MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_01D08B51.62D78E10" This document is a Single File Web Page, also known as a Web Archive file. If you are seeing this message, your browser or editor doesn't support Web Archive files. Please download a browser that supports Web Archive, such as Windows® Internet Explorer®. ------=_NextPart_01D08B51.62D78E10 Content-Location: file:///C:/AA7532AC/TheLostGirl.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
The Lost Girl
By
D. H. Lawrence
Contents
CHAPTER
I - THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE.
CHAPTER
II - THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON..
CHAPTER
III - THE MATERNITY NURSE
CHAPTER
VI - HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR
CHAPTER
VII - NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA
CHAPTER
IX - ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE
CHAPTER
X - THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE.
CHAPTER
XI - HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT
CHAPTER
XII - ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED
CHAPTER
XIII - THE WEDDED WIFE
CHAPTER
XIV - THE JOURNEY ACROSS
CHAPTER
XV - THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO
=
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 certa=
in
well-established society. The old "County" has fled from the sigh=
t 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-li=
ke,
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 collier=
s; a
thick sprinkling of tradespeople intermingled with small employers of labour
and diversified by elementary schoolmasters and nonconformist clergy; a hig=
her
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 t=
he
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 dre=
ary
malady: that of the odd women. Why, in the name of all prosperity, should e=
very
class but the lowest in such a society hang overburdened with Dead Sea frui=
t of
odd women, unmarried, unmarriageable women, called old maids? Why is it tha=
t every
tradesman, every school-master, every bank-manager, and every clergyman
produces one, two, three or more old maids? Do the middle-classes, particul=
arly
the lower middle-classes, give birth to more girls than boys? Or do the low=
er middle-class
men assiduously climb up or down, in marriage, thus leaving their true part=
ners
stranded? Or are middle-class women very squeamish in their choice of husba=
nds?
However it be, it is a tragedy. Or perhaps it =
is
not.
Perhaps these unmarried women of the middle-cl=
asses
are the famous sexless-workers of our ant-industrial society, of which we h=
ear
so much. Perhaps all they lack is an occupation: in short, a job. But perha=
ps
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.<= o:p>
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 Houghto=
n.
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 t=
wenty-eight,
inherited a splendid business in Manchester goods, in Woodhouse. He was a t=
all,
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 flutterin=
g 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 prepa=
re
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--v=
ast,
that is, for Woodhouse--standing on the main street and high-road of the sm=
all
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 somethin=
g of
a poet: commercial, be it understood. He liked the novels of George Macdona=
ld,
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&qu=
ot;
arrested before his windows, of exquisite women ruffling charmed, entranced=
to
his counter. And charming, entrancing, he served them his lovely fabrics, w=
hich
only he and they could sufficiently appreciate. His fame spread, until
Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, the two be=
st-dressed
women in Europe, floated down from heaven to the shop in Woodhouse, and sal=
lied
forth to show what could be done by purchasing from James Houghton.
We cannot say why James Houghton failed to bec=
ome
the Liberty or the Snelgrove of his day. Perhaps he had too much imaginatio=
n.
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 mus=
lins
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, fr=
om
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 monumen=
t.
In the great bedroom over the shop he had his furniture built: built of sol=
id
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 Bastill=
e of
mahogany, the great cupboard opposite, or to turn wearily sideways to the g=
reat
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 gi=
rls
detested him. And yet, his curious refinement and enthusiasm bore them away.
They submitted to him. The shop attracted much curiosity. But the poor-spir=
ited
Woodhouse people were weak buyers. They wearied James Houghton with their
demand for common zephyrs, for red flannel which they would scallop with bl=
ack
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 go=
od
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 mere=
ly
marked down, with discretion, his less-expensive stock of prints and muslin=
s,
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. Fr=
iday
evening came, and with it a revelation in Houghton's window: the first piqu=
és,
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 h=
ad
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 ladie=
s--everything
James handled was for ladies, he scorned the coarser sex--: weird and wonde=
rful
winter coats for ladies, of thick, black, pockmarked cloth, stood and
flourished their bear-fur cuffs in the background, while tippets, boas, muf=
fs
and winter-fancies coquetted in front of the window-space. Friday-night cro=
wds
gathered outside: the gas-lamps shone their brightest: James Houghton hover=
ed
in the background like an author on his first night in the theatre. The res=
ult
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, admir=
ation,
fear, and ridicule. Let us stress the word fear. The inhabitants of Woodhou=
se
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: a=
nd
quite justly. What he failed to perceive was that the crowd hated excellenc=
e.
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 though=
t 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 so=
rt
of Elizabeth of Austria or Alexandra, Princess of Wales, elegant beyond his
grasp. Whereas Dame Fortune, even in London or Vienna, let alone in Woodhou=
se,
was a vulgar woman of the middle and lower middle-class, ready to put her h=
eavy
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 flourish=
es
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, po=
or
lady, was thoroughly scared by Israfel, and completely unhooked by the vaga=
ries
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 g=
o 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 do=
wn
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 t=
he
goods, having become a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, w=
ere 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 summ=
er
dresses: petties and drawers of which the little Woodhouse girls were asham=
ed,
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 S=
unday
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 ermi=
ne,
passing silent and shadowy down the street, made an impression which the pe=
ople
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 bl=
ue 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 t= he 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.<= o:p>
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 lif= e, 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 mo= dulated 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 skim= py 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 th= an a touch of the last. Ladies were always struck by these accounts. But Miss Fr= ost never felt so strongly moved to impatience as when she was within hearing.<= o:p>
For twenty years, she and James Houghton treat=
ed
each other with a courteous distance. Sometimes she broke into open impatie=
nce
with him, sometimes he answered her tartly: "Indeed, indeed! Oh, indee=
d! 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 fle=
et,
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 immediate=
ly
on Miss Frost. She saw her line in the first year. She must defend the litt=
le
Alvina, whom she loved as her own, and the nervous, petulant, heart-stricke=
n 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 low=
ered
his fine tone. But still, the two unprotected ones must be sheltered from h=
im.
Miss Frost imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic gove=
rnment.
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 d=
ark
rooms with her own sure, radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her p=
ale,
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 Ho=
use.
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 t=
he
work-girls.
James certainly had an irritating way of speak=
ing
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 c=
ould
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 spi=
te
of the bitter sleety day, would not put the coat on in the shop. She carrie=
d 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 w=
ith
sleet, seemed like a chevaux de frise of long porcupine quills round her fo=
re-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 t=
erms
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 bang=
ed
their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to speak. He said many a=
cid
and withering things, as he stood there on the rostrum. But what is the goo=
d 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 hand=
some
blacksmith who taught the lower boys should extend his influence over the u=
pper
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 man=
ner,
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 obsc=
ure
room with Mrs. Houghton, gave away the secret of the blacksmith's grip, whi=
ch
secret so haunted the poor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of h=
er
malady, and made Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Hought=
on 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 ba=
by.
That is, he let the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor an=
d 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 he=
ard
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 flocke=
d in--even
women, buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They could have boug=
ht 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 s=
hop:
his shop no more.
After this cut at his pride and integrity he l= ay 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.<= o:p>
James Houghton was happy once more. A zig-zag
wooden stair-way was rigged up the high back of Manchester House. In the gr=
eat
lofts sewing-machines of various patterns and movements were installed. A m=
anageress
was advertised for, and work-girls were hired. So a new phase of life start=
ed.
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 fo=
rce.
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 endur=
e.
But, fortunately or unfortunately, the acetylene plant was not a success. G=
irls
got their thumbs pierced, and sewing machines absolutely refused to stop
sewing, once they had started, and absolutely refused to start, once they h=
ad
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 f=
ine
fabrics and fancy trimmings, was just as reluctant to be captured by
ready-mades. Again the good dame was thoroughly lower middle-class. James H=
oughton
designed "robes." Now Robes were the mode. Perhaps it was Alexand=
ra, 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 cal=
lous
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 mirr=
or.
And even if he did, why not? Miss Frost, hearing this legend, looked sidewa=
ys
at the enthusiast.
Let us remark in time that Miss Frost had alre=
ady
ceased to draw any maintenance from James Houghton. Far from it, she hersel=
f 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 mu=
sic
lessons to the daughters of tradesmen and of colliers who boasted pianofort=
es.
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, a=
nd a
quick, handsome smile when once her face awoke behind her gold-rimmed glass=
es.
Like many short-sighted people, she had a certain intent look of one who go=
es
her own way.
The miners knew her, and entertained the highe=
st
respect and admiration for her. As they streamed in a grimy stream home fro=
m 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 e=
ver
there was one," they said. And they meant it. Hearing her name, poor M=
iss
Frost would flash a smile and a nod from behind her spectacles, but whose b=
lack
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 thirt=
een
weeks' lessons, two lessons a week. And at that she was considered rather d=
ear.
She was supposed to be making money. What money she made went chiefly to su=
pport
the Houghton household. In the meanwhile she drilled Alvina thoroughly in
theory and pianoforte practice, for Alvina was naturally musical, and besid=
es
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 anot=
her
prop to the falling house of Houghton, in the person of the manageress of t=
he 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, gra=
tis?
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 yea=
rs
she cherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the child a=
like
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 bed=
s:
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, Mi=
ss
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 repro=
ach.
She had pale grey eyes, and a padding step, and a soft voice, and almost pu=
rplish
cheeks. Mrs. Houghton, Miss Frost, and Alvina did not like her. They suffer=
ed
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 abhor=
red
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 seem=
ed
to weigh what she said, secretly, before she said it, and then she approach=
ed
as if she would slip it into her hearer's consciousness without his being a=
ware
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 uniso=
n,
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 po=
wer,
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 a=
nd
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 whi=
ch
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 l=
ace
collar fastened by a twisted gold brooch, in her own dim room, doing nothin=
g,
nervous and heart-suffering; then James, and the thin young Alvina, who adh=
ered
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 t=
ruisms--for
almost defiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian point of view; yet aft=
er
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 slowl=
y.
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 t=
he
place, Houghton's window on Friday night. Young or old, no individual, cert=
ainly
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 fal=
len
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 Woodhous=
e. James
Houghton's shop was regarded as a weekly comic issue. His piqué cost=
umes
with glass buttons and sort of steel-trimming collars and cuffs were immort=
al.
But why, once more, drag it out. Miss Pinnegar
served in the shop on Friday nights. She stood by her man. Sometimes when t=
he
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 buri=
ed
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, service=
able
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 s=
hreds
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 sta=
nd
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 th=
e travellers
and ordered the unions and calicoes and grey flannel. James hovered round a=
nd
said the last word, of course. But what was his last word but an echo of Mi=
ss
Pinnegar's penultimate! He was not interested in unions and twills.
His own stock remained on hand. Time, like a s=
low
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 i=
t,
spend a delirious Wednesday and Thursday marking down, and then open on Fri=
day afternoon.
In the evening there was a crush. A good moiré underskirt for one-an=
d-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 flas=
hed
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 origina=
lly
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 h=
ats,
trimmed and untrimmed, the weirdest, sauciest, most screaming shapes. Woodh=
ouse
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 ch=
eeks
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, withere=
d.
Some was scrapped. The shop seemed to have digested some of its indigestible
contents.
James accumulated sixpences in a miserly fashi=
on.
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 li=
ttle
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 s=
plit
once more. Rents had risen in Woodhouse. Why not cut off another shop from =
his
premises?
No sooner said than done. In came the architec=
t,
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 lef=
t a
little cramped, a little tight, with only one-third of his present space. B=
ut
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 h=
igh
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 pineap=
ple.
Bacon dangled in pale rolls almost over James' doorway, whilst straw and pa=
per,
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. Hea=
ven
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 rummage=
d 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 co=
uld
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. Mi=
ss Pinnegar
kept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much more than aborti=
ve.
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 l=
ike
a historical museum, rather soiled and scrappy. Indoors he made baskets of
assortments: threepenny, sixpenny, ninepenny and shilling baskets, rather l=
ike
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 hi=
s 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 floa=
ting
over his baldness. But still a gentleman, still courteous, with a charming
voice he suggested the possibilities of a pad of green parrots' tail-feathe=
rs,
or of a few yards of pink-pearl trimming or of old chenille fringe. The wom=
en 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 nobo=
dy wanted,
did the women turn over and over, till they chanced on a find. And James' q=
uick
eyes watched the slow surge of his flotsam, as the pot boiled but did not b=
oil
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 ord=
ers
for shirts, discussed and agreed, made measurements and received instalment=
s.
The shop was now only opened on Friday afterno=
ons
and evenings, so every day, twice a day, James was seen dithering bare-head=
ed
and hastily down the street, as if pressed by fate, to the Conservative Clu=
b,
and twice a day he was seen as hastily returning, to his meals. He was beco=
ming
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 cla=
y 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 a=
nd
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 m=
en
of the town were in with him at this venture: sound, moneyed grocers and pl=
umbers.
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 fi=
ve
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 h=
ave
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 surfa=
ce
coal. They found a plentiful seam of drossy, yellowish coal behind the Meth=
odist
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 t=
he
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 des=
ire
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 dee=
p,
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? Yo=
u'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 s=
ixty
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 hims=
elf
making noble provision for his only daughter.
But alas--it is wearying to repeat the same th=
ing
over and over. First the Board of Trade began to make difficulties. Then th=
ere
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 daugh=
ter
Alvina was about twenty-seven years old, Throttle-Ha'penny closed down. The=
re
was a sale of poor machinery, and James Houghton came home to the dark, glo=
omy
house--to Miss Pinnegar and Alvina.
It was a pinched, dreary house. James seemed d=
own
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.
=
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 l=
ife,
she really was left out of count, or so overshadowed as to be negligible. S=
he
and her mother were the phantom passengers in the ship of James Houghton's
fortunes.
In Manchester House, every voice lowered its t=
one.
And so from the first Alvina spoke with a quiet, refined, almost convent vo=
ice.
She was a thin child with delicate limbs and face, and wide, grey-blue, iro=
nic
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 litt=
le
earnest. Consequently Alvina, or Vina as she was called, understood only th=
e 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 M=
iss Frost,
benevolent and protective. Sufficient that the girl herself worshipped Miss
Frost: or believed she did.
Alvina never went to school. She had her lesso=
ns
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 wi=
th a
whole social activity, in the course of which she met certain groups of peo=
ple,
made certain friends, found opportunity for strolls into the country and ja=
unts
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 t=
he
value of church or chapel--but particularly chapel--as a social institution=
, in
places like Woodhouse. The Congregational Chapel provided Alvina with a who=
le
outer life, lacking which she would have been poor indeed. She was not
particularly religious by inclination. Perhaps her father's beautiful praye=
rs
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. T=
he 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 st=
ill.
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 a=
nd 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 wo=
uld
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 d=
aw
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 gir=
l'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 the=
re
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 w=
ere 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 soci=
al
standing as herself were in some curious way outsiders to her. Knowing noth=
ing,
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 me=
t a
man called Graham. He was an Australian, who had been in Edinburgh taking h=
is
medical degree. Before going back to Australia, he came to spend some month=
s 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 h=
im.
The two would stay together in the parlour, laughing and talking by the hou=
r.
What they could find to talk about was a mystery. Yet there they were, laug=
hing
and chatting, with a running insinuating sound through it all which made Mi=
ss
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 scen=
ts
battle and laughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud, sin=
ister
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 disli=
ke
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 je=
rky 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 stra=
ight
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 peo=
ple called
him.
But after all, he had only six weeks in Englan=
d,
before sailing to Sydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry befo=
re
he sailed. Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people first, s=
he
said.
So the time passed, and he sailed. Alvina miss=
ed
him, missed the extreme excitement of him rather than the human being he wa=
s.
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 th=
aw.
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 cableg=
ram
from Australia. He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing her trous=
seau,
to follow. But owing to her change of heart, she lingered indecisive.
"Do you love him, dear?" said Miss F=
rost
with emphasis, knitting her thick, passionate, earnest eyebrows. "Do y=
ou
love him sufficiently? That's the point."
The way Miss Frost put the question implied th=
at
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, h=
alf 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 Alv=
ina
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 w=
as
almost non-sensical. She was quite, quite sure of herself.
And then, most irritating, a complete volte fa=
ce
in her feelings. The clear-as-daylight mood disappeared as daylight is boun=
d 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 tra=
vel
like a cablegram to Australia. She felt it was the only way. She felt the d=
ark,
passionate receptivity of Alexander overwhelmed her, enveloped her even from
the Antipodes. She felt herself going distracted--she felt she was going ou=
t of
her mind. For she could not act.
Her mother and Miss Frost were fixed in one li=
ne.
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," sa=
id
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 nest=
le 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 alm=
ost
sure you don't. So now you have to choose. Your mother dreads your going--s=
he
dreads it. I am certain you would never see her again. She says she can't b=
ear it--she
can't bear the thought of you out there with Alexander. It makes her shudde=
r.
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 hers=
elf
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 m=
onths,
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 roun=
d.
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 loo=
ked at
him, and found him repugnant.
She went across to her governess's room, and f=
ound
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 wro=
ng
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-rim=
med 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 b=
een
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 Alv=
ina
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 thoug=
ht a
lot about it."
So Alvina packed up his ring and his letters a=
nd
little presents, and posted them over the seas. She was relieved, really: a=
s if
she had escaped some very trying ordeal. For some days she went about happi=
ly,
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 confide=
nce,
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 somet=
hing
more primitive still. It was curiosity, deep, radical, burning curiosity. H=
ow
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 fac=
es
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 curio=
us
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.
=
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 i=
s,
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?&q=
uot;
put in Miss Pinnegar.
"No, I don't wish I had gone to
Australia," retorted Alvina with a rude laugh. "Australia isn't t=
he
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 mo=
od.
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. A=
nd
having rapped it out, she prepared herself to stick to it. Nothing like lea=
ping
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 bi=
rd.
It was reminiscent of the way she beat time, insistently, when she was givi=
ng
music lessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beat wi=
thout
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 m=
ore
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 s=
aid,
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 f=
ace.
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 d=
evil
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 expect=
ed
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 lovi=
ng
Vina to be herself again. But the new and recalcitrant Vina still shone har=
d.
She found a copy of The Lancet, and saw an advertisement of a home in Islin=
gton
where maternity nurses would be fully trained and equipped in six months' t=
ime.
The fee was sixty guineas. Alvina declared her intention of departing to th=
is
training home. She had two hundred pounds of her own, bequeathed by her
grandfather.
In Manchester House they were all horrified--n=
ot
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 perversene=
ss, 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 sp=
eech
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 Pinn=
egar
curtly. "That's it, isn't it? It is as far as I can see. A trained
mid-wife."
"Yes, of course," said Alvina bright=
ly.
"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 serio=
us
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 thi=
ng
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 Islin=
gton
for her six months' training. There was a great bustle, preparing her nursi=
ng 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 s=
he
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 windo=
w.
Horrid, vast, stony, dilapidated, crumbly-stuccoed streets and squares of I=
slington,
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 the=
re
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 sord=
id
rooms where human beings moved as if sordidly unaware. She enjoyed the smel=
l 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. Bu=
t 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 corne=
r 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 serva=
nt,
not exactly dirty, but unattractive, let her into a hall painted a dull dra=
b,
and floored with cocoa-matting, otherwise bare. Then up bare stairs to a ro=
om
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 r=
ound
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, w=
ith
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. Alv=
ina
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 gi=
rl
departed.
Then Miss Houghton drank her black tea and ate=
her
bread and margarine.
Surely enough books have been written about he=
roines
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 una=
ble
to venture on indecencies herself, yet she had an amazing faculty for looki=
ng
knowing and indecent beyond words, rolling her eyes and pitching her eyebro=
ws
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 he=
r,
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 winkin=
g.
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 igno=
red
her.
It is truly incredible how Alvina became bloom=
ing
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 exhilar=
ated
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 th=
an
this.
Not far away was a lying-in hospital. A dreadf=
ul
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 st=
udents.
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 ticke=
t.
Her voice had the right twang, her eyes the right roll, her haunches the ri=
ght
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 h=
er
youth and her tutelage for ever. How many infernos deeper than Miss Frost c=
ould
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 sl=
um
cases. And such cases! A woman lying on a bare, filthy floor, a few old coa=
ts
thrown over her, and vermin crawling everywhere, in spite of sanitary inspe=
ctors.
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, everythin=
g.
Just a piece of female functioning, no more.
Alvina was supposed to receive a certain fee f=
or
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 n=
ot
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 sor=
t 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 dif=
ficulty
lay in being sufficiently rough and hard: that was the trouble. It cost a g=
reat
struggle to be hard and callous enough. Glad she would have been to be allo=
wed
to treat them quietly and gently, with consideration. But pah--it was not t=
heir
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 exhaus=
ted
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 stret=
ched
beyond the breaking point. Being a woman of some flexibility of temper, wro=
ught
through generations to a fine, pliant hardness, she flew back. She went rig=
ht
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 cr=
ab
leers.
