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diff --git a/old/23727-8.txt b/old/23727-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5184daa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/23727-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18107 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lost Girl, by D. H. Lawrence + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Lost Girl + + +Author: D. H. Lawrence + + + +Release Date: December 3, 2007 [eBook #23727] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST GIRL*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank, Roberta Staehlin, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +THE LOST GIRL + +by + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + + + + + + +New York +Thomas Seltzer +1921 + +Copyright, 1921, +by Thomas Seltzer, Inc. +All rights reserved + +First Printing, February, 1921 +Second Printing, February, 1921 +Third Printing, September, 1921 + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE 7 + + II THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON 27 + + III THE MATERNITY NURSE 36 + + IV TWO WOMEN DIE 49 + + V THE BEAU 64 + + VI HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR 95 + + VII NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA 130 + +VIII CICCIO 164 + + IX ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE 191 + + X THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE 235 + + XI HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT 273 + + XII ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED 304 + +XIII THE WEDDED WIFE 317 + + XIV THE JOURNEY ACROSS 327 + + XV THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO 350 + + XVI SUSPENSE 359 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE + + +Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of ten +thousand people, and three generations behind it. This space of +three generations argues a certain well-established society. The old +"County" has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to +flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic. Remains one +great and inaccessible magnate, the local coal owner: three +generations old, and clambering on the bottom step of the "County," +kicking off the mass below. Rule him out. + +A well established society in Woodhouse, full of fine shades, +ranging from the dark of coal-dust to grit of stone-mason and +sawdust of timber-merchant, through the lustre of lard and butter +and meat, to the perfume of the chemist and the disinfectant of the +doctor, on to the serene gold-tarnish of bank-managers, cashiers for +the firm, clergymen and such-like, as far as the automobile +refulgence of the general-manager of all the collieries. Here the +_ne plus ultra_. The general manager lives in the shrubberied +seclusion of the so-called Manor. The genuine Hall, abandoned by the +"County," has been taken over as offices by the firm. + +Here we are then: a vast substratum of colliers; a thick sprinkling +of tradespeople intermingled with small employers of labour and +diversified by elementary schoolmasters and nonconformist clergy; a +higher layer of bank-managers, rich millers and well-to-do +ironmasters, episcopal clergy and the managers of collieries, then +the rich and sticky cherry of the local coal-owner glistening over +all. + +Such the complicated social system of a small industrial town in the +Midlands of England, in this year of grace 1920. But let us go back +a little. Such it was in the last calm year of plenty, 1913. + +A calm year of plenty. But one chronic and dreary malady: that of +the odd women. Why, in the name of all prosperity, should every +class but the lowest in such a society hang overburdened with Dead +Sea fruit of odd women, unmarried, unmarriageable women, called old +maids? Why is it that every tradesman, every school-master, every +bank-manager, and every clergyman produces one, two, three or more +old maids? Do the middle-classes, particularly the lower +middle-classes, give birth to more girls than boys? Or do the lower +middle-class men assiduously climb up or down, in marriage, thus +leaving their true partners stranded? Or are middle-class women very +squeamish in their choice of husbands? + +However it be, it is a tragedy. Or perhaps it is not. + +Perhaps these unmarried women of the middle-classes are the famous +sexless-workers of our ant-industrial society, of which we hear so +much. Perhaps all they lack is an occupation: in short, a job. But +perhaps we might hear their own opinion, before we lay the law down. + +In Woodhouse, there was a terrible crop of old maids among the +"nobs," the tradespeople and the clergy. The whole town of women, +colliers' wives and all, held its breath as it saw a chance of one +of these daughters of comfort and woe getting off. They flocked to +the well-to-do weddings with an intoxication of relief. For let +class-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman +left stalely on the shelf, without a chance. They all _wanted_ the +middle-class girls to find husbands. Every one wanted it, including +the girls themselves. Hence the dismalness. + +Now James Houghton had only one child: his daughter Alvina. Surely +Alvina Houghton-- + +But let us retreat to the early eighties, when Alvina was a baby: or +even further back, to the palmy days of James Houghton. In his palmy +days, James Houghton was _crême de la crême_ of Woodhouse society. +The house of Houghton had always been well-to-do: tradespeople, we +must admit; but after a few generations of affluence, tradespeople +acquire a distinct _cachet_. Now James Houghton, at the age of +twenty-eight, inherited a splendid business in Manchester goods, in +Woodhouse. He was a tall, thin, elegant young man with side-whiskers, +genuinely refined, somewhat in the Bulwer style. He had a taste for +elegant conversation and elegant literature and elegant Christianity: +a tall, thin, brittle young man, rather fluttering in his manner, full +of facile ideas, and with a beautiful speaking voice: most beautiful. +Withal, of course, a tradesman. He courted a small, dark woman, older +than himself, daughter of a Derbyshire squire. He expected to get at +least ten thousand pounds with her. In which he was disappointed, for +he got only eight hundred. Being of a romantic-commercial nature, he +never forgave her, but always treated her with the most elegant +courtesy. To seehim peel and prepare an apple for her was an exquisite +sight. But that peeled and quartered apple was her portion. This +elegant Adam of commerce gave Eve her own back, nicely cored, and had +no more to do with her. Meanwhile Alvina was born. + +Before all this, however, before his marriage, James Houghton had +built Manchester House. It was a vast square building--vast, that +is, for Woodhouse--standing on the main street and high-road of the +small but growing town. The lower front consisted of two fine shops, +one for Manchester goods, one for silk and woollens. This was James +Houghton's commercial poem. + +For James Houghton was a dreamer, and something of a poet: commercial, +be it understood. He liked the novels of George Macdonald, and the +fantasies of that author, extremely. He wove one continual fantasy for +himself, a fantasy of commerce. He dreamed of silks and poplins, +luscious in texture and of unforeseen exquisiteness: he dreamed of +carriages of the "County" arrested before his windows, of exquisite +women ruffling charmed, entranced to his counter. And charming, +entrancing, he served them his lovely fabrics, which only he and they +could sufficiently appreciate. His fame spread, until Alexandra, +Princess of Wales, and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, the two +best-dressed women in Europe, floated down from heaven to the shop in +Woodhouse, and sallied forth to show what could be done by purchasing +from James Houghton. + +We cannot say why James Houghton failed to become the Liberty or the +Snelgrove of his day. Perhaps he had too much imagination. Be that as +it may, in those early days when he brought his wife to her new home, +his window on the Manchester side was a foam and a may-blossom of +muslins and prints, his window on the London side was an autumn evening +of silks and rich fabrics. What wife could fail to be dazzled! But she, +poor darling, from her stone hall in stony Derbyshire, was a little bit +repulsed by the man's dancing in front of his stock, like David before +the ark. + +The home to which he brought her was a monument. In the great bedroom +over the shop he had his furniture _built_: built of solid mahogany: oh +too, too solid. No doubt he hopped or skipped himself with satisfaction +into the monstrous matrimonial bed: it could only be mounted by means +of a stool and chair. But the poor, secluded little woman, older than +he, must have climbed up with a heavy heart, to lie and face the gloomy +Bastille of mahogany, the great cupboard opposite, or to turn wearily +sideways to the great cheval mirror, which performed a perpetual and +hideous bow before her grace. Such furniture! It could never be removed +from the room. + +The little child was born in the second year. And then James Houghton +decamped to a small, half-furnished bedroom at the other end of the +house, where he slept on a rough board and played the anchorite for the +rest of his days. His wife was left alone with her baby and the +built-in furniture. She developed heart disease, as a result of nervous +repressions. + +But like a butterfly James fluttered over his fabrics. He was a tyrant +to his shop-girls. No French marquis in a Dickens' novel could have +been more elegant and _raffiné_ and heartless. The girls detested him. +And yet, his curious refinement and enthusiasm bore them away. They +submitted to him. The shop attracted much curiosity. But the +poor-spirited Woodhouse people were weak buyers. They wearied James +Houghton with their demand for common zephyrs, for red flannel which +they would scallop with black worsted, for black alpacas and bombazines +and merinos. He fluffed out his silk-striped muslins, his India +cotton-prints. But the natives shied off as if he had offered them the +poisoned robes of Herakles. + +There was a sale. These sales contributed a good deal to Mrs. +Houghton's nervous heart-disease. They brought the first signs of wear +and tear into the face of James Houghton. At first, of course, he +merely marked down, with discretion, his less-expensive stock of prints +and muslins, nuns-veilings and muslin delaines, with a few fancy +braidings and trimmings in guimp or bronze to enliven the affair. And +Woodhouse bought cautiously. + +After the sale, however, James Houghton felt himself at liberty to +plunge into an orgy of new stock. He flitted, with a tense look on his +face, to Manchester. After which huge bundles, bales and boxes arrived +in Woodhouse, and were dumped on the pavement of the shop. Friday +evening came, and with it a revelation in Houghton's window: the first +piqués, the first strangely-woven and honey-combed toilet covers and +bed quilts, the first frill-caps and aprons for maid-servants: a wonder +in white. That was how James advertised it. "A Wonder in White." Who +knows but that he had been reading Wilkie Collins' famous novel! + +As the nine days of the wonder-in-white passed and receded, James +disappeared in the direction of London. A few Fridays later he came out +with his Winter Touch. Weird and wonderful winter coats, for +ladies--everything James handled was for ladies, he scorned the coarser +sex--: weird and wonderful winter coats for ladies, of thick, black, +pockmarked cloth, stood and flourished their bear-fur cuffs in the +background, while tippets, boas, muffs and winter-fancies coquetted in +front of the window-space. Friday-night crowds gathered outside: the +gas-lamps shone their brightest: James Houghton hovered in the +background like an author on his first night in the theatre. The +result was a sensation. Ten villages stared and crushed round the plate +glass. It was a sensation: but what sensation! In the breasts of the +crowd, wonder, admiration, _fear_, and ridicule. Let us stress the word +fear. The inhabitants of Woodhouse were afraid lest James Houghton +should impose his standards upon them. His goods were in excellent +taste: but his customers were in as bad taste as possible. They stood +outside and pointed, giggled, and jeered. Poor James, like an author on +his first night, saw his work fall more than flat. + +But still he believed in his own excellence: and quite justly. What +he failed to perceive was that the crowd hated excellence. Woodhouse +wanted a gently graduated progress in mediocrity, a mediocrity so +stale and flat that it fell outside the imagination of any sensitive +mortal. Woodhouse wanted a series of vulgar little thrills, as one +tawdry mediocrity was imported from Nottingham or Birmingham to take +the place of some tawdry mediocrity which Nottingham and Birmingham +had already discarded. That Woodhouse, as a very condition of its +own being, hated any approach to originality or real taste, this +James Houghton could never learn. He thought he had not been clever +enough, when he had been far, far too clever already. He always +thought that Dame Fortune was a capricious and fastidious dame, a +sort of Elizabeth of Austria or Alexandra, Princess of Wales, +elegant beyond his grasp. Whereas Dame Fortune, even in London or +Vienna, let alone in Woodhouse, was a vulgar woman of the middle and +lower middle-class, ready to put her heavy foot on anything that was +not vulgar, machine-made, and appropriate to the herd. When he saw +his delicate originalities, as well as his faint flourishes of +draper's fantasy, squashed flat under the calm and solid foot of +vulgar Dame Fortune, he fell into fits of depression bordering on +mysticism, and talked to his wife in a vague way of higher +influences and the angel Israfel. She, poor lady, was thoroughly +scared by Israfel, and completely unhooked by the vagaries of James. + +At last--we hurry down the slope of James' misfortunes--the real +days of Houghton's Great Sales began. Houghton's Great Bargain +Events were really events. After some years of hanging on, he let go +splendidly. He marked down his prints, his chintzes, his dimities +and his veilings with a grand and lavish hand. Bang went his blue +pencil through 3/11, and nobly he subscribed 1/0-3/4. Prices fell +like nuts. A lofty one-and-eleven rolled down to six-three, 1/6 +magically shrank into 4-3/4d, whilst good solid prints exposed +themselves at 3-3/4d per yard. + +Now this was really an opportunity. Moreover the goods, having +become a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, were +beginning to approximate to the public taste. And besides, good +sound stuff it was, no matter what the pattern. And so the little +Woodhouse girls went to school in petties and drawers made of +material which James had destined for fair summer dresses: petties +and drawers of which the little Woodhouse girls were ashamed, for +all that. For if they should chance to turn up their little skirts, +be sure they would raise a chorus among their companions: "Yah-h-h, +yer've got Houghton's threp'ny draws on!" + +All this time James Houghton walked on air. He still saw the Fata +Morgana snatching his fabrics round her lovely form, and pointing +him to wealth untold. True, he became also Superintendent of the +Sunday School. But whether this was an act of vanity, or whether it +was an attempt to establish an Entente Cordiale with higher powers, +who shall judge. + +Meanwhile his wife became more and more an invalid; the little +Alvina was a pretty, growing child. Woodhouse was really impressed +by the sight of Mrs. Houghton, small, pale and withheld, taking a +walk with her dainty little girl, so fresh in an ermine tippet and a +muff. Mrs. Houghton in shiny black bear's-fur, the child in the +white and spotted ermine, passing silent and shadowy down the +street, made an impression which the people did not forget. + +But Mrs. Houghton had pains at her heart. If, during her walk, she +saw two little boys having a scrimmage, she had to run to them with +pence and entreaty, leaving them dumfounded, whilst she leaned blue +at the lips against a wall. If she saw a carter crack his whip over +the ears of the horse, as the horse laboured uphill, she had to +cover her eyes and avert her face, and all her strength left her. + +So she stayed more and more in her room, and the child was given to +the charge of a governess. Miss Frost was a handsome, vigorous young +woman of about thirty years of age, with grey-white hair and +gold-rimmed spectacles. The white hair was not at all tragical: it +was a family _trait_. + +Miss Frost mattered more than any one else to Alvina Houghton, +during the first long twenty-five years of the girl's life. The +governess was a strong, generous woman, a musician by nature. She +had a sweet voice, and sang in the choir of the chapel, and took the +first class of girls in the Sunday-School of which James Houghton +was Superintendent. She disliked and rather despised James Houghton, +saw in him elements of a hypocrite, detested his airy and gracious +selfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all, his fairy +fantasy. As James went further into life, he became a dreamer. Sad +indeed that he died before the days of Freud. He enjoyed the most +wonderful and fairy-like dreams, which he could describe perfectly, +in charming, delicate language. At such times his beautifully +modulated voice all but sang, his grey eyes gleamed fiercely under +his bushy, hairy eyebrows, his pale face with its side-whiskers had +a strange _lueur_, his long thin hands fluttered occasionally. He +had become meagre in figure, his skimpy but genteel coat would be +buttoned over his breast, as he recounted his dream-adventures, +adventures that were half Edgar Allan Poe, half Andersen, with +touches of Vathek and Lord Byron and George Macdonald: perhaps more +than a touch of the last. Ladies were always struck by these +accounts. But Miss Frost never felt so strongly moved to impatience +as when she was within hearing. + +For twenty years, she and James Houghton treated each other with a +courteous distance. Sometimes she broke into open impatience with +him, sometimes he answered her tartly: "Indeed, indeed! Oh, indeed! +Well, well, I'm sorry you find it so--" as if the injury consisted +in her finding it so. Then he would flit away to the Conservative +Club, with a fleet, light, hurried step, as if pressed by fate. At +the club he played chess--at which he was excellent--and conversed. +Then he flitted back at half-past twelve, to dinner. + +The whole morale of the house rested immediately on Miss Frost. She +saw her line in the first year. She must defend the little Alvina, +whom she loved as her own, and the nervous, petulant, heart-stricken +woman, the mother, from the vagaries of James. Not that James had +any vices. He did not drink or smoke, was abstemious and clean as an +anchorite, and never lowered his fine tone. But still, the two +unprotected ones must be sheltered from him. Miss Frost +imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic +government. Her rule was quiet, strong, and generous. She was not +seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of +Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms with her own sure, +radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy, +reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to +give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered +home. She controlled the maid, and suggested the meals--meals which +James ate without knowing what he ate. She brought in flowers and +books, and, very rarely, a visitor. Visitors were out of place in +the dark sombreness of Manchester House. Her flowers charmed the +petulant invalid, her books she sometimes discussed with the airy +James: after which discussions she was invariably filled with +exasperation and impatience, whilst James invariably retired to the +shop, and was heard raising his musical voice, which the work-girls +hated, to one or other of the work-girls. + +James certainly had an irritating way of speaking of a book. He +talked of incidents, and effects, and suggestions, as if the whole +thing had just been a sensational-æsthetic attribute to himself. Not +a grain of human feeling in the man, said Miss Frost, flushing pink +with exasperation. She herself invariably took the human line. + +Meanwhile the shops began to take on a hopeless and frowsy look. +After ten years' sales, spring sales, summer sales, autumn sales, +winter sales, James began to give up the drapery dream. He himself +could not bear any more to put the heavy, pock-holed black cloth +coat, with wild bear cuffs and collar, on to the stand. He had +marked it down from five guineas to one guinea, and then, oh ignoble +day, to ten-and-six. He nearly kissed the gipsy woman with a basket +of tin saucepan-lids, when at last she bought it for five shillings, +at the end of one of his winter sales. But even she, in spite of the +bitter sleety day, would not put the coat on in the shop. She +carried it over her arm down to the Miners' Arms. And later, with a +shock that really hurt him, James, peeping bird-like out of his shop +door, saw her sitting driving a dirty rag-and-bone cart with a +green-white, mouldy pony, and flourishing her arms like some wild +and hairy-decorated squaw. For the long bear-fur, wet with sleet, +seemed like a _chevaux de frise_ of long porcupine quills round her +fore-arms and her neck. Yet such good, such wonderful material! James +eyed it for one moment, and then fled like a rabbit to the stove in +his back regions. + +The higher powers did not seem to fulfil the terms of treaty which +James hoped for. He began to back out from the Entente. The Sunday +School was a great trial to him. Instead of being carried away by +his grace and eloquence, the nasty louts of colliery boys and girls +openly banged their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to +speak. He said many acid and withering things, as he stood there on +the rostrum. But what is the good of saying acid things to those +little fiends and gall-bladders, the colliery children. The +situation was saved by Miss Frost's sweeping together all the big +girls, under her surveillance, and by her organizing that the tall +and handsome blacksmith who taught the lower boys should extend his +influence over the upper boys. His influence was more than +effectual. It consisted in gripping any recalcitrant boy just above +the knee, and jesting with him in a jocular manner, in the dialect. +The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith's hand need be, and his +dialect was as broad as could be wished. Between the grip and the +homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. So the Sunday +School paid more attention to James, whose prayers were beautiful. +But then one of the boys, a protegé of Miss Frost, having been left +for half an hour in the obscure room with Mrs. Houghton, gave away +the secret of the blacksmith's grip, which secret so haunted the +poor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of her malady, and +made Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Houghton +resented something in the coarse Scotch manner of the minister of +that day. So that the superintendency of the Sunday School came to +an end. + +At the same time, Solomon had to divide his baby. That is, he let +the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor and +haberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bear +analysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joiners +appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room in +the shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and sawing, +and suffered. W. H. Johnson came out with a spick-and-span window, +and had his wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a +handsome, loud girl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked +in--even women, buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They +could have bought a tie for four-three from James Houghton. But no, +they would rather give sixpence-halfpenny for W.H. Johnson's fresh +but rubbishy stuff. And James, who had tried to rise to another +successful sale, saw the streams pass into the other doorway, and +heard the heavy feet on the hollow boards of the other shop: his +shop no more. + +After this cut at his pride and integrity he lay in retirement for a +while, mystically inclined. Probably he would have come to +Swedenborg, had not his clipt wings spread for a new flight. He hit +upon the brilliant idea of working up his derelict fabrics into +ready-mades: not men's clothes, oh no: women's, or rather, ladies'. +Ladies' Tailoring, said the new announcement. + +James Houghton was happy once more. A zig-zag wooden stair-way was +rigged up the high back of Manchester House. In the great lofts +sewing-machines of various patterns and movements were installed. A +manageress was advertised for, and work-girls were hired. So a new +phase of life started. At half-past six in the morning there was a +clatter of feet and of girls' excited tongues along the back-yard +and up the wooden stair-way outside the back wall. The poor invalid +heard every clack and every vibration. She could never get over her +nervous apprehension of an invasion. Every morning alike, she felt +an invasion of some enemy was breaking in on her. And all day long +the low, steady rumble of sewing-machines overhead seemed like the +low drumming of a bombardment upon her weak heart. To make matters +worse, James Houghton decided that he must have his sewing-machines +driven by some extra-human force. He installed another plant of +machinery--acetylene or some such contrivance--which was intended to +drive all the little machines from one big belt. Hence a further +throbbing and shaking in the upper regions, truly terrible to +endure. But, fortunately or unfortunately, the acetylene plant was +not a success. Girls got their thumbs pierced, and sewing machines +absolutely refused to stop sewing, once they had started, and +absolutely refused to start, once they had stopped. So that after a +while, one loft was reserved for disused and rusty, but expensive +engines. + +Dame Fortune, who had refused to be taken by fine fabrics and fancy +trimmings, was just as reluctant to be captured by ready-mades. +Again the good dame was thoroughly lower middle-class. James +Houghton designed "robes." Now Robes were the mode. Perhaps it was +Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who gave glory to the slim, +glove-fitting Princess Robe. Be that as it may, James Houghton +designed robes. His work-girls, a race even more callous than +shop-girls, proclaimed the fact that James tried on his own +inventions upon his own elegant thin person, before the privacy of +his own cheval mirror. And even if he did, why not? Miss Frost, +hearing this legend, looked sideways at the enthusiast. + +Let us remark in time that Miss Frost had already ceased to draw any +maintenance from James Houghton. Far from it, she herself +contributed to the upkeep of the domestic hearth and board. She had +fully decided never to leave her two charges. She knew that a +governess was an impossible item in Manchester House, as things +went. And so she trudged the country, giving music lessons to the +daughters of tradesmen and of colliers who boasted pianofortes. She +even taught heavy-handed but dauntless colliers, who were seized +with a passion to "play." Miles she trudged, on her round from +village to village: a white-haired woman with a long, quick stride, +a strong figure, and a quick, handsome smile when once her face +awoke behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Like many short-sighted +people, she had a certain intent look of one who goes her own way. + +The miners knew her, and entertained the highest respect and +admiration for her. As they streamed in a grimy stream home from +pit, they diverged like some magic dark river from off the pavement +into the horse-way, to give her room as she approached. And the men +who knew her well enough to salute her, by calling her name "Miss +Frost!" giving it the proper intonation of salute, were fussy men +indeed. "She's a lady if ever there was one," they said. And they +meant it. Hearing her name, poor Miss Frost would flash a smile and +a nod from behind her spectacles, but whose black face she smiled to +she never, or rarely knew. If she did chance to get an inkling, then +gladly she called in reply "Mr. Lamb," or "Mr. Calladine." In her +way she was a proud woman, for she was regarded with cordial +respect, touched with veneration, by at least a thousand colliers, +and by perhaps as many colliers' wives. That is something, for any +woman. + +Miss Frost charged fifteen shillings for thirteen weeks' lessons, +two lessons a week. And at that she was considered rather dear. She +was supposed to be making money. What money she made went chiefly to +support the Houghton household. In the meanwhile she drilled Alvina +thoroughly in theory and pianoforte practice, for Alvina was +naturally musical, and besides this she imparted to the girl the +elements of a young lady's education, including the drawing of +flowers in water-colour, and the translation of a Lamartine poem. + +Now incredible as it may seem, fate threw another prop to the +falling house of Houghton, in the person of the manageress of the +work-girls, Miss Pinnegar. James Houghton complained of Fortune, yet +to what other man would Fortune have sent two such women as Miss +Frost and Miss Pinnegar, _gratis_? Yet there they were. And doubtful +if James was ever grateful for their presence. + +If Miss Frost saved him from heaven knows what domestic débâcle and +horror, Miss Pinnegar saved him from the workhouse. Let us not mince +matters. For a dozen years Miss Frost supported the heart-stricken, +nervous invalid, Clariss Houghton: for more than twenty years she +cherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the +child alike from a neurotic mother and a father such as James. For +nearly twenty years she saw that food was set on the table, and +clean sheets were spread on the beds: and all the time remained +virtually in the position of an outsider, without one grain of +established authority. + +And then to find Miss Pinnegar! In her way, Miss Pinnegar was very +different from Miss Frost. She was a rather short, stout, +mouse-coloured, creepy kind of woman with a high colour in her +cheeks, and dun, close hair like a cap. It was evident she was not a +lady: her grammar was not without reproach. She had pale grey eyes, +and a padding step, and a soft voice, and almost purplish cheeks. +Mrs. Houghton, Miss Frost, and Alvina did not like her. They +suffered her unwillingly. + +But from the first she had a curious ascendancy over James Houghton. +One would have expected his æsthetic eye to be offended. But no +doubt it was her voice: her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed +almost like a secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers +disliked being secretly touched, as it were beneath their clothing. +Miss Frost abhorred it: so did Mrs. Houghton. Miss Frost's voice was +clear and straight as a bell-note, open as the day. Yet Alvina, +though in loyalty she adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, did not +really mind the quiet suggestive power of Miss Pinnegar. For Miss +Pinnegar was not vulgarly insinuating. On the contrary, the things +she said were rather clumsy and downright. It was only that she +seemed to weigh what she said, secretly, before she said it, and +then she approached as if she would slip it into her hearer's +consciousness without his being aware of it. She seemed to slide her +speeches unnoticed into one's ears, so that one accepted them +without the slightest challenge. That was just her manner of +approach. In her own way, she was as loyal and unselfish as Miss +Frost. There are such poles of opposition between honesties and +loyalties. + +Miss Pinnegar had the _second_ class of girls in the Sunday School, +and she took second, subservient place in Manchester House. By force +of nature, Miss Frost took first place. Only when Miss Pinnegar +spoke to Mr. Houghton--nay, the very way she addressed herself to +him--"What do _you_ think, Mr. Houghton?"--then there seemed to be +assumed an immediacy of correspondence between the two, and an +unquestioned priority in their unison, his and hers, which was a +cruel thorn in Miss Frost's outspoken breast. This sort of secret +intimacy and secret exulting in having, _really_, the chief power, +was most repugnant to the white-haired woman. Not that there was, in +fact, any secrecy, or any form of unwarranted correspondence between +James Houghton and Miss Pinnegar. Far from it. Each of them would +have found any suggestion of such a possibility repulsive in the +extreme. It was simply an implicit correspondence between their two +psyches, an immediacy of understanding which preceded all +expression, tacit, wireless. + +Miss Pinnegar lived in: so that the household consisted of the +invalid, who mostly sat, in her black dress with a white lace collar +fastened by a twisted gold brooch, in her own dim room, doing +nothing, nervous and heart-suffering; then James, and the thin young +Alvina, who adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, and then these two +strange women. Miss Pinnegar never lifted up her voice in household +affairs: she seemed, by her silence, to admit her own inadequacy in +culture and intellect, when topics of interest were being discussed, +only coming out now and then with defiant platitudes and +truisms--for almost defiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian +point of view; yet after everything she would turn with her quiet, +triumphant assurance to James Houghton, and start on some point of +business, soft, assured, ascendant. The others shut their ears. + +Now Miss Pinnegar had to get her footing slowly. She had to let +James run the gamut of his creations. Each Friday night new wonders, +robes and ladies' "suits"--the phrase was very new--garnished the +window of Houghton's shop. It was one of the sights of the place, +Houghton's window on Friday night. Young or old, no individual, +certainly no female left Woodhouse without spending an excited and +usually hilarious ten minutes on the pavement under the window. +Muffled shrieks of young damsels who had just got their first view, +guffaws of sympathetic youths, continued giggling and expostulation +and "Eh, but what price the umbrella skirt, my girl!" and "You'd +like to marry me in _that_, my boy--what? not half!"--or else "Eh, +now, if you'd seen me in _that_ you'd have fallen in love with me at +first sight, shouldn't you?"--with a probable answer "I should have +fallen over myself making haste to get away"--loud guffaws:--all +this was the regular Friday night's entertainment in Woodhouse. +James Houghton's shop was regarded as a weekly comic issue. His +piqué costumes with glass buttons and sort of steel-trimming collars +and cuffs were immortal. + +But why, once more, drag it out. Miss Pinnegar served in the shop on +Friday nights. She stood by her man. Sometimes when the shrieks grew +loudest she came to the shop door and looked with her pale grey eyes +at the ridiculous mob of lasses in tam-o-shanters and youths half +buried in caps. And she imposed a silence. They edged away. + +Meanwhile Miss Pinnegar pursued the sober and even tenor of her own +way. Whilst James lashed out, to use the local phrase, in robes and +"suits," Miss Pinnegar steadily ground away, producing strong, +indestructible shirts and singlets for the colliers, sound, +serviceable aprons for the colliers' wives, good print dresses for +servants, and so on. She executed no flights of fancy. She had her +goods made to suit her people. And so, underneath the foam and froth +of James' creative adventure flowed a slow but steady stream of +output and income. The women of Woodhouse came at last to _depend_ +on Miss Pinnegar. Growing lads in the pit reduce their garments to +shreds with amazing expedition. "I'll go to Miss Pinnegar for thy +shirts this time, my lad," said the harassed mothers, "and see if +_they'll_ stand thee." It was almost like a threat. But it served +Manchester House. + +James bought very little stock in these days: just remnants and +pieces for his immortal robes. It was Miss Pinnegar who saw the +travellers and ordered the unions and calicoes and grey flannel. +James hovered round and said the last word, of course. But what was +his last word but an echo of Miss Pinnegar's penultimate! He was not +interested in unions and twills. + +His own stock remained on hand. Time, like a slow whirlpool +churned it over into sight and out of sight, like a mass of dead +sea-weed in a backwash. There was a regular series of sales +fortnightly. The display of "creations" fell off. The new +entertainment was the Friday-night's sale. James would attack some +portion of his stock, make a wild jumble of it, spend a delirious +Wednesday and Thursday marking down, and then open on Friday +afternoon. In the evening there was a crush. A good moiré underskirt +for one-and-eleven-three was not to be neglected, and a handsome +string-lace collarette for six-three would iron out and be worth at +least three-and-six. That was how it went: it would nearly all of +it iron out into something really nice, poor James' crumpled stock. +His fine, semi-transparent face flushed pink, his eyes flashed as he +took in the sixpences and handed back knots of tape or packets of +pins for the notorious farthings. What matter if the farthing change +had originally cost him a halfpenny! His shop was crowded with women +peeping and pawing and turning things over and commenting in loud, +unfeeling tones. For there were still many comic items. Once, for +example, he suddenly heaped up piles of hats, trimmed and untrimmed, +the weirdest, sauciest, most screaming shapes. Woodhouse enjoyed +itself that night. + +And all the time, in her quiet, polite, think-the-more fashion Miss +Pinnegar waited on the people, showing them considerable forbearance +and just a tinge of contempt. She became very tired those +evenings--her hair under its invisible hairnet became flatter, her +cheeks hung down purplish and mottled. But while James stood she +stood. The people did not like her, yet she influenced them. And the +stock slowly wilted, withered. Some was scrapped. The shop seemed to +have digested some of its indigestible contents. + +James accumulated sixpences in a miserly fashion. Luckily for her +work-girls, Miss Pinnegar took her own orders, and received payments +for her own productions. Some of her regular customers paid her a +shilling a week--or less. But it made a small, steady income. She +reserved her own modest share, paid the expenses of her department, +and left the residue to James. + +James had accumulated sixpences, and made a little space in his +shop. He had desisted from "creations." Time now for a new flight. +He decided it was better to be a manufacturer than a tradesman. His +shop, already only half its original size, was again too big. It +might be split once more. Rents had risen in Woodhouse. Why not cut +off another shop from his premises? + +No sooner said than done. In came the architect, with whom he had +played many a game of chess. Best, said the architect, take off one +good-sized shop, rather than halve the premises. James would be left +a little cramped, a little tight, with only one-third of his present +space. But as we age we dwindle. + +More hammering and alterations, and James found himself cooped in a +long, long narrow shop, very dark at the back, with a high oblong +window and a door that came in at a pinched corner. Next door to him +was a cheerful new grocer of the cheap and florid type. The new +grocer whistled "Just Like the Ivy," and shouted boisterously to his +shop-boy. In his doorway, protruding on James' sensitive vision, was +a pyramid of sixpence-halfpenny tins of salmon, red, shiny tins with +pink halved salmons depicted, and another yellow pyramid of +four-pence-halfpenny tins of pineapple. Bacon dangled in pale rolls +_almost_ over James' doorway, whilst straw and paper, redolent of +cheese, lard, and stale eggs filtered through the threshold. + +This was coming down in the world, with a vengeance. But what James +lost downstairs he tried to recover upstairs. Heaven knows what he +would have done, but for Miss Pinnegar. She kept her own work-rooms +against him, with a soft, heavy, silent tenacity that would have +beaten stronger men than James. But his strength lay in his +pliability. He rummaged in the empty lofts, and among the discarded +machinery. He rigged up the engines afresh, bought two new machines, +and started an elastic department, making elastic for garters and +for hat-chins. + +He was immensely proud of his first cards of elastic, and saw Dame +Fortune this time fast in his yielding hands. But, becoming used to +disillusionment, he almost welcomed it. Within six months he +realized that every inch of elastic cost him exactly sixty per cent. +more than he could sell it for, and so he scrapped his new +department. Luckily, he sold one machine and even gained two pounds +on it. + +After this, he made one last effort. This was hosiery webbing, which +could be cut up and made into as-yet-unheard-of garments. Miss +Pinnegar kept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much +more than abortive. And then James left her alone. + +Meanwhile the shop slowly churned its oddments. Every Thursday +afternoon James sorted out tangles of bits and bobs, antique +garments and occasional finds. With these he trimmed his window, so +that it looked like a historical museum, rather soiled and scrappy. +Indoors he made baskets of assortments: threepenny, sixpenny, +ninepenny and shilling baskets, rather like a bran pie in which +everything was a plum. And then, on Friday evening, thin and alert +he hovered behind the counter, his coat shabbily buttoned over his +narrow chest, his face agitated. He had shaved his side-whiskers, +so that they only grew becomingly as low as his ears. His rather +large, grey moustache was brushed off his mouth. His hair, gone very +thin, was brushed frail and floating over his baldness. But still a +gentleman, still courteous, with a charming voice he suggested the +possibilities of a pad of green parrots' tail-feathers, or of a few +yards of pink-pearl trimming or of old chenille fringe. The women +would pinch the thick, exquisite old chenille fringe, delicate and +faded, curious to feel its softness. But they wouldn't give +threepence for it. Tapes, ribbons, braids, buttons, feathers, +jabots, bussels, appliqués, fringes, jet-trimmings, bugle-trimmings, +bundles of old coloured machine-lace, many bundles of strange cord, +in all colours, for old-fashioned braid-patterning, ribbons with +H.M.S. Birkenhead, for boys' sailor caps--everything that nobody +wanted, did the women turn over and over, till they chanced on a +find. And James' quick eyes watched the slow surge of his flotsam, +as the pot boiled but did not boil away. Wonderful that he did not +think of the days when these bits and bobs were new treasures. But +he did not. + +And at his side Miss Pinnegar quietly took orders for shirts, +discussed and agreed, made measurements and received instalments. + +The shop was now only opened on Friday afternoons and evenings, so +every day, twice a day, James was seen dithering bare-headed and +hastily down the street, as if pressed by fate, to the Conservative +Club, and twice a day he was seen as hastily returning, to his +meals. He was becoming an old man: his daughter was a young woman: +but in his own mind he was just the same, and his daughter was a +little child, his wife a young invalid whom he must charm by some +few delicate attentions--such as the peeled apple. + +At the club he got into more mischief. He met men who wanted to +extend a brickfield down by the railway. The brickfield was called +Klondyke. James had now a new direction to run in: down hill towards +Bagthorpe, to Klondyke. Big penny-daisies grew in tufts on the brink +of the yellow clay at Klondyke, yellow eggs-and-bacon spread their +midsummer mats of flower. James came home with clay smeared all over +him, discoursing brilliantly on grit and paste and presses and kilns +and stamps. He carried home a rough and pinkish brick, and gloated +over it. It was a _hard_ brick, it was a non-porous brick. It was an +ugly brick, painfully heavy and parched-looking. + +This time he was sure: Dame Fortune would rise like Persephone out +of the earth. He was all the more sure, because other men of the +town were in with him at this venture: sound, moneyed grocers and +plumbers. They were all going to become rich. + +Klondyke lasted a year and a half, and was not so bad, for in the +end, all things considered, James had lost not more than five per +cent. of his money. In fact, all things considered, he was about +square. And yet he felt Klondyke as the greatest blow of all. Miss +Pinnegar would have aided and abetted him in another scheme, if it +would but have cheered him. Even Miss Frost was nice with him. But +to no purpose. In the year after Klondyke he became an old man, he +seemed to have lost all his feathers, he acquired a plucked, +tottering look. + +Yet he roused up, after a coal-strike. Throttle-Ha'penny put new +life into him. During a coal-strike the miners themselves began +digging in the fields, just near the houses, for the surface coal. +They found a plentiful seam of drossy, yellowish coal behind the +Methodist New Connection Chapel. The seam was opened in the side of +a bank, and approached by a footrill, a sloping shaft down which the +men walked. When the strike was over, two or three miners still +remained working the soft, drossy coal, which they sold for +eight-and-sixpence a ton--or sixpence a hundredweight. But a mining +population scorned such dirt, as they called it. + +James Houghton, however, was seized with a desire to work the +Connection Meadow seam, as he called it. He gathered two miner +partners--he trotted endlessly up to the field, he talked, as he had +never talked before, with inumerable colliers. Everybody he met he +stopped, to talk Connection Meadow. + +And so at last he sank a shaft, sixty feet deep, rigged up a +corrugated-iron engine-house with a winding-engine, and lowered his +men one at a time down the shaft, in a big bucket. The whole affair +was ricketty, amateurish, and twopenny. The name Connection Meadow +was forgotten within three months. Everybody knew the place as +Throttle-Ha'penny. "What!" said a collier to his wife: "have we got +no coal? You'd better get a bit from Throttle-Ha'penny." "Nay," +replied the wife, "I'm sure I shan't. I'm sure I shan't burn that +muck, and smother myself with white ash." + +It was in the early Throttle-Ha'penny days that Mrs. Houghton died. +James Houghton cried, and put a black band on his Sunday silk hat. +But he was too feverishly busy at Throttle-Ha'penny, selling his +hundredweights of ash-pit fodder, as the natives called it, to +realize anything else. + +He had three men and two boys working his pit, besides a +superannuated old man driving the winding engine. And in spite of +all jeering, he flourished. Shabby old coal-carts rambled up behind +the New Connection, and filled from the pit-bank. The coal improved +a little in quality: it was cheap and it was handy. James could sell +at last fifty or sixty tons a week: for the stuff was easy getting. +And now at last he was actually handling money. He saw millions +ahead. + +This went on for more than a year. A year after the death of Mrs. +Houghton, Miss Frost became ill and suddenly died. Again James +Houghton cried and trembled. But it was Throttle-Ha'penny that made +him tremble. He trembled in all his limbs, at the touch of success. +He saw himself making noble provision for his only daughter. + +But alas--it is wearying to repeat the same thing over and over. +First the Board of Trade began to make difficulties. Then there was +a fault in the seam. Then the roof of Throttle-Ha'penny was so loose +and soft, James could not afford timber to hold it up. In short, +when his daughter Alvina was about twenty-seven years old, +Throttle-Ha'penny closed down. There was a sale of poor machinery, +and James Houghton came home to the dark, gloomy house--to Miss +Pinnegar and Alvina. + +It was a pinched, dreary house. James seemed down for the last time. +But Miss Pinnegar persuaded him to take the shop again on Friday +evening. For the rest, faded and peaked, he hurried shadowily down +to the club. