was too much for Alvina.
"I'm afraid I shall never be particular enough," she said. "Can't I
do anything else for you?"
"For me? I need nothing to be done for me. But for the young
men--yes, I will show you in one minute--"
And she took Alvina upstairs to her room, and gave her a pair of the
thin leather trousers fringed with hair, belonging to one of the
_braves_. A seam had ripped. Madame gave Alvina a fine awl and some
waxed thread.
"The leather is not good in these things of Gigi's," she said. "It
is badly prepared. See, like this." And she showed Alvina another
place where the garment was repaired. "Keep on your apron. At the
week-end you must fetch more clothes, not spoil this beautiful gown
of voile. Where have you left your diamonds? What? In your room? Are
they locked? Oh my dear--!" Madame turned pale and darted looks of
fire at Alvina. "If they are stolen--!" she cried. "Oh! I have
become quite weak, hearing you!" She panted and shook her head. "If
they are not stolen, you have the Holy Saints alone to be thankful
for keeping them. But run, run!"
And Madame really stamped her foot.
"Bring me everything you've got--every _thing_ that is valuable. I
shall lock it up. How _can_ you--"
Alvina was hustled off to her lodging. Fortunately nothing was gone.
She brought all to Madame, and Madame fingered the treasures
lovingly.
"Now what you want you must ask me for," she said.
With what close curiosity Madame examined the ruby brooch.
"You can have 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. Then
she changed into a sort of wheedling. "No--no. I shan't take it! I
shan'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. It
would be worth over a thousand francs, because I believe it is quite
genuine."
"I'm sure it's genuine," said Alvina. "Do have it since you like
it."
"Oh, I can't! I can't!--"
"Yes do--"
"The beautiful red stones!--antique gems, antique gems--! And do you
really give it to me?"
"Yes, I should like to."
"You are a girl with a noble heart--" Madame threw her arms round
Alvina's neck, and kissed her. Alvina felt very cool about it.
Madame locked 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 at
table, talking as young men do, not very interestingly. After the
meal, Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise
vibrate through 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 lit
a cigarette. Then after a while he hailed Geoffrey, and the two
young men sallied forth. Alvina, emerging from a draper's shop in
Rotherhampton Broadway, found them loitering on the pavement
outside. And they strolled along with her. So she went into a shop
that sold ladies' underwear, leaving them on the pavement. She
stayed as long as she could. But there they were when she came out.
They had endless lounging patience.
"I thought you would be gone on," she said.
"No hurry," said Ciccio, and he took away her parcels from her, as
if he had a right. She wished he wouldn't tilt the flap of his black
hat over one eye, and she wished there wasn't quite so much
waist-line in the cut of his coat, and that he didn't smoke
cigarettes against the end of his nose in the street. But wishing
wouldn't alter him. He strayed alongside as if he half belonged, and
half didn't--most irritating.
She wasted as much time as possible in the shops, then they took the
tram home again. Ciccio paid the three fares, laying his hand
restrainingly on Gigi's hand, when Gigi's hand sought pence in his
trouser pocket, and throwing his arm over his friend's shoulder, in
affectionate but vulgar triumph, when the fares were paid. Alvina
was on her high horse.
They tried to talk to her, they tried to ingratiate themselves--but
she wasn't having any. She talked with icy pleasantness. And so the
tea-time passed, and the time after tea. The performance went rather
mechanically, at the theatre, and the supper at home, with bottled
beer and boiled ham, was a conventionally cheerful affair. Even
Madame was a little 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 merry
evenings never follow one behind the other."
"Max, beer makes thee a _farceur_ of a fine quality," said Madame.
Alvina rose.
"Please don't get up," she said to the others. "I have my key and
can see quite well," she said. "Good-night all."
They rose and bowed their good-nights. But Ciccio, with an obstinate
and ugly little smile on his face, followed her.
"Please don't come," she said, turning at the street door. But
obstinately he lounged into the street with her. He followed her to
her door.
"Did you bring the flash-light?" she said. "The stair is so dark."
He looked at her, and turned as if to get the light. Quickly she
opened the house-door and slipped inside, shutting it sharply in his
face. He stood for some moments looking at the door, and an ugly
little look mounted his straight nose. He too turned indoors.
Alvina hurried to bed and slept well. And the next day the same, she
was all icy pleasantness. The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were a little bit
put out 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 did not rise to accompany her to her house. And she
knew they were relieved that she had gone.
That did not please her. The next day, which was Saturday, the last
and greatest day of the week, she found herself again somewhat of an
outsider in the troupe. The tribe had assembled in its old unison.
She was the intruder, the interloper. And Ciccio never looked at
her, only showed her the half-averted side of his cheek, on which
was a slightly jeering, ugly look.
"Will you go to Woodhouse tomorrow?" Madame asked her, rather
coolly. 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 Mansfield
on Monday morning? Like that shall it be? You will stay one night at
Woodhouse?"
Through Alvina's mind flitted the rapid thought--"They want an
evening without me." Her pride mounted obstinately. She very nearly
said--"I may stay in Woodhouse altogether." But she held her tongue.
After all, they were very common people. They ought to be glad to
have her. Look how Madame snapped up that brooch! And look what an
uncouth lout Ciccio was! After all, she was demeaning herself
shamefully staying with them in common, sordid lodgings. After all,
she had been bred up differently from that. They had horribly low
standards--such low standards--not only of morality, but of life
altogether. Really, she had come down in the world, conforming to
such standards of life. She evoked the images of her mother and Miss
Frost: ladies, and noble women both. Whatever could she be thinking
of herself!
However, there was time for her to retrace her steps. She had not
given herself away. Except to Ciccio. And her heart burned when she
thought of him, partly with anger and mortification, partly, alas,
with undeniable and unsatisfied love. Let her bridle as she might,
her heart burned, 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 to her room an unhappy woman, and wept and fretted till
morning, chafing between humiliation and yearning.
CHAPTER X
THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE
Alvina rose chastened and wistful. As she was doing her hair, she
heard the plaintive nasal sound of Ciccio's mandoline. She looked
down the mixed vista of back-yards and little gardens, and was able
to catch sight of a portion of Ciccio, who was sitting on a box in
the blue-brick yard of his house, bare-headed and in his
shirt-sleeves, twitching away at the wailing mandoline. It was not a
warm morning, but there was a streak of sunshine. Alvina had noticed
that Ciccio did not seem to feel the cold, unless it were a wind or
a driving rain. He was playing the wildly-yearning Neapolitan songs,
of which Alvina knew nothing. But, although she only saw a section
of him, the glimpse of his 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 him
in 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 his
head in the direction of the back door, with a deep, intimate look
into Alvina's eyes, as if to say his friend was lovesick.
"Shall I go through?" said Alvina.
Geoffrey laid his large hand on her shoulder for a moment, looked
into her eyes, and nodded. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a
rather flat, handsome face, well-coloured, and with the look of the
Alpine ox about him, slow, eternal, even a little mysterious. Alvina
was 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 to her. She smiled to him again, startled. But he only
inclined his head, and with his heavy hand on her shoulder gently
impelled her towards Ciccio.
When she came out at the back she smiled straight into Ciccio's
face, with her sudden, luminous smile. His hand on the mandoline
trembled into silence. He sat looking at her with an instant
re-establishment of knowledge. And yet she shrank from the long,
inscrutable gaze of his black-set, tawny eyes. She resented him a
little. And yet she went forward to him and stood so that her dress
touched him. And still he gazed up at her, with the heavy,
unspeaking look, that seemed to bear her down: he seemed like some
creature that was watching her for his purposes. She looked aside at
the black garden, which had a wiry goose-berry bush.
"You will come with me to Woodhouse?" she said.
He did not answer till she turned to him again. Then, as she met his
eyes,
"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 his
mouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred
his tawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched
her as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of
ferocity. In his eyes was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something
fathomless, deepening black and abysmal, but somehow sweet to her.
"Will you?" she repeated.
But his eyes had already begun to glimmer their consent. He turned
aside 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 a
Neapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at
her again as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a
curious mocking caress as the muted _voix blanche_ came through his
lips at her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The sound
penetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the
high thread 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
its paws! 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't you?"
A flicker of contempt and derision went over Ciccio's face as he
broke off and looked aside.
"I prefer the serenade," said Alvina. "I've had ham and eggs
before."
"You do, hein? Well--always, you won't. And now you must eat the ham
and eggs, however. Yes? Isn't it so?"
Ciccio rose to his feet, and looked at Alvina: as he would have
looked at Gigi, had Gigi been there. His eyes said unspeakable
things about 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 went
before him, she felt his fingers stroke the nape of her neck, and
pass in a soft touch right down her back. She started as if some
unseen creature 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 now there 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, Geoffrey
went out into the back yard, where the bicycles stood.
"Cic'," he said. "I should like to go with thee to Woodhouse. Come
on bicycle with me."
Ciccio shook his head.
"I'm going in train with _her_," he said.
Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger.
"I would like to see how it is, there, _chez elle_," he said.
"Ask _her_," 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 with
affection.
"I don't leave thee, Gigi. I asked thy advice. You said, Go. But
come. Go and ask her, and then come. Come on bicycle, eh? Ask her!
Go on! Go and ask her."
Alvina was surprised to hear a tap at her door, and Gigi's voice, in
his 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 you
and 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 time
he 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 such
solemn eyes, Alvina laughed. He laughed too, and picked up her bag
as if it were a bubble.
"Na Cic'--" he said, as he saw Ciccio in the street. "Sommes
d'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 Sunday morning,
one of the little theatrical company. It was an odd experience. They
were so obviously a theatrical company--people apart from the world.
Madame was darting her black eyes here and there, behind her spotted
veil, and standing with the ostensible self-possession of her
profession. Max was circling round with large strides, round a big
black box on which the red words Natcha-Kee-Tawara showed mystic, and
round the small bunch of stage fittings at the end of the platform.
Louis was waiting to get the tickets, Gigi and Ciccio were bringing up
the bicycles. They were a whole train of departure in themselves, busy,
bustling, cheerful--and curiously apart, vagrants.
Alvina strolled away towards the half-open bookstall. Geoffrey was
standing monumental between her and the company. She returned to
him.
"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 to
calculate. "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 men
smoked cigarettes and tapped off the ash on the heels of their
boots, Madame watched every traveller with professional curiosity.
Max scrutinized the newspaper, Lloyds, and pointed out items to
Louis, who read them over Max's shoulder, Ciccio suddenly smacked
Geoffrey on the thigh, and looked laughing into his face. So till
they arrived at the junction. And then there was a kissing and a
taking of farewells, as if the company were separating for ever.
Louis darted into the refreshment bar and returned with little pies
and oranges, which he deposited in the carriage, Madame presented
Alvina with a packet of chocolate. And it was "Good-bye, good-bye,
Allaye! Good-bye, Ciccio! Bon voyage. Have a good time, both."
So Alvina sped on in the fast train to Knarborough with Ciccio.
"I _do_ like them all," she said.
He opened his mouth slightly and lifted his head up and down. She
saw in the movement how affectionate he was, and in his own way, how
emotional. He loved them all. She put her hand to his. He gave her
hand one sudden squeeze, of physical understanding, then left it as
if nothing had happened. There were other people in the carriage
with them. She could not help feeling how sudden and lovely that
moment's grasp of his hand was: so warm, so whole.
And thus they watched the Sunday morning landscape slip by, as they
ran into Knarborough. They went out to a little restaurant to eat.
It was one o'clock.
"Isn't it strange, that we are travelling together like this?" she
said, 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 any
one might hear. He would have hated it. But no one was near. Beneath
the tiny table, he took her two knees between his knees, and pressed
them with a slow, immensely powerful pressure. Helplessly she put
her hand across the table to him. He covered it for one moment with
his hand, 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 he
relaxed her.
They decided to go out to Woodhouse on the tram-car, a long hour's
ride. Sitting on the top of the covered car, in the atmosphere of
strong tobacco smoke, he seemed self-conscious, withdrawn into his
own cover, so obviously a dark-skinned foreigner. And Alvina, as she
sat beside him, was reminded of the woman with the negro husband,
down in Lumley. She understood the woman's reserve. She herself
felt, in the same way, something of an outcast, because of the man
at her side. An outcast! And glad to be an outcast. She clung to
Ciccio's dark, despised foreign nature. She loved it, she
worshipped it, she defied all the other world. Dark, he sat beside
her, drawn in to himself, overcast by his presumed inferiority among
these northern industrial people. And she was with him, on his side,
outside the pale of her own people.
There were already acquaintances on the tram. She nodded in answer
to their salutation, but so obviously from a distance, that they
kept turning round to eye her and Ciccio. But they left her alone.
The breach between her and them was established for ever--and it was
her will 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 of
Throttle-Ha'penny, and Alvina glanced at it indifferent. They ran
along the Knarborough Road. A fair number of Woodhouse young people
were strolling along the pavements in their Sunday clothes. She knew
them all. She knew Lizzie Bates's fox furs, and Fanny Clough's lilac
costume, and Mrs. Smitham's winged hat. She knew them all. And
almost inevitably the old Woodhouse feeling began to steal over her,
she was glad they could not see her, she was a little ashamed of
Ciccio. She wished, for the moment, Ciccio were not there. And as
the time came to get down, she looked anxiously back and forth to
see at which halt she had better descend--where fewer people would
notice her. But then she threw her scruples to the wind, and
descended into the staring, Sunday afternoon street, attended by
Ciccio, who carried her bag. She knew she was a marked figure.
They slipped round to Manchester House. Miss Pinnegar expected
Alvina, but by the train, which came later. So she had to be knocked
up, for she was lying down. She opened the door looking a little
patched in her cheeks, because of her curious colouring, and a
little forlorn, 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 my
bag."
"Oh," said Miss Pinnegar. "How do you do?" and she thrust out her
hand 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 coat
and sat down in Mr. Houghton's chair. Alvina told him to smoke. He
kept silent and reserved. Miss Pinnegar, a poor, patch-cheeked,
rather round-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she
did not quite know what to say or do.
She followed Alvina upstairs to her room.
"I can't think why you bring _him_ here," snapped Miss Pinnegar. "I
don't know what you're thinking about. The whole place is talking
already."
"I don't care," said Alvina. "I like him."
"Oh--for shame!" cried Miss Pinnegar, lifting her hand with Miss
Frost's helpless, involuntary movement. "What do you think of
yourself? And your father a month dead."
"It doesn't matter. Father _is_ dead. And I'm sure the dead don't
mind."
"I never _knew_ 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'm
part of the company now, as pianist."
"And are you going to marry him?"
"I don't know."
"How _can_ you say you don't know! Why, it's awful. You make me feel
I shall go out of my mind."
"But I _don't_ know," said Alvina.
"It's incredible! Simply incredible! I believe you're out of your
senses. I used to think sometimes there was something wrong with
your mother. And that's what it is with you. You're not quite right
in your mind. 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 Miss Pinnegar.
"_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 of
despair.
"I like being lost," said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled and
forlorn. 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 be
with Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the end I shall marry him. But if
I don't--" her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnegar's heavy arm till
it hurt--"I wouldn't lose a minute of him, no, not for anything
would I."
Poor Miss Pinnegar dwindled, convinced.
"You make it hard for _me_, in Woodhouse," she said, hopeless.
"Never mind," said Alvina, kissing her. "Woodhouse isn't heaven and
earth."
"It's been my home for forty years."
"It's been mine for thirty. That's why I'm glad to leave it." There
was a pause.
"I've been thinking," said Miss Pinnegar, "about opening a little
business 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 courage
still.
"I don't want to stay here, anyhow," she said. "Woodhouse has
nothing for me any more."
"Of course it hasn't," said Alvina. "I think you'd be happier away
from it."
"Yes--probably I should--now!"
None the less, poor Miss Pinnegar was grey-haired, she was almost a
dumpy, odd old woman.
They went downstairs. Miss Pinnegar put on the kettle.
"Would you like to see the house?" said Alvina to Ciccio.
He nodded. And she took him from room to room. His eyes looked
quickly and curiously over everything, noticing things, but without
criticism.
"This was my mother's little sitting-room," she said. "She sat here
for 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 is _that_?" he asked, pointing to a photograph of the handsome,
white-haired Miss Frost.
"That was Miss Frost, my governess. She lived here till she died. I
loved 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 the
piano, sounding a chord.
"Play," she said.
He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wished her to play. She
sat and played one of Kishwégin's pieces. He listened, faintly
smiling.
"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. I
don't know how father's affairs are really."
He looked at her, and again his eye wandered over the room. He saw a
little coloured portrait of a child with a fleece of brownish-gold
hair and surprised eyes, in a pale-blue stiff frock with a broad
dark-blue sash.
"You?" he said.
"Do you recognize me?" she said. "Aren't I comical?"
She took him upstairs--first to the monumental bedroom.
"This was mother's room," she said. "Now it is mine."
He looked at her, then at the things in the room, then out of the
window, then at her again. She flushed, and hurried to show him his
room, and the bath-room. Then she went downstairs.
He kept glancing up at the height of the ceilings, the size of the
rooms, taking in the size and proportion of the house, and the
quality of the fittings.
"It is a big house," he said. "Yours?"
"Mine in name," said Alvina. "Father left all to me--and his debts
as well, you see."
"Much debts?"
"Oh yes! I don't quite know how much. But perhaps more debts than
there is property. I shall go and see the lawyer in the morning.
Perhaps there will be nothing at all left for me, when everything is
paid."
She had stopped on the stairs, telling him this, turning round to
him, 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 glanced
up the stairs and along the corridor again, and downstairs into the
hall.
"A fine big house. Grand if it was yours," he said.
"I wish it were," she said rather pathetically, "if you like it so
much."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Hé!" he said. "How not like it!"
"I don't like it," she said. "I think it's a gloomy miserable hole.
I hate it. I've lived here all my life and seen everything bad
happen here. 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 they
entered the living-room, where Miss Pinnegar sat cutting bread and
butter.
"What?" said Miss Pinnegar sharply.
"The house," said Alvina.
"Oh well, we don't know. We'll hope for the best," replied Miss
Pinnegar, arranging the bread and butter on the plate. Then, rather
tart, she added: "It is a bad job. And a good many things are a bad
job, besides that. If Miss Houghton had what she _ought_ to have,
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 the
way 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, _at
all_!"
"You think not?" said Ciccio.
"Do you imagine it is?" said Miss Pinnegar, turning point blank on
him as he sat by the fire.
He looked curiously at Miss Pinnegar, grinning slightly.
"Hé!" he said. "How do I know!"
"I should have thought it was obvious," said Miss Pinnegar.
"Hé!" he ejaculated, not fully understanding.
"But of course those that are used to nothing better can't see
anything but what they're used to," she said, rising and shaking the
crumbs from her black silk apron, into the fire. He watched her.
Miss Pinnegar went away into the scullery. Alvina was laying a fire
in the drawing-room. She came with a dustpan to take some coal from
the fire of the living-room.
"What do you want?" said Ciccio, rising. And he took the shovel from
her hand.
"Big, hot fires, aren't they?" he said, as he lifted the burning
coals 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,
and threw them in the grate on the sticks, watching Alvina put on
more pieces of coal.
"Fine, a fire! Quick work, eh? A beautiful thing, a fire! You know
what they say in my place: You can live without food, but you can't
live 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, that
was in the mountains, an hour quick train from Naples. Cold in the
winter, hot in the summer--"
"As cold as England?" said Alvina.
"Hé--and colder. The wolves come down. You could hear them crying 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
wolves hate 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 poor dogs! 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--hé, there is nothing to do--no
money--work--work--work--no life--you see nothing. When I was a
small boy my father, he died, and my mother comes with me to Naples.
Then I go with the little boats on the sea--fishing, carrying
people--" He flourished his hand as if to make her understand all
the things that must be wordless. He smiled at her--but there was a
faint, poignant sadness and remoteness in him, a beauty of old
fatality, and ultimate indifference to fate.
"And were you very poor?"
"Poor?--why yes! Nothing. Rags--no shoes--bread, little fish from
the sea--shell-fish--"
His hands flickered, his eyes rested on her with a profound look of
knowledge. And it seemed, in spite of all, one state was very much
the same to him as another, poverty was as much life as affluence.
Only he had a sort of jealous idea that it was humiliating to be
poor, and so, for vanity's sake, he would have possessions. The
countless generations of civilization behind him had left him an
instinct of the world's meaninglessness. Only his little modern
education made money and independence an _idée fixe_. Old instinct
told him the world was nothing. But modern education, so shallow,
was much more efficacious than instinct. It drove him to make a show
of himself to the world. Alvina watching him, as if hypnotized, saw
his old beauty, formed through civilization after civilization; and
at the same time she saw his modern vulgarianism, and decadence.
"And when you go back, you will go back to your old village?" she
said.
He made a gesture with his head and shoulders, evasive,
non-committal.
"I don't know, you see," he said.
"What is the name of it?"
"Pescocalascio." He said the word subduedly, unwillingly.
"Tell me again," 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 rose
and brought him an old sketch-book. He wrote, slowly, but with the
beautiful 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 looked
at 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. And
one after the other she read them out. He corrected her, smiling
gravely. 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 seen
another 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 to
each other in French, and kept each other in countenance.
Fortunately for them, Madame had seen to their table-manners. But
still they were far too free and easy to suit Miss Pinnegar.
"Do you know," said Ciccio in French to Geoffrey, "what a fine house
this is?"
"No," said Geoffrey, rolling his large eyes round the room, and
speaking with his cheek stuffed out with food. "Is it?"
"Ah--if it was _hers_, 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 planted
apart, gazed round the rooms, and made his comments in French to
Ciccio. When they climbed the stairs, he fingered the big, smooth
mahogany bannister-rail. In the bedroom he stared almost dismayed
at the colossal bed and cupboard. In the bath-room he turned on the
old-fashioned, silver taps.
"Here is my room--" said Ciccio in French.
"Assez éloigné!" replied Gigi. Ciccio also glanced along the
corridor.
"Yes," he said. "But an open course--"
"Look, my boy--if you could marry _this_--" meaning the house.
"Ha, she doesn't know if it hers any more! Perhaps the debts cover
every bit of it."
"Don't say so! Na, that's a pity, that's a pity! La pauvre
fille--pauvre demoiselle!" lamented Geoffrey.
"Isn't it a pity! What dost say?"
"A thousand pities! A thousand pities! Look, my boy, love needs no
havings, but marriage does. Love is for all, even the grasshoppers.
But marriage means a kitchen. That's how it is. La pauvre
demoiselle; c'est malheur 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 on
Ciccio's shoulder, and giving him a sudden hug. They smiled to each
other.
"Who knows!" said Ciccio.
"Who knows, truly, my Cic'."
As they went downstairs to rejoin Alvina, whom they heard playing on
the piano in the drawing-room, Geoffrey peeped once more into the
big bedroom.
"Tu n'es jamais monté si haut, mon beau. Pour moi, ça serait
difficile de m'élever. J'aurais bien peur, moi. Tu te trouves aussi
un peu ébahi, hein? n'est-ce pas?"
"Y'a place pour trois," said Ciccio.
"Non, je crêverais, là haut. Pas pour moi!"
And they went laughing downstairs.