So Alvina spun her medal, and her medal came d=
own
tails. Heads or tails? Heads for generations. Then tails. See the poetic
justice.
Now Alvina decided to accept the decision of h=
er
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 be=
ing.
She was not herself, said Everybody. When she came home to Woodhouse at Eas=
ter,
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-colo=
ured
young woman, strapping and strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagi=
ne
her mother's startled, almost expiring:
"Why, Vina dear!"
Vina laughed. She knew how they were all feeli=
ng.
"At least it agrees with your health,&quo=
t;
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 Fro=
st
shudder.
Inwardly, Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained =
from
questioning. Alvina was always speaking of the doctors: Doctor Young and Do=
ctor
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 quest=
ion.
She wanted, she needed to ask of her charge: "Alvina, have you betraye=
d yourself
with any of these young men?" But coldly her heart abstained from aski=
ng--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 y=
our
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 whe=
ther
Alvina had betrayed herself with any of these young doctors, or not. The qu=
estion
remained stated, but completely unanswered--coldly awaiting its answer. Only
when Miss Frost kissed Alvina good-bye at the station, tears came to her ey=
es,
and she said hurriedly, in a low voice:
"Remember we are all praying for you, dea=
r!"
"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 purp=
le,
the white hair glistening under the folded dark hat. Alvina threw herself d=
own
on the seat of her carriage. She loved her darling. She would love her thro=
ugh
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. Pu=
rity
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 immo=
rtel.
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 orchid=
s,
spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss Frost to die. She, Alvina, who loved h=
er
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 ge=
ntly
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, runn=
ing
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 t=
he
whole, these young men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a who=
le.
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 defi=
nite
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 "be=
have
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 insta=
nt.
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 rea=
ched
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 h=
er
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 tre=
ated
them with the inevitable female-to-male homage.
The men liked her. They cocked their eyes at h=
er,
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 persona=
l.
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 rem=
ote
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 n=
ot
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 h=
er
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 sudde=
nness
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 differe=
nt
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 e=
arth.
And by sheer non-human power, electric and paralysing, she could overcome t=
he
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 l=
ess matched.
But as he found himself continually foiled, he became sulky, like a bear wi=
th 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 w=
as
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 wa=
s 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 th=
at
these childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of the other s=
ex.
Young was certainly innocent as far as acts went. Yet his hair was going th=
in
at the crown already.
He also played with her--being a doctor, and s=
he a
nurse who encouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her: and did not rou=
se
her to contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness of a little bo=
y'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 stiffnes=
s 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 ba=
d 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. The=
re
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 h=
er
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 fa=
te:
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 guin=
eas.
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.
=
=
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 s=
he
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 go=
ing
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-stri=
ngs?
After all, they all knew her as Miss Houghton, with a stress on the Miss, a=
nd 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 bec=
ome
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, sl=
im,
reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face. And now it seem=
ed
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 t=
iny
touch of the trollops in her dowdiness--so the shrewd-eyed collier-wives de=
cided.
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, ne=
xt
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 Choi=
r,
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 me=
n,
as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and yet with the well-bred indiffer=
ence
of a lady--well, it was almost offensive.
As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for t=
he
time being from her interest in young men. Manchester House had settled dow=
n on
her like a doom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to wor=
m one's
encumbered way in the gloom--unless one liked to go miles round a back stre=
et,
to the yard entry. There was James Houghton, faintly powdered with coal-dus=
t,
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 i=
n,
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 nervou= s in her weakness that she could not bear the slightest sound. Her greatest horr= or was lest her husband should come into the room. On his entry she became blu= e 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.<= o:p>
When Alvina went up to her mother's room, on h=
er
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 Fr=
ost,
and a woman who came in, and the servant had been nursing the invalid betwe=
en
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 retu=
rned
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 t=
ask.
She was quiet and technical with her mother. The two loved one another, wit=
h 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 silentl=
y on
the street, or hurriedly rising to attend the sick woman. For continually c=
ame
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, mon=
ths,
and years--perforce to sit still, with some dignity of tranquil bearing. Al=
vina
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 rea=
ding,
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-H=
a'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 fe=
eling
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 rest=
ed
very still in her lap, there was a ladylike stillness about them as she too=
k 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 Al=
vina
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 the=
ir
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 ahea=
d,
any more than any river repeats its course. So the young need not be so pro=
ud
of their superiority over the old. The young generation glibly makes its ow=
n mistakes:
and how detestable these new mistakes are, why, only the future will be abl=
e 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 fut=
ure
remains for ever an infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand.=
So Alvina refrained from pondering on her moth=
er's
life and fate. Whatever the fate of the mother, the fate of the daughter wi=
ll
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 f=
ate
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 res=
ponsible?
James Houghton. What ought James Houghton to have done differently? Everyth=
ing.
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 Claris=
s:
guilty James.
Yet why? Why was James more guilty than Claris=
s?
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 impertinen=
t.
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. Co=
uld
anything be more puerile than a mankind howling because it isn't happy: lik=
e 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. Wretc=
hed
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 beca=
use
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?--on=
ly
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--ch=
iefly
with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to put in order after her moth=
er'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 i=
nherited
a few pieces of jewellery. Remarkable how little trace her mother left--har=
dly
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 expe=
nses,
begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have liked to introduce
margarine instead of butter. This last degradation the women refused. But J=
ames
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 appearanc=
e 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 deadloc=
k.
Each knew the great love she felt for the other. But now it was a love stat=
ic,
inoperative. The warm flow did not run any more. Yet each would have died f=
or
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 answ=
ered
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 cr=
eed.
Miss Frost did not answer. Her face took on a =
greyish
tinge.
In these days Alvina struck up an odd friendsh=
ip
with Miss Pinnegar, after so many years of opposition. She felt herself mor=
e 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. Sh=
e 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 fr=
om
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 Mi=
ss 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 narrown=
ess.
Alvina felt at her ease with Miss Pinnegar. The
two women talked away to one another, in their quiet moments: and slipped a=
part
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 t=
alk
was ordinary enough. But Alvina liked to be with Miss Pinnegar in the kitch=
en.
Miss Pinnegar wasn't competent and masterful like Miss Frost: she was ordin=
ary
and uninspired, with quiet, unobserved movements. But she was deep, and the=
re
was some secret satisfaction in her very quality of secrecy.
So the days and weeks and months slipped by, a=
nd
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 o=
nly
once she went to Throttle-Ha'penny, and, seized with sudden curiosity, insi=
sted
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 i=
n 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 t=
rend.
He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the whole affair, and see=
med
like some not quite trustworthy conjuror who had conjured it all up by slei=
ght
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 bi=
t 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 pr=
ess
on you. It was as if she were in her tomb for ever, like the dead and everl=
asting
Egyptians. She was frightened, but fascinated. The collier kept on talking =
to
her, stretching his bare, grey-black hairy arm across her vision, and point=
ing
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 th=
ick atmosphere,
the dark, fluid, viscous voice of the collier making a broad-vowelled, clap=
ping
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 pur=
ely
to the underground: to the slaves who work underground: knowledge humiliate=
d,
subjected, but ponderous and inevitable. And still his voice went on clappi=
ng
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, underwor=
ld
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, car=
ved
in substantial luminosity. What a strange and lovely place, bubbling irides=
cent-golden
on the surface of the underworld. Iridescent golden--could anything be more
fascinating! Like lovely glancing surface on fluid pitch. But a velvet surf=
ace.
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 com=
mon
ugliness of Woodhouse seemed so entrancing. She thought she had never seen =
such
beauty--a lovely luminous majolica, living and palpitating, the glossy, sve=
lte
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 mi=
ners
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 majo=
lica
weight and luminosity, quite ignorant of the sky, heavy and satisfying.
Slaves of the underworld! She watched the swin=
g of
the grey colliers along the pavement with a new fascination, hypnotized by a
new vision. Slaves--the underground trolls and iron-workers, magic, mischie=
vous,
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 ear=
thquakes
stir the earth. It would be simply disastrous, because it had no master. Th=
ere
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 w=
as
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 unexperien=
ced.
The miners, the iron-workers, those who fashion the stuff of the underworld=
.
As it always comes to its children, the nostal=
gia
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 ver=
y 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 f=
ixed
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. A=
nd
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 fr=
ee
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 h=
er
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 o=
f 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 t=
heir
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 ple=
asant
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 M=
iss
Frost had a new and slightly aggressive cheerfulness and humour. And Manche=
ster
House saw little of her, comparatively.
And then, at the end of September, the young m=
an
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 wil=
ted
at once. A silence came over her. She shuddered when she had to leave the f=
ire.
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 wi=
th
them to her.
She was always subject to bronchitis. In Novem=
ber
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 rescu=
e.
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 bronc=
hial
cold," whispered Miss Frost hurriedly, trying to sip the milk. She cou=
ld
not. She didn't want it.
"I've sent for the doctor," said Alv=
ina,
in her cool voice, wherein none the less there rang the old hesitancy of sh=
eer
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 sicknes=
s.
But sometimes the grey eyes would open and smi=
le
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 g=
ot
her hand from under the bedclothes, and laid it on Alvina's hand. Alvina le=
aned
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 Alv=
ina.
"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, wonderf=
ul
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 ey=
es
of the sick woman rested dark, dilated, haggard on Alvina's face, with a he=
avy,
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 kn=
ew
that her darling carried away a portion of her own soul into death.
But she was alone. And the agony of being alon=
e,
the agony of grief, passionate, passionate grief for her darling who was to=
rn
into death--the agony of self-reproach, regret; the agony of remembrance; t=
he
agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome, and sinisterly accusing, and
pathetically, despairingly appealing--probe after probe of mortal agony, wh=
ich
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,&qu=
ot;
she said in her abrupt way to Miss Frost's friend, another woman of over fi=
fty.
"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 ot=
her things--"
"I haven't the heart," persisted Alv=
ina.
"Not yet," said Mrs. Lawson gently.
"You can't expect--But time--time brings back--"
"Oh well--but I don't believe it," s=
aid
Alvina.
People thought her rather hard. To one of her
gossips Miss Pinnegar confessed:
"I thought she'd have felt it more. She c=
ared
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 ev=
erything
to one another, Miss Frost and Alvina. I should have thought she'd have fel=
t 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 t=
he 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 b=
ooks
and music, and the piano. Alvina inherited the few simple trinkets, and abo=
ut
forty-five pounds in money.
"Poor Miss Frost," cried Mrs. Lawson,
weeping rather bitterly--"she saved nothing for herself. You can see w=
hy
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 disappea=
r.
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 fin=
ish.
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 ho=
use
just before a sale.
=
<=
span
style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>CHAPTER V - THE BEAU<=
span
style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>
=
Throttle-Ha'penny
worked fitfully through the winter, and in the spring broke down. By this t=
ime
James Houghton had a pathetic, childish look which touched the hearts of Al=
vina
and Miss Pinnegar. They began to treat him with a certain feminine indulgen=
ce,
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, l=
ike
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 inventiv=
e.
It was left to Alvina to suggest: "Why doesn't father let the shop, an=
d 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 d=
isappear
from the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a nameless nobody,
occupying obscure premises?
He thought about it. And thinking about it, be=
came
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 g=
entry,
who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be fitted up as a s=
ort
of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The shop should be turned int=
o 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, whi=
lst
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, superinten=
ding
the servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the equiv=
ocal
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 priv=
ate
lunatic asylum."
"Will you explain why?" answered Jam=
es
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 th=
e immediate
foreground, to be sure, would be the yard of the livery-stables and the rat=
her
slummy dwellings of the colliers, sloping downhill. But these could be easi=
ly
overlooked, for the eye would instinctively wander across the green and sha=
llow
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 field=
s,
and heaps of burning slag. The balcony or covered terrace--James settled do=
wn
at last to the word terrace--was to be one of the features of the house: th=
e feature.
It was to be fitted up as a sort of elegant lounging restaurant. Elegant te=
as,
at two-and-six per head, and elegant suppers, at five shillings without win=
e,
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 th=
at
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 turtl=
e up
at the mention of this scheme. When first it was disclosed to her, her colo=
ur
came up like a turkey's in a flush of indignant anger.
"It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous!&q=
uot;
she blurted, bridling and ducking her head and turning aside, like an indig=
nant
turkey.
"Ridiculous! Why? Will you explain why!&q=
uot;
retorted James, turtling also.
"It's absolutely ridiculous!" she
repeated, unable to do more than splutter.
"Well, we'll see," said James, risin=
g to
superiority.
And again he began to dart absorbedly about, l=
ike
a bird building a nest. Miss Pinnegar watched him with a sort of sullen fur=
y.
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 Pinne=
gar
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 o=
f 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 M=
iss
Pinnegar.
As soon as James came in to a meal, the two wo=
men
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 a=
re
you going to give them for half-a-crown?"
"I know what I shall offer," said Ja=
mes.
"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 littl=
e 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 obstinat=
ely 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 a=
nd
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 Priv=
ate
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 g=
oing
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 af=
ter
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 kn=
ew,
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 f=
ound
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. Hough=
ton
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 h=
ow
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 sh=
elf
among the old maids.
"Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I c=
ould
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 Ho=
use
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, despica=
ble
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 sp=
oke
with a broad accent. But he was not bad-looking, a tight fellow with big bl=
ue
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 plu=
mber
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 und=
er
the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear--she handed him a candle--and s=
he
laughed to herself seeing his tight, well-shaped hind-quarters protruding f=
rom
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 muc=
h 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 l=
ooked
at her. She smiled rather archly into his eyes.
"It won't be done for nothing," he s=
aid,
looking at her again.
"We can go into that later," said Ja=
mes,
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 Art=
hur
Witham was going she heard him say: "Well, I'll work it out, Mr. Hough=
ton.
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 settin=
g.
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 le=
ft
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 lift=
ed
his blue eyes to her, and Mrs. Witham appeared in the background, in the in=
ner
doorway.
"Why, what is it?" said Arthur stoli=
dly.
"Make it as dear as you can, for
father," said Alvina, laughing nervously.
Arthur's blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Wi=
tham
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 fai=
l.
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 Wi=
tham
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 considere=
d a
lady in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to, with James's declining for=
tunes:
she was merely considered a lady. The consideration was no longer indisputa=
ble.
"Shall you come in a minute?" said
Lottie Witham, lifting the flap of the counter. It was a rare and bold stro=
ke
on Mrs. Witham's part. Alvina's immediate instinct was to refuse. But she l=
iked
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 wal=
ls.
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 fan=
cied
Alvina. So she was invited to tea at Manchester House.
After this, so many difficulties rose up in Ja=
mes
Houghton's way that he was worried almost out of his life. His two women le=
ft
him alone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned his sch=
eme--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 h=
ang
a cat in such a gloomy hole. Still, she was rather impressed by the sense of
superiority.
"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as s=
he
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 s=
houldn'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 feeli=
ng
as if his hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watch=
ed 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 w=
as
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," a=
nd
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 th=
ough
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 w=
as
one who was climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second br=
other.
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 se=
ven
hundred a year.
Albert was thirty-two years old, and unmarried.
Lottie was determined he should take back to the Cape a suitable wife: pres=
umably
Alvina. He spent his vacations in Woodhouse--and he was only in his first y=
ear
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 q=
uite
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. H=
er 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 kitch=
en.
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. B=
ut
some sort of terror hunted her to the search of a lover. She would become l=
oose,
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 t=
he 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 wou=
ld
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 trous=
ers
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 ridicul=
ous.
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 h=
er
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 fee=
l he
had heaven in his hold. How then could he let it go. Even a brown penny see=
med
alive and pulsing with mysterious blood, potent, magical. He loved the floc=
k 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 Houg=
hton
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 w=
ears
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 absorbe=
d.
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 pi=
cked
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 m=
ind
upon this latter little man. Picture her disappointment when she found Albe=
rt
quite unattractive. He was tall and thin and brittle, with a pale, rather d=
ry,
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 o=
r a
plaice. His teeth were sound, but rather large and yellowish and flat. A mo=
st
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 boundari=
es
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 q=
uite
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 fr=
om
the very first to imagine she had accepted him as a follower. And he was qu=
ite prepared
to follow. Nay, from the very first moment he was smiling on her with a sor=
t 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 re=
ally
interesting things between his big teeth. There was something rather nice a=
bout
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 see=
med
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 f=
or
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 pres=
ide.
But it was Arthur who came out into communication. And now, uttering his ra=
ther
broad-mouthed speeches, she seemed to hear in him a quieter, subtler editio=
n 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 ir=
on
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. Ther=
e's
nothing in riding a bicycle."
"I don't believe I ever should," lau=
ghed
Alvina.
"You don't mean to say you're nervous?&qu=
ot;
said Arthur rudely and sneeringly.
"I am," she persisted.
"You needn't be nervous with me," sm=
iled
Albert broadly, with his odd, genuine gallantry. "I'll hold you on.&qu=
ot;
"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 energet=
ic strain
of peddling a bicycle over miles and miles of high-way did not attract Alvi=
na
at all. She was completely indifferent to sight-seeing and scouring about. =
She
liked taking a walk, in her lingering indifferent fashion. But rushing abou=
t in
any way was hateful to her. And then, to be taught to ride a bicycle by Alb=
ert 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. &qu=
ot;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 nec=
k,
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,&=
quot;
she added, laughing confusedly to Arthur.
But he, hard-headed little fortune-maker, repl=
ied:
"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 delightfu=
l place
for learning to ride a bicycle, but open in full view of all the world. Alv=
ina
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 l=
ike the
jaws of a pair of insentient iron pincers. She rose, saying she must go.
Albert rose also, and reached for his straw ha=
t,
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 chanc=
ed
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 press=
ed
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 wal=
king
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 h=
ome
gratified to his own hive. The way he raised his hat, the way he inclined a=
nd
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 trip=
ping
down the shop.
"Good-evening, Mr. Houghton," said
Albert suavely and with a certain confidence, as James peered out.
"Oh, good-evening!" said James, lett=
ing
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?" sa=
id
James shrewishly.
"Nothing, I hope."
She fled into the obscurity of Manchester Hous=
e,
out of the grey summer evening. The Withams threw her off her pivot, and ma=
de
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 With=
am
brothers. She might be their victim. She intended to avoid them.
The following days she saw Albert, in his Norf= olk 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 h= erself thoroughly. When she went out, it was by the back way. So she avoided him.<= o:p>
But on Sunday evening, there he sat, rather st=
iff
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 st=
arched
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-l=
orn
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 pres=
ume.
"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 gir=
ls
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 co=
mmon
gardens, and proposed to take her the not-very-original walk up Flint's Lan=
e,
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 outli=
nes,
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, wi=
th
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 h=
er
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 sai=
d,
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 gi=
rls
that are all married now."
"Didn't you want to marry?" she aske=
d.
"Oh, I don't know. I may have done. But it
never came off, somehow. I've sometimes thought it never would come off.&qu=
ot;
"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 wit=
h 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,&qu=
ot;
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 forme=
d 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?&q=
uot;
"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 Alvi=
na.
"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 ma=
ke
any direct attack for a few days. Suddenly one evening he appeared at the b=
ack
door with a bunch of white stocks in his hand. His face lit up with a sudde=
n,
odd smile when she opened the door--a broad, pale-gleaming, remarkable smil=
e.
"Lottie wanted to know if you'd come to t=
ea
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. H=
e was
waiting on the doorstep to come in.
"Will you come in?" said Alvina.
"Father is in."
"Yes, I don't mind," he said, please=
d.
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 acc=
ept
them, Miss Houghton?" He stared at her with shining, pallid smiling ey=
es.
"Are they for me?" she said, with fa=
lse
brightness. "Thank you."
James Houghton looked over the top of his
spectacles, searchingly, at the flowers, as if they had been a bunch of whi=
te
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 fa=
ce.
"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 s=
aid.
"Do you think so?" he replied, again
with the excited smile. There was a pause. Albert, rather embarrassed, reac=
hed
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 themselv=
es.
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 acti=
on?
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 charac=
ter.
I believe he's a despicable character," said James.
"No, I don't know so much about that,&quo=
t;
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 min=
d.
That's the unnecessary part. The guilty feeling--"
Albert seemed insistent on this point, which h=
ad
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 w=
hat
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 nat=
ures
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 purpose=
s.
But in private you feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to=
feel
something else."
"I don't know," said James. "Th=
ere
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 ind=
ividual.
It seems to me that's what we've got to recognize if we're going to do anyt=
hing
with education. We don't want to produce mass feelings. Don't you agree?&qu=
ot;
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 hap=
py,
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 wor=
ds
towards him. James, however, was such an airy feather himself he did not re=
mark
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 tri=
fle
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." H=
ere
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 M=
iss
Pinnegar. "You don't find that the new connections make up for the
old?"