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON + + +The heroine of this story is Alvina Houghton. If we leave her out of +the first chapter of her own story it is because, during the first +twenty-five years of her life, she really was left out of count, or +so overshadowed as to be negligible. She and her mother were the +phantom passengers in the ship of James Houghton's fortunes. + +In Manchester House, every voice lowered its tone. And so from the +first Alvina spoke with a quiet, refined, almost convent voice. She +was a thin child with delicate limbs and face, and wide, grey-blue, +ironic eyes. Even as a small girl she had that odd ironic tilt of +the eyelids which gave her a look as if she were hanging back in +mockery. If she were, she was quite unaware of it, for under Miss +Frost's care she received no education in irony or mockery. Miss +Frost was straightforward, good-humoured, and a little earnest. +Consequently Alvina, or Vina as she was called, understood only the +explicit mode of good-humoured straightforwardness. + +It was doubtful which shadow was greater over the child: that of +Manchester House, gloomy and a little sinister, or that of Miss +Frost, benevolent and protective. Sufficient that the girl herself +worshipped Miss Frost: or believed she did. + +Alvina never went to school. She had her lessons from her beloved +governess, she worked at the piano, she took her walks, and for +social life she went to the Congregational Chapel, and to the +functions connected with the chapel. While she was little, she went +to Sunday School twice and to Chapel once on Sundays. Then +occasionally there was a magic lantern or a penny reading, to which +Miss Frost accompanied her. As she grew older she entered the choir +at chapel, she attended Christian Endeavour and P.S.A., and the +Literary Society on Monday evenings. Chapel provided her with a +whole social activity, in the course of which she met certain groups +of people, made certain friends, found opportunity for strolls into +the country and jaunts to the local entertainments. Over and above +this, every Thursday evening she went to the subscription library to +change the week's supply of books, and there again she met friends +and acquaintances. It is hard to overestimate the value of church or +chapel--but particularly chapel--as a social institution, in places +like Woodhouse. The Congregational Chapel provided Alvina with a +whole outer life, lacking which she would have been poor indeed. She +was not particularly religious by inclination. Perhaps her father's +beautiful prayers put her off. So she neither questioned nor +accepted, but just let be. + +She grew up a slim girl, rather distinguished in appearance, with a +slender face, a fine, slightly arched nose, and beautiful grey-blue +eyes over which the lids tilted with a very odd, sardonic tilt. The +sardonic quality was, however, quite in abeyance. She was ladylike, +not vehement at all. In the street her walk had a delicate, +lingering motion, her face looked still. In conversation she had +rather a quick, hurried manner, with intervals of well-bred repose +and attention. Her voice was like her father's, flexible and +curiously attractive. + +Sometimes, however, she would have fits of boisterous hilarity, not +quite natural, with a strange note half pathetic, half jeering. Her +father tended to a supercilious, sneering tone. In Vina it came out +in mad bursts of hilarious jeering. This made Miss Frost uneasy. She +would watch the girl's strange face, that could take on a gargoyle +look. She would see the eyes rolling strangely under sardonic +eyelids, and then Miss Frost would feel that never, never had she +known anything so utterly alien and incomprehensible and +unsympathetic as her own beloved Vina. For twenty years the strong, +protective governess reared and tended her lamb, her dove, only to +see the lamb open a wolf's mouth, to hear the dove utter the wild +cackle of a daw or a magpie, a strange sound of derision. At such +times Miss Frost's heart went cold within her. She dared not +realize. And she chid and checked her ward, restored her to the +usual impulsive, affectionate demureness. Then she dismissed the +whole matter. It was just an accidental aberration on the girl's +part from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly +the qualities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she +was taught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined +creature of her governess' desire. But there was an odd, derisive +look at the back of her eyes, a look of old knowledge and +deliberate derision. She herself was unconscious of it. But it was +there. And this it was, perhaps, that scared away the young men. + +Alvina reached the age of twenty-three, and it looked as if she were +destined to join the ranks of the old maids, so many of whom found +cold comfort in the Chapel. For she had no suitors. True there were +extraordinarily few young men of her class--for whatever her +condition, she had certain breeding and inherent culture--in +Woodhouse. The young men of the same social standing as herself were +in some curious way outsiders to her. Knowing nothing, yet her +ancient sapience went deep, deeper than Woodhouse could fathom. The +young men did not like her for it. They did not like the tilt of her +eyelids. + +Miss Frost, with anxious foreseeing, persuaded the girl to take over +some pupils, to teach them the piano. The work was distasteful to +Alvina. She was not a good teacher. She persevered in an off-hand +way, somewhat indifferent, albeit dutiful. + +When she was twenty-three years old, Alvina met a man called Graham. +He was an Australian, who had been in Edinburgh taking his medical +degree. Before going back to Australia, he came to spend some months +practising with old Dr. Fordham in Woodhouse--Dr. Fordham being in +some way connected with his mother. + +Alexander Graham called to see Mrs. Houghton. Mrs. Houghton did not +like him. She said he was creepy. He was a man of medium height, +dark in colouring, with very dark eyes, and a body which seemed to +move inside his clothing. He was amiable and polite, laughed often, +showing his teeth. It was his teeth which Miss Frost could not +stand. She seemed to see a strong mouthful of cruel, compact teeth. +She declared he had dark blood in his veins, that he was not a man +to be trusted, and that never, never would he make any woman's life +happy. + +Yet in spite of all, Alvina was attracted by him. The two would stay +together in the parlour, laughing and talking by the hour. What they +could find to talk about was a mystery. Yet there they were, +laughing and chatting, with a running insinuating sound through it +all which made Miss Frost pace up and down unable to bear herself. + +The man was always running in when Miss Frost was out. He contrived +to meet Alvina in the evening, to take a walk with her. He went a +long walk with her one night, and wanted to make love to her. But +her upbringing was too strong for her. + +"Oh no," she said. "We are only friends." + +He knew her upbringing was too strong for him also. + +"We're more than friends," he said. "We're more than friends." + +"I don't think so," she said. + +"Yes we are," he insisted, trying to put his arm round her waist. + +"Oh, don't!" she cried. "Let us go home." + +And then he burst out with wild and thick protestations of love, +which thrilled her and repelled her slightly. + +"Anyhow I must tell Miss Frost," she said. + +"Yes, yes," he answered. "Yes, yes. Let us be engaged at once." + +As they passed under the lamps he saw her face lifted, the eyes +shining, the delicate nostrils dilated, as of one who scents battle +and laughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud, +sinister recklessness. His hands trembled with desire. + +So they were engaged. He bought her a ring, an emerald set in tiny +diamonds. Miss Frost looked grave and silent, but would not openly +deny her approval. + +"You like him, don't you? You don't dislike him?" Alvina insisted. + +"I don't dislike him," replied Miss Frost. "How can I? He is a +perfect stranger to me." + +And with this Alvina subtly contented herself. Her father treated +the young man with suave attention, punctuated by fits of jerky +hostility and jealousy. Her mother merely sighed, and took sal +volatile. + +To tell the truth, Alvina herself was a little repelled by the man's +love-making. She found him fascinating, but a trifle repulsive. And +she was not sure whether she hated the repulsive element, or whether +she rather gloried in it. She kept her look of arch, half-derisive +recklessness, which was so unbearably painful to Miss Frost, and so +exciting to the dark little man. It was a strange look in a refined, +really virgin girl--oddly sinister. And her voice had a curious +bronze-like resonance that acted straight on the nerves of her +hearers: unpleasantly on most English nerves, but like fire on the +different susceptibilities of the young man--the darkie, as people +called him. + +But after all, he had only six weeks in England, before sailing to +Sydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry before he +sailed. Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people +first, she said. + +So the time passed, and he sailed. Alvina missed him, missed the +extreme excitement of him rather than the human being he was. Miss +Frost set to work to regain her influence over her ward, to remove +that arch, reckless, almost lewd look from the girl's face. It was a +question of heart against sensuality. Miss Frost tried and tried to +wake again the girl's loving heart--which loving heart was certainly +not occupied by _that man_. It was a hard task, an anxious, bitter +task Miss Frost had set herself. + +But at last she succeeded. Alvina seemed to thaw. The hard shining +of her eyes softened again to a sort of demureness and tenderness. +The influence of the man was revoked, the girl was left uninhabited, +empty and uneasy. + +She was due to follow her Alexander in three months' time, to +Sydney. Came letters from him, en route--and then a cablegram from +Australia. He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing her +trousseau, to follow. But owing to her change of heart, she lingered +indecisive. + +"_Do_ you love him, dear?" said Miss Frost with emphasis, knitting +her thick, passionate, earnest eyebrows. "Do you love him +sufficiently? _That's_ the point." + +The way Miss Frost put the question implied that Alvina did not and +could not love him--because Miss Frost could not. Alvina lifted her +large, blue eyes, confused, half-tender towards her governess, half +shining with unconscious derision. + +"I don't really know," she said, laughing hurriedly. "I don't +really." + +Miss Frost scrutinized her, and replied with a meaningful: + +"Well--!" + +To Miss Frost it was clear as daylight. To Alvina not so. In her +periods of lucidity, when she saw as clear as daylight also, she +certainly did not love the little man. She felt him a terrible +outsider, an inferior, to tell the truth. She wondered how he could +have the slightest attraction for her. In fact she could not +understand it at all. She was as free of him as if he had never +existed. The square green emerald on her finger was almost +non-sensical. She was quite, quite sure of herself. + +And then, most irritating, a complete _volte face_ in her feelings. +The clear-as-daylight mood disappeared as daylight is bound to +disappear. She found herself in a night where the little man loomed +large, terribly large, potent and magical, while Miss Frost had +dwindled to nothingness. At such times she wished with all her force +that she could travel like a cablegram to Australia. She felt it was +the only way. She felt the dark, passionate receptivity of Alexander +overwhelmed her, enveloped her even from the Antipodes. She felt +herself going distracted--she felt she was going out of her mind. +For she could not act. + +Her mother and Miss Frost were fixed in one line. Her father said: + +"Well, of course, you'll do as you think best. There's a great risk +in going so far--a great risk. You would be entirely unprotected." + +"I don't mind being unprotected," said Alvina perversely. + +"Because you don't understand what it means," said her father. + +He looked at her quickly. Perhaps he understood her better than the +others. + +"Personally," said Miss Pinnegar, speaking of Alexander, "I don't +care for him. But every one has their own taste." + +Alvina felt she was being overborne, and that she was letting +herself be overborne. She was half relieved. She seemed to nestle +into the well-known surety of Woodhouse. The other unknown had +frightened her. + +Miss Frost now took a definite line. + +"I feel you don't love him, dear. I'm almost sure you don't. So now +you have to choose. Your mother dreads your going--she dreads it. I +am certain you would never see her again. She says she can't bear +it--she can't bear the thought of you out there with Alexander. It +makes her shudder. She suffers dreadfully, you know. So you will +have to choose, dear. You will have to choose for the best." + +Alvina was made stubborn by pressure. She herself had come fully to +believe that she did not love him. She was quite sure she did not +love him. But out of a certain perversity, she wanted to go. + +Came his letter from Sydney, and one from his parents to her and one +to her parents. All seemed straightforward--not _very_ cordial, but +sufficiently. Over Alexander's letter Miss Frost shed bitter tears. +To her it seemed so shallow and heartless, with terms of endearment +stuck in like exclamation marks. He semed to have no thought, no +feeling for the girl herself. All he wanted was to hurry her out +there. He did not even mention the grief of her parting from her +English parents and friends: not a word. Just a rush to get her out +there, winding up with "And now, dear, I shall not be myself till I +see you here in Sydney--Your ever-loving Alexander." A selfish, +sensual creature, who would forget the dear little Vina in three +months, if she did not turn up, and who would neglect her in six +months, if she did. Probably Miss Frost was right. + +Alvina knew the tears she was costing all round. She went upstairs +and looked at his photograph--his dark and impertinent muzzle. Who +was _he_, after all? She did not know him. With cold eyes she looked +at him, and found him repugnant. + +She went across to her governess's room, and found Miss Frost in a +strange mood of trepidation. + +"Don't trust me, dear, don't trust what I say," poor Miss Frost +ejaculated hurriedly, even wildly. "Don't notice what I have said. +Act for yourself, dear. Act for yourself entirely. I am sure I am +wrong in trying to influence you. I know I am wrong. It is wrong and +foolish of me. Act just for yourself, dear--the rest doesn't matter. +The rest doesn't matter. Don't take _any_ notice of what I have +said. I know I am wrong." + +For the first time in her life Alvina saw her beloved governess +flustered, the beautiful white hair looking a little draggled, the +grey, near-sighted eyes, so deep and kind behind the gold-rimmed +glasses, now distracted and scared. Alvina immediately burst into +tears and flung herself into the arms of Miss Frost. Miss Frost also +cried as if her heart would break, catching her indrawn breath with +a strange sound of anguish, forlornness, the terrible crying of a +woman with a loving heart, whose heart has never been able to relax. +Alvina was hushed. In a second, she became the elder of the two. The +terrible poignancy of the woman of fifty-two, who now at last had +broken down, silenced the girl of twenty-three, and roused all her +passionate tenderness. The terrible sound of "Never now, never +now--it is too late," which seemed to ring in the curious, indrawn +cries of the elder woman, filled the girl with a deep wisdom. She +knew the same would ring in her mother's dying cry. Married or +unmarried, it was the same--the same anguish, realized in all its +pain after the age of fifty--the loss in never having been able to +relax, to submit. + +Alvina felt very strong and rich in the fact of her youth. For her +it was not too late. For Miss Frost it was for ever too late. + +"I don't want to go, dear," said Alvina to the elder woman. "I know +I don't care for him. He is nothing to me." + +Miss Frost became gradually silent, and turned aside her face. After +this there was a hush in the house. Alvina announced her intention +of breaking off her engagement. Her mother kissed her, and cried, +and said, with the selfishness of an invalid: + +"I couldn't have parted with you, I couldn't." Whilst the father +said: + +"I think you are wise, Vina. I have thought a lot about it." + +So Alvina packed up his ring and his letters and little presents, +and posted them over the seas. She was relieved, really: as if she +had escaped some very trying ordeal. For some days she went about +happily, in pure relief. She loved everybody. She was charming and +sunny and gentle with everybody, particularly with Miss Frost, whom +she loved with a deep, tender, rather sore love. Poor Miss Frost +seemed to have lost a part of her confidence, to have taken on a new +wistfulness, a new silence and remoteness. It was as if she found +her busy contact with life a strain now. Perhaps she was getting +old. Perhaps her proud heart had given way. + +Alvina had kept a little photograph of the man. She would often go +and look at it. Love?--no, it was not love! It was something more +primitive still. It was curiosity, deep, radical, burning curiosity. +How she looked and looked at his dark, impertinent-seeming face. A +flicker of derision came into her eyes. Yet still she looked. + +In the same manner she would look into the faces of the young men of +Woodhouse. But she never found there what she found in her +photograph. They all seemed like blank sheets of paper in +comparison. There was a curious pale surface-look in the faces of +the young men of Woodhouse: or, if there was some underneath +suggestive power, it was a little abject or humiliating, inferior, +common. They were all either blank or common. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MATERNITY NURSE + + +Of course Alvina made everybody pay for her mood of submission and +sweetness. In a month's time she was quite intolerable. + +"I can't stay here all my life," she declared, stretching her eyes +in a way that irritated the other inmates of Manchester House +extremely. "I know I can't. I can't bear it. I simply can't bear it, +and there's an end of it. I can't, I tell you. I can't bear it. I'm +buried alive--simply buried alive. And it's more than I can stand. +It is, really." + +There was an odd clang, like a taunt, in her voice. She was trying +them all. + +"But what do you want, dear?" asked Miss Frost, knitting her dark +brows in agitation. + +"I want to go away," said Alvina bluntly. + +Miss Frost gave a slight gesture with her right hand, of helpless +impatience. It was so characteristic, that Alvina almost laughed. + +"But where do you want to go?" asked Miss Frost. + +"I don't know. I don't care," said Alvina. "Anywhere, if I can get +out of Woodhouse." + +"Do you wish you had gone to Australia?" put in Miss Pinnegar. + +"No, I don't wish I had gone to Australia," retorted Alvina with a +rude laugh. "Australia isn't the only other place besides +Woodhouse." + +Miss Pinnegar was naturally offended. But the curious insolence +which sometimes came out in the girl was inherited direct from her +father. + +"You see, dear," said Miss Frost, agitated: "if you knew what you +wanted, it would be easier to see the way." + +"I want to be a nurse," rapped out Alvina. + +Miss Frost stood still, with the stillness of a middle-aged +disapproving woman, and looked at her charge. She believed that +Alvina was just speaking at random. Yet she dared not check her, in +her present mood. + +Alvina was indeed speaking at random. She had never thought of being +a nurse--the idea had never entered her head. If it had she would +certainly never have entertained it. But she had heard Alexander +speak of Nurse This and Sister That. And so she had rapped out her +declaration. And having rapped it out, she prepared herself to stick +to it. Nothing like leaping before you look. + +"A nurse!" repeated Miss Frost. "But do you feel yourself fitted to +be a nurse? Do you think you could bear it?" + +"Yes, I'm sure I could," retorted Alvina. "I want to be a maternity +nurse--" She looked strangely, even outrageously, at her governess. +"I want to be a maternity nurse. Then I shouldn't have to attend +operations." And she laughed quickly. + +Miss Frost's right hand beat like a wounded bird. It was reminiscent +of the way she beat time, insistently, when she was giving music +lessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beat +without time or reason. Alvina smiled brightly and cruelly. + +"Whatever put such an idea into your head, Vina?" asked poor Miss +Frost. + +"I don't know," said Alvina, still more archly and brightly. + +"Of course you don't mean it, dear," said Miss Frost, quailing. + +"Yes, I do. Why should I say it if I don't." + +Miss Frost would have done anything to escape the arch, bright, +cruel eyes of her charge. + +"Then we must think about it," she said, numbly. And she went away. + +Alvina floated off to her room, and sat by the window looking down +on the street. The bright, arch look was still on her face. But her +heart was sore. She wanted to cry, and fling herself on the breast +of her darling. But she couldn't. No, for her life she couldn't. +Some little devil sat in her breast and kept her smiling archly. + +Somewhat to her amazement, he sat steadily on for days and days. +Every minute she expected him to go. Every minute she expected to +break down, to burst into tears and tenderness and reconciliation. +But no--she did not break down. She persisted. They all waited for +the old loving Vina to be herself again. But the new and +recalcitrant Vina still shone hard. She found a copy of _The +Lancet_, and saw an advertisement of a home in Islington where +maternity nurses would be fully trained and equipped in six months' +time. The fee was sixty guineas. Alvina declared her intention of +departing to this training home. She had two hundred pounds of her +own, bequeathed by her grandfather. + +In Manchester House they were all horrified--not moved with grief, +this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate +step to take. Which it was. And which, in her curious perverseness, +Alvina must have intended it to be. Mrs. Houghton assumed a remote +air of silence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She +lapsed far away. She was really very weak. Miss Pinnegar said: "Well +really, if she wants to do it, why, she might as well try." And, as +often with Miss Pinnegar, this speech seemed to contain a veiled +threat. + +"A maternity nurse!" said James Houghton. "A maternity nurse! What +exactly do you mean by a maternity nurse?" + +"A trained mid-wife," said Miss Pinnegar curtly. "That's it, isn't +it? It is as far as I can see. A trained mid-wife." + +"Yes, of course," said Alvina brightly. + +"But--!" stammered James Houghton, pushing his spectacles up on to +his forehead, and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair +uncover his baldness. "I can't understand that any young girl of +any--any upbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose +such a--such an--occupation. I can't understand it." + +"Can't you?" said Alvina brightly. + +"Oh well, if she _does_--" said Miss Pinnegar cryptically. + +Miss Frost said very little. But she had serious confidential talks +with Dr. Fordham. Dr. Fordham didn't approve, certainly he +didn't--but neither did he see any great harm in it. At that time it +was rather the thing for young ladies to enter the nursing +profession, if their hopes had been blighted or checked in another +direction! And so, enquiries were made. Enquiries were made. + +The upshot was, that Alvina was to go to Islington for her six +months' training. There was a great bustle, preparing her nursing +outfit. Instead of a trousseau, nurse's uniforms in fine +blue-and-white stripe, with great white aprons. Instead of a wreath +of orange blossom, a rather chic nurse's bonnet of blue silk, and +for a trailing veil, a blue silk fall. + +Well and good! Alvina expected to become frightened, as the time +drew near. But no, she wasn't a bit frightened. Miss Frost watched +her narrowly. Would there not be a return of the old, tender, +sensitive, shrinking Vina--the exquisitely sensitive and nervous, +loving girl? No, astounding as it may seem, there was no return of +such a creature. Alvina remained bright and ready, the half-hilarious +clang remained in her voice, taunting. She kissed them all good-bye, +brightly and sprightlily, and off she set. She wasn't nervous. + +She came to St. Pancras, she got her cab, she drove off to her +destination--and as she drove, she looked out of the window. Horrid, +vast, stony, dilapidated, crumbly-stuccoed streets and squares of +Islington, grey, grey, greyer by far than Woodhouse, and +interminable. How exceedingly sordid and disgusting! But instead of +being repelled and heartbroken, Alvina enjoyed it. She felt her +trunk rumble on the top of the cab, and still she looked out on the +ghastly dilapidated flat facades of Islington, and still she smiled +brightly, as if there were some charm in it all. Perhaps for her +there was a charm in it all. Perhaps it acted like a tonic on the +little devil in her breast. Perhaps if she had seen tufts of +snowdrops--it was February--and yew-hedges and cottage windows, she +would have broken down. As it was, she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed +glimpsing in through uncurtained windows, into sordid rooms where +human beings moved as if sordidly unaware. She enjoyed the smell of +a toasted bloater, rather burnt. So common! so indescribably common! +And she detested bloaters, because of the hairy feel of the spines +in her mouth. But to smell them like this, to know that she was in +the region of "penny beef-steaks," gave her a perverse pleasure. + +The cab stopped at a yellow house at the corner of a square where +some shabby bare trees were flecked with bits of blown paper, bits +of paper and refuse cluttered inside the round railings of each +tree. She went up some dirty-yellowish steps, and rang the +"Patients'" bell, because she knew she ought not to ring the +"Tradesmen's." A servant, not exactly dirty, but unattractive, let +her into a hall painted a dull drab, and floored with cocoa-matting, +otherwise bare. Then up bare stairs to a room where a stout, pale, +common woman with two warts on her face, was drinking tea. It was +three o'clock. This was the matron. The matron soon deposited her in +a bedroom, not very small, but bare and hard and dusty-seeming, and +there left her. Alvina sat down on her chair, looked at her box +opposite her, looked round the uninviting room, and smiled to +herself. Then she rose and went to the window: a very dirty window, +looking down into a sort of well of an area, with other wells +ranging along, and straight opposite like a reflection another solid +range of back-premises, with iron stair-ways and horrid little doors +and washing and little W. C.'s and people creeping up and down like +vermin. Alvina shivered a little, but still smiled. Then slowly she +began to take off her hat. She put it down on the drab-painted chest +of drawers. + +Presently the servant came in with a tray, set it down, lit a naked +gas-jet, which roared faintly, and drew down a crackly dark-green +blind, which showed a tendency to fly back again alertly to the +ceiling. + +"Thank you," said Alvina, and the girl departed. + +Then Miss Houghton drank her black tea and ate her bread and +margarine. + +Surely enough books have been written about heroines in similar +circumstances. There is no need to go into the details of Alvina's +six months in Islington. + +The food was objectionable--yet Alvina got fat on it. The air was +filthy--and yet never had her colour been so warm and fresh, her +skin so soft. Her companions were almost without exception vulgar +and coarse--yet never had she got on so well with women of her own +age--or older than herself. She was ready with a laugh and a word, +and though she was unable to venture on indecencies herself, yet she +had an amazing faculty for _looking_ knowing and indecent beyond +words, rolling her eyes and pitching her eyebrows in a certain +way--oh, it was quite sufficient for her companions! And yet, if +they had ever actually demanded a dirty story or a really open +indecency from her, she would have been floored. + +But she enjoyed it. Amazing how she enjoyed it. She did not care +_how_ revolting and indecent these nurses were--she put on a look as +if she were in with it all, and it all passed off as easy as +winking. She swung her haunches and arched her eyes with the best +of them. And they behaved as if she were exactly one of themselves. +And yet, with the curious cold tact of women, they left her alone, +one and all, in private: just ignored her. + +It is truly incredible how Alvina became blooming and bouncing at +this time. Nothing shocked her, nothing upset her. She was always +ready with her hard, nurse's laugh and her nurse's quips. No one was +better than she at _double-entendres._ No one could better give the +nurse's leer. She had it all in a fortnight. And never once did she +feel anything but exhilarated and in full swing. It seemed to her +she had not a moment's time to brood or reflect about things--she +was too much in the swing. Every moment, in the swing, living, or +active in full swing. When she got into bed she went to sleep. When +she awoke, it was morning, and she got up. As soon as she was up and +dressed she had somebody to answer, something to say, something to +do. Time passed like an express train--and she seemed to have known +no other life than this. + +Not far away was a lying-in hospital. A dreadful place it was. There +she had to go, right off, and help with cases. There she had to +attend lectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and +students. Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When +she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their +sort: just their very ticket. Her voice had the right twang, her +eyes the right roll, her haunches the right swing. She seemed +altogether just the ticket. And yet she wasn't. + +It would be useless to say she was not shocked. She was profoundly +and awfully shocked. Her whole state was perhaps largely the result +of shock: a sort of play-acting based on hysteria. But the dreadful +things she saw in the lying-in hospital, and afterwards, went deep, +and finished her youth and her tutelage for ever. How many infernos +deeper than Miss Frost could ever know, did she not travel? the +inferno of the human animal, the human organism in its convulsions, +the human social beast in its abjection and its degradation. + +For in her latter half she had to visit the slum cases. And such +cases! A woman lying on a bare, filthy floor, a few old coats thrown +over her, and vermin crawling everywhere, in spite of sanitary +inspectors. But what did the woman, the sufferer, herself care! She +ground her teeth and screamed and yelled with pains. In her calm +periods she lay stupid and indifferent--or she cursed a little. But +abject, stupid indifference was the bottom of it all: abject, brutal +indifference to everything--yes, everything. Just a piece of female +functioning, no more. + +Alvina was supposed to receive a certain fee for these cases she +attended in their homes. A small proportion of her fee she kept for +herself, the rest she handed over to the Home. That was the +agreement. She received her grudged fee callously, threatened and +exacted it when it was not forthcoming. Ha!