Miss Pinnegar was sitting with Alvina, determined not to go to
Chapel this evening. She sat, rather hulked, reading a novel. Alvina
flirted with the two men, played the piano to them, and suggested a
game 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 your
mother 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 which
remained from Endeavour harvests. At that moment there was a knock.
It was Mr. May. Miss Pinnegar brought him in, in triumph.
"Oh!" he said. "Company! I heard you'd come, Miss Houghton, so I
_hastened_ to pay my compliments. I didn't know you had _company_.
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'm
not _bigoted_. 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 those
tempting piles of pennies and ha'pennies. Who is bank, may I ask? Is
Miss 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 put _her_ soul in danger, do we now? I'm a good
Catholic, you know, I _can't_ do with these provincial little
creeds. Who deals? Do you, Miss Houghton? But I'm afraid we shall
have a rather _dry_ game? What? Isn't that your opinion?"
The other men laughed.
"If Miss Houghton would just _allow_ me to run round and bring
something in. Yes? May I? That would be _so_ much more cheerful.
What is your choice, gentlemen?"
"Beer," said Ciccio, and Geoffrey nodded.
"Beer! Oh really! Extraor'nary! I always take a little whiskey
myself. What kind of beer? Ale?--or bitter? I'm afraid I'd better
bring bottles. Now how can I secrete them? You haven't a small
travelling case, Miss Houghton? Then I shall look as if I'd just
been taking a _journey_. Which I have--to the Sun and back: and if
_that_ isn't far enough, even for Miss Pinnegar and John Wesley,
why, I'm sorry."
Alvina produced the travelling case.
"Excellent!" he said. "Excellent! It will hold half-a-dozen
beautifully. Now--" he fell into a whisper--"hadn't I better sneak
out at 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 side
cupboard in the drawing room. But unfortunately, when Mr. May
returned, a corkscrew was in request. So Alvina stole to the
kitchen. Miss Pinnegar sat dumped by the fire, with her spectacles
and her book. She watched like a lynx as Alvina returned. And she
saw the tell-tale corkscrew. So she dumped a little deeper in her
chair.
"There was a sound of revelry by night!" For Mr. May, after a long
depression, was in high feather. They shouted, positively shouted
over their cards, they roared with excitement, expostulation, and
laughter. Miss Pinnegar sat through it all. But at one point she
could bear it no longer.
The drawing-room door opened, and the dumpy, hulked, faded woman in
a black serge dress stood like a rather squat avenging angel in the
doorway.
"What would your _father_ say to this?" she said sternly.
The company suspended their laughter and their cards, and looked
around. 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 the
door.
Mr. May laughed so much that he knocked his whiskey over.
"There," he cried, helpless, "look what she's cost me!" And he went
off into another paroxysm, swelling like a turkey.
Ciccio opened his mouth, laughing silently.
"Lost girl! Lost girl! How lost, when you are at home?" said
Geoffrey, making large eyes and looking hither and thither as if
_he_ had lost something.
They all went off again in a muffled burst.
"No but, really," said Mr. May, "drinking and card-playing with
strange men in the drawing-room on Sunday evening, of _cauce_ it's
scandalous. It's _terrible_! I don't know how ever you'll be saved,
after such a sin. And in Manchester House, too--!" He went off into
another silent, turkey-scarlet burst of mirth, wriggling in his
chair and squealing faintly: "Oh, I love it, I love it! _You lost
girl!_ Why of _cauce_ she's lost! And Miss Pinnegar has only just
found it out. Who _wouldn't_ be lost? Why even Miss Pinnegar would
be lost if she could. Of _cauce_ she would! Quite natch'ral!"
Mr. May wiped his eyes, with his handkerchief which had
unfortunately mopped up his whiskey.
So they played on, till Mr. May and Geoffrey had won all the
pennies, except twopence of Ciccio's. Alvina was in debt.
"Well I think it's been a most agreeable game," said Mr. May. "Most
agreeable! Don't you all?"
The two other men smiled and nodded.
"I'm only sorry to think Miss Houghton has _lost_ so steadily all
evening. Really quite remarkable. But _then_--you see--I comfort
myself with the reflection 'Lucky in cards, unlucky in love.' I'm
certainly _hounded_ with misfortune in love. And I'm _sure_ Miss
Houghton would rather be unlucky in cards than in love. What, isn't
it so?"
"Of course," said Alvina.
"There, you see, _of cauce_! Well, all we can do after that is to
wish her success in love. Isn't that so, gentlemen? I'm sure _we_
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 to contribute to
Miss Houghton's happiness in love? Well then, let us drink to it."
He lifted his glass, and bowed to Alvina. "With _every_ wish for
your success in love, Miss Houghton, and your _devoted_ 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," he said
heavily.
"And you, Ciccio? Aren't you drinking?" said Mr. May.
Ciccio held up his glass, looked at Alvina, made a little mouth at
her, comical, and drank his beer.
"Well," said Mr. May, "_beer_ must confirm it, since words won't."
"What time is it?" said Alvina. "We must have supper."
It was past nine o'clock. Alvina rose and went to the kitchen, the
men trailing after her. Miss Pinnegar was not there. She was not
anywhere.
"Has she gone to bed?" said Mr. May. And he crept stealthily
upstairs on tip-toe, a comical, flush-faced, tubby little man. He
was familiar with the house. He returned prancing.
"I heard her cough," he said. "There's a light under her door. She's
gone to bed. Now haven't I always said she was a good soul? I shall
drink her health. Miss Pinnegar--" and he bowed stiffly in the
direction of the stairs--"your health, and a _good night's rest_."
After which, giggling gaily, he seated himself at the head of the
table and began to carve the cold mutton.
"And where are the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras this week?" he asked. They
told him.
"Oh? And you two are cycling back to the camp of Kishwégin tonight?
We mustn't prolong our cheerfulness _too_ 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 settled yet," said Alvina.
"No! Exactly! Exactly! It _wouldn't_ be settled yet. And you say it
is a permanent engagement? Of _cauce_, at such a figure."
"Yes, it is a permanent engagement," said Alvina.
"Really! What a blow you give me! You won't come back to the
Endeavour? 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 is
_this_ quite final, too?"
"Quite," said Alvina.
"I see! Putting two and two together, if I may say so--" and he
glanced from her to the young men--"I _see_. Most decidedly, most
one-sidedly, if I may use the vulgarism, I _see--e--e!_ Oh! but what
a blow you give me! What a blow you give me!"
"Why?" said Alvina.
"What's to become of the Endeavour? and consequently, of poor me?"
"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 the _hope_" said Mr. May sarcastically. "They say
hope is sweet. _I_ begin to find it a little _bitter_!"
Poor man, he had already gone quite yellow in the face. Ciccio and
Geoffrey 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 to
sell everything and clear up as soon as possible," said Alvina.
"Sell everything! This house, and all it contains?"
"Yes," said Alvina. "Everything."
"Really!" Mr. May seemed smitten quite dumb. "I feel as if the world
had suddenly come to an end," he said.
"But hasn't your world often come to an end before?" said Alvina.
"Well--I suppose, once or twice. But _never_ quite on top of me, 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 in
Tamworth, where she has relations."
"Has she! And are you _really_ going to _tour_ with these young
people--?" he indicated Ciccio and Gigi. "And at _no_ salary!" His
voice rose. "Why! It's almost _White Slave Traffic_, on Madame's
part. Upon my word!"
"I don't think so," said Alvina. "Don't you see that's insulting."
"_Insulting!_ Well, I don't know. I think it's the _truth_--"
"Not to be said to me, for all that," said Alvina, quivering with
anger.
"Oh!" perked Mr. May, yellow with strange rage. "Oh! I mustn't say
what I think! Oh!"
"Not if you think those things--" said Alvina.
"Oh really! The difficulty is, you see, I'm afraid I _do_ think
them--" Alvina watched him with big, heavy eyes.
"Go away," she said. "Go away! I won't be insulted by you."
"No _indeed!_" cried Mr. May, starting to his feet, his eyes almost
bolting from his head. "No _indeed!_ I wouldn't _think_ of insulting
you in the presence of these _two_ young gentlemen."
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'en vais.
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 its
own rage. Ciccio stood with his hands on the table, listening. They
heard 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 in
his own puffed cheek with his fist. "Allaye, my dear, your health!
We are the Tawaras. We are Allaye! We are Pacohuila! We are
Walgatchka! Allons! The milk-pig is stewed and eaten. Voilà!" He
drank, smiling broadly.
"One by one," said Geoffrey, who was a little drunk: "One by one we
put them out of the field, they are _hors de combat_. Who remains?
Pacohuila, Walgatchka, Allaye--"
He smiled very broadly. Alvina was sitting sunk in thought and
torpor after her sudden anger.
"Allaye, what do you think about? You are the bride of Tawara," said
Geoffrey.
Alvina looked at him, smiling rather wanly.
"And who is Tawara?" she asked.
He raised his shoulders and spread his hands and swayed his head
from 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
to the 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 you
are the Bride of Tawara. You dwell in the tent of Pacohuila. And
comes the day, should it ever be so, there is no room for you in the
tent of Pacohuila, 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 end of 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, Walgatchka shall be husband-bear to Allaye, that day
she lifts the door-curtain of his tent--"
He rolled his eyes and looked around. Alvina watched him.
"But I might 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 is
humble--" here Geoffrey bowed his head--"his teeth are as soft as
lilies--" here he opened his mouth and put his finger on his small
close teeth--"his hands are as soft as bees that stroke a flower--"
here he spread his hands and went and suddenly flopped on his knees
beside Alvina, showing his hands and his teeth still, and rolling
his eyes. "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 to
his feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up.
"Basta!" he said. "Tu es saoul. You are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. How
are you going to ride to Mansfield, hein?--great beast."
"Ciccio," said Geoffrey solemnly. "I love thee, I love thee as a
brother, and also more. I love thee as a brother, my Ciccio, as thou
knowest. But--" and he puffed fiercely--"I am the slave of Allaye, I
am the tame bear of Allaye."
"Get up," said Ciccio, "get up! Per bacco! She doesn't want a tame
bear." 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 me
be 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 Geoffrey
immediately flopped on his knees again before Alvina, and presented
her his broad, rich-coloured cheek.
"Salute your bear, Allaye," he cried. "Salute your slave, the tame
bear Walgatchka, who is a wild bear for all except Allaye and his
brother Pacohuila the Puma." Geoffrey growled realistically as a
wild bear as he kneeled before Alvina, presenting his cheek.
Alvina looked at Ciccio, who stood above, watching. Then she lightly
kissed 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 of
Kishwégin, 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,
between two mountains."
Here Geoffrey gazed with large, heavy eyes on Ciccio. Alvina brought
a candle and lighted it.
"You will manage in the one room?" she said. "I will give you
another pillow."
She led the way upstairs. Geoffrey followed, heavily. Then Ciccio.
On the landing Alvina gave them the pillow and the candle, smiled,
bade them good-night in a whisper, and went downstairs again. She
cleared away the supper and carried away all glasses and bottles
from the drawing-room. Then she washed up, removing all traces of
the feast. The cards she restored to their old mahogany box.
Manchester House looked itself again.
She turned off the gas at the meter, and went upstairs to bed. From
the far room she could hear the gentle, but profound vibrations of
Geoffrey's snoring. She was tired after her day: too tired to
trouble about anything any more.
But in the morning she was first downstairs. She heard Miss
Pinnegar, and hurried. Hastily she opened the windows and doors to
drive away the smell of beer and smoke. She heard the men rumbling
in the 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 seven Miss Pinnegar came down, and went into the scullery
to make her tea.
"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 boiled
egg into the living room. In the morning she was wordless.
Ciccio came down, in his shirt-sleeves as usual, but wearing a
collar. He greeted Miss Pinnegar politely.
"Good-morning!" she said, and went on with her tea.
Geoffrey appeared. Miss Pinnegar glanced once at him, sullenly, and
briefly answered his good-morning. Then she went on with her egg,
slow and persistent in her movements, mum.
The men went out to attend to Geoffrey's bicycle. The morning was
slow and grey, obscure. As they pumped up the tires, they heard some
one padding behind. Miss Pinnegar came and unbolted the yard door,
but ignored their presence. Then they saw her return and slowly
mount the outer stair-ladder, which went up to the top floor. Two
minutes afterwards they were startled by the irruption of the
work-girls. As for the work-girls, they gave quite loud, startled
squeals, suddenly seeing the two men on their right hand, in the
obscure morning. And they lingered on the stair-way to gaze in rapt
curiosity, poking and whispering, until Miss Pinnegar appeared
overhead, and sharply rang a bell which hung beside the entrance
door of the work-rooms.
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.
"I hope 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
to go.
"I shall see you soon," he said, smiling sheepishly and bowing to
Alvina. Ciccio accompanied him to the street.
When Ciccio returned, Alvina was once more washing dishes.
"What time 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 sometimes
suffused 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 the
forks. 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 his
hand on her, and she winced. "But I marry you for love, you know.
You know what love is--" And he put his arms round her, and laughed
down into her face.
She strained away.
"But you can have love without marriage," she said. "You know that."
"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 and overbearing.
"I can't," she struggled. "I can't now."
He laughed in a sinister way: yet with a certain warmheartedness.
"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 and
cold and determined. They remained motionless for some seconds.
Then, a stray wisp of her hair catching his attention, desire filled
his heart, warm and full, obliterating his anger in the combat. For
a moment he softened. He saw her hardness becoming more assertive,
and he wavered in sudden dislike, and almost dropped her. Then again
the desire flushed his heart, his smile became reckless of her, and
he picked her right up.
"Yes," he said. "Now."
For a second, she struggled frenziedly. But almost instantly she
recognized how much stronger he was, and she was still, mute and
motionless with anger. White, and mute, and motionless, she was taken
to her room. And at the back of her mind all the time she wondered at
his deliberate recklessness of her. Recklessly, he had his will of
her--but deliberately, and thoroughly, not rushing to the issue, but
taking everything he wanted of her, progressively, and fully, leaving
her stark, with nothing, nothing of herself--nothing.
When she could lie still she turned away from him, still mute. And
he lay with his arms over her, motionless. Noises went on, in the
street, overhead in the work-room. 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 her
breast, and kissed her.
"Love," he said, asserting, and laughing.
But still she was completely mute and motionless. He threw
bedclothes over her and went downstairs, whistling softly.
She knew she would have to break her own trance of obstinacy. So she
snuggled down into the bedclothes, shivering deliciously, for her
skin had become chilled. She didn't care a bit, really, about her
own downfall. She snuggled deliciously in the sheets, and admitted
to herself that she loved him. In truth, she loved him--and she was
laughing to herself.
Luxuriously, she resented having to get up and tackle her heap of
broken garments. But she did it. She took other clothes, adjusted
her hair, tied on her apron, and went downstairs once more. She
could not find Ciccio: he had gone out. A stray cat darted from the
scullery, and broke a plate in her leap. Alvina found her washing-up
water cold. She put 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 triumph
about him, evasive. He went past her and into the room. Her inside
burned with love for him: so elusive, so beautiful, in his silent
passing out of her sight. She wiped her dishes happily. Why was she
so absurdly happy, she asked herself? And why did she still fight so
hard against the sense of his dark, unseizable beauty? Unseizable,
for ever unseizable! That made her almost his slave. She fought
against her own desire to fall at his feet. Ridiculous to be so
happy.
She sang to herself as she went about her work downstairs. Then she
went upstairs, to do the bedrooms and pack her bag. At ten o'clock
she was to go to the family lawyer.
She lingered over her possessions: what to take, and what not to
take. And so doing she wasted her time. It was already ten o'clock
when she hurried downstairs. He was sitting quite still, waiting. He
looked up at her.
"Now I must hurry," she said. "I don't think I shall be more than an
hour."
He put on his hat and went out with her.
"I shall tell the lawyer I am engaged to you. Shall I?" she asked.
"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 shall _have_ to give some account of myself, or they'll
make me do something I don't want to do. You might come to the
lawyer's with me, will you? He's an awfully nice old man. Then he'd
believe in you."
But Ciccio shook his head.
"No," he said. "I shan't go. He doesn't want to see _me_."
"Well, if you don't want to. But I remember your name, Francesco
Marasca, and I remember Pescocalascio."
Ciccio heard in silence, as they walked the half-empty,
Monday-morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina.
Some hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at
Ciccio. Ciccio however 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're
looking wonderful. A change does you good."
"It does, doesn't it," said Alvina brightly. And she was pleased she
was looking well.
"Well, good-bye for a minute," she said, glancing smiling into his
eyes and nodding to him, as she left him at the gate of the lawyer's
house, by the ivy-covered wall.
The lawyer was a little man, all grey. Alvina had known him since
she was a child: but rather as an official than an individual. She
arrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinized her
sharply, 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 a
pile of papers. "I'm afraid there is nothing very pleasant,
unfortunately. And nothing very unpleasant either, for that matter."
He gave 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. I _think_ so. I think so!" And again he laid his hand on the
pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran through the edges
with 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's
help, that the claims against her father's property exceeded the
gross estimate of his property by some seven hundred pounds.
"Does it mean we owe seven hundred pounds?" she asked.
"That is only on the _estimate_ of the property. It might, of
course, 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 of
the property would amount to less than the estimate. I don't think
so."
"But even then," said Alvina. "There is sure to be something
owing--"
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 than
they claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you see. I don't
expect they will complain a great deal. In fact, some of them will
be less badly off than they feared. No, on that score we need not
trouble further. Useless if we do, anyhow. But now, about yourself.
Would you like me to try to compound with the creditors, so that you
could have some sort of provision? They are mostly people who know
you, know your condition: and I might try--"
"Try what?" said Alvina.
"To make some sort of compound. Perhaps you might retain a lease of
Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms. Perhaps even something might be done
about the cinematograph. What would you like--?"
Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivy
sprays, and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not, she
could not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had
confidently expected a few hundred pounds: even a thousand or more.
And that would make her _something_ of a catch, to people who had
nothing. But now!--nothing!--nothing at the back of her but her
hundred pounds. When that 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 little
impatiently.
"I will do my best," he said, "to get what I can for you."
"Oh well!" she said. "Better let everything go. I don't _want_ to
hang on. Don't bother about me at all. I shall go away, anyhow."
"You will go away?" said the lawyer, and he studied his
finger-nails.
"Yes. I shan't stay here."
"Oh! And may I ask if you have any definite idea, where you will
go?"
"I've got an engagement as pianist, with a travelling theatrical
company."
"Oh indeed!" said the lawyer, scrutinizing her sharply. She stared
away vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of
his finger-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 all
old neighbours and connected with your father for many years.
We--that is the persons interested, and myself--would not like to
think that you were driven out of Woodhouse--er--er--destitute.
If--er--we could come to some composition--make some arrangement
that would be agreeable to you, and would, in some measure, secure
you a means of livelihood--"
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 going away."
"With the travelling theatrical company?"
"Yes."
The lawyer studied his finger-nails intensely.
"Well," he said, feeling with a finger-tip an imaginary roughness of
one nail-edge. "Well, in that case--In that case--Supposing you have
made an irrevocable decision--"
He looked up at her sharply. She nodded slowly, like a porcelain
mandarin.
"In that case," he said, "we must proceed with the valuation and the
preparation for the sale."
"Yes," she said faintly.
"You realize," he said, "that everything in Manchester House, except
your private personal property, and that of Miss Pinnegar, belongs
to the claimants, your father's creditors, and may not be removed
from the house."
"Yes," she said.
"And it will be necessary to make an account of everything in the
house. So if you and Miss Pinnegar will put your possessions
strictly apart--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 be
attached the claimants would no doubt wish you to regard as your
own. For anything of greater value--your piano, for example--I
should have to 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 is
performing this week? Far away?"
"Mansfield!"
"Oh! Well then, in case I particularly wished to see you, you could
come over?"
"If necessary," said Alvina. "But I don't want to come to Woodhouse
unless it _is_ necessary. Can't we write?"
"Yes--certainly! Certainly!--most things! Certainly! And now--"
He went into certain technical matters, and Alvina signed some
documents. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an hour
in the room.
"Well, good-morning, Miss Houghton. You will hear from me, and I
from you. I wish you a pleasant experience in your new occupation.
You are 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 knocked
her down. She felt she had had a blow.
At the lawyer's gate she stood a minute. There, across a little
hollow, rose the cemetery hill. There were her graves: her mother's,
Miss Frost's, her father's. Looking, she made out the white cross at
Miss Frost's grave, the grey stone at her parents'. Then she turned
slowly, under the church wall, back to Manchester House.
She felt humiliated. She felt she did not want to see anybody at all.
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 if the
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 to be
sold on behalf of her father's creditors made her feel as if all her
Woodhouse life had suddenly gone smash. She loathed the thought of
Manchester House. She loathed staying another minute in it.
And yet she did not want to go to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras either. The
church clock above her clanged eleven. She ought to take the
twelve-forty train to Mansfield. Yet instead of going home she
turned off down the alley towards the fields and the brook.
How many times had she gone that road! How many times had she seen
Miss Frost bravely striding home that way, from her music-pupils.
How many years had she noticed a particular wild cherry-tree come
into blossom, a particular bit of black-thorn scatter its whiteness
in among the pleached twigs of a hawthorn hedge. How often, how many
springs had Miss Frost come home with a bit of this black-thorn in
her hand!
Alvina did _not_ want to go to Mansfield that afternoon. She felt
insulted. She knew she would be much cheaper in Madame's eyes. She knew
her own position with the troupe would be humiliating. It would be
openly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeningly
humiliating to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour of
Woodhouse's calculated benevolence. She hardly knew which was worse:
the cool look of insolent half-contempt, half-satisfaction with which
Madame would receive the news of her financial downfall, or the
officious patronage which she would meet from the Woodhouse magnates.
She knew exactly how Madame's black eyes would shine, how her mouth
would curl with a sneering, slightly triumphant smile, as she heard the
news. And she could hear the bullying tone in which Henry Wagstaff
would dictate the Woodhouse benevolence to her. She wanted to go away
from them all--from them all--for ever.
Even from Ciccio. For she felt he insulted her too. Subtly, they all
did it. They had regard for her possibilities as an heiress. Five
hundred, even two hundred pounds would have made all the difference.
Useless to deny it. Even to Ciccio. Ciccio would have had a lifelong
respect for her, if she had come with even so paltry a sum as two
hundred pounds. Now she had nothing, he would coolly withhold this
respect. She felt he might jeer at her. And she could not get away
from this feeling.
Mercifully she had the bit of ready money. And she had a few
trinkets which might be sold. Nothing else. Mercifully, for the mere
moment, she was independent.
Whatever else she did, she must go back and pack. She must pack her
two 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 all round--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 run before her. She banked hard on her
independence.
So she turned back to the town. She would not be able to take the
twelve-forty train, for it was already mid-day. But she was glad.
She wanted some time to herself. She would send Ciccio on. Slowly
she climbed the familiar hill--slowly--and rather bitterly. She felt
her native place insulted her: and she felt the Natchas insulted
her. In the midst of the insult she remained isolated upon herself,
and she wished 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 can
just 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 cold
meat," said Alvina. "Would you mind putting it ready while I go
upstairs?"
"Sharpses and Fullbankses sent them bills," said Mrs. Rollings.
Alvina opened them, and turned pale. It was thirty pounds, the total
funeral 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, and
spread 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 sitting
writing 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 the
scullery. When Alvina came down, she returned to the living room.