"Not altogether, they don't. There's some=
thing
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 Jame=
s.
"English and History. But I do mental sci=
ence
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 m=
an 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.<= o:p>
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--th=
ank
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 t=
he 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.<= o:p>
They both looked at her, irritated.
After this she really did what she could to av=
oid
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 Ch=
apel,
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 retu=
rned
down the yard. And there, through the uncurtained window, she saw him sitti=
ng
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 Pinneg=
ar.
"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 sai=
d.
The next evening was Saturday. Alvina had
inherited Miss Frost's task of attending to the Chapel flowers once a quart=
er.
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 t=
he
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 yel=
low,
and crimson, and purple, and bronze-green. She tried to keep the effect lig=
ht
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 a=
nd
tumble, up in the organ-loft, followed by a cursing.
"Are you hurt?" called Alvina, looki=
ng
up into space. The candle had disappeared.
But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she w=
ent
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 c=
rouched
in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the wall of the back, w=
hile
a collapsed pair of steps lay between her and him. It was too dark to see w=
ho
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 o=
ver
the steps. He was sitting nursing his leg.
"Is it bad?" she asked, stooping tow=
ards
him.
In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pa=
le,
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, s=
ome
distance above the ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stock=
ing,
to feel if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with bl=
ood.
Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed her hand down o=
ver
his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, as if her hand were a plast=
er.
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, intens=
e 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 pr=
ofessionally.
"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 match=
es
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 he=
r 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 wo=
und.
"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 repea=
ted
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 ang=
ry.
He took no notice of her at all. And she, waiting, seemed to go into a drea=
m, a
sleep, her arm trembled a little, stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lo=
se
count, under the firm compression he imposed on her. It was as if the press=
ure
on her hand pressed her into oblivion.
"Tie it up," he said briskly.
And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage wi=
th
numb fingers. He seemed to have taken the use out of her.
When she had finished, he scrambled to his fee=
t,
looked at the organ which he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pai=
r 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 ask=
ed.
"It's got to be done, Sunday tomorrow,&qu=
ot;
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 sa=
id.
"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 st=
eps 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, a=
nd
somehow childish leg of the real man, and the shapeless form of these workm=
en's
trousers. The kernel, the man himself--seemed so tender--the covering so st=
iff
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. A=
fter
all he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently but fi=
rmly
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 we=
ak
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 roun=
d.
"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.<= o:p>
"I think so," he answered churlishly=
.
"Aren't you going to make sure?" she
said.
"Oh, it's all right," he said, turni=
ng
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-w=
hite
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, frightene=
d 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. &quo=
t;We
s'll have folks talking."
Suddenly she began to laugh. It seemed so comi=
cal.
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--&quo=
t;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 f=
ifty
years old.
"Have you done for tonight, all of you?&q=
uot;
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.&qu=
ot;
"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 bro=
ke
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 precio=
us
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, scrup=
ulously.
Then she dressed herself in her black dress once more, did her hair, and we=
nt
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 an=
d 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, thou=
gh
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, bu=
t 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 Pinnega=
r.
"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 narr=
owed
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 b=
ear
the sight of him. Yet in her low, sweet voice she sang the alto to the hymn=
s,
right to the vesper:
&=
nbsp;
"Lord keep us safe this night Secure from all o=
ur
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 pray=
er.
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, vulg=
ar
little look! How could she have thought twice of Arthur. She had made a foo=
l 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!&quo=
t;
"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 umbrel=
la.
"You'll take a little stroll. The rain is=
n't
much," he said.
"No, thank you," she said. "I m=
ust
go home."
"Why, what's your hurry! Walk as far as B=
eeby
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 w=
ant
to take any more walks. I don't mean anything by them."
"Oh, as for that," he said, taking t=
he
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, stiffeni=
ng.
"Yes. I'm quite sure," she said.
"As sure as all that, are you!" he s=
aid,
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, unsee=
n by
her. But his voice was sneering and impotent.
She went home quivering. But her soul was burn=
ing
with satisfaction. She had shaken them off.
Later she wondered if she had been unkind to h=
im.
But it was done--and done for ever. Vogue la galère.
=
=
The
trouble with her ship was that it would not sail. It rode water-logged in t=
he
rotting port of home. All very well to have wild, reckless moods of irony a=
nd
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 lik=
e 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 v=
isit
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 m=
ight
slave her days away teaching the piano, as Miss Frost had done: she might f=
ind
a subordinate post as nurse: she might sit in the cash-desk of some shop. S=
ome
work of some sort would be found for her. And she would sink into the routi=
ne
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 agai=
nst
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 rebell=
ed
with all her backbone against the word job. Even the substitutes, employmen=
t or
work, were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not want to work f=
or 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 a=
nd 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 mili=
eu.
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? W=
hy
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,&qu=
ot;
said Alvina. "I can't understand why I dislike tapioca and arrowroot--=
but
I do."
"That's different," said Miss Pinneg=
ar
shortly.
"It's no more easy to understand," s=
aid
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 f=
irst
months after she had given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again--wo=
uld
not return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the Woodhouse Witha=
ms
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 s=
lip
across and smile to him. She would take the plunge, once and for all--and k=
iss him
and marry him and bear the little half-fishes, his children. She worked her=
self
into quite a fever of anticipation.
But when she saw him, the first evening, sitti=
ng
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 h=
is 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 a=
ll
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 Alvi=
na.
"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 w=
ork.
It is the ordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with an o=
rdinary
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 fa=
tes.
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 disus=
ed
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, ha=
ve
his extraordinary points. But nowadays you may look for them with a microsc=
ope,
they are so worn-down by the regular machine-friction of our average and me=
chanical
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 t=
he
bitter weed of failure--failures are usually the most conceited of men: eve=
n as
was James Houghton. But to a woman, failure is another matter. For her it m=
eans
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 is=
n't.
=
Ach, schon zwanzig =
Ach,
schon zwanzig Immer
noch durch's Leben tanz' ich
Jede=
r,
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 nowa=
days
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 ba=
rk,
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 sho=
ws
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. B=
ut
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 surprisin=
gly.
In James's younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody. And n=
ow
he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with sardonic contemp=
t,
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 Jame=
s,
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 w=
ho
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 i=
t.
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 pedestri=
an,
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." Wrig=
ht'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 affa=
ir.
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, pop=
ular
songs, five-minute farces, performing birds, and comics. Mr. May was too hu=
man
to believe that a show should consist entirely of the dithering eye-ache of=
a
film.
He was becoming really depressed by his failur=
e 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 da=
ughter.
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 spi=
ck,
his linen immaculate, his face clean-shaved like a cherub. But alas, his
clothes were now old-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartness wa=
s 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 jaunti=
ly
over his full pink face. But his eyes looked lugubrious, as if he felt he h=
ad
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, wher= e, 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? M= r. 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 f= or 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 enoug= h 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.<= o:p>
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 pal=
e-grey
dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys bellying forth black sm=
oke
right by the road. Then there was a short cross-way, up which one saw the i=
ron
foundry, a black and rusty place. A little further on was the railway junct=
ion,
and beyond that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking =
factories
were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church could be seen stic=
king
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 y=
our
own--some rival to Wright's Variety?"
"Ay--'appen--if somebody started it."=
;
And so it was that James was inoculated with t=
he
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 g=
rown
wings.
"Let us go down," said Mr. May,
"and look at a site. You pledge yourself to nothing--you don't comprom=
ise
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 forw=
ard
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 h=
im
look more a gentleman. But it did. As he walked he glanced alertly hither a=
nd
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 coll=
ar,
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 fashio=
ns:
very pink faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath: very much on th=
e 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 hand=
le
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 necessa=
ry.
I'll do all that for you. And I'll interview the managers and the performer=
s themselves--as
if I were a journalist, don't you see. I've done a fair amount of journalis=
m,
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.<= o:p>
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, stoppi=
ng
before the woman. "'Tisn't fair time, is it?"
"No, it's no fair," said the woman.<= o:p>
"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 thi=
n,
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 wom=
an,
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!&quo=
t;
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 hol=
low
way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous exhaus=
tion
in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his short nose. The s=
mell
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 blank=
ly,
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 corp=
oration.
Not at all. He looked at himself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinn=
er.
He was one of those men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so that t=
heir
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 rene=
wing
of cuffs and neckbands. He put on his coat, from which he had flicked the f=
aintest
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, frai=
l,
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 sh=
abby
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 secreti=
ve.
Mr. May disclosed all his discoveries. And the=
n he
said, tentatively:
"Hadn't we better think about the financi=
al
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 vaguel=
y,
nervously, giving a glance at Mr. May. Whilst Mr. May abstractedly fingered=
his
black knight.
"You see at the moment," said Mr. Ma=
y,
"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--numbe=
rs
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 rub=
bing
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.&q=
uot;
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 pointed=
ly.
"Hadn't we better make it monthly?"<= o:p>
The two men looked at one another.
"With a month's notice on either hand?&qu=
ot;
continued Mr. May.
"How much?" said James, avaricious.<= o:p>
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 a=
nd 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 thi=
nk of,"
retorted Mr. May, rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a dodderin=
g 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 Jame=
s.
"If I've got to make it pay, I must keep down expenses at the
beginning."
"No,--on the contrary. You must be prepar=
ed
to spend something at the beginning. If you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashio=
n in
the beginning, you will get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month! Why it's im=
possible!
Ten pounds a month! But how am I to live?"
James's head still vibrated in a negative fash=
ion.
And the two men came to no agreement that morning. Mr. May went home more s=
ick
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 a=
nd
his sprightliness for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a perce=
ntage
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 travell=
ing theatre
which stood closed on Selverhay Common, and might probably be sold. He pres=
sed
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 Selverh=
ay:
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 d=
own
others, asking his way from uncouth clowns, till at last he came to the Com=
mon,
which wasn't a Common at all, but a sort of village more depressing than us=
ual:
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.&q=
uot;
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 policem=
an
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 a=
bout
it, anyway?" Mr. May used his most affable, man of the world manner. B=
ut
the policeman continued to stare him up and down, as if he were some marvel=
lous
specimen unknown on the normal, honest earth.
"What, find out?" said the constable=
.
"About being able to buy it," said M=
r.
May, a little testily. It was with great difficulty he preserved his man-to=
-man
openness and brightness.
"They aren't here," said the constab=
le.
"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 o=
ut
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?"<= o:p>
"You can walk--or go by train."
"Oh, there is a station?"
"Station!" The policeman looked at h=
im
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 n=
ow
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 saf=
est
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--?&quo=
t;
"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. Cou=
ld
you tell me the way?"
When, after an hour's painful walk, Mr. May ca=
me
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 agre=
ed
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 w=
orth
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 Pinneg=
ar
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 not=
hing
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 li=
ke a
robin, was looking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreement, h=
e had
ventured on whiskey and soda in honour, and James had actually taken a glas=
s of
port.
"Alvina!" Miss Pinnegar called
discreetly down the shop. "Alvina! Quick!"
Alvina flew down to peep round the corner of t=
he
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 occasion=
ally
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, laug=
hing
at the comic sight.
"Don't you think he's dreadful?" said
the poor elderly woman.
"Perfectly impossible. Did ever you see s=
uch
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 towa=
rds
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 consi=
der
the proprieties now?
"They've stopped again," said Miss
Pinnegar, recalling Alvina.
The two men were having a few more excited wor=
ds,
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 Pinnega=
r.
"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 gr=
aceful
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 st=
ood
it out. James started as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her co=
nfronting
him.
"Oh--Miss Pinnegar!" he said, and ma=
de
to slip by her.
"Who was that man?" she asked sharpl=
y,
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.<= o:p>
Miss Pinnegar stood for some moments in pure
oblivion in the shop entrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recover=
ed,
she felt she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened he=
rself
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 li=
ving
room, like the inevitable. He was eating his dinner, and seemed oblivious o=
f 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 Pinne=
gar.
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 qu=
eer,
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?&quo=
t;
"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 a=
ll
womanhood was silently discharged at him, like a black bolt of silent elect=
ricity.
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 brea=
st
were bursting. She had to lean her hand on the table.
It was a terrible moment. She looked ghastly a=
nd
terrible, with her mask-like face and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. S=
ome
fearful thunderbolt seemed to fall. James withered, and was still. There wa=
s silence
for minutes, a suspension.
And in those minutes, she finished with him. S=
he
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 h=
er 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 Mi=
ss
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 sa=
w 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," s=
aid
Alvina.
"You're different. You're his daughter. H=
e'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 Alvin=
a.
"Down at Lumley. I'll take you and show y=
ou
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?"<= o:p>
"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 contr=
ol
of the machine--he is having lessons now--: and if I am the indoors attenda=
nt,
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 b=
low
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, T=
he
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 anot=
her
tune.
What a sight for the gods! She burst out laugh=
ing.
And at the same time, she thought of her mother and Miss Frost, and she cri=
ed
as if her heart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous tu=
nes
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 leadi=
ng 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? =
&nb=
sp; =
(Why
ra-ther!)
Underneath the oak-tree nice and shady =
Calling
me your tootsey-wootsey lady? =
How'd
you like to hug and squeeze, =
&nb=
sp; =
(Just
try me!)
Dandle me upon your knee, =
Calling
me your little lovey-dovey-- =
How'd
you like to spoon with me? =
&nb=
sp; =
(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 y=
ou,
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 erect=
ion
will be a merely temporary one. Of cauce it won't be anything to look at: j=
ust
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 s=
pend
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. M=
ay.
"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 wage=
s in
particular--"
"But surely Miss Houghton will have her w=
age.
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. &quo=
t;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 afr=
aid
of making him drop the plates. But songs--oh, songs! Con molto
espressione!"
And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, a=
nd
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?&q=
uot;
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. M=
ay.
"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 s=
ure
as anything she'd answer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to bed--that wi=
ll
be my supper.' She was one of these advanced vegetarian women, don't you kn=
ow."
"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 you=
ng
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 wi=
th
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 wate=
r, 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. S=
he
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. T=
hat
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 peop=
le
existed. And her friends! Oh the dreadful friends she had--these Fabians! O=
h,
their eugenics. They wanted to examine my private morals, for eugenic reaso=
ns.
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 m=
e--"
"What a pity!"
"Oh--unbearable!" He spread his plum=
p,
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 physi=
cal
advances. On the contrary, he was like a dove-grey, disconsolate bird pecki=
ng 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. Nothi=
ng
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-mo=
ther
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 stru=
tty
and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back on her in public.
But Miss Pinnegar, a regular old, grey, danger=
ous
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 matte=
rs
of business. He was up at half-past five in the morning, and by seven was w=
ell
on his way. He sailed like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze, hith=
er
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 th=
em
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. B=
ut
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! Tomorro=
w! Imagine
it! Two days late already, and then tomorrow! Well I hope by tomorrow you m=
ean
Wednesday, and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or some other absurd and fanciful d=
ate
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--&q=
uot;
"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 c=
an'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 vermili=
on 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, lik=
e a
genuine theatre notice, giving full programs. And beneath these a broad-let=
ter 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 h=
is
odds and ends from every corner of Manchester House. He sorted them in heap=
s,
and marked the heaps in his own mind. And then he let go. He pasted up noti=
ces
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 floc=
ked
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 arti=
cle
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 g=
ood
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 th=
e 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 immediate=
ly
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 passag=
es,
before he could get into his own house, from his own shop.
But he did not mind. Every hour brought the fi=
rst
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 l=
ast--oh,
it was so ricketty when it arrived!--and it glowed with a new coat, all ove=
r,
of dark-red paint, like ox-blood. It was tittivated up with a touch of lave=
nder
and yellow round the door and round the decorated wooden eaving. It had a n=
ew
wooden slope up to the doors--and inside, a new wooden floor, with red-velv=
et
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 Pala=
ce
was christened, in some lucky stroke, Houghton's Endeavour, a reference to =
that
particular Chapel effort called the Christian Endeavour, where Alvina and M=
iss
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 t=
he
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 innumera=
ble 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: marvello=
us,
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 ea=
ch
other's heads and on their own heads, and perched for a moment on each othe=
r'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 do=
wn
and becoming the bottom flight, while the middle flight collapsed and becam=
e 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 conductin=
g.
She played "Welcome All," and then took the thumbed sheets which =
Miss
Poppy Traherne carried with her. Miss Poppy was rather exacting. As she whi=
rled
her skirts she kept saying: "A little faster, please"--"A li=
ttle
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 M=
iss
Poppy was fancying herself a strong cup of tea.
However, she subsided into her mere self, pant=
ed
frantically, and then, in a hoarse voice, demanded if she was in the bare f=
ront
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 s=
aid,
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 nigh=
ts
to a week." James was properly snubbed. It ended by Mr. May metamorphi=
zing
himself into a pug dog: he said he had got the "costoom" in his b=
ag:
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 ti=
me
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 slig=
ht
assistance. She saw the men's feet, in their shabby pumps, on the other sid=
e of
the curtain, and she heard the men's gruff voices. Often a slangy conversat=
ion
was carried on through the curtain--for most of the turns were acquainted w=
ith
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 h=
er
with a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her a=
nd
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 actual=
ly
walked down the hill with her, and began to cry when she saw the ox-blood r=
ed
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 st=
eps
into the scrap of dressing-room. But she fled out again from the sight of M=
iss
Poppy in her yellow hair and green knickers with green-lace frills. Poor Mi=
ss
Pinnegar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the Band of Hope, a=
nd
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 o=
ut
the ticket. And then he recognized her. "Oh," he said, "You'=
re
not going to pay."
"Yes I am," she said, and she left h=
er
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, whistli=
ng,
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.&quo=
t;
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 scuf=
fled
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 cro=
wd
quieted itself, the eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James, and b=
egan
to shuffle. "Come down, come down!" hissed Mr. May frantically fr=
om
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 a=
nd
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 stoli=
dly
she stared at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alv=
ina.
She knew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr. May was fi=
tted
in his pug-dog "Costoom."
A twitch of the curtain. Alvina wound up her f=
inal
flourish, the curtain rose, and:
"Well really!" said Miss Pinnegar, o=
ut
loud.
There was Mr. May as a pug dog begging, too
lifelike and too impossible. The audience shouted. Alvina sat with her hand=
s 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 g=
reen
scarf. And so the accumulating dilation, on to the whirling climax of the p=
erfect
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. Th=
is
is the storm from whence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain--Miss Pop=
py
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 a=
nd
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 lett=
ers.
It's not a very good machine, and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audi=
ence
distinctly critical. Lights up--an "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, p=
enny
a bar!" even as in Alvina's dream--and then "The Pancake"--s=
o 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 outra=
ged
shame and decency, she was excited. But she felt such excitement was not wh=
olesome.
In vain the boy most pertinently yelled "Chot-let" at her. She lo=
oked
neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina nodding to her with a qu=
ick
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 exci=
ted.
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 act=
ed
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. T=
his 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 eve=
n 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 f=
ists
and flourishing them in Miss Pinnegar's face. "How did it go?"
"I think it went very well," she sai=
d.
"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?" as=
ked
Alvina gaily.
"I haven't counted," he snapped.
When he got home he hurried upstairs to his ba=
re
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 a=
n army
of fat pennies, a dozen to a column, along the back, rows and rows of fat b=
rown
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 quit=
e 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 st=
ick
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 wa=
s 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 t=
he
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, see=
med
alive and pulsing, the silver was magic as if winged.
=
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 onl=
y 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 las=
t 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 ment=
al
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 m=
ade
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 be=
autifully,
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 thr=
ew
her arms round my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning, wh=
en I
was on the alert for business. Yes, invariably. What do you think of it? Co=
uld
the devil himself have invented anything more trying? Oh dear me, don't men=
tion
it. Oh, what a time I had! Wonder I'm alive. Yes, really! Although you
smile."
Alvina did more than smile. She laughed outrig=
ht.
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 u=
ndertaking--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 whi=
ch
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 plan=
ted his
endeavour down in the stagnant dust and rust of potteries and foundries, wh=
ere
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 h=
is
prices. He had to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rat=
e 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 Woodh=
ouse
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 w=
ere.
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. &quo=
t;I
think they like them when they're there. But isn't it funny, they don't see=
m 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,&quo=
t;
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 inter=
est
was still the human interest in living performers and their living feats. &=
quot;Why,"
he continued, "they are ever so much more excited after a good turn, t=
han
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. M=
ay,
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 jealou=
s 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-blo=
od
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 perfor=
mer.
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!--s=
ane
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 th=
ings
which aren't yourself. But they don't. They hate to admire anything that th=
ey
can't take to themselves. They hate anything that isn't themselves. And tha=
t'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 sa=
id,
a little mocking, as if she were making a fool of herself.