--if they didn't have to +pay you at all, these slum-people, they would treat you with more +contempt than if you were one of themselves. It was one of the +hardest lessons Alvina had to learn--to bully these people, in their +own hovels, into some sort of obedience to her commands, and some +sort of respect for her presence. She had to fight tooth and nail +for this end. And in a week she was as hard and callous to them as +they to her. And so her work was well done. She did not hate them. +There they were. They had a certain life, and you had to take them +at their own worth in their own way. What else! If one should be +gentle, one was gentle. The difficulty did not lie there. The +difficulty lay in being sufficiently rough and hard: that was the +trouble. It cost a great struggle to be hard and callous enough. +Glad she would have been to be allowed to treat them quietly and +gently, with consideration. But pah--it was not their line. They +wanted to be callous, and if you were not callous to match, they +made a fool of you and prevented your doing your work. + +Was Alvina her own real self all this time? The mighty question +arises upon us, what is one's own real self? It certainly is not +what we think we are and ought to be. Alvina had been bred to think +of herself as a delicate, tender, chaste creature with unselfish +inclinations and a pure, "high" mind. Well, so she was, in the +more-or-less exhausted part of herself. But high-mindedness had +really come to an end with James Houghton, had really reached the +point, not only of pathetic, but of dry and anti-human, repulsive +quixotry. In Alvina high-mindedness was already stretched beyond the +breaking point. Being a woman of some flexibility of temper, +wrought through generations to a fine, pliant hardness, she flew +back. She went right back on high-mindedness. Did she thereby betray +it? + +We think not. If we turn over the head of the penny and look at the +tail, we don't thereby deny or betray the head. We do but adjust it +to its own complement. And so with high-mindedness. It is but one +side of the medal--the crowned reverse. On the obverse the three +legs still go kicking the soft-footed spin of the universe, the +dolphin flirts and the crab leers. + +So Alvina spun her medal, and her medal came down tails. Heads or +tails? Heads for generations. Then tails. See the poetic justice. + +Now Alvina decided to accept the decision of her fate. Or rather, +being sufficiently a woman, she didn't decide anything. She _was_ +her own fate. She went through her training experiences like another +being. She was not herself, said Everybody. When she came home to +Woodhouse at Easter, in her bonnet and cloak, everybody was simply +knocked out. Imagine that this frail, pallid, diffident girl, so +ladylike, was now a rather fat, warm-coloured young woman, strapping +and strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagine her mother's +startled, almost expiring: + +"Why, Vina dear!" + +Vina laughed. She knew how they were all feeling. + +"At least it agrees with your _health_," said her father, +sarcastically, to which Miss Pinnegar answered: + +"Well, that's a good deal." + +But Miss Frost said nothing the first day. Only the second day, at +breakfast, as Alvina ate rather rapidly and rather well, the +white-haired woman said quietly, with a tinge of cold contempt: + +"How changed you are, dear!" + +"Am I?" laughed Alvina. "Oh, not really." And she gave the arch look +with her eyes, which made Miss Frost shudder. + +Inwardly, Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from questioning. +Alvina was always speaking of the doctors: Doctor Young and Doctor +Headley and Doctor James. She spoke of theatres and music-halls with +these young men, and the jolly good time she had with them. And her +blue-grey eyes seemed to have become harder and greyer, lighter +somehow. In her wistfulness and her tender pathos, Alvina's eyes +would deepen their blue, so beautiful. And now, in her floridity, +they were bright and arch and light-grey. The deep, tender, flowery +blue was gone for ever. They were luminous and crystalline, like the +eyes of a changeling. + +Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from question. She wanted, she +_needed_ to ask of her charge: "Alvina, have you betrayed yourself +with any of these young men?" But coldly her heart abstained from +asking--or even from seriously thinking. She left the matter +untouched for the moment. She was already too much shocked. + +Certainly Alvina represented the young doctors as very nice, but +rather fast young fellows. "My word, you have to have your wits +about you with them!" Imagine such a speech from a girl tenderly +nurtured: a speech uttered in her own home, and accompanied by a +florid laugh, which would lead a chaste, generous woman like Miss +Frost to imagine--well, she merely abstained from imagining +anything. She had that strength of mind. She never for one moment +attempted to answer the question to herself, as to whether Alvina +had betrayed herself with any of these young doctors, or not. The +question remained stated, but completely unanswered--coldly awaiting +its answer. Only when Miss Frost kissed Alvina good-bye at the +station, tears came to her eyes, and she said hurriedly, in a low +voice: + +"Remember we are all praying for you, dear!" + +"No, don't do that!" cried Alvina involuntarily, without knowing +what she said. + +And then the train moved out, and she saw her darling standing there +on the station, the pale, well-modelled face looking out from behind +the gold-rimmed spectacles, wistfully, the strong, rather stout +figure standing very still and unchangeable, under its coat and +skirt of dark purple, the white hair glistening under the folded +dark hat. Alvina threw herself down on the seat of her carriage. She +loved her darling. She would love her through eternity. She knew she +was right--amply and beautifully right, her darling, her beloved +Miss Frost. Eternally and gloriously right. + +And yet--and yet--it was a right which was fulfilled. There were +other rights. There was another side to the medal. Purity and +high-mindedness--the beautiful, but unbearable tyranny. The +beautiful, unbearable tyranny of Miss Frost! It was time now for +Miss Frost to die. It was time for that perfected flower to be +gathered to immortality. A lovely _immortel_. But an obstruction to +other, purple and carmine blossoms which were in bud on the stem. A +lovely edelweiss--but time it was gathered into eternity. +Black-purple and red anemones were due, real Adonis blood, and +strange individual orchids, spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss +Frost to die. She, Alvina, who loved her as no one else would ever +love her, with that love which goes to the core of the universe, +knew that it was time for her darling to be folded, oh, so gently +and softly, into immortality. Mortality was busy with the day after +her day. It was time for Miss Frost to die. As Alvina sat motionless +in the train, running from Woodhouse to Tibshelf, it decided itself +in her. + +She was glad to be back in Islington, among all the horrors of her +confinement cases. The doctors she knew hailed her. On the whole, +these young men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a +whole. Why drag in respect? Human functions were too obviously +established to make any great fuss about. And so the doctors put +their arms round Alvina's waist, because she was plump, and they +kissed her face, because the skin was soft. And she laughed and +squirmed a little, so that they felt all the more her warmth and +softness under their arm's pressure. + +"It's no use, you know," she said, laughing rather breathless, but +looking into their eyes with a curious definite look of unchangeable +resistance. This only piqued them. + +"What's no use?" they asked. + +She shook her head slightly. + +"It isn't any use your behaving like that with me," she said, with +the same challenging definiteness, finality: a flat negative. + +"Who're you telling?" they said. + +For she did not at all forbid them to "behave like that." Not in the +least. She almost encouraged them. She laughed and arched her eyes +and flirted. But her backbone became only the stronger and firmer. +Soft and supple as she was, her backbone never yielded for an +instant. It could not. She had to confess that she liked the young +doctors. They were alert, their faces were clean and bright-looking. +She liked the sort of intimacy with them, when they kissed her and +wrestled with her in the empty laboratories or corridors--often in +the intervals of most critical and appalling cases. She liked their +arm round her waist, the kisses as she reached back her face, +straining away, the sometimes desperate struggles. They took +unpardonable liberties. They pinched her haunches and attacked her +in unheard-of ways. Sometimes her blood really came up in the fight, +and she felt as if, with her hands, she could tear any man, any male +creature, limb from limb. A super-human, voltaic force filled her. +For a moment she surged in massive, inhuman, female strength. The +men always wilted. And invariably, when they wilted, she touched +them with a sudden gentle touch, pitying. So that she always +remained friends with them. When her curious Amazonic power left her +again, and she was just a mere woman, she made shy eyes at them once +more, and treated them with the inevitable female-to-male homage. + +The men liked her. They cocked their eyes at her, when she was not +looking, and wondered at her. They wondered over her. They had been +beaten by her, every one of them. But they did not openly know it. +They looked at her, as if she were Woman itself, some creature not +quite personal. What they noticed, all of them, was the way her +brown hair looped over her ears. There was something chaste, and +noble, and war-like about it. The remote quality which hung about +her in the midst of her intimacies and her frequencies, nothing high +or lofty, but something given to the struggle and as yet invincible +in the struggle, made them seek her out. + +They felt safe with her. They knew she would not let them down. She +would not intrigue into marriage, or try and make use of them in any +way. She didn't care about them. And so, because of her isolate +self-sufficiency in the fray, her wild, overweening backbone, they +were ready to attend on her and serve her. Headley in particular +hoped he might overcome her. He was a well-built fellow with sandy +hair and a pugnacious face. The battle-spirit was really roused in +him, and he heartily liked the woman. If he could have overcome her +he would have been mad to marry her. + +With him, she summoned up all her mettle. She had never to be off +her guard for a single minute. The treacherous suddenness of his +attack--for he was treachery itself--had to be met by the voltaic +suddenness of her resistance and counter-attack. It was nothing less +than magical the way the soft, slumbering body of the woman could +leap in one jet into terrible, overwhelming voltaic force, something +strange and massive, at the first treacherous touch of the man's +determined hand. His strength was so different from hers--quick, +muscular, lambent. But hers was deep and heaving, like the strange +heaving of an earthquake, or the heave of a bull as it rises from +earth. And by sheer non-human power, electric and paralysing, she +could overcome the brawny red-headed fellow. + +He was nearly a match for her. But she did not like him. The two +were enemies--and good acquaintances. They were more or less +matched. But as he found himself continually foiled, he became +sulky, like a bear with a sore head. And then she avoided him. + +She really liked Young and James much better. James was a quick, +slender, dark-haired fellow, a gentleman, who was always trying to +catch her out with his quickness. She liked his fine, slim limbs, +and his exaggerated generosity. He would ask her out to ridiculously +expensive suppers, and send her sweets and flowers, fabulously +recherché. He was always immaculately well-dressed. + +"Of course, as a lady _and_ a nurse," he said to her, "you are two +sorts of women in one." + +But she was not impressed by his wisdom. + +She was most strongly inclined to Young. He was a plump young man of +middle height, with those blue eyes of a little boy which are so +knowing: particularly of a woman's secrets. It is a strange thing +that these childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of +the other sex. Young was certainly innocent as far as acts went. Yet +his hair was going thin at the crown already. + +He also played with her--being a doctor, and she a nurse who +encouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her: and did _not_ +rouse her to contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness +of a little boy's, which nearly melted her. She could almost have +succumbed to him. If it had not been that with him there was no +question of succumbing. She would have had to take him between her +hands and caress and cajole him like a cherub, into a fall. And +though she would have like to do so, yet that inflexible stiffness +of her backbone prevented her. She could not do as she liked. There +was an inflexible fate within her, which shaped her ends. + +Sometimes she wondered to herself, over her own virginity. Was it +worth much, after all, behaving as she did? Did she care about it, +anyhow? Didn't she rather despise it? To sin in thought was as bad +as to sin in act. If the thought was the same as the act, how much +more was her behaviour equivalent to a whole committal? She wished +she were wholly committed. She wished she had gone the whole length. + +But sophistry and wishing did her no good. There she was, still +isolate. And still there was that in her which would preserve her +intact, sophistry and deliberate intention notwithstanding. Her time +was up. She was returning to Woodhouse virgin as she had left it. In +a measure she felt herself beaten. Why? Who knows. But so it was, +she felt herself beaten, condemned to go back to what she was +before. Fate had been too strong for her and her desires: fate which +was not an external association of forces, but which was integral in +her own nature. Her own inscrutable nature was her fate: sore +against her will. + +It was August when she came home, in her nurse's uniform. She was +beaten by fate, as far as chastity and virginity went. But she came +home with high material hopes. Here was James Houghton's own +daughter. She had an affluent future ahead of her. A fully-qualified +maternity nurse, she was going to bring all the babies of the +district easily and triumphantly into the world. She was going to +charge the regulation fee of two guineas a case: and even on a +modest estimate of ten babies a month, she would have twenty +guineas. For well-to-do mothers she would charge from three to five +guineas. At this calculation she would make an easy three hundred a +year, without slaving either. She would be independent, she could +laugh every one in the face. + +She bounced back into Woodhouse to make her fortune. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TWO WOMEN DIE + + +It goes without saying that Alvina Houghton did not make her fortune +as a maternity nurse. Being her father's daughter, we might almost +expect that she did not make a penny. But she did--just a few pence. +She had exactly four cases--and then no more. + +The reason is obvious. Who in Woodhouse was going to afford a +two-guinea nurse, for a confinement? And who who was going to engage +Alvina Houghton, even if they were ready to stretch their +purse-strings? After all, they all knew her as _Miss_ Houghton, with +a stress on the _Miss_, and they could not conceive of her as Nurse +Houghton. Besides, there seemed something positively indecent in +technically engaging one who was so much part of themselves. They +all preferred either a simple mid-wife, or a nurse procured out of +the unknown by the doctor. + +If Alvina wanted to make her fortune--or even her living--she should +have gone to a strange town. She was so advised by every one she +knew. But she never for one moment reflected on the advice. She had +become a maternity nurse in order to practise in Woodhouse, just as +James Houghton had purchased his elegancies to sell in Woodhouse. +And father and daughter alike calmly expected Woodhouse demand to +rise to their supply. So both alike were defeated in their +expectations. + +For a little while Alvina flaunted about in her nurse's uniform. +Then she left it off. And as she left it off she lost her bounce, +her colour, and her flesh. Gradually she shrank back to the old, +slim, reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face. +And now it seemed her face was a little too long, a little gaunt. +And in her civilian clothes she seemed a little dowdy, shabby. And +altogether, she looked older: she looked more than her age, which +was only twenty-four years. Here was the old Alvina come back, rather +battered and deteriorated, apparently. There was even a tiny touch of +the trollops in her dowdiness--so the shrewd-eyed collier-wives +decided. But she was a lady still, and unbeaten. Undeniably she was a +lady. And that was rather irritating to the well-to-do and florid +daughter of W.H. Johnson, next door but one. Undeniably a lady, and +undeniably unmastered. This last was irritating to the good-natured +but easy-coming young men in the Chapel Choir, where she resumed her +seat. These young men had the good nature of dogs that wag their tails +and expect to be patted. And Alvina did not pat them. To be sure, a +pat from such a shabbily-black-kid-gloved hand would not have been so +flattering--she need not imagine it! The way she hung back and looked +at them, the young men, as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and +yet with the well-bred indifference of a lady--well, it was almost +offensive. + +As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for the time being from her +interest in young men. Manchester House had settled down on her like +a doom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to worm +one's encumbered way in the gloom--unless one liked to go miles +round a back street, to the yard entry. There was James Houghton, +faintly powdered with coal-dust, flitting back and forth in a fever +of nervous frenzy, to Throttle-Ha'penny--so carried away that he +never saw his daughter at all the first time he came in, after her +return. And when she reminded him of her presence, with her--"Hello, +father!"--he merely glancied hurriedly at her, as if vexed with her +interruption, and said: + +"Well, Alvina, you're back. You're back to find us busy." And he +went off into his ecstasy again. + +Mrs. Houghton was now very weak, and so nervous in her weakness that +she could not bear the slightest sound. Her greatest horror was lest +her husband should come into the room. On his entry she became blue +at the lips immediately, so he had to hurry out again. At last he +stayed away, only hurriedly asking, each time he came into the +house, "How is Mrs. Houghton? Ha!" Then off into uninterrupted +Throttle-Ha'penny ecstasy once more. + +When Alvina went up to her mother's room, on her return, all the +poor invalid could do was to tremble into tears, and cry faintly: + +"Child, you look dreadful. It isn't you." + +This from the pathetic little figure in the bed had struck Alvina +like a blow. + +"Why not, mother?" she asked. + +But for her mother she had to remove her nurse's uniform. And at the +same time, she had to constitute herself nurse. Miss Frost, and a +woman who came in, and the servant had been nursing the invalid +between them. Miss Frost was worn and rather heavy: her old buoyancy +and brightness was gone. She had become irritable also. She was very +glad that Alvina had returned to take this responsibility of nursing +off her shoulders. For her wonderful energy had ebbed and oozed +away. + +Alvina said nothing, but settled down to her task. She was quiet and +technical with her mother. The two loved one another, with a curious +impersonal love which had not a single word to exchange: an almost +after-death love. In these days Mrs. Houghton never talked--unless +to fret a little. So Alvina sat for many hours in the lofty, sombre +bedroom, looking out silently on the street, or hurriedly rising to +attend the sick woman. For continually came the fretful murmur: + +"Vina!" + +To sit still--who knows the long discipline of it, nowadays, as our +mothers and grandmothers knew. To sit still, for days, months, and +years--perforce to sit still, with some dignity of tranquil bearing. +Alvina was old-fashioned. She had the old, womanly faculty for +sitting quiet and collected--not indeed for a life-time, but for +long spells together. And so it was during these months nursing her +mother. She attended constantly on the invalid: she did a good deal +of work about the house: she took her walks and occupied her place +in the choir on Sunday mornings. And yet, from August to January, +she seemed to be seated in her chair in the bedroom, sometimes +reading, but mostly quite still, her hands quietly in her lap, her +mind subdued by musing. She did not even think, not even remember. +Even such activity would have made her presence too disturbing in +the room. She sat quite still, with all her activities in +abeyance--except that strange will-to-passivity which was by no +means a relaxation, but a severe, deep, soul-discipline. + +For the moment there was a sense of prosperity--or probable +prosperity, in the house. And there was an abundance of +Throttle-Ha'penny coal. It was dirty ashy stuff. The lower bars of +the grate were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which +it was fatal to try to poke away. For if you poked and poked, you +raised white cumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a +few darkening and sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous +application, you could keep the room moderately warm, without +feeling you were consuming the house's meat and drink in the grate. +Which was one blessing. + +The days, the months darkened past, and Alvina returned to her old +thinness and pallor. Her fore-arms were thin, they rested very still +in her lap, there was a ladylike stillness about them as she took +her walk, in her lingering, yet watchful fashion. She saw +everything. Yet she passed without attracting any attention. + +Early in the year her mother died. Her father came and wept +self-conscious tears, Miss Frost cried a little, painfully. And +Alvina cried also: she did not quite know why or wherefore. Her poor +mother! Alvina had the old-fashioned wisdom to let be, and not to +think. After all, it was not for her to reconstruct her parents' +lives. She came after them. Her day was not their day, their life +was not hers. Returning up-channel to re-discover their course was +quite another matter from flowing down-stream into the unknown, as +they had done thirty years before. This supercilious and impertinent +exploration of the generation gone by, by the present generation, is +nothing to our credit. As a matter of fact, no generation repeats +the mistakes of the generation ahead, any more than any river +repeats its course. So the young need not be so proud of their +superiority over the old. The young generation glibly makes its own +mistakes: and _how_ detestable these new mistakes are, why, only the +future will be able to tell us. But be sure they are quite as +detestable, quite as full of lies and hypocrisy, as any of the +mistakes of our parents. There is no such thing as _absolute_ +wisdom. + +Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for ever +an infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand. + +So Alvina refrained from pondering on her mother's life and fate. +Whatever the fate of the mother, the fate of the daughter will be +otherwise. That is organically inevitable. The business of the +daughter is with her own fate, not with her mother's. + +Miss Frost however meditated bitterly on the fate of the poor dead +woman. Bitterly she brooded on the lot of woman. Here was Clariss +Houghton, married, and a mother--and dead. What a life! Who was +responsible? James Houghton. What ought James Houghton to have done +differently? Everything. In short, he should have been somebody +else, and not himself. Which is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of +idealism. The universe should be something else, and not what it is: +so the nonsense of idealistic conclusion. The cat should not catch +the mouse, the mouse should not nibble holes in the table-cloth, and +so on and so on, in the House that Jack Built. + +But Miss Frost sat by the dead in grief and despair. This was the +end of another woman's life: such an end! Poor Clariss: guilty +James. + +Yet why? Why was James more guilty than Clariss? Is the only aim and +end of a man's life, to make some woman, or parcel of women, happy? +Why? Why should anybody expect to be _made happy_, and develop +heart-disease if she isn't? Surely Clariss' heart-disease was a more +emphatic sign of obstinate self-importance than ever James' +shop-windows were. She expected to be _made happy_. Every woman in +Europe and America expects it. On her own head then if she is made +unhappy: for her expectation is arrogant and impertinent. The be-all +and end-all of life doesn't lie in feminine happiness--or in any +happiness. Happiness is a sort of soap-tablet--he won't be happy +till he gets it, and when he's got it, the precious baby, it'll cost +him his eyes and his stomach. Could anything be more puerile than a +mankind howling because it isn't happy: like a baby in the bath! + +Poor Clariss, however, was dead--and if she had developed +heart-disease because she wasn't happy, well, she had died of her +own heart-disease, poor thing. Wherein lies every moral that mankind +can wish to draw. + +Miss Frost wept in anguish, and saw nothing but another woman +betrayed to sorrow and a slow death. Sorrow and a slow death, +because a man had married her. Miss Frost wept also for herself, for +her own sorrow and slow death. Sorrow and slow death, because a man +had _not_ married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with these +exigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? Our mothers pined because +our fathers drank and were rakes. Our wives pine because we are +virtuous but inadequate. Who is this sphinx, this woman? Where is +the Oedipus that will solve her riddle of happiness, and then +strangle her?--only to marry his own mother! + +In the months that followed her mother's death, Alvina went on the +same, in abeyance. She took over the housekeeping, and received one +or two overflow pupils from Miss Frost, young girls to whom she gave +lessons in the dark drawing-room of Manchester House. She was +busy--chiefly with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to put in +order after her mother's death. + +She sorted all her mother's clothes--expensive, old-fashioned +clothes, hardly worn. What was to be done with them? She gave them +away, without consulting anybody. She kept a few private things, she +inherited a few pieces of jewellery. Remarkable how little trace her +mother left--hardly a trace. + +She decided to move into the big, monumental bedroom in front of the +house. She liked space, she liked the windows. She was strictly +mistress, too. So she took her place. Her mother's little +sitting-room was cold and disused. + +Then Alvina went through all the linen. There was still abundance, +and it was all sound. James had had such large ideas of setting up +house, in the beginning. And now he begrudged the household +expenses, begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have +liked to introduce margarine instead of butter. This last +degradation the women refused. But James was above food. + +The old Alvina seemed completely herself again. She was quiet, +dutiful, affectionate. She appealed in her old, childish way to Miss +Frost, and Miss Frost called her "Dear!" with all the old protective +gentleness. But there was a difference. Underneath her appearance of +appeal, Alvina was almost coldly independent. She did what she +thought she would. The old manner of intimacy persisted between her +and her darling. And perhaps neither of them knew that the intimacy +itself had gone. But it had. There was no spontaneous interchange +between them. It was a kind of deadlock. Each knew the great love +she felt for the other. But now it was a love static, inoperative. +The warm flow did not run any more. Yet each would have died for the +other, would have done anything to spare the other hurt. + +Miss Frost was becoming tired, dragged looking. She would sink into +a chair as if she wished never to rise again--never to make the +effort. And Alvina quickly would attend on her, bring her tea and +take away her music, try to make everything smooth. And continually +the young woman exhorted the elder to work less, to give up her +pupils. But Miss Frost answered quickly, nervously: + +"When I don't work I shan't live." + +"But why--?" came the long query from Alvina. And in her +expostulation there was a touch of mockery for such a creed. + +Miss Frost did not answer. Her face took on a greyish tinge. + +In these days Alvina struck up an odd friendship with Miss Pinnegar, +after so many years of opposition. She felt herself more in sympathy +with Miss Pinnegar--it was so easy to get on with her, she left so +much unsaid. What was left unsaid mattered more to Alvina now than +anything that was expressed. She began to hate outspokenness and +direct speaking-forth of the whole mind. It nauseated her. She +wanted tacit admission of difference, not open, wholehearted +communication. And Miss Pinnegar made this admission all along. She +never made you feel for an instant that she was one with you. She +was never even near. She kept quietly on her own ground, and left +you on yours. And across the space came her quiet commonplaces--but +fraught with space. + +With Miss Frost all was openness, explicit and downright. Not that +Miss Frost trespassed. She was far more well-bred than Miss +Pinnegar. But her very breeding had that Protestant, northern +quality which assumes that we have all the same high standards, +really, and all the same divine nature, intrinsically. It is a fine +assumption. But willy-nilly, it sickened Alvina at this time. + +She preferred Miss Pinnegar, and admired Miss Pinnegar's humble +wisdom with a new admiration. The two were talking of Dr. Headley, +who, they read in the newspaper, had disgraced himself finally. + +"I suppose," said Miss Pinnegar, "it takes his sort to make all +sorts." + +Such bits of homely wisdom were like relief from cramp and pain, to +Alvina. "It takes his sort to make all sorts." It took her sort too. +And it took her father's sort--as well as her mother's and Miss +Frost's. It took every sort to make all sorts. Why have standards +and a regulation pattern? Why have a human criterion? There's the +point! Why, in the name of all the free heavens, have human +criteria? Why? Simply for bullying and narrowness. + +Alvina felt at her ease with Miss Pinnegar. The two women talked +away to one another, in their quiet moments: and slipped apart like +conspirators when Miss Frost came in: as if there was something to +be ashamed of. If there was, heaven knows what it might have been, +for their talk was ordinary enough. But Alvina liked to be with Miss +Pinnegar in the kitchen. Miss Pinnegar wasn't competent and +masterful like Miss Frost: she was ordinary and uninspired, with +quiet, unobserved movements. But she was deep, and there was some +secret satisfaction in her very quality of secrecy. + +So the days and weeks and months slipped by, and Alvina was hidden +like a mole in the dark chambers of Manchester House, busy with +cooking and cleaning and arranging, getting the house in her own +order, and attending to her pupils. She took her walk in the +afternoon. Once and only once she went to Throttle-Ha'penny, and, +seized with sudden curiosity, insisted on being wound down in the +iron bucket to the little workings underneath. Everything was quite +tidy in the short gang-ways down below, timbered and in sound order. +The miners were competent enough. But water dripped dismally in +places, and there was a stale feeling in the air. + +Her father accompanied her, pointed her to the seam of +yellow-flecked coal, the shale and the bind, the direction of the +trend. He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the whole +affair, and seemed like some not quite trustworthy conjuror who had +conjured it all up by sleight of hand. In the background the miners +stood grey and ghostly, in the candle-light, and seemed to listen +sardonically. One of them, facile in his subordinate way as James in +his authoritative, kept chiming in: + +"Ay, that's the road it goes, Miss Huffen--yis, yo'll see th' roof +theer bellies down a bit--s' loose. No, you dunna get th' puddin' +stones i' this pit--s' not deep enough. Eh, they come down on you +plumb, as if th' roof had laid its egg on you. Ay, it runs a bit +thin down here--six inches. You see th' bed's soft, it's a sort o' +clay-bind, it's not clunch such as you get deeper. Oh, it's easy +workin'--you don't have to knock your guts out. There's no need for +shots, Miss Huffen--we bring it down--you see here--" And he +stooped, pointing to a shallow, shelving excavation which he was +making under the coal. The working was low, you must stoop all the +time. The roof and the timbered sides of the way seemed to press on +you. It was as if she were in her tomb for ever, like the dead and +everlasting Egyptians. She was frightened, but fascinated. The +collier kept on talking to her, stretching his bare, grey-black +hairy arm across her vision, and pointing with his knotted hand. The +thick-wicked tallow candles guttered and smelled. There was a +thickness in the air, a sense of dark, fluid presence in the thick +atmosphere, the dark, fluid, viscous voice of the collier making a +broad-vowelled, clapping sound in her ear. He seemed to linger near +her as if he knew--as if he knew--what? Something for ever +unknowable and inadmissible, something that belonged purely to the +underground: to the slaves who work underground: knowledge +humiliated, subjected, but ponderous and inevitable. And still his +voice went on clapping in her ear, and still his presence edged near +her, and seemed to impinge on her--a smallish, semi-grotesque, +grey-obscure figure with a naked brandished forearm: not human: a +creature of the subterranean world, melted out like a bat, fluid. +She felt herself melting out also, to become a mere vocal ghost, a +presence in the thick atmosphere. Her lungs felt thick and slow, her +mind dissolved, she felt she could cling like a bat in the long +swoon of the crannied, underworld darkness. Cling like a bat and +sway for ever swooning in the draughts of the darkness-- + +When she was up on the earth again she blinked and peered at the +world in amazement. What a pretty, luminous place it was, carved in +substantial luminosity. What a strange and lovely place, bubbling +iridescent-golden on the surface of the underworld. Iridescent +golden--could anything be more fascinating! Like lovely glancing +surface on fluid pitch. But a velvet surface. A velvet surface of +golden light, velvet-pile of gold and pale luminosity, and strange +beautiful elevations of houses and trees, and depressions of fields +and roads, all golden and floating like atmospheric majolica. Never +had the common ugliness of Woodhouse seemed so entrancing. She +thought she had never seen such beauty--a lovely luminous majolica, +living and palpitating, the glossy, svelte world-surface, the +exquisite face of all the darkness. It was like a vision. Perhaps +gnomes and subterranean workers, enslaved in the era of light, see +with such eyes. Perhaps that is why they are absolutely blind to +conventional ugliness. For truly nothing could be more hideous than +Woodhouse, as the miners had built it and disposed it. And yet, the +very cabbage-stumps and rotten fences of the gardens, the very +back-yards were instinct with magic, molten as they seemed with the +bubbling-up of the under-darkness, bubbling up of majolica weight +and luminosity, quite ignorant of the sky, heavy and satisfying. + +Slaves of the underworld! She watched the swing of the grey colliers +along the pavement with a new fascination, hypnotized by a new +vision. Slaves--the underground trolls and iron-workers, magic, +mischievous, and enslaved, of the ancient stories. But tall--the +miners seemed to her to loom tall and grey, in their enslaved magic. +Slaves who would cause the superimposed day-order to fall. Not +because, individually, they wanted to. But because, collectively, +something bubbled up in them, the force of darkness which had no +master and no control. It would bubble and stir in them as +earthquakes stir the earth. It would be simply disastrous, because +it had no master. There was no dark master in the world. The puerile +world went on crying out for a new Jesus, another Saviour from the +sky, another heavenly superman. When what was wanted was a Dark +Master from the underworld. + +So they streamed past her, home from work--grey from head to foot, +distorted in shape, cramped, with curious faces that came out pallid +from under their dirt. Their walk was heavy-footed and slurring, +their bearing stiff and grotesque. A stream they were--yet they +seemed to her to loom like strange, valid figures of fairy-lore, +unrealized and as yet unexperienced. The miners, the iron-workers, +those who fashion the stuff of the underworld. + +As it always comes to its children, the nostalgia of the repulsive, +heavy-footed Midlands came over her again, even whilst she was +there in the midst. The curious, dark, inexplicable and yet +insatiable craving--as if for an earthquake. To feel the earth heave +and shudder and shatter the world from beneath. To go down in the +débâcle. + +And so, in spite of everything, poverty, dowdiness, obscurity, and +nothingness, she was content to stay in abeyance at home for the +time. True, she was filled with the same old, slow, dreadful craving +of the Midlands: a craving insatiable and inexplicable. But the very +craving kept her still. For at this time she did not translate it +into a desire, or need, for love. At the back of her mind somewhere +was the fixed idea, the fixed intention of finding love, a man. But +as yet, at this period, the idea was in abeyance, it did not act. +The craving that possessed her as it possesses everybody, in a +greater or less degree, in those parts, sustained her darkly and +unconsciously. + +A hot summer waned into autumn, the long, bewildering days drew in, +the transient nights, only a few breaths of shadow between noon and +noon, deepened and strengthened. A restlessness came over everybody. +There was another short strike among the miners. James Houghton, +like an excited beetle, scurried to and fro, feeling he was making +his fortune. Never had Woodhouse been so thronged on Fridays with +purchasers and money-spenders. The place seemed surcharged with +life. + +Autumn lasted beautiful till end of October. And then suddenly, cold +rain, endless cold rain, and darkness heavy, wet, ponderous. Through +the wind and rain it was a toil to move. Poor Miss Frost, who had +seemed almost to blossom again in the long hot days, regaining a +free cheerfulness that amounted almost to liveliness, and who even +caused a sort of scandal by her intimacy with a rather handsome but +common stranger, an insurance agent who had come into the place with +a good, unused tenor voice--now she wilted again. She had given the +rather florid young man tea in her room, and had laboured away at +his fine, metallic voice, correcting him and teaching him and +laughing with him and spending really a remarkable number of hours +alone with him in her room in Woodhouse--for she had given up +tramping the country, and had hired a music-room in a quiet street, +where she gave her lessons. And the young man had hung round, and +had never wanted to go away. They would prolong their tête-à-tête +and their singing on till ten o'clock at night, and Miss Frost would +return to Manchester House flushed and handsome and a little shy, +while the young man, who was common, took on a new boldness in the +streets. He had auburn hair, high colouring, and a rather +challenging bearing. He took on a new boldness, his own estimate of +himself rose considerably, with Miss Frost and his trained voice to +justify him. He was a little insolent and condescending to the +natives, who disliked him. For their lives they could not imagine +what Miss Frost could find in him. They began even to dislike her, +and a pretty scandal was started about the pair, in the pleasant +room where Miss Frost had her piano, her books, and her flowers. The +scandal was as unjust as most scandals are. Yet truly, all that +summer and autumn Miss Frost had a new and slightly aggressive +cheerfulness and humour. And Manchester House saw little of her, +comparatively. + +And then, at the end of September, the young man was removed by his +Insurance Company to another district. And at the end of October set +in the most abominable and unbearable weather, deluges of rain and +north winds, cutting the tender, summer-unfolded people to pieces. +Miss Frost wilted at once. A silence came over her. She shuddered +when she had to leave the fire. She went in the morning to her room, +and stayed there all the day, in a hot, close atmosphere, shuddering +when her pupils brought the outside weather with them to her. + +She was always subject to bronchitis. In November she had a bad +bronchitis cold. Then suddenly one morning she could not get up. +Alvina went in and found her semi-conscious. + +The girl was almost mad. She flew to the rescue. She despatched her +father instantly for the doctor, she heaped the sticks in the +bedroom grate and made a bright fire, she brough hot milk and +brandy. + +"Thank you, dear, thank you. It's a bronchial cold," whispered Miss +Frost hurriedly, trying to sip the milk. She could not. She didn't +want it. + +"I've sent for the doctor," said Alvina, in her cool voice, wherein +none the less there rang the old hesitancy of sheer love. + +Miss Frost lifted her eyes: + +"There's no need," she said, and she smiled winsomely at Alvina. + +It was pneumonia. Useless to talk of the distracted anguish of +Alvina during the next two days. She was so swift and sensitive in +her nursing, she seemed to have second sight. She talked to nobody. +In her silence her soul was alone with the soul of her darling. The +long semi-consciousness and the tearing pain of pneumonia, the +anguished sickness. + +But sometimes the grey eyes would open and smile with delicate +winsomeness at Alvina, and Alvina smiled back, with a cheery, +answering winsomeness. But that costs something. + +On the evening of the second day, Miss Frost got her hand from under +the bedclothes, and laid it on Alvina's hand. Alvina leaned down to +her. + +"Everything is for you, my love," whispered Miss Frost, looking with +strange eyes on Alvina's face. + +"Don't talk, Miss Frost," moaned Alvina. + +"Everything is for you," murmured the sick woman--"except--" and she +enumerated some tiny legacies which showed her generous, thoughtful +nature. + +"Yes, I shall remember," said Alvina, beyond tears now. + +Miss Frost smiled with her old bright, wonderful look, that had a +touch of queenliness in it. + +"Kiss me, dear," she whispered. + +Alvina kissed her, and could not suppress the whimpering of her +too-much grief. + +The night passed slowly. Sometimes the grey eyes of the sick woman +rested dark, dilated, haggard on Alvina's face, with a heavy, almost +accusing look, sinister. Then they closed again. And sometimes they +looked pathetic, with a mute, stricken appeal. Then again they +closed--only to open again tense with pain. Alvina wiped her +blood-phlegmed lips. + +In the morning she died--lay there haggard, death-smeared, with her +lovely white hair smeared also, and disorderly: she who had been so +beautiful and clean always. + +Alvina knew death--which is untellable. She knew that her darling +carried away a portion of her own soul into death. + +But she was alone. And the agony of being alone, the agony of grief, +passionate, passionate grief for her darling who was torn into +death--the agony of self-reproach, regret; the agony of remembrance; +the agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome, and sinisterly +accusing, and pathetically, despairingly appealing--probe after +probe of mortal agony, which throughout eternity would never lose +its power to pierce to the quick! + +Alvina seemed to keep strangely calm and aloof all the days after +the death. Only when she was alone she suffered till she felt her +heart really broke. + +"I shall never feel anything any more," she said in her abrupt way +to Miss Frost's friend, another woman of over fifty. + +"Nonsense, child!" expostulated Mrs. Lawson gently. + +"I shan't! I shall never have a heart to feel anything any more," +said Alvina, with a strange, distraught roll of the eyes. + +"Not like this, child. But you'll feel other things--" + +"I haven't the heart," persisted Alvina. + +"Not yet," said Mrs. Lawson gently. "You can't expect--But +time--time brings back--" + +"Oh well--but I don't believe it," said Alvina. + +People thought her rather hard. To one of her gossips Miss Pinnegar +confessed: + +"I thought she'd have felt it more. She cared more for her than she +did for her own mother--and her mother knew it. Mrs. Houghton +complained bitterly, sometimes, that _she_ had _no_ love. They were +everything to one another, Miss Frost and Alvina. I should have +thought she'd have felt it more. But you never know. A good thing if +she doesn't, really." + +Miss Pinnegar herself did not care one little bit that Miss Frost +was dead. She did not feel herself implicated. + +The nearest relatives came down, and everything was settled. The +will was found, just a brief line on a piece of notepaper expressing +a wish that Alvina should have everything. Alvina herself told the +verbal requests. All was quietly fulfilled. + +As it might well be. For there was nothing to leave. Just +sixty-three pounds in the bank--no more: then the clothes, piano, +books and music. Miss Frost's brother had these latter, at his own +request: the books and music, and the piano. Alvina inherited the +few simple trinkets, and about forty-five pounds in money. + +"Poor Miss Frost," cried Mrs. Lawson, weeping rather bitterly--"she +saved nothing for herself. You can see why she never wanted to grow +old, so that she couldn't work. You can see. It's a shame, it's a +shame, one of the best women that ever trod earth." + +Manchester House settled down to its deeper silence, its darker +gloom. Miss Frost was irreparably gone. With her, the reality went +out of the house. It seemed to be silently waiting to disappear. And +Alvina and Miss Pinnegar might move about and talk in vain. They +could never remove the sense of waiting to finish: it was all just +waiting to finish. And the three, James and Alvina and Miss +Pinnegar, waited lingering through the months, for the house to come +to an end. With Miss Frost its spirit passed away: it was no more. +Dark, empty-feeling, it seemed all the time like a house just before +a sale. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BEAU + + +Throttle-Ha'penny worked fitfully through the winter, and in the +spring broke down. By this time James Houghton had a pathetic, +childish look which touched the hearts of Alvina and Miss Pinnegar. +They began to treat him with a certain feminine indulgence, as he +fluttered round, agitated and bewildered. He was like a bird that +has flown into a room and is exhausted, enfeebled by its attempts to +fly through the false freedom of the window-glass. Sometimes he +would sit moping in a corner, with his head under his wing. But Miss +Pinnegar chased him forth, like the stealthy cat she was, chased him +up to the work-room to consider some detail of work, chased him into +the shop to turn over the old débris of the stock. At one time he +showed the alarming symptom of brooding over his wife's death. Miss +Pinnegar was thoroughly scared. But she was not inventive. It was +left to Alvina to suggest: "Why doesn't father let the shop, and +some of the house?" + +Let the shop! Let the last inch of frontage on the street! James +thought of it. Let the shop! Permit the name of Houghton to +disappear from the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a +nameless nobody, occupying obscure premises? + +He thought about it. And thinking about it, became so indignant at the +thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within his frail +frame. And then he came out with the most original of all his schemes. +Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house for the better +classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs of these +gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be +fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The +shop should be turned into an elegant hall-entrance, carpeted, with a +hall-porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the round +arch of which the words: "Manchester House" should appear large and +distinguished, making an arch also, whilst underneath, more refined and +smaller, should show the words: "Private Hotel." James was to be +proprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending to +correspondence: Miss Pinnegar was to be manageress, superintending the +servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the +equivocal position of "hostess." She was to shake hands with the +guests: she was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. For +in the prospectus James would include: "Trained nurse always on the +premises." + +"Why!" cried Miss Pinnegar, for once brutally and angrily hostile to +him: "You'll make it sound like a private lunatic asylum." + +"Will you explain why?" answered James tartly. + +For himself, he was enraptured with the scheme. He began to tot up +ideas and expenses. There would be the handsome entrance and hall: +there would be an extension of the kitchen and scullery: there would +be an installing of new hot-water and sanitary arrangements: there +would be a light lift-arrangment from the kitchen: there would be a +handsome glazed balcony or loggia or terrace on the first floor at +the back, over the whole length of the back-yard. This loggia would +give a wonderful outlook to the south-west and the west. In the +immediate foreground, to be sure, would be the yard of the +livery-stables and the rather slummy dwellings of the colliers, +sloping downhill. But these could be easily overlooked, for the eye +would instinctively wander across the green and shallow valley, to +the long upslope opposite, showing the Manor set in its clump of +trees, and farms and haystacks pleasantly dotted, and moderately far +off coal-mines with twinkling headstocks and narrow railwaylines +crossing the arable fields, and heaps of burning slag. The balcony +or covered terrace--James settled down at last to the word +_terrace_--was to be one of the features of the house: _the_ +feature. It was to be fitted up as a sort of elegant lounging +restaurant. Elegant teas, at two-and-six per head, and elegant +suppers, at five shillings without wine, were to be served here. + +As a teetotaller and a man of ascetic views, James, in his first +shallow moments, before he thought about it, assumed that his house +should be entirely non-alcoholic. A temperance house! Already he +winced. We all know what a provincial Temperance Hotel is. Besides, +there is magic in the sound of wine. _Wines Served_. The legend +attracted him immensely--as a teetotaller, it had a mysterious, +hypnotic influence. He must have wines. He knew nothing about them. +But Alfred Swayn, from the Liquor Vaults, would put him in the +running in five minutes. + +It was most curious to see Miss Pinnegar turtle up at the mention of +this scheme. When first it was disclosed to her, her colour came up +like a turkey's in a flush of indignant anger. + +"It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous!" she blurted, bridling and +ducking her head and turning aside, like an indignant turkey. + +"Ridiculous! Why? Will you explain why!" retorted James, turtling +also. + +"It's absolutely ridiculous!" she repeated, unable to do more than +splutter. + +"Well, we'll see," said James, rising to superiority. + +And again he began to dart absorbedly about, like a bird building a +nest. Miss Pinnegar watched him with a sort of sullen fury. She went +to the shop door to peep out after him. She saw him slip into the +Liquor Vaults, and she came back to announce to Alvina: + +"He's taken to drink!" + +"Drink?" said Alvina. + +"That's what it is," said Miss Pinnegar vindictively. "Drink!" + +Alvina sank down and laughed till she was weak. It all seemed really +too funny to her--too funny. + +"I can't see what it is to laugh at," said Miss Pinnegar. +"Disgraceful--it's disgraceful! But I'm not going to stop to be made +a fool of. I shall be no manageress, I tell you. It's absolutely +ridiculous. Who does he think will come to the place? He's out of +his mind--and it's drink; that's what it is! Going into the Liquor +Vaults at ten o'clock in the morning! That's where he gets his +ideas--out of whiskey--or brandy! But he's not going to make a fool +of me--" + +"Oh dear!" sighed Alvina, laughing herself into composure and a +little weariness. "I know it's _perfectly_ ridiculous. We shall have +to stop him." + +"I've said all I can say," blurted Miss Pinnegar. + +As soon as James came in to a meal, the two women attacked him. + +"But father," said Alvina, "there'll be nobody to come." + +"Plenty of people--plenty of people," said her father. "Look at The +Shakespeare's Head, in Knarborough." + +"Knarborough! Is this Knarborough!" blurted Miss Pinnegar. "Where +are the business men here? Where are the foreigners coming here for +business, where's our lace-trade and our stocking-trade?" + +"There _are_ business men," said James. "And there are ladies." + +"Who," retorted Miss Pinnegar, "is going to give half-a-crown for a +tea? They expect tea and bread-and-butter for fourpence, and cake +for sixpence, and apricots or pineapple for ninepence, and +ham-and-tongue for a shilling, and fried ham and eggs and jam and +cake as much as they can eat for one-and-two. If they expect a +knife-and-fork tea for a shilling, what are you going to give them +for half-a-crown?" + +"I know what I shall offer," said James. "And we may make it two +shillings." Through his mind flitted the idea of 1/11-1/2--but he +rejected it. "You don't realize that I'm catering for a higher class +of custom--" + +"But there _isn't_ any higher class in Woodhouse, father," said +Alvina, unable to restrain a laugh. + +"If you create a supply you create a demand," he retorted. + +"But how can you create a supply of better class people?" asked +Alvina mockingly. + +James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he were +preoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate little +boy who poses on the side of the angels--or so the women saw it. + +Miss Pinnegar was prepared to combat him now by sheer weight of +opposition. She would pitch her dead negative will obstinately +against him. She would not speak to him, she would not observe his +presence, she was stone deaf and stone blind: there _was_ no James. +This nettled him. And she miscalculated him. He merely took another +circuit, and rose another flight higher on the spiral of his +spiritual egotism. He believed himself finely and sacredly in the +right, that he was frustrated by lower beings, above whom it was his +duty to rise, to soar. So he soared to serene heights, and his +Private Hotel seemed a celestial injunction, an erection on a higher +plane. + +He saw the architect: and then, with his plans and schemes, he saw +the builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six or +seven hundred--but James had better see the plumber and fitter who +was going to instal the new hot water and sanitary system. James was +a little dashed. He had calculated much less. Having only a few +hundred pounds in possession after Throttle-Ha'penny, he was +prepared to mortgage Manchester House if he could keep in hand a +sufficent sum of money for the running of his establishment for a +year. He knew he would have to sacrifice Miss Pinnegar's work-room. +He knew, and he feared Miss Pinnegar's violent and unmitigated +hostility. Still--his obstinate spirit rose--he was quite prepared +to risk everything on this last throw. + +Miss Allsop, daughter of the builder, called to see Alvina. The +Allsops were great Chapel people, and Cassie Allsop was one of the +old maids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about +forty-two years old. In private, she was tyrannously exacting with +the servants, and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces. +But in public she had this nipped, wistful look. + +Alvina was surprised by this visit. When she found Miss Allsop at +the back door, all her inherent hostility awoke. + +"Oh, is it you, Miss Allsop! Will you come in." + +They sat in the middle room, the common living room of the house. + +"I called," said Miss Allsop, coming to the point at once, and +speaking in her Sunday-school-teacher voice, "to ask you if you know +about this Private Hotel scheme of your father's?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. + +"Oh, you do! Well, we wondered. Mr. Houghton came to father about +the building alterations yesterday. They'll be awfully expensive." + +"Will they?" said Alvina, making big, mocking eyes. + +"Yes, very. What do _you_ think of the scheme?" + +"I?--well--!" Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh. "To tell +the truth I haven't thought much about it at all." + +"Well I think you should," said Miss Allsop severely. "Father's sure +it won't pay--and it will cost I don't know how much. It is bound +to be a dead loss. And your father's getting on. You'll be left +stranded in the world without a penny to bless yourself with. I +think it's an awful outlook for you." + +"Do you?" said Alvina. + +Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the old +maids. + +"Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I could to prevent him, if I +were you." + +Miss Allsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in her +mood. An old maid along with Cassie Allsop!--and James Houghton +fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester +House up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification, +in which _her_ peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and +spitefully. "Oh well, so be it," said her spirit vindictively. "Let +the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself." Her old anger +against her father arose again. + +Arthur Witham, the plumber, came in with James Houghton to examine +the house. Arthur Witham was also one of the Chapel men--as had been +his common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father +had left each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur, +the eldest, had already increased ten-fold. He was sly and slow and +uneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent. But he was not +bad-looking, a tight fellow with big blue eyes, who aspired to keep +his "h's" in the right place, and would have been a gentleman if he +could. + +Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in +the scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She liked +his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, +very watchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered +and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear--she +handed him a candle--and she laughed to herself seeing his tight, +well-shaped hind-quarters protruding from under the sink like the +wrong end of a dog from a kennel. He was keen after money, was +Arthur--and bossy, creeping slyly after his own self-importance and +power. He wanted power--and he would creep quietly after it till he +got it: as much as he was capable of. His "h's" were a barbed-wire +fence and entanglement, preventing his unlimited progress. + +He emerged from under the sink, and they went to the kitchen and +afterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a little +aloof, and silent. When the tour of inspection was almost over, she +said innocently: + +"Won't it cost a great deal?" + +Arthur Witham slowly shook his head. Then he looked at her. She +smiled rather archly into his eyes. + +"It won't be done for nothing," he said, looking at her again. + +"We can go into that later," said James, leading off the plumber. + +"Good morning, Miss Houghton," said Arthur Witham. + +"Good morning, Mr. Witham," replied Alvina brightly. + +But she lingered in the background, and as Arthur Witham was going +she heard him say: "Well, I'll work it out, Mr. Houghton. I'll work +it out, and let you know tonight. I'll get the figures by tonight." + +The younger man's tone was a little off-hand, just a little +supercilious with her father, she thought. James's star was setting. + +In the afternoon, directly after dinner, Alvina went out. She +entered the shop, where sheets of lead and tins of paint and putty +stood about, varied by sheets of glass and fancy paper. Lottie +Witham, Arthur's wife, appeared. She was a woman of thirty-five, a +bit of a shrew, with social ambitions and no children. + +"Is Mr. Witham in?" said Alvina. + +Mrs. Witham eyed her. + +"I'll see," she answered, and she left the shop. + +Presently Arthur entered, in his shirt-sleeves: rather +attractive-looking. + +"I don't know what you'll think of me, and what I've come for," said +Alvina, with hurried amiability. Arthur lifted his blue eyes to her, +and Mrs. Witham appeared in the background, in the inner doorway. + +"Why, what is it?" said Arthur stolidly. + +"Make it as dear as you can, for father," said Alvina, laughing +nervously. + +Arthur's blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Witham advanced into the +shop. + +"Why? What's that for?" asked Lottie Witham shrewdly. + +Alvina turned to the woman. + +"Don't say anything," she said. "But we don't want father to go on +with this scheme. It's bound to fail. And Miss Pinnegar and I can't +have anything to do with it anyway. I shall go away." + +"It's bound to fail," said Arthur Witham stolidly. + +"And father has no money, I'm sure," said Alvina. + +Lottie Witham eyed the thin, nervous face of Alvina. For some +reason, she liked her. And of course, Alvina was considered a lady +in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to, with James's declining +fortunes: she was merely _considered_ a lady. The consideration was +no longer indisputable. + +"Shall you come in a minute?" said Lottie Witham, lifting the flap +of the counter. It was a rare and bold stroke on Mrs. Witham's part. +Alvina's immediate instinct was to refuse. But she liked Arthur +Witham, in his shirt sleeves. + +"Well--I must be back in a minute," she said, as she entered the +embrasure of the counter. She felt as if she were really venturing +on new ground. She was led into the new drawing-room, done in new +peacock-and-bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and brass and white +walls. This was the Withams' new house, and Lottie was proud of it. +The two women had a short confidential chat. Arthur lingered in the +doorway a while, then went away. + +Alvina did not really like Lottie Witham. Yet the other woman was +sharp and shrewd in the uptake, and for some reason she fancied +Alvina. So she was invited to tea at Manchester House. + +After this, so many difficulties rose up in James Houghton's way +that he was worried almost out of his life. His two women left him +alone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned his +scheme--he was simply driven out of it by untoward circumstances. + +Lottie Witham came to tea, and was shown over Manchester House. She +had no opinion at all of Manchester House--wouldn't hang a cat in +such a gloomy hole. _Still_, she was rather impressed by the sense +of superiority. + +"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she stood in Alvina's bedroom, +and looked at the enormous furniture, the lofty tableland of the +bed. + +"Oh my goodness! I wouldn't sleep in _that_ for a trifle, by myself! +Aren't you frightened out of your life? Even if I had Arthur at one +side of me, I should be that frightened on the other side I +shouldn't know what to do. Do you sleep here by yourself?" + +"Yes," said Alvina laughing. "I haven't got an Arthur, even for one +side." + +"Oh, my word, you'd want a husband on both sides, in that bed," said +Lottie Witham. + +Alvina was asked back to tea--on Wednesday afternoon, closing day. +Arthur was there to tea--very ill at ease and feeling as if his +hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched +closely to learn from her guest the secret of repose. The +indefinable repose and inevitability of a lady--even of a lady who +is nervous and agitated--this was the problem which occupied +Lottie's shrewd and active, but lower-class mind. She even did not +resent Alvina's laughing attempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur: +because Alvina was a lady, and her tactics must be studied. + +Alvina really liked Arthur, and thought a good deal about +him--heaven knows why. He and Lottie were quite happy together, and +he was absorbed in his petty ambitions. In his limited way, he was +invincibly ambitious. He would end by making a sufficient fortune, +and by being a town councillor and a J.P. But beyond Woodhouse he +did not exist. Why then should Alvina be attracted by him? Perhaps +because of his "closeness," and his secret determinedness. + +When she met him in the street she would stop him--though he was +always busy--and make him exchange a few words with her. And when +she had tea at his house, she would try to rouse his attention. But +though he looked at her, steadily, with his blue eyes, from under +his long lashes, still, she knew, he looked at her objectively. He +never conceived any connection with her whatsoever. + +It was Lottie who had a scheming mind. In the family of three +brothers there was one--not black sheep, but white. There was one +who was climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second +brother. He had been a school-teacher in Woodhouse: had gone out to +South Africa and occupied a post in a sort of Grammar School in one +of the cities of Cape Colony. He had accumulated some money, to add +to his patrimony. Now he was in England, at Oxford, where he would +take his belated degree. When he had got his degree, he would return +to South Africa to become head of his school, at seven hundred a +year. + +Albert was thirty-two years old, and unmarried. Lottie was +determined he should take back to the Cape a suitable wife: +presumably Alvina. He spent his vacations in Woodhouse--and he was +only in his first year at Oxford. Well now, what could be more +suitable--a young man at Oxford, a young lady in Woodhouse. Lottie +told Alvina all about him, and Alvina was quite excited to meet him. +She imagined him a taller, more fascinating, educated Arthur. + +For the fear of being an old maid, the fear of her own virginity was +really gaining on Alvina. There was a terrible sombre futility, +nothingness, in Manchester House. She was twenty-six years old. Her +life was utterly barren now Miss Frost had gone. She was shabby and +penniless, a mere household drudge: for James begrudged even a girl +to help in the kitchen. She was looking faded and worn. Panic, the +terrible and deadly panic which overcomes so many unmarried women at +about the age of thirty, was beginning to overcome her. She would +not care about marriage, if even she had a lover. But some sort of +_terror_ hunted her to the search of a lover. She would become +loose, she would become a prostitute, she said to herself, rather +than die off like Cassie Allsop and the rest, wither slowly and +ignominiously and hideously on the tree. She would rather kill +herself. + +But it needs a certain natural gift to become a loose woman or a +prostitute. If you haven't got the qualities which attract loose +men, what are you to do? Supposing it isn't in your nature to +attract loose and promiscuous men! Why, then you can't be a +prostitute, if you try your head off: nor even a loose woman. Since +_willing_ won't do it. It requires a second party to come to an +agreement. + +Therefore all Alvina's desperate and profligate schemes and ideas +fell to nought before the inexorable in her nature. And the +inexorable in her nature was highly exclusive and selective, an +inevitable negation of looseness or prostitution. Hence men were +afraid of her--of her power, once they had committed themselves. She +would involve and lead a man on, she would destroy him rather than +not get of him what she wanted. And what she wanted was something +serious and risky. Not mere marriage--oh dear no! But a profound and +dangerous inter-relationship. As well ask the paddlers in the small +surf of passion to plunge themselves into the heaving gulf of +mid-ocean. Bah, with their trousers turned up to their knees it was +enough for them to wet their toes in the dangerous sea. They were +having nothing to do with such desperate nereids as Alvina. + +She had cast her mind on Arthur. Truly ridiculous. But there was +something compact and energetic and wilful about him that she +magnified ten-fold and so obtained, imaginatively, an attractive +lover. She brooded her days shabbily away in Manchester House, busy +with housework drudgery. Since the collapse of Throttle-Ha'penny, +James Houghton had become so stingy that it was like an inflammation +in him. A silver sixpence had a pale and celestial radiance which he +could not forego, a nebulous whiteness which made him feel he had +heaven in his hold. How then could he let it go. Even a brown penny +seemed alive and pulsing with mysterious blood, potent, magical. He +loved the flock of his busy pennies, in the shop, as if they had +been divine bees bringing him sustenance from the infinite. But the +pennies he saw dribbling away in household expenses troubled him +acutely, as if they were live things leaving his fold. It was a +constant struggle to get from him enough money for necessities. + +And so the household diet became meagre in the extreme, the coal was +eked out inch by inch, and when Alvina must have her boots mended +she must draw on her own little stock of money. For James Houghton +had the impudence to make her an allowance of two shillings a week. +She was very angry. Yet her anger was of that dangerous, +half-ironical sort which wears away its subject and has no outward +effect. A feeling of half-bitter mockery kept her going. In the +ponderous, rather sordid nullity of Manchester House she became +shadowy and absorbed, absorbed in nothing in particular, yet +absorbed. She was always more or less busy: and certainly there was +always something to be done, whether she did it or not. + +The shop was opened once a week, on Friday evenings. James Houghton +prowled round the warehouses in Knarborough and picked up job lots +of stuff, with which he replenished his shabby window. But his heart +was not in the business. Mere tenacity made him hover on with it. + +In midsummer Albert Witham came to Woodhouse, and Alvina was invited +to tea. She was very much excited. All the time imagining Albert a +taller, finer Arthur, she had abstained from actually fixing her +mind upon this latter little man. Picture her disappointment when +she found Albert quite unattractive. He was tall and thin and +brittle, with a pale, rather dry, flattish face, and with curious +pale eyes. His impression was one of uncanny flatness, something +like a lemon sole. Curiously flat and fish-like he was, one might +have imagined his backbone to be spread like the backbone of a sole +or a plaice. His teeth were sound, but rather large and yellowish +and flat. A most curious person. + +He spoke in a slightly mouthing way, not well bred in spite of +Oxford. There was a distinct Woodhouse twang. He would never be a +gentleman if he lived for ever. Yet he was not ordinary. Really an +odd fish: quite interesting, if one could get over the feeling that +one was looking at him through the glass wall of an aquarium: that +most horrifying of all boundaries between two worlds. In an aquarium +fish seem to come smiling broadly to the doorway, and there to stand +talking to one, in a mouthing fashion, awful to behold. For one +hears no sound from all their mouthing and staring conversation. Now +although Albert Witham had a good strong voice, which rang like +water among rocks in her ear, still she seemed never to hear a word +he was saying. He smiled down at her and fixed her and swayed his +head, and said quite original things, really. For he was a genuine +odd fish. And yet she seemed to hear no sound, no word from him: +nothing came to her. Perhaps as a matter of fact fish do actually +pronounce streams of watery words, to which we, with our +aerial-resonant ears, are deaf for ever. + +The odd thing was that this odd fish seemed from the very first to +imagine she had accepted him as a follower. And he was quite +prepared to follow. Nay, from the very first moment he was smiling +on her with a sort of complacent delight--compassionate, one might +almost say--as if there was a full understanding between them. If +only she could have got into the right state of mind, she would +really rather have liked him. He smiled at her, and said really +interesting things between his big teeth. There was something rather +nice about him. But, we must repeat, it was as if the glass wall of +an aquarium divided them. + +Alvina looked at Arthur. Arthur was short and dark-haired and nicely +coloured. But, now his brother was there, he too seemed to have a +dumb, aqueous silence, fish-like and aloof, about him. He seemed to +swim like a fish in his own little element. Strange it all was, +like Alice in Wonderland. Alvina understood now Lottie's strained +sort of thinness, a haggard, sinewy, sea-weedy look. The poor thing +was all the time swimming for her life. + +For Alvina it was a most curious tea-party. She listened and smiled +and made vague answers to Albert, who leaned his broad, thin, +brittle shoulders towards her. Lottie seemed rather shadowily to +preside. But it was Arthur who came out into communication. And now, +uttering his rather broad-mouthed speeches, she seemed to hear in +him a quieter, subtler edition of his father. His father had been a +little, terrifically loud-voiced, hard-skinned man, amazingly +uneducated and amazingly bullying, who had tyrannized for many years +over the Sunday School children during morning service. He had been +an odd-looking creature with round grey whiskers: to Alvina, always +a creature, never a man: an atrocious leprechaun from under the +Chapel floor. And how he used to dig the children in the back with +his horrible iron thumb, if the poor things happened to whisper or +nod in chapel! + +These were his children--most curious chips of the old block. Who +ever would have believed she would have been taking tea with them. + +"Why don't you have a bicycle, and go out on it?" Arthur was saying. + +"But I can't ride," said Alvina. + +"You'd learn in a couple of lessons. There's nothing in riding a +bicycle." + +"I don't believe I ever should," laughed Alvina. + +"You don't mean to say you're nervous?" said Arthur rudely and +sneeringly. + +"I _am_," she persisted. + +"You needn't be nervous with me," smiled Albert broadly, with his +odd, genuine gallantry. "I'll hold you on." + +"But I haven't got a bicycle," said Alvina, feeling she was slowly +colouring to a deep, uneasy blush. + +"You can have mine to learn on," said Lottie. "Albert will look +after it." + +"There's your chance," said Arthur rudely. "Take it while you've got +it." + +Now Alvina did not want to learn to ride a bicycle. The two Miss +Carlins, two more old maids, had made themselves ridiculous for +ever by becoming twin cycle fiends. And the horrible energetic +strain of peddling a bicycle over miles and miles of high-way did +not attract Alvina at all. She was completely indifferent to +sight-seeing and scouring about. She liked taking a walk, in her +lingering indifferent fashion. But rushing about in any way was +hateful to her. And then, to be taught to ride a bicycle by Albert +Witham! Her very soul stood still. + +"Yes," said Albert, beaming down at her from his strange pale eyes. +"Come on. When will you have your first lesson?" + +"Oh," cried Alvina in confusion. "I can't promise. I haven't time, +really." + +"Time!" exclaimed Arthur rudely. "But what do you do wi' yourself +all day?" + +"I have to keep house," she said, looking at him archly. + +"House! You can put a chain round its neck, and tie it up," he +retorted. + +Albert laughed, showing all his teeth. + +"I'm sure you find plenty to do, with everything on your hands," +said Lottie to Alvina. + +"I do!" said Alvina. "By evening I'm quite tired--though you mayn't +believe it, since you say I do nothing," she added, laughing +confusedly to Arthur. + +But he, hard-headed little fortune-maker, replied: + +"You have a girl to help you, don't you!" + +Albert, however, was beaming at her sympathetically. + +"You have too much to do indoors," he said. "It would do you good to +get a bit of exercise out of doors. Come down to the Coach Road +tomorrow afternoon, and let me give you a lesson. Go on--" + +Now the coach-road was a level drive between beautiful park-like +grass-stretches, down in the valley. It was a delightful place for +learning to ride a bicycle, but open in full view of all the world. +Alvina would have died of shame. She began to laugh nervously and +hurriedly at the very thought. + +"No, I can't. I really can't. Thanks, awfully," she said. + +"Can't you really!" said Albert. "Oh well, we'll say another day, +shall we?" + +"When I feel I can," she said. + +"Yes, when you feel like it," replied Albert. + +"That's more it," said Arthur. "It's not the time. It's the +nervousness." Again Albert beamed at her sympathetically, and said: + +"Oh, I'll hold you. You needn't be afraid." + +"But I'm not afraid," she said. + +"You won't _say_ you are," interposed Arthur. "Women's faults +mustn't be owned up to." + +Alvina was beginning to feel quite dazed. Their mechanical, +overbearing way was something she was unaccustomed to. It was like +the jaws of a pair of insentient iron pincers. She rose, saying she +must go. + +Albert rose also, and reached for his straw hat, with its coloured +band. + +"I'll stroll up with you, if you don't mind," he said. And he took +his place at her side along the Knarborough Road, where everybody +turned to look. For, of course, he had a sort of fame in Woodhouse. +She went with him laughing and chatting. But she did not feel at all +comfortable. He seemed so pleased. Only he was not pleased with +_her_. He was pleased with himself on her account: inordinately +pleased with himself. In his world, as in a fish's, there was but +his own swimming self: and if he chanced to have something swimming +alongside and doing him credit, why, so much the more complacently +he smiled. + +He walked stiff and erect, with his head pressed rather back, so +that he always seemed to be advancing from the head and shoulders, +in a flat kind of advance, horizontal. He did not seem to be walking +with his whole body. His manner was oddly gallant, with a gallantry +that completely missed the individual in the woman, circled round +her and flew home gratified to his own hive. The way he raised his +hat, the way he inclined and smiled flatly, even rather excitedly, +as he talked, was all a little discomforting and comical. + +He left her at the shop door, saying: + +"I shall see you again, I hope." + +"Oh, yes," she replied, rattling the door anxiously, for it was +locked. She heard her father's step at last tripping down the shop. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Houghton," said Albert suavely and with a certain +confidence, as James peered out. + +"Oh, good-evening!" said James, letting Alvina pass, and shutting +the door in Albert's face. + +"Who was that?" he asked her sharply. + +"Albert Witham," she replied. + +"What has _he_ got to do with you?" said James shrewishly. + +"Nothing, I hope." + +She fled into the obscurity of Manchester House, out of the grey +summer evening. The Withams threw her off her pivot, and made her +feel she was not herself. She felt she didn't know, she couldn't +feel, she was just scattered and decentralized. And she was rather +afraid of the Witham brothers. She might be their victim. She +intended to avoid them. + +The following days she saw Albert, in his Norfolk jacket and flannel +trousers and his straw hat, strolling past several times and looking +in through the shop door and up at the upper windows. But she hid +herself thoroughly. When she went out, it was by the back way. So +she avoided him. + +But on Sunday evening, there he sat, rather stiff and brittle in the +old Withams' pew, his head pressed a little back, so that his face +and neck seemed slightly flattened. He wore very low, turn-down +starched collars that showed all his neck. And he kept looking up at +her during the service--she sat in the choir-loft--gazing up at her +with apparently love-lorn eyes and a faint, intimate smile--the sort +of _je-sais-tout_ look of a private swain. Arthur also occasionally +cast a judicious eye on her, as if she were a chimney that needed +repairing, and he must estimate the cost, and whether it was worth +it. + +Sure enough, as she came out through the narrow choir gate into +Knarborough Road, there was Albert stepping forward like a +policeman, and saluting her and smiling down on her. + +"I don't know if I'm presuming--" he said, in a mock deferential +way that showed he didn't imagine he _could_ presume. + +"Oh, not at all," said Alvina airily. He smiled with assurance. + +"You haven't got any engagement, then, for this evening?" he said. + +"No," she replied simply. + +"We might take a walk. What do you think?" he said, glancing down +the road in either direction. + +What, after all, was she to think? All the girls were pairing off +with the boys for the after-chapel stroll and spoon. + +"I don't mind," she said. "But I can't go far. I've got to be in at +nine." + +"Which way shall we go?" he said. + +He steered off, turned downhill through the common gardens, and +proposed to take her the not-very-original walk up Flint's Lane, and +along the railway line--the colliery railway, that is--then back up +the Marlpool Road: a sort of circle. She agreed. + +They did not find a great deal to talk about. She questioned him +about his plans, and about the Cape. But save for bare outlines, +which he gave readily enough, he was rather close. + +"What do you do on Sunday nights as a rule?" he asked her. + +"Oh, I have a walk with Lucy Grainger--or I go down to Hallam's--or +go home," she answered. + +"You don't go walks with the fellows, then?" + +"Father would never have it," she replied. + +"What will he say now?" he asked, with self-satisfaction. + +"Goodness knows!" she laughed. + +"Goodness usually does," he answered archly. + +When they came to the rather stumbly railway, he said: + +"Won't you take my arm?"--offering her the said member. + +"Oh, I'm all right," she said. "Thanks." + +"Go on," he said, pressing a little nearer to her, and offering his +arm. "There's nothing against it, is there?" + +"Oh, it's not that," she said. + +And feeling in a false position, she took his arm, rather +unwillingly. He drew a little nearer to her, and walked with a +slight prance. + +"We get on better, don't we?" he said, giving her hand the tiniest +squeeze with his arm against his side. + +"Much!" she replied, with a laugh. + +Then he lowered his voice oddly. + +"It's many a day since I was on this railroad," he said. + +"Is this one of your old walks?" she asked, malicious. + +"Yes, I've been it once or twice--with girls that are all married +now." + +"Didn't you want to marry?" she asked. + +"Oh, I don't know. I may have done. But it never came off, somehow. +I've sometimes thought it never would come off." + +"Why?" + +"I don't know, exactly. It didn't seem to, you know. Perhaps neither +of us was properly inclined." + +"I should think so," she said. + +"And yet," he admitted slyly, "I should _like_ to marry--" To this +she did not answer. + +"Shouldn't you?" he continued. + +"When I meet the right man," she laughed. + +"That's it," he said. "There, that's just it! And you _haven't_ met +him?" His voice seemed smiling with a sort of triumph, as if he had +caught her out. + +"Well--once I thought I had--when I was engaged to Alexander." + +"But you found you were mistaken?" he insisted. + +"No. Mother was so ill at the time--" + +"There's always something to consider," he said. + +She kept on wondering what she should do if he wanted to kiss her. +The mere incongruity of such a desire on his part formed a problem. +Luckily, for this evening he formulated no desire, but left her in +the shop-door soon after nine, with the request: + +"I shall see you in the week, shan't I?" + +"I'm not sure. I can't promise now," she said hurriedly. +"Good-night." + +What she felt chiefly about him was a decentralized perplexity, very +much akin to no feeling at all. + +"Who do you think took me for a walk, Miss Pinnegar?" she said, +laughing, to her confidante. + +"I can't imagine," replied Miss Pinnegar, eyeing her. + +"You never would imagine," said Alvina. "Albert Witham." + +"Albert Witham!" exclaimed Miss Pinnegar, standing quite motionless. + +"It may well take your breath away," said Alvina. + +"No, it's not that!" hurriedly expostulated Miss Pinnegar. "Well--! +Well, I declare!--" and then, on a new note: "Well, he's very +eligible, I think." + +"Most eligible!" replied Alvina. + +"Yes, he is," insisted Miss Pinnegar. "I think it's very good." + +"What's very good?" asked Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar hesitated. She looked at Alvina. She reconsidered. + +"Of course he's not the man I should have imagined for you, but--" + +"You think he'll do?" said Alvina. + +"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Why shouldn't he do--if you like +him." + +"Ah--!" cried Alvina, sinking on the sofa with a laugh. "That's it." + +"Of course you couldn't have anything to do with him if you don't +care for him," pronounced Miss Pinnegar. + +Albert continued to hang around. He did not make any direct attack +for a few days. Suddenly one evening he appeared at the back door +with a bunch of white stocks in his hand. His face lit up with a +sudden, odd smile when she opened the door--a broad, pale-gleaming, +remarkable smile. + +"Lottie wanted to know if you'd come to tea tomorrow," he said +straight out, looking at her with the pale light in his eyes, that +smiled palely right into her eyes, but did not see her at all. He +was waiting on the doorstep to come in. + +"Will you come in?" said Alvina. "Father is in." + +"Yes, I don't mind," he said, pleased. He mounted the steps, still +holding his bunch of white stocks. + +James Houghton screwed round in his chair and peered over his +spectacles to see who was coming. + +"Father," said Alvina, "you know Mr. Witham, don't you?" + +James Houghton half rose. He still peered over his glasses at the +intruder. + +"Well--I do by sight. How do you do?" + +He held out his frail hand. + +Albert held back, with the flowers in his own hand, and giving his +broad, pleased, pale-gleaming smile from father to daughter, he +said: + +"What am I to do with these? Will you accept them, Miss Houghton?" +He stared at her with shining, pallid smiling eyes. + +"Are they for me?" she said, with false brightness. "Thank you." + +James Houghton looked over the top of his spectacles, searchingly, +at the flowers, as if they had been a bunch of white and +sharp-toothed ferrets. Then he looked as suspiciously at the hand +which Albert at last extended to him. He shook it slightly, and +said: + +"Take a seat." + +"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you in your reading," said Albert, still +having the drawn, excited smile on his face. + +"Well--" said James Houghton. "The light is fading." + +Alvina came in with the flowers in a jar. She set them on the table. + +"Haven't they a lovely scent?" she said. + +"Do you think so?" he replied, again with the excited smile. There +was a pause. Albert, rather embarrassed, reached forward, saying: + +"May I see what you're reading!" And he turned over the book. +"'Tommy and Grizel!' Oh yes! What do you think of it?" + +"Well," said James, "I am only in the beginning." + +"I think it's interesting, myself," said Albert, "as a study of a +man who can't get away from himself. You meet a lot of people like +that. What I wonder is why they find it such a drawback." + +"Find what a drawback?" asked James. + +"Not being able to get away from themselves. That +self-consciousness. It hampers them, and interferes with their power +of action. Now I wonder why self-consciousness should hinder a man +in his action? Why does it cause misgiving? I think I'm +self-conscious, but I don't think I have so many misgivings. I don't +see that they're necessary." + +"Certainly I think Tommy is a weak character. I believe he's a +despicable character," said James. + +"No, I don't know so much about that," said Albert. "I shouldn't say +weak, exactly. He's only weak in one direction. No, what I wonder is +why he feels guilty. If you feel self-conscious, there's no need to +feel guilty about it, is there?" + +He stared with his strange, smiling stare at James. + +"I shouldn't say so," replied James. "But if a man never knows his +own mind, he certainly can't be much of a man." + +"I don't see it," replied Albert. "What's the matter is that he +feels guilty for not knowing his own mind. That's the unnecessary +part. The guilty feeling--" + +Albert seemed insistent on this point, which had no particular +interest for James. + +"Where we've got to make a change," said Albert, "is in the feeling +that other people have a right to tell us what we ought to feel and +do. Nobody knows what another man ought to feel. Every man has his +own special feelings, and his own right to them. That's where it is +with education. You ought not to want all your children to feel +alike. Their natures are all different, and so they should all feel +different, about practically everything." + +"There would be no end to the confusion," said James. + +"There needn't be any confusion to speak of. You agree to a number +of rules and conventions and laws, for social purposes. But in +private you feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to +feel something else." + +"I don't know," said James. "There are certain feelings common to +humanity, such as love, and honour, and truth." + +"Would you call them feelings?" said Albert. "I should say what is +common is the idea. The idea is common to humanity, once you've put +it into words. But the feeling varies with every man. The same idea +represents a different kind of feeling in every different +individual. It seems to me that's what we've got to recognize if +we're going to do anything with education. We don't want to produce +mass feelings. Don't you agree?" + +Poor James was too bewildered to know whether to agree or not to +agree. + +"Shall we have a light, Alvina?" he said to his daughter. + +Alvina lit the incandescent gas-jet that hung in the middle of the +room. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard-looking as +she reached up to it. But Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly. +It seemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all. +He did not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what +he was thinking about. And therefore she hardly heard what he said. +Yet she believed he was clever. + +It was evident Albert was quite blissfully happy, in his own way, +sitting there at the end of the sofa not far from the fire, and +talking animatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he +talked in the direction of his interlocutor, he did not speak _to_ +him: merely said his words towards him. James, however, was such an +airy feather himself he did not remark this, but only felt a little +self-important at sustaining such a subtle conversation with a man +from Oxford. Alvina, who never expected to be interested in clever +conversations, after a long experience of her father, found her +expectation justified again. She was not interested. + +The man was quite nicely dressed, in the regulation tweed jacket and +flannel trousers and brown shoes. He was even rather smart, judging +from his yellow socks and yellow-and-brown tie. Miss Pinnegar eyed +him with approval when she came in. + +"Good-evening!" she said, just a trifle condescendingly, as she +shook hands. "How do you find Woodhouse, after being away so long?" +Her way of speaking was so quiet, as if she hardly spoke aloud. + +"Well," he answered. "I find it the same in many ways." + +"You wouldn't like to settle here again?" + +"I don't think I should. It feels a little cramped, you know, after +a new country. But it has its attractions." Here he smiled +meaningful. + +"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar. "I suppose the old connections count for +something." + +"They do. Oh decidedly they do. There's no associations like the old +ones." He smiled flatly as he looked towards Alvina. + +"You find it so, do you!" returned Miss Pinnegar. "You don't find +that the new connections make up for the old?" + +"Not altogether, they don't. There's something missing--" Again he +looked towards Alvina. But she did not answer his look. + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar. "I'm glad we still count for something, +in spite of the greater attractions. How long have you in England?" + +"Another year. Just a year. This time next year I expect I shall be +sailing back to the Cape." He smiled as if in anticipation. Yet it +was hard to believe that it mattered to him--or that anything +mattered. + +"And is Oxford agreeable to you?" she asked. + +"Oh, yes. I keep myself busy." + +"What are your subjects?" asked James. + +"English and History. But I do mental science for my own interest." + +Alvina had taken up a piece of sewing. She sat under the light, +brooding a little. What _had_ all this to do with her. The man +talked on, and beamed in her direction. And she felt a little +important. But moved or touched?--not the least in the world. + +She wondered if any one would ask him to supper--bread and cheese +and currant-loaf, and water, was all that offered. No one asked him, +and at last he rose. + +"Show Mr. Witham out through the shop, Alvina," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Alvina piloted the man through the long, dark, encumbered way of the +shop. At the door he said: + +"You've never said whether you're coming to tea on Thursday." + +"I don't think I can," said Alvina. + +He seemed rather taken aback. + +"Why?" he said. "What stops you?" + +"I've so much to do." + +He smiled slowly and satirically. + +"Won't it keep?" he said. + +"No, really. I can't come on Thursday--thank you so much. +Good-night!" She gave him her hand and turned quickly into the shop, +closing the door. He remained standing in the porch, staring at the +closed door. Then, lifting his lip, he turned away. + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar decidedly, as Alvina re-entered. "You can +say what you like--but I think he's _very pleasant_, _very_ +pleasant." + +"Extremely intelligent," said James Houghton, shifting in his chair. + +"I was awfully bored," said Alvina. + +They both looked at her, irritated. + +After this she really did what she could to avoid him. When she saw +him sauntering down the street in all his leisure, a sort of anger +possessed her. On Sunday, she slipped down from the choir into the +Chapel, and out through the main entrance, whilst he awaited her at +the small exit. And by good luck, when he called one evening in the +week, she was out. She returned down the yard. And there, through +the uncurtained window, she saw him sitting awaiting her. Without a +thought, she turned on her heel and fled away. She did not come in +till he had gone. + +"How late you are!" said Miss Pinnegar. "Mr. Witham was here till +ten minutes ago." + +"Yes," laughed Alvina. "I came down the yard and saw him. So I went +back till he'd gone." + +Miss Pinnegar looked at her in displeasure: + +"I suppose you know your own mind," she said. + +"How do you explain such behaviour?" said her father pettishly. + +"I didn't want to meet him," she said. + +The next evening was Saturday. Alvina had inherited Miss Frost's +task of attending to the Chapel flowers once a quarter. She had been +round the gardens of her friends, and gathered the scarlet and hot +yellow and purple flowers of August, asters, red stocks, tall +Japanese sunflowers, coreopsis, geraniums. With these in her basket +she slipped out towards evening, to the Chapel. She knew Mr. +Calladine, the caretaker would not lock up till she had been. + +The moment she got inside the Chapel--it was a big, airy, pleasant +building--she heard hammering from the organ-loft, and saw the +flicker of a candle. Some workman busy before Sunday. She shut the +baize door behind her, and hurried across to the vestry, for vases, +then out to the tap, for water. All was warm and still. + +It was full early evening. The yellow light streamed through the +side windows, the big stained-glass window at the end was deep and +full of glowing colour, in which the yellows and reds were richest. +Above in the organ-loft the hammering continued. She arranged her +flowers in many vases, till the communion table was like the window, +a tangle of strong yellow, and crimson, and purple, and +bronze-green. She tried to keep the effect light and kaleidoscopic, +an interplay of tossed pieces of strong, hot colour, vibrating and +lightly intermingled. It was very gorgeous, for a communion table. +But the day of white lilies was over. + +Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble, up in the +organ-loft, followed by a cursing. + +"Are you hurt?" called Alvina, looking up into space. The candle had +disappeared. + +But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the Chapel +to the stairs in the side porch, and ran up to the organ. She went +round the side--and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves sitting +crouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the +wall of the back, while a collapsed pair of steps lay between her +and him. It was too dark to see who it was. + +"That rotten pair of steps came down with me," said the infuriated +voice of Arthur Witham, "and about broke my leg." + +Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was +sitting nursing his leg. + +"Is it bad?" she asked, stooping towards him. + +In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes were +savage with anger. Her face was near his. + +"It is bad," he said furious because of the shock. The shock had +thrown him off his balance. + +"Let me see," she said. + +He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the +ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel +if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with +blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed +her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, +as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her +hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are +when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of +consciousness only, and for the rest unconscious. + +Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could +not bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his +sensitive, unbearable parts. + +"The bone isn't broken," she said professionally. "But you'd better +get the stocking out of it." + +Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled down +his stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain. + +"Can you show a light?" he said. + +She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on a +little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst he +examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It +was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He sat +looking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the candle-light. + +"It's not so very bad, when the pain goes off," she said, noticing +the black hairs of his shin. "We'd better tie it up. Have you got a +handkerchief?" + +"It's in my jacket," he said. + +She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little, by being +completely oblivious of her. She got his handkerchief and wiped her +fingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for the +wound. + +"Shall I tie it up, then?" she said. + +But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his leg, looking at his +hurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards his +ankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him. + +"Shall I tie it up, then?" she repeated at length, a little +impatient. So he put his leg a little forward. + +She looked at the wound, and wiped it a little. Then she folded the +pad of her own handkerchief, and laid it over the hurt. And again he +did the same thing, he took her hand as if it were a plaster, and +applied it to his wound, pressing it cautiously but firmly down. She +was rather angry. He took no notice of her at all. And she, waiting, +seemed to go into a dream, a sleep, her arm trembled a little, +stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lose count, under the firm +compression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her hand +pressed her into oblivion. + +"Tie it up," he said briskly. + +And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage with numb fingers. He +seemed to have taken the use out of her. + +When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organ +which he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pair of steps. + +"A rotten pair of things to have, to put a man's life in danger," he +said, towards the steps. Then stubbornly, he rigged them up again, +and stared again at his interrupted job. + +"You won't go on, will you?" she asked. + +"It's got to be done, Sunday tomorrow," he said. "If you'd hold them +steps a minute! There isn't more than a minute's fixing to do. It's +all done, but fixing." + +"Hadn't you better leave it," she said. + +"Would you mind holding the steps, so that they don't let me down +again," he said. Then he took the candle, and hobbled stubbornly and +angrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he +worked, tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the ricketty steps +and stared at him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers. +Strange the difference--she could not help thinking it--between the +vulnerable hairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the +shapeless form of these workmen's trousers. The kernel, the man +himself--seemed so tender--the covering so stiff and insentient. + +And was he not going to speak to her--not one human word of +recognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After +all he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently +but firmly down, down over his bruise, how he had taken the virtue +out of her, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he +going to relapse into his tough and ugly workman's hide, and treat +her as if _she_ were a pair of steps, which might let him down or +hold him up, as might be. + +As she stood clinging to the steps she felt weak and a little +hysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own back +from him. After all he had taken the virtue from her, he might have +the grace to say thank you, and treat her as if she were a human +being. + +At last he left off tinkering, and looked round. + +"Have you finished?" she said. + +"Yes," he answered crossly. + +And taking the candle he began to clamber down. When he got to the +bottom he crouched over his leg and felt the bandage. + +"That gives you what for," he said, as if it were her fault. + +"Is the bandage holding?" she said. + +"I think so," he answered churlishly. + +"Aren't you going to make sure?" she said. + +"Oh, it's all right," he said, turning aside and taking up his +tools. "I'll make my way home." + +"So will I," she answered. + +She took the candle and went a little in front. He hurried into his +coat and gathered his tools, anxious to get away. She faced him, +holding the candle. + +"Look at my hand," she said, holding it out. It was smeared with +blood, as was the cuff of her dress--a black-and-white striped +cotton dress. + +"Is it hurt?" he said. + +"No, but look at it. Look here!" She showed the bloodstains on her +dress. + +"It'll wash out," he said, frightened of her. + +"Yes, so it will. But for the present it's there. Don't you think +you ought to thank me?" + +He recoiled a little. + +"Yes," he said. "I'm very much obliged." + +"You ought to be more than that," she said. + +He did not answer, but looked her up and down. + +"We'll be going down," he said. "We s'll have folks talking." + +Suddenly she began to laugh. It seemed so comical. What a position! +The candle shook as she laughed. What a man, answering her like a +little automaton! Seriously, quite seriously he said it to her--"We +s'll have folks talking!" She laughed in a breathless, hurried way, +as they tramped downstairs. + +At the bottom of the stairs Calladine, the caretaker, met them. He +was a tall thin man with a black moustache--about fifty years old. + +"Have you done for tonight, all of you?" he said, grinning in echo +to Alvina's still fluttering laughter. + +"That's a nice rotten pair of steps you've got up there for a +death-trap," said Arthur angrily. "Come down on top of me, and I'm +lucky I haven't got my leg broken. It _is_ near enough." + +"Come down with you, did they?" said Calladine good-humouredly. "I +never knowed 'em come down wi' me." + +"You ought to, then. My leg's as near broke as it can be." + +"What, have you hurt yourself?" + +"I should think I have. Look here--" And he began to pull up his +trouser leg. But Alvina had given the candle to Calladine, and fled. +She had a last view of Arthur stooping over his precious leg, while +Calladine stooped his length and held down the candle. + +When she got home she took off her dress and washed herself hard and +washed the stained sleeve, thoroughly, thoroughly, and threw away +the wash water and rinsed the wash-bowls with fresh water, +scrupulously. Then she dressed herself in her black dress once +more, did her hair, and went downstairs. + +But she could not sew--and she could not settle down. It was +Saturday evening, and her father had opened the shop, Miss Pinnegar +had gone to Knarborough. She would be back at nine o'clock. Alvina +set about to make a mock woodcock, or a mock something or other, +with cheese and an egg and bits of toast. Her eyes were dilated and +as if amused, mocking, her face quivered a little with irony that +was not all enjoyable. + +"I'm glad you've come," said Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar entered. "The +supper's just done. I'll ask father if he'll close the shop." + +Of course James would not close the shop, though he was merely +wasting light. He nipped in to eat his supper, and started out again +with a mouthful the moment he heard the ping of the bell. He kept +his customers chatting as long as he could. His love for +conversation had degenerated into a spasmodic passion for chatter. + +Alvina looked across at Miss Pinnegar, as the two sat at the meagre +supper-table. Her eyes were dilated and arched with a mocking, +almost satanic look. + +"I've made up my mind about Albert Witham," said Alvina. Miss +Pinnegar looked at her. + +"Which way?" she asked, demurely, but a little sharp. + +"It's all off," said Alvina, breaking into a nervous laugh. + +"Why? What has happened?" + +"Nothing has happened. I can't stand him." + +"Why?--suddenly--" said Miss Pinnegar. + +"It's not sudden," laughed Alvina. "Not at all. I can't stand him. I +never could. And I won't try. There! Isn't that plain?" And she went +off into her hurried laugh, partly at herself, partly at Arthur, +partly at Albert, partly at Miss Pinnegar. + +"Oh, well, if you're so sure--" said Miss Pinnegar rather bitingly. + +"I _am_ quite sure--" said Alvina. "I'm quite certain." + +"Cock-sure people are often most mistaken," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I'd rather have my own mistakes than somebody else's rights," said +Alvina. + +"Then don't expect anybody to pay for your mistakes," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"It would be all the same if I did," said Alvina. + +When she lay in bed, she stared at the light of the street-lamp on +the wall. She was thinking busily: but heaven knows what she was +thinking. She had sharpened the edge of her temper. She was waiting +till tomorrow. She was waiting till she saw Albert Witham. She +wanted to finish off with him. She was keen to cut clean through any +correspondence with him. She stared for many hours at the light of +the street-lamp, and there was a narrowed look in her eyes. + +The next day she did not go to Morning Service, but stayed at home +to cook the dinner. In the evening she sat in her place in the +choir. In the Withams' pew sat Lottie and Albert--no Arthur. Albert +kept glancing up. Alvina could not bear the sight of him--she simply +could not bear the sight of him. Yet in her low, sweet voice she +sang the alto to the hymns, right to the vesper: + + "Lord keep us safe this night + Secure from all our fears, + May angels guard us while we sleep + Till morning light appears--" + +As she sang her alto, and as the soft and emotional harmony of the +vesper swelled luxuriously through the chapel, she was peeping over +her folded hands at Lottie's hat. She could not bear Lottie's hats. +There was something aggressive and vulgar about them. And she simply +detested the look of the back of Albert's head, as he too stooped to +the vesper prayer. It looked mean and rather common. She remembered +Arthur had the same look, bending to prayer. There!--why had she not +seen it before! That petty, vulgar little look! How could she have +thought twice of Arthur. She had made a fool of herself, as usual. +Him and his little leg. She grimaced round the chapel, waiting for +people to bob up their heads and take their departure. + +At the gate Albert was waiting for her. He came forward lifting his +hat with a smiling and familiar "Good evening!" + +"Good evening," she murmured. + +"It's ages since I've seen you," he said. "And I've looked out for +you everywhere." + +It was raining a little. She put up her umbrella. + +"You'll take a little stroll. The rain isn't much," he said. + +"No, thank you," she said. "I must go home." + +"Why, what's your hurry! Walk as far as Beeby Bridge. Go on." + +"No, thank you." + +"How's that? What makes you refuse?" + +"I don't want to." + +He paused and looked down at her. The cold and supercilious look of +anger, a little spiteful, came into his face. + +"Do you mean because of the rain?" he said. + +"No. I hope you don't mind. But I don't want to take any more walks. +I don't mean anything by them." + +"Oh, as for that," he said, taking the words out of her mouth. "Why +should you mean anything by them!" He smiled down on her. + +She looked him straight in the face. + +"But I'd rather not take any more walks, thank you--none at all," +she said, looking him full in the eyes. + +"You wouldn't!" he replied, stiffening. + +"Yes. I'm quite sure," she said. + +"As sure as all that, are you!" he said, with a sneering grimace. He +stood eyeing her insolently up and down. + +"Good-night," she said. His sneering made her furious. Putting her +umbrella between him and her, she walked off. + +"Good-night then," he replied, unseen by her. But his voice was +sneering and impotent. + +She went home quivering. But her soul was burning with satisfaction. +She had shaken them off. + +Later she wondered if she had been unkind to him. But it was +done--and done for ever. _Vogue la galère._ + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR + + +The trouble with her ship was that it would _not_ sail. It rode +water-logged in the rotting port of home. All very well to have +wild, reckless moods of irony and independence, if you have to pay +for them by withering dustily on the shelf. + +Alvina fell again into humility and fear: she began to show symptoms +of her mother's heart trouble. For day followed day, month followed +month, season after season went by, and she grubbed away like a +housemaid in Manchester House, she hurried round doing the shopping, +she sang in the choir on Sundays, she attended the various chapel +events, she went out to visit friends, and laughed and talked and +played games. But all the time, what was there actually in her life? +Not much. She was withering towards old-maiddom. Already in her +twenty-eighth year, she spent her days grubbing in the house, whilst +her father became an elderly, frail man still too lively in mind and +spirit. Miss Pinnegar began to grow grey and elderly too, money +became scarcer and scarcer, there was a black day ahead when her +father would die and the home be broken up, and she would have to +tackle life as a worker. + +There lay the only alternative: in work. She might slave her days +away teaching the piano, as Miss Frost had done: she might find a +subordinate post as nurse: she might sit in the cash-desk of some +shop. Some work of some sort would be found for her. And she would +sink into the routine of her job, as did so many women, and grow old +and die, chattering and fluttering. She would have what is called +her independence. But, seriously faced with that treasure, and +without the option of refusing it, strange how hideous she found it. + +Work!--a job! More even than she rebelled against the Withams did +she rebel against a job. Albert Witham was distasteful to her--or +rather, he was not exactly distasteful, he was chiefly incongruous. +She could never get over the feeling that he was mouthing and +smiling at her through the glass wall of an aquarium, he being on +the watery side. Whether she would ever be able to take to his +strange and dishuman element, who knows? Anyway it would be some +sort of an adventure: better than a job. She rebelled with all her +backbone against the word _job_. Even the substitutes, _employment_ +or _work_, were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not +want to work for a wage. It was too humiliating. Could anything be +more _infra dig_ than the performing of a set of special actions day +in day out, for a life-time, in order to receive some shillings +every seventh day. Shameful! A condition of shame. The most vulgar, +sordid and humiliating of all forms of slavery: so mechanical. Far +better be a slave outright, in contact with all the whims and +impulses of a human being, than serve some mechanical routine of +modern work. + +She trembled with anger, impotence, and fear. For months, the +thought of Albert was a torment to her. She might have married him. +He would have been strange, a strange fish. But were it not better +to take the strange leap, over into his element, than to condemn +oneself to the routine of a job? He would have been curious and +dishuman. But after all, it would have been an experience. In a way, +she liked him. There was something odd and integral about him, which +she liked. He was not a liar. In his own line, he was honest and +direct. Then he would take her to South Africa: a whole new +_milieu_. And perhaps she would have children. She shivered a +little. No, not his children! He seemed so curiously cold-blooded. +And yet, why not? Why not his curious, pale, half cold-blooded +children, like little fishes of her own? Why not? Everything was +possible: and even desirable, once one could see the strangeness of +it. Once she could plunge through the wall of the aquarium! Once she +could kiss him! + +Therefore Miss Pinnegar's quiet harping on the string was +unbearable. + +"I can't understand that you disliked Mr. Witham so much?" said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"We never can understand those things," said Alvina. "I can't +understand why I dislike tapioca and arrowroot--but I do." + +"That's different," said Miss Pinnegar shortly. + +"It's no more easy to understand," said Alvina. + +"Because there's no need to understand it," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"And is there need to understand the other?" + +"Certainly. I can see nothing wrong with him," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Alvina went away in silence. This was in the first months after she +had given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again--would not +return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the Woodhouse +Withams there was a decided coldness. They never looked at her +now--nor she at them. + +None the less, as Christmas drew near Alvina worked up her feelings. +Perhaps she would be reconciled to him. She would slip across and +smile to him. She would take the plunge, once and for all--and kiss +him and marry him and bear the little half-fishes, his children. She +worked herself into quite a fever of anticipation. + +But when she saw him, the first evening, sitting stiff and staring +flatly in front of him in Chapel, staring away from everything in +the world, at heaven knows what--just as fishes stare--then his +dishumanness came over her again like an arrest, and arrested all +her flights of fancy. He stared flatly in front of him, and flatly +set a wall of oblivion between him and her. She trembled and let be. + +After Christmas, however, she had nothing at all to think forward +to. And it was then she seemed to shrink: she seemed positively to +shrink. + +"You never spoke to Mr. Witham?" Miss Pinnegar asked. + +"He never spoke to me," replied Alvina. + +"He raised his hat to me." + +"_You_ ought to have married him, Miss Pinnegar," said Alvina. "He +would have been right for you." And she laughed rather mockingly. + +"There is no need to make provision for me," said Miss Pinnegar. + +And after this, she was a long time before she forgave Alvina, and +was really friendly again. Perhaps she would never have forgiven her +if she had not found her weeping rather bitterly in her mother's +abandoned sitting-room. + +Now so far, the story of Alvina is commonplace enough. It is more or +less the story of thousands of girls. They all find work. It is the +ordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with an +ordinary girl we should have to carry on mildly and dully down the +long years of employment; or, at the best, marriage with some dull +school-teacher or office-clerk. + +But we protest that Alvina is not ordinary. Ordinary people, +ordinary fates. But extraordinary people, extraordinary fates. Or +else no fate at all. The all-to-one-pattern modern system is too +much for most extraordinary individuals. It just kills them off or +throws them disused aside. + +There have been enough stories about ordinary people. I should think +the Duke of Clarence must even have found malmsey nauseating, when +he choked and went purple and was really asphyxiated in a butt of +it. And ordinary people are no malmsey. Just ordinary tap-water. And +we have been drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual +floods of ordinariness, that tap-water tends to become a really +hateful fluid to us. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. We +detest ordinary people. We are in peril of our lives from them: and +in peril of our souls too, for they would damn us one and all to the +ordinary. Every individual should, by nature, have his extraordinary +points. But nowadays you may look for them with a microscope, they +are so worn-down by the regular machine-friction of our average and +mechanical days. + +There was no hope for Alvina in the ordinary. If help came, it would +have to come from the extraordinary. Hence the extreme peril of her +case. Hence the bitter fear and humiliation she felt as she drudged +shabbily on in Manchester House, hiding herself as much as possible +from public view. Men can suck the heady juice of exalted +self-importance from the bitter weed of failure--failures are +usually the most conceited of men: even as was James Houghton. But +to a woman, failure is another matter. For her it means failure to +live, failure to establish her own life on the face of the earth. +And this is humiliating, the ultimate humiliation. + +And so the slow years crept round, and the completed coil of each +one was a further heavy, strangling noose. Alvina had passed her +twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and even her +twenty-ninth year. She was in her thirtieth. It ought to be a +laughing matter. But it isn't. + + Ach, schon zwanzig + Ach, schon zwanzig + Immer noch durch's Leben tanz' ich + + Jeder, Jeder will mich küssen + Mir das Leben zu versüssen. + + Ach, schon dreissig + Ach, schon dreissig + Immer Mädchen, Mädchen heiss' ich. + In dem Zopf schon graue Härchen + Ach, wie schnell vergehn die Jährchen. + + Ach, schon vierzig + Ach, schon vierzig + Und noch immer Keiner find 'sich. + Im gesicht schon graue Flecken + Ach, das muss im Spiegel stecken. + + Ach, schon fünfzig + Ach, schon fünfzig + Und noch immer Keiner will 'mich; + Soll ich mich mit Bänden zieren + Soll ich einen Schleier führen? + Dann heisst's, die Alte putzt sich, + Sie ist fu'fzig, sie ist fu'fzig. + +True enough, in Alvina's pig-tail of soft brown the grey hairs were +already showing. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of +as a girl. And the slow-footed years, so heavy in passing, were so +imperceptibly numerous in their accumulation. + +But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and dreary +conclusion. Presumably, the _ordinary_ old-maid heroine nowadays is +destined to die in her fifties, she is not allowed to be the +long-liver of the by-gone novels. Let the song suffice her. + +James Houghton had still another kick in him. He had one last scheme +up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular +novelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink, +like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he +pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he had +escaped, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like +a frail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs, +and making little splashes in warehouse-oddments. Miss Pinnegar +thought he had really gone quiet. + +But alas, at that degenerated and shabby, down-at-heel club he met +another tempter: a plump man who had been in the music-hall line as +a sort of agent. This man had catered for the little shows of +little towns. He had been in America, out West, doing shows there. +He had trailed his way back to England, where he had left his wife +and daughter. But he did not resume his family life. Wherever he +was, his wife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or +less stranded in Woodhouse. He had _nearly_ fixed himself up with a +music-hall in the Potteries--as manager: he had all-but got such +another place at Ickley, in Derbyshire: he had forced his way +through the industrial and mining townlets, prospecting for any sort +of music-hall or show from which he could get a picking. And now, in +very low water, he found himself at Woodhouse. + +Woodhouse had a cinema already: a famous Empire run-up by Jordan, +the sly builder and decorator who had got on so surprisingly. In +James's younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody. +And now he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with +sardonic contempt, from under his heavy, heavy-lidded dark eyes. He +was rather stout, frail in health, but silent and insuperable, was +A. W. Jordan. + +"I missed a chance there," said James, fluttering. "I missed a rare +chance there. I ought to have been first with a cinema." + +He admitted as much to Mr. May, the stranger who was looking for +some sort of "managing" job. Mr. May, who also was plump and who +could hold his tongue, but whose pink, fat face and light-blue eyes +had a loud look, for all that, put the speech in his pipe and smoked +it. Not that he smoked a pipe: always cigarettes. But he seized on +James's admission, as something to be made the most of. + +Now Mr. May's mind, though quick, was pedestrian, not winged. He had +come to Woodhouse not to look at Jordan's "Empire," but at the +temporary wooden structure that stood in the old Cattle +Market--"Wright's Cinematograph and Variety Theatre." Wright's was +not a superior show, like the Woodhouse Empire. Yet it was always +packed with colliers and work-lasses. But unfortunately there was no +chance of Mr. May's getting a finger in the Cattle Market pie. +Wright's was a family affair. Mr. and Mrs. Wright and a son and two +daughters with their husbands: a tight old lock-up family concern. +Yet it was the kind of show that appealed to Mr. May: pictures +between the turns. The cinematograph was but an item in the program, +amidst the more thrilling incidents--to Mr. May--of conjurors, +popular songs, five-minute farces, performing birds, and comics. Mr. +May was too human to believe that a show should consist entirely of +the dithering eye-ache of a film. + +He was becoming really depressed by his failure to find any opening. +He had his family to keep--and though his honesty was of the variety +sort, he had a heavy conscience in the direction of his wife and +daughter. Having been so long in America, he had acquired American +qualities, one of which was this heavy sort of private innocence, +coupled with complacent and natural unscrupulousness in "matters of +business." A man of some odd sensitiveness in material things, he +liked to have his clothes neat and spick, his linen immaculate, his +face clean-shaved like a cherub. But alas, his clothes were now +old-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartness was +detrimental to his chances, in spite of their scrupulous look of +having come almost new out of the bandbox that morning. His rather +small felt hats still curved jauntily over his full pink face. But +his eyes looked lugubrious, as if he felt he had not deserved so +much bad luck, and there were bilious lines beneath them. + +So Mr. May, in his room in the Moon and Stars, which was the best inn +in Woodhouse--he must have a good hötel--lugubriously considered his +position. Woodhouse offered little or nothing. He must go to Alfreton. +And would he find anything there? Ah, where, where in this hateful +world was there refuge for a man saddled with responsibilities, who +wanted to do his best and was given no opportunity? Mr. May had +travelled in his Pullman car and gone straight to the best hotel in the +town, like any other American with money--in America. He had done it +smart, too. And now, in this grubby penny-picking England, he saw his +boots being worn-down at the heel, and was afraid of being stranded +without cash even for a railway ticket. If he had to clear out without +paying his hotel bill--well, that was the world's fault. He had to +live. But he must perforce keep enough in hand for a ticket to +Birmingham. He always said his wife was in London. And he always walked +down to Lumley to post his letters. He was full of evasions. + +So again he walked down to Lumley to post his letters. And he looked +at Lumley. And he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It +was a long straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a +pale-grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys +bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short +cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty +place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond +that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking +factories were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church +could be seen sticking up proudly and vulgarly on an eminence, above +trees and meadow-slopes, was an idyllic heaven. + +Mr. May turned in to the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey. And of +course he entered into conversation. + +"You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley," he said, in his odd, +refined-showman's voice. "Have you _nothing at all_ in the way of +amusement?" + +"They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathersedge." + +"But couldn't you support some place of your own--some _rival_ to +Wright's Variety?" + +"Ay--'appen--if somebody started it." + +And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting a +cinema on the virgin soil of Lumley. To the women he said not a +word. But on the very first morning that Mr. May broached the +subject, he became a new man. He fluttered like a boy, he fluttered +as if he had just grown wings. + +"Let us go down," said Mr. May, "and look at a site. You pledge +yourself to nothing--you don't compromise yourself. You merely have +a site in your mind." + +And so it came to pass that, next morning, this oddly assorted +couple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby, in his +black coat and dark grey trousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bent +forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if +pursued by fate. His face was thin and still handsome. Odd that his +cheap cap, by incongruity, made him look more a gentleman. But it +did. As he walked he glanced alertly hither and thither, and saluted +everybody. + +By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and his +head back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a +consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suit +fitted exactly--save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket +and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade +as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe +like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suède uppers: but a +_little_ down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he +looked very spruce, though a _little_ behind the fashions: very pink +faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath: very much on the +spot, although the spot was the wrong one. + +They discoursed amiably as they went, James bending forward, Mr. May +bending back. Mr. May took the refined man-of-the-world tone. + +"Of course," he said--he used the two words very often, and +pronounced the second, rather mincingly, to rhyme with _sauce_: "Of +course," said Mr. May, "it's a disgusting place--_disgusting_! I +never was in a worse, in all the _cauce_ of my travels. But +_then_--that isn't the point--" + +He spread his plump hands from his immaculate shirt-cuffs. + +"No, it isn't. Decidedly it isn't. That's beside the point +altogether. What we want--" began James. + +"Is an audience--of _cauce_--! And we have it--! Virgin soil--! + +"Yes, decidedly. Untouched! An unspoiled market." + +"An unspoiled market!" reiterated Mr. May, in full confirmation, +though with a faint flicker of a smile. "How very _fortunate_ for +us." + +"Properly handled," said James. "Properly handled." + +"Why yes--of _cauce_! Why _shouldn't_ we handle it properly!" + +"Oh, we shall manage that, we shall manage that," came the quick, +slightly husky voice of James. + +"Of _cauce_ we shall! Why bless my life, if we can't manage an +audience in Lumley, what _can_ we do." + +"We have a guide in the matter of their taste," said James. "We can +see what Wright's are doing--and Jordan's--and we can go to +Hathersedge and Knarborough and Alfreton--beforehand, that is--" + +"Why certainly--if you think it's _necessary_. I'll do all that for +you. _And_ I'll interview the managers and the performers +themselves--as if I were a journalist, don't you see. I've done a +fair amount of journalism, and nothing easier than to get cards from +various newspapers." + +"Yes, that's a good suggestion," said James. "As if you were going +to write an account in the newspapers--excellent." + +"And so simple! You pick up just _all_ the information you require." + +"Decidedly--decidedly!" said James. + +And so behold our two heroes sniffing round the sordid backs and +wasted meadows and marshy places of Lumley. They found one barren +patch where two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling +potatoes, sitting on the bottom step of her caravan. A half-caste +girl came up with a large pale-blue enamelled jug of water. In the +background were two booths covered up with coloured canvas. +Hammering was heard inside. + +"Good-morning!" said Mr. May, stopping before the woman. "'Tisn't +fair time, is it?" + +"No, it's no fair," said the woman. + +"I see. You're just on your own. Getting on all right?" + +"Fair," said the woman. + +"Only fair! Sorry. Good-morning." + +Mr. May's quick eye, roving round, had seen a negro stoop from under +the canvas that covered one booth. The negro was thin, and looked +young but rather frail, and limped. His face was very like that of +the young negro in Watteau's drawing--pathetic, wistful, +north-bitten. In an instant Mr. May had taken all in: the man was +the woman's husband--they were acclimatized in these regions: the +booth where he had been hammering was a Hoop-La. The other would be +a cocoanut-shy. Feeling the instant American dislike for the +presence of a negro, Mr. May moved off with James. + +They found out that the woman was a Lumley woman, that she had two +children, that the negro was a most quiet and respectable chap, but +that the family kept to itself, and didn't mix up with Lumley. + +"I should think so," said Mr. May, a little disgusted even at the +suggestion. + +Then he proceeded to find out how long they had stood on this +ground--three months--how long they would remain--only another week, +then they were moving off to Alfreton fair--who was the owner of the +pitch--Mr. Bows, the butcher. Ah! And what was the ground used for? +Oh, it was building land. But the foundation wasn't very good. + +"The very thing! Aren't we _fortunate_!" cried Mr. May, perking up +the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and brisk +perkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o'clock +whiskey terribly--terribly--his pick-me-up! And he daren't confess +it to James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and +hollow way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous +exhaustion in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his +short nose. The smell of the place was distasteful to him. The +_disgusting_ beer that the colliers drank. Oh!