"Give this letter to Madame," Alvina said to Ciccio. "I shall be at
the 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 me
father's debts come to much more than everything is worth. Nothing
is ours--not even the plate you're eating from. Everything is under
seal to be sold to pay off what is owing. So I've got to get my own
clothes and boots together, or they'll be sold with the rest. Mr.
Beeby wants you to go round at seven this evening, Miss
Pinnegar--before I forget."
"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "Really! The house and the furniture
and everything got to be sold up? Then we're on the streets! I can't
believe it."
"So he told me," said Alvina.
"But how positively awful," said Miss Pinnegar, sinking motionless
into a chair.
"It's not more than I expected," said Alvina. "I'm putting my things
into my two trunks, and I shall just ask Mrs. Slaney to store them
for me. Then I've the bag I shall travel with."
"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "I can't believe it! And when have
we got to get out?"
"Oh, I don't think there's a desperate hurry. They'll take an
inventory of all the things, and we can live on here till they're
actually 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's
impossible. He can never have left things so bad."
"Ciccio," said Alvina. "You'll really have to go if you are to catch
the train. You'll give Madame my letter, won't you? I should hate
you to miss the train. I know she can't bear me already, for all the
fuss and 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 never
thought I should live to see the day," said Miss Pinnegar.
"You might almost have expected it," said Mrs. Rollings. "But you're
all right, yourself, Miss Pinnegar. Your money isn't with his, is
it?"
"No," said Miss Pinnegar. "What little I have put by is safe. But
it's not enough to live on. It's not enough to keep me, even
supposing I only live another ten years. If I only spend a pound a
week, it costs fifty-two pounds a year. And for ten years, look at
it, it's five hundred and twenty pounds. And you couldn't say less.
And I haven't half that amount. I never had more than a wage, you
know. Why, Miss Frost earned a good deal more than I do. And _she_
didn't leave much 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 shall _have_ to do. It's what I shall have to do.
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've _got_ to bother, and bother a great deal, if you're
not going to find yourself in a position you'd be sorry for. You
_have_ to bother. And _you'll_ have to bother before you've done."
"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 way
of taking it. The three women sat down to an uncomfortable dinner of
cold 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. It
doesn'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 your
work."
"It doesn't matter," said Alvina laconically, "so long as you've
enjoyed working and striving."
But Miss Pinnegar was too angry to be philosophic. Alvina knew it
was useless to be either angry or otherwise emotional. None the
less, she also felt as if she had been knocked down. And she almost
envied poor Miss Pinnegar the prospect of a little, day-by-day
haberdashery shop in Tamworth. Her own problem seemed so much more
menacing. "Answer or die," said the Sphinx of fate. Miss Pinnegar
could answer her own fate according to its question. She could say
"haberdashery shop," and her sphinx would recognize this answer as
true to nature, and would be satisfied. But every individual has his
own, or her own fate, and her own sphinx. Alvina's sphinx was an
old, deep thoroughbred, she would take no mongrel answers. And her
thoroughbred teeth were long and sharp. To Alvina, the last of the
fantastic but pure-bred race of Houghton, the problem of her fate
was terribly abstruse.
The only thing to do was not to solve it: to stray on, and answer
fate 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 my
books," 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 I
owe anything?"
"I don't think you do," said Miss Pinnegar.
"I'm going to keep the insurance money, any way. They can say what
they like. I've got it, and I'm going to keep it."
"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, "it's not my business. But there's
Sharps and Fullbanks to pay."
"I'll pay those," said Alvina. "You tell Atterwell what to put on
father'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--. Six
letters--thirty shillings. Seems an awful lot for _Also of_--"
"But you can't leave it out," said Miss Pinnegar. "You can't
economize over that."
"I begrudge it," said Alvina.
CHAPTER XI
HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT
For days, after joining the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, Alvina was very
quiet, subdued, and rather remote, sensible of her humiliating
position as a hanger-on. They none of them took much notice of her.
They drifted on, rather disjointedly. The cordiality, the _joie de
vivre_ did not revive. Madame was a little irritable, and very
exacting, and inclined to be spiteful. Ciccio went his way with
Geoffrey.
In the second week, Madame found out that a man had been
surreptitiously inquiring about them at their lodgings, from the
landlady and the landlady's blowsy daughter. It must have been a
detective--some shoddy detective. Madame waited. Then she sent Max
over to Mansfield, on some fictitious errand. Yes, the lousy-looking
dogs of detectives had been there too, making the most minute
enquiries as to the behaviour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, what they
did, how their sleeping was arranged, how Madame addressed the men,
what attitude the men took towards Alvina.
Madame waited again. And again, when they moved to Doncaster, the
same two mongrel-looking fellows were lurking in the street, and
plying the inmates of their lodging-house with questions. All the
Natchas caught sight of the men. And Madame cleverly wormed out of
the righteous and respectable landlady what the men had asked. Once
more it was about the sleeping accommodation--whether the landlady
heard anything in the night--whether she noticed anything in the
bedrooms, in the beds.
No doubt about it, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were under suspicion. They
were 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 Max
angrily.
"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 went white.
"Yes," said Geoffrey. "White Slave Traffic! Mr. May said it."
Madame slowly nodded.
"Mr. May!" she said. "Mr. May! It is he. He knows all about
morals--and immorals. Yes, I know. Yes--yes--yes! He suspects all
our immoral 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 rather
mockingly.
"What are we to do?" said Max, pale on the cheekbones.
"Curse them! Curse them!" Louis was muttering, in his rolling
accent.
"Wait," said Madame. "Wait. They will not do anything to us. You are
only dirty foreigners, _mes braves_. At the most they will ask us
only 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 us wait."
"If you think it's me," said Alvina, "I can go away."
"Oh, my dear, you are only the excuse," said Madame, smiling
indulgently at her. "Let us wait, and see."
She took it smilingly. But her cheeks were white as paper, and her
eyes black as drops of ink, with anger.
"Wait and see!" she chanted ironically. "Wait and see! If we must
leave the dear country--then _adieu!_" And she gravely bowed to an
imaginary England.
"I feel it's my fault. I feel I ought to go away," cried Alvina, who
was terribly distressed, seeing Madame's glitter and pallor, and the
black brows of the men. Never had Ciccio's brow looked so ominously
black. And Alvina felt it was all her fault. Never had she
experienced such a horrible feeling: as if something repulsive were
creeping on her from behind. Every minute of these weeks was a
horror to her: the sense of the low-down dogs of detectives hanging
round, sliding behind them, trying to get hold of some clear proof
of immorality on their part. And then--the unknown vengeance of the
authorities. All the repulsive secrecy, and all the absolute power
of the police authorities. The sense of a great malevolent power
which had them all the time in its grip, and was watching, feeling,
waiting to strike the morbid blow: the sense of the utter
helplessness of individuals who were not even accused, only watched
and enmeshed! the feeling that they, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, herself
included, must be monsters of hideous vice, to have provoked all
this: and yet the sane knowledge that they, none of them, _were_
monsters of vice; this was quite killing. The sight of a policeman
would send up Alvina's heart in a flame of fear, agony; yet she knew
she had nothing legally to be afraid of. Every knock at the door was
horrible.
She simply could not understand it. Yet there it was: they were
watched, followed. Of that there was no question. And all she could
imagine was that the troupe was secretly accused of White Slave
Traffic by somebody in Woodhouse. Probably Mr. May had gone the
round of the benevolent 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 whole business: and that the first instigator was Mr.
May, who had got round some vulgar magistrate or County Councillor.
Madame did not consider Alvina's view very seriously. She thought it
was some personal malevolence against the Tawaras themselves,
probably put up by some other professionals, with whom Madame was
not popular.
Be that as it may, for some weeks they went about in the shadow of
this repulsive finger which was following after them, to touch them
and destroy them with the black smear of shame. The men were silent
and inclined to be sulky. They seemed to hold together. They seemed
to be united into a strong, four-square silence and tension. They
kept to themselves--and Alvina kept to herself--and Madame kept to
herself. So they went about.
And slowly the cloud melted. It never broke. Alvina felt that the
very force of the sullen, silent fearlessness and fury in the
Tawaras had prevented its bursting. Once there had been a weakening,
a cringing, they would all have been lost. But their hearts hardened
with black, indomitable anger. And the cloud melted, it passed away.
There was no sign.
Early summer was now at hand. Alvina no longer felt at home with the
Natchas. While the trouble was hanging over, they seemed to ignore
her altogether. The men hardly spoke to her. They hardly spoke to
Madame, for that matter. They kept within the four-square enclosure
of themselves.
But Alvina felt herself particularly excluded, left out. And when
the trouble of the detectives began to pass off, and the men became
more cheerful again, wanted her to jest and be familiar with them,
she responded verbally, but in her heart there was no response.
Madame had been quite generous with her. She allowed her to pay for
her room, and the expense of travelling. But she had her food with
the rest. Wherever she was, Madame bought the food for the party,
and cooked it herself. And Alvina came in with the rest: she paid no
board.
She waited, however, for Madame to suggest a small salary--or at
least, that the troupe should pay her living expenses. But Madame
did not make such a suggestion. So Alvina knew that she was not very
badly wanted. And she guarded her money, and watched for some other
opportunity.
It became her habit to go every morning to the public library of the
town 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 found nothing, 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
closed against him.
"Why are you going to the library?" he asked her. It was in
Lancaster.
"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.
"Hé! I know that," he said.
It so happened that that very morning she saw on the notice-board of
the library an announcement that the Borough Council wished to
engage the services of an experienced maternity nurse, applications
to be made to the medical board. Alvina wrote down the directions.
Ciccio watched her.
"What is a maternity nurse?" he said.
"An _accoucheuse_!" she said. "The nurse who attends when babies are
born."
"Do you know how to do that?" he said, incredulous, and jeering
slightly.
"I was trained to do it," she said.
He said no more, but walked by her side as she returned to the
lodgings. 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 finally
cleared her things from Manchester House, she had brought with her
her nurse's certificate, and recommendations from doctors. She wrote
out her application, took the tram to the Town Hall and dropped it
in the letterbox there. Then she wired home to her doctor for
another reference. After which she went to the library and got out a
book on her subject. If summoned, she would have to go before the
medical board on Monday. She had a week. She read and pondered hard,
recalling all her previous experience and knowledge.
She wondered if she ought to appear before the board in uniform. Her
nurse's dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney's, in
Woodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse was
finished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to some
boot-and-shoe people: at least the boot-and-shoe people had the
house. They had given four thousand pounds for it--which was above
the lawyer's estimate. On the other hand, the theatre was sold for
almost nothing. It all worked out that some thirty-three pounds,
which the creditors made up to fifty pounds, remained for Alvina.
She insisted on Miss Pinnegar's having half of this. And so that was
all over. Miss Pinnegar was already in Tamworth, and her little shop
would be opened next week. She wrote happily and excitedly about it.
Sometimes fate acts swiftly and without a hitch. On Thursday Alvina
received her notice that she was to appear before the Board on the
following Monday. And yet she could not bring herself to speak of it
to Madame till the Saturday evening. When they were all at supper,
she said:
"Madame, I applied for a post of maternity nurse, to the Borough of
Lancaster."
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 want
me 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 will
stay 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 you _don't_ get it--! You are not _sure_?"
"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! If _I_ like! Come, it is not a question of if _I_ 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 in
yourself, 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 if you
like to come back--if you _laike_--then--" Madame shrugged her
shoulders--"you must come, I suppose."
"Thank you," said Alvina.
The young men were watching. They seemed indifferent. Ciccio turned
aside, with his faint, stupid smile.
In the morning Madame gave Alvina all her belongings, from the
little safe she called her bank.
"There is the money--so--and so--and so--that is correct. Please
count it once more!--" Alvina counted it and kept it clutched in her
hand. "And there are your rings, and your chain, and your
locket--see--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's
black eyes. Madame dropped her eyes.
"Yes, you gave it. But I thought, you see, as you have now not much
mo-oney, perhaps you would like to take it again--"
"No, thank you," said Alvina, and she went away, leaving Madame with
the red brooch in her plump hand.
"Thank goodness I've given her something valuable," thought Alvina
to herself, as she went trembling to her room.
She had packed her bag. She had to find new rooms. She bade good-bye
to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. Her face was cold and distant, but she
smiled slightly as she bade them good-bye.
"And perhaps," said Madame, "per-haps you will come to Wigan
tomorrow afternoon--or evening? Yes?"
"Thank you," said Alvina.
She went out and found a little hotel, where she took her room for
the night, explaining the cause of her visit to Lancaster. Her heart
was hard and burning. A deep, burning, silent anger against
everything possessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind.
And therefore, the next day, everything went as if by magic. She had
decided that at the least sign of indifference from the medical
board people she would walk away, take her bag, and go to
Windermere. She had never been to the Lakes. And Windermere was not
far off. She would not endure one single hint of contumely from any
one else. She would go straight 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 be absolutely free, absolutely free. She
rather looked forward to leaving the Town Hall, hurrying to take her
bag and off to the station and freedom. Hadn't she still got about a
hundred pounds? Why bother for one moment? To be quite alone in the
whole world--and quite, quite free, with her hundred pounds--the
prospect attracted her sincerely.
And therefore, everything went charmingly at the Town Hall. The
medical board were charming to her--charming. There was no
hesitation at all. From the first moment she was engaged. And she
was given a pleasant room in a hospital in a garden, and the matron
was charming to her, and the doctors most courteous.
When could she undertake to commence her duties? When did they want
her? The very _moment_ she could come. She could begin tomorrow--but
she had no uniform. Oh, the matron would lend her uniform and
aprons, till her box arrived.
So there she was--by afternoon installed in her pleasant little room
looking on the garden, and dressed in a nurse's uniform. It was all
sudden 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
put on the white dress, the white apron, and the white cap, she felt
another person. So clean, she felt, so thankful! Her skin seemed
caressed and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt.
It was so different from being with the Natchas.
In the garden the snowballs, guelder-roses, swayed softly among
green foliage, there was pink may-blossom, and single scarlet
may-blossom, and underneath the young green of the trees, irises
rearing purple and moth-white. A young gardener was working--and a
convalescent slowly trailed a few paces.
Having ten minutes still, Alvina sat down and wrote to Ciccio: "I am
glad I have got this post as nurse here. Every one is most kind, and
I feel at home already. I feel quite happy here. I shall think of my
days with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, and of you, who were such a
stranger to me. Good-bye.--A. H."
This she addressed and posted. No doubt Madame would find occasion
to read it. But let her.
Alvina now settled down to her new work. There was of course a great
deal 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, as she was summoned. And she was summoned at all hours. So
that it was tiring work, which left her no time to herself, except
just in snatches.
She had no serious acquaintance with anybody, she was too busy. The
matron and sisters and doctors and patients were all part of her
day's work, and she regarded them as such. The men she chiefly
ignored: she felt much more friendly with the matron. She had many a
cup of tea and many a chat in the matron's room, in the quiet, sunny
afternoons when the work was not pressing. Alvina took her quiet
moments when she could: for she never knew when she would be rung up
by one or other of the doctors in the town.
And so, from the matron, she learned to crochet. It was work she had
never taken to. But now she had her ball of cotton and her hook, and
she worked away as she chatted. She was in good health, and she was
getting fatter again. With the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, she had improved
a good deal, her colour and her strength had returned. But
undoubtedly the nursing life, arduous as it was, suited her best.
She became a handsome, reposeful woman, jolly with the other nurses,
really happy with her friend the matron, who was well-bred and wise,
and never over-intimate.
The doctor with whom Alvina had most to do was a Dr. Mitchell, a
Scotchman. He had a large practice among the poor, and was an
energetic man. He was about fifty-four years old, tall,
largely-built, with a good figure, but with extraordinarily large
feet and hands. His face was red and clean-shaven, his eyes blue,
his teeth very good. He laughed and talked rather mouthingly.
Alvina, who knew what the nurses told 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 up gradually till he became a doctor
himself, and had an independent practice. Now he was quite rich--and
a bachelor. But the nurses did not set their bonnets at him very
much, because he was rather mouthy and overbearing.
In the houses of the poor he was a great autocrat.
"What is that stuff you've got there!" he inquired largely, seeing a
bottle of somebody's Soothing Syrup by a poor woman's bedside. "Take
it and throw it down the sink, and the next time you want a soothing
syrup put a little boot-blacking in hot water. It'll do you just as
much good."
Imagine the slow, pompous, large-mouthed way in which the red-faced,
handsomely-built man pronounced these words, and you realize why the
poor set such store by him.
He was eagle-eyed. Wherever he went, there was a scuffle directly
his foot was heard on the stairs. And he knew they were hiding
something. He sniffed the air: he glanced round with a sharp eye:
and during the course of his visit picked up a blue mug which was
pushed behind the looking-glass. He peered inside--and smelled it.
"Stout?" he said, in a tone of indignant inquiry: God-Almighty would
presumably take on just such a tone, finding the core of an apple
flung away among the dead-nettle of paradise: "Stout! Have you been
drinking stout?" 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 his
hand. The sick woman watched him with haunted eyes. The attendant
women threw up their hands and looked at one another. Was he going
for ever? There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue
mug downstairs. He returned with a solemn stride.
"There!" he said. "And the next person that gives you stout will be
thrown down along with the mug."
"Oh doctor, the bit o' comfort!" wailed the sick woman. "It ud never
do me no harm."
"Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yours! Harm! Do you know
better than I do? What have I come here for? To be told by _you_
what will do you harm and what won't? It appears to me you need no
doctor here, you know everything already--"
"Oh no, doctor. It's not like that. But when you feel as if you'd
sink through the bed, an' you don't know what to do with yourself--"
"Take a little beef-tea, or a little rice pudding. Take
_nourishment_, don't take that muck. Do you hear--" charging upon
the attendant women, who shrank against the wall--"she's to have
nothing alcoholic at all, and don't let me catch you giving it her."
"They say there's nobbut fower per cent. i' stout," retorted the
daring female.
"Fower per cent.," mimicked the doctor brutally. "Why, what does an
ignorant 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've
no doubt it's something for my benefit--"
But the affronted woman rushed out of the room, and burst into tears
on the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told
the patient how she was to behave, concluding:
"Nourishment! Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don't tell me
you can't take it. Push it down if it won't go down by itself--"
"Oh doctor--"
"Don't say _oh doctor_ to me. Do as I tell you. That's _your_
business." After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor
car was shortly heard.
Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the people
stood it. But soon she realized that they loved it--particularly the
women.
"Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell's been. I'm scared to death of
him, 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, he _does_ 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
smarmy slormin sort. Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell, I don't
care what you say."
But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart which
had all the women scurrying like chickens was not particularly
attractive.
The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him if
possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had to
submit. 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 ignorant
people 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 him
night an' day about it--"
"Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He
mustn't think _I'm_ going to be running after him, if he disobeys my
orders." And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to
complain.
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
hear the housewife chuntering.
"Oh my lawk, come in nurse! What a day! Doctor's not been yet. And
he's bound to come now I've just cleaned up, trapesin' wi' his gret
feet. He's got the biggest understandin's of any man i' Lancaster.
My husband says they're the best pair o' pasties i' th' kingdom. An'
he does make 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 with
both feet afore I'd opened my mouth. He's not to be spoken to, he
isn'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 browbeating them,
and having a heart over and above.
Sometimes he was given a good hit--though nearly always by a man. It
happened 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?" said
the 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 anything
more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of my
life--every day of my life, I do."
The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustache
copiously 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 my
stomach 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 pint o' hale, summat ter fill th' hole up. An' tha'd be th' same
if tha did my work."
"If I did your work," sneered the doctor. "Why I do ten times the
work that any one of you does. It's just the work that has ruined my
digestion, the never getting a quiet meal, and never a whole night's
rest. When do you think _I_ 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 a
black rage to have his great manliness insulted. Alvina was quietly
amused.
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
nor even admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him:
the great, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and
his stomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness and
his good heart which was as selfish as it could be. Nothing can be
more cocksuredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its own
beneficence. He was a little too much the teetotaller on the one
hand to be so largely manly on the other. Alvina preferred the
labourers with their awful long moustaches that got full of food.
And he was a little too loud-mouthedly lordly to be in human good
taste.
As a matter of fact, he was conscious of the fact that he had risen
to be a gentleman. Now if a man is conscious of being a _gentleman_,
he is bound to be a little less than a _man_. But if he is gnawed
with anxiety lest he may _not_ be a gentleman, he is only pitiable.
There is a third case, however. If a man must loftily, by his
manner, assert that he is _now_ a gentleman, he shows himself a
clown. For Alvina, poor Dr. Mitchell fell into this third category,
of clowns. She tolerated him good-humouredly, as women so often
tolerate ninnies and _poseurs_. She smiled to herself when she saw
his large and important presence on the board. She smiled when she
saw him at a sale, buying the grandest pieces of antique furniture.
She smiled when he talked of going up to Scotland, for grouse
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 his
imperious condescension he took to a tone of uneasy equality. This
did not suit him. Dr. Mitchell had no equals: he had only the vast
stratum of inferiors, towards whom he exercised his quite profitable
beneficence--it brought him in about two thousand a year: and then
his superiors, people who had been born with money. It was the
tradesmen and professionals who had started at the bottom and
clambered to the motor-car footing, who distressed him. And
therefore, whilst he treated Alvina on this uneasy tradesman
footing, he felt himself in a false position.
She kept her attitude of quiet amusement, and little by little he
sank. From being a lofty creature soaring over her head, he was now
like a big fish poking its nose above water and making eyes at her.
He treated her with rather presuming deference.
"You look tired this morning," he barked at her one hot day.
"I think it's thunder," she said.
"Thunder! Work, you mean," and he gave a slight smile. "I'm going to
drive 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 for
you. 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 stopped
the car and leaned towards the man.
"Take that barrow-load of poison and _bury_ it!" he shouted, in his
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, "before
you 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 your
barrow-load of cucumbers."
"Oh," said the man, scrutinizing his cucumbers carefully. To be
sure, some were a little yellow at the end. "How's that? Cumbers is
right enough: fresh from market this morning."
"Fresh or not fresh," said the doctor, mouthing his words
distinctly, "you might as well put poison into your stomach, as
those things. Cucumbers are the worst thing you can eat."
"Oh!" said the man, stuttering. "That's 'appen for them as doesn't
like them. I niver knowed a cumber do _me_ no harm, an' I eat 'em
like a happle." Whereupon the hawker took a "cumber" from his
barrow, bit off the end, and chewed it till the sap squirted.
"What's wrong with that?" he said, holding up the bitten cucumber.
"I'm not talking about what's wrong with that," said the doctor. "My
business 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 the internal troubles people suffer from in summertime."
"Oh ay! That's no loss to you, is it? Me an' you's partners. More
cumbers I sell, more graft for you, 'cordin' to that. What's wrong
then. _Cum-bers! Fine fresh Cum-berrrs! All fresh and juisty, all
cheap and tasty--!_" yelled the man.
"I am a doctor not only to cure illness, but to prevent it where I
can. 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 and
showing his white, even teeth.
"I don't care, you know, myself," she said. "I should always let
people do what they wanted--"
"Even if you knew it would do them harm?" he queried, smiling with
amiable condescension.