"Because you don't know them. You don't k=
now
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,&quo=
t;
she said. "We should have to get a new machine, and pay for the expens=
ive
films. Our pictures do shake, and our films are rather ragged."
"But then, surely they're good enough!&qu=
ot;
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, a=
nd
then there was a very shadowy margin of profit. But James was not at all da=
unted.
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 lur=
king
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 o=
ther
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 tu=
rned
round, to find all three turning round. Alvina laughed, and made eyes. At t=
hat moment
she would cheerfully have gone along with the navvy. She was getting so tir=
ed
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 h=
er only
from a distance. She was supposed to be "carrying on" with Mr. Ma=
y.
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 laug=
hed
when she saw his thrilling announcements in the Woodhouse Weekly. She laugh=
ed
when she knew that all the Woodhouse youths recognized her, and looked on h=
er
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. Eve=
ry
week she met a new set of stars--three or four as a rule. She rehearsed wit=
h 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 s=
ome
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 li=
ttle
frowsy, a little flea-bitten as a rule, indifferent to ordinary morality, a=
nd
philosophical even if irritable. They were often very irritable. And they h=
ad
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 Woodhou=
se,
where everything was priced and ticketed. These people were nomads. They di=
dn'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 curt=
ain
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 bla=
ck
silk stockings thrilled nobody, any more than grease-paint or false moustac=
hes
thrilled. It was all part of the stock-in-trade. As for immorality--well, w=
hat
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 l=
ong
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 dr=
ank.
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 m=
an
who played a flute and piccolo. He was about fifty years old, still handsom=
e,
and growing stout. When sober, he was completely reserved. When rather drun=
k,
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-shave=
n,
slightly pasty young man left Alvina quite cold, though he had an amiable a=
nd
truly chivalrous galanterie. He was quite likeable. But so unattractive. Al=
vina
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 tu=
rn
of the hand. Queer cuts these!--but just a little bit beyond her. She watch=
ed
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 exquisi=
te
tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle that flew with terrible spread
wings between his shoulders, or the strange mazy pattern that netted the ro=
undness
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 tatto=
oing
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 Eas=
t,
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 wa=
s a
better time for James Houghton. The trams, moreover, would begin to run in
January.
He wanted to arrange a good program for the we=
ek
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 I=
ndian
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 Ma=
dame
and the German did a screaming two-person farce. Their great turn, of cours=
e,
was the Natcha-Kee-Tawara Red Indian scene.
The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were due in the third w=
eek
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, sea=
ted
in the living room talking with James, who had an anxious look. Since openi=
ng
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 pea=
ce.
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 d=
id 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 a=
bout
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 h=
and
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 mu=
st
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 wel=
l.
Mr. Houghton was very much concerned over Mada=
me'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 bro=
w.
Supposing Madame could not take her part! He was most anxious.
"Do you think you might go across with Mr= s. Rollings and see how this woman is, Alvina?" he said to his daughter.<= o:p>
"I should think you'll never turn Alvina =
out
on such a night," said Miss Pinnegar. "And besides, it isn't righ=
t.
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 pastill=
es
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 w=
hat
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."<= o:p>
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 bri=
ght eyes
and finely-drawn eyebrows: she might be any age between forty and fifty. Th=
ere
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 h=
er
plump hand, on which four or five rings showed. She had dropped the cigaret=
te 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 w=
here
you're goin' to act," interposed the widow.
"Oh yes! Yes! I see. Miss Houghton. I did=
n'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 tab=
le.
The four young men had risen, and stood lookin=
g at
Alvina and Madame. The room was small, rather bare, with horse-hair and whi=
te-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 S=
wiss
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, wi=
th
yellow-tawny eyes. He was an Italian from the south. Madame gave another lo=
ok
at him. "He doesn't like his English name of Frank. You will see, he p=
ulls
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 o=
ur
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, une=
asy breaths.
"I feel it. I feel it here." She patted her breast. "It make=
s 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 lo=
oked
round at Alvina as if he presumed there would be no need for him to move. T=
he
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 flicke=
r 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 you=
ng
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 momen=
t.
Then her face looked transparent and pallid, there were dark rings under he=
r 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 anot=
her.
"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 take=
n,
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 pock=
et.
Ciccio meanwhile muttered something in French--evidently something rude--me=
ant
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 bet=
ter
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 mou=
th, and
sat back with closed eyes and the stump of the thermometer comically protru=
ding
from a corner of her lips. Meanwhile Alvina took her plump white wrist and =
felt
her pulse.
"We can practise--" began Geoffrey.<= o:p>
"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 h=
er face
was rather ghastly.
Max and Louis watched anxiously. Geoffrey sat
blowing the smoke down his nose, while Ciccio callously lit another cigaret=
te,
striking a match on his boot-heel and puffing from under the tip of his rat=
her long
nose. Then he took the cigarette from his mouth, turned his head, slowly sp=
at
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 Alvin=
a.
"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 as=
ide
his head because of the tears in his eyes. Geoffrey gulped beer in large th=
roatfuls,
and Ciccio, with his head bent, was watching from under his eyebrows.
"I'll run round for the doctor--" sa=
id
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.<= o:p>
"Never for ten years," she was waili=
ng.
"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 i=
ch
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 we=
ep
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 m=
en.
But this was an extra occasion.
"La pauvre Kishwégin!" murmur=
ed
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 sid=
e. 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 lip=
s,
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 goo=
d-night,
to each of them.
"Good-night, my faithful Max, I trust mys=
elf
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 broth=
ers
in one accord. One little prayer for poor Kishwégin. Good-night!&quo=
t;
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 trus=
ted,
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 Alv=
ina.
"You know I have been a nurse."
"Ah, you are too kind, too kind, dear you=
ng
lady. I am a lonely old woman. I am not used to attentions. Best leave me.&=
quot;
"Let me help you," said Alvina.
"Alas, ahimé! Who would have thoug=
ht
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 somet=
hing
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 danc=
er
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 bl=
ack
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 threa=
ded black-and-gold
garters.
"My poor boys--no Kishwégin tomorr=
ow!
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 we=
re 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 y=
ou
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-scutt=
les
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," sa=
id
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 sc=
reen
his eyes. He was fairly tall, but loosely built for an Italian, with slight=
ly
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, prehen=
sile
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 wa=
lked
with Alvina.
"I'm sorry for Madame," said Alvina,=
as
she hurried rather breathless through the night. "She does think for y=
ou
men."
But Ciccio vouchsafed no answer, and walked wi=
th
his hands in the pockets of his water-proof, wincing from the weather.
"I'm afraid she will never be able to dan=
ce
tomorrow," said Alvina.
"You think she won't be able?" he sa=
id.
"I'm almost sure she won't."
After which he said nothing, and Alvina also k=
ept
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 t=
heir
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 t=
hrow
it off if we can get her into a sweat." And Alvina ran upstairs collec=
ting
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 sl=
ight
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 h=
ead
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, a=
nd
talking excitedly of her dance, her young men. The three young men were
terrified. They had got the blankets scorching hot. Alvina smeared the plas=
ters
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 feveris=
hly.
Alvina soothed her, and put her hands in bed. And at last the poor dear bec=
ame
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, firm=
ly
down, folded her tight and made her submit to the perspiration against whic=
h,
in convulsive starts, she fought and strove, crying that she was suffocatin=
g,
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, w=
hen
the perspiration became less profuse, and the patient was really better, re=
ally
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 tab=
le,
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 be=
dclothes.
Madame was lying, looking a little flushed and very girlish, sleeping light=
ly,
with a strand of black hair stuck to her cheek, and her lips lightly parted=
.
Max watched her for some moments. Then suddenl=
y 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 himse=
lf
and inclined before the altar. Then he straightened himself again, and turn=
ed
aside.
Louis also crossed himself. His tears burst ou=
t.
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 sleepin=
g,
but in vain. At last Geoffrey began to stir. But in vain Louis lifted Cicci=
o's
shoulders from the table. The head and the hands dropped inert. The long bl=
ack
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 say=
ing
softly in French, pushing him as ox-drivers sometimes push their oxen. Cicc=
io
staggered to his feet.
"She is better," they told him. &quo=
t;We
are going to bed."
They took their candles and trooped off upstai=
rs,
each one bowing to Alvina as he passed. Max solemnly, Louis gallant, the ot=
her
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 stirri=
ng
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 wi=
de
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 n=
ot
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 he=
r 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 Alvin=
a's
hand and nodded her head sagely.
"Shall I take your temperature?" said
Alvina.
"Yes, my dear, you shall. You shall bid m=
e,
and I shall obey."
So Madame lay back on her pillow, submissively
pursing the thermometer between her lips and watching Alvina with black eye=
s.
"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. "Y=
ou
say Thursday?" There was a note of strong rebellion in her voice.
"You'll be so weak. You've only just esca=
ped
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 a=
ll
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 M=
adame
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 d=
e Cologne--and
Max stooped his brittle spine and kissed it. She touched his cheek gently w=
ith
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 sa=
id, 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. Whe=
re
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 Wh=
ite
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 squa=
w.
Some other then.
While the interview was going on, Mr. May arri=
ved,
full of concern.
"Shan't we have the procession!" he
cried.
"Ah, the procession!" cried Madame.<= o:p>
The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe upon request would
signalize its entry into any town by a procession. The young men were dress=
ed
as Indian braves, and headed by Kishwégin they rode on horseback thr=
ough
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. Ma=
y.
"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?" s=
aid
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!" wai=
led
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 Englishwoma=
n.
All alike. All alike!" Madame subsided fretfully and weakly. Alvina mo=
ved
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 he=
ad
in an odd, parrot-like fashion. "I'll be the squaw! What's her name? K=
ishwégin?
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 ro=
und
his head and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, expression=
less
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! W=
hat?
Isn't that exactly the idea? Well! Will you be ready at once, now?"
He looked excitedly at the young men. They nod=
ded
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 l=
ike
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 t=
hink
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 chan=
ce 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 g=
leam
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 snow=
s,
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 eloque= nce. And then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume, whi= te shirt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois leather stitched = with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked ankles and heavy shoes, warb= led 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.<= o:p>
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 vo=
ice.
And there was Kishwégin, dusky, coy, wi=
th
long black hair and a short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare a=
rms:
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 sai= d, touching Mr. May's plump waist--"and some flowers in your hair."<= o:p>
Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. A be=
ar
on its hind legs, slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretch=
ing
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 Geof=
frey
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 a=
bout
his erect white form and stiffly-carried head, the semi-luminous brown hair=
. He
seemed curiously superior.
Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis ar=
ose,
a brave like Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tatte=
red hunting-shirt
and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. He was the white prison=
er.
They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watche=
d.
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 vai=
n 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, givin=
g 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 prison=
er
is tripped up--falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the fallen bear.
Kishwégin carries food to Ciccio. The two braves converse in dumb sh=
ow,
Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. The men rise once more and b=
end
over the prisoner. As they do so, there is a muffled roar. The bear is sitt=
ing
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 h=
im,
Mr. May and the others were busy.
"You know I think it's quite wonderful, y=
our
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 cu=
rled
in a self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile.
"Not without Madame," he said, with =
the
slow, half-sneering, stupid smile. "Without Madame--" he lifted h=
is
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 jealous=
ly.
"Do?" He looked down at her with the
same long, half-sardonic look of his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casual=
ly
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. Y=
ou
should see her dance--ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I b=
ring
him in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand--" And Cic=
cio
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 ga=
ve a
little assertive shake of his head, finishing, there came a great yell of l=
aughter
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 w=
orld
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 ti=
me
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-jeer=
ing 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 t=
he
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 h=
er
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 n=
ever
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 insti=
nct
to say at once he would take her.
"You've seen nothing--nothing," he s=
aid
to her.
"But if Naples is so lovely, how could you
leave it?" she asked.
"What?"
She repeated her question. For answer, he look=
ed
at her, held out his hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tip=
s 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 bro=
ws,
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 wistful=
ness
about him, something so robust and fragile at the same time, that she was d=
rawn
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--" s=
he
said.
He looked at her, and made a slight, sad gestu=
re,
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 s=
low,
fine smile.
"Does a man want two mothers? Eh?" he
said, as if he posed a conundrum.
"I shouldn't think so," laughed Alvi=
na.
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 se=
ven
years old--and if his mother comes, he is a little baby boy when he's seven=
ty.
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 hor=
ses
were there, including the thoroughbred Ciccio was going to ride. He stood a=
nd examined
the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strange sounds, patted th=
em,
stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand down them, over them, under the=
m,
and felt their legs.
Then, he looked up from stooping there under t=
he
horses, with a long, slow look of his yellow eyes, at Alvina. She felt unco=
nsciously
flattered. His long, yellow look lingered, holding her eyes. She wondered w=
hat
he was thinking. Yet he never spoke. He turned again to the horses. They se=
emed
to understand him, to prick up alert.
"This is mine," he said, with his ha=
nd
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. H=
er
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 h=
ow
dark they seemed, with only a yellow ring of pupil. He was looking right in=
to
her, beyond her usual self, impersonal.
"The horses," she said. She was afra=
id
of his long, cat-like look. Yet she felt convinced of his ultimate good-nat=
ure.
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 t=
he
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 lo=
ng
head-dress of dyed feathers, then by the others in war-paint and feathers a=
nd
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 o=
n high
as he swept past, suddenly drew up his rearing steed, and trotted slowly ba=
ck
again, making his horse perform its paces. He was extraordinarily velvety a=
nd
alive on horseback.
Crowds of excited, shouting children ran
chattering along the pavements. The colliers, as they tramped grey and heav=
y,
in an intermittent stream uphill from the low grey west, stood on the pavem=
ent
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 pave=
ment.
Children screamed and ran. The colliers shouted. Ciccio smiled in his terri=
fying
war-paint, brandished his spear and trotted softly, like a flower on its st=
em,
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 a=
long
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 ha=
ir
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, eas=
y,
swathed in a white blanket, with scarlet and black stripes, and all his str=
ange
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 blan=
kets
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 Pinneg=
ar.
"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 w=
ith
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, t=
he
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 se=
cond,
as if negligently.
"I call that too much!" Miss Pinnegar
was crying, thoroughly upset. "Now that was unnecessary! Why it was en=
ough
to scare one to death. Besides, it's dangerous. It ought to be put a stop t=
o. I
don't believe in letting these show-people have liberties."
The cavalcade was slowly passing, with its une=
asy
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 bl=
ood
run cold--"
"Ay, an' a man for all that, take's paint=
ed
face for what's worth. A tidy man, I say."
He did not look at Alvina. The faint, mischiev=
ous
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, descendi=
ng.
He was gone too. In the wintry twilight the crowd began, lingeringly, to tu=
rn
away. And in some strange way, it manifested its disapproval of the spectac=
le:
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 inter= esting 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 li= king 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."<= o:p>
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 excit=
ement.
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, r=
eal
as the day. And Alvina was always put out when this happened. She really ha=
ted
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 Knarbo=
rough
Road, and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester House, with the stuff=
y, 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 pa=
per
into Limbo. Nothingness! Poor Madame! Poor gallant histrionic Madame! The f=
rowsy
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 fath=
er.
"Wonder I'm not," said Alvina,
"considering what my life is."
=
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 vi=
sit
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 n=
ot
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 t=
han
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 Alv=
ina.
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--"<= o:p>
She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortab=
ly.
"Is there nobody?" persisted Madame.=
"Not now," said Alvina. "Absolu=
tely
nobody." She looked with a confused laugh into Madame's strict black e=
yes.
"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 dar=
k animals
in the snow.
"Sure!" she said, sapient. "Sur=
e!
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 Alvi=
na.
"No, not often. But sometimes!
sometimes!"
There was a silence between the two women, very
pregnant.
"Englishwomen," said Madame, "a=
re
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 alw=
ays
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 id=
eas 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, y=
ou
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 a=
re
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,&q=
uot;
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 Alvin=
a.
"No. No. I don't expect it. But I don't m=
ind.
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 spi=
tefully.
"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 tapp=
ed
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 busine=
ss-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 sai=
d,
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-h= a! 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."<= o:p>
"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 Mad=
ame
was having her on a string.
Mr. May enjoyed himself hugely playing
Kishwégin. When Madame came downstairs Louis, who was a good satiric=
al
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 cauti=
ously.
"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 ta=
il 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 t=
able
and shouted with laughter, Ciccio threw back his head and showed all his te=
eth
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 l=
ip
between her teeth, it was so screamingly funny, and so annihilating. She la=
ughed
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 eye=
s,
and nodded slow approval. Suddenly Louis started and held up a warning fing=
er.
They all at once covered their smiles and pulled themselves together. Only
Alvina lay silently laughing.
"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Rollings!" t=
hey
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. Alvi=
na
was still incompetent. She lay leaning sideways in her chair, and could not
even speak to him.
"It was evidently a good joke," he s=
aid.
"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 wo=
uld
like a little whiskey?--yes?"
Max poured out whiskey and water for Mr. May.<= o:p>
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 h=
is
arms on his knees, looking sideways under his long lashes at the inert Alvi=
na.
"Well," said Madame, "and are y=
ou
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 m=
e I
should not dance tomorrow, it is too soon."
"Miss Houghton knows," said Mr. May
archly.
"Of course!" said Madame. "I mu=
st
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 begi=
n to
wonder if I have mistaken my vocation. I should have been on the boards,
instead of behind them."
"No doubt," said Madame. "But i=
t is
a little late--"
The eyes of the foreigners, watching him,
flattered Mr. May.
"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Y=
es.
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 sagel=
y.
"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry=
and
petulant.
"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. T=
he
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 tha=
n he
did that day. Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head?
There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawa=
ra
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, M=
ax
could suddenly assume an air of hauteur and overbearing which was really ve=
ry 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," sa=
id
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 sl=
ow,
derisive way.
"Comment!" sneered Max, in echo.
"What? What? Why what did I say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if th=
at
seems more suitable to you."
"To whom? To me or to you?" said Cic=
cio,
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 fie=
rce.
"That is to say, to me, from an unciviliz=
ed
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 clutchi=
ng a
property knife.
"Now! None of that! None of that!" s=
aid
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 sp=
ring
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. Ma=
y, 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!" cri=
ed
Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis sprang down after his friend. Thud went the bo=
ards
again, with the spring of a man.
Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the pia=
no
below, started up and overturned her chair as Ciccio rushed past her. Now M=
ax,
white, with set blue eyes, was upon her.
"Don't--!" she cried, lifting her ha=
nd
to stop his progress. He saw her, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap ov=
er
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 fello=
ws
from the south, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what t=
hey
are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It was a dummy kn=
ife,
but it was a heavy blow--the dog of an Italian. Let us see."
So gradually Max was brought to stand still. F=
rom
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 ski=
n broken.
"If the bone isn't broken!" said Lou=
is
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," s=
aid
Max.
"The animal. He hasn't done that, at
least."
"Where do you imagine he's gone?" as=
ked
Mr. May.
The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and p=
aid
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 think=
ing
of Ciccio. He was gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and h=
at
from the dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, w=
hich
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-slee=
ves and
gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, without sayin=
g a
word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her shoes, she had her hat on, w=
hen
the others arrived.
"What is it?" she cried.
She heard a hurried explanation from Louis.
"Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn't wo=
rth
all my pains!" cried poor Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one sh=
oe
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 tha=
t 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, o=
r 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 bra=
ves,
let us say adieu here in this funeste Woodhouse."
"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Loui=
s,
"let us hope. Let us swear a closer fidelity, dear Madame, our
Kishwégin. Let us never part. Max, thou dost not want to part, broth=
er,
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 g=
one
away! We are wondering which way Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough o=
r 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,&q=
uot;
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 rid=
den
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.&qu=
ot;
"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 b=
road
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. M=
ay.
Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulde=
rs.
"Who knows?" she said.
"These Italians," said Louis, turnin=
g to
Mr. May. "They have always money. In another country, they will not sp=
end
one sou if they can help. They are like this--" And he made the Neapol=
itan
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?"<= o:p>
"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. M=
ay
bitterly.
"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madam=
e,
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 w=
ill
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 dis=
satisfied,
and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling him away from the troup=
e,
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 Cicc=
io.
They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. He went the roun=
d of
associates known and unknown, of lodgings strange and familiar, of third-ra=
te
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 t=
he
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 darkn=
ess
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 cyclis=
t.
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, drop=
ping
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 Geoffre=
y.
"Toi!" said Ciccio.
"Hé! Où vas-tu?"
"Hé!" ejaculated Ciccio.
Their conversation consisted a good deal in no=
ises
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, wi=
th
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.<= o:p>
"Faut," said Ciccio, slightly derisi=
ve.
"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 Geoff=
rey.
"Where?"
"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to M=
rs.
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 e=
ach
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 u=
p 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 wi=
th
this she went to bed.