--he _was_ so tired. +He sank back with his whiskey and stared blankly, dismally in front +of him. Beneath his eyes he looked more bilious still. He felt +thoroughly out of luck, and petulant. + +None the less he sallied out with all his old bright perkiness, the +next time he had to meet James. He hadn't yet broached the question +of costs. When would he be able to get an advance from James? He +_must_ hurry the matter forward. He brushed his crisp, curly brown +hair carefully before the mirror. How grey he was at the temples! No +wonder, dear me, with such a life! He was in his shirt-sleeves. His +waistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had +filled out--but he hadn't developed a corporation. Not at all. He +looked at himself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinner. He +was one of those men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so +that their tail sticks out a little behind, jauntily. How +wonderfully the satin of his waistcoat had worn! He looked at his +shirt-cuffs. They were going. Luckily, when he had had the shirts +made he had secured enough material for the renewing of cuffs and +neckbands. He put on his coat, from which he had flicked the +faintest suspicion of dust, and again settled himself to go out and +meet James on the question of an advance. He simply must have an +advance. + +He didn't get it that day, none the less. The next morning he was +ringing for his tea at six o'clock. And before ten he had already +flitted to Lumley and back, he had already had a word with Mr. Bows, +about that pitch, and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with +the quiet, frail, sad negro, about Alfreton fair, and the chance of +buying some sort of collapsible building, for his cinematograph. + +With all this news he met James--not at the shabby club, but in the +deserted reading-room of the so-called Artizans Hall--where never an +artizan entered, but only men of James's class. Here they took the +chessboard and pretended to start a game. But their conversation +was rapid and secretive. + +Mr. May disclosed all his discoveries. And then he said, +tentatively: + +"Hadn't we better think about the financial part now? If we're going +to look round for an erection"--curious that he always called it an +erection--"we shall have to know what we are going to spend." + +"Yes--yes. Well--" said James vaguely, nervously, giving a glance at +Mr. May. Whilst Mr. May abstractedly fingered his black knight. + +"You see at the moment," said Mr. May, "I have no funds that I can +represent in cash. I have no doubt a little _later_--if we need +it--I can find a few hundreds. Many things are _due_--numbers of +things. But it is so difficult to _collect_ one's dues, particularly +from America." He lifted his blue eyes to James Houghton. "Of course +we can _delay_ for some time, until I get my supplies. Or I can act +just as your manager--you can _employ_ me--" + +He watched James's face. James looked down at the chessboard. He was +fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partner. He wanted to +be in this all by himself. He hated partners. + +"You will agree to be manager, at a fixed salary?" said James +hurriedly and huskily, his fine fingers slowly rubbing each other, +along the sides. + +"Why yes, willingly, if you'll give me the option of becoming your +partner upon terms of mutual agreement, later on." + +James did not quite like this. + +"What terms are you thinking of?" he asked. + +"Well, it doesn't matter for the moment. Suppose for the moment I +enter an engagement as your manager, at a salary, let us say, of--of +what, do you think?" + +"So much a week?" said James pointedly. + +"Hadn't we better make it monthly?" + +The two men looked at one another. + +"With a month's notice on either hand?" continued Mr. May. + +"How much?" said James, avaricious. + +Mr. May studied his own nicely kept hands. + +"Well, I don't see how I can do it under twenty pounds a month. Of +course it's ridiculously low. In America I _never_ accepted less +than three hundred dollars a month, and that was my poorest and +lowest. But of _cauce_, England's not America--more's the pity." + +But James was shaking his head in a vibrating movement. + +"Impossible!" he replied shrewdly. "Impossible! Twenty pounds a +month? Impossible. I couldn't do it. I couldn't think of it." + +"Then name a figure. Say what you _can_ think of," retorted Mr. May, +rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a doddering +provincial, and by his own sudden collapse into mean subordination. + +"I can't make it more than ten pounds a month," said James sharply. + +"What!" screamed Mr. May. "What am I to live on? What is my wife to +live on?" + +"I've got to make it pay," said James. "If I've got to make it pay, +I must keep down expenses at the beginning." + +"No,--on the contrary. You must be prepared to spend something at +the beginning. If you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashion in the +beginning, you will get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month! Why it's +impossible! Ten pounds a month! But how am I to _live_?" + +James's head still vibrated in a negative fashion. And the two men +came to no agreement _that_ morning. Mr. May went home more sick and +weary than ever, and took his whiskey more biliously. But James was +lit with the light of battle. + +Poor Mr. May had to gather together his wits and his sprightliness +for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in +other ways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten +pounds--but really, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous in +your life, _ten pounds!_--dirty old screw, dirty, screwing old +woman! He would accept the ten pounds; but he would get his own +back. + +He flitted down once more to the negro, to ask him of a certain +wooden show-house, with section sides and roof, an old travelling +theatre which stood closed on Selverhay Common, and might probably +be sold. He pressed across once more to Mr. Bows. He wrote various +letters and drew up certain notes. And the next morning, by eight +o'clock, he was on his way to Selverhay: walking, poor man, the long +and uninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod +feet, through country that had been once beautiful but was now +scrubbled all over with mining villages, on and on up heavy hills +and down others, asking his way from uncouth clowns, till at last he +came to the Common, which wasn't a Common at all, but a sort of +village more depressing than usual: naked, high, exposed to heaven +and to full barren view. + +There he saw the theatre-booth. It was old and sordid-looking, painted +dark-red and dishevelled with narrow, tattered announcements. The +grass was growing high up the wooden sides. If only it wasn't rotten? +He crouched and probed and pierced with his pen-knife, till a +country-policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got off his +bicycle and came stealthily across the grass wheeling the same bicycle, +and startled poor Mr. May almost into apoplexy by demanding behind him, +in a loud voice: + +"What're you after?" + +Mr. May rose up with flushed face and swollen neck-veins, holding +his pen-knife in his hand. + +"Oh," he said, "good-morning." He settled his waistcoat and glanced +over the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "I was +taking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. I'm +afraid it's going rotten from the bottom." + +"Shouldn't wonder," said the policeman suspiciously, watching Mr. +May shut the pocket knife. + +"I'm afraid that makes it useless for my purpose," said Mr. May. + +The policeman did not deign to answer. + +"Could you tell me where I can find out about it, anyway?" Mr. May +used his most affable, man of the world manner. But the policeman +continued to stare him up and down, as if he were some marvellous +specimen unknown on the normal, honest earth. + +"What, find out?" said the constable. + +"About being able to buy it," said Mr. May, a little testily. It was +with great difficulty he preserved his man-to-man openness and +brightness. + +"They aren't here," said the constable. + +"Oh indeed! Where _are_ they? And _who_ are they?" + +The policeman eyed him more suspiciously than ever. + +"Cowlard's their name. An' they live in Offerton when they aren't +travelling." + +"Cowlard--thank you." Mr. May took out his pocket-book. +"C-o-w-l-a-r-d--is that right? And the address, please?" + +"I dunno th' street. But you can find out from the Three Bells. +That's Missis' sister." + +"The Three Bells--thank you. Offerton did you say?" + +"Yes." + +"Offerton!--where's that?" + +"About eight mile." + +"Really--and how do you get there?" + +"You can walk--or go by train." + +"Oh, there is a station?" + +"Station!" The policeman looked at him as if he were either a +criminal or a fool. + +"Yes. There _is_ a station there?" + +"Ay--biggest next to Chesterfield--" + +Suddenly it dawned on Mr. May. + +"Oh-h!" he said. "You mean _Alfreton_--" + +"Alfreton, yes." The policeman was now convinced the man was a +wrong-'un. But fortunately he was not a pushing constable, he did +not want to rise in the police-scale: thought himself safest at the +bottom. + +"And which is the way to the station here?" asked Mr. May. + +"Do yer want Pinxon or Bull'ill?" + +"Pinxon or Bull'ill?" + +"There's two," said the policeman. + +"For Selverhay?" asked Mr. May. + +"Yes, them's the two." + +"And which is the best?" + +"Depends what trains is runnin'. Sometimes yer have to wait an hour +or two--" + +"You don't know the trains, do you--?" + +"There's one in th' afternoon--but I don't know if it'd be gone by +the time you get down." + +"To where?" + +"Bull'ill." + +"Oh Bull'ill! Well, perhaps I'll try. Could you tell me the way?" + +When, after an hour's painful walk, Mr. May came to Bullwell Station +and found there was no train till six in the evening, he felt he +was earning every penny he would ever get from Mr. Houghton. + +The first intelligence which Miss Pinnegar and Alvina gathered of +the coming adventure was given them when James announced that he had +let the shop to Marsden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed to +take over James's premises at the same rent as that of the premises +he already occupied, and moreover to do all alterations and put in +all fixtures himself. This was a grand scoop for James: not a penny +was it going to cost him, and the rent was clear profit. + +"But when?" cried Miss Pinnegar. + +"He takes possession on the first of October." + +"Well--it's a good idea. The shop isn't worth while," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"Certainly it isn't," said James, rubbing his hands: a sign that he +was rarely excited and pleased. + +"And you'll just retire, and live quietly," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I shall see," said James. And with those fatal words he wafted away +to find Mr. May. + +James was now nearly seventy years old. Yet he nipped about like a +leaf in the wind. Only, it was a frail leaf. + +"Father's got something going," said Alvina, in a warning voice. + +"I believe he has," said Miss Pinnegar pensively. "I wonder what it +is, now." + +"I can't imagine," laughed Alvina. "But I'll bet it's something +awful--else he'd have told us." + +"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar slowly. "Most likely he would. I wonder +what it can be." + +"I haven't an idea," said Alvina. + +Both women were so retired, they had heard nothing of James's little +trips down to Lumley. So they watched like cats for their man's +return, at dinner-time. + +Miss Pinnegar saw him coming along talking excitedly to Mr. May, +who, all in grey, with his chest perkily stuck out like a robin, was +looking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreement, he +had ventured on whiskey and soda in honour, and James had actually +taken a glass of port. + +"Alvina!" Miss Pinnegar called discreetly down the shop. "Alvina! +Quick!" + +Alvina flew down to peep round the corner of the shop window. There +stood the two men, Mr. May like a perky, pink-faced grey bird +standing cocking his head in attention to James Houghton, and +occasionally catching James by the lapel of his coat, in a vain +desire to get a word in, whilst James's head nodded and his face +simply wagged with excited speech, as he skipped from foot to foot, +and shifted round his listener. + +"Who _ever_ can that common-looking man be?" said Miss Pinnegar, her +heart going down to her boots. + +"I can't imagine," said Alvina, laughing at the comic sight. + +"Don't you think he's dreadful?" said the poor elderly woman. + +"Perfectly impossible. Did ever you see such a pink face?" + +"_And_ the braid binding!" said Miss Pinnegar in indignation. + +"Father might almost have sold him the suit," said Alvina. + +"Let us hope he hasn't sold your father, that's all," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +The two men had moved a few steps further towards home, and the +women prepared to flee indoors. Of course it was frightfully wrong +to be standing peeping in the high street at all. But who could +consider the proprieties now? + +"They've stopped again," said Miss Pinnegar, recalling Alvina. + +The two men were having a few more excited words, their voices just +audible. + +"I do wonder who he can be," murmured Miss Pinnegar miserably. + +"In the theatrical line, I'm sure," declared Alvina. + +"Do you think so?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Can't be! Can't be!" + +"He couldn't be anything else, don't you think?" + +"Oh I _can't_ believe it, I can't." + +But now Mr. May had laid his detaining hand on James's arm. And now +he was shaking his employer by the hand. And now James, in his cheap +little cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a +graceful wave of his grey-suède-gloved hand, was turning back to the +Moon and Stars, strutting, whilst James was running home on +tip-toe, in his natural hurry. + +Alvina hastily retreated, but Miss Pinnegar stood it out. James +started as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her +confronting him. + +"Oh--Miss Pinnegar!" he said, and made to slip by her. + +"Who was that man?" she asked sharply, as if James were a child whom +she could endure no more. + +"Eh? I beg your pardon?" said James, starting back. + +"Who was that man?" + +"Eh? Which man?" + +James was a little deaf, and a little husky. + +"The man--" Miss Pinnegar turned to the door. "There! That man!" + +James also came to the door, and peered out as if he expected to see +a sight. The sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty +little hat and the grey suède hands retreating quite surprised him. +He was angry at being introduced to the sight. + +"Oh," he said. "That's my manager." And he turned hastily down the +shop, asking for his dinner. + +Miss Pinnegar stood for some moments in pure oblivion in the shop +entrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recovered, she felt +she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened +herself once more, though the effort cost her a year of her life. +She had never collapsed, she had never fallen into hysteria. + +She gathered herself together, though bent a little as from a blow, +and, closing the shop door, followed James to the living room, like +the inevitable. He was eating his dinner, and seemed oblivious of +her entry. There was a smell of Irish stew. + +"What manager?" said Miss Pinnegar, short, silent, and inevitable in +the doorway. + +But James was in one of his abstractions, his trances. + +"What manager?" persisted Miss Pinnegar. + +But he still bent unknowing over his plate and gobbled his Irish +stew. + +"Mr. Houghton!" said Miss Pinnegar, in a sudden changed voice. She +had gone a livid yellow colour. And she gave a queer, sharp little +rap on the table with her hand. + +James started. He looked up bewildered, as one startled out of +sleep. + +"Eh?" he said, gaping. "Eh?" + +"Answer me," said Miss Pinnegar. "What manager?" + +"Manager? Eh? Manager? What manager?" + +She advanced a little nearer, menacing in her black dress. James +shrank. + +"What manager?" he re-echoed. "My manager. The manager of my +cinema." + +Miss Pinnegar looked at him, and looked at him, and did not speak. +In that moment all the anger which was due to him from all womanhood +was silently discharged at him, like a black bolt of silent +electricity. But Miss Pinnegar, the engine of wrath, felt she would +burst. + +"Cinema! Cinema! Do you mean to tell me--" but she was really +suffocated, the vessels of her heart and breast were bursting. She +had to lean her hand on the table. + +It was a terrible moment. She looked ghastly and terrible, with her +mask-like face and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. Some fearful +thunderbolt seemed to fall. James withered, and was still. There was +silence for minutes, a suspension. + +And in those minutes, she finished with him. She finished with him +for ever. When she had sufficiently recovered, she went to her +chair, and sat down before her plate. And in a while she began to +eat, as if she were alone. + +Poor Alvina, for whom this had been a dreadful and uncalled-for +moment, had looked from one to another, and had also dropped her +head to her plate. James too, with bent head, had forgotten to eat. +Miss Pinnegar ate very slowly, alone. + +"Don't you want your dinner, Alvina?" she said at length. + +"Not as much as I did," said Alvina. + +"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. She sounded short, almost like Miss +Frost. Oddly like Miss Frost. + +Alvina took up her fork and began to eat automatically. + +"I always think," said Miss Pinnegar, "Irish stew is more tasty with +a bit of Swede in it." + +"So do I, really," said Alvina. "But Swedes aren't come yet." + +"Oh! Didn't we have some on Tuesday?" + +"No, they were yellow turnips--but they weren't Swedes." + +"Well then, yellow turnip. I like a little yellow turnip," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"I might have put some in, if I'd known," said Alvina. + +"Yes. We will another time," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Not another word about the cinema: not another breath. As soon as +James had eaten his plum tart, he ran away. + +"What can he have been doing?" said Alvina when he had gone. + +"Buying a cinema show--and that man we saw is his manager. It's +quite simple." + +"But what are we going to do with a cinema show?" said Alvina. + +"It's what is _he_ going to do. It doesn't concern me. It's no +concern of mine. I shall not lend him anything, I shall not think +about it, it will be the same to me as if there _were_ no cinema. +Which is all I have to say," announced Miss Pinnegar. + +"But he's gone and done it," said Alvina. + +"Then let him go through with it. It's no affair of mine. After all, +your father's affairs don't concern me. It would be impertinent of +me to introduce myself into them." + +"They don't concern _me_ very much," said Alvina. + +"You're different. You're his daughter. He's no connection of mine, +I'm glad to say. I pity your mother." + +"Oh, but he was always alike," said Alvina. + +"That's where it is," said Miss Pinnegar. + +There was something fatal about her feelings. Once they had gone +cold, they would never warm up again. As well try to warm up a +frozen mouse. It only putrifies. + +But poor Miss Pinnegar after this looked older, and seemed to get a +little round-backed. And the things she said reminded Alvina so +often of Miss Frost. + +James fluttered into conversation with his daughter the next +evening, after Miss Pinnegar had retired. + +"I told you I had bought a cinematograph building," said James. "We +are negotiating for the machinery now: the dynamo and so on." + +"But where is it to be?" asked Alvina. + +"Down at Lumley. I'll take you and show you the site tomorrow. The +building--it is a frame-section travelling theatre--will arrive on +Thursday--next Thursday." + +"But who is in with you, father?" + +"I am quite alone--quite alone," said James Houghton. "I have found +an excellent manager, who knows the whole business thoroughly--a Mr. +May. Very nice man. Very nice man." + +"Rather short and dressed in grey?" + +"Yes. And I have been thinking--if Miss Pinnegar will take the cash +and issue tickets: if she will take over the ticket-office: and you +will play the piano: and if Mr. May learns the control of the +machine--he is having lessons now--: and if I am the indoors +attendant, we shan't need any more staff." + +"Miss Pinnegar won't take the cash, father." + +"Why not? Why not?" + +"I can't say why not. But she won't do anything--and if I were you I +wouldn't ask her." + +There was a pause. + +"Oh, well," said James, huffy. "She isn't indispensable." + +And Alvina was to play the piano! Here was a blow for her! She +hurried off to her bedroom to laugh and cry at once. She just saw +herself at that piano, banging off the _Merry Widow Waltz_, and, in +tender moments, _The Rosary_. Time after time, _The Rosary_. While +the pictures flickered and the audience gave shouts and some grubby +boy called "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, +penny a bar!" away she banged at another tune. + +What a sight for the gods! She burst out laughing. And at the same +time, she thought of her mother and Miss Frost, and she cried as if +her heart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous +tunes came into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with most +priceless variations. _Linger Longer Lucy_, for example. She began +to spin imaginary harmonies and variations in her head, upon the +theme of _Linger Longer Lucy_. + + "Linger longer Lucy, linger longer Loo. + How I love to linger longer linger long o' you. + Listen while I sing, love, promise you'll be true, + And linger longer longer linger linger longer Loo." + +All the tunes that used to make Miss Frost so angry. All the Dream +Waltzes and Maiden's Prayers, and the awful songs. + + "For in Spooney-ooney Island + Is there any one cares for me? + In Spooney-ooney Island + Why surely there ought to be--" + +Poor Miss Frost! Alvina imagined herself leading a chorus of +collier louts, in a bad atmosphere of "Woodbines" and oranges, +during the intervals when the pictures had collapsed. + + "How'd you like to spoon with me? + How'd you like to spoon with me? + (_Why ra-ther!_) + + Underneath the oak-tree nice and shady + Calling me your tootsey-wootsey lady? + How'd you like to hug and squeeze, + (_Just try me!_) + + Dandle me upon your knee, + Calling me your little lovey-dovey-- + How'd you like to spoon with me? + (_Oh-h--Go on!_)" + +Alvina worked herself into quite a fever, with her imaginings. + +In the morning she told Miss Pinnegar. + +"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar, "you see me issuing tickets, don't you? +Yes--well. I'm afraid he will have to do that part himself. And +you're going to play the piano. It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! +It's a disgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead. +He's lost every bit of shame--every bit--if he ever had any--which I +doubt very much. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I am not concerned. +And I'm sorry for you, for being his daughter. I'm heart sorry for +you, I am. Well, well--no sense of shame--no sense of shame--" + +And Miss Pinnegar padded out of the room. + +Alvina walked down to Lumley and was shown the site and was +introduced to Mr. May. He bowed to her in his best American fashion, +and treated her with admirable American deference. + +"Don't you think," he said to her, "it's an admirable scheme?" + +"Wonderful," she replied. + +"Of cauce," he said, "the erection will be a merely temporary one. +Of cauce it won't be anything to _look_ at: just an old wooden +travelling theatre. But _then_--all we need is to make a start." + +"And you are going to work the film?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said with pride, "I spend every evening with the operator +at Marsh's in Knarborough. Very interesting I find it--very +interesting indeed. And _you_ are going to play the piano?" he said, +perking his head on one side and looking at her archly. + +"So father says," she answered. + +"But what do _you_ say?" queried Mr. May. + +"I suppose I don't have any say." + +"Oh but _surely_. Surely you won't do it if you don't wish to. That +would never do. Can't we hire some young fellow--?" And he turned to +Mr. Houghton with a note of query. + +"Alvina can play as well as anybody in Woodhouse," said James. "We +mustn't add to our expenses. And wages in particular--" + +"But surely Miss Houghton will have her wage. The labourer is worthy +of his hire. Surely! Even of _her_ hire, to put it in the feminine. +And for the same wage you could get some unimportant fellow with +strong wrists. I'm afraid it will tire Miss Houghton to death--" + +"I don't think so," said James. "I don't think so. Many of the turns +she will not need to accompany--" + +"Well, if it comes to that," said Mr. May, "I can accompany some of +them myself, when I'm not operating the film. I'm not an expert +pianist--but I can play a little, you know--" And he trilled his +fingers up and down an imaginary keyboard in front of Alvina, +cocking his eye at her smiling a little archly. + +"I'm sure," he continued, "I can accompany anything except a man +juggling dinner-plates--and then I'd be afraid of making him drop +the plates. But songs--oh, songs! _Con molto espressione!_" + +And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, and smiled his rather +fat cheeks at Alvina. + +She began to like him. There was something a little dainty about +him, when you knew him better--really rather fastidious. A showman, +true enough! Blatant too. But fastidiously so. + +He came fairly frequently to Manchester House after this. Miss +Pinnegar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her. But he +was very happy sitting chatting tête-à-tête with Alvina. + +"Where is your wife?" said Alvina to him. + +"My wife! Oh, don't speak of _her_," he said comically. "She's in +London." + +"Why not speak of her?" asked Alvina. + +"Oh, every reason for not speaking of her. We don't get on at _all_ +well, she and I." + +"What a pity," said Alvina. + +"Dreadful pity! But what are you to do?" He laughed comically. Then +he became grave. "No," he said. "She's an impossible person." + +"I see," said Alvina. + +"I'm sure you _don't_ see," said Mr. May. "Don't--" and here he laid +his hand on Alvina's arm--"don't run away with the idea that she's +_immoral_! You'd never make a greater mistake. Oh dear me, no. +Morality's her strongest point. Live on three lettuce leaves, and +give the rest to the char. That's her. Oh, dreadful times we had in +those first years. We only lived together for three years. But dear +_me_! how awful it was!" + +"Why?" + +"There was no pleasing the woman. She wouldn't eat. If I said to her +'What shall we have for supper, Grace?' as sure as anything she'd +answer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to bed--that will be my +supper.' She was one of these advanced vegetarian women, don't you +know." + +"How extraordinary!" said Alvina. + +"Extraordinary! I should think so. Extraordinary hard lines on _me_. +And she wouldn't let _me_ eat either. She followed me to the kitchen in +a _fury_ while I cooked for myself. Why imagine! I prepared a dish of +champignons: oh, most _beautiful_ champignons, beautiful--and I put +them on the stove to fry in butter: beautiful young champignons. I'm +hanged if she didn't go into the kitchen while my back was turned, and +pour a pint of old carrot-water into the pan. I was _furious_. +Imagine!--beautiful fresh young champignons--" + +"Fresh mushrooms," said Alvina. + +"Mushrooms--most beautiful things in the world. Oh! don't you think +so?" And he rolled his eyes oddly to heaven. + +"They _are_ good," said Alvina. + +"I should say so. And swamped--_swamped_ with her dirty old carrot +water. Oh I was so angry. And all she could say was, 'Well, I +didn't want to waste it!' Didn't want to waste her old carrot water, +and so _ruined_ my champignons. _Can_ you imagine such a person?" + +"It must have been trying." + +"I should think it was. I lost weight. I lost I don't know how many +pounds, the first year I was married to that woman. She hated me to +eat. Why, one of her great accusations against me, at the last, was +when she said: 'I've looked round the larder,' she said to me, 'and +seen it was quite empty, and I thought to myself: _Now_ he _can't_ +cook a supper! And _then_ you did!' There! What do you think of +that? The spite of it! 'And _then_ you did!'" + +"What did she expect you to live on?" asked Alvina. + +"Nibble a lettuce leaf with her, and drink water from the tap--and +then elevate myself with a Bernard Shaw pamphlet. That was the sort +of woman she was. All it gave _me_ was gas in the stomach." + +"So overbearing!" said Alvina. + +"Oh!" he turned his eyes to heaven, and spread his hands. "I didn't +believe my senses. I didn't know such people existed. And her +friends! Oh the dreadful friends she had--these Fabians! Oh, their +eugenics. They wanted to examine my private morals, for eugenic +reasons. Oh, you can't imagine such a state. Worse than the Spanish +Inquisition. And I stood it for three years. _How_ I stood it, I +don't know--" + +"Now don't you see her?" + +"Never! I never let her know where I am! But I _support_ her, of +cauce." + +"And your daughter?" + +"Oh, she's the dearest child in the world. I saw her at a friend's +when I came back from America. Dearest little thing in the world. +But of _cauce_ suspicious of me. Treats me as if she didn't _know_ +me--" + +"What a pity!" + +"Oh--unbearable!" He spread his plump, manicured hands, on one +finger of which was a green intaglio ring. + +"How old is your daughter?" + +"Fourteen." + +"What is her name?" + +"Gemma. She was born in Rome, where I was managing for Miss Maud +Callum, the _danseuse_." + +Curious the intimacy Mr. May established with Alvina at once. But +it was all purely verbal, descriptive. He made no physical advances. +On the contrary, he was like a dove-grey, disconsolate bird pecking +the crumbs of Alvina's sympathy, and cocking his eye all the time to +watch that she did not advance one step towards him. If he had seen +the least sign of coming-on-ness in her, he would have fluttered off +in a great dither. Nothing _horrified_ him more than a woman who was +coming-on towards him. It horrified him, it exasperated him, it made +him hate the whole tribe of women: horrific two-legged cats without +whiskers. If he had been a bird, his innate horror of a cat would +have been such. He liked the _angel_, and particularly the +angel-mother in woman. Oh!--that he worshipped. But coming-on-ness! + +So he never wanted to be seen out-of-doors with Alvina; if he met +her in the street he bowed and passed on: bowed very deep and +reverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back a little +more strutty and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back +on her in public. + +But Miss Pinnegar, a regular old, grey, dangerous she-puss, eyed him +from the corner of her pale eye, as he turned tail. + +"So unmanly!" she murmured. "In his dress, in his way, in +everything--so unmanly." + +"If I was you, Alvina," she said, "I shouldn't see so much of Mr. +May, in the drawing-room. People will talk." + +"I should almost feel flattered," laughed Alvina. + +"What do you mean?" snapped Miss Pinnegar. + +None the less, Mr. May was dependable in matters of business. He was +up at half-past five in the morning, and by seven was well on his +way. He sailed like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze, +hither and thither, out of Woodhouse and back again, and across from +side to side. Sharp and snappy, he was, on the spot. He trussed +himself up, when he was angry or displeased, and sharp, snip-snap +came his words, rather like scissors. + +"But how is it--" he attacked Arthur Witham--"that the gas isn't +connected with the main yet? It was to be ready yesterday." + +"We've had to wait for the fixings for them brackets," said Arthur. + +"_Had_ to _wait_ for _fixings_! But didn't you know a fortnight ago +that you'd want the fixings?" + +"I thought we should have some as would do." + +"Oh! you thought so! Really! Kind of you to think so. And have you +just thought about those that are coming, or have you made sure?" + +Arthur looked at him sullenly. He hated him. But Mr. May's sharp +touch was not to be foiled. + +"I hope you'll go further than _thinking_," said Mr. May. "Thinking +seems such a slow process. And when do you expect the fittings--?" + +"Tomorrow." + +"What! Another day! Another day _still!_ But you're strangely +indifferent to time, in your line of business. Oh! _Tomorrow!_ +Imagine it! Two days late already, and then _tomorrow!_ Well I hope +by tomorrow you mean _Wednesday_, and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or +some other absurd and fanciful date that you've just _thought +about_. But now, _do_ have the thing finished by tomorrow--" here he +laid his hand cajoling on Arthur's arm. "You promise me it will all +be ready by tomorrow, don't you?" + +"Yes, I'll do it if anybody could do it." + +"Don't say 'if anybody could do it.' Say it shall be done." + +"It shall if I can possibly manage it--" + +"Oh--very well then. Mind you manage it--and thank you _very_ much. +I shall be _most_ obliged, if it _is_ done." + +Arthur was annoyed, but he was kept to the scratch. And so, early in +October the place was ready, and Woodhouse was plastered with +placards announcing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could +not but see an irony in the Palace part of the phrase. "We can +guarantee the _pleasure_," he said. "But personally, I feel I can't +take the responsibility for the palace." + +But James, to use the vulgar expression, was in his eye-holes. + +"Oh, father's in his eye-holes," said Alvina to Mr. May. + +"Oh!" said Mr. May, puzzled and concerned. + +But it merely meant that James was having the time of his life. He +was drawing out announcements. First was a batch of vermilion +strips, with the mystic script, in big black letters: Houghton's +Picture Palace, underneath which, quite small: Opens at Lumley on +October 7th, at 6:30 P.M. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and +black bars sprang from the wall at you. Then there were other +notices, in delicate pale-blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre +notice, giving full programs. And beneath these a broad-letter +notice announced, in green letters on a yellow ground: "Final and +Ultimate Clearance Sale at Houghton's, Knarborough Road, on Friday, +September 30th. Come and Buy Without Price." + +James was in his eye-holes. He collected all his odds and ends from +every corner of Manchester House. He sorted them in heaps, and +marked the heaps in his own mind. And then he let go. He pasted up +notices all over the window and all over the shop: "Take what you +want and Pay what you Like." + +He and Miss Pinnegar kept shop. The women flocked in. They turned +things over. It nearly killed James to take the prices they offered. +But take them he did. But he exacted that they should buy one +article at a time. "One piece at a time, if you don't mind," he +said, when they came up with their three-a-penny handfuls. It was +not till later in the evening that he relaxed this rule. + +Well, by eleven o'clock he had cleared out a good deal--really, a +very great deal--and many women had bought what they didn't want, at +their own figure. Feverish but content, James shut the shop for the +last time. Next day, by eleven, he had removed all his belongings, +the door that connected the house with the shop was screwed up fast, +the grocer strolled in and looked round his bare extension, took the +key from James, and immediately set his boy to paste a new notice in +the window, tearing down all James's announcements. Poor James had +to run round, down Knarborough Road, and down Wellington Street as +far as the Livery Stable, then down long narrow passages, before he +could get into his own house, from his own shop. + +But he did not mind. Every hour brought the first performance of his +Pleasure Palace nearer. He was satisfied with Mr. May: he had to +admit that he was satisfied with Mr. May. The Palace stood firm at +last--oh, it was so ricketty when it arrived!--and it glowed with a +new coat, all over, of dark-red paint, like ox-blood. It was +tittivated up with a touch of lavender and yellow round the door and +round the decorated wooden eaving. It had a new wooden slope up to +the doors--and inside, a new wooden floor, with red-velvet seats in +front, before the curtain, and old chapel-pews behind. The collier +youths recognized the pews. + +"Hey! These 'ere's the pews out of the old Primitive Chapel." + +"Sorry ah! We'n come ter hear t' parson." + +Theme for endless jokes. And the Pleasure Palace was christened, in +some lucky stroke, Houghton's Endeavour, a reference to that +particular Chapel effort called the Christian Endeavour, where +Alvina and Miss Pinnegar both figured. + +"Wheer art off, Sorry?" + +"Lumley." + +"Houghton's Endeavour?" + +"Ah." + +"Rotten." + +So, when one laconic young collier accosted another. But we +anticipate. + +Mr. May had worked hard to get a program for the first week. His +pictures were: "The Human Bird," which turned out to be a ski-ing +film from Norway, purely descriptive; "The Pancake," a humorous +film: and then his grand serial: "The Silent Grip." And then, for +Turns, his first item was Miss Poppy Traherne, a lady in innumerable +petticoats, who could whirl herself into anything you like, from an +arum lily in green stockings to a rainbow and a Catherine wheel and +a cup-and-saucer: marvellous, was Miss Poppy Traherne. The next turn +was The Baxter Brothers, who ran up and down each other's backs and +up and down each other's front, and stood on each other's heads and +on their own heads, and perched for a moment on each other's +shoulders, as if each of them was a flight of stairs with a landing, +and the three of them were three flights, three storeys up, the top +flight continually running down and becoming the bottom flight, +while the middle flight collapsed and became a horizontal corridor. + +Alvina had to open the performance by playing an overture called +"Welcome All": a ridiculous piece. She was excited and unhappy. On +the Monday morning there was a rehearsal, Mr. May conducting. She +played "Welcome All," and then took the thumbed sheets which Miss +Poppy Traherne carried with her. Miss Poppy was rather exacting. As +she whirled her skirts she kept saying: "A little faster, +please"--"A little slower"--in a rather haughty, official voice that +was somewhat muffled by the swim of her drapery. "Can you give it +_expression_?" she cried, as she got the arum lily in full blow, and +there was a sound of real ecstasy in her tones. But why she should +have called "Stronger! Stronger!" as she came into being as a cup +and saucer, Alvina could not imagine: unless Miss Poppy was fancying +herself a strong cup of tea. + +However, she subsided into her mere self, panted frantically, and +then, in a hoarse voice, demanded if she was in the bare front of +the show. She scorned to count "Welcome All." Mr. May said Yes. She +was the first item. Whereupon she began to raise a dust. Mr. +Houghton said, hurriedly interposing, that he meant to make a little +opening speech. Miss Poppy eyed him as if he were a cuckoo-clock, +and she had to wait till he'd finished cuckooing. Then she said: + +"That's not every night. There's six nights to a week." James was +properly snubbed. It ended by Mr. May metamorphizing himself into a +pug dog: he said he had got the "costoom" in his bag: and doing a +lump-of-sugar scene with one of the Baxter Brothers, as a brief +first item. Miss Poppy's professional virginity was thus saved from +outrage. + +At the back of the stage there was half-a-yard of curtain screening +the two dressing-rooms, ladies and gents. In her spare time Alvina +sat in the ladies' dressing room, or in its lower doorway, for there +was not room right inside. She watched the ladies making up--she +gave some slight assistance. She saw the men's feet, in their shabby +pumps, on the other side of the curtain, and she heard the men's +gruff voices. Often a slangy conversation was carried on through the +curtain--for most of the turns were acquainted with each other: very +affable before each other's faces, very sniffy behind each other's +backs. + +Poor Alvina was in a state of bewilderment. She was extremely +nice--oh, much too nice with the female turns. They treated her with +a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her +and were a little spiteful with her because Mr. May treated her with +attention and deference. She felt bewildered, a little excited, and +as if she was not herself. + +The first evening actually came. Her father had produced a pink +crêpe de Chine blouse and a back-comb massed with brilliants--both +of which she refused to wear. She stuck to her black blouse and +black shirt, and her simple hair-dressing. Mr. May said "Of cauce! +She wasn't intended to attract attention to herself." Miss Pinnegar +actually walked down the hill with her, and began to cry when she +saw the ox-blood red erection, with its gas-flares in front. It was +the first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the +little stage door at the back, and up the steps into the scrap of +dressing-room. But she fled out again from the sight of Miss Poppy +in her yellow hair and green knickers with green-lace frills. Poor +Miss Pinnegar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the +Band of Hope, and really cried. Luckily she had put a veil on. + +She went valiantly round to the front entrance, and climbed the +steps. The crowd was just coming. There was James's face peeping +inside the little ticket-window. + +"One!" he said officially, pushing out the ticket. And then he +recognized her. "Oh," he said, "_You're_ not going to pay." + +"Yes I am," she said, and she left her fourpence, and James's +coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss +Pinnegar shoved her forward. + +"Arf way down, fourpenny," said the man at the door, poking her in +the direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet. +But she marched down one of the pews, and took her seat. + +The place was crowded with a whooping, whistling, excited audience. +The curtain was down. James had let it out to his fellow tradesmen, +and it represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat +porker and a fat pork-pie, and the pig was saying: "You all know +where to find me. Inside the crust at Frank Churchill's, Knarborough +Road, Woodhouse." Round about the name of W. H. Johnson floated a +bowler hat, a collar-and-necktie, a pair of braces and an umbrella. +And so on and so on. It all made you feel very homely. But Miss +Pinnegar was sadly hot and squeezed in her pew. + +Time came, and the colliers began to drum their feet. It was exactly +the excited, crowded audience Mr. May wanted. He darted out to drive +James round in front of the curtain. But James, fascinated by raking +in the money so fast, could not be shifted from the pay-box, and the +two men nearly had a fight. At last Mr. May was seen shooing James, +like a scuffled chicken, down the side gangway and on to the stage. + +James before the illuminated curtain of local adverts, bowing and +beginning and not making a single word audible! The crowd quieted +itself, the eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James, and +began to shuffle. "Come down, come down!" hissed Mr. May frantically +from in front. But James did not move. He would flow on all night. +Mr. May waved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at the piano, +and darted on to the stage. He raised his voice and drowned James. +James ceased to wave his penny-blackened hands, Alvina struck up +"Welcome All" as loudly and emphatically as she could. + +And all the time Miss Pinnegar sat like a sphinx--like a sphinx. +What she thought she did not know herself. But stolidly she stared +at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina. +She knew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr. May +was fitted in his pug-dog "Costoom." + +A twitch of the curtain. Alvina wound up her final flourish, the +curtain rose, and: + +"Well really!" said Miss Pinnegar, out loud. + +There was Mr. May as a pug dog begging, too lifelike and too +impossible. The audience shouted. Alvina sat with her hands in her +lap. The Pug was a great success. + +Curtain! A few bars of Toreador--and then Miss Poppy's sheets of +music. Soft music. Miss Poppy was on the ground under a green scarf. +And so the accumulating dilation, on to the whirling climax of the +perfect arum lily. Sudden curtain, and a yell of ecstasy from the +colliers. Of all blossoms, the arum, the arum lily is most mystical +and portentous. + +Now a crash and rumble from Alvina's piano. This is the storm from +whence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain--Miss Poppy twirling +till her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow +above her now darkened legs. The footlights are all but +extinguished. Miss Poppy is all but extinguished also. + +The rainbow is not so moving as the arum lily. But the Catherine +wheel, done at the last moment on one leg and then an amazing leap +into the air backwards, again brings down the house. + +Miss Poppy herself sets all store on her cup and saucer. But the +audience, vulgar as ever, cannot quite see it. + +And so, Alvina slips away with Miss Poppy's music-sheets, while Mr. +May sits down like a professional at the piano and makes things fly +for the up-and-down-stairs Baxter Bros. Meanwhile, Alvina's pale +face hovering like a ghost in the side darkness, as it were under +the stage. + +The lamps go out: gurglings and kissings--and then the dither on the +screen: "The Human Bird," in awful shivery letters. It's not a very +good machine, and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audience +distinctly critical. Lights up--an "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, +penny a bar!" even as in Alvina's dream--and then "The Pancake"--so +the first half over. Lights up for the interval. + +Miss Pinnegar sighed and folded her hands. She looked neither to +right nor to left. In spite of herself, in spite of outraged shame +and decency, she was excited. But she felt such excitement was not +wholesome. In vain the boy most pertinently yelled "Chot-let" at +her. She looked neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina +nodding to her with a quick smile from the side gangway under the +stage, she almost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at +once. And Alvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped +across in front of the audience, to the piano, to play the seductive +"Dream Waltz!" she looked almost fussy, like her father. James, +needless to say, flittered and hurried hither and thither around the +audience and the stage, like a wagtail on the brink of a pool. + +The second half consisted of a comic drama acted by two Baxter +Bros., disguised as women, and Miss Poppy disguised as a man--with a +couple of locals thrown in to do the guardsman and the Count. This +went very well. The winding up was the first instalment of "The +Silent Grip." + +When lights went up and Alvina solemnly struck "God Save Our +Gracious King," the audience was on its feet and not very quiet, +evidently hissing with excitement like doughnuts in the pan even +when the pan is taken off the fire. Mr. Houghton thanked them for +their courtesy and attention, and hoped--And nobody took the +slightest notice. + +Miss Pinnegar stayed last, waiting for Alvina. And Alvina, in her +excitement, waited for Mr. May and her father. + +Mr. May fairly pranced into the empty hall. + +"Well!" he said, shutting both his fists and flourishing them in +Miss Pinnegar's face. "How did it go?" + +"I think it went very well," she said. + +"Very well! I should think so, indeed. It went like a house on fire. +What? Didn't it?" And he laughed a high, excited little laugh. + +James was counting pennies for his life, in the cash-place, and +dropping them into a Gladstone bag. The others had to wait for him. +At last he locked his bag. + +"Well," said Mr. May, "done well?" + +"Fairly well," said James, huskily excited. "Fairly well." + +"Only fairly? Oh-h!" And Mr. May suddenly picked up the bag. James +turned as if he would snatch it from him. "Well! Feel that, for +fairly well!" said Mr. May, handing the bag to Alvina. + +"Goodness!" she cried, handing it to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Would you believe it?" said Miss Pinnegar, relinquishing it to +James. But she spoke coldly, aloof. + +Mr. May turned off the gas at the meter, came talking through the +darkness of the empty theatre, picking his way with a flash-light. + +"C'est le premier pas qui coute," he said, in a sort of American +French, as he locked the doors and put the key in his pocket. James +tripped silently alongside, bowed under the weight of his Gladstone +bag of pennies. + +"How much have we taken, father?" asked Alvina gaily. + +"I haven't counted," he snapped. + +When he got home he hurried upstairs to his bare chamber. He swept +his table clear, and then, in an expert fashion, he seized handfuls +of coin and piled them in little columns on his board. There was an +army of fat pennies, a dozen to a column, along the back, rows and +rows of fat brown rank-and-file. In front of these, rows of slim +halfpence, like an advance-guard. And commanding all, a stout column +of half-crowns, a few stoutish and important florin-figures, like +general and colonels, then quite a file of shillings, like so many +captains, and a little cloud of silvery lieutenant sixpences. Right +at the end, like a frail drummer boy, a thin stick of threepenny +pieces. + +There they all were: burly dragoons of stout pennies, heavy and +holding their ground, with a screen of halfpenny light infantry, +officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn was +flanked by all his staff of florin colonels and shilling captains, +from whom lightly moved the nimble sixpenny lieutenants all +ignoring the wan, frail Joey of the threepenny-bits. + +Time after time James ran his almighty eye over his army. He loved +them. He loved to feel that his table was pressed down, that it +groaned under their weight. He loved to see the pence, like +innumerable pillars of cloud, standing waiting to lead on into +wildernesses of unopened resource, while the silver, as pillars of +light, should guide the way down the long night of fortune. Their +weight sank sensually into his muscle, and gave him gratification. +The dark redness of bronze, like full-blooded fleas, seemed alive +and pulsing, the silver was magic as if winged. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA + + +Mr. May and Alvina became almost inseparable, and Woodhouse buzzed +with scandal. Woodhouse could not believe that Mr. May was +absolutely final in his horror of any sort of coming-on-ness in a +woman. It could not believe that he was only _so_ fond of Alvina +because she was like a sister to him, poor, lonely, harassed soul +that he was: a pure sister who really hadn't any body. For although +Mr. May was rather fond, in an epicurean way, of his own body, yet +other people's bodies rather made him shudder. So that his grand +utterance on Alvina was: "She's not physical, she's mental." + +He even explained to her one day how it was, in his naïve fashion. + +"There are two kinds of friendships," he said, "physical and mental. +The physical is a thing of the moment. Of cauce you quite _like_ the +individual, you remain quite nice with them, and so on,--to keep the +thing as decent as possible. It _is_ quite decent, so long as you +keep it so. But it is a thing of the moment. Which you know. It may +last a week or two, or a month or two. But you know from the +beginning it is going to end--quite finally--quite soon. You take it +for what it is. But it's so different with the mental friendships. +_They_ are lasting. They are eternal--if anything human (he said +yuman) ever is eternal, ever _can_ be eternal." He pressed his hands +together in an odd cherubic manner. He was quite sincere: if man +ever _can_ be quite sincere. + +Alvina was quite content to be one of his mental and eternal +friends, or rather _friendships_--since she existed _in abstractu_ +as far as he was concerned. For she did not find him at all +physically moving. Physically he was not there: he was oddly an +absentee. But his naïveté roused the serpent's tooth of her bitter +irony. + +"And your wife?" she said to him. + +"Oh, my wife! Dreadful thought! _There_ I made the great mistake of +trying to find the two in one person! And _didn't_ I fall between +two stools! Oh dear, _didn't_ I? Oh, I fell between the two stools +beautifully, beautifully! And _then_--she nearly set the stools on +top of me. I thought I should never get up again. When I was +physical, she was mental--Bernard Shaw and cold baths for +supper!--and when I was mental she was physical, and threw her arms +round my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning, when +I was on the alert for business. Yes, invariably. What do you think +of it? Could the devil himself have invented anything more trying? +Oh dear me, don't mention it. Oh, what a time I had! Wonder I'm +alive. Yes, really! Although you smile." + +Alvina did more than smile. She laughed outright. And yet she +remained good friends with the odd little man. + +He bought himself a new, smart overcoat, that fitted his figure, and +a new velour hat. And she even noticed, one day when he was curling +himself up cosily on the sofa, that he had pale blue silk underwear, +and purple silk suspenders. She wondered where he got them, and how +he afforded them. But there they were. + +James seemed for the time being wrapt in his +undertaking--particularly in the takings part of it. He seemed for +the time being contented--or nearly so, nearly so. Certainly there +was money coming in. But then he had to pay off all he had borrowed +to buy his erection and its furnishings, and a bulk of pennies +sublimated into a very small £.s.d. account, at the bank. + +The Endeavour was successful--yes, it was successful. But not +overwhelmingly so. On wet nights Woodhouse did not care to trail +down to Lumley. And then Lumley was one of those depressed, negative +spots on the face of the earth which have no pull at all. In that +region of sharp hills with fine hill-brows, and shallow, rather +dreary canal-valleys, it was the places on the hill-brows, like +Woodhouse and Hathersedge and Rapton which flourished, while the +dreary places down along the canals existed only for work-places, +not for life and pleasure. It was just like James to have planted +his endeavour down in the stagnant dust and rust of potteries and +foundries, where no illusion could bloom. + +He had dreamed of crowded houses every night, and of raised prices. +But there was no probability of his being able to raise his prices. +He had to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rate +from the start. His hope now lay in the tramway which was being +built from Knarborough away through the country--a black country +indeed--through Woodhouse and Lumley and Hathersedge, to Rapton. +When once this tramway-system was working, he would have a supply of +youths and lasses always on tap, as it were. So he spread his +rainbow wings towards the future, and began to say: + +"When we've got the trams, I shall buy a new machine and finer +lenses, and I shall extend my premises." + +Mr. May did not talk business to Alvina. He was terribly secretive +with respect to business. But he said to her once, in the early year +following their opening: + +"Well, how do you think we're doing, Miss Houghton?" + +"We're not doing any better than we did at first, I think," she +said. + +"No," he answered. "No! That's true. That's perfectly true. But why? +They seem to like the programs." + +"I think they do," said Alvina. "I think they like them when they're +there. But isn't it funny, they don't seem to want to come to them. +I know they always talk as if we were second-rate. And they only +come because they can't get to the Empire, or up to Hathersedge. +We're a stop-gap. I know we are." + +Mr. May looked down in the mouth. He cocked his blue eyes at her, +miserable and frightened. Failure began to frighten him abjectly. + +"Why do you think that is?" he said. + +"I don't believe they like the turns," she said. + +"But _look_ how they applaud them! _Look_ how pleased they are!" + +"I know. I know they like them once they're there, and they see +them. But they don't come again. They crowd the Empire--and the +Empire is only pictures now; and it's much cheaper to run." + +He watched her dismally. + +"I can't believe they want nothing but pictures. I can't believe +they want everything in the flat," he said, coaxing and miserable. +He himself was not interested in the film. His interest was still +the human interest in living performers and their living feats. +"Why," he continued, "they are ever so much more excited after a +good turn, than after any film." + +"I know they are," said Alvina. "But I don't believe they want to be +excited in that way." + +"In what way?" asked Mr. May plaintively. + +"By the things which the artistes do. I believe they're jealous." + +"Oh nonsense!" exploded Mr. May, starting as if he had been shot. +Then he laid his hand on her arm. "But forgive my rudeness! I don't +mean it, of _cauce_! But do you mean to say that these collier louts +and factory girls are jealous of the things the artistes do, because +they could never do them themselves?" + +"I'm sure they are," said Alvina. + +"But I _can't_ believe it," said Mr. May, pouting up his mouth and +smiling at her as if she were a whimsical child. "What a low opinion +you have of human nature!" + +"Have I?" laughed Alvina. "I've never reckoned it up. But I'm sure +that these common people here are jealous if anybody does anything +or has anything they can't have themselves." + +"I can't believe it," protested Mr. May. "Could they be so _silly_! +And then why aren't they jealous of the extraordinary things which +are done on the film?" + +"Because they don't see the flesh-and-blood people. I'm sure that's +it. The film is only pictures, like pictures in the _Daily Mirror_. +And pictures don't have any feelings apart from their own feelings. +I mean the feelings of the people who watch them. Pictures don't +have any life except in the people who watch them. And that's why +they like them. Because they make them feel that they are +everything." + +"The pictures make the colliers and lasses feel that they themselves +are everything? But how? They identify themselves with the heroes +and heroines on the screen?" + +"Yes--they take it all to themselves--and there isn't anything +except themselves. I know it's like that. It's because they can +spread themselves over a film, and they _can't_ over a living +performer. They're up against the performer himself. And they hate +it." + +Mr. May watched her long and dismally. + +"I _can't_ believe people are like that!--sane people!" he said. +"Why, to me the whole joy is in the living personality, the curious +_personality_ of the artiste. That's what I enjoy so much." + +"I know. But that's where you're different from them." + +"But _am_ I?" + +"Yes. You're not as up to the mark as they are." + +"Not up to the mark? What do you mean? Do you mean they are more +intelligent?" + +"No, but they're more modern. You like things which aren't yourself. +But they don't. They hate to admire anything that they can't take to +themselves. They hate anything that isn't themselves. And that's why +they like pictures. It's all themselves to them, all the time." + +He still puzzled. + +"You know I don't follow you," he said, a little mocking, as if she +were making a fool of herself. + +"Because you don't know them. You don't know the common people. You +don't know how conceited they are." + +He watched her a long time. + +"And you think we ought to cut out the variety, and give nothing but +pictures, like the Empire?" he said. + +"I believe it takes best," she said. + +"And costs less," he answered. "But _then_! It's so dull. Oh my +_word_, it's so dull. I don't think I could bear it." + +"And our pictures aren't good enough," she said. "We should have to +get a new machine, and pay for the expensive films. Our pictures do +shake, and our films are rather ragged." + +"But then, _surely_ they're good enough!" he said. + +That was how matters stood. The Endeavour paid its way, and made +just a margin of profit--no more. Spring went on to summer, and then +there was a very shadowy margin of profit. But James was not at all +daunted. He was waiting now for the trams, and building up hopes +since he could not build in bricks and mortar. + +The navvies were busy in troops along the Knarborough Road, and down +Lumley Hill. Alvina became quite used to them. As she went down the +hill soon after six o'clock in the evening, she met them trooping +home. And some of them she liked. There was an outlawed look about +them as they swung along the pavement--some of them; and there was a +certain lurking set of the head which rather frightened her because +it fascinated her. There was one tall young fellow with a red face +and fair hair, who looked as if he had fronted the seas and the +arctic sun. He looked at her. They knew each other quite well, in +passing. And he would glance at perky Mr. May. Alvina tried to +fathom what the young fellow's look meant. She wondered what he +thought of Mr. May. + +She was surprised to hear Mr. May's opinion of the navvy. + +"_He's_ a handsome young man, now!" exclaimed her companion one +evening as the navvies passed. And all three turned round, to find +all three turning round. Alvina laughed, and made eyes. At that +moment she would cheerfully have gone along with the navvy. She was +getting so tired of Mr. May's quiet prance. + +On the whole, Alvina enjoyed the cinema and the life it brought her. +She accepted it. And she became somewhat vulgarized in her bearing. +She was _déclassée_: she had lost her class altogether. The other +daughters of respectable tradesmen avoided her now, or spoke to her +only from a distance. She was supposed to be "carrying on" with Mr. +May. + +Alvina did not care. She rather liked it. She liked being +_déclassée_. She liked feeling an outsider. At last she seemed to +stand on her own ground. She laughed to herself as she went back and +forth from Woodhouse to Lumley, between Manchester House and the +Pleasure Palace. She laughed when she saw her father's theatre-notices +plastered about. She laughed when she saw his thrilling announcements +in the _Woodhouse Weekly_. She laughed when she knew that all the +Woodhouse youths recognized her, and looked on her as one of their + inferior entertainers. She was off the map: and she liked it. + +For after all, she got a good deal of fun out of it. There was not +only the continual activity. There were the artistes. Every week she +met a new set of stars--three or four as a rule. She rehearsed with +them on Monday afternoons, and she saw them every evening, and twice +a week at matinees. James now gave two performances each +evening--and he always had _some_ audience. So that Alvina had +opportunity to come into contact with all the odd people of the +inferior stage. She found they were very much of a type: a little +frowsy, a little flea-bitten as a rule, indifferent to ordinary +morality, and philosophical even if irritable. They were often very +irritable. And they had always a certain fund of callous +philosophy. Alvina did not _like_ them--you were not supposed, +really, to get deeply emotional over them. But she found it amusing +to see them all and know them all. It was so different from +Woodhouse, where everything was priced and ticketed. These people +were nomads. They didn't care a straw who you were or who you +weren't. They had a most irritable professional vanity, and that was +all. It was most odd to watch them. They weren't very squeamish. If +the young gentlemen liked to peep round the curtain when the young +lady was in her knickers: oh, well, she rather roundly told them +off, perhaps, but nobody minded. The fact that ladies wore knickers +and black silk stockings thrilled nobody, any more than grease-paint +or false moustaches thrilled. It was all part of the stock-in-trade. +As for immorality--well, what did it amount to? Not a great deal. +Most of the men cared far more about a drop of whiskey than about +any more carnal vice, and most of the girls were good pals with each +other, men were only there to act with: even if the act was a +private love-farce of an improper description. What's the odds? You +couldn't get excited about it: not as a rule. + +Mr. May usually took rooms for the artistes in a house down in +Lumley. When any one particular was coming, he would go to a rather +better-class widow in Woodhouse. He never let Alvina take any part +in the making of these arrangements, except with the widow in +Woodhouse, who had long ago been a servant at Manchester House, and +even now came in to do cleaning. + +Odd, eccentric people they were, these entertainers. Most of them +had a streak of imagination, and most of them drank. Most of them +were middle-aged. Most of them had an abstracted manner; in ordinary +life, they seemed left aside, somehow. Odd, extraneous creatures, +often a little depressed, feeling life slip away from them. The +cinema was killing them. + +Alvina had quite a serious flirtation with a man who played a flute +and piccolo. He was about fifty years old, still handsome, and +growing stout. When sober, he was completely reserved. When rather +drunk, he talked charmingly and amusingly--oh, most charmingly. +Alvina quite loved him. But alas, _how_ he drank! But what a charm +he had! He went, and she saw him no more. + +The usual rather American-looking, clean-shaven, slightly pasty +young man left Alvina quite cold, though he had an amiable and truly +chivalrous _galanterie_. He was quite likeable. But so unattractive. +Alvina was more fascinated by the odd fish: like the lady who did +marvellous things with six ferrets, or the Jap who was tattooed all +over, and had the most amazing strong wrists, so that he could throw +down any collier, with one turn of the hand. Queer cuts these!--but +just a little bit beyond her. She watched them rather from a +distance. She wished she could jump across the distance. +Particularly with the Jap, who was almost quite naked, but clothed +with the most exquisite tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle +that flew with terrible spread wings between his shoulders, or the +strange mazy pattern that netted the roundness of his buttocks. He +was not very large, but nicely shaped, and with no hair on his +smooth, tattooed body. He was almost blue in colour--that is, his +tattooing was blue, with pickings of brilliant vermilion: as for +instance round the nipples, and in a strange red serpent's-jaws over +the navel. A serpent went round his loins and haunches. He told her +how many times he had had blood-poisoning, during the process of his +tattooing. He was a queer, black-eyed creature, with a look of +silence and toad-like lewdness. He frightened her. But when he was +dressed in common clothes, and was just a cheap, shoddy-looking +European Jap, he was more frightening still. For his face--he was +not tattooed above a certain ring low on his neck--was yellow and +flat and basking with one eye open, like some age-old serpent. She +felt he was smiling horribly all the time: lewd, unthinkable. A +strange sight he was in Woodhouse, on a sunny morning; a +shabby-looking bit of riff-raff of the East, rather down at the +heel. Who could have imagined the terrible eagle of his shoulders, +the serpent of his loins, his supple, magic skin? + +The summer passed again, and autumn. Winter was a better time for +James Houghton. The trams, moreover, would begin to run in January. + +He wanted to arrange a good program for the week when the trams +started. A long time ahead, Mr. May prepared it. The one item was +the Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe. The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe consisted +of five persons, Madame Rochard and four young men. They were a +strictly Red Indian troupe. But one of the young men, the German +Swiss, was a famous yodeller, and another, the French Swiss, was a +good comic with a French accent, whilst Madame and the German did a +screaming two-person farce. Their great turn, of course, was the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara Red Indian scene. + +The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were due in the third week in January, +arriving from the Potteries on the Sunday evening. When Alvina came +in from Chapel that Sunday evening, she found her widow, Mrs. +Rollings, seated in the living room talking with James, who had an +anxious look. Since opening the Pleasure Palace James was less +regular at Chapel. And moreover, he was getting old and shaky, and +Sunday was the one evening he might spend in peace. Add that on this +particular black Sunday night it was sleeting dismally outside, and +James had already a bit of a cough, and we shall see that he did +right to stay at home. + +Mrs. Rollings sat nursing a bottle. She was to go to the chemist for +some cough-cure, because Madame had got a bad cold. The chemist was +gone to Chapel--he wouldn't open till eight. + +Madame and the four young men had arrived at about six. Madame, said +Mrs. Rollings, was a little fat woman, and she was complaining all +the time that she had got a cold on her chest, laying her hand on +her chest and trying her breathing and going "He-e-e-er! Herr!" to +see if she could breathe properly. She, Mrs. Rollings, had suggested +that Madame should put her feet in hot mustard and water, but Madame +said she must have something to clear her chest. The four young men +were four nice civil young fellows. They evidently liked Madame. +Madame had insisted on cooking the chops for the young men. She +herself had eaten one, but she laid her hand on her chest when she +swallowed. One of the young men had gone out to get her some brandy, +and he had come back with half-a-dozen large bottles of Bass as +well. + +Mr. Houghton was very much concerned over Madame's cold. He asked +the same questions again and again, to try and make sure how bad it +was. But Mrs. Rollings didn't seem quite to know. James wrinkled his +brow. Supposing Madame could not take her part! He was most anxious. + +"Do you think you might go across with Mrs. Rollings and see how +this woman is, Alvina?" he said to his daughter. + +"I should think you'll never turn Alvina out on such a night," said +Miss Pinnegar. "And besides, it isn't right. Where is Mr. May? It's +his business to go." + +"Oh!" returned Alvina. "_I_ don't mind going. Wait a minute, I'll +see if we haven't got some of those pastilles for burning. If it's +very bad, I can make one of those plasters mother used." + +And she ran upstairs. She was curious to see what Madame and her +four young men were like. + +With Mrs. Rollings she called at the chemist's back door, and then +they hurried through the sleet to the widow's dwelling. It was not +far. As they went up the entry they heard the sound of voices. But +in the kitchen all was quiet. The voices came from the front room. + +Mrs. Rollings tapped. + +"Come in!" said a rather sharp voice. Alvina entered on the widow's +heels. + +"I've brought you the cough stuff," said the widow. "And Miss +Huff'n's come as well, to see how you was." + +Four young men were sitting round the table in their shirt-sleeves, +with bottles of Bass. There was much cigarette smoke. By the fire, +which was burning brightly, sat a plump, pale woman with dark bright +eyes and finely-drawn eyebrows: she might be any age between forty +and fifty. There were grey threads in her tidy black hair. She was +neatly dressed in a well-made black dress with a small lace collar. +There was a slight look of self-commiseration on her face. She had a +cigarette between her drooped fingers. + +She rose as if with difficulty, and held out her plump hand, on +which four or five rings showed. She had dropped the cigarette +unnoticed into the hearth. + +"How do you do," she said. "I didn't catch your name." Madame's +voice was a little plaintive and plangent now, like a bronze reed +mournfully vibrating. + +"Alvina Houghton," said Alvina. + +"Daughter of him as owns the thee-etter where you're goin' to act," +interposed the widow. + +"Oh yes! Yes! I see. Miss Houghton. I didn't know how it was said. +Huff-ton--yes? Miss Houghton. I've got a bad cold on my chest--" +laying her plump hand with the rings on her plump bosom. "But let me +introduce you to my young men--" A wave of the plump hand, whose +forefinger was very slightly cigarette-stained, towards the table. + +The four young men had risen, and stood looking at Alvina and +Madame. The room was small, rather bare, with horse-hair and +white-crochet antimacassars and a linoleum floor. The table also was +covered with a brightly-patterned American oil-cloth, shiny but +clean. A naked gas-jet hung over it. For furniture, there were just +chairs, arm-chairs, table, and a horse-hair antimacassar-ed sofa. +Yet the little room seemed very full--full of people, young men with +smart waistcoats and ties, but without coats. + +"That is Max," said Madame. "I shall tell you only their names, and +not their family names, because that is easier for you--" + +In the meantime Max had bowed. He was a tall Swiss with almond eyes +and a flattish face and a rather stiff, ramrod figure. + +"And that is Louis--" Louis bowed gracefully. He was a Swiss +Frenchman, moderately tall, with prominent cheekbones and a wing +of glossy black hair falling on his temple. + +"And that is Géoffroi--Geoffrey--" Geoffrey made his bow--a +broad-shouldered, watchful, taciturn man from Alpine France. + +"And that is Francesco--Frank--" Francesco gave a faint curl of his +lip, half smile, as he saluted her involuntarily in a military +fashion. He was dark, rather tall and loose, with yellow-tawny eyes. +He was an Italian from the south. Madame gave another look at him. +"He doesn't like his English name of Frank. You will see, he pulls a +face. No, he doesn't like it. We call him Ciccio also--" But Ciccio +was dropping his head sheepishly, with the same faint smile on his +face, half grimace, and stooping to his chair, wanting to sit down. + +"These are my family of young men," said Madame. "We are drawn from +three races, though only Ciccio is not of our mountains. Will you +please to sit down." + +They all took their chairs. There was a pause. + +"My young men drink a little beer, after their horrible journey. As +a rule, I do not like them to drink. But tonight they have a little +beer. I do not take any myself, because I am afraid of inflaming +myself." She laid her hand on her breast, and took long, uneasy +breaths. "I feel it. I feel it _here_." She patted her breast. "It +makes me afraid for tomorrow. Will you perhaps take a glass of beer? +Ciccio, ask for another glass--" Ciccio, at the end of the table, +did not rise, but looked round at Alvina as if he presumed there +would be no need for him to move. The odd, supercilious curl of the +lip persisted. Madame glared at him. But he turned the handsome side +of his cheek towards her, with the faintest flicker of a sneer. + +"No, thank you. I never take beer," said Alvina hurriedly. + +"No? Never? Oh!" Madame folded her hands, but her black eyes still +darted venom at Ciccio. The rest of the young men fingered their +glasses and put their cigarettes to their lips and blew the smoke +down their noses, uncomfortably. + +Madame closed her eyes and leaned back a moment. Then her face +looked transparent and pallid, there were dark rings under her eyes, +the beautifully-brushed hair shone dark like black glass above her +ears. She was obviously unwell. The young men looked at her, and +muttered to one another. + +"I'm afraid your cold is rather bad," said Alvina. "Will you let me +take your temperature?" + +Madame started and looked frightened. + +"Oh, I don't think you should trouble to do that," she said. + +Max, the tall, highly-coloured Swiss, turned to her, saying: + +"Yes, you must have your temperature taken, and then we s'll know, +shan't we. I had a hundred and five when we were in Redruth." + +Alvina had taken the thermometer from her pocket. Ciccio meanwhile +muttered something in French--evidently something rude--meant for +Max. + +"What shall I do if I can't work tomorrow!" moaned Madame, seeing +Alvina hold up the thermometer towards the light. "Max, what shall +we do?" + +"You will stay in bed, and we must do the White Prisoner scene," +said Max, rather staccato and official. + +Ciccio curled his lip and put his head aside. Alvina went across to +Madame with the thermometer. Madame lifted her plump hand and fended +off Alvina, while she made her last declaration: + +"Never--never have I missed my work, for a single day, for ten +years. Never. If I am going to lie abandoned, I had better die at +once." + +"Lie abandoned!" said Max. "You know you won't do no such thing. +What are you talking about?" + +"Take the thermometer," said Geoffrey roughly, but with feeling. + +"Tomorrow, see, you will be well. Quite certain!" said Louis. Madame +mournfully shook her head, opened her mouth, and sat back with +closed eyes and the stump of the thermometer comically protruding +from a corner of her lips. Meanwhile Alvina took her plump white +wrist and felt her pulse. + +"We can practise--" began Geoffrey. + +"Sh!" said Max, holding up his finger and looking anxiously at +Alvina and Madame, who still leaned back with the stump of the +thermometer jauntily perking up from her pursed mouth, while her +face was rather ghastly. + +Max and Louis watched anxiously. Geoffrey sat blowing the smoke down +his nose, while Ciccio callously lit another cigarette, striking a +match on his boot-heel and puffing from under the tip of his rather +long nose. Then he took the cigarette from his mouth, turned his +head, slowly spat on the floor, and rubbed his foot on his spit. Max +flapped his eyelids and looked all disdain, murmuring something +about "ein schmutziges italienisches Volk," whilst Louis, refusing +either to see or to hear, framed the word "chien" on his lips. + +Then quick as lightning both turned their attention again to Madame. + +Her temperature was a hundred and two. + +"You'd better go to bed," said Alvina. "Have you eaten anything?" + +"One little mouthful," said Madame plaintively. + +Max sat looking pale and stricken, Louis had hurried forward to take +Madame's hand. He kissed it quickly, then turned aside his head +because of the tears in his eyes. Geoffrey gulped beer in large +throatfuls, and Ciccio, with his head bent, was watching from under +his eyebrows. + +"I'll run round for the doctor--" said Alvina. + +"Don't! Don't do that, my dear! Don't you go and do that! I'm likely +to a temperature--" + +"Liable to a temperature," murmured Louis pathetically. + +"I'll go to bed," said Madame, obediently rising. + +"Wait a bit. I'll see if there's a fire in the bedroom," said +Alvina. + +"Oh, my dear, you are too good. Open the door for her, Ciccio--" + +Ciccio reached across at the door, but was too late. Max had +hastened to usher Alvina out. Madame sank back in her chair. + +"Never for ten years," she was wailing. "Quoi faire, ah, quoi +faire! Que ferez-vous, mes pauvres, sans votre Kishwégin. Que +vais-je faire, mourir dans un tel pays! La bonne demoiselle--la +bonne demoiselle--elle a du coeur. Elle pourrait aussi être belle, +s'il y avait un peu plus de chair. Max, liebster, schau ich sehr +elend aus? Ach, oh jeh, oh jeh!" + +"Ach nein, Madame, ach nein. Nicht so furchtbar elend," said Max. + +"Manca il cuore solamente al Ciccio," moaned Madame. "Che natura +povera, senza sentimento--niente di bello. Ahimé, che amico, che +ragazzo duro, aspero--" + +"Trova?" said Ciccio, with a curl of the lip. He looked, as he +dropped his long, beautiful lashes, as if he might weep for all +that, if he were not bound to be misbehaving just now. + +So Madame moaned in four languages as she posed pallid in her +arm-chair. Usually she spoke in French only, with her young men. But +this was an extra occasion. + +"La pauvre Kishwégin!" murmured Madame. "Elle va finir au monde. +Elle passe--la pauvre Kishwégin." + +Kishwégin was Madame's Red Indian name, the name under which she +danced her Squaw's fire-dance. + +Now that she knew she was ill, Madame seemed to become more ill. Her +breath came in little pants. She had a pain in her side. A feverish +flush seemed to mount her cheek. The young men were all extremely +uncomfortable. Louis did not conceal his tears. Only Ciccio kept the +thin smile on his lips, and added to Madame's annoyance and pain. + +Alvina came down to take her to bed. The young men all rose, and +kissed Madame's hand as she went out: her poor jewelled hand, that +was faintly perfumed with eau de Cologne. She spoke an appropriate +good-night, to each of them. + +"Good-night, my faithful Max, I trust myself to you. Good-night, +Louis, the tender heart. Good-night valiant Geoffrey. Ah Ciccio, do +not add to the weight of my heart. Be good _braves_, all, be +brothers in one accord. One little prayer for poor Kishwégin. +Good-night!" + +After which valediction she slowly climbed the stairs, putting her +hand on her knee at each step, with the effort. + +"No--no," she said to Max, who would have followed to her +assistance. "Do not come up. No--no!" + +Her bedroom was tidy and proper. + +"Tonight," she moaned, "I shan't be able to see that the boys' +rooms are well in order. They are not to be trusted, no. They need +an overseeing eye: especially Ciccio; especially Ciccio!" + +She sank down by the fire and began to undo her dress. + +"You must let me help you," said Alvina. "You know I have been a +nurse." + +"Ah, you are too kind, too kind, dear young lady. I am a lonely old +woman. I am not used to attentions. Best leave me." + +"Let me help you," said Alvina. + +"Alas, ahimé! Who would have thought Kishwégin would need help. I +danced last night with the boys in the theatre in Leek: and tonight +I am put to bed in--what is the name of this place, dear?