"Yes, why not! It's their own affair. And they'll do themselves harm
one 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. You
are a pessimist with regard to human nature."
"Am I?" smiled Alvina, thinking the rose would smell as sweet. It
seemed to please the doctor to find that Alvina was a pessimist with
regard to human nature. It seemed to give her an air of distinction.
In his eyes, she _seemed_ distinguished. He was in a fair way to
dote on her.
She, of course, when he began to admire her, liked him much better,
and even saw graceful, boyish attractions in him. There was really
something childish about him. And this something childish, since it
looked up to her as if she were the saving grace, naturally
flattered her and made her feel gentler towards him.
He got in the habit of picking her up in his car, when he could. And
he would tap at the matron's door, smiling and showing all his
beautiful 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. Alvina
rose 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 intruded
upon."
"Oh really!" his eyes sparkled. "Perhaps _you_ wouldn't say so,
nurse?" he said, turning to Alvina. Alvina was just reaching at the
cupboard. Very charming she looked, in her fresh dress and cap and
soft brown hair, very attractive her figure, with its full, soft
loins. She turned 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 mind
being 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 unmistakably
gallant. When he was gone, the matron looked demure, and Alvina
confused. 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 be
_bringing_ him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure." She looked
wickedly at Alvina.
"No, don't look at me," laughed Alvina, "_I_ know nothing about it."
"Do you think it may be _me_!" 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 she
went 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. With
Alvina he quite unbent, and seemed even to sun himself when she was
near, to attract her attention. He smiled and smirked and became
oddly self-conscious: rather uncomfortable. He liked to hang over
her chair, and he made a great event of offering her a cigarette
whenever they met, although he himself never smoked. He had a gold
cigarette case.
One day he asked her in to see his garden. He had a pleasant old
square house with a big walled garden. He showed her his flowers and
his wall-fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade her
admire 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 he was really letting himself go, luxuriating in everything;
above all, in Alvina, who poured tea gracefully from the old
Georgian tea-pot, and smiled so pleasantly above the Queen Anne
tea-cups.
And she, wicked that she was, admired every detail of his
drawing-room. It was a pleasant room indeed, with roses outside the
French door, and a lawn in sunshine beyond, with bright red flowers
in beds. But indoors, it was insistently antique. Alvina admired the
Jacobean sideboard and the Jacobean arm-chairs and the Hepplewhite
wall-chairs and the Sheraton settee and the Chippendale stands and
the Axminster carpet and the bronze clock with Shakespeare and
Ariosto reclining on it--yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the
clock--and the ormolu cabinet and the bead-work foot-stools and the
dreadful Sèvres dish with a cherub in it and--but why enumerate. She
admired _everything_! And Dr. Mitchell's heart expanded in his bosom
till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at her feet or
did something extraordinary. He had never even imagined what it was
to be so expanded: what a delicious feeling. He could have kissed
her feet in an ecstasy of wild expansion. But habit, so far,
prevented his doing more 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 had
all the cares and responsibility of the world on my shoulders. And
now I am middle-aged more or less, I feel as light as if I were just
beginning life." He beamed down at her.
"Perhaps you _are_ only just beginning your _own_ life," she said.
"You have lived for your work till now."
"It may be that," he said. "It may be that up till now I have lived
for others, for my patients. And now perhaps I may be allowed to
live a little more for myself." He beamed with real luxury, saw the
real luxury 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 retire
in part from his work. That is, he would hire another assistant,
and give himself a fair amount of leisure. He was inordinately proud
of his house. And now he looked forward to the treat of his life:
hanging round the woman he had made his wife, following her about,
feeling proud 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 would go with him in the car: he made up his mind she would be
willing to accompany him. He would teach her to drive, and they
would sit side by side, she driving him and waiting for him. And he
would run out of the houses of his patients, and find her sitting
there, and he would get in beside her and feel so snug and so sure
and so happy as she drove him off 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 the
doorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car. And they
would have long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he
luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they
would be snug for hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to
bed. And in the morning he need not rush off. He would loiter about
with her, they would loiter down the garden looking at every new
flower and every new fruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and
no cap on her hair, he would never be able to tear himself away from
her. Every morning it would be unbearable to have to tear himself
away from her, and every hour he would be rushing back to her. They
would be simply everything to one another. And how he would enjoy
it! Ah!
He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would take
her away from him. That was his first thought. But then--! Ah well,
he would have to leave it till the time. Love's young dream is never
so delicious as at the virgin age of fifty-three.
But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he had
put a plain question. It was August Bank Holiday, that for ever
black day of the declaration of war, when his question was put. For
this year of our story is the fatal year 1914.
There was quite a stir in the town over the declaration of war. But
most people felt that the news was only intended to give an extra
thrill to the all-important event of Bank Holiday. Half the world
had gone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the
Lakes or into the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fête,
notwithstanding. And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a
real holiday mood.
So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at the
Hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three,
for tea.
"What do you think of this new war?" said Alvina.
"Oh, it will be over in six weeks," said the doctor easily. And
there they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered
if it would affect the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She had never heard any
more of them.
"Where would you have liked to go today?" said the doctor, turning
to 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 was
not thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech.
"How nice!" she said vaguely.
"We could go in the car, and take them as we chose," said the
doctor.
"Yes," she said, wondering at him now.
When they had had tea, quietly and gallantly tête-à-tête in his
drawing-room, he asked her if she would like to see the other rooms
of the house. She thanked him, and he showed her the substantial oak
dining-room, and the little room with medical works and a revolving
chair, which he called his study: then the kitchen and the pantry,
the housekeeper looking askance; then upstairs to his bedroom, which
was very fine with old mahogany tall-boys and silver candle-sticks
on the dressing-table, and brushes with green ivory backs, and a
hygienic white bed and straw mats: then the visitors' bedroom
corresponding, with its old satin-wood furniture and cream-coloured
chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a pale carpet with
reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that,
isn't that beautiful, I've never seen anything like that! came the
gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina. And he smiled and
gloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and
how dark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had
impressed Ciccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel
themselves masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She
smiled to herself rather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling
unaccountably uneasy and wistful, yearning into the distance again:
a trick she thought she had happily lost.
The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a big
man, and he always wore navy blue suits, well-tailored and
immaculate. Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue
suits, especially if they had reddish faces and rather big feet and
if their hair was wearing thin, were a special type all to
themselves, solid and rather namby-pamby and tiresome.
"What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roof
makes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and
the fascinating little window!" She crouched in the hollow of the
small dormer window. "Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I
know I should want this room for my own."
"Then have it," he said. "Have it for _one_ of your own."
She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He was
leaning 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," she said.
"I quite understand that," he replied deliberately. "But I am
speaking what I _mean_--"
She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smiling
and smirking broadly at her.
"Won't you marry me, and come and have this garret for your own?" He
spoke as if he were offering her a chocolate. He smiled with curious
uncertainty.
"I don't know," she said vaguely.
His smile broadened.
"Well now," he said, "make up your mind. I'm not good at _talking_
about love, you know. But I think I'm pretty good at _feeling_ it,
you know. I want you to come here and be happy: with me." He added
the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if 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 hugely
pleased with himself. "Think about it now. And tell me if you could
put up with _me_, as well as the garret." He beamed and put his head
a little on one side--rather like Mr. May, for one second. But he
was much more dangerous than Mr. May. He was overbearing, and had
the devil's own temper if he was thwarted. This she knew. He was a
big man in a navy blue suit, with very white teeth.
Again she thought she had better laugh it off.
"It's you I _am_ thinking about," she laughed, flirting still. "It's
you I _am_ wondering about."
"Well," he said, rather pleased with himself, "you wonder about me
till you've made up your mind--"
"I will--" she said, seizing the opportunity. "I'll wonder about you
till I've made up my mind--shall I?"
"Yes," he said. "That's what I wish you to do. And the next time I
ask you, you'll let me know. That's it, isn't it?" He smiled
indulgently 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 ask
me again this month, will you?"
"This month?" His eyes beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the
procrastination 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
this month."
"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 was
very much excited, very much excited indeed. A big, well-to-do man
in a navy blue suit, of handsome appearance, aged fifty-three, with
white teeth and a delicate stomach: it _was_ exciting. A sure
position, a very nice home and lovely things in it, once they were
dragged about a bit. And of course he'd adore her. That went without
saying. She was as fussy as if some one had given her a lovely new
pair of boots. She was really fussy and pleased with herself: and
_quite_ decided she'd take it all on. That was how it put itself to
her: she would take it all on.
Of course there was the man himself to consider. But he was quite
presentable. There was nothing at all against it: nothing at all. If
he had pressed her during the first half of the month of August, he
would almost certainly have got her. But he only beamed in
anticipation.
Meanwhile the stir and restlessness of the war had begun, and was
making itself felt even in Lancaster. And the excitement and the
unease began to wear through Alvina's rather glamorous fussiness.
Some of her old fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had
been as if asleep these months, now woke rather irritably, and
chafed against its collar. Who was this elderly man, that she should
marry him? Who was he, that she should be kissed by him. Actually
kissed and fondled by him! Repulsive. She avoided him like the
plague. Fancy reposing against his broad, navy blue waistcoat! She
started as if she had been stung. Fancy seeing his red, smiling face
just above hers, coming down to embrace 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 so
well-off for the rest of her life. The hateful problem of material
circumstance would be solved for ever. And she knew well how hateful
material 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
advantages of his offer, and excuse her the acceptance of him
himself. She dared not decide in a hurry. And this very fear, like a
yoke on her, made her resent the man who drove her to decision.
Sometimes she rebelled. Sometimes she laughed unpleasantly in the
man's face: though she dared not go _too_ far: for she was a little
afraid of him and his rabid temper, also. In her moments of sullen
rebellion she thought of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. She thought of them
deeply. She wondered where they were, what they were doing, how the
war had affected them. Poor Geoffrey was a Frenchman--he would have
to go to 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 if they thought of her. She felt they did. She
felt they did not forget her. She felt there was a connection.
In fact, during the latter part of August she wondered a good deal
more about the Natchas than about Dr. Mitchell. But wondering about
the Natchas would not help her. She felt, if she knew where they
were, she would fly to them. But then she knew she wouldn't.
When she was at the station she saw crowds and bustle. People were
seeing their young men off. Beer was flowing: sailors on the train
were tipsy: women were holding young men by the lapel of the coat.
And when the train drew away, the young men waving, the women cried
aloud and sobbed after them.
A chill ran down Alvina's spine. This was another matter, apart from
her Dr. Mitchell. It made him feel very unreal, trivial. She did not
know what she was going to do. She realized she must do
something--take some part in the wild dislocation of life. She knew
that she would put off Dr. Mitchell again.
She talked the matter over with the matron. The matron advised her
to procrastinate. Why not volunteer for war-service? True, she was a
maternity nurse, and this was hardly the qualification needed for
the nursing of soldiers. But still, she _was_ a nurse.
Alvina felt this was the thing to do. Everywhere was a stir and a
seethe of excitement. Men were active, women were needed too. She
put down her name on the list of volunteers for active service. This
was on the last day of August.
On the first of September Dr. Mitchell was round at the hospital
early, when Alvina was just beginning her morning duties there. He
went into the matron's room, and asked for Nurse Houghton. The
matron left them together.
The doctor was excited. He smiled broadly, but with a tension of
nervous 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 and
meaningful 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 not
speak. 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
put his 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 I
ought to do something."
"Why?" he asked. He could put a nasty intonation into that
monosyllable. "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 looked
better." He was angry. But he saw a half-frightened, half-guilty
look on her face, and during the weeks of anticipation he had worked
himself up.
"But put that aside," he smiled again, a little dangerously. "You
have still to answer my question. Having volunteered for war service
doesn't prevent your being engaged to me, does it?"
Alvina watched him with large eyes. And again he came very near to
her, so that his blue-serge waistcoat seemed, to impinge on her, and
his purplish 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
to do with it?"
"Everything is so uncertain," she said. "I'd rather wait."
"Wait! Haven't you waited long enough? There's nothing at all to
prevent 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
love with you to let you go on indefinitely like this. Come now!" He
smiled imminent, and held out his large hand for her hand. "Let me
put the ring on your finger. It will be the proudest day of my life
when I make you my wife. Give me your hand--"
Alvina was wavering. For one thing, mere curiosity made her want to
see the ring. She half lifted her hand. And but for the knowledge
that he would kiss her, she would have given it. But he would kiss
her--and against that she obstinately set her will. She put her hand
behind her back, 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 his
eyes.
"Come," he said, beckoning for her to give her hand.
With a barely perceptible shake of the head, she refused, staring at
him all the time. His ungovernable temper got the better of him. He
saw red, and without knowing, seized her by the shoulder, swung her
back, and thrust her, pressed her against the wall as if he would
push her through it. His face was blind with anger, like a hot, red
sun. Suddenly, almost instantaneously, he came to himself again and
drew back his hands, shaking his right hand as if some rat had
bitten it.
"I'm sorry!" he shouted, beside himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean
it. I'm sorry." He dithered before her.
She recovered her equilibrium, and, pale to the lips, looked at him
with sombre eyes.
"I'm sorry!" he continued loudly, in his strange frenzy like a small
boy. "Don't remember! Don't remember! Don't think I did it."
His face was a kind of blank, and unconsciously he wrung the hand
that had gripped her, as if it pained him. She watched him, and
wondered why on earth all this frenzy. She was left rather cold, she
did not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her.
There was nothing so very unnatural, after all, in being bumped up
suddenly against the wall. Certainly her shoulder hurt where he had
gripped it. But there were plenty of worse hurts in the world. She
watched him with wide, distant eyes.
And he fell on his knees before her, as she backed against the
bookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress-bottom,
drawing it to him. Which made her rather abashed, and much more
uncomfortable.
"Forgive me!" he said. "Don't remember! Forgive me! Love me! Love
me! Forgive me and love me! Forgive me and love me!"
As Alvina was looking down dismayed on the great, red-faced, elderly
man, who in his crying-out showed his white teeth like a child, and
as she was gently trying to draw her skirt from his clutch, the
door opened, and there stood the matron, in her big frilled cap.
Alvina glanced at her, flushed crimson and looked down to the man.
She touched his face with her hand.
"Never mind," she said. "It's nothing. Don't think about it."
He caught 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 men
did such things. It did not touch her, it dumbfounded her.
The doctor, clinging to her hand, struggled to his feet and flung
his arms round her, clasping her wildly to him.
"You love me! You love me, don't you?" he said, vibrating and beside
himself as he pressed her to his breast and hid his face against her
hair. At such a moment, what was the good of saying she didn't? But
she didn't. Pity for his shame, however, kept her silent, motionless
and silent in his arms, smothered against the blue-serge waistcoat
of his broad breast.
He was beginning to come to himself. He became silent. But he still
strained her fast, he had no idea of letting her go.
"You will take my ring, won't you?" he said at last, still in the
strange, lamentable voice. "You will take my ring."
"Yes," she said coldly. Anything for a quiet emergence from this
scene.
He fumbled feverishly in his pocket with one hand, holding her still
fast by the other arm. And with one hand he managed to extract the
ring from its case, letting the case roll away on the floor. It was
a diamond solitaire.
"Which finger? Which finger is it?" he asked, beginning to smile
rather weakly. She extricated her hand, and held out her engagement
finger. Upon it was the mourning-ring Miss Frost had always worn.
The doctor slipped the diamond solitaire above the mourning ring,
and folded Alvina to his breast again.
"Now," he said, almost in his normal voice. "Now I know you love
me." The pleased self-satisfaction in his voice made her angry. She
managed 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 to
have tea with me every day."
But Alvina was straightening her crushed cap before the mirror, and
did not answer.
"We can see as much as we like of each other now we're engaged," he
said, smiling with satisfaction.
"I wonder where the matron is," said Alvina, suddenly going into the
cool white corridor. He followed her. And they met the matron just
coming out of the ward.
"Matron!" said Dr. Mitchell, with a return of his old mouthing
importance. "You may congratulate Nurse Houghton and me on our
engagement--" He smiled largely.
"I may congratulate _you_, you mean," said the matron.
"Yes, of course. And both of us, since we are now one," he replied.
"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, I _suppose_ it is all right," said the matron gravely.
"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 his
knees and shouting for me to love him! Perfectly horrible!"
"Well," said the matron. "You never know what men will do till
you'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 of
quietening him, giving him what he wanted--"
"I think," said Alvina, "I can look after myself. I may be moved any
day now."
"Well--!" said the matron. "He may prevent your getting moved, you
know. 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 a
speedy escape. She put his ring in her apron pocket, and there she
forgot it until he pounced on her in the afternoon, in the house of
one of 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, discarded
apron--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, by
telling him any sort of spooniness revolted her. And he was too much
an old bachelor to take easily to a fondling habit--before marriage,
at least. So he mercifully left her alone: he was on the whole
devoutly thankful 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 so he craved for marriage: to possess her entirely, and
to have her always there with him, so that he was never alone. Alone
and apart from all the world: but by her side, always by her side.
"Now when shall we fix the marriage?" he said. "It is no good
putting it back. We both know what we are doing. And now the
engagement is announced--"
He looked at her anxiously. She could see the hysterical little boy
under 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 your
resignation at once, so that you're free."
"Oh but is there any need? I may be transferred for war service."
"That's not likely. You're our only maternity nurse--"
And so the days went by. She had tea with him practically every
afternoon, and she got used to him. They discussed the furnishing--she
could not help suggesting a few alterations, a few arrangements
according to _her_ idea. And he drew up a plan of a wedding tour in
Scotland. Yet she was quite certain she would not marry him. The matron
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. "I _shall_ see."
And it was true that Alvina's will was indeterminate, at this time.
She was _resolved_ not to marry. But her will, like a spring that is
hitched somehow, did not fly direct against the doctor. She had sent
in her resignation, as he suggested. But not that she might be free
to marry him, but that she might be at liberty to flee him. So she
told herself. Yet she worked into his hands.
One day she sat with the doctor in the car near the station--it was
towards 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 the special troop train that was coming down from the
north. The town was in great excitement. War-fever was spreading
everywhere. Men were rushing to enlist--and being constantly
rejected, for it was still the days of regular standards.
As the crowds surged on the pavement, as the soldiers tramped to the
station, as the traffic waited, there came a certain flow in the
opposite direction. The 4:15 train had come in. People were
struggling along with luggage, children were running with spades and
buckets, cabs were crawling along with families: it was the seaside
people coming home. Alvina watched the two crowds mingle.
And as she watched she saw two men, one carrying a mandoline case
and a suit-case which she knew. It was Ciccio. She did not know the
other man; some theatrical individual. The two men halted almost
near the 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 the music, his lips curling in his faintly-derisive Italian
manner, as he talked 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 smutty finger. He had got the same brownish suit on,
which she disliked, the same black hat set slightly, jauntily over
one eye. He looked common: and yet with that peculiar southern
aloofness which gave him a certain beauty and distinction in her
eyes. She felt she hated him, rather. She felt she had been let down
by him.
The band had passed. A child ran against the wheel of the standing
car. Alvina suddenly reached forward and made a loud, screeching
flourish 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 with
the rest, looking inquiringly at the car. And his quick eyes, the
whites of which showed so white against his duskiness, the yellow
pupils so non-human, met hers with a quick flash of recognition. His
mouth began to curl in a smile of greeting. But she stared at him
without moving a muscle, just blankly stared, abstracting every
scrap of feeling, even of animosity or coldness, out of her gaze.
She saw the smile die on his lips, his eyes glance sideways, and
again sideways, with that curious animal shyness which characterized
him. It was as if he did not want to see her looking at him, and ran
from side to side like a caged weasel, avoiding her blank, glaucous
look.
She turned pleasantly to Dr. Mitchell.
"What did you say?" she asked sweetly.
CHAPTER XII
ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED
Alvina found it pleasant to be respected as she was respected in
Lancaster. It is not only the prophet who hath honour _save_ in his
own country: it is every one with individuality. In this northern
town Alvina found that her individuality really told. Already she
belonged to the revered caste of medicine-men. And into the bargain
she was a personality, a person.
Well and good. She was not going to cheapen herself. She felt that
even in the eyes of the natives--the well-to-do part, at least--she
lost a _little_ of her distinction when she was engaged to Dr.
Mitchell. The engagement had been announced in _The Times_, _The
Morning Post_, _The Manchester Guardian_, and the local _News_. No
fear about its being known. And it cast a slight slur of vulgar
familiarity over her. In Woodhouse, she knew, it elevated her in the
common esteem tremendously. But she was no longer in Woodhouse. She
was in Lancaster. And in Lancaster her engagement pigeonholed her.
Apart from Dr. Mitchell she had a magic potentiality. Connected with
him, she was a known and labelled quantity.
This she gathered from her contact with the local gentry. The matron
was a woman of family, who somehow managed, in her big, white,
frilled cap, to be distinguished like an abbess of old. The really
toney women of the place came to take tea in her room, and these
little teas in the hospital were like a little elegant female
conspiracy. There was a slight flavour of art and literature about.
The matron had known Walter Pater, in the somewhat remote past.
Alvina was admitted to these teas with the few women who formed the
toney intellectual élite of this northern town. There was a certain
freemasonry in the matron's room. The matron, a lady-doctor, a
clergyman's daughter, and the wives of two industrial magnates of
the place, these five, and then Alvina, formed the little group.
They did not meet a great deal outside the hospital. But they always
met with that curious female freemasonry which can form a law unto
itself even among most conventional women. They talked as they would
never talk before men, or before feminine outsiders. They threw
aside the whole vestment of convention. They discussed plainly the
things they thought about--even the most secret--and they were quite
calm about the things they did--even the most impossible. Alvina
felt that her transgression was a very mild affair, and that her
engagement was really _infra dig_.
"And are you going to marry him?" asked Mrs. Tuke, with a long, cool
look.
"I can't _imagine_ myself--" said Alvina.
"Oh, but so many things happen outside one's imagination. That's
where your body has you. I can't _imagine_ that I'm going to have a
child--" She lowered her eyelids wearily and sardonically over her
large eyes.
Mrs. Tuke was the wife of the son of a local manufacturer. She was
about twenty-eight years old, pale, with great dark-grey eyes and an
arched nose and black hair, very like a head on one of the lovely
Syracusan coins. The odd look of a smile which wasn't a smile, at
the corners of the mouth, the arched nose, and the slowness of the
big, full, classic eyes gave her the dangerous Greek look of the
Syracusan women of the past: the dangerous, heavily-civilized women
of old Sicily: those who laughed about the latomia.
"But do you think you can have a child without wanting it _at all_?"
asked Alvina.
"Oh, but there isn't _one bit_ of me wants it, not _one bit_. My
_flesh_ doesn't want it. And my mind doesn't--yet there it is!" She
spread her fine hands with a flicker of inevitability.
"Something must want it," said Alvina.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Tuke. "The universe is one big machine, and we're
just part of it." She flicked out her grey silk handkerchief, and
dabbed her nose, watching with big, black-grey eyes the fresh face
of Alvina.
"There's not _one 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 just _planté_. I can't _imagine_ why I
married Tommy. And yet--I did--!" She shook her head as if it was
all just beyond her, and the pseudo-smile at the corners of her
ageless mouth deepened.
Alvina was to nurse Mrs. Tuke. The baby was expected at the end of
August. But already the middle of September was here, and the baby
had not arrived.