In the morning she was up betimes, sending a n=
ote
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? Goo=
d!
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. "C=
ome,
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, w=
ho
rode up muddily on his bicycle.
"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we wil=
l 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? Fin=
ish
this week and then go, go--But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I hav=
e 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-ski=
rt,
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.<= o:p>
"Ah!" she cried suddenly in French,
"the ungrateful, the animal! He shall suffer. See if he shall not suff=
er.
The low canaille, without faith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, su=
ch
canaille should be beaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Wi=
ll
no one beat him for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves Eng=
land
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 bro=
ken
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 sa=
id
to Geoffrey.
Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way u=
p 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 Cicci=
o.
Geoffrey opened the door. Ciccio was sitting o=
n 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 lit=
tle
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 h=
er
eyes from him.
He made not the slightest movement, but sat wi=
th
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 lifte=
d it
towards herself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was not withd=
rawn.
"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 softe=
ning
round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of its silent, gent=
ler
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, sti=
ll
holding his fingers in her left hand.
"You are coming, aren't you?" she sa=
id,
looking over her shoulder into his eyes. And taking consent from his unchan=
ging
eyes, she let go his hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, a=
nd 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 follo=
wing
behind Alvina in his dark, hangdog fashion, and she did not move a muscle u=
ntil
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 h=
er
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 pas=
sed
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 ston=
ily 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 duck=
ed
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 hea=
r,
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? H&eacut=
e;?
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, rou=
nd 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 ans=
wer.
"Well, what is it? Say then? Shall she
not?"
"Yes," said Ciccio, unwilling to com=
mit
himself.
"Yes, so I say! So I say. Quite a good id=
ea!
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 litt=
le
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 fou=
nd one
gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively, but persisten=
tly.
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 h=
is
head dropped forward, and his eyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. Bu=
t 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 rem=
ote.
It was like meeting a lion. His long, fine nose, his rather long, rounded c=
hin
and curling lips seemed refined through ages of forgotten culture. He was w=
aiting:
silent there, with something muscular and remote about his very droop, he w=
as
waiting. What for? Alvina could not guess. She wanted to meet his eye, to h=
ave
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 ch=
ange
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 con=
scious,
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 an=
d 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, a=
s across
a chasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an eternity of inaccessi=
ble
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 sh=
e 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 fla=
sh
of delight went over her, that changed into a sob of mortal anguish. And th=
en,
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, a=
s 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 suppose=
d to
have crushed him, and he was to have fallen, he reeled out of the bear's ar=
ms
and said to Madame, in his derisive voice:
"Vivo sempre, Madame." And then he f=
ell.
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 wa=
s 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 d=
id
you change the scene? It might have spoiled everything if Madame wasn't suc=
h 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 w=
ent
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 wer=
e 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?" ask=
ed
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, th=
ere
is not so much to wear. Well, I must thank you once more--"
"What time do you leave in the morning?&q=
uot;
"By the train at half-past ten. If it doe=
sn'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 go=
ne.
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 penni=
es,
Alvina said to Miss Pinnegar:
"Don't you think father looks rather seed=
y,
Miss Pinnegar?"
"I've been thinking so a long time,"
said Miss Pinnegar tartly.
"What do you think he ought to do?"<= o:p>
"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 do=
wn
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 s=
aid,
looking down at him. He screwed his head round to her unwillingly, upside d=
own,
his chin tilted up at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes res=
ted
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 thin=
gs
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 wa=
nt
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 nap=
e of
the neck, the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The w=
ay the
neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. There was somet=
hing
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 ab=
out
making preparations.
"Come upstairs, Miss Houghton!" call=
ed
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 s=
tay
a minute."
"Oh, it is all right. Here are the things=
you
brought--" Madame indicated a little pile--"and thank you very mu=
ch,
very much. I feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one little tok=
en
of my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionaires in the Nat=
cha-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 do=
n'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," sa=
id
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, laug=
hing
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 clos=
ely.
"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," sa=
id
Alvina.
"All right! All right then. I won't. I wo=
n't
give you anything. I can't give you anything you want from
Natcha-Kee-Tawara."
And Madame busied herself again with the packi=
ng.
"I'm awfully sorry you are going," s=
aid
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 Madam=
e,
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-Tawa=
ra,
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 remo=
ve.
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, musc=
ular
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 dry=
ing
them on an old cloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his ca=
p,
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 Houghto=
n.
He is not fit--" said Max.
True, Ciccio had no collar on, and his shoes w=
ere
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. All=
ow
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 Alvi=
na
to Max. "Thank you ever so much. But let him take them."
So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morni= ng streets, with the Italian, who was down at heel and encumbered with an armf= ul of sick-room apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he said nothing.<= o:p>
"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 somb=
re drawing-room,
with its high black bookshelves with rows and rows of calf-bound volumes, i=
ts
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, looki=
ng
aside.
"Thank you so much," she said,
lingering.
He curled his lips in a faint deprecatory smil=
e.
"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," s=
he
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 watc=
hed
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, wi=
th a
sly smile and a faint shrug.
"I should like awfully--" a flush gr= ew on her cheek. She heard Miss Pinnegar's scarcely audible step approaching.<= o:p>
He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedl=
y,
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 Pinne=
gar,
he was out of the room and out of the front door, as if turning tail.
"I suppose they're going this morning,&qu=
ot;
said Miss Pinnegar.
=
Alvina
wept when the Natchas had gone. She loved them so much, she wanted to be wi=
th
them. Even Ciccio she regarded as only one of the Natchas. She looked forwa=
rd
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 flutte=
red.
"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.<= o:p>
"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 cha=
nge
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?&qu=
ot;
"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. "W=
hat
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 in=
to
it. He'd no business to touch this show business. It isn't like him. It doe=
sn'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 showma=
n 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. "The=
re
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 al=
ter
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 t=
he
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 c=
heap
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 b=
ored
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 bor=
ing
pictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr. May--or a new operato=
r, 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 t=
he
performance. He sent the chocolate-and-orange boy across to the Pear Tree f=
or
brandy.
James revived. "I'm all right," he s=
aid,
in a brittle fashion. "I'm all right. Don't bother." So he sat wi=
th
his head on his hand in the box-office, and Mr. May had to leave him to ope=
rate
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 Ja=
mes,
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 shou=
lder
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 a=
bout
me." His eye was wild.
"You must go home, father," said Alv=
ina.
"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-bo=
ard.
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 Pinnega=
r,
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, show=
ing
a light.
"He doesn't weigh much," said the ma=
n.
"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 anot=
her
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, a=
nd
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 repugnan=
t.
During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings
came up and said that the Italian from last week had come, and could he spe=
ak
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 t=
he
afternoon she found a package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from
Madame: "To Miss Houghton, with kindest greetings and most sincere tha=
nks
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 Mr=
s.
Rollings, and they composed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and n=
ot
light. Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly chambe=
r at
the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could not. At half-past se=
ven
she arose, and started the business of the new day. The doctor came--she we=
nt
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 tri=
ed 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 wal=
l,
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 smi=
le,
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 lo=
oked
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 heigh=
t 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, towar=
ds
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 e=
ver.
Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina, as if
studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep, neutral, blanch=
ed,
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 the=
n 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, t=
here
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 fr=
ont
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 forwa=
rd
over her.
"You love me? Yes?--Yes?" he said, i=
n 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.<= o:p>
"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 her=
self
dead, dead. And he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse which se=
emed
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 Pinneg=
ar,
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 doubl=
ed
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! Whate=
ver
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 unbearab=
le
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 mo=
ment
of stillness seemed to cover her like sleep: an eternity of sleep in that o=
ne 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 t=
hat
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 g=
one.
And she went about for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept dee=
ply 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 k=
new
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 reli=
eved
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, mys=
elf.
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 r=
oom for
them in the cabs."
"We'll order another."
"More expense. I never knew such impertin=
ent
people--"
But Alvina did not hear her. On the next morni=
ng
she dressed herself carefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Careful=
ly
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. M=
iss
Pinnegar, red-eyed and yellow-skinned, was irritable beyond words.
It was nearly mid-day when Alvina heard the ga=
te.
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 h=
er.
"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 fathe=
r.
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 sligh=
tly
as he passed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door a=
nd
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 t=
ime she
was uttering her condolences.
"Tell me, poor girl, how it happened?&quo=
t;
"There isn't much to tell," said Alv=
ina,
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. H=
is
presence made Alvina tremble. She noticed how the fine black hair of his he=
ad showed
no parting at all--it just grew like a close cap, and was pushed aside at t=
he
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 arra=
nged
for you--"
"There! You think of everything. But I wi=
ll
come, not Ciccio. He will not trouble you."
Ciccio looked up at Alvina.
"I should like him to come," said Al=
vina
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 Alvin=
a.
"I don't understand what he said."
"That you have agreed with him--"
Madame and Ciccio both watched Alvina as she s=
at
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?&quo=
t;
she said suddenly to Ciccio, tackling him direct, and speaking coldly.
He looked at Madame with a faint derisive smil=
e.
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 shal=
l 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 c=
oat
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 wat=
ched
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 balance=
d on
her hip. Alvina was reminded of Kishwégin. But even in Madame's ston=
y 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 b=
lack,
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 whisp=
ered.
"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," whispe=
red
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, sudden=
ly
turning: "What about this Ciccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that s=
he
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 cont=
emptuous
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 c=
haracter.
How would you like him then?"
"He isn't, is he?" said Alvina.
"I don't know. I don't know. He may be. E=
ven
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 somethi=
ng
of these Italian men, who are labourers in every country, just labourers and
under-men always, always down, down, down--" And Madame pressed her sp=
read
palms downwards. "And so--when they have a chance to come up--" s=
he 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 ruefull=
y.
"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 th=
en
he thinks that now you have money--now your father is dead--" here Mad=
ame
glanced apprehensively at the closed door--"and they all like money, y=
es,
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."<= o:p>
"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 matte=
rs
very much. It matters to him. Because he will not have much. He saves, save=
s,
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-Taw=
ara.
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--&quo=
t;
Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while Madame darted looks, as from
bright, deep black glass.
"Yes," said Alvina. "I should h=
ate
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 a=
nd
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 Ita=
ly
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 he=
lp
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 helples=
s--"
"But why should he beat me?" said
Alvina. "Why should he want to?"
"They do. They are so jealous. And then t=
hey
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 Mada=
me'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,&qu=
ot;
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 Cicci=
o 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 Pinnega=
r.
"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 irre=
sistible
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. Ma=
dame
lifted her eyebrows disdainfully.
"This is polite behaviour!" she said
sarcastically.
Alvina stood at a loss.
"You return to the funeral?" said Ma=
dame
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, a=
nd
went.
"This is just like him, to be so--so--&qu=
ot;
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 aug=
ury,
bad sign," said Madame. "Ma-rà-sca!" She shook her he=
ad
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.&quo=
t;
"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 shou=
ld
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 neighbo=
ur,
against humanity. But when it is written Hough-ton! then it is different, i=
t is
for."
"It is always pronounced Huff-ton," =
said
Miss Pinnegar.
"By us," said Alvina.
"We ought to know," said Miss Pinneg=
ar.
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 m=
any
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 fun=
eral
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 morbid=
ly sensitive
to the impression the colour made on him. He was set to entertain Madame.
She did not pretend distress, but sat black-ey=
ed
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, b=
ut
distant.
"You should form a company, and carry
on--" said Madame.
Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing hims=
elf
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?"<= o:p>
"I'm afraid I haven't.
"No! Well! It won't be much, then?"<= o:p>
"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.<= o:p>
"Ha--ha! Ha--ha!" mused Madame quiet=
ly.
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 ca=
bs,
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 h=
er,
every mind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina! said every member of the Wo=
odhouse
"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 th=
ree
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 n=
ot
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 a=
nd
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 seem=
ed 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 most=
ly
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 P=
innegar.
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, d=
oes
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 remem=
ber
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 he=
r 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 o=
n 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 ne=
ver
say. Well, she looks it. She does beguy--a dragged old maid. Oh but she spr=
ightles
up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on to somebody. I wond=
er
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. Loo=
k,
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 sho=
uld
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. L=
ook,
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, famil=
iar
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 presenc=
e.
In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, a=
nd
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 horr=
ible.
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 wh=
ich
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 Ma=
dame
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 enunciati=
on.
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 liqueu=
r of
the innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to sm=
ack
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 h=
er.
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 figur=
e of
Madame, like some trim plump partridge among a flock of barn-yard fowls. An=
d 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 se=
emed
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 discomfo=
rt
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 s=
outhern
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 watch=
ed
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.&q=
uot;
"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 t=
he
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 strain=
ed,
pale face.
"All right," he said, shaking her ha=
nd
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-wheele=
r,
kept hidden.
The funeral tea, with its baked meats and swee=
ts,
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 sh=
ould
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 slep=
t 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 e=
lse.
For the rest, she was almost driven mad by peo=
ple
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 sol=
d,
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 keep=
ing
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 ab=
ove.
The theatre faction, including Mr. May and some of the more florid tradesme=
n,
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 cous=
in'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 s=
hall
see. I shall see." Till one and all became angry with her. They were a=
ll
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. C=
ontinually
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 Beeb=
y 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 t=
hing
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 Pin=
negar
went on with the work-girls: and Alvina went on unmaking her mind.
Ciccio did not come during the first week. Alv=
ina
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 ro=
und
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 s=
he 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 Manchest=
er
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, t=
his
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 i=
n 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 beg=
an
to loathe the excitement of her property: doubtfully hers, every stick of i=
t.
Now she would give anything to get away from Woodhouse, from the horrible b=
uzz
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,&q=
uot;
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 af=
ter
them most carefully. Not many minutes was Madame idle.
"Do you mind?" said Alvina.
Madame darned for some moments without answeri=
ng.
"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 w=
here
I am."
Madame looked up with bright, black, censorious
eyes, at the flushed girl opposite. Alvina had a certain strangeness and br=
ightness,
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 h=
er
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 y=
ou
would let me play for you, I could keep myself for some time with my own mo=
ney.
You said perhaps I might be with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. I wish you would l=
et 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?&quo=
t;
"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 call=
ed
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 h=
ave
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 wil=
l 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. Soo=
n we
will have tea--when Cic' returns. Let him think, let him think what he like=
s.
So much money is certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It wil=
l 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 ma=
rry
you. But a hundred and twenty is better than a blow to the eye, eh? Why
sure!"
"It's dreadful, though--!" said Alvi=
na.
"Oh la-la! Dreadful! If it was Max, who is
sentimental, then no, the money is nothing. But all the others--why, you se=
e,
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, y=
es?
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 maliciousl=
y 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 muc=
h?--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. The=
re
sat two of them, Madame and herself, darning socks in a stuffy little bedro=
om
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. Where=
ver
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,&q=
uot;
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 Alvin=
a.
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," sa=
id
Madame.
"Quite nice," said Alvina, looking r=
ound
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 thi=
s,
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 e=
yed
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 re=
al
rubies. It was my great-grandmother's."
"Do you mean it? Real? Are you sure--&quo=
t;
"I think I'm quite sure."
Madame scrutinized the jewels with a fine eye.=
"Hm!" she said. And Alvina did not k=
now
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--&quo=
t;
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 a=
nd
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 d=
id
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 wh=
ich
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 afterw=
ard
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 h=
er
side, Alvina had Ciccio and Geoffrey. Ciccio was on Alvina's right hand: a =
delicate
hint.
They began with hors d'oeuvres and tumblers th=
ree
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 th=
e tents
of the pale-face, from the lodges of the north, from the tribe of the Yengh=
ees."
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 a=
ll
smiling, their teeth white as they cried in their throats: "Vaali! Vaa=
li!
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 t=
hroat
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 Loui=
s.
"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,&qu=
ot;
cried Madame in French, "so long as it is a good journey."
Here Geoffrey at last saw the joke. With a str=
ange
determined flourish he filled his glass, cocking up his elbow.
"A toi, Cic'--et bon voyage!" he sai=
d,
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 kne=
w it
was something improper, on her account. Her eyes had a bright, slightly-bew=
ildered
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 ca=
ll
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 r=
ound
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 ey=
es.
"We are one tribe, one nation--say it.&qu=
ot;
"We are one tribe, one nation," repe=
ated
Alvina.
"Say all," cried Madame.
"We are one tribe, one nation--" they
shouted, with varying accent.
"Good!" said Madame. "And no na=
tion
do we know but the nation of the Hirondelles--"
"No nation do we know but the nation of t=
he
Hirondelles," came the ragged chant of strong male voices, resonant and
gay with mockery.
"Hurons--Hirondelles, means swallows,&quo=
t;
said Madame.
"Yes, I know," said Alvina.
"So! you know! Well, then! We know no nat=
ion
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!" c=
ried
Madame, starting to her feet and sounding frenzied.
Ciccio got up quickly and took his mandoline f=
rom
its case.
"A--A--Ai--Aii--eee--ya--" began Mad=
ame,
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, wh=
en
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!" s=
aid
the others.
"Spread soft wings, spread dark-roofed wi=
ngs,
Pacohuila," said Kishwégin, and Ciccio, in his shirt-sleeves so=
lemnly
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 ar=
m 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, kiss=
ing
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 sai=
d.
"Did I have a key?" said Alvina.
Madame smiled subtly as she produced a latch-k=
ey.
"Kishwégin must open your doors for
you all," she said. Then, with a slight flourish, she presented the ke=
y 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, produ=
cing
a pocket flash-light, which she triumphantly handed to Ciccio. Alvina watch=
ed
him. She noticed how he dropped his head forward from his straight, strong
shoulders, how beautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape and b=
ack 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, f=
ille
des Tawara." Madame kissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks =
at
her.
Each brave also kissed her hand, with a profou=
nd
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 t=
he 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 unkn=
own
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 n=
ot
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, h=
is
lustrous dark beauty, unbearable.
When later she pressed her face on his chest a=
nd
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 s=
miled,
and she began to get hysterical. But he only kissed her, his smiling deepen=
ing
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 subje=
cted.
He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her. And she turned her face to t=
he
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 f=
or
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, a=
nd
all happiness, eh? Look, it is a gift-day for you--"
Madame smilingly led Alvina to her place. Besi=
de
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 glo=
ves
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," sa=
id
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!&quo=
t;
"I am your brother Walgatchka, Allaye, be=
st
brother, you know--" So spoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, alm=
ost
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 bitter=
ly
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. A=
ll 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 thro=
aty,
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 wistfuln=
ess
and subjectedness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon as poss=
ible
from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and public recognition fr=
om
Ciccio--none of which she got. She returned to her own house, to her own ro=
om,
anxious to tidy everything, not wishing to have her landlady in the room. A=
nd
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 York=
shire
woman, not attractive.
"Oh, yo'n made yer bed then, han' yer!&qu=
ot;
"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."<= o:p>
"I think it'll dry here," said Alvin=
a.
"Isna much dryin' up here. Send us howd w=
hen
't's ready. Yo'll 'appen be wantin' it. I can dry it off for yer i' t' kitc=
hen.
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 s=
akes
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 'e=
m it
wor. He--eh, it's a pity you don't take a drop of nothink, it's a world's p=
ity.
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 y=
er 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 lo=
ok
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 'efcro=
wn
today, an' t'other termorrer. It'll keep, it'll keep. God bless you for a g=
ood
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. S=
he
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 t=
he
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 yel=
low
bicycle, going for a steep and perilous ride with Gigi.
Still she lingered in her sordid room. She cou=
ld
feel Madame was expecting her. But she felt inert, weak, incommunicative. O=
nly
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 Ma=
dame
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 hen=
ce
the Tawaras saved less money than they might. She was an exacting, tormenti=
ng,
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 l=
eek,
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." A=
nd
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 r=
oom?
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 be=
come
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 th=
ing
that is valuable. I shall lock it up. How can you--"
Alvina was hustled off to her lodging. Fortuna=
tely
nothing was gone. She brought all to Madame, and Madame fingered the treasu=
res lovingly.
"Now what you want you must ask me for,&q=
uot;
she said.
With what close curiosity Madame examined the =
ruby
brooch.
"You can have that if you like, Madame,&q=
uot;
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 aw=
ay
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 beautif=
ul
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. A=
fter
the meal, Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise vib=
rate
through the house.
"I shall go and look at the town," s=
aid
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 t=
he
two young men sallied forth. Alvina, emerging from a draper's shop in Rothe=
rhampton
Broadway, found them loitering on the pavement outside. And they strolled a=
long
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 sho=
ps,
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 tro=
user
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 hom=
e,
with bottled beer and boiled ham, was a conventionally cheerful affair. Eve=
n 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 be=
hind
the other."
"Max, beer makes thee a farceur of a fine
quality," said Madame. Alvina rose.