--It seems +I don't remember it." + +"Woodhouse," said Alvina. + +"Woodhouse! Woodhouse! Is there not something called Woodlouse? I +believe. Ugh, horrible! Why is it horrible?" + +Alvina quickly undressed the plump, trim little woman. She seemed so +soft. Alvina could not imagine how she could be a dancer on the +stage, strenuous. But Madame's softness could flash into wild +energy, sudden convulsive power, like a cuttle-fish. Alvina brushed +out the long black hair, and plaited it lightly. Then she got Madame +into bed. + +"Ah," sighed Madame, "the good bed! The good bed! But cold--it is so +cold. Would you hang up my dress, dear, and fold my stockings?" + +Alvina quickly folded and put aside the dainty underclothing. Queer, +dainty woman, was Madame, even to her wonderful threaded +black-and-gold garters. + +"My poor boys--no Kishwégin tomorrow! You don't think I need see a +priest, dear? A priest!" said Madame, her teeth chattering. + +"Priest! Oh no! You'll be better when we can get you warm. I think +it's only a chill. Mrs. Rollings is warming a blanket--" + +Alvina ran downstairs. Max opened the sitting-room door and stood +watching at the sound of footsteps. His rather bony fists were +clenched beneath his loose shirt-cuffs, his eyebrows tragically +lifted. + +"Is she much ill?" he asked. + +"I don't know. But I don't think so. Do you mind heating the +blanket while Mrs. Rollings makes thin gruel?" + +Max and Louis stood heating blankets. Louis' trousers were cut +rather tight at the waist, and gave him a female look. Max was +straight and stiff. Mrs. Rollings asked Geoffrey to fill the +coal-scuttles and carry one upstairs. Geoffrey obediently went out +with a lantern to the coal-shed. Afterwards he was to carry up the +horse-hair arm-chair. + +"I must go home for some things," said Alvina to Ciccio. "Will you +come and carry them for me?" + +He started up, and with one movement threw away his cigarette. He +did not look at Alvina. His beautiful lashes seemed to screen his +eyes. He was fairly tall, but loosely built for an Italian, with +slightly sloping shoulders. Alvina noticed the brown, slender +Mediterranean hand, as he put his fingers to his lips. It was a hand +such as she did not know, prehensile and tender and dusky. With an +odd graceful slouch he went into the passage and reached for his +coat. + +He did not say a word, but held aloof as he walked with Alvina. + +"I'm sorry for Madame," said Alvina, as she hurried rather +breathless through the night. "She does think for you men." + +But Ciccio vouchsafed no answer, and walked with his hands in the +pockets of his water-proof, wincing from the weather. + +"I'm afraid she will never be able to dance tomorrow," said Alvina. + +"You think she won't be able?" he said. + +"I'm almost sure she won't." + +After which he said nothing, and Alvina also kept silence till they +came to the black dark passage and encumbered yard at the back of +the house. + +"I don't think you can see at all," she said. "It's this way." She +groped for him in the dark, and met his groping hand. + +"This way," she said. + +It was curious how light his fingers were in their clasp--almost +like a child's touch. So they came under the light from the window +of the sitting-room. + +Alvina hurried indoors, and the young man followed. + +"I shall have to stay with Madame tonight," she explained hurriedly. +"She's feverish, but she may throw it off if we can get her into a +sweat." And Alvina ran upstairs collecting things necessary. Ciccio +stood back near the door, and answered all Miss Pinnegar's +entreaties to come to the fire with a shake of the head and a slight +smile of the lips, bashful and stupid. + +"But do come and warm yourself before you go out again," said Miss +Pinnegar, looking at the man as he drooped his head in the distance. +He still shook dissent, but opened his mouth at last. + +"It makes it colder after," he said, showing his teeth in a slight, +stupid smile. + +"Oh well, if you think so," said Miss Pinnegar, nettled. She +couldn't make heads or tails of him, and didn't try. + +When they got back, Madame was light-headed, and talking excitedly +of her dance, her young men. The three young men were terrified. +They had got the blankets scorching hot. Alvina smeared the plasters +and applied them to Madame's side, where the pain was. What a +white-skinned, soft, plump child she seemed! Her pain meant a touch +of pleurisy, for sure. The men hovered outside the door. Alvina +wrapped the poor patient in the hot blankets, got a few spoonfuls of +hot gruel and whiskey down her throat, fastened her down in bed, +lowered the light and banished the men from the stairs. Then she sat +down to watch. Madame chafed, moaned, murmured feverishly. Alvina +soothed her, and put her hands in bed. And at last the poor dear +became quiet. Her brow was faintly moist. She fell into a quiet +sleep, perspiring freely. Alvina watched her still, soothed her when +she suddenly started and began to break out of the bedclothes, +quieted her, pressed her gently, firmly down, folded her tight and +made her submit to the perspiration against which, in convulsive +starts, she fought and strove, crying that she was suffocating, she +was too hot, too hot. + +"Lie still, lie still," said Alvina. "You must keep warm." + +Poor Madame moaned. How she hated seething in the bath of her own +perspiration. Her wilful nature rebelled strongly. She would have +thrown aside her coverings and gasped into the cold air, if Alvina +had not pressed her down with that soft, inevitable pressure. + +So the hours passed, till about one o'clock, when the perspiration +became less profuse, and the patient was really better, really +quieter. Then Alvina went downstairs for a moment. She saw the light +still burning in the front room. Tapping, she entered. There sat Max +by the fire, a picture of misery, with Louis opposite him, nodding +asleep after his tears. On the sofa Geoffrey snored lightly, while +Ciccio sat with his head on the table, his arms spread out, dead +asleep. Again she noticed the tender, dusky Mediterranean hands, the +slender wrists, slender for a man naturally loose and muscular. + +"Haven't you gone to bed?" whispered Alvina. "Why?" + +Louis started awake. Max, the only stubborn watcher, shook his head +lugubriously. + +"But she's better," whispered Alvina. "She's perspired. She's +better. She's sleeping naturally." + +Max stared with round, sleep-whitened, owlish eyes, pessimistic and +sceptical: + +"Yes," persisted Alvina. "Come and look at her. But don't wake her, +whatever you do." + +Max took off his slippers and rose to his tall height. Louis, like a +scared chicken, followed. Each man held his slippers in his hand. +They noiselessly entered and peeped stealthily over the heaped +bedclothes. Madame was lying, looking a little flushed and very +girlish, sleeping lightly, with a strand of black hair stuck to her +cheek, and her lips lightly parted. + +Max watched her for some moments. Then suddenly he straightened +himself, pushed back his brown hair that was brushed up in the +German fashion, and crossed himself, dropping his knee as before an +altar; crossed himself and dropped his knee once more; and then a +third time crossed himself and inclined before the altar. Then he +straightened himself again, and turned aside. + +Louis also crossed himself. His tears burst out. He bowed and took +the edge of a blanket to his lips, kissing it reverently. Then he +covered his face with his hand. + +Meanwhile Madame slept lightly and innocently on. + +Alvina turned to go. Max silently followed, leading Louis by the +arm. When they got downstairs, Max and Louis threw themselves in +each other's arms, and kissed each other on either cheek, gravely, +in Continental fashion. + +"She is better," said Max gravely, in French. + +"Thanks to God," replied Louis. + +Alvina witnessed all this with some amazement. The men did not heed +her. Max went over and shook Geoffrey, Louis put his hand on +Ciccio's shoulder. The sleepers were difficult to wake. The wakers +shook the sleeping, but in vain. At last Geoffrey began to stir. +But in vain Louis lifted Ciccio's shoulders from the table. The head +and the hands dropped inert. The long black lashes lay motionless, +the rather long, fine Greek nose drew the same light breaths, the +mouth remained shut. Strange fine black hair, he had, close as fur, +animal, and naked, frail-seeming, tawny hands. There was a silver +ring on one hand. + +Alvina suddenly seized one of the inert hands that slid on the +table-cloth as Louis shook the young man's shoulders. Tight she +pressed the hand. Ciccio opened his tawny-yellowish eyes, that +seemed to have been put in with a dirty finger, as the saying goes, +owing to the sootiness of the lashes and brows. He was quite drunk +with his first sleep, and saw nothing. + +"Wake up," said Alvina, laughing, pressing his hand again. + +He lifted his head once more, suddenly clasped her hand, his eyes +came to consciousness, his hand relaxed, he recognized her, and he +sat back in his chair, turning his face aside and lowering his +lashes. + +"Get up, great beast," Louis was saying softly in French, pushing +him as ox-drivers sometimes push their oxen. Ciccio staggered to his +feet. + +"She is better," they told him. "We are going to bed." + +They took their candles and trooped off upstairs, each one bowing to +Alvina as he passed. Max solemnly, Louis gallant, the other two dumb +and sleepy. They occupied the two attic chambers. + +Alvina carried up the loose bed from the sofa, and slept on the +floor before the fire in Madame's room. + +Madame slept well and long, rousing and stirring and settling off +again. It was eight o'clock before she asked her first question. +Alvina was already up. + +"Oh--alors--Then I am better, I am quite well. I can dance today." + +"I don't think today," said Alvina. "But perhaps tomorrow." + +"No, today," said Madame. "I can dance today, because I am quite +well. I am Kishwégin." + +"You are better. But you must lie still today. Yes, really--you will +find you are weak when you try to stand." + +Madame watched Alvina's thin face with sullen eyes. + +"You are an Englishwoman, severe and materialist," she said. + +Alvina started and looked round at her with wide blue eyes. + +"Why?" she said. There was a wan, pathetic look about her, a sort of +heroism which Madame detested, but which now she found touching. + +"Come!" said Madame, stretching out her plump jewelled hand. "Come, +I am an ungrateful woman. Come, they are not good for you, the +people, I see it. Come to me." + +Alvina went slowly to Madame, and took the outstretched hand. Madame +kissed her hand, then drew her down and kissed her on either cheek, +gravely, as the young men had kissed each other. + +"You have been good to Kishwégin, and Kishwégin has a heart that +remembers. There, Miss Houghton, I shall do what you tell me. +Kishwégin obeys you." And Madame patted Alvina's hand and nodded her +head sagely. + +"Shall I take your temperature?" said Alvina. + +"Yes, my dear, you shall. You shall bid me, and I shall obey." + +So Madame lay back on her pillow, submissively pursing the +thermometer between her lips and watching Alvina with black eyes. + +"It's all right," said Alvina, as she looked at the thermometer. +"Normal." + +"Normal!" re-echoed Madame's rather guttural voice. "Good! Well, +then when shall I dance?" + +Alvina turned and looked at her. + +"I think, truly," said Alvina, "it shouldn't be before Thursday or +Friday." + +"Thursday!" repeated Madame. "You say Thursday?" There was a note of +strong rebellion in her voice. + +"You'll be so weak. You've only just escaped pleurisy. I can only +say what I truly think, can't I?" + +"Ah, you Englishwomen," said Madame, watching with black eyes. "I +think you like to have your own way. In all things, to have your own +way. And over all people. You are so good, to have your own way. +Yes, you good Englishwomen. Thursday. Very well, it shall be +Thursday. Till Thursday, then, Kishwégin does not exist." + +And she subsided, already rather weak, upon her pillow again. When +she had taken her tea and was washed and her room was tidied, she +summoned the young men. Alvina had warned Max that she wanted +Madame to be kept as quiet as possible this day. + +As soon as the first of the four appeared, in his shirt-sleeves and +his slippers, in the doorway, Madame said: + +"Ah, there you are, my young men! Come in! Come in! It is not +Kishwégin addresses you. Kishwégin does not exist till Thursday, as +the English demoiselle makes it." She held out her hand, faintly +perfumed with eau de Cologne--the whole room smelled of eau de +Cologne--and Max stooped his brittle spine and kissed it. She +touched his cheek gently with her other hand. + +"My faithful Max, my support." + +Louis came smiling with a bunch of violets and pinky anemones. He +laid them down on the bed before her, and took her hand, bowing and +kissing it reverently. + +"You are better, dear Madame?" he said, smiling long at her. + +"Better, yes, gentle Louis. And better for thy flowers, chivalric +heart." She put the violets and anemones to her face with both +hands, and then gently laid them aside to extend her hand to +Geoffrey. + +"The good Geoffrey will do his best, while there is no Kishwégin?" +she said as he stooped to her salute. + +"Bien sûr, Madame." + +"Ciccio, a button off thy shirt-cuff. Where is my needle?" She +looked round the room as Ciccio kissed her hand. + +"Did you want anything?" said Alvina, who had not followed the +French. + +"My needle, to sew on this button. It is there, in the silk bag." + +"I will do it," said Alvina. + +"Thank you." + +While Alvina sewed on the button, Madame spoke to her young men, +principally to Max. They were to obey Max, she said, for he was +their eldest brother. This afternoon they would practise well the +scene of the White Prisoner. Very carefully they must practise, and +they must find some one who would play the young squaw--for in this +scene she had practically nothing to do, the young squaw, but just +sit and stand. Miss Houghton--but ah, Miss Houghton must play the +piano, she could not take the part of the young squaw. Some other +then. + +While the interview was going on, Mr. May arrived, full of concern. + +"Shan't we have the procession!" he cried. + +"Ah, the procession!" cried Madame. + +The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe upon request would signalize its entry +into any town by a procession. The young men were dressed as Indian +_braves_, and headed by Kishwégin they rode on horseback through the +main streets. Ciccio, who was the crack horseman, having served a +very well-known horsey Marchese in an Italian cavalry regiment, did +a bit of show riding. + +Mr. May was very keen on the procession. He had the horses in +readiness. The morning was faintly sunny, after the sleet and bad +weather. And now he arrived to find Madame in bed and the young men +holding council with her. + +"How _very_ unfortunate!" cried Mr. May. "How _very_ unfortunate!" + +"Dreadful! Dreadful!" wailed Madame from the bed. + +"But can't we do _anything_?" + +"Yes--you can do the White Prisoner scene--the young men can do +that, if you find a dummy squaw. Ah, I think I must get up after +all." + +Alvina saw the look of fret and exhaustion in Madame's face. + +"Won't you all go downstairs now?" said Alvina. "Mr. Max knows what +you must do." + +And she shooed the five men out of the bedroom. + +"I _must_ get up. I won't dance. I will be a dummy. But I must be +there. It is too dre-eadful, too dre-eadful!" wailed Madame. + +"Don't take any notice of them. They can manage by themselves. Men +are such babies. Let them carry it through by themselves." + +"Children--they are all children!" wailed Madame. "All children! And +so, what will they do without their old _gouvernante_? My poor +_braves_, what will they do without Kishwégin? It is too dreadful, +too dre-eadful, yes. The poor Mr. May--so _disappointed_." + +"Then let him _be_ disappointed," cried Alvina, as she forcibly +tucked up Madame and made her lie still. + +"You are hard! You are a hard Englishwoman. All alike. All alike!" +Madame subsided fretfully and weakly. Alvina moved softly about. +And in a few minutes Madame was sleeping again. + +Alvina went downstairs. Mr. May was listening to Max, who was +telling in German all about the White Prisoner scene. Mr. May had +spent his boyhood in a German school. He cocked his head on one +side, and, laying his hand on Max's arm, entertained him in odd +German. The others were silent. Ciccio made no pretence of +listening, but smoked and stared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey +half understood, so Louis nodded with a look of deep comprehension, +whilst Geoffrey uttered short, snappy "Ja!--Ja!--Doch!--Eben!" +rather irrelevant. + +"I'll be the squaw," cried Mr. May in English, breaking off and +turning round to the company. He perked up his head in an odd, +parrot-like fashion. "_I'll_ be the squaw! What's her name? +Kishwégin? I'll be Kishwégin." And he bridled and beamed +self-consciously. + +The two tall Swiss looked down on him, faintly smiling. Ciccio, +sitting with his arms on his knees on the sofa, screwed round his +head and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, +expressionless attention. + +"Let us go," said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance. "Let us go +and rehearse _this morning_, and let us do the procession this +afternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. There! What? +Isn't that exactly the idea? Well! Will you be ready at once, +_now_?" + +He looked excitedly at the young men. They nodded with slow gravity, +as if they were already _braves_. And they turned to put on their +boots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lumley, Mr. May prancing +like a little circus-pony beside Alvina, the four young men rolling +ahead. + +"What do you think of it?" cried Mr. May. "We've saved the +situation--what? Don't you think so? Don't you think we can +congratulate ourselves." + +They found Mr. Houghton fussing about in the theatre. He was on +tenterhooks of agitation, knowing Madame was ill. + +Max gave a brilliant display of yodelling. + +"But I must _explain_ to them," cried Mr. May. "I must _explain_ to +them what yodel means." + +And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth his +hand. + +"In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciers +reign over luscious meadows full of flowers, if you should chance to +awaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm amid the mountain +pastures, you--er--you--let me see--if you--no--if you should chance +to _spend the night_ in some lonely wooden farm, amid the upland +pastures, dawn will awake you with a wild, inhuman song, you will +open your eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams, your +ears will be ringing with weird singing, that has no words and no +meaning, but sounds as if some wild and icy god were warbling to +himself as he wandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth +across the flowers to the blue snow, and you see, far off, a small +figure of a man moving among the grass. It is a peasant singing his +mountain song, warbling like some creature that lifted up its voice +on the edge of the eternal snows, before the human race began--" + +During this oration James Houghton sat with his chin in his hand, +devoured with bitter jealousy, measuring Mr. May's eloquence. And +then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume, +white shirt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois +leather stitched with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked +ankles and heavy shoes, warbled his native Yodel strains, a piercing +and disturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen tempered and +fierce and mountainous. There was a fierce, icy passion in the man. +Alvina began to understand Madame's subjection to him. + +Louis and Geoffrey did a farce dialogue, two foreigners at the same +moment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other and +protesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Ciccio, who +stood solid and ridiculous. Mr. Houghton nodded slowly and gravely, +as if to give his measured approval. + +Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practised the +music Madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, she +welcomed the accompaniment: if not, she dispensed with it. + +"Am I all right?" said a smirking voice. + +And there was Kishwégin, dusky, coy, with long black hair and a +short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: _so_ coy, +and _so_ smirking. Alvina burst out laughing. + +"But shan't I do?" protested Mr. May, hurt. + +"Yes, you're wonderful," said Alvina, choking. "But I _must_ laugh." + +"But why? Tell me why?" asked Mr. May anxiously. "Is it my +_appearance_ you laugh at, or is it only _me_? If it's me I don't +mind. But if it's my appearance, tell me so." + +Here an appalling figure of Ciccio in war-paint strolled on to the +stage. He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, was +dusky-red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle's feathers--only +two feathers--and a face wonderfully and terribly painted with +white, red, yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with +himself. His curious soft slouch, and curious way of lifting his lip +from his white teeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing. + +"You haven't got the girdle," he said, touching Mr. May's plump +waist--"and some flowers in your hair." + +Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. A bear on its hind legs, +slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretching a paw +towards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a +laugh came from its muzzle. + +"You won't have to dance," said Geoffrey out of the bear. + +"Come and put in the flowers," said Mr. May anxiously, to Alvina. + +In the dressing-room, the dividing-curtain was drawn. Max, in +deerskin trousers but with unpainted torso looked very white and +strange as he put the last touches of war-paint on Louis' face. He +glanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a +sort of nobility about his erect white form and stiffly-carried +head, the semi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior. + +Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis arose, a _brave_ like +Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tattered +hunting-shirt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. He +was the white prisoner. + +They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watched. It was soon done. A +back cloth of tree-trunks and dark forest: a wigwam, a fire, and a +cradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain to +dissociate the two _braves_ from their war-paint. The lines were +drawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and +horrible, so that even in the quiet work of scene-shifting Louis' +stiffish, female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst +Ciccio's more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him +for one single moment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel, +underneath their civilization. + +The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwégin alone at the door +of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional push to the +hanging cradle, and, if only Madame were taking the part, crooning +an Indian cradle-song. Enter the _brave_ Louis with his white +prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side. Kishwégin +gravely salutes her husband--the bound prisoner is seated by the +fire--Kishwégin serves food, and asks permission to feed the +prisoner. The _brave_ Louis, hearing a sound, starts up with his bow +and arrow. There is a dumb scene of sympathy between Kishwégin and +the prisoner--the prisoner wants his bonds cut. Re-enter the _brave_ +Louis--he is angry with Kishwégin--enter the _brave_ Ciccio hauling +a bear, apparently dead. Kishwégin examines the bear, Ciccio +examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him +stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwégin swings the cradle. The +prisoner is tripped up--falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the +fallen bear. Kishwégin carries food to Ciccio. The two _braves_ +converse in dumb show, Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. The +men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there +is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and +at the same moment the bear strikes him down. Ciccio springs forward +and stabs the bear, then closes with it. Kishwégin runs and cuts the +prisoner's bonds. He rises, and stands trying to lift his numbed and +powerless arms, while the bear slowly crushes Ciccio, and Kishwégin +kneels over her husband. The bear drops Ciccio lifeless, and turns +to Kishwégin. At that moment Max manages to kill the bear--he takes +Kishwégin by the hand and kneels with her beside the dead Louis. + +It was wonderful how well the men played their different parts. But +Mr. May was a little too frisky as Kishwégin. However, it would do. + +Ciccio got dressed as soon as possible, to go and look at the horses +hired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him, Mr. May +and the others were busy. + +"You know I think it's quite wonderful, your scene," she said to +Ciccio. + +He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky-set eyes rested +on her good-naturedly, without seeing her, his lip curled in a +self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile. + +"Not without Madame," he said, with the slow, half-sneering, stupid +smile. "Without Madame--" he lifted his shoulders and spread his +hands and tilted his brows--"fool's play, you know." + +"No," said Alvina. "I think Mr. May is good, considering. What does +Madame _do_?" she asked a little jealously. + +"Do?" He looked down at her with the same long, half-sardonic look +of his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casually at a bird which +flutters past. And again he made his shrugging motion. "She does it +all, really. The others--they are nothing--what they are Madame has +made them. And now they think they've done it all, you see. You see, +that's it." + +"But how has Madame made it all? Thought it out, you mean?" + +"Thought it out, yes. And then _done_ it. You should see her +dance--ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him +in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand--" And +Ciccio stood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on +one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose +at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his +eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance, +and all the time his lips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little +assertive shake of his head, finishing, there came a great yell of +laughter from the opposite pavement, where a gang of pottery lasses, +in aprons all spattered with grey clay, and hair and boots and skin +spattered with pallid spots, had stood to watch. The girls opposite +shrieked again, for all the world like a gang of grey baboons. +Ciccio turned round and looked at them with a sneer along his nose. +They yelled the louder. And he was horribly uncomfortable, walking +there beside Alvina with his rather small and effeminately-shod +feet. + +"How stupid they are," said Alvina. "I've got used to them." + +"They should be--" he lifted his hand with a sharp, vicious +movement--"_smacked_," he concluded, lowering his hand again. + +"Who is going to do it?" said Alvina. + +He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand +outspread in the air, as if to say: "There you are! You've got to +thank the fools who've failed to do it." + +"Why do you all love Madame so much?" Alvina asked. + +"How, love?" he said, making a little grimace. "We like her--we love +her--as if she were a mother. You say _love_--" He raised his +shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at +Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways, +and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering +smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a great +instinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious +and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture. +For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech. +Gesture and grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things, +if you would but accept them. + +But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She could +hear Mr. May's verdict of him: "Like a child, you know, just as +charming and just as tiresome and just as stupid." + +"Where is your home?" she asked him. + +"In Italy." She felt a fool. + +"Which part?" she insisted. + +"Naples," he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly. + +"It must be lovely," she said. + +"Ha--!" He threw his head on one side and spread out his hands, as +if to say--"What do you want, if you don't find Naples lovely." + +"I should like to see it. But I shouldn't like to die," she said. + +"What?" + +"They say 'See Naples and die,'" she laughed. + +He opened his mouth, and understood. Then he smiled at her directly. + +"You know what that means?" he said cutely. "It means see Naples and +die afterwards. Don't die _before_ you've seen it." He smiled with a +knowing smile. + +"I see! I see!" she cried. "I never thought of that." + +He was pleased with her surprise and amusement. + +"Ah Naples!" he said. "She is lovely--" He spread his hand across +the air in front of him--"The sea--and Posilippo--and Sorrento--and +Capri--Ah-h! You've never been out of England?" + +"No," she said. "I should love to go." + +He looked down into her eyes. It was his instinct to say at once he +would take her. + +"You've seen nothing--nothing," he said to her. + +"But if Naples is so lovely, how could you leave it?" she asked. + +"What?" + +She repeated her question. For answer, he looked at her, held out +his hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tips of his +fingers, said, with a fine, handsome smile: + +"Pennies! Money! You can't earn money in Naples. Ah, Naples is +beautiful, but she is poor. You live in the sun, and you earn +fourteen, fifteen pence a day--" + +"Not enough," she said. + +He put his head on one side and tilted his brows, as if to say "What +are you to do?" And the smile on his mouth was sad, fine, and +charming. There was an indefinable air of sadness or wistfulness +about him, something so robust and fragile at the same time, that +she was drawn in a strange way. + +"But you'll go back?" she said. + +"Where?" + +"To Italy. To Naples." + +"Yes, I shall go back to Italy," he said, as if unwilling to commit +himself. "But perhaps I shan't go back to Naples." + +"Never?" + +"Ah, never! I don't say never. I shall go to Naples, to see my +mother's sister. But I shan't go to live--" + +"Have you a mother and father?" + +"I? No! I have a brother and two sisters--in America. Parents, none. +They are dead." + +"And you wander about the world--" she said. + +He looked at her, and made a slight, sad gesture, indifferent also. + +"But you have Madame for a mother," she said. + +He made another gesture this time: pressed down the corners of his +mouth as if he didn't like it. Then he turned with the slow, fine +smile. + +"Does a man want two mothers? Eh?" he said, as if he posed a +conundrum. + +"I shouldn't think so," laughed Alvina. + +He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood. + +"My mother is dead, see!" he said. "Frenchwomen--Frenchwomen--they +have their babies till they are a hundred--" + +"What do you mean?" said Alvina, laughing. + +"A Frenchman is a little man when he's seven years old--and if his +mother comes, he is a little baby boy when he's seventy. Do you know +that?" + +"I _didn't_ know it," said Alvina. + +"But now--you do," he said, lurching round a corner with her. + +They had come to the stables. Three of the horses were there, +including the thoroughbred Ciccio was going to ride. He stood and +examined the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strange +sounds, patted them, stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand +down them, over them, under them, and felt their legs. + +Then, he looked up from stooping there under the horses, with a +long, slow look of his yellow eyes, at Alvina. She felt +unconsciously flattered. His long, yellow look lingered, holding her +eyes. She wondered what he was thinking. Yet he never spoke. He +turned again to the horses. They seemed to understand him, to prick +up alert. + +"This is mine," he said, with his hand on the neck of the old +thoroughbred. It was a bay with a white blaze. + +"I think he's nice," she said. "He seems so sensitive." + +"In England," he answered suddenly, "horses live a long time, +because they _don't_ live--never alive--see? In England +railway-engines are alive, and horses go on wheels." He smiled into +her eyes as if she understood. She was a trifle nervous as he smiled +at her from out of the stable, so yellow-eyed and half-mysterious, +derisive. Her impulse was to turn and go away from the stable. But a +deeper impulse made her smile into his face, as she said to him: + +"They like you to touch them." + +"Who?" His eyes kept hers. Curious how _dark_ they seemed, with only +a yellow ring of pupil. He was looking right into her, beyond her +usual self, impersonal. + +"The horses," she said. She was afraid of his long, cat-like look. +Yet she felt convinced of his ultimate good-nature. He seemed to her +to be the only passionately good-natured man she had ever seen. She +watched him vaguely, with strange vague trust, implicit belief in +him. In him--in what? + +That afternoon the colliers trooping home in the winter afternoon +were rejoiced with a spectacle: Kishwégin, in her deerskin, fringed +gaiters and fringed frock of deerskin, her long hair down her back, +and with marvellous cloths and trappings on her steed, riding +astride on a tall white horse, followed by Max in chieftain's robes +and chieftain's long head-dress of dyed feathers, then by the others +in war-paint and feathers and brilliant Navajo blankets. They +carried bows and spears. Ciccio was without his blanket, naked to +the waist, in war-paint, and brandishing a long spear. He dashed up +from the rear, saluted the chieftain with his arm and his spear on +high as he swept past, suddenly drew up his rearing steed, and +trotted slowly back again, making his horse perform its paces. He +was extraordinarily velvety and alive on horseback. + +Crowds of excited, shouting children ran chattering along the +pavements. The colliers, as they tramped grey and heavy, in an +intermittent stream uphill from the low grey west, stood on the +pavement in wonder as the cavalcade approached and passed, jingling +the silver bells of its trappings, vibrating the wonderful colours +of the barred blankets and saddle cloths, the scarlet wool of the +accoutrements, the bright tips of feathers. Women shrieked as +Ciccio, in his war-paint, wheeled near the pavement. Children +screamed and ran. The colliers shouted. Ciccio smiled in his +terrifying war-paint, brandished his spear and trotted softly, like +a flower on its stem, round to the procession. + +Miss Pinnegar and Alvina and James Houghton had come round into +Knarborough Road to watch. It was a great moment. Looking along the +road they saw all the shopkeepers at their doors, the pavements +eager. And then, in the distance, the white horse jingling its +trappings of scarlet hair and bells, with the dusky Kishwégin +sitting on the saddle-blanket of brilliant, lurid stripes, sitting +impassive and all dusky above that intermittent flashing of colour: +then the chieftain, dark-faced, erect, easy, swathed in a white +blanket, with scarlet and black stripes, and all his strange crest +of white, tip-dyed feathers swaying down his back: as he came nearer +one saw the wolfskin and the brilliant moccasins against the black +sides of his horse; Louis and Goeffrey followed, lurid, horrid in +the face, wearing blankets with stroke after stroke of blazing +colour upon their duskiness, and sitting stern, holding their +spears: lastly, Ciccio, on his bay horse with a green seat, +flickering hither and thither in the rear, his feathers swaying, his +horse sweating, his face ghastlily smiling in its war-paint. So they +advanced down the grey pallor of Knarborough Road, in the late +wintry afternoon. Somewhere the sun was setting, and far overhead +was a flush of orange. + +"Well I never!" murmured Miss Pinnegar. "Well I never!" + +The strange savageness of the striped Navajo blankets seemed to her +unsettling, advancing down Knarborough Road: she examined Kishwégin +curiously. + +"Can you _believe_ that that's Mr. May--he's exactly like a girl. +Well, well--it makes you wonder what is and what isn't. But _aren't_ +they good? What? Most striking. Exactly like Indians. You can't +believe your eyes. My word what a terrifying race they--" Here she +uttered a scream and ran back clutching the wall as Ciccio swept +past, brushing her with his horse's tail, and actually swinging his +spear so as to touch Alvina and James Houghton lightly with the butt +of it. James too started with a cry, the mob at the corner screamed. +But Alvina caught the slow, mischievous smile as the painted horror +showed his teeth in passing; she was able to flash back an excited +laugh. She felt his yellow-tawny eyes linger on her, in that one +second, as if negligently. + +"I call that too much!" Miss Pinnegar was crying, thoroughly upset. +"Now that was unnecessary! Why it was enough to scare one to death. +Besides, it's dangerous. It ought to be put a stop to. I don't +believe in letting these show-people have liberties." + +The cavalcade was slowly passing, with its uneasy horses and its +flare of striped colour and its silent riders. Ciccio was trotting +softly back, on his green saddle-cloth, suave as velvet, his dusky, +naked torso beautiful. + +"Eh, you'd think he'd get his death," the women in the crowd were +saying. + +"A proper savage one, that. Makes your blood run cold--" + +"Ay, an' a man for all that, take's painted face for what's worth. A +tidy man, _I_ say." + +He did not look at Alvina. The faint, mischievous smile uncovered +his teeth. He fell in suddenly behind Geoffrey, with a jerk of his +steed, calling out to Geoffrey in Italian. + +It was becoming cold. The cavalcade fell into a trot, Mr. May +shaking rather badly. Ciccio halted, rested his lance against a +lamp-post, switched his green blanket from beneath him, flung it +round him as he sat, and darted off. They had all disappeared over +the brow of Lumley Hill, descending. He was gone too. In the wintry +twilight the crowd began, lingeringly, to turn away. And in some +strange way, it manifested its disapproval of the spectacle: as +grown-up men and women, they were a little bit insulted by such a +show. It was an anachronism. They wanted a direct appeal to the +mind. Miss Pinnegar expressed it. + +"Well," she said, when she was safely back in Manchester House, with +the gas lighted, and as she was pouring the boiling water into the +tea-pot, "You may say what you like. It's interesting in a way, just +to show what savage Red-Indians were like. But it's childish. It's +only childishness. I can't understand, myself, how people can go on +liking shows. Nothing happens. It's not like the cinema, where you +see it all and take it all in at once; you _know_ everything at a +glance. You don't know anything by looking at these people. You know +they're only men dressed up, for money. I can't see why you should +encourage it. I don't hold with idle show-people, parading round, I +don't, myself. I like to go to the cinema once a week. It's +instruction, you take it all in at a glance, all you need to know, +and it lasts you for a week. You can get to know everything about +people's actual lives from the cinema. I don't see why you want +people dressing up and showing off." + +They sat down to their tea and toast and marmalade, during this +harangue. Miss Pinnegar was always like a douche of cold water to +Alvina, bringing her back to consciousness after a delicious +excitement. In a minute Madame and Ciccio and all seemed to become +unreal--the actual unrealities: while the ragged dithering pictures +of the film were actual, real as the day. And Alvina was always put +out when this happened. She really hated Miss Pinnegar. Yet she had +nothing to answer. They _were_ unreal, Madame and Ciccio and the +rest. Ciccio was just a fantasy blown in on the wind, to blow away +again. The real, permanent thing was Woodhouse, the _semper idem_ +Knarborough Road, and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester +House, with the stuffy, padding Miss Pinnegar, and her father, whose +fingers, whose very soul seemed dirty with pennies. These were the +solid, permanent fact. These were life itself. And Ciccio, splashing +up on his bay horse and green cloth, he was a mountebank and an +extraneous nonentity, a coloured old rag blown down the Knarborough +Road into Limbo. Into Limbo. Whilst Miss Pinnegar and her father sat +frowsily on for ever, eating their toast and cutting off the crust, +and sipping their third cup of tea. They would never blow +away--never, never. Woodhouse was there to eternity. And the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe was blowing like a rag of old paper into +Limbo. Nothingness! Poor Madame! Poor gallant histrionic Madame! The +frowsy Miss Pinnegar could crumple her up and throw her down the +utilitarian drain, and have done with her. Whilst Miss Pinnegar +lived on for ever. + +This put Alvina into a sharp temper. + +"Miss Pinnegar," she said. "I do think you go on in the most +unattractive way sometimes. You're a regular spoil-sport." + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. "I don't approve of your way of +sport, I'm afraid." + +"You can't disapprove of it as much as I hate your spoil-sport +existence," said Alvina in a flare. + +"Alvina, are you mad!" said her father. + +"Wonder I'm not," said Alvina, "considering what my life is." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CICCIO + + +Madame did not pick up her spirits, after her cold. For two days she +lay in bed, attended by Mrs. Rollings and Alvina and the young men. +But she was most careful never to give any room for scandal. The +young men might not approach her save in the presence of some third +party. And then it was strictly a visit of ceremony or business. + +"Oh, your Woodhouse, how glad I shall be when I have left it," she +said to Alvina. "I feel it is unlucky for me." + +"Do you?" said Alvina. "But if you'd had this bad cold in some +places, you might have been much worse, don't you think." + +"Oh my dear!" cried Madame. "Do you think I could confuse you in my +dislike of this Woodhouse? Oh no! You are not Woodhouse. On the +contrary, I think it is unkind for you also, this place. You +look--also--what shall I say--thin, not very happy." + +It was a note of interrogation. + +"I'm sure I dislike Woodhouse much more than you can," replied +Alvina. + +"I am sure. Yes! I am sure. I see it. Why don't you go away? Why +don't you marry?" + +"Nobody wants to marry me," said Alvina. + +Madame looked at her searchingly, with shrewd black eyes under her +arched eyebrows. + +"How!" she exclaimed. "How don't they? You are not bad looking, only +a little too thin--too haggard--" + +She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortably. + +"Is there _nobody_?" persisted Madame. + +"Not now," said Alvina. "Absolutely nobody." She looked with a +confused laugh into Madame's strict black eyes. "You see I didn't +care for the Woodhouse young men, either. I _couldn't_." + +Madame nodded slowly up and down. A secret satisfaction came over +her pallid, waxy countenance, in which her black eyes were like twin +swift extraneous creatures: oddly like two bright little dark +animals in the snow. + +"Sure!" she said, sapient. "Sure! How could you? But there are other +men besides these here--" She waved her hand to the window. + +"I don't meet them, do I?" said Alvina. + +"No, not often. But sometimes! sometimes!" + +There was a silence between the two women, very pregnant. + +"Englishwomen," said Madame, "are so practical. Why are they?" + +"I suppose they can't help it," said Alvina. "But they're not half +so practical and clever as _you_, Madame." + +"Oh la--la! I am practical differently. I am practical +impractically--" she stumbled over the words. "But your Sue now, in +Jude the Obscure--is it not an interesting book? And is she not +always too practically practical. If she had been impractically +practical she could have been quite happy. Do you know what I +mean?--no. But she is ridiculous. Sue: so Anna Karénine. Ridiculous +both. Don't you think?" + +"Why?" said Alvina. + +"Why did they both make everybody unhappy, when they had the man +they wanted, and enough money? I think they are both so silly. If +they had been beaten, they would have lost all their practical ideas +and troubles, merely forgot them, and been happy enough. I am a +woman who says it. Such ideas they have are not tragical. No, not at +all. They are nonsense, you see, nonsense. That is all. Nonsense. +Sue and Anna, they are--non-sensical. That is all. No tragedy +whatsoever. Nonsense. I am a woman. I know men also. And I know +nonsense when I see it. Englishwomen are all nonsense: the worst +women in the world for nonsense." + +"Well, I am English," said Alvina. + +"Yes, my dear, you are English. But you are not necessarily so +non-sensical. Why are you at all?" + +"Nonsensical?" laughed Alvina. "But I don't know what you call my +nonsense." + +"Ah," said Madame wearily. "They never understand. But I like you, +my dear. I am an old woman--" + +"Younger than I," said Alvina. + +"Younger than you, because I am practical from the heart, and not +only from the head. You are not practical from the heart. And yet +you have a heart." + +"But all Englishwomen have good hearts," protested Alvina. + +"No! No!" objected Madame. "They are all ve-ry kind, and ve-ry +practical with their kindness. But they have no heart in all their +kindness. It is all head, all head: the kindness of the head." + +"I can't agree with you," said Alvina. + +"No. No. I don't expect it. But I don't mind. You are very kind to +me, and I thank you. But it is from the head, you see. And so I +thank you from the head. From the heart--no." + +Madame plucked her white fingers together and laid them on her +breast with a gesture of repudiation. Her black eyes stared +spitefully. + +"But Madame," said Alvina, nettled, "I should never be half such a +good business woman as you. Isn't that from the head?" + +"Ha! of course! Of course you wouldn't be a good business woman. +Because you are kind from the head. I--" she tapped her forehead and +shook her head--"I am not kind from the head. From the head I am +business-woman, good business-woman. Of course I am a good +business-woman--of course! But--" here she changed her expression, +widened her eyes, and laid her hand on her breast--"when the heart +speaks--then I listen with the heart. I do not listen with the head. +The heart hears the heart. The head--that is another thing. But you +have blue eyes, you cannot understand. Only dark eyes--" She paused +and mused. + +"And what about yellow eyes?" asked Alvina, laughing. + +Madame darted a look at her, her lips curling with a very faint, +fine smile of derision. Yet for the first time her black eyes +dilated and became warm. + +"Yellow eyes like Ciccio's?" she said, with her great watchful eyes +and her smiling, subtle mouth. "They are the darkest of all." And +she shook her head roguishly. + +"Are they!" said Alvina confusedly, feeling a blush burning up her +throat into her face. + +"Ha--ha!" laughed Madame. "Ha-ha! I am an old woman, you see. My +heart is old enough to be kind, and my head is old enough to be +clever. My heart is kind to few people--very few--especially in this +England. My young men know that. But perhaps to you it is kind." + +"Thank you," said Alvina. + +"There! From the head _Thank you_. It is not well done, you see. You +see!" + +But Alvina ran away in confusion. She felt Madame was having her on +a string. + +Mr. May enjoyed himself hugely playing Kishwégin. When Madame came +downstairs Louis, who was a good satirical mimic, imitated him. +Alvina happened to come into their sitting-room in the midst of +their bursts of laughter. They all stopped and looked at her +cautiously. + +"Continuez! Continuez!" said Madame to Louis. And to Alvina: "Sit +down, my dear, and see what a good actor we have in our Louis." + +Louis glanced round, laid his head a little on one side and drew in +his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail +slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishwégin. He sidled and +bridled and ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the +tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Houghton's +manager that Madame wept again with laughter, whilst Max leaned back +against the wall and giggled continuously like some pot