The Tukes were not very rich--the young ones, that is. Tommy wanted
to compose music, so he lived on what his father gave him. His
father gave him a little house outside the town, a house furnished
with expensive bits of old furniture, in a way that the townspeople
thought insane. But there you are--Effie would insist on dabbing a
rare bit of yellow brocade on the wall, instead of a picture, and in
painting apple-green shelves in the recesses of the whitewashed wall
of the dining-room. Then she enamelled the hall-furniture yellow,
and decorated it with curious green and lavender lines and flowers,
and had unearthly cushions and Sardinian pottery with unspeakable
peaked griffins.
What were you to make of such a woman! Alvina slept in her house
these days, instead of at the hospital. For Effie was a very bad
sleeper. She would sit up in bed, the two glossy black plaits
hanging beside her white, arch face, wrapping loosely round her her
dressing-gown of a sort of plumbago-coloured, dark-grey silk lined
with fine silk of metallic blue, and there, ivory and jet-black and
grey like black-lead, she would sit in the white bedclothes
flicking her handkerchief and revealing a flicker of kingfisher-blue
silk and white silk night dress, complaining of her neuritis nerve
and her own impossible condition, and begging Alvina to stay with
her another half-hour, and suddenly studying the big, blood-red
stone on her finger as if she was reading something in it.
"I believe I shall be like the woman in the _Cent Nouvelles_ and
carry my child for five years. Do you know that story? She said that
eating a parsley leaf on which bits of snow were sticking started
the child in her. It might just as well--"
Alvina would laugh and get tired. There was about her a kind of half
bitter sanity and nonchalance which the nervous woman liked.
One night as they were sitting thus in the bedroom, at nearly eleven
o'clock, they started and listened. Dogs in the distance had also
started to yelp. A mandoline was wailing its vibration in the night
outside, rapidly, delicately quivering. Alvina went pale. She knew
it was Ciccio. She had seen him lurking in the streets of the town,
but had 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 a
serenade?--" 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--! I _must_ look at it--"
She got out of bed with some difficulty, wrapped her dressing-gown
round her, pushed her feet into slippers, and went to the window.
She opened the sash. It was a lovely moonlight night of September.
Below lay the little front garden, with its short drive and its iron
gates that closed on the high-road. From the shadow of the high-road
came the noise of the mandoline.
"Hello, Tommy!" called Mrs. Tuke to her husband, whom she saw on the
drive below her. "How's your musical ear--?"
"All right. Doesn't it disturb you?" came the man's voice from the
moonlight below.
"Not a bit. I like it. I'm waiting for the voice. '_O Richard, O mon
roi!_'--"
But the music had stopped.
"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke. "You've frightened him off! And we're
dying to be serenaded, aren't we, nurse?" She turned to Alvina. "Do
give me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won't you open the other
window and look out there--?"
Alvina went to the second window. She stood looking out.
"Do play again!" Mrs. Tuke called into the night. "Do sing
something." And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose that
hung in the moonlight from the wall, and with a flash of her white
arm she 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 than
emotional Italian music. Perfectly nauseating."
"Never mind, dear. I know it sounds as if all their insides were
coming 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 canzone
bella-bella--molto bella--"
She pronounced her syllables one by one, calling into the night. It
sounded comical. There came a rude laugh from the drive below.
"Go indoors, Tommy! He won't sing if you're there. Nothing will sing
if you're there," called the young woman.
They heard a footstep on the gravel, and then the slam of the hall
door.
"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-known
Neapolitan 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
on her own full figure, and rolling her eyes mockingly. "I'm _sure_
it's more effective than senna-pods."
Then she returned to her own window, huddled her furs over her
breast, 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
also was still. Then Mrs. Tuke slowly reached for the rose-buds on
the old wall.
"Molto bella!" she cried, half ironically. "Molto bella! Je vous
envoie une rose--" And she threw the roses out on to the drive. A
man's figure was seen hovering outside the gate, on the high-road.
"Entrez!" called Mrs. Tuke. "Entrez! Prenez votre rose. Come in and
take your rose."
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 pas
fermée à 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.
But do take him the roses, and see what he looks like. Yes do!" Mrs.
Tuke's eyes were arched and excited. Alvina looked at her slowly.
Alvina also was smiling to herself.
She went slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. From a
bush at the side she pulled two sweet-smelling roses. Then in the
drive she picked up Effie's flowers. Ciccio was standing outside the
gate.
"Allaye!" he said, in a soft, yearning voice.
"Mrs. Tuke sent you these roses," said Alvina, putting the flowers
through 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
gate and drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wall,
and put his arms round her, lifting her from her feet with
passionate yearning.
"Allaye!" he said. "I love you, Allaye, my beautiful, Allaye. I love
you, Allaye!" He held her fast to his breast and began to walk away
with her. His throbbing, muscular power seemed completely to envelop
her. He was just walking away with her down the road, clinging fast
to her, 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 to
Italy by myself, Allaye. Come with me, be married to me--Allaye,
Allaye--"
His voice was a strange, hoarse whisper just above her face, he
still held her in his throbbing, heavy embrace.
"Yes--yes!" she whispered. "Yes--yes! But put me down, Ciccio. Put
me 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 the
uneasy, 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 she
shuddered slightly.
"Yes!" she said. "I will come. But let me go now. Where is your
mandoline?"
He turned round and looked up the road.
"Nurse! You absolutely _must_ come. I can't bear it," cried the
strange voice of Mrs. Tuke.
Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, and
through 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 a
drawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly gripped her,
she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists hard on
her face.
"The pains have begun," said Alvina, hurrying to her.
"Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it!" cried the woman
in travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she
could. And from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the
Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night.
"E tu dic' Io part', addio!
T'alluntare di sta core,
Nel paese del amore
Tien' o cor' di non turnar'
--Ma nun me lasciar'--"
It was almost unendurable. But suddenly Mrs. Tuke became quite
still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two
jet-black plaits dropping on either side of her ivory face, her big
eyes fixed staring into space. At the line--
Ma nun me lasciar'--
she began to murmur softly to herself--"Yes, it's dreadful! It's
horrible! I can't understand it. What does it mean, that noise? It's
as bad as these pains. What does it mean? What does he say? I can
understand a little Italian--" She paused. And again came the sudden
complaint:
Ma nun me lasciar'--
"Ma nun me lasciar'--!" she murmured, repeating the music. "That
means--Don't leave me! Don't leave me! But why? Why shouldn't one
human being go away from another? What does it mean? That _awful_
noise! Isn't love the most horrible thing! I think it's horrible. It
just does one in, and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm
howling with one sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two
hellish animals howling through the night! I'm not myself, he's not
himself. Oh, I think it's horrible. What does he look like, Nurse?
Is he beautiful? Is he 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-hall
troupe."
"In a travelling music-hall troupe! How extraordinary! Why, how did
you 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 she
scrutinized Alvina's face. "You've had some effect on him, that's
evident," she said. Then she shuddered, and dabbed her nose with her
handkerchief. "Oh, the flesh is a _beastly_ thing!" she cried. "To
make a man howl outside there like that, because you're here. And to
make me howl because I've got a child inside me. It's unbearable!
What does he look like, really?"
"I don't know," said Alvina. "Not extraordinary. Rather a hefty
brute--"
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 a
glass of Tommy's famous port. Do let me see him. Yes do!" She
stretched out 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 a
gate-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
he saw 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. Nurse
says it was for her, but I enjoyed it also. Would you tell me the
words? 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. I
should like one too. And a biscuit." Again she stretched out her
long white arm from the sudden blue lining of her wrap, suddenly, as
if taken with the desire. Ciccio shifted on his feet, watching
Alvina pour out the port.
He swallowed his in one swallow, and put aside his glass.
"Have some more!" said Effie, watching over the top of her glass.
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 did
not 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 not
speak.
"I understood one line," said Effie, making big eyes at him. "_Ma
non 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 Nurse
to leave you? Do you want her to be with you _every minute_?"
He smiled a little contemptuously, awkwardly, and turned aside his
face, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance.
It was swift, and full of the terrible yearning which so horrified
her.
At the same moment a spasm crossed her face, her expression went
blank.
"Shall we go down?" said Alvina to Ciccio.
He turned immediately, with his cap in his hand, and followed. In
the hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline from the
chest. He could hear the stifled cries and exclamations from Mrs.
Tuke. At the same moment the door of the study opened, and the
musician, a burly 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 a minute," said Alvina.
But with a _Pf_! of angry indignation, he was climbing the stairs.
"She is going to have a child," said Alvina to Ciccio. "I shall have
to go back to her." And she held out her hand.
He did not take her hand, but looked down into her face with the
same slightly distorted look of overwhelming yearning, yearning
heavy and unbearable, in which he was carried towards her as on a
flood.
"Allaye!" he said, with a faint lift of the lip that showed his
teeth, like a pained animal: a curious sort of smile. He could not
go away.
"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 black
lashes, like some chained animal, haunted by doom. She turned and
left him standing.
She found Mrs. Tuke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets, and
crying: "No, Tommy dear. I'm awfully fond of you, you know I am. But
go away. Oh God, go away. And put a space between us. Put a space
between us!" she almost shrieked.
He pushed up his hair. He had been working on a big choral work
which he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented.
"Can't you stand my presence!" he shouted, and dashed downstairs.
"Nurse!" cried Effie. "It's _no use_ trying to get a grip on life.
You're just at the mercy of _Forces_," she shrieked angrily.
"Why not?" said Alvina. "There are good life-forces. Even the will
of God is a life-force."
"You don't understand! I want to be _myself_. And I'm _not_ myself.
I'm just torn to pieces by _Forces_. 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. Other
forces will put you together again."
"I don't want them to. I want to be myself. I don't want to be
nailed 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 in
life."
"But I hate life. It's nothing but a mass of forces. _I_ am
intelligent. Life isn't intelligent. Look at it at this moment. Do
you call this intelligent? Oh--Oh! It's horrible! Oh--!" She was
wild and sweating 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 had replied 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. And
life is a mass of unintelligent forces to which intelligent beings
are submitted. Prostituted. Oh--oh!!--prostituted--"
"Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence," said
Alvina.
"Bigger than intelligence!" shrieked Effie. "_Nothing_ is bigger
than intelligence. Your man is a hefty brute. His yellow eyes
_aren't_ intelligent. They're _animal_--"
"No," said Alvina. "Something else. I wish he didn't attract me--"
"There! Because you're not content to be at the mercy of _Forces_!"
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, and
the two men were drinking port in the study, discussing Italy, for
which Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated all
Italian music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all
through the night, Tommy being strictly forbidden to interfere
upstairs, or even 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 and ruffled head hanging over the edge of the
couch like some great loose fruit, Ciccio was on the floor, face
downwards, his face in his folded arms.
Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the inert Ciccio. In the
end, she had to leave him and rouse Tommy first: who in rousing fell
off the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably. So that he
turned on Alvina in a fury, and asked her what the hell she thought
she was doing. In answer to which Alvina held up a finger warningly,
and Tommy, 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. After
which they proceeded to wake Ciccio, who was like the dead doll in
Petrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he
smiled at Alvina, and said: "Allaye!"
The dark, waking smile upset her badly.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WEDDED WIFE
The upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough without
telling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for
a week-end, to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage
was presumably with Dr. Mitchell--though she had given him no
definite word. However, her month's notice was up, so she was
legally free. And therefore she packed a rather large bag with all
her ordinary things, and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the
nursing paraphernalia behind.
She knew Scarborough quite well: and quite quickly found rooms which
she had occupied before, in a boarding-house where she had stayed
with Miss Frost long ago. Having recovered from her journey, she
went out on to the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the
sea was before her. What was she to do?
She had run away from both men--from Ciccio as well as from
Mitchell. She had spent the last fortnight more or less avoiding the
pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free
from Mrs. Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men.
Mrs. Tuke had a baby daughter, and was getting well. Ciccio was
living with the Tukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him, and had half
engaged him as a sort of personal attendant: the sort of thing Tommy
would do, not having paid his butcher's bills.
So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sick
of being badgered about. She didn't really want to marry anybody.
Why should she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself.
How sick she was of other people and their importunities! What was
she to do? She decided to offer herself again, in a little while,
for war service--in a new town this time. Meanwhile she wanted to be
by herself.
She made excursions, she walked on the moors, in the brief but
lovely days of early October. For three days it was all so sweet and
lovely--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 the
dismalness, 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 the
war-hospitals at once: not to leave off until she had found it.
But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fiancé, was
with her on the quay of some harbour, and was reproaching her
bitterly, even reviling her, for having come too late, so that they
had missed their ship. They were there to catch the boat--and she,
for dilatoriness, was an hour late, and she could see the broad
stern of the steamer not far off. Just an hour late. She showed
Alexander her watch--exactly ten o'clock, instead of nine. And he
was more angry than ever, because her watch was slow. He pointed to
the harbour clock--it was ten minutes past ten.
When she woke up she was thinking of Alexander. It was such a long
time since she had thought of him. She wondered if he had a right to
be angry with her.
The day was still grey, with sweepy rain-clouds on the
sea--gruesome, objectionable. It was a prolongation of yesterday.
Well, despair was no good, and being miserable was no good either.
She got no satisfaction out of either mood. The only thing to do was
to act: seize hold of life and wring its neck.
She took the time-table that hung in the hall: the time-table, that
magic 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 meet
him--where? York--Leeds--Halifax--? She looked up the places in the
time-table, and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram, that she
would be at Leeds that evening. Would he get it in time? Chance it.
She hurried off and sent the telegram. Then she took a little
luggage, told the people of her house she would be back next day,
and set off. She did not like whirling in the direction of
Lancaster. But no matter.
She waited a long time for the train from the north to come in. The
first person she saw was Tommy. He waved to her and jumped from the
moving train.
"I say!" he said. "So glad to see you! Ciccio is with me. Effie
insisted on my coming to see you."
There was Ciccio climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant! This
was too much for her.
"So you came with your valet?" she said, as Ciccio stood with the
bag.
"Not a bit," said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man's
shoulder. "We're the best of friends. I don't carry bags because my
heart is rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you
better in uniform. Black doesn't suit you. You don't _mind_--"
"Yes, I do. But I've only got black clothes, except uniforms."
"Well look here now--! You're not going on anywhere tonight, are
you?"
"It is too late."
"Well now, let's turn into the hotel and have a talk. I'm acting
under Effie's orders, as you may gather--"
At the hotel Tommy gave her a letter from his wife: to the tune
of--don't marry this Italian, you'll put yourself in a wretched
hole, and one wants to avoid getting into holes. _I know_--concluded
Effie, on a sinister note.
Tommy sang another tune. Ciccio was a lovely chap, a rare chap, a
treat. He, Tommy, could quite understand any woman's wanting to
marry him--didn't agree a bit with Effie. But marriage, you know,
was so final. And then with this war on: you never knew how things
might turn out: 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's good enough by himself. But is he your
intellectual equal, nurse? After all, 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 a _mental_ treat--
Alvina thought of Mrs. Tuke, who complained that Tommy talked music
and pseudo-philosophy _by the hour_ when he was wound up. She saw
Effie's long, outstretched arm of repudiation and weariness.
"Of course!"--another of Mrs. Tuke's exclamations. "Why not _be_
atavistic if you _can_ be, and follow at a man's heel just because
he's a man. Be like barbarous women, a slave."
During all this, Ciccio stayed out of the room, as bidden. It was
not 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 came
to her, smiling softly, to take her in his arms. But she put the
chair between 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 room
till I came and took it."
"All right," said Alvina. "Go back to the Tukes." And she began
again to brush her hair.
Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes.
"What you mean?" he said. "I shan't go, Allaye. You come with me."
"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."
She shuddered 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. You
don't go to that other man. He is too old, not healthy. You come
with me 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 place
in the mountains, to my uncle's house. Fine house, you like it. Come
with 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. "I
don'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 inexpressibly
gentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he was
reaching 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,
and she 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 strange
mesmeric power over her, as if he possessed the sensual secrets, and
she was to be subjected.
"I can't," she moaned, trying to struggle. But she was powerless.
Dark and insidious he was: he had no regard for her. How could a
man'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? She was as if bewitched. She couldn't fight against
her bewitchment. Why? Because he seemed to her beautiful, so
beautiful. And this left her numb, submissive. Why must she see him
beautiful? Why was she will-less? She felt herself like one of the
old sacred prostitutes: a sacred prostitute.
In the morning, very early, they left for Scarborough, leaving a
letter for the sleeping Tommy. In Scarborough they went to the
registrar's office: they could be married in a fortnight's time. And
so the 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
always imagined, and always craved for. No. He loved her--but it was
in a dark, mesmeric way, which did not let her be herself. His love
did not stimulate her or excite her. It extinguished her. She had to
be the quiescent, obscure woman: she felt as if she were veiled. Her
thoughts were dim, in the dim back regions of consciousness--yet,
somewhere, she almost exulted. Atavism! Mrs. Tuke's word would play
in her mind. Was it atavism, this sinking into extinction under the
spell of Ciccio? Was it atavism, this strange, sleep-like submission
to his being? Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was. But it was also heavy
and sweet and rich. Somewhere, she was content. Somewhere even she
was vastly proud of the dark veiled eternal loneliness she felt,
under his shadow.
And so it had to be. She shuddered when she touched him, because he
was so beautiful, and she was so submitted. She quivered when he
moved as if she were his shadow. Yet her mind remained distantly
clear. She would criticize him, find fault with him, the things he
did. But _ultimately_ she could find no fault with him. She had lost
the power. She didn't care. She had lost the power to care about his
faults. Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference! She was drugged. And
she knew it. Would she ever wake out of her dark, warm coma? She
shuddered, and hoped not. Mrs. Tuke would say atavism. Atavism! The
word recurred curiously.
But under all her questionings she felt well; a nonchalance deep as
sleep, a passivity and indifference so dark and sweet she felt it
must be 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 by knowing she could not escape. She was Mrs. Marasca. What
was the good of trying to be Miss Houghton any longer? Marasca, the
bitter cherry. Some dark poison fruit she had eaten. How glad she
was she had eaten it! How beautiful he was! And no one saw it but
herself. For her it was so potent it made her tremble when she
noticed him. His beauty, his dark shadow. Ciccio really was much
handsomer since his marriage. He seemed to emerge. Before, he had
seemed to make himself invisible in the streets, in England,
altogether. But now something unfolded in him, he was a potent,
glamorous presence, people turned to watch him. There was a certain
dark, leopard-like pride in the air about him, something that the
English people watched.
He wanted to go to Italy. And now it was _his_ will which counted.
Alvina, as his wife, must submit. He took her to London the day
after the marriage. He wanted to get away to Italy. He did not like
being in England, a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spy craze.
In London they stayed at his cousin's house. His cousin kept a
restaurant in Battersea, and was a flourishing London Italian, a
real London product with all the good English virtues of cleanliness
and honesty 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. He received Alvina with an affable respect, as if she
were an asset in the family, but as if he were a little uneasy and
disapproving. She had _come down_, in marrying Ciccio. She had lost
caste. He rather seemed to exult over her degradation. For he was a
northernized Italian, he had accepted English standards. His
children were English brats. He almost patronized Alvina.
But then a long, slow look from her remote blue eyes brought him up
sharp, and he envied Ciccio suddenly, he was almost in love with her
himself. She disturbed him. She disturbed him in his new English
aplomb of a London _restaurateur_, and she disturbed in him the old
Italian dark soul, to which he was renegade. He tried treating her
as an English lady. But the slow, remote look in her eyes made this
fall flat. 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
of London in those wild early days of war. He was the one victor,
arching stealthily 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
curious to be in Battersea, in this English-Italian household, where
the children spoke English more readily than Italian. It was strange
to be high over the restaurant, to see the trees of the park, to
hear the clang of trams. It was strange to walk out and come to the
river. It was strange to feel the seethe of war and dread in the
air. But she did not question. She seemed steeped in the passional
influence of the man, as in some narcotic. She even forgot Mrs.
Tuke's atavism. Vague and unquestioning she went through the days,
she accompanied Ciccio into town, she went with him to make
purchases, or she sat by his side in the music hall, or she stayed
in her room and sewed, or she sat at meals with the Califanos, a
vague brightness on her face. And Mrs. Califano was very nice to
her, very gentle, though with a suspicion of malicious triumph,
mockery, beneath her gentleness. Still, she was nice and womanly,
hovering as she was between her English emancipation and her Italian
subordination. She half pitied Alvina, and was more than half
jealous of her.
Alvina was aware of nothing--only of the presence of Ciccio. It was
his physical presence which cast a spell over her. She lived within
his aura. And she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark
nature over her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly
within his presence, quivering within his influence, as if his blood
beat in her. She _knew_ she was subjected. One tiny corner of her
knew, and watched.
He was very happy, and his face had a real beauty. His eyes glowed with
lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, happy wild creature
seen remote under a bush. And he was very good to her. His tenderness
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 sink forever into
his warm, pulsating embrace.
Afterwards, later on, when she was inclined to criticize him, she
would remember the moment when she saw his face at the Italian
Consulate in London. There were many people at the Consulate,
clamouring for passports--a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They had
waited their turn and got inside--Ciccio was not good at pushing his
way. And inside a courteous tall old man with a white beard had
lifted the flap for Alvina to go inside the office and sit down to
fill in the form. She thanked the old man, who bowed as if he had a
reputation to keep up.
Ciccio followed, and it was he who had to sit down and fill up the
form, because she did not understand the Italian questions. She
stood at his side, watching the excited, laughing, noisy, east-end
Italians at the desk. The whole place had a certain free-and-easy
confusion, a human, unofficial, muddling liveliness which was not
quite like England, even though it was in the middle of London.
"What was your mother's name?" Ciccio was asking her. She turned to
him. He sat with the pen perched flourishingly at the end of his
fingers, suspended in the serious and artistic business of filling in a
form. And his face had a dark luminousness, like a dark transparence
which was shut and has now expanded. She quivered, as if it was more
than she could bear. For his face was open like a flower right to
the depths of his soul, a dark, lovely translucency, vulnerable to
the deep quick of his soul. The lovely, rich darkness of his southern
nature, so different from her own, exposing itself now in its passional
vulnerability, 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 his
questions. Then her eyes became sightless with tears, she stooped as if
to look at his writing, and quickly kissed his fingers that held the
pen, 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
faint smile, very beautiful to her, was on his face. What did he see
when he looked at her? She did not know, she did not know. And she
would never know. For an instant, she swore inside herself that God
Himself should not take her away from this man. She would commit
herself to him through every eternity. And then the vagueness came
over her again, she turned aside, photographically seeing the crowd
in the Consulate, but really unconscious. His movement as he rose
seemed to move her in her sleep, she turned to him at once.
It was early in November before they could leave for Italy, and her
dim, lustrous state lasted all the time. She found herself at
Charing Cross in the early morning, in all the bustle of catching
the Continental train. Giuseppe was there, and Gemma his wife, and
two of the children, besides three other Italian friends of Ciccio.