"Please don't get up," she said to t=
he
others. "I have my key and can see quite well," she said.
"Good-night all."
They rose and bowed their good-nights. But Cic=
cio,
with an obstinate and ugly little smile on his face, followed her.
"Please don't come," she said, turni=
ng
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 thei=
r facility.
She made them irritable. And that evening--it was Friday--Ciccio did not ri=
se
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 w=
as
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 he=
r, only
showed her the half-averted side of his cheek, on which was a slightly jeer=
ing,
ugly look.
"Will you go to Woodhouse tomorrow?"
Madame asked her, rather coolly. They none of them called her Allaye any mo=
re.
"I'd better fetch some things, hadn't
I?" said Alvina.
"Certainly, if you think you will stay wi=
th
us."
This was a nasty slap in the face for her. But=
:
"I want to," she said.
"Yes! Then you will go to Woodhouse tomor=
row,
and come to Mansfield on Monday morning? Like that shall it be? You will st=
ay
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 l=
ook
what an uncouth lout Ciccio was! After all, she was demeaning herself shame=
fully
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 burn=
ed
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 bur=
ned,
and she wanted to look at him, she wanted him to notice her. And instinct t=
old
her that he might ignore her for ever. She went to her room an unhappy woma=
n,
and wept and fretted till morning, chafing between humiliation and yearning=
.
=
Alvina
rose chastened and wistful. As she was doing her hair, she heard the plaint=
ive
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 mandoli=
ne.
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 glimp=
se
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 s=
aid.
Geoffrey spread his rather thick lips in a smi=
le,
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 f=
or 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 strai=
ght
into Ciccio's face, with her sudden, luminous smile. His hand on the mandol=
ine 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 c=
reature
that was watching her for his purposes. She looked aside at the black garde=
n,
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 he=
r,
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 watche=
d her
as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of ferocity. In his ey=
es
was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something fathomless, deepening black and abys=
mal,
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 answe=
r.
"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 w=
ith
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 l=
ike
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 pow=
er.
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. A=
nd
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 unspeakabl=
e 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. A=
nd
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, "th=
at
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 Cicc=
io
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 sa=
id.
Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger.
"I would like to see how it is, there, ch=
ez
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. "Th=
en
come on bicycle."
"You're content to leave me," mutter=
ed
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 bicy=
cle,
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 su=
llen
smile.
"Do!" said Alvina.
He looked at her with his large, dark-blue eye=
s.
"Really, eh?" he said, holding out h=
is
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.<= o:p>
"Is he?" laughed Alvina.
"Ha-a--!" Gigi shook his head solemn=
ly.
"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 Cicci=
o 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 stati=
on
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 w=
ords
Natcha-Kee-Tawara showed mystic, and round the small bunch of stage fitting=
s at
the end of the platform. Louis was waiting to get the tickets, Gigi and Cic=
cio
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 fashio=
n.
"Expect me to be there? Why--" he ro=
lled
his eyes and proceeded to calculate. "At four o'clock."
"Just about the time when we get there,&q=
uot;
she said.
He looked at her sagely, and nodded.
They were a good-humoured company in the railw=
ay
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 th=
en
there was a kissing and a taking of farewells, as if the company were separ=
ating
for ever. Louis darted into the refreshment bar and returned with little pi=
es 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 Knarbor=
ough
with Ciccio.
"I do like them all," she said.
He opened his mouth slightly and lifted his he=
ad
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 h=
ad
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 lands=
cape
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 ne=
ar.
Beneath the tiny table, he took her two knees between his knees, and presse=
d 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 Lumle=
y.
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 gl=
ad
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 w=
hich
established it.
So up and down the weary hills of the hilly, industrial countryside, till at last they drew near to Woodhouse. They pass= ed 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 Li= zzie Bates's fox furs, and Fanny Clough's lilac costume, and Mrs. Smitham's wing= ed hat. She knew them all. And almost inevitably the old Woodhouse feeling beg= an to steal over her, she was glad they could not see her, she was a little as= hamed of Ciccio. She wished, for the moment, Ciccio were not there. And as the ti= me 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 stre= et, attended by Ciccio, who carried her bag. She knew she was a marked figure.<= o:p>
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 pa=
tched
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,&quo=
t;
was her greeting.
"Didn't you," said Alvina, kissing h=
er.
"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 Pinnega= r. "You said the train. Mrs. Rollings is coming in at four again--"<= o:p>
"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, r=
ather
round-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she did not quite k=
now
what to say or do.
She followed Alvina upstairs to her room.
"I can't think why you bring him here,&qu=
ot;
snapped Miss Pinnegar. "I don't know what you're thinking about. The w=
hole
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. "Wh=
at
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.&quo=
t;
"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 Mada=
me
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 Alvi=
na.
"I should think so," said Miss Pinne=
gar.
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 Mi=
ss
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 sai=
d.
"Don't be silly. I love to be with Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the e=
nd 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, n=
o,
not for anything would I."
Poor Miss Pinnegar dwindled, convinced.
"You make it hard for me, in Woodhouse,&q=
uot;
she said, hopeless.
"Never mind," said Alvina, kissing h=
er.
"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 Alv=
ina.
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-hai=
red,
she was almost a dumpy, odd old woman.
They went downstairs. Miss Pinnegar put on the
kettle.
"Would you like to see the house?" s=
aid
Alvina to Ciccio.
He nodded. And she took him from room to room.=
His
eyes looked quickly and curiously over everything, noticing things, but wit=
hout
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 l=
ived
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 han=
d on
the keys of the piano, sounding a chord.
"Play," she said.
He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wi=
shed
her to play. She sat and played one of Kishwégin's pieces. He listen=
ed,
faintly smiling.
"Fine piano--eh?" he said, looking i=
nto
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 o=
ver
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 br=
oad 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 ro=
om,
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 ceili=
ngs,
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 thi=
s,
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,&quo=
t;
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.<= o:p>
"The house," said Alvina.
"Oh well, we don't know. We'll hope for t=
he
best," replied Miss Pinnegar, arranging the bread and butter on the pl=
ate.
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,&qu=
ot;
said Miss Pinnegar.
"Hé!" he ejaculated, not fully
understanding.
"But of course those that are used to not=
hing
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. Alv=
ina
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, ris=
ing.
And he took the shovel from her hand.
"Big, hot fires, aren't they?" he sa=
id,
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 foo=
d,
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 d=
own.
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 f=
or 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--!" sai=
d 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 mo=
ther
comes with me to Naples. Then I go with the little boats on the sea--fishin=
g,
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 ultim=
ate
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 wi=
th a
profound look of knowledge. And it seemed, in spite of all, one state was v=
ery
much the same to him as another, poverty was as much life as affluence. Onl=
y 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 independen=
ce
an idée fixe. Old instinct told him the world was nothing. But modern
education, so shallow, was much more efficacious than instinct. It drove hi=
m 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 pi=
ece
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 un=
der
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 Mr=
s.
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 countenan=
ce. Fortunately
for them, Madame had seen to their table-manners. But still they were far t=
oo
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 lar=
ge
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?&qu=
ot;
The tour commenced again. Geoffrey, with his t=
hick
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 F=
rench.
"Assez éloigné!" repli=
ed
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! Lo=
ok,
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 dem=
oiselle;
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 m=
ore
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?&quo=
t;
"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, determi=
ned
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 hu=
rt
anybody."
"You know what I think--and what your fat=
her
thought--and your mother and Miss Frost--"
"You see I think it's only prejudice,&quo=
t;
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 kn=
ock.
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 kn=
ow
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. Especi=
ally
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 b=
ack,
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 lit=
tle 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 cheerf=
ul. 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 trave=
lling
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 M=
iss
Pinnegar and John Wesley, why, I'm sorry."
Alvina produced the travelling case.
"Excellent!" he said. "Excellen=
t!
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 t=
he
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 t=
he
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 ly=
nx
as Alvina returned. And she saw the tell-tale corkscrew. So she dumped a li=
ttle
deeper in her chair.
"There was a sound of revelry by night!&q=
uot;
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 p=
oint
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 avengi=
ng
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 ma=
ny
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, "l=
ook
what she's cost me!" And he went off into another paroxysm, swelling l=
ike
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 thit=
her
as if he had lost something.
They all went off again in a muffled burst.
"No but, really," said Mr. May, &quo=
t;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? W=
hy
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 h=
ad
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 c=
ertainly
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 c=
an
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 Houghto=
n'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?&qu=
ot;
said Mr. May.
Ciccio held up his glass, looked at Alvina, ma=
de 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. &quo=
t;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 w=
as
not anywhere.
"Has she gone to bed?" said Mr. May.=
And
he crept stealthily upstairs on tip-toe, a comical, flush-faced, tubby litt=
le
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 alwa=
ys
said she was a good soul? I shall drink her health. Miss Pinnegar--" a=
nd
he bowed stiffly in the direction of the stairs--"your health, and a g=
ood
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.&q=
uot;
"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! Reall=
y!
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 Alvin=
a.
"No! Exactly! Exactly! It wouldn't be set=
tled
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! Th=
is
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. M=
ost
decidedly, most one-sidedly, if I may use the vulgarism, I see--e--e! Oh! b=
ut
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. B=
ut
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. Ma=
y 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 qui=
te
dumb. "I feel as if the world had suddenly come to an end," he sa=
id.
"But hasn't your world often come to an e=
nd
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?" s=
aid
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 i=
t'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--" sa=
id
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."<= o:p>
Ciccio rose slowly, and with a slow, repeated
motion of the head, indicated the door.
"Allez!" he said.
"Certainement!" cried Mr. May, flyin=
g at
Ciccio, verbally, like an enraged hen yellow at the gills. "Certaineme=
nt!
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 bi=
rd
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 a=
re
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 comb=
at.
Who remains? Pacohuila, Walgatchka, Allaye--"
He smiled very broadly. Alvina was sitting sun=
k 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 a=
nd
swayed his head from side to side, for all the world like a comic mandarin.=
"There!" he cried. "The questio=
n!
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 co=
me
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 yo=
u in
the tent of Pacohuila, then the lodge of Walgatchka the bear is open for yo=
u.
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 F=
ace,
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--&q=
uot;
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 be=
ar
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.&quo=
t;
"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 r=
ound
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. Whereup=
on
Geoffrey immediately flopped on his knees again before Alvina, and presente=
d 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 a=
ll
except Allaye and his brother Pacohuila the Puma." Geoffrey growled
realistically as a wild bear as he kneeled before Alvina, presenting his ch=
eek.
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 he=
ad.
"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 Cicci= o. "Tonight we stay here, hein. Why separate, hein?--frère?"<= o:p>
Geoffrey again clasped Ciccio in his arms.
"Pacohuila and Walgatchka are blood-broth=
ers,
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?" s=
he
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 agai=
n.
She cleared away the supper and carried away all glasses and bottles from t=
he
drawing-room. Then she washed up, removing all traces of the feast. The car=
ds
she restored to their old mahogany box. Manchester House looked itself agai=
n.
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. S=
he
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-ro=
om.
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.<= o:p>
"Yes, they both slept in the end room,&qu=
ot;
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 wordles=
s.
Ciccio came down, in his shirt-sleeves as usua=
l,
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 bicyc=
le.
The morning was slow and grey, obscure. As they pumped up the tires, they h=
eard
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 w=
ere
startled by the irruption of the work-girls. As for the work-girls, they ga=
ve
quite loud, startled squeals, suddenly seeing the two men on their right ha=
nd,
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 r=
ang
a bell which hung beside the entrance door of the work-rooms.
After which excitements Geoffrey and Ciccio we=
nt
in to breakfast, which Alvina had prepared.
"You have done it all, eh?" said Cic=
cio,
glancing round.
"Yes. I've made breakfast for years,
now," said Alvina.
"Not many more times here, eh?" he s=
aid,
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 h=
is
breakfast, and rose to go.
"I shall see you soon," he said, smi=
ling
sheepishly and bowing to Alvina. Ciccio accompanied him to the street.
When Ciccio returned, Alvina was once more was=
hing
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--&qu=
ot;
"And marry me?"
She started, and looked at him.
"You don't want to marry, do you?" s=
he
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!&quo=
t;
He turned his eyes aside, and looked at her ha=
nds
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, a=
lien
and overbearing.
"I can't," she struggled. "I ca=
n't
now."
He laughed in a sinister way: yet with a certa=
in
warmheartedness.
"Come to that big room--" he said.
Her face flew fixed into opposition.
"I can't now, really," she said grim=
ly.
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 fill=
ed 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 su=
dden
dislike, and almost dropped her. Then again the desire flushed his heart, h=
is
smile became reckless of her, and he picked her right up.
"Yes," he said. "Now."
For a second, she struggled frenziedly. But al=
most
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 recklessne=
ss
of her. Recklessly, he had his will of her--but deliberately, and thoroughl=
y,
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 s=
aid.
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 motionle=
ss.
He threw bedclothes over her and went downstairs, whistling softly.
She knew she would have to break her own tranc=
e 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 t=
hat
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 co=
uld
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 door=
way
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 agai=
nst
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 tak=
e,
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. H=
e 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 accoun=
t 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 bel=
ieve
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 rememb=
er
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 Alvi=
na. Some
hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at Ciccio. Ciccio how=
ever
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 whe=
n 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 s=
aid,
glancing smiling into his eyes and nodding to him, as she left him at the g=
ate
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 individu=
al.
She arrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinized her sharpl=
y,
officially, before beginning.
"Well, Miss Houghton, and what news have
you?"
"I don't think I've any, Mr. Beeby. I cam=
e to
you for news."
"Ah!" said the lawyer, and he finger=
ed a
paper-weight that covered a pile of papers. "I'm afraid there is nothi=
ng
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 a=
gain
he laid his hand on the pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran thro=
ugh
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 excee=
ded
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 estimat=
e. 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 debt=
s.
"I'm afraid so," said the lawyer.
"And then what?" said Alvina.
"Oh--the creditors will have to be satisf=
ied
with a little less than they claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you s=
ee.
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 furt=
her.
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 y=
ou
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 confide=
ntly
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!--nothin=
g 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 e=
yes.
"Perhaps you would rather decide later.&q=
uot;
"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 sha=
ll
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 defini=
te
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 to=
ok
to the attentive study of his finger-nails once more. "And at a suffic=
ient
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 fa=
ther
for many years. We--that is the persons interested, and myself--would not l=
ike
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 agreeab=
le
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 mu=
st
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 acco=
unt
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 a=
way
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 wi=
shed
to see you, you could come over?"
"If necessary," said Alvina. "B=
ut I
don't want to come to Woodhouse unless it is necessary. Can't we write?&quo=
t;
"Yes--certainly! Certainly!--most things!
Certainly! And now--"
He went into certain technical matters, and Al=
vina
signed some documents. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an h=
our in
the room.
"Well, good-morning, Miss Houghton. You w=
ill
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 hurrie=
d 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 loath=
ed
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 o=
ught
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 wo=
uld
be openly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeningly humil=
iating
to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour of Woodhouse's calcula=
ted
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 shin=
e,
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 Wagstaf=
f 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 fel=
t 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 m=
ere moment,
she was independent.
Whatever else she did, she must go back and pa=
ck.
She must pack her two boxes, and leave them ready. For she felt that once s=
he
had left, she could never come back to Woodhouse again. If England had clif=
fs
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 yar=
d:
eternally waiting, it seemed. He was impatient.
"You've been a long time," he said.<= o:p>
"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 c=
ome
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 the=
m.
"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 Cicci=
o.
"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.&qu=
ot;
"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. &quo=
t;I
can't believe it! And when have we got to get out?"
"Oh, I don't think there's a desperate hu=
rry.
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 lett=
er,
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. Rolli=
ngs.
"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. Yo=
ur
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 enou=
gh
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 fift=
y.
Where's the money to come from--?"
"But if you've enough to start a little b=
usiness--"
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. B=
ut
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 Mi=
ss
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.&q=
uot;
"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 philosop=
hic.
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 M=
iss
Pinnegar the prospect of a little, day-by-day haberdashery shop in Tamworth.
Her own problem seemed so much more menacing. "Answer or die," sa=
id
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 t=
horoughbred
teeth were long and sharp. To Alvina, the last of the fantastic but pure-br=
ed
race of Houghton, the problem of her fate was terribly abstruse.
The only thing to do was not to solve it: to s=
tray
on, and answer fate with whatever came into one's head. No good striving wi=
th
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?" s=
he
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, a=
ny
way. They can say what they like. I've got it, and I'm going to keep it.&qu=
ot;
"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?"<= o:p>
"Five shillings a letter, you remember.&q=
uot;
"Well, we'll just put the name and the da=
te.
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. Se=
ems
an awful lot for Also of--"
"But you can't leave it out," said M=
iss
Pinnegar. "You can't economize over that."
"I begrudge it," said Alvina.
=
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 no=
ne
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 Ge=
offrey.
In the second week, Madame found out that a man
had been surreptitiously inquiring about them at their lodgings, from the l=
andlady
and the landlady's blowsy daughter. It must have been a detective--some sho=
ddy
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 Mad=
ame
addressed the men, what attitude the men took towards Alvina.
Madame waited again. And again, when they move=
d 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 ma=
de a
shrewd guess. "They want to say we are immoral foreigners," she s=
aid.
"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, "somebo=
dy
must have put them up to it--"
"Perhaps," said Madame, "somebo=
dy
on account of Allaye."
Alvina went white.
"Yes," said Geoffrey. "White Sl=
ave
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 sm=
iled
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 t=
he
most they will ask us only to leave their pure country."
"We don't interfere with none of them,&qu=
ot;
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,&qu= ot; said Madame, smiling indulgently at her. "Let us wait, and see."<= o:p>
She took it smilingly. But her cheeks were whi=
te
as paper, and her eyes black as drops of ink, with anger.
"Wait and see!" she chanted ironical=
ly.
"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 glit=
ter
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 experi=
enced
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 g=
et
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 absolu=
te
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 st=
rike
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 lega=
lly
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 Traff=
ic
by somebody in Woodhouse. Probably Mr. May had gone the round of the benevo=
lent
magnates of Woodhouse, concerning himself with her virtue, and currying fav=
our
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 w=
as not
popular.
Be that as it may, for some weeks they went ab=
out
in the shadow of this repulsive finger which was following after them, to t=
ouch
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 bla=
ck,
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 see= med 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.<= o:p>
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, s=
he
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 s= mall salary--or at least, that the troupe should pay her living expenses. But Ma= dame 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.<= o:p>
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 governesse=
s, 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.&quo=
t;
"Ha-a! To find a job, eh?"
His cuteness startled her for a moment.
"If I found one I should take it," s=
he
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 wi=
shed
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 sai=
d,
incredulous, and jeering slightly.
"I was trained to do it," she said.<= o:p>
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 s=
ound
of contempt.
But she went indoors to her room. Fortunately,
when she had finally cleared her things from Manchester House, she had brou=
ght
with her her nurse's certificate, and recommendations from doctors. She wro=
te out
her application, took the tram to the Town Hall and dropped it in the lette=
rbox
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 wou=
ld
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 peopl=
e:
at least the boot-and-shoe people had the house. They had given four thousa=
nd
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-thr=
ee
pounds, which the creditors made up to fifty pounds, remained for Alvina. S=
he
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 hitc=
h.
On Thursday Alvina received her notice that she was to appear before the Bo=
ard
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 c=
ame
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,&quo=
t;
said Alvina.
"Why? Why do you feel? Who makes you? Whi=
ch
of us makes you feel so? Tell me."
"Nobody in particular. But I feel it.&quo=
t;
"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 ga=
ve
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 y=
our 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--&qu=
ot;
"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 roo=
m.
She had packed her bag. She had to find new ro=
oms.
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 s=
he
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 every=
thing
possessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind.
And therefore, the next day, everything went a=
s 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 Windermer=
e.
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 straigh=
t to
Windermere, to see the big lake. Why not do as she wished! She could be qui=
te
happy by herself among the lakes. And she would be absolutely free, absolut=
ely
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 t=
he
Town Hall. The medical board were charming to her--charming. There was no h=
esitation
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 dutie=
s?
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 unifor=
m.
It was all sudden like magic. She had wired to Madame, she had wired for he=
r 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 cares=
sed
and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt. It was so diffe=
rent
from being with the Natchas.
In the garden the snowballs, guelder-roses, sw=
ayed
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 s=
tranger
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 cas=
e,
as she was summoned. And she was summoned at all hours. So that it was tiri=
ng
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 croche=
t.
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 w=
as 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, ard=
uous
as it was, suited her best. She became a handsome, reposeful woman, jolly w=
ith
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 rat=
her
mouthingly. Alvina, who knew what the nurses told her, knew that he had com=
e 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 autoc=
rat.
"What is that stuff you've got there!&quo=
t;
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 hi=
ding
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 indig=
nant
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 hold=
ing
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 goin=
g for
ever? There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue mug downstai=
rs.
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!" wai=
led
the sick woman. "It ud never do me no harm."
"Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yo=
urs!
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 doct=
or
here, you know everything already--"
"Oh no, doctor. It's not like that. But w=
hen
you feel as if you'd sink through the bed, an' you don't know what to do wi=
th
yourself--"
"Take a little beef-tea, or a little rice
pudding. Take nourishment, don't take that muck. Do you hear--" chargi=
ng
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 doct=
or
brutally. "Why, what does an ignorant creature like you know about fow=
er
per cent."
The woman muttered a little under her breath.<= o:p>
"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 wan=
t.
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 h=
is
motor car was shortly heard.
Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wond=
ered
why the people stood it. But soon she realized that they loved it--particul=
arly
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 fe=
el
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 th=
an
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 n=
ot
have him if possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they h=
ad
to submit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer, invariabl=
y,
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, M=
rs. 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 m=
ust
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 t=
o 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 j=
ump
down my throat with both feet afore I'd opened my mouth. He's not to be spo=
ken
to, he isn't. He's my-lord, he is. You mustn't look, or you're done for.&qu=
ot;
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 near=
ly
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 t=
his
'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 ri=
ce
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?&qu=
ot;
"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, &quo=
t;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 ju=
st
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 th=
is.
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 fea=
red 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 we=
ak
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 f=
ood.
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 f=
act
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 thi=
rd
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 hou=
r on
Sunday morning, for golf. And she talked him over, with quiet, delicate mal=
ice,
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 str=
atum
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 footi=
ng,
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 ba=
rked
at her one hot day.
"I think it's thunder," she said.
"Thunder! Work, you mean," and he ga=
ve 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 f=
ive
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.&quo=
t;
"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 docto= r, mouthing his words distinctly, "you might as well put poison into your stomach, as those things. Cucumbers are the worst thing you can eat."<= o:p>
"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 sto=
mach
it goes into. I'm a doctor. And I know that those things cause me half my w=
ork.
They cause half the internal troubles people suffer from in summertime.&quo=
t;
"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, a=
ll 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 wi=
th
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 wa=
s 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, l=
iked
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 c=
ar,
when he could. And he would tap at the matron's door, smiling and showing a=
ll
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 cu=
p of
tea at this hour!"
"Have one too, doctor."
"I will with pleasure." And he sat d=
own
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 i=
ts
full, soft loins. She turned round to him.
"Oh yes," she said. "I quite ag=
ree
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 u=
sed
to being disturbed."
"Rather weak, doctor?" said the matr=
on,
pouring the tea.
"Very weak, please."
The doctor was a little laboured in his gallan=
try,
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 co=
ming
out?" said Alvina.
"Quite! Quite the ladies' man! I wonder w=
ho
it is can be bringing him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure." S=
he
looked wickedly at Alvina.
"No, don't look at me," laughed Alvi=
na,
"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 h=
air
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 flo=
wers
and his wall-fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade her admi=
re
his asparagus. And then he gave her tea in the drawing-room, with strawberr=
ies
and cream and cakes, of all of which he ate nothing. But he smiled expansiv=
ely
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 de=
tail
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 se=
ttee
and the Chippendale stands and the Axminster carpet and the bronze clock wi=
th
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 dre=
adful
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 extraordina=
ry.
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 tal=
king
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 w=
ere
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 perha=
ps 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 mar=
ry
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 p=
roud
of his house. And now he looked forward to the treat of his life: hanging r=
ound
the woman he had made his wife, following her about, feeling proud of her a=
nd
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 h=
e would
run out of the houses of his patients, and find her sitting there, and he w=
ould
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 w=
ould
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 luxuriat=
ed
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 t=
he
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 hims=
elf
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 sim=
ply
everything to one another. And how he would enjoy it! Ah!
He pondered as to whether he would have childr=
en.
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 nev=
er 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 th=
is
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 w=
orld
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, notwithstan=
ding.
And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a real holiday mood.
So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pic=
k up
Alvina at the Hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past th=
ree,
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 he=
ard
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.<= o:p>
"I think to Windermere--into the Lakes,&q=
uot;
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 no=
w.
When they had had tea, quietly and gallantly
tête-à-tête in his drawing-room, he asked her if she wou=
ld
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 f=
ine
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: th=
en
the visitors' bedroom corresponding, with its old satin-wood furniture and
cream-coloured chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a pale carpet wit=
h reddish
wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that, isn't that beauti=
ful,
I've never seen anything like that! came the gratifying fireworks of admira=
tion
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 h=
ow
it had impressed Ciccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel the=
mselves
masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She smiled to herself rat=
her
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 attract=
ive.
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 shou=
ld
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 th=
is
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 y=
our
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.&quo=
t;
He added the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if to co=
mmit
himself finally.
"But I've never thought about it," s=
he
said, rapidly cogitating.
"I know you haven't. But think about it
now--" He began to be hugely pleased with himself. "Think about i=
t now.
And tell me if you could put up with me, as well as the garret." He be=
amed
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 h=
er
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 whi=
te
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 co=
urse
he'd adore her. That went without saying. She was as fussy as if some one h=
ad
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 conside=
r.
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 h=
er
old fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had been as if asleep t=
hese
months, now woke rather irritably, and chafed against its collar. Who was t=
his
elderly man, that she should marry him? Who was he, that she should be kiss=
ed
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 mater=
ial circumstance
would be solved for ever. And she knew well how hateful material circumstan=
ces
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 t=
he 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 wa=
s a
little afraid of him and his rabid temper, also. In her moments of sullen r=
ebellion
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 L=
ouis
were Swiss, it would not affect them: nor Ciccio, who was Italian. She wond=
ered
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 anot=
her
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? Tru=
e, 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. Everywhe=
re
was a stir and a seethe of excitement. Men were active, women were needed t=
oo.
She put down her name on the list of volunteers for active service. This wa=
s on
the last day of August.
On the first of September Dr. Mitchell was rou=
nd
at the hospital early, when Alvina was just beginning her morning duties th=
ere.
He went into the matron's room, and asked for Nurse Houghton. The matron le=
ft
them together.
The doctor was excited. He smiled broadly, but
with a tension of nervous excitement. Alvina was troubled. Her heart beat f=
ast.
"Now!" said Dr. Mitchell. "What
have you to say to me?"
She looked up at him with confused eyes. He sm=
iled
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."<= o:p>
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 sai=
d.
"Give it then," he said, testily.
"I've volunteered for active service,&quo=
t;
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 an=
swer
me first."
She did not answer, but watched him. She did n=
ot
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 agai=
n, 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 sa=
id.
"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!&qu=
ot;
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 curio=
sity
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 kis=
s 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, s=
he
refused, staring at him all the time. His ungovernable temper got the bette=
r 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 hims=
elf.
"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 unconsciousl=
y 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. Certain=
ly
her shoulder hurt where he had gripped it. But there were plenty of worse h=
urts
in the world. She watched him with wide, distant eyes.
And he fell on his knees before her, as she ba=
cked
against the bookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress-bottom, d=
rawing
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 gre=
at,
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 crie=
d.
The matron softly closed the door again, withd=
rawing.
"Love me! Love me!"
Alvina was absolutely dumbfounded by this scen=
e.
She had no idea men did such things. It did not touch her, it dumbfounded h=
er.
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?&quo=
t;
he said, vibrating and beside himself as he pressed her to his breast and h=
id
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 waistco=
at 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 h=
and,
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 ot=
her
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 t=
hey
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 g=
one
to her duties.
"Well, I suppose it is all right," s=
aid
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 n=
ever
know what men will do till you've known them. And then you need be surprise=
d at
nothing, nothing. I'm surprised at nothing they do--"
"I must say," said Alvina, "I w=
as
surprised. Very unpleasantly."
"But you accepted him--"
"Anything to quieten him--like a hysteric=
al
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 t=
here
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 thankf=
ul
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 sid=
e,
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 thi=
nk
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 mater=
nity
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 arrangem=
ents
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, l=
ike
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 fre=
e to
marry him, but that she might be at liberty to flee him. So she told hersel=
f.
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 wa=
s 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 str=
uggling
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 carryi=
ng a
mandoline case and a suit-case which she knew. It was Ciccio. She did not k=
now
the other man; some theatrical individual. The two men halted almost near t=
he
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 fe=
lt
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 eyelash=
es
were as long and dark as ever, his eyes had still the attractive look of be=
ing 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 cert=
ain
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 w=
heel
of the standing car. Alvina suddenly reached forward and made a loud,
screeching flourish on the hooter. Every one looked round, including the la=
den,
tramping soldiers.
"We can't move yet," said Dr. Mitche=
ll.
But Alvina was looking at Ciccio at that momen=
t.
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 glan=
ce
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 loo=
k.
She turned pleasantly to Dr. Mitchell.
"What did you say?" she asked sweetl=
y.
=
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 w=
ith
individuality. In this northern town Alvina found that her individuality re=
ally
told. Already she belonged to the revered caste of medicine-men. And into t=
he
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. Mit=
chell.
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 h=
im,
she was a known and labelled quantity.
This she gathered from her contact with the lo=
cal
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 t=
oney
women of the place came to take tea in her room, and these little teas in t=
he
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 magnat=
es
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 bef=
ore
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?" as=
ked
Mrs. Tuke, with a long, cool look.
"I can't imagine myself--" said Alvi=
na.
"Oh, but so many things happen outside on=
e'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-g=
rey
eyes and an arched nose and black hair, very like a head on one of the love=
ly 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 danger=
ous,
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 Alvin=
a.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Tuke. "The univ=
erse
is one big machine, and we're just part of it." She flicked out her gr=
ey
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 insa=
ne.
But there you are--Effie would insist on dabbing a rare bit of yellow broca=
de
on the wall, instead of a picture, and in painting apple-green shelves in t=
he
recesses of the whitewashed wall of the dining-room. Then she enamelled the
hall-furniture yellow, and decorated it with curious green and lavender lin=
es
and flowers, and had unearthly cushions and Sardinian pottery with unspeaka=
ble 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 o=
f 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 si=
t in
the white bedclothes flicking her handkerchief and revealing a flicker of
kingfisher-blue silk and white silk night dress, complaining of her neuriti=
s nerve
and her own impossible condition, and begging Alvina to stay with her anoth=
er
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 t=
he
Cent Nouvelles and carry my child for five years. Do you know that story? S=
he
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 ab=
out
her a kind of half bitter sanity and nonchalance which the nervous woman li=
ked.
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, cock=
ing
her head on one side. "Music! A mandoline! How extraordinary! Do you t=
hink
it's a serenade?--" And she lifted her brows archly.
"I should think it is," said Alvina.=
"How extraordinary! What a moment to choo=
se
to serenade the lady! Isn't it like life--! I must look at it--"
She got out of bed with some difficulty, wrapp=
ed
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 c=
losed
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. Wo=
n'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 in=
to
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 i=
nto
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. Not=
hing
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, calli=
ng
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 ti=
nkle
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--?&quo=
t;
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 h=
er
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 finger=
s.
Alvina also was still. Then Mrs. Tuke slowly reached for the rose-buds on t=
he
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 alor=
s!
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. Th=
en
in the drive she picked up Effie's flowers. Ciccio was standing outside the=
gate.
"Allaye!" he said, in a soft, yearni=
ng
voice.
"Mrs. Tuke sent you these roses," sa=
id
Alvina, putting the flowers through the bars of the gate.
"Allaye!" he said, caressing her han=
d,
kissing it with a soft, passionate, yearning mouth. Alvina shivered. Quickl=
y he
opened the gate and drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wa=
ll, 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 bega=
n 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 marr=
ied
to me--Allaye, Allaye--"
His voice was a strange, hoarse whisper just a=
bove
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 p=
ain
from the upper window.
Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tuke crouc=
hed
in a chair, with a drawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly
gripped her, she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists har=
d 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 reassur=
ed
her as best she could. And from outside, once more, came the despairing how=
l of
the Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night.
&quo=
t;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. T=
uke
became quite still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two j=
et-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--"Y=
es,
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 c=
an 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 Alv=
ina.
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. "N=
ot
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 Alvi=
na
with big, dark, slow eyes. Then she dragged herself to her feet. Alvina hel=
ped
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 sud=
den
imploring.
Alvina laughed, and turned doubtfully away.
The night was silent outside. But she found Ci=
ccio
leaning against a gate-pillar. He started up.
"Allaye!" he said.
"Will you come in for a moment? I can't l=
eave
Mrs. Tuke."
Ciccio obediently followed Alvina into the hou=
se
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 dar=
k 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 Eff=
ie.
"Nurse, give us all one. I should like one too. And a biscuit." A=
gain
she stretched out her long white arm from the sudden blue lining of her wra=
p,
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, watchi=
ng
over the top of her glass.
He smiled faintly, stupidly, and shook his hea=
d.
"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, is=
n't
that it?"
He smiled, stirred on his feet, and nodded.
"Don't leave me! There, I knew it was tha=
t.
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, h=
er
expression went blank.
"Shall we go down?" said Alvina to
Ciccio.
He turned immediately, with his cap in his han=
d,
and followed. In the hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline f=
rom
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 fel=
low
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, yearni=
ng 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 smil=
e.
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 mysel=
f.
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 t=
he
universe," said Alvina. "If you have to be torn to pieces by forc=
es,
well, you have. Other forces will put you together again."
"I don't want them to. I want to be mysel=
f. 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 chai=
r.
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 alrea=
dy
telephoned wildly for the doctor. But the doctor had replied that Nurse wou=
ld
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 e=
lse.
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 t=
he
house again, and the two men were drinking port in the study, discussing It=
aly,
for which Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated all Ital=
ian
music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all through the night, T=
ommy
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 mor=
ning
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 cou=
ch
like some great loose fruit, Ciccio was on the floor, face downwards, his f=
ace
in his folded arms.
Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the in=
ert
Ciccio. In the end, she had to leave him and rouse Tommy first: who in rous=
ing
fell off the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably. So that he turn=
ed
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.<= o:p>
"Is it a boy or a girl?" he cried.
"It isn't born yet," she said.
"Oh God, it's an accursed fugue!" cr=
ied
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, h=
e smiled
at Alvina, and said: "Allaye!"
The dark, waking smile upset her badly.
=
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 l=
arge
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 qui=
ckly
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 bef=
ore
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 avoidi=
ng
the pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free from M=
rs.
Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men. Mrs. Tuke had a ba=
by
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 attend=
ant:
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 sw=
eet
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, stra=
nded
in the dismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o'clock, ha=
ving
decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in the war-hospitals at onc=
e:
not to leave off until she had found it.
But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, h=
er
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 t=
hat
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--exa=
ctly
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 te=
n.
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-cloud=
s 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 hol=
d 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 place=
s in
the time-table, and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram, that she wo=
uld
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 s=
ee
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 s=
aid,
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 cloth=
es,
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 c=
hap,
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. A=
nd
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 cl=
ass
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 th=
at
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 doo=
r 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 sa=
id.
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 b=
ack
to the Tukes." And she began again to brush her hair.
Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes.
"What you mean?" he said. "I sh=
an'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. Y=
ou
come with me to Italy. Why do you send a telegram?"
Alvina sat down and covered her face, tremblin=
g.
"I can't! I can't! I can't!" she moa=
ned.
"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?&quo=
t;
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 inhumanl=
y 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 on=
e 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 w=
ent
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 fe=
lt
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 h=
e 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, swee=
t,
poisonous indifference! She was drugged. And she knew it. Would she ever wa=
ke
out of her dark, warm coma? She shuddered, and hoped not. Mrs. Tuke would s=
ay
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 s=
he
felt it must be evil. Evil! She was evil. And yet she had no power to be ot=
herwise.
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 M=
iss
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 notic=
ed
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 invisi=
ble
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 E=
nglish
people watched.
He wanted to go to Italy. And now it was his w=
ill
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 Engl=
and,
a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spy craze.
In London they stayed at his cousin's house. H=
is
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 Cicci=
o.
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 a=
plomb
of a London restaurateur, and she disturbed in him the old Italian dark sou=
l,
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 tra=
ms.
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 da=
ys, she
accompanied Ciccio into town, she went with him to make purchases, or she s=
at
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. Calif=
ano
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 prese=
nce
of Ciccio. It was his physical presence which cast a spell over her. She li=
ved
within his aura. And she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark na=
ture
over her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly within his prese=
nce,
quivering within his influence, as if his blood beat in her. She knew she w=
as
subjected. One tiny corner of her knew, and watched.
He was very happy, and his face had a real bea=
uty.
His eyes glowed with lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, ha=
ppy
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, enve=
loping
love was immeasurable. She felt she could sink forever into his warm, pulsa=
ting
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, clamo=
uring
for passports--a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They had waited their turn a=
nd
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 thou=
gh
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 flourishingl=
y 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 qui=
ck
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 Consul=
ate.
He stayed suspended, again looking up at her w=
ith
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 look=
ed
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 lea=
ve
for Italy, and her dim, lustrous state lasted all the time. She found herse=
lf
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, yellowi=
sh
under his tawny skin, and nervous. He stood excitedly on the platform talki=
ng
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 trea=
ted
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, whils=
t he
smiled constrainedly and nervously.
=
The
train began to move. Giuseppe ran alongside, holding Ciccio's hand still; t=
he
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 Brom=
ley
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 ponderou=
sly,
massively, across the Weald.
And so, through Folkestone to the sea. There w=
as
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 himse=
lf,
Alvina hugged herself in her beaver scarf and muff. She looked tender and
beautiful in her still vagueness, and Ciccio, hovering about her, was beaut=
iful
too, his estrangement gave him a certain wistful nobility which for the mom=
ent
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 hig=
h 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 towa=
rds
the orb and smiling to her.
"I love it," she said.
He smiled again, silently. He was strangely mo=
ved:
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 boa=
t.
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. Engl=
and,
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 sunshi=
ne,
to remain unilluminated, long and ash-grey and dead, with streaks of snow l=
ike 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-bo=
und
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 l=
ike
a long, ash-grey coffin, winter, slowly submerging in the sea. England?
She turned again to the sun. But clouds and ve=
ils
were already weaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreove=
r.
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 Franc=
e.
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 lo=
ok.
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 port=
eur?"
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 ten=
se,
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 wavi=
ng
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 s=
ky,
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-stupefac=
tion
after all the questionings and examinings and blusterings, they were finally
allowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant another wild tussle wit=
h a
Paris taxi-driver, in the filtering snow. So they were deposited in the Gar=
e 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 t=
ears
on his shoulder, there in the great turmoil of the entrance hall of the Gar=
e 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 sh=
all
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.&qu=
ot;
"I say no, brother," said Ciccio. Bu=
t 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 fa=
ce
and put it on his head. Then the two men embraced.
"Toujours à toi!" said Geoffr=
ey,
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 overc=
oat
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 cam=
ped
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 t=
he corridor.
Then the long night journey through France, sl=
ow
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 t=
he
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 chink=
s in
the curtained windows. And again there was a jerk and a sudden halt, a drow=
sy 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. Th= ere was no sign of snow. The landscape was half southern, half Alpine. White ho= uses 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.<= o:p>
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 countr=
y,
was smiling excitedly.
"This is my first morning abroad," s=
he
said.
"Yes," he answered.
"I love it here," she said. "Is=
n'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 Fr=
ench
and Italian in the corridor. She felt the excitement and terror of France,
inside the railway carriage: and outside she saw white oxen slowly ploughin=
g,
beneath the lingering yellow poplars of the sub-Alps, she saw peasants look=
ing
up, she saw a woman holding a baby to her breast, watching the train, she s=
aw 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 influe=
nces
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 breakf=
ast
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 h=
er
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 exc=
ited
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, t=
he 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. T=
here
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 fo=
r 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, t=
he
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 restaur=
ant.
They went through the passages. And there in the dirty station gang-ways an=
d big
corridors dozens of Italians were lying on the ground, men, women, children,
camping with their bundles and packages in heaps. They were either emigrant=
s 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 corne=
r,
like a dog.
In the afternoon they were slipping down the A=
lps
towards Turin. And everywhere was snow--deep, white, wonderful snow, beauti=
ful
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 fall=
ing.
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 Cicc=
io
and Alvina had seats side by side. They were becoming tired now. But they w=
ere
in Italy. Once more they went down for a meal. And then the train set off a=
gain
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 Gen=
oa.
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 carria=
ge.
The train seemed to be tripping on the edge of the Mediterranean, round bay=
s,
and between dark rocks and under castles, a night-time fairy-land, for hour=
s.
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 a=
nd
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 comi=
ng
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 Ital=
ians
round her--though they were neither as beautiful nor as melodious as she
expected. She loved watching the glowing antique landscape. She read and re=
ad
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 gaz=
ed
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.<= o:p>
"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 wor=
d.