They all crowded up the platform. Giuseppe had insisted that Ciccio
should take second-class tickets. They were very early. Alvina and
Ciccio were installed in a second-class compartment, with all their
packages, Ciccio was pale, yellowish under his tawny skin, and
nervous. He stood excitedly on the platform talking in Italian--or
rather, in his own dialect--whilst Alvina sat quite still in her
corner. Sometimes one of the women or one of the children came to
say a few words to her, or Giuseppe hurried to her with illustrated
papers. They treated her as if she were some sort of invalid or
angel, now she was leaving. But most of their attention they gave to
Ciccio, talking at him rapidly all at once, whilst he answered, and
glanced in this way and that, under his fine lashes, and smiled his
old, nervous, meaningless smile. He was curiously 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 and
meaningful nods, which she could not interpret, but which were
fraught surely with good-fellowship.
Then they all kissed Ciccio. The men took him in their arms and
kissed him on either cheek, the children lifted their faces in eager
anticipation of the double kiss. Strange, how eager they were for
this embrace--how they all kept taking Ciccio's hand, one after the
other, whilst he smiled constrainedly and nervously.
CHAPTER XIV
THE JOURNEY ACROSS
The train began to move. Giuseppe ran alongside, holding Ciccio's
hand still; the women and children were crying and waving their
handkerchiefs, the other men were shouting messages, making strange,
eager gestures. And Alvina sat quite still, wonderingly. And so the
big, heavy train drew out, leaving the others small and dim on the
platform. It was foggy, the river was a sea of yellow beneath the
ponderous iron bridge. The morning was dim and dank.
The train was very full. Next to Alvina sat a trim Frenchwoman
reading _L'Aiglon_. There was a terrible encumbrance of packages and
luggage everywhere. Opposite her sat Ciccio, his black overcoat open
over his pale-grey suit, his black hat a little over his left eye.
He glanced at her from time to time, smiling constrainedly. She
remained very still. They ran through Bromley and out into the open
country. It was grey, with shivers of grey sunshine. On the downs
there was thin snow. The air in the train was hot, heavy with the
crowd and tense with excitement and uneasiness. The train seemed to
rush ponderously, 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
earth with its horizon walls of fog. The air was still. The sea
heaved with a sucking noise inside the dock. Alvina and Ciccio sat
aft on the second-class deck, their bags near them. He put a white
muffler round himself, Alvina hugged herself in her beaver scarf and
muff. She looked tender and beautiful in her still vagueness, and
Ciccio, hovering about her, was beautiful too, his estrangement gave
him a certain wistful nobility which for the moment put him beyond
all class inferiority. The passengers 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
the sea 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 know
why.
The wind was cold over the wintry sea, though the sun's beams were
warm. They rose, walked round the cabins. Other ships were at
sea--destroyers and battleships, grey, low, and sinister on the
water. Then a tall bright schooner glimmered far down the channel.
Some brown fishing smacks kept together. All was very still in the
wintry sunshine of the Channel.
So they turned to walk to the stern of the boat. And Alvina's heart
suddenly contracted. She caught Ciccio's arm, as the boat rolled
gently. 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-grey coffin slowly submerging. She watched it, fascinated and
terrified. It seemed to repudiate the sunshine, to remain
unilluminated, long and ash-grey and dead, with streaks of snow like
cerements. That was England! Her thoughts flew to Woodhouse, the
grey centre of it all. Home!
Her heart died within her. Never had she felt so utterly strange and
far-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-streaked substance of England slowly receding and sinking,
submerging. She felt she could not believe it. It was like looking
at something else. What? It was like a long, ash-grey coffin,
winter, slowly submerging in the sea. England?
She turned again to the sun. But clouds and veils were already
weaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreover. She
sat very still for a long time, almost an eternity. And when she
looked round again there was only a bank of mist behind, beyond the
sea: a bank of mist, and a few grey, stalking ships. She must watch
for the coast of France.
And there it was already, looming up grey and amorphous, patched
with snow. It had a grey, heaped, sordid look in the November light.
She had imagined Boulogne gay and brilliant. Whereas it was more
grey and dismal than England. But not that magical, mystic, phantom
look.
The ship slowly put about, and backed into the harbour. She watched
the quay approach. Ciccio was gathering up the luggage. Then came
the first cry one ever hears: "_Porteur! Porteur!_ Want a
_porteur_?" A porter in a blouse strung the luggage on his strap,
and Ciccio and Alvina entered the crush for the exit and the
passport inspection. There was a tense, eager, frightened crowd, and
officials shouting directions in French and English. Alvina found
herself at last before a table where bearded men in uniforms were
splashing open the big pink sheets of the English passports: she
felt strange and uneasy, that her passport was unimpressive and
Italian. The official scrutinized her, and asked questions of
Ciccio. Nobody asked her anything--she might have been Ciccio's
shadow. So they went through to the vast, crowded cavern of a
Customs house, where they found their porter waving to them in the
mob. Ciccio fought in the mob while the porter whisked off Alvina to
get seats in the big train. And at last she was planted once more in
a seat, with Ciccio's place reserved beside her. And there she sat,
looking across the railway lines at the harbour, 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 trotting behind.
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
to Paris. Everywhere was crowded, the train was stuffy without being
warm. Next to Alvina sat a large, fat, youngish Frenchman who
overflowed over her in a hot fashion. Darkness began to fall. The
train was very late. There were strange and frightening delays.
Strange lights appeared in the sky, everybody seemed to be listening
for strange noises. It was all such a whirl and confusion that
Alvina lost count, relapsed into a sort of stupidity. Gleams,
flashes, noises and then at last the frenzy of Paris.
It was night, a black city, and snow falling, and no train that
night across to the Gare de Lyon. In a state of semi-stupefaction
after all the questionings and examinings and blusterings, they
were finally allowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant
another wild tussle with a Paris taxi-driver, in the filtering snow.
So they were deposited in the Gare de Lyon.
And the first person who rushed upon them was Geoffrey, in a rather
grimy private's uniform. He had already seen some hard service, and
had a wild, bewildered look. He kissed Ciccio and burst into tears
on his shoulder, there in the great turmoil of the entrance hall of
the Gare de 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 back
now. Ciccio! Ciccio! I wanted so badly to see you. I shall never see
thee again, brother, my brother!" cried Gigi, and a sob shook him.
"Gigi! Mon Gigi. Tu as done regu 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 say _no_, brother," said Ciccio. But a spasm suddenly took him,
he pulled off his hat and put it over his face and sobbed into it.
"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 heel and marched
rapidly out of the station, his soiled soldier's overcoat flapping
in the wind at the door. Ciccio watched him go. Then he turned and
looked with haunted eyes into the eyes of Alvina. And then they
hurried down the desolate platform in the darkness. Many people,
Italians, largely, were camped waiting there, while bits of snow
wavered down. Ciccio bought food and hired cushions. The train
backed in. There was a horrible fight for seats, men scrambling
through windows. Alvina got a place--but Ciccio had to stay in the
corridor.
Then the long night journey through France, slow and blind. The
train was now so hot that the iron plate on the floor burnt Alvina's
feet. Outside she saw glimpses of snow. A fat Italian hotel-keeper
put on a smoking cap, covered the light, and spread himself before
Alvina. In the next carriage a child was screaming. It screamed all
the night--all the way from Paris to Chambéry it screamed. The train
came to sudden halts, and stood still in the snow. The hotel-keeper
snored. Alvina became almost comatose, in the burning heat of the
carriage. And again the train rumbled on. And again she saw glimpses
of stations, glimpses of snow, through the chinks in the curtained
windows. And again there was a jerk and a sudden halt, a drowsy
mutter from the sleepers, somebody uncovering the light, and
somebody covering it again, somebody looking out, somebody tramping
down the corridor, the child screaming.
The child belonged to two poor Italians--Milanese--a shred of a thin
little man, and a rather loose woman. They had five tiny children,
all boys: 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 the poor shred of a young father on the
platform.
When morning came, and the bleary people pulled the curtains, it was
a clear dawn, and they were in the south of France. There was no
sign of snow. The landscape was half southern, half Alpine. White
houses with brownish tiles stood among almond trees and cactus. It
was beautiful, and Alvina felt she had known it all before, in a
happier life. The morning was graceful almost as spring. She went
out in the corridor to talk to Ciccio.
He was on his feet with his back to the inner window, rolling
slightly to the motion of the train. His face was pale, he had that
sombre, haunted, unhappy look. Alvina, thrilled by the southern
country, 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 her
heart 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 said
nothing. He seemed far off from her. A wild unhappiness beat inside
her breast. She went down the corridor, away from him, to avoid this
new agony, which after all was not her agony. She listened to the
chatter of French and Italian in the corridor. She felt the
excitement and terror of France, inside the railway carriage: and
outside she saw white oxen slowly ploughing, beneath the lingering
yellow poplars of the sub-Alps, she saw peasants looking up, she saw
a woman holding a baby to her breast, watching the train, she saw
the excited, yeasty crowds at the station. And they passed a river,
and a great lake. And it all seemed bigger, nobler than England. She
felt vaster influences spreading around, the Past was greater, more
magnificent in these regions. For the first time the nostalgia of
the vast Roman and classic world took possession of her. And she
found it splendid. For the first time she opened her eyes on a
continent, the Alpine core of a continent. And for the first time
she realized what it was to escape from the smallish perfection of
England, into the grander imperfection of a great continent.
Near Chambéry they went down for breakfast to the restaurant car.
And secretly, she was very happy. Ciccio's distress made her uneasy.
But underneath she was extraordinarily relieved and glad. Ciccio did
not trouble her very much. The sense of the bigness of the lands
about her, the excitement of travelling with Continental people, the
pleasantness of her coffee and rolls and honey, the feeling that
vast events were taking place--all this stimulated her. She had
brushed, as it were, the fringe of the terror of the war and the
invasion. Fear was seething around her. And yet she was excited and
glad. The vast world was in one of its convulsions, and she was
moving amongst it. Somewhere, she believed in the convulsion, the
event elated her.
The train began to climb up to Modane. How wonderful the Alps
were!--what a bigness, an unbreakable power was in the mountains! Up
and up the train crept, and she looked at the rocky slopes, the
glistening peaks of snow in the blue heaven, the hollow valleys with
fir trees and low-roofed houses. There were quarries near the
railway, and men working. There was a strange mountain town,
dirty-looking. And still the train climbed up and up, in the hot
morning sunshine, creeping slowly round the mountain loops, so that
a little brown dog from 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 two unfamiliar engines snorting out their
smoke round the bend ahead. And the morning wore away to mid-day.
Ciccio became excited as they neared Modane, the frontier station.
His eye lit up again, he pulled himself together for the entrance
into Italy. Slowly the train rolled in to the dismal station. And
then a confusion indescribable, of porters and masses of luggage,
the unspeakable crush and crowd at the customs barriers, the more
intense crowd 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 went
through the passages. And there in the dirty station gang-ways and
big corridors dozens of Italians were lying on the ground, men,
women, children, camping with their bundles and packages in heaps.
They were either emigrants or refugees. Alvina had never seen people
herd about like cattle, dumb, brute cattle. It impressed her. She
could not grasp that an Italian labourer would lie down just where
he was tired, in the street, on a station, in any corner, like a
dog.
In the afternoon they were slipping down the Alps towards Turin. And
everywhere was snow--deep, white, wonderful snow, beautiful and
fresh, glistening in the afternoon light all down the mountain
slopes, on the railway track, almost seeming to touch the train. And
twilight was falling. And at the stations people crowded in once
more.
It had been dark a long time when they reached Turin. Many people
alighted from the train, many surged to get in. But Ciccio and
Alvina had seats side by side. They were becoming tired now. But
they were in Italy. Once more they went down for a meal. And then
the train set off again in the night for Alessandria and Genoa, Pisa
and Rome.
It was night, the train ran better, there was a more easy sense in
Italy. Ciccio talked a little with other travelling companions. And
Alvina settled her cushion, and slept more or less till Genoa. After
the long wait at Genoa she dozed off again. She woke to see the sea
in the moonlight beneath her--a lovely silvery sea, coming right to
the carriage. The train seemed to be tripping on the edge of the
Mediterranean, round bays, and between dark rocks and under castles,
a night-time fairy-land, for hours. She watched spell-bound:
spell-bound by the magic of the world itself. And she thought to
herself: "Whatever life may be, and whatever horror men have made
of it, the world is a lovely place, a magic place, something to
marvel over. The world is an amazing place."
This thought dozed her off again. Yet she had a consciousness of
tunnels and hills and of broad marshes pallid under a moon and a
coming dawn. And in the dawn there was Pisa. She watched the word
hanging in the station in the dimness: "Pisa." Ciccio told her
people were changing for Florence. It all seemed wonderful to
her--wonderful. She sat and watched the black station--then she
heard the sound of the child's trumpet. And it did not occur to her
to connect the train's moving on with the sound of the trumpet.
But she saw the golden dawn, a golden sun coming out of level
country. She loved it. She loved being in Italy. She loved the
lounging carelessness of the train, she liked having Italian money,
hearing the Italians round her--though they were neither as
beautiful nor as melodious as she expected. She loved watching the
glowing antique landscape. She read and read again: "E pericoloso
sporgersi," and "E vietato fumare," and the other little magical
notices on the carriages. Ciccio told her what they meant, and how
to say them. And sympathetic Italians opposite at once asked him if
they were married and who and what 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.
"Not so nice as this," said Alvina.
"Eh?"
Alvina repeated herself.
"Not so nice? Oh? No! Fog, eh!" The fat man whisked his fingers in
the air, to indicate fog in the atmosphere. "But nice contry!
Very--_convenient_."
He sat up in triumph, having achieved this word. And the
conversation once more became a spatter of Italian. The women were
very interested. They looked at Alvina, at every atom of her. And
she divined that they were wondering if she was already with child.
Sure enough, they were asking Ciccio in Italian if she was "making
him a baby." 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, with wonderfully greasy fingers, and they drank red
wine in big throatfuls out of bottles, and they offered their fare
to Ciccio and Alvina, and were charmed when she said to Ciccio she
_would_ have some bread and sausage. He picked the strips off the
sausage for her with his fingers, and made her a sandwich with a
roll. The women watched her bite it, and bright-eyed and pleased
they said, nodding their heads--
"Buono? Buono?"
And she, who knew this word, understood, and replied:
"Yes, good! Buono!" nodding her head likewise. Which caused immense
satisfaction. The women showed the whole paper of sausage slices,
and nodded 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 Ciccio
interposed, shaking his head. But one woman ostentatiously wiped a
bottle mouth with a clean handkerchief, and offered the bottle to
Alvina, saying:
"Vino buono. Vecchio! Vecchio!" nodding violently and indicating
that 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 of
indifference.
So she drank some of the wine, and it dribbled on to her chin. She
was not good at managing a bottle. But she liked the feeling of
warmth it 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 train
pulsed on till they came to Rome. There was again, the wild scramble
with luggage, a general leave taking, and then the masses of people
on the station at Rome. _Roma! Roma!_ What was it to Alvina but a
name, and a crowded, excited station, and Ciccio running after the
luggage, 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.
In a daze of increasing weariness Alvina watched the dreary, to her
sordid-seeming Campagna that skirts the railway, the broken aqueduct
trailing in the near distance over the stricken plain. She saw a
tram-car, far out from everywhere, running up to cross the railway.
She saw it was going to Frascati.
And slowly the hills approached--they passed the vines of the
foothills, the reeds, and were among the mountains. Wonderful little
towns perched fortified on rocks and peaks, mountains rose straight
up off the level plain, like old topographical prints, rivers
wandered in the wild, rocky places, it all seemed ancient and
shaggy, savage still, under all its remote civilization, this region
of the Alban Mountains south of Rome. So the train clambered up and
down, and went round corners.
They had not far to go now. Alvina was almost too tired to care what
it would be like. They were going to Ciccio's native village. They
were to stay in the house of his uncle, his mother's brother. This
uncle had been a model in London. He had built a house on the land
left by Ciccio's grandfather. He lived alone now, for his wife was
dead and his children were abroad. Giuseppe was his son: Giuseppe of
Battersea, in whose house Alvina had stayed.
This much Alvina knew. She knew that a portion of the land down at
Pescocalascio belonged to Ciccio: a bit of half-savage, ancient
earth that had been left to his mother by old Francesco Califano,
her hard-grinding peasant father. This land remained integral in the
property, and was worked by Ciccio's two uncles, Pancrazio and
Giovanni. Pancrazio was the well-to-do uncle, who had been a model
and had built a "villa." Giovanni was not much good. That was how
Ciccio put it.
They expected Pancrazio to meet them at the station. Ciccio
collected his bundles and put his hat straight and peered out of the
window into the steep mountains of the afternoon. There was a town
in the opening between steep hills, a town on a flat plain that ran
into the mountains like a gulf. The train drew up. They had arrived.
Alvina was so tired she could hardly climb down to the platform. It
was about four o'clock. Ciccio looked up and down for Pancrazio, but
could 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
registered boxes. A porter came and asked her questions, of which
she understood nothing. Then at last came Ciccio, shouldering one
small trunk, whilst a porter followed, shouldering another. Out they
trotted, leaving Alvina abandoned with the pile of hand luggage. She
waited. The train drew out. Ciccio and the porter came bustling
back. They took her out through the little gate, to where, in the
flat desert space behind the railway, stood two great drab
motor-omnibuses, and a rank of open carriages. Ciccio was handing up
the handbags to the roof of one of the big post-omnibuses. When it
was finished the man on the roof came down, and Ciccio gave him and
the station porter each sixpence. The station-porter immediately
threw his coin on the ground with a gesture of 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 amicably gave 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 at
her side. They were no sooner seated than a voice was heard, in
beautifully-modulated English:
"You are here! Why how have I missed you?"
It was Pancrazio, a smallish, rather battered-looking, shabby
Italian of sixty or more, with a big moustache and reddish-rimmed
eyes and a deeply-lined face. He was presented to Alvina.
"How have I missed you?" he said. "I was on the station when the
train came, and I did not see you."
But it was evident he had taken wine. He had no further opportunity
to talk. The compartment was full of large, mountain-peasants with
black hats and big cloaks and overcoats. They found Pancrazio a seat
at the far end, and there he sat, with his deeply-lined, impassive
face and slightly glazed eyes. He had yellow-brown eyes like Ciccio.
But in the uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way, the
eyes looked dull like those of some old, rakish tom-cat, they were
slightly rimmed with red. A curious person! And his English, though
slow, was beautifully pronounced. He glanced at Alvina with slow,
impersonal glances, not at all a stare. And he sat for the most part
impassive and abstract as a Red Indian.
At the last moment a large black priest was crammed in, and the door
shut behind him. Every available seat was let down and occupied. The
second great post-omnibus rolled away, and then the one for Mola
followed, rolling Alvina and Ciccio over the next stage of their
journey.
The sun was already slanting to the mountain tops, shadows were
falling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged at a great
speed along a straight white road, which cut through the cultivated
level straight towards the core of the mountain. By the road-side,
peasant men in cloaks, peasant women in full-gathered dresses with
white bodices or blouses having great full sleeves, tramped in the
ridge of grass, driving cows or goats, or leading heavily-laden
asses. The women had coloured kerchiefs on their heads, like the
women Alvina remembered at the Sunday-School treats, who used to
tell fortunes with green little love-birds. And they all tramped
along towards the blue shadow of the closing-in mountains, leaving
the peaks of the town behind on the left.
At a branch-road the 'bus suddenly stopped, and there it sat calmly
in the road beside an icy brook, in the falling twilight. Great
moth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood; the
peasants left behind began to come up again, in picturesque groups.
The icy brook tinkled, goats, pigs and cows wandered and shook their
bells along the grassy borders of the road and the flat, unbroken
fields, being driven slowly home. Peasants jumped out of the omnibus
on to the road, to chat--and a sharp air came in. High overhead, as
the sun went down, 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 of
the omnibus came running down the wild side-road, everybody
clambered in, and away the vehicle charged, into the neck of the
plain. With a growl and a rush it swooped up the first loop of the
ascent. Great precipices rose on the right, the ruddiness of sunset
above them. The road wound and swirled, trying to get up the pass.
The omnibus pegged slowly up, then charged round a corner, swirled
into another loop, and pegged heavily once more. It seemed dark
between the closing-in mountains. The rocks rose very high, the
road looped and swerved from one side of the wide defile to the
other, the vehicle pulsed and persisted. Sometimes there was a
house, sometimes a wood of oak-trees, sometimes the glimpse of a
ravine, then the tall white glisten of snow above the earthly
blackness. And still they went on and on, up the darkness.
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 new
turn, she thought it was coming out on the top of this hollow
between the heights. But no--the road coiled right away again.
A wild little village came in sight. This was the destination. Again
no. Only the tall, handsome mountain youth who had sat across from
her, descended grumbling because the 'bus had brought him past his
road, the driver having refused to pull up. Everybody expostulated
with him, and he dropped into the shadow. The big priest squeezed
into his place. The 'bus wound on and on, and always towards that
hollow sky-line between the high peaks.
At last they ran up between buildings nipped between high
rock-faces, and out into a little market-place, the crown of the
pass. The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended.
There she was, in a wild centre of an old, unfinished little
mountain town. The façade of a church rose from a small eminence. A
white road ran to the right, 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 air was icy. People stood darkly,
excitedly about, women with an odd, shell-pattern head-dress of
gofered linen, something like a parlour-maid's cap, came and stared
hard. They were hard-faced mountain women.
Pancrazio was talking to Ciccio in dialect.
"I couldn't get a cart to come down," he said in English. "But I
shall find one here. Now what will you do? Put the luggage in
Grazia's place while you wait?--"
They went across the open place to a sort of shop called the Post
Restaurant. It was a little hole with an earthen floor and a smell
of cats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier, in
which charcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Ciccio
ordered coffee with rum--and the hard-faced Grazia, in her unfresh
head-dress, dabbled the little dirty coffee-cups in dirty water,
took the coffee-pot out of the ashes, poured in the old black
boiling coffee three parts full, and slopped 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 lips
smartly. 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 red
slice of meat; to a baker, and got enormous flat loaves. Sugar and
coffee they bought. And Pancrazio lamented in his elegant English
that no butter was to be obtained. Everywhere the hard-faced women
came and stared into Alvina's face, asking questions. And both
Ciccio and Pancrazio answered rather coldly, with some _hauteur_.
There was evidently not too much intimacy between the people of
Pescocalascio and these semi-townfolk of Ossona. Alvina felt as if
she were in a strange, hostile country, in the darkness of the
savage little mountain town.
At last they were ready. They mounted into a two-wheeled cart,
Alvina and Ciccio behind, Pancrazio and the driver in front, the
luggage promiscuous. The bigger things were left for the morrow. It
was icy cold, with a flashing darkness. The moon would not rise till
later.
And so, without any light but that of the stars, the cart went
spanking and rattling downhill, down the pale road which wound down
the head of the valley to the gulf of darkness below. Down in the
darkness into the darkness they rattled, wildly, and without heed,
the young driver making strange noises to his dim horse, cracking a
whip and asking endless questions of Pancrazio.
Alvina sat close to Ciccio. He remained almost impassive. The wind
was cold, the stars flashed. And they rattled down the rough, broad
road under the rocks, down and down in the darkness. Ciccio sat
crouching forwards, staring ahead. Alvina was aware of mountains,
rocks, and stars.
"I didn't know it was so _wild_!" she said.
"It is not much," he said. There was a sad, plangent note in his
voice. 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 needed
protecting. It was all wonderful and amazing to her. She could not
understand why he seemed upset and in a sort of despair. To her
there was 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 the
wall, 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 il 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 high-way
in the valley. Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes.
Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. She felt she was quite,
quite lost. She had gone out of the world, over the border, into
some place of mystery. She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to
England--all lost.
They passed through a darkness of woods, with a swift sound of cold
water. And then suddenly the cart pulled up. Some one came out of a
lighted doorway in the darkness.
"We must get down here--the cart doesn't go any further," said
Pancrazio.
"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-Italian
female voice. It was another relation of Ciccio's. Alvina stared and
looked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who
stood in 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 looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at
a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was
pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave.
"Warm yourself," said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of
fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down.
The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards.
Ciccio came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively,
watching Alvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature.
Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect.
There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came and
said 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 comfortable
here, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care for
it--"
Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows in
their 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 Alvina
followed him out on to the high-road.
From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a
lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes.
His legs 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 quite
sensible." Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect.
Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern to
Pancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the
ass. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the
lantern the things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather
precarious heap. 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 the
beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark high-way,
stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading
the ass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the
quiet step of the ass.
She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried the
lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were
trees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisy
water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountain
high-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead.
"How strange it is!" said Alvina to Ciccio. "Are you glad you have
come home?"
"It isn't my home," he replied, as if the word fretted him. "Yes, I
like to see it again. But it isn't the place for young people to
live in. You will see how you like it."
She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. The
latter now came running to catch them up.
"I think you will be tired," he said. "You ought to have stayed at
my 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 took
the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A
great flat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little
valise. Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing
him the lantern. 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 took
the lantern from Giovanni.
"We must leave the road here," he said.
And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small
track descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvina
ventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light.
In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all picked
their 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 place
seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes,
along the far shore.
Pancrazio swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through the
uneven boulders till they came to the river itself--not very wide,
but rushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over.
Alvina crossed rather tremulous, followed by Pancrazio with the
light, and Ciccio with the bread and the valise. They could hear the
click of the ass and the ejaculations of Giovanni.
Pancrazio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw the
dim 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 the
stream. Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turned
upstream.
"Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense," his voice
floated angrily across the chill darkness.
Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony river-bed, in
the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the
men crawl upstream with the lantern.
Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping
down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up
with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And
the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long
deliberation he drew back. Angry language sounded through the
crystal air. The group with the lantern moved again upstream,
becoming smaller.
Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lantern looked small up the
distance. But there--a clocking, shouting, splashing sound.
"He is going over," said Ciccio.
Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern.
"Oh the stupid 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. You
might kill him before he should go."
They picked their way across the river bed, to the wild scrub and
bushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which
came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And
then they took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks.
Alvina felt the uneven scramble a great effort. But she got up.
Again they waited for the ass. And then again they struck off to
the right, under some trees.
A house appeared dimly.
"Is that it?" said Alvina.
"No. It belongs to me. But that is not my house. A few steps
further. 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
suddenly they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking
house: but it was all dark.
"Oh!" exclaimed Pancrazio, "they have done nothing that I told
them." 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 the
frosty starlight under the wild house. Pancrazio disappeared round
the back. Ciccio talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy, as if he felt
depressed.
Pancrazio returned with the lantern, and opened the big door. Alvina
followed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farm
implements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, and
whence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse of
lantern-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 unswept stone floor: iron-barred windows, rather
small, in the deep-thickness of the wall, one-half shut with a drab
shutter. It was rather like a room on the stage, gloomy, not meant
to be lived in.
"I will make a light," said Pancrazio, taking a lamp from the
mantel-piece, and proceeding to wind it up.
Ciccio stood behind Alvina, silent. He had put down the bread and
valise 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 great
black chimney, it really was. But Ciccio did not understand. He
smiled gloomily.
The lamp was lighted. Alvina looked round in wonder.
"Now I will make a fire. You, Ciccio, will help Giovanni with the
donkey," said Pancrazio, scuttling with the lantern.
Alvina looked at the room. There was a wooden settle in front of the
hearth, stretching its back to the room. There was a little table
under a square, recessed window, on whose sloping ledge were
newspapers, scattered letters, nails and a hammer. On the table were
dried beans and two maize cobs. In a corner were shelves, with two
chipped enamel plates, and a small table underneath, on which stood
a bucket of water with a dipper. Then there was a wooden chest, two
little chairs, and a litter of faggots, cane, vine-twigs, bare
maize-hubs, oak-twigs filling the 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 be
uncomfortable in my poor home. I have no woman, nothing, everything
is wrong--"
He broke the pieces of cane and kindled them in the hearth. Soon
there 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. "I
am so hungry."
"You had better keep your coat on," said Pancrazio. "The room is
cold." Which it was, ice-cold. She shuddered a little. She took off
her hat and fur.
"Shall we fry some meat?" said Pancrazio.
He took a frying-pan, found lard in the wooden chest--it was the
food-chest--and proceeded to fry pieces of meat in a frying-pan over
the 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 two
enamel plates and one soup-plate, three penny iron forks and two old
knives, and a little grey, coarse salt in a wooden bowl. These he
placed on the seat of the settle in front of the fire. Ciccio was
silent.
The settle was dark and greasy. Alvina feared for her clothes. But
she sat with her enamel plate and her impossible fork, a piece of
meat and 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 large mouthfuls.
"I think it's fun," said Alvina.
He looked at her with dark, haunted, gloomy eyes. She wondered what
was 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 wrinkled
pears, and green, round grapes, and walnuts, on a white cloth, and
presented them.
"I think my pears are still good," he said. "You must eat them, and
excuse my uncomfortable house."
Giovanni came in with a big bowl of soup and a bottle of milk. There
was room only for three on the settle before the hearth. He pushed
his chair 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 a simple, kindly, slightly imbecile face. All the men kept
their hats on.
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,
and handed the bowl to Giovanni--who protested and tried to
refuse--but accepted, and ate ten spoonfuls, then handed the bowl
back to his brother, with the spoon. So they finished the bowl
between them. Then Pancrazio found wine--a whitish wine, not very
good, for which he apologized. And he invited Alvina to coffee.
Which she accepted gladly.
For though the fire was warm in front, behind was very cold.
Pancrazio stuck a long pointed stick down the handle of a saucepan,
and gave 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 tube or blow-pipe, which rested on two little feet at the far
end. This he gave to Giovanni to blow the fire.
Giovanni was a fire-worshipper. His eyes sparkled as he took the
blowing tube. He put fresh faggots behind the fire--though Pancrazio
forbade him. He arranged the burning faggots. And then softly he
blew a red-hot fire for the coffee.
"Basta! Basta!" said Ciccio. But Giovanni blew on, his eyes
sparkling, looking to Alvina. He was making the fire beautiful for
her.
There was one cup, one enamelled mug, one little bowl. This was the
coffee-service. Pancrazio noisily ground the coffee. He seemed to do
everything, old, stooping as he was.
At last Giovanni took his leave--the kettle which hung on the hook
over 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 black
kettle--then Alvina. The men still had their hats on. Their boots
tramped noisily on the bare stairs.
The bedroom was very cold. It was a fair-sized room with a concrete
floor and white walls, and window-door opening on a little balcony.
There were two high white beds on opposite sides of the room. The
wash-stand was a little tripod thing.
The air was very cold, freezing, the stone floor was dead cold to
the 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 light on dazzling white snow tops, glimmering and marvellous in
the evanescent night. She went out for a moment on to the balcony.
It was a wonder-world: the moon over the snow heights, the pallid
valley-bed away below; the river hoarse, and round about her,
scrubby, blue-dark foothills with twiggy trees. Magical it all
was--but so cold.
"You had better shut the door," said Ciccio.
She came indoors. She was dead tired, and stunned with cold, and
hopelessly dirty after that journey. Ciccio had gone to bed without
washing.
"Why does the bed rustle?" she asked him.
It was stuffed with dry maize-leaves, the dry sheathes from the
cobs--stuffed enormously high. He rustled like a snake among dead
foliage.
Alvina washed her hands. There was nothing to do with the water but
throw it out of the door. Then she washed her face, thoroughly, in
good hot 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 almost
stupefied with weariness and the cold, bruising air. Blindly she
crept into the high, rustling bed. But it was made high in the
middle. And it was icy cold. It shocked her almost as if she had
fallen into water. She shuddered, and became semi-conscious with
fatigue. The blankets were heavy, heavy. She was dazed with
excitement and wonder. She felt vaguely 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 was
cold. A real terror took hold of her. Ciccio in his bed was quite
still. Everything seemed electric with horror. She felt she would
die instantly, 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 she would be transfixed.
Making a violent effort she sat up. The silence of Ciccio in his bed
was 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--lost utterly.
The knowledge sank into her like ice. Then deliberately she got out
of bed and went across to him. He was horrible and frightening, but
he was warm. She felt his power and his warmth invade her and
extinguish her. The mad and desperate passion that was in him sent
her completely unconscious again, completely unconscious.
CHAPTER XV
THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO
There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut
off from everything she belonged to. Ovid isolated in Thrace might
well lament. The soul itself needs its own mysterious nourishment.
This nourishment lacking, nothing is well.
At Pescocalascio it was the mysterious influence of the mountains
and valleys themselves which seemed always to be annihilating the
Englishwoman: nay, not only her, but the very natives themselves.
Ciccio and Pancrazio clung to her, essentially, as if she saved them
also from extinction. It needed all her courage. Truly, she had to
support the souls of the two men.
At first she did not realize. She was only stunned with the
strangeness of it all: startled, half-enraptured with the terrific
beauty 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 to
overthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country has its
potent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantly
refuse our living culture. And Alvina had struck one of them, here
on the edge of the Abruzzi.
She was not in the village of Pescocalascio itself. That was a long
hour's walk away. Pancrazio's house was the chief of a tiny hamlet
of three houses, called Califano because the Califanos had made it.
There was the ancient, savage hole of a house, quite windowless,
where Pancrazio and Ciccio's mother had been born: the family home.
Then there was Pancrazio's villa. And then, a little below, another
newish, modern house in a sort of wild meadow, inhabited by the
peasants who worked the land. Ten minutes' walk away was another
cluster of seven or eight houses, where Giovanni lived. But there
was no shop, no post nearer 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
hills half wild with twiggy brown oak-trees and marshes and broom
heaths, half cultivated, in a wild, scattered fashion. Lovely, in
the lost hollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing with
two great white oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wild
scrub that bordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered,
massive desert and across stream to the other scrubby savage shore,
and so up to the high-road. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina would
accompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid. And her sense of
the beauty of the place 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. And
then gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, already
beginning to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again he
would balk the stream, while a violet-blue dusk descended on the
white, wide stream-bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark,
and in heaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the near
mountains was burning rose, against the dark-blue heavens. How
unspeakably lovely it was, no one could ever tell, the grand, pagan
twilight of the valleys, savage, cold, with a sense of ancient gods
who knew the right for human sacrifice. It stole away the soul of
Alvina. She felt transfigured in it, clairvoyant in another mystery
of life. A savage hardness came in her heart. The gods who had
demanded human sacrifice were quite right, immutably right. The
fierce, savage gods who dipped their lips in blood, these were the
true gods.
The terror, the agony, the nostalgia of the heathen past was a
constant 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 in the 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 oxen across a small track of land turned up in the heathen
hollow, her soul would go all faint, she would almost swoon with
realization of the world that had gone before. And Ciccio was so
silent, there seemed so much dumb magic and anguish in him, as if he
were for ever afraid of himself and the thing he was. He seemed, in
his silence, to _concentrate_ upon her so terribly. She believed she
would not live.
Sometimes she would go gathering acorns, large, fine acorns, a
precious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object of
veneration. Silently she would crouch filling the pannier. And far
off she would hear the sound of Giovanni chopping wood, of Ciccio
calling to the oxen or Pancrazio making noises to the ass, or the
sound of a peasant'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 very like despair. No one would ever find her. She had
gone beyond the world into the pre-world, she had reopened on the
old eternity.
And then Maria, the little elvish old wife of Giovanni, would come
up with the cows. One cow she held by a rope round its horns, and
she hauled it from the patches of young corn into the rough grass,
from the little plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria wore
the full-pleated white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a red
kerchief on her head. But her dress was dirty, and her face was
dirty, and the big gold rings of her ears hung from ears which
perhaps had never been washed. She was rather smoke-dried too, from
perpetual wood-smoke.
Maria in her red kerchief hauling the white cow, and screaming at
it, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afraid of
cows. And then, screaming high in dialect, Maria would talk to her.
Alvina smiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was not
strictly a human speech. It was rather like the crying of
half-articulate animals. It certainly was not Italian. And yet
Alvina by dint of constant hearing began 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 with
each other. For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines,
and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They loved
her that she would strip maize-cobs or pick acorns. But they were
all anxious to serve her. And it seemed as if they needed some one
to serve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certain
magic glamour for them, and so long as she was happy, it was a
supreme joy and relief to them to have her there. But it seemed to
her she would not live.
And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingled
with sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and the
house inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by
going about constantly working, dumb and elemental. But what was
Alvina to do?
For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were the
kitchen and Alvina's bedroom: and the kitchen, with its little
grated windows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken pane
and must keep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a dark
cavern vaulted and bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settle
before the fire, the hard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keep
the fire going, with faggots of green oak. But the smoke hurt her
chest, she was not clean for one moment, and she could do nothing
else. The bedroom again was just impossibly cold. And there was no
other place. And from far away came the wild braying of an ass,
primeval and desperate in the snow.
The house was quite large; but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on the
left of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of the
weather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, was
a big, long apartment where Pancrazio kept implements and tools and
potatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hopped
unexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, was
the cantina, 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 the
opening of a sort of barn, a great wire-netting behind which showed
a glow of orange maize-cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were four
rooms. But Alvina's room alone was furnished. Pancrazio slept in the
unfurnished bedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was a
room with litter in it, a chest of drawers, and rubbish of old books
and photographs Pancrazio had brought from England. There was a
battered photograph of Lord Leighton, among others. The fourth room,
approached through the corn-chamber, was always locked.
Outside was just as hopeless. There had been a little garden within
the stone enclosure. But fowls, geese, and the ass had made an end
of this. Fowl-droppings were everywhere, indoors and out, the ass
left his pile of droppings to steam in the winter air on the
threshold, while his heartrending bray rent the air. Roads there
were none: only deep tracks, like profound ruts with rocks in them,
in the hollows, and rocky, grooved tracks over the brows. The hollow
grooves were full of mud and water, and one struggled slipperily
from rock to rock, or along narrow 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 of model-valet! Had he not _loved_ his English gentlemen? Even
now, he was infinitely happier performing these little attentions
for Alvina than attending to his wretched domains.
Ciccio rose early, and went about in the hap-hazard, useless way of
Italians all day long, getting nothing done. Alvina came out of the
icy bedroom to the black kitchen. Pancrazio would be gallantly
heating milk for her, at the end of a long stick. So she would sit
on the settle and drink her coffee and milk, into which she dipped
her dry bread. Then the day was before her.
She washed her cup and her enamelled plate, and she tried to clean
the kitchen. But Pancrazio had on the fire a great black pot,
dangling from the chain. He was boiling food for the eternal
pig--the only creature for which any cooking was done. Ciccio was
tramping in with faggots. Pancrazio went in and out, back and forth
from his pot.
Alvina stroked her brow and decided on a method. Once she was rid of
Pancrazio, she would wash every cup and plate and utensil in boiling
water. Well, at last Pancrazio went off with his great black pan,
and she set to. But there were not six pieces of crockery in the
house, and not more than six cooking utensils. These were soon
scrubbed. Then she scrubbed the two little tables and the shelves.
She lined the food-chest with clean paper. She washed the high
window-ledges and the narrow mantel-piece, that had large mounds of
dusty candle-wax, in deposits. Then she tackled the settle. She
scrubbed it also. Then she looked at the floor. And even she,
English housewife as she was, realized the futility of trying to
wash it. As well try to wash the earth itself outside. It was just a
piece of stone-laid earth. She swept it as well as she could, and
made a little order in the faggot-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 much
more. Maria had kept scuffling admiringly in and out, crying her
wonderment and approval. She had most ostentatiously chased out an
obtrusive hen, from this temple of cleanliness. And that was all.
It was hopeless. The same black walls, the same floor, the same cold
from behind, the same green-oak wood-smoke, the same bucket of water
from the well--the same come-and-go of aimless busy men, the same
cackle of wet hens, the same hopeless nothingness.
Alvina stood up against it for a time. And then she caught a bad
cold, and was wretched. Probably it was the wood-smoke. But her
chest was 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 was hurt with smoke, and perpetually cold behind her
neck. And Pancrazio rather resented the amount of faggots consumed
for nothing. The only hope would have been in work. But there was
nothing in that house to be done. 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 frying pan. Then Pancrazio decreed that Maria should
prepare macaroni with the tomato sauce, and thick vegetable soup,
and sometimes polenta. This coarse, heavy food was wearying beyond
words.
Alvina began to feel she would die, in the awful comfortless
meaninglessness of it all. True, sunny days returned and some magic.
But she was weak and feverish with her cold, which would not get
better. So that even in the sunshine the crude comfortlessness and
inferior 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 a
little sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looked at him without
answering. He ducked and went away.
"We will make a fire-place in the other bedroom," said Pancrazio.
No sooner said than done. Ciccio persuaded Alvina to stay in bed a
few days. She was thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rare
come-and-go. Pancrazio, Ciccio, Giovanni, Maria and a mason all set
about the fire-place. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carrying
stone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvina's doorway, with
her burden perched aloft, to shout a few unintelligible words. In
the intervals of lime-carrying she brought the invalid her soup or
her coffee 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 the
mountains 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
the market in Ossona. They left the house by starlight, but dawn
was coming by the time they reached the river. At the high-road,
Pancrazio harnessed the ass, and after endless delay they jogged off
to Ossona. The dawning mountains were wonderful, dim-green and mauve
and rose, the ground rang with frost. Along the roads many peasants
were trooping to market, women in their best dresses, some of thick
heavy silk with the white, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green,
lavender, dark-red, with gay kerchiefs on the head: men muffled in
cloaks, treading silently in their pointed skin sandals: asses with
loads, carts full of peasants, a belated cow.
The market was lovely, there in the crown of the pass, in the old
town, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pigs, goats
stood and lay about under the bare little trees on the platform high
over the valley: some one had kindled a great fire of brush-wood,
and men crowded round, out of the blue frost. From laden asses
vegetables were unloaded, from little carts all kinds of things,
boots, pots, tin-ware, hats, sweet-things, and heaps of corn and
beans and seeds. By eight o'clock in the December morning the market
was in full swing: a great crowd of handsome mountain people, all
peasants, nearly all in costume, with different head-dresses.
Ciccio and Pancrazio and Alvina went quietly about. They bought pots
and pans and vegetables and sweet-things and thick rush matting and
two wooden arm-chairs and one old soft arm-chair, going quietly and
bargaining modestly among the crowd, as Anglicized Italians do.
The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock, and then, from
the terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderful
sight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the black
hats of the men, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the pale
lovely cattle, the many tethered asses--and she wondered if she
would die before she became one with it altogether. It was
impossible for her to become one with it altogether. Ciccio would
have to take her to England again, or to America. He was always
hinting at America.
But then, Italy might enter the war. Even here it was the great
theme of conversation. She looked down on the seethe of the market.
The sun was warm on her. Ciccio and Pancrazio were bargaining for
two cowskin rugs: she saw Ciccio standing with his head rather
forward. Her husband! She felt her heart die away within her.
All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did?--the same
sort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believed
they did. The same helpless passion for the man, the same remoteness
from the world's actuality? Probably, under all their tension of
money and money-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality and rather
horrible religion, probably they felt the same. She was one with
them. But she could 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 thrilling
in her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous
to her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up
for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty
look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicate
light for him, there beyond all the women. He came straight towards
her, smiling his slow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if he
lost her. She knew how he loved her--almost inhumanly, elementally,
without communication. And she stood with her hand to her side, her
face frightened. She hardly noticed him. It seemed to her she was
with child. And yet in the whole 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
his being from hers!
"I believe I'm going to have a child," she said.
"Eh?" he ejaculated quickly. But he had understood. His eyes shone
weirdly on her. She felt the strange terror and loveliness of his
passion. And she wished she could lie down there by that town gate,
in the sun, and swoon for ever unconscious. Living was almost too
great a demand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her and
enveloped her. There was nothing for her but to yield, yield, yield.
And yet she could not sink to earth.
She saw Pancrazio carrying the skins to the little cart, which was
tilted up under a small, pale-stemmed tree on the platform above the
valley. 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 the
sensation trilled once more upon her consciousness. She looked at
him with 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 eat
something?"
They jogged home in the little flat cart in the wintry afternoon. It
was almost night before they had got the ass untackled from the
shafts, at the wild lonely house where Pancrazio left the cart.
Giovanni was there with the lantern. Ciccio went on ahead with
Alvina, whilst the others stood to load up the ass by the high-way.
Ciccio watched Alvina carefully. When they were over the river, and
among the dark scrub, he took her in his arms and kissed her with
long, terrible passion. She saw the snow-ridges flare with evening,
beyond his cheek. They had glowed dawn as she crossed the river
outwards, they were white-fiery now in the dusk sky as she returned.
What strange valley of shadow was she threading? What was the
terrible man's passion that haunted her like a dark angel? Why was
she so much beyond herself?
CHAPTER XVI
SUSPENSE
Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs still
unstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them, in the
corn-place.
"Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born?" he asked her.
She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning gold
maize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruition. The
heap of maize on one side burned like hot sunshine, she felt it
really gave off 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 gently aside. 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 and
plates and spoons, her own things. Pancrazio had gone back to his
old habit, he went across and ate with Giovanni and Maria, Ciccio
and Alvina had their meals in their pleasant room upstairs. They
were happy alone. Only sometimes the terrible influence of the place
preyed on her.
However, she had a clean room of her own, where she could sew and
read. She had written to the matron and Mrs. Tuke, and Mrs. Tuke had
sent books. Also she helped Ciccio when she could, and Maria was
teaching her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread.
This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere, Alvina
and Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last maize.
Suddenly, in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out: the
drone of a bagpipe, and a man's high voice half singing, half
yelling a brief verse, at the end of which a wild flourish on some
other reedy wood instrument. Alvina sat still in surprise. It was a
strange, high, rapid, yelling music, the very voice of the
mountains. Beautiful, in our musical sense of the word, it was not.
But oh, the magic, the nostalgia of the untamed, heathen past which
it evoked.
"It is for Christmas," said Ciccio. "They will come every day now."
Alvina rose and went round to the little balcony. Two men stood
below, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the elder,
had a bagpipe whose bag was patched with shirting: the younger was
dressed in greenish clothes, he had his face lifted, and was yelling
the verses of the unintelligible Christmas ballad: short, rapid
verses, followed by a brilliant 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 high came the next verse, verse after
verse, with the wild scream on the little new pipe in between, over
the roar of the bagpipe. And the crumbs of snow were like a speckled
veil, faintly drifting the atmosphere and powdering the littered
threshold where they stood--a threshold littered with faggots,
leaves, straw, fowls and geese and ass droppings, and rag thrown out
from the house, and pieces of paper.