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 th=
at
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 s=
hook
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, a=
nd
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 wou=
ld
have some bread and sausage. He picked the strips off the sausage for her w=
ith
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 pap=
er
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!" nodd=
ing
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 feeli=
ng
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 peopl=
e 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 pai=
r 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 everywhe=
re,
running up to cross the railway. She saw it was going to Frascati.
And slowly the hills approached--they passed t=
he
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 a=
ll
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 lef=
t 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, h=
er
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 st=
ation.
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 lik=
e a
gulf. The train drew up. They had arrived.
Alvina was so tired she could hardly climb dow=
n 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 pi=
le
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 o=
ne
of the big post-omnibuses. When it was finished the man on the roof came do=
wn,
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 contem=
pt, spread
his arms wide and expostulated violently. Ciccio expostulated back again, a=
nd
they pecked at each other, verbally, like two birds. It ended by the rollin=
g 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 omni=
bus,
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 Cicc=
io. But
in the uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way, the eyes looked d=
ull
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 M=
ola followed,
rolling Alvina and Ciccio over the next stage of their journey.
The sun was already slanting to the mountain t=
ops,
shadows were falling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged at a gre=
at 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 head=
s,
like the women Alvina remembered at the Sunday-School treats, who used to t=
ell
fortunes with green little love-birds. And they all tramped along towards t=
he
blue shadow of the closing-in mountains, leaving the peaks of the town behi=
nd
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 twiligh=
t.
Great moth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood; the pea=
sants
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 gras=
sy
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 w=
ho
was conductor of the omnibus came running down the wild side-road, everybod=
y 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, tryi=
ng
to get up the pass. The omnibus pegged slowly up, then charged round a corn=
er,
swirled into another loop, and pegged heavily once more. It seemed dark bet=
ween
the closing-in mountains. The rocks rose very high, the road looped and swe=
rved
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 holl=
ow
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 be=
tween
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 w= ound on and on, and always towards that hollow sky-line between the high peaks.<= o:p>
At last they ran up between buildings nipped
between high rock-faces, and out into a little market-place, the crown of t=
he pass.
The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended. There she was, i=
n a
wild centre of an old, unfinished little mountain town. The façade o=
f a
church rose from a small eminence. A white road ran to the right, where a g=
reat
open valley showed faintly beyond and beneath. Low, squalid sort of buildin=
gs
stood around--with some high buildings. And there were bare little trees. T=
he
stars were in the sky, the air was icy. People stood darkly, excitedly abou=
t,
women with an odd, shell-pattern head-dress of gofered linen, something lik=
e a
parlour-maid's cap, came and stared hard. They were hard-faced mountain wom=
en.
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 s=
hop
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 litt=
le
dirty coffee-cups in dirty water, took the coffee-pot out of the ashes, pou=
red
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 sauc=
er,
and her customers were served.
However, Ciccio drank up, so Alvina did likewi=
se,
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 y=
ou
brought food?"
"No," said Ciccio.
So they trailed up stony dark ways to a butche=
r,
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 star=
ed
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. Alvi=
na
felt as if she were in a strange, hostile country, in the darkness of the s=
avage
little mountain town.
At last they were ready. They mounted into a
two-wheeled cart, Alvina and Ciccio behind, Pancrazio and the driver in fro=
nt,
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 star=
s,
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 dark=
ness
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 sa=
t 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 u=
nderstand
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 we=
nt
rolling along. There was a house, and a lurid red fire burning outside agai=
nst
the wall, and dark figures about it.
"What is that?" she said. "What=
are
they doing?"
"I don't know," said Ciccio. "C=
osa
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.<= o:p>
On the cart rattled and bumped, in the cold ni=
ght,
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, q=
uite
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 c=
ame
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 clim=
bed
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 t=
he
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 charcoa=
l, which
looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at a table play=
ing
cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was pouring wine. The room seemed
like a cave.
"Warm yourself," said the young woma=
n,
pointing to the flat disc of fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, a=
nd
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, asid=
e.
Ciccio came and said to her:
"They want to know if we will stay the ni=
ght
here."
"I would rather go on home," she sai=
d.
He averted his face at the word home.
"You see," said Pancrazio, "I t=
hink
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 s=
traps,
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 t=
he
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 as=
s,
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 clo=
ak,
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 ro=
ad.
He carried the lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. Th=
ere
were trees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisy wat=
er.
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 p=
lace
for young people to live in. You will see how you like it."
She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the sam=
e 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 com=
e 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 li=
ttle
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 Alvi=
na.
And in the darkness they both chewed bread.
After a while, Pancrazio halted with the ass j=
ust
ahead, and took the lantern from Giovanni.
"We must leave the road here," he sa=
id.
And with the lantern he carefully, courteously
showed Alvina a small track descending in the side of the bank, between bus=
hes.
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, stra=
nge
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--n=
ot
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 tu=
rned
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 wid=
e,
stony river-bed, in the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the a=
ss
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 ti=
lted
up with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And the a=
ss
seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long deliberation he drew ba=
ck.
Angry language sounded through the crystal air. The group with the lantern
moved again upstream, becoming smaller.
Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lante=
rn
looked small up the distance. But there--a clocking, shouting, splashing so=
und.
"He is going over," said Ciccio.
Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with=
the
lantern.
"Oh the stupid beast! I could kill him!&q=
uot;
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, w=
hich
came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And then t=
hey
took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks. Alvina felt the unev=
en
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, an=
d suddenly
they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking house: but it was a=
ll
dark.
"Oh!" exclaimed Pancrazio, "they
have done nothing that I told them." He made queer noises of exasperat=
ion.
"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 disappea=
red
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, a=
nd 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 Pancrazi=
o,
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 n=
ewspapers,
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 faggot=
s.
"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, noth=
ing,
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 t=
he
food.
"I had better go upstairs and take my thi=
ngs
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 shudde=
red
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 pen=
ny
iron forks and two old knives, and a little grey, coarse salt in a wooden b=
owl.
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 p= iece of meat and a chunk of bread, and ate. It was difficult--but the food was g= ood, 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.<= o:p>
"I think it's fun," said Alvina.
He looked at her with dark, haunted, gloomy ey=
es.
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 cl=
oth,
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 hear=
th.
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 f=
or
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 refu=
se--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 win=
e--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 saucep=
an, and
gave this utensil to Ciccio, to hold over the fire and scald the milk, whil=
st
he put the tin coffee-pot in the ashes. He took a long iron tube or blow-pi=
pe,
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 spark=
led
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 litt=
le
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 wh=
ich
hung on the hook over the fire was boiling over. Ciccio burnt his hand lift=
ing
it off. And at last, at last Alvina could go to bed.
Pancrazio went first with the candle--then Cic=
cio
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 li=
ttle
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 flo=
or
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 lig=
ht
on dazzling white snow tops, glimmering and marvellous in the evanescent ni=
ght.
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 stun=
ned
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 am=
ong
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 dri=
ed 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 Cicc=
io
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 frightene=
d.
And she was cold. A real terror took hold of her. Ciccio in his bed was qui=
te 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 silenc=
e of
Ciccio in his bed was as horrible as the rest of the night. She had a horro=
r 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.
=
There
is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everyt=
hing
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 influen=
ce
of the mountains and valleys themselves which seemed always to be annihilat=
ing
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 stu=
nned
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, whi=
ch
have the power to overthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country=
has
its potent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantly ref=
use
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 o=
f 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 i=
n 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 Giov=
anni
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 su=
nny
days: pure, hot, blue days among the mountain foothills: irregular, steep
little hills half wild with twiggy brown oak-trees and marshes and broom he=
aths,
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 othe=
r 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 t=
he
winter twilight. Sometimes Alvina and Pancrazio were late returning with the
ass. And then gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, already beg=
inning
to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again he would balk the str=
eam,
while a violet-blue dusk descended on the white, wide stream-bed, and the s=
crub
and lower hills became dark, and in heaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, t=
he
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 twiligh=
t 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 kn=
ow
what it was. But it was a kind of neuralgia in the very soul, never to be l=
ocated
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 tra=
ck
of land turned up in the heathen hollow, her soul would go all faint, she w=
ould
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 fa=
r 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 gras=
s, from
the little plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria wore the full-plea=
ted
white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a red kerchief on her head. But he=
r 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, f=
rom perpetual
wood-smoke.
Maria in her red kerchief hauling the white co=
w,
and screaming at it, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afr=
aid
of cows. And then, screaming high in dialect, Maria would talk to her. Alvi=
na
smiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was not strictly a human spe=
ech.
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 aborigin=
es, 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 h=
er.
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 se=
emed
to her she would not live.
And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful day=
s of
cold rain mingled with sleet, when the world outside was more than impossib=
le,
and the house inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by goi=
ng
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 pa=
ne and
must keep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a dark cavern vaulted a=
nd
bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settle before the fire, the hard, gre=
asy
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, amo=
ng
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 a=
ss 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, li=
ke
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 we=
re
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 atten=
ding
to his wretched domains.
Ciccio rose early, and went about in the hap-h=
azard,
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 dri=
nk
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 faggot=
s.
Pancrazio went in and out, back and forth from his pot.
Alvina stroked her brow and decided on a metho=
d.
Once she was rid of Pancrazio, she would wash every cup and plate and utens=
il
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 pape=
r.
She washed the high window-ledges and the narrow mantel-piece, that had lar=
ge
mounds of dusty candle-wax, in deposits. Then she tackled the settle. She s=
crubbed
it also. Then she looked at the floor. And even she, English housewife as s=
he
was, realized the futility of trying to wash it. As well try to wash the ea=
rth
itself outside. It was just a piece of stone-laid earth. She swept it as we=
ll
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 be=
droom,
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 rese=
nted
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 se=
w?
She was to prepare the mid-day and evening mea=
ls.
But with no pots, and over a smoking wood fire, what could she prepare? Bla=
ck
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 awf=
ul
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 bet=
ter.
So that even in the sunshine the crude comfortlessness and inferior savager=
y of
the place only repelled her.
The others were depressed when she was unhappy=
.
"Do you wish you were back in England?&qu=
ot;
Ciccio asked her, with a little sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looke=
d 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 Alv=
ina
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 ab=
out
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 bro=
ught
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 s=
ee
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 t=
hey
reached the river. At the high-road, Pancrazio harnessed the ass, and after
endless delay they jogged off to Ossona. The dawning mountains were wonderf=
ul,
dim-green and mauve and rose, the ground rang with frost. Along the roads m=
any
peasants were trooping to market, women in their best dresses, some of thic=
k heavy
silk with the white, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green, lavender, dark-re=
d,
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 bel=
ated
cow.
The market was lovely, there in the crown of t=
he
pass, in the old town, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pig=
s,
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, fr=
om
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 mor=
ning
the market was in full swing: a great crowd of handsome mountain people, al=
l 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 altoget=
her.
Ciccio would have to take her to England again, or to America. He was alway=
s 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 t=
wo
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 remotene=
ss from
the world's actuality? Probably, under all their tension of money and
money-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality and rather horrible religio=
n,
probably they felt the same. She was one with them. But she could never end=
ure
it for a life-time. It was only a test on her. Ciccio must take her to Amer=
ica,
or England--to America preferably.
And even as he turned to look for her, she fel=
t 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 caug=
ht
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 sm=
ile.
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,&quo=
t;
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 gre=
at a
demand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her and enveloped her. The=
re
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 li=
ttle
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 Cicci=
o.
"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 fu=
ll
of a triumphant, incommunicable meaning.
"Well!--And now," said Pancrazio, co=
ming
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. Gi=
ovanni
was there with the lantern. Ciccio went on ahead with Alvina, whilst the ot=
hers
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 sha=
dow
was she threading? What was the terrible man's passion that haunted her lik=
e a
dark angel? Why was she so much beyond herself?
=
Christmas
was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs still unstripped. Alvina sat wi=
th
Ciccio stripping them, in the corn-place.
"Will you be able to stop here till the b=
aby
is born?" he asked her.
She watched the films of the leaves come off f=
rom
the burning gold maize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruit=
ion.
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 e=
ar
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. "W=
ill
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,&quo=
t;
he said, sadly.
"Would you?"
He slowly shook his head: indefinite.
She was settling down. She had her room upstai=
rs,
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 Mr=
s.
Tuke had sent books. Also she helped Ciccio when she could, and Maria was t=
eaching
her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread.
This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone o=
ff
somewhere, Alvina and Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last ma=
ize.
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 ve=
ry
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 balco=
ny.
Two men stood below, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the el=
der,
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 brillia=
nt
flourish on a short wooden pipe he held ready in his hand. Alvina felt he w=
as
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 t=
he
roar of the bagpipe. And the crumbs of snow were like a speckled veil, fain=
tly
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 snatch=
ed
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 he=
ard
the sound far off, strange, yelling, wonderful: and the same ache for she k=
new 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 worl=
d.
Ciccio worked all day on the land or round abo=
ut.
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 fr=
om
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.<= o:p>
"It's because you are a foreigner, and th=
ey
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 giv=
e Marta
Maria something, or the next time she won't let me have it. Ha, they are--t=
hey
are sly ones, the people here."
"They are like that everywhere," said
Alvina.
"Yes. But nowhere they say so many bad th=
ings
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 we=
re 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 sa=
y 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.<= o:p>
"They think you will go away. But if you
stay, they will say bad things. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people, ev=
il
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 kno=
wn
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 s=
oul,
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 o=
ut
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 t=
o be
out in the evening he would sit with her and tell her stories of Lord Leigh=
ton
and Millais and Alma Tadema and other academicians dead and living. There w=
ould
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 li=
ke
this: either simple, bare, stoical, with a touch of nobility; or else satir=
ic, 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 do=
ing
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 Pancraz=
io'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 agai=
n. So
they said to him, he must try Califano, because Califano was the only man w=
ho
would stand it. At last then he sent for me. 'I don't like your damned figu=
re,
Califano,' he said to me, 'but nobody will do this if you won't. Now will y=
ou
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 na=
ked
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 i=
t,'
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, an=
d he
pulled me, who was tied on the cross, with him. So we all fell down, he wit=
h 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 hea=
vy
cross, that he could not get out. So he had to lie shouting underneath me u=
ntil
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 thr=
ee
o'clock. 'That's one. Now then, what time is it? 'Again, three o'clock. 'Th=
at'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 thro=
ugh
the long years in London, for the sake of late Victorian art. It was strang=
est
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-sin=
ister
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 a=
nd
give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt that if she were left much al=
one
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 tim=
e.
Snow had fallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as th=
ey 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, c=
limbing
over the jumbled hills that lay between the mountains, until the village ca=
me
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 jo=
ined
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 Glasg=
ow.
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 cro=
wn
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 p=
ale
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 we=
re
sloppy with snow. But none the less, peasants in full dress, their feet soa=
ked
in the skin sandals, were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling, bargain=
ing
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 le=
vel region,
boys were snowballing and shouting. The ancient castle, badly cracked by the
last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on the valley of many hills beneat=
h,
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 ra=
n,
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 mounta=
ins,
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. Pancra=
zio
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 paradi=
ng
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, o=
n a
chair the old crone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancrazio ordered be=
er
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--a=
ll
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 y=
our
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 brazie=
r,
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 beyo=
nd
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 fill=
ed
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 ou=
ght
to, her every interest lay that way. Could Alvina bear to be so far off, wh=
en
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. Tu=
ke
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 da=
ndy
young models had left England because of the war, expecting Italy to come i=
n.
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 wi=
ll
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 sunshi=
ne outside,
the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, the men drinking at t=
he
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 wa=
r.
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 sai=
d.
When she stood above the valley in the strong,
tiring light, she glanced round. Ciccio inside the shop had risen, but he w=
as
still turning to his neighbour and was talking with all his hands and all h=
is
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 castl=
e.
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 o=
pen
air, and in the community. When the true Italian came out in him, his verie=
st
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 grou=
ps
and talked, talked, talked. This was where Ciccio belonged: his active, min=
dful
self. His active, mindful self was none of hers. She only had his passive s=
elf,
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 he=
r.
But he wouldn't. An obstinate spirit made him darkly refuse masculine
conversation with her.
"If Italy goes to war, you will have to j=
oin
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.<= o:p>
"No, I don't want to go."
"But you think Italy ought to join in?&qu=
ot;
"Yes, I do."
"Then you do want to go--"
"I want to go if Italy goes in--and she o=
ught
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 wo=
uld
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 w=
ould
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. Pescocalasc=
io
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 evening=
s 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 be=
tween
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 wi=
th
Ciccio, now they had their own pleasant room. She loved his presence. She l=
oved
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 liv=
ing
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 walk=
ed
down to the desolate river-bed, which fascinated her. When Pancrazio was ca=
rrying
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 lov=
ed
them. There was green hellebore too, a fascinating plant--and one or two li=
ttle
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 alm=
ond
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 momen=
t,
and they were opened flat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars, w=
ith
burning centres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen som=
e 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 g=
oing
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 th=
em
in the morning, when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs, w=
onderfully
fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and old grass and wild periwink=
le.
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. Bu=
t 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-ro=
ad
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 slu=
m.
Casa Latina was across the valley, in the shad=
ow.
Approaching it were rows of low cabins--fairly new. They were the one-store=
y dwellings
commanded after the earthquake. And hideous they were. The village itself w=
as
old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain. Streams of cold water ran r=
ound
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 gl=
ass
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; al=
l the
sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded fetish-worship was too much for her. S=
he
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 wor=
ld
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 do=
or
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 repulsio=
n,
as in the great, degraded church of Casa Latina. They were horrible.
Yet the outside world was so fair. Corn and ma=
ize
were growing green and silken, vines were in the small bud. Everywhere litt=
le
grape hyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her of t=
he
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 remi=
nded
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. T=
he
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 t=
hat
had haunted her with their tomb-frenzied vindictiveness since she was a chi=
ld
and had pored over the illustrated Classical Dictionary. Black and cruel pr=
esences
were in the under-air. They were furtive and slinking. They bewitched you w=
ith
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 you=
ng
fellow called Bussolo. He was a model from London, and he came down to Cali=
fano
sometimes, hanging about, anxious to speak English.
Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy wi=
th
pale grey eyes and a heavy figure. Yet he had a certain penetrating
intelligence.
"No, this country is a country for old me=
n.
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 penetr=
ated
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 utte=
rly 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 sunshin=
e.
Astonishing the ferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to bl=
aze.
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. S=
he
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 ha=
ted
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 c=
ame
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 mornin=
g of
the world. The lovely, pristine morning of the world, before our epoch bega=
n. 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 plac=
es,
that would seem forlorn but for this weird, dark-lustrous magnificence. The=
n 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 nothi=
ng
could be more exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that brough=
t 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 mag=
ical
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 flow=
ers,
took off his cap, and wiped the sweat from his brow. The sickle dangled loo=
se
in his hand.
"We have declared war," he said.
In an instant she realized that she had seen t=
he
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 s=
he
could get out of that great cruel valley and escape to Rome, to English peo=
ple.
She would find the English Consul and he would help her. She would do anyth=
ing
rather than be really crushed. She knew how easy it would be, once her spir=
it
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. Pancraz=
io
would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments. And he seemed always anx=
ious
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 t=
hat
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 v=
illage
obvious as if it were on a plate.
"That is our cemetery," Pancrazio sa=
id,
pointing it out to her, "where we shall all be carried some day."=
And there was fear, horror in his voice. He to=
ld
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 d=
istress.
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, loo=
king
at her darkly. In the twilight he came to her, when she could hardly see hi=
m.
"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 tur=
ned
aside his face. After a moment or two he went out. She stirred her pot slow=
ly
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 h=
and
on him. He uncovered his face.
"I would take you away if I could," =
he
said.
"I can wait for you," she answered.<= o:p>
He threw himself in a chair that stood at a ta=
ble
there on the broad landing, and buried his head in his arms.
"Don't wait for me! Don't wait for me!&qu=
ot;
he cried, his voice muffled.
"Why not?" she said, filled with ter=
ror.
He made no sign. "Why not?" she insisted. And she laid her finger=
s on
his head.
He got up and turned to her.
"I love you, even if it kills me," s=
he
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 turn=
ed
to her.
"I haven't any hope," he said, in a
dull, dogged voice.
She felt her heart and the child die within he=
r.
"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 d=
ark
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. S=
he
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 doom=
ed
Italian kitchen. "I can't come back." She heard it so fatally.
She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancraz=
io.
"Oh!" he cried, startled when, having
come near the fire, he caught sight of her. And he said something, frighten=
ed,
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 mea=
l.
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, lumin=
ous
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.<= o:p>
"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 wil=
l 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 betw=
een
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, unbeara=
ble 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 h=
is
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 whispe=
red,
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.