The carol suddenly ended, the young man snatched off his hat to
Alvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followed
by the bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly down the incline
between the twiggy wild oaks.
"They will come every day now, till Christmas," said Ciccio. "They
go 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 sound
far off, strange, yelling, wonderful: and the same ache for she knew
not what overcame her, so that she felt one might go mad, there in
the veiled silence of these mountains, in the great hilly valley cut
off from the world.
Ciccio worked all day on the land or round about. He was building a
little earth closet also: the obvious and unscreened place outside
was impossible. It was curious how little he went to Pescocalascio,
how little he mixed with the natives. He seemed always to withhold
something from them. Only with his relatives, of whom he had many,
he was 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
a few lost words of American, insisted on giving Alvina wine and a
sort of cake made with cheese and rice. Ciccio too was feasted, in
the dark hole of a room. And the two natives seemed to press their
cheer on Alvina and Ciccio whole-heartedly.
"How nice they are!" said Alvina when she had left. "They give so
freely."
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 away
again," he said.
"But I should have thought that would make them less generous," she
said.
"No. They like to give to foreigners. They don't like to give to the
people here. Giocomo puts water in the wine which he sells to the
people who go by. And if I leave the donkey in her shed, I give
Marta Maria something, or the next time she won't let me have it.
Ha, they are--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 as
here--nowhere where I have ever been."
It was strange to Alvina to feel the deep-bed-rock distrust which
all the hill-peasants seemed to have of one another. They were
watchful, venomous, dangerous.
"Ah," said Pancrazio, "I am glad there is a woman in my house once
more."
"But did _nobody_ come in and do for you before?" asked Alvina. "Why
didn't you pay somebody?"
"Nobody will come," said Pancrazio, in his slow, aristocratic
English. "Nobody will come, because I am a man, and if somebody
should see her at my house, they will all talk."
"Talk!" Alvina looked at the deeply-lined man of sixty-six, "But
what will they say?"
"Many bad things. Many bad things indeed. They are not good people
here. All saying bad things, and all jealous. They don't like me
because I have a house--they think I am too much a _signore_. They
say to me 'Why do you think you are a signore?' Oh, they are bad
people, 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 bad
things. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people, evil against one
another, against everybody but strangers who don't know them--"
Alvina felt the curious passion in Pancrazio's voice, the passion of a
man who has lived for many years in England and known the social
confidence of England, and who, coming back, is deeply injured by the
ancient malevolence of the remote, somewhat gloomy hill-peasantry. She
understood 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 luminousness
in 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 him
about her and Ciccio. She began to get the drift of the
questions--which Pancrazio answered with reserve.
"And how long are they staying?"
This was an invariable, envious question. And invariably Pancrazio
answered 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
the flat cart, driving to Ossona.
Yet Pancrazio himself was a study. He was thin, and very shabby, and
rather out of shape. Only in his yellow eyes lurked a strange
sardonic fire, and a leer which puzzled her. When Ciccio happened to
be out in the evening he would sit with her and tell her stories of
Lord Leighton and Millais and Alma Tadema and other academicians
dead and living. There would sometimes be a strange passivity on his
worn face, an impassive, almost Red Indian look. And then again he
would stir into a curious, arch, malevolent laugh, for all the world
like a debauched old tom-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 sit
for him, because my figure was too poor, he didn't like it. He liked
fair young men, with plenty of flesh. But once, when he was doing a
picture--I don't know if you know it? It is a crucifixion, with a
man on a cross, and--" He described the picture. "No! Well, the
model had to 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 stoicism of Pancrazio's eyes. "Because Leighton, he was
cruel to his model. He wouldn't let you rest. 'Damn you, you've got
to keep still till I've finished with you, you devil,' so he said.
Well, for this man on the cross, he couldn't get a model who would
do it for him. They all tried it once, but they would not go again.
So they said to him, he must try Califano, because Califano was the
only man who would stand it. At last then he sent for me. 'I don't
like your damned figure, Califano,' he said 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 me well, so I stood it.
Well, he kept me tied up, hanging you know forwards naked on this
cross, for four hours. And then it was luncheon. And after luncheon
he would tie me again. Well, I suffered. I suffered so 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 my arms and
my ribs, I had no sleep. 'You've said you'd do it, so now you must,'
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
what you call it--"
"A platform," suggested Alvina.
"A platform. Now one day when he came to do something to me, when I
was tied up, he slipped back over this platform, and he pulled me,
who was tied on the cross, with him. So we all fell down, he with
the naked man on top of him, and the heavy cross on top of us both.
I could not move, because I was tied. And it was so, with me on top
of him, and the heavy cross, that he could not get out. So he had to
lie shouting underneath me until some one came to the studio to
untie me. No, we were not hurt, because the top of the cross fell so
that it did not crush 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
guess right once I give you sixpence.' So I guessed three o'clock.
'That's one. Now then, what time is it? 'Again, three o'clock.
'That's two guesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time is
it? 'So now I was obstinate, and I said _Three o'clock_. He took out
his watch. 'Why damn you, how did you know? I give you a shilling--'
It was three o'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead of
sixpence as he had said--"
It was strange, in the silent winter afternoon, downstairs in the
black kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancrazio and
hearing these stories of English painters. It was strange to look at
the battered figure of Pancrazio, and think how much he had been
crucified through 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. Pancrazio looked on them admiringly and contemptuously, as
an old, rakish tom-cat might 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
his eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare that
came into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a
sort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in his
battered body and give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt that
if she were left much alone with him she would need all her English
ascendancy not to be afraid of him.
It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Ciccio
and Pancrazio set off for Pescocalascio for the first time. Snow had
fallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as they
climbed. And the sun was very bright. So that the mountains were
dazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound between
oak-trees and under the broom-scrub, climbing over the jumbled hills
that lay between the mountains, until the village came near. They
got on to a broader 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 the
village 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 a trip."
He was a little Italian shop-keeper from Glasgow. He was most
friendly, insisted on paying for drinks, and coffee and almond
biscuits for Alvina. Evidently he also was grateful to Britain.
The village was wonderful. It occupied the crown of an eminence in
the midst of the wide valley. From the terrace of the high-road the
valley spread below, with all its jumble of hills, and two rivers,
set in the walls of the mountains, a wide space, but imprisoned. It
glistened with snow under the blue sky. But the lowest hollows were
brown. In the distance, Ossona hung at the edge of a platform. Many
villages clung like pale swarms of birds to the far slopes, or
perched on the hills beneath. It was a world within a world, a
valley of many hills 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 the
skin sandals, were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling,
bargaining for cloth, talking all the time. In the shop, which was
also a sort of inn, an ancient woman was making coffee over a
charcoal brazier, while a crowd of peasants sat at the tables at the
back, eating the food they had brought.
Post was due at mid-day. Ciccio went to fetch it, whilst Pancrazio
took Alvina to the summit, to the castle. There, in the level
region, boys were snowballing and shouting. The ancient castle,
badly cracked by the last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on the
valley of many hills beneath, Califano a speck down the left, Ossona
a blot to the right, suspended, its towers and its castle clear in
the light. Behind the castle of Pescocalascio was a deep, steep
valley, almost a gorge, at the bottom of which a river ran, and
where Pancrazio pointed out the electricity works of the village,
deep in the gloom. Above this gorge, at the end, rose the long
slopes of the mountains, up to the vivid snow--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 the
post-office door, in a steep, black, wet side-street. Alvina's feet
were sodden. Pancrazio took her to the place where she could drink
coffee and a strega, to make her warm. On the platform of the
high-way, above the valley, people were parading in the hot sun.
Alvina noticed some ultra-smart young men. They came up to
Pancrazio, speaking English. Alvina hated their Cockney accent and
florid showy vulgar presence. They were more models. Pancrazio was
cool with them.
Alvina sat apart from the crowd of peasants, on a chair the old
crone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancrazio ordered beer for
himself. Ciccio came with letters--long-delayed letters, that had
been censored. Alvina's heart went down.
The first she opened was from Miss Pinnegar--all war and fear and
anxiety. The second was a letter, a real insulting letter from Dr.
Mitchell. "I little thought, at the time when I was hoping to make
you my wife, that you were carrying on with a dirty Italian
organ-grinder. So your fair-seeming face covered the schemes and
vice of your true nature. Well, I can only thank Providence which
spared me the disgust and shame of marrying you, and I hope that,
when I meet you on the streets of Leicester Square, I shall have
forgiven you sufficiently to be able to throw you a coin--"
Here was a pretty little epistle! In spite of herself, she went pale
and trembled. She glanced at Ciccio. Fortunately he was turning
round talking to another man. She rose and went to the ruddy
brazier, as if to warm her hands. She threw on the screwed-up
letter. The old crone said something unintelligible to her. She
watched the letter catch fire--glanced at the peasants at the
table--and out at the wide, wild valley. The world beyond could not
help, but it still had the power to injure one here. She felt she
had received a bitter blow. A black hatred 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
possibly be happy? Nurses were so valuable now. She, Mrs. Tuke, had
volunteered. She would do whatever she could. She had had to leave
off nursing Jenifer, who had an _excellent_ Scotch nurse, much
better than a mother. Well, Alvina and Mrs. Tuke might yet meet in
some hospital in France. So the letter ended.
Alvina sat down, pale and trembling. Pancrazio was watching her
curiously.
"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 had
left England because of the war, expecting Italy to come in. And
everybody talked, talked, talked. Alvina looked round her. It all
seemed alien to her, bruising upon the spirit.
"Do you think I shall ever be able to come here alone and do my
shopping 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
must never come so far alone."
"Why not?" she said.
"You are a stranger here. You are not a contadina--" Alvina could
feel the oriental idea of women, which still leaves its mark on the
Mediterranean, threatening her with surveillance and subjection. She
sat in her chair, with cold wet feet, looking at the sunshine
outside, the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, the
men drinking at the counter, the cluster of peasant women bargaining
for dress-material. Ciccio was still turning talking in the rapid
way to his neighbour. She knew it was war. She noticed the movement
of his finely-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, she
glanced round. Ciccio inside the shop had risen, but he was still
turning to his neighbour and was talking with all his hands and all
his body. 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 realize
something about him: how he had no sense of home and domestic life,
as an Englishman has. Ciccio's home would never be his castle. His
castle was the piazza of Pescocalascio. His home was nothing to him
but a possession, and a hole to sleep in. He didn't _live_ in it. He
lived in the open air, and in the community. When the true Italian
came out in him, his veriest home was the piazza of Pescocalascio,
the little sort of market-place where the roads met in the village,
under the castle, and where the men stood in groups and talked,
talked, talked. This was where Ciccio belonged: his active, mindful
self. His active, mindful self was none of hers. She only had his
passive self, and his family passion. His masculine mind and
intelligence had its home in the little public 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 had finished. And
then, with a swift, intimate handshake to the group with whom he had
been engaged, he came away, putting all his interest off from
himself.
She tried to make him talk and discuss with her. But he wouldn't. An
obstinate spirit made him darkly refuse masculine conversation with
her.
"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 I shall 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 you _do_ 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, and
half despised her. When she tried to make him discuss, in the
masculine way, he shut obstinately against her, something like a
child, and the slow, fine smile of dislike came on his face.
Instinctively he shut off all masculine communication from her,
particularly politics and religion. He would discuss both,
violently, with other men. In politics he was something of a
Socialist, in religion a freethinker. But all this had nothing to do
with Alvina. He would not enter on a discussion in English.
Somewhere in her soul, she knew the finality of his refusal to hold
discussion with a woman. So, though at times her heart hardened with
indignant anger, she let herself remain outside. The more so, as
she felt that in matters intellectual he was rather stupid. Let him
go to the piazza or to the wine-shop, and talk.
To do him justice, he went little. Pescocalascio was only half his
own village. The nostalgia, the campanilismo from which Italians
suffer, the craving to be in sight of the native church-tower, to
stand and talk in the native market place or piazza, this was only
half formed in Ciccio, taken away as he had been from Pescocalascio
when so small 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 fishnet or net-basket from fine, frail strips of cane. It
was a work he had learned at Naples long ago. Alvina meanwhile would
sew for the child, or spin wool. She became quite clever at drawing
the strands of wool from her distaff, rolling them fine and even
between her fingers, and keeping her bobbin rapidly spinning away
below, dangling at the end of the thread. To tell the truth, she was
happy in the quietness with Ciccio, now they had their own pleasant
room. She loved his presence. She loved the quality of his silence,
so rich and physical. She felt he was never very far away: that he
was a good deal a stranger in Califano, as she was: that he clung to
her presence as she to his. Then Pancrazio also contrived to serve
her and shelter her, he too, loved her 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 so little. She had sixty pounds of
her own money, always intact in the little case. And after all, the
high-way beyond the river led to Ossona, and Ossona gave access to
the railway, and the railway would take her anywhere.
So the month of January passed, with its short days and its bits of
snow and bursts of sunshine. On sunny days Alvina walked down to the
desolate river-bed, which fascinated her. When Pancrazio was
carrying up stone or lime on the ass, she accompanied him. And
Pancrazio was always carrying up something, for he loved the
extraneous jobs like building a fire-place much more than the heavy
work of the land. Then she would find little tufts of wild narcissus
among the rocks, gold-centred pale little things, many on one stem.
And their scent was powerful and magical, like the sound of the men
who came all those days and sang before Christmas. She loved them.
There was green hellebore too, a fascinating plant--and one or two
little treasures, the last of the rose-coloured Alpine cyclamens,
near the earth, with snake-skin leaves, and so rose, so rose, like
violets for shadowiness. She sat and cried over the first she found:
heaven knows why.
In February, as the days opened, the first almond trees flowered
among grey olives, in warm, level corners between the hills. But it
was March before the real flowering began. And then she had
continual bowl-fuls of white and blue violets, she had sprays of
almond blossom, silver-warm and lustrous, then sprays of peach and
apricot, pink and fluttering. It was a great joy to wander looking
for flowers. She came upon a bankside all wide with lavender
crocuses. The sun was on them for the moment, and they were opened
flat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars, with burning
centres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen some
metal burn lilac-flamed in the laboratory of the hospital at
Islington. All down the oak-dry bankside they burned their great
exposed stars. And she felt like going down on her knees and bending
her forehead to the earth in an oriental submission, they were so
royal, so lovely, so supreme. She came again to them in the morning,
when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs,
wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and old
grass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripes running
up their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear proud stripes on a
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 of lilac fire.
March was a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills. She
wandered, extending her range. Sometimes with a strange fear. But it
was a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she went
along the high-road with her letters, towards the village of Casa
Latina. The high-road was depressing, wherever there were houses.
For the houses had that sordid, ramshackle, slummy look almost
invariable on an Italian high-road. They were patched with a
hideous, greenish mould-colour, blotched, as if with leprosy. It
frightened her, till Pancrazio told her it was only the copper
sulphate that had sprayed the vines hitched on to the walls. But
none the less the houses were sordid, unkempt, slummy. One house by
itself could make a complete slum.
Casa Latina was across the valley, in the shadow. Approaching it
were rows of low cabins--fairly new. They were the one-storey
dwellings commanded after the earthquake. And hideous they were. The
village itself was old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain.
Streams of cold water ran round it. The piazza was gloomy, forsaken.
But there was a great, twin-towered church, wonderful from outside.
She went inside, and was almost sick with repulsion. The place was
large, whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and ex
voto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size and
tinselly, that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus on
the crucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on
their knees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded
fetish-worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from
the contamination of the dirty leather door-curtain.
Enough of Casa Latina. She would never go _there_ again. She was
beginning to feel that, if she lived in this part of the world at
all, she must avoid the _inside_ of it. She must never, if she could
help it, enter into any interior but her own--neither into house nor
church nor even shop or post-office, if she could help it. The
moment she 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 avoid any contact with human interiors. When she thought of
the insides of the 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 green
and silken, vines were in the small bud. Everywhere little grape
hyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her of
the many-breasted Artemis, a picture of whom, or of whose statue,
she had seen somewhere. Artemis with her clusters of breasts was
horrible to her, now she had come south: nauseating beyond words.
And the milky grape hyacinths reminded her.
She turned with thankfulness to the magenta anemones that were so
gay. 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 their red-purple silkiness had something pre-world about it,
at last. The more she wandered, the more the shadow of the by-gone
pagan world seemed to come over her. Sometimes she felt she would
shriek and go mad, so strong was the influence on her, something
pre-world and, it seemed to her now, vindictive. She seemed to feel
in the air strange Furies, Lemures, things that had haunted her with
their tomb-frenzied vindictiveness since she was a child and had
pored over the illustrated Classical Dictionary. Black and cruel
presences were in the under-air. They were furtive and slinking.
They bewitched you with loveliness, and lurked with fangs to hurt
you afterwards. There it was: the fangs sheathed in beauty: the
beauty first, and then, horribly, inevitably, the fangs.
Being a great deal alone, in the strange place, fancies possessed
her, people took on strange shapes. Even Ciccio and Pancrazio. And
it came that she never wandered far from the house, from her room,
after the first months. She seemed to hide herself in her room.
There she sewed and spun wool and read, and learnt Italian. Her men
were not at all anxious to teach her Italian. Indeed her chief
teacher, at first, was a young fellow called Bussolo. He was a model
from London, and he came down to Califano sometimes, hanging about,
anxious to speak English.
Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy with pale grey eyes and
a 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
young can stop here."
The odd plangent certitude in his voice penetrated her. And all the
young people said the same thing. They were all waiting to go away.
But for the moment the war held them up.
Ciccio and Pancrazio were busy with the vines. As she watched them
hoeing, crouching, tying, tending, grafting, mindless and utterly
absorbed, hour after hour, day after day, thinking vines, living
vines, she wondered they didn't begin to sprout vine-buds and vine
stems from their own elbows and neck-joints. There was something to
her unnatural in the quality of the attention the men gave to the
wine. It was a sort of worship, almost a degradation again. And
heaven knows, Pancrazio's wine was poor enough, his grapes almost
invariably bruised with hail-stones, and half-rotten instead of
ripe.
The loveliness of April came, with hot sunshine. Astonishing the
ferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to blaze.
Alvina was amazed. The burning day quite carried her away. She loved
it: it made her quite careless about everything, she was just swept
along in the powerful flood of the sunshine. In the end, she felt
that intense sunlight had on her the effect of night: a sort of
darkness, and a suspension of life. She had to hide in her room till
the cold wind blew again.
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 would go, and she would be left alone in this place, which
sometimes she hated with a hatred unspeakable. After a spell of hot,
intensely dry weather she felt she would die in this valley, wither
and go to powder as some exposed April roses withered and dried into
dust against a hot wall. Then the cool wind came in a storm, the
next day there was grey sky and soft air. The rose-coloured wild
gladioli among the young green corn were a dream of beauty, the
morning of the world. The lovely, pristine morning of the world,
before our epoch began. Rose-red gladioli among corn, in among the
rocks, and small irises, black-purple and yellow blotched with
brown, like a wasp, standing low in little desert places, that would
seem forlorn but for this weird, dark-lustrous magnificence. Then
there were the tiny irises, only one finger tall, growing in dry
places, frail as crocuses, and much tinier, and blue, blue as the
eye of the morning heaven, which was a morning earlier, more
pristine than ours. The lovely translucent pale irises, tiny and
morning-blue, they lasted only a few hours. But nothing could be
more exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that brought
back to Alvina the passionate nostalgia for the place. The human
influence was a bit horrible to her. But the flowers that came out
and uttered 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-red
gladioli from the half-grown wheat, and cutting the lushness of the
first weedy herbage. He threw down his sheaves of gladioli, and with
his sickle began to cut the forest of bright yellow corn-marigolds.
He looked 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 his
hand.
"We have declared war," he said.
In an instant she realized that she had seen the figure of the old
post-carrier dodging between the rocks. Rose-red and gold-yellow of
the flowers 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, watching him, were vulnerable as if stricken to death.
Indeed she felt she would die.
"You will have to go?" she said.
"Yes, we shall all have to go." There seemed a certain sound of
triumph in his voice. Cruel!
She sank lower on the flowers, and her head dropped. But she would
not be beaten. She lifted her face.
"If you are very long," she said, "I shall go to England. I can't
stay 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 long
without 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
out of that great cruel valley and escape to Rome, to English
people. She would find the English Consul and he would help her. She
would do anything 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 at Pescocalascio.
And they would all be so sentimental about her--just as Pancrazio
was. She felt that in some way Pancrazio had killed his wife--not
consciously, but unconsciously, as Ciccio might kill _her_.
Pancrazio would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments. And he
seemed always anxious to prove that he had been so good to her. No
doubt he had been good to her, also. But there was something
underneath--malevolent in his spirit, some caged-in sort of cruelty,
malignant beyond his control. It crept out in his stories. And it
revealed itself in his fear of his dead wife. Alvina knew that in
the night the elderly man was afraid of his dead wife, and of her
ghost or her avenging spirit. He would huddle over the fire in fear.
In the same way 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 slabs and wall-cupboards, enclosed in
four-square stone walls, and lying away beneath 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 had
carried his wife there--a long journey over the hill-tracks, almost
two hours.
These were days of waiting--horrible days of waiting for Ciccio to
be called up. One batch of young men left the village--and there was
a lugubrious 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 the railway. It was a horrible event.
A shiver of horror and death went through the valley. In a
lugubrious 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 the
twilight he came to her, when she could hardly see him.
"Are you sorry you came here with me, Allaye?" he asked. There was
malice in the very question.
She put down the spoon and looked up from the fire. He stood
shadowy, 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 and
sadly. She had to go downstairs for something.
And there on the landing she saw him standing in the darkness with
his arm over his face, as if fending a blow.
"What is it?" she said, laying her hand on him. He uncovered his
face.
"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 broad
landing, 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, and
hid his face, utterly noiseless.
"What is it?" she said. "What is it? I don't understand." He wiped
his 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?
"You _have_ hope. Don't make a scene," she snapped. And she went
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 settled down on her as she sat alone. And she seemed to hear
him moaning upstairs--"I can't come back. I can't come back." She
heard it. She heard it so distinctly, that she never knew whether it
had been an actual utterance, or whether it was her inner ear which
had heard the inner, unutterable sound. She wanted to answer, to
call to him. But she could not. Heavy, mute, powerless, there she
sat like a lump of darkness, in that doomed Italian kitchen. "I
can't come back." She heard it so fatally.
She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancrazio.
"Oh!" he cried, startled when, having come near the fire, he caught
sight 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 to
Pancrazio. The latter had brought a newspaper. The two men sat on
the settle, 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
worst days of all: the days of the impending departure. Neither of
them spoke about 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 in
his chair in the bedroom. It was a hot, luminous night. There was
still a late scent of orange blossom from the garden, the
nightingale was shaking the air with his sound. At times other,
honey scents wafted from 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 have
our 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 want
to--no other reason. It won't be because you can't. It will be
because you 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.
"So make up your mind," she said.
He sat motionless for a long while: while she undressed and brushed
her hair and went to bed. And still he sat there unmoving, like a
corpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearable
presence in the room. She blew out the light, that she need not see
him. But in the 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 and
relief. It was not her affair, where they should go, so long as he
really returned to her.
"I'll come back," he said.
"Sure?" she whispered, straining him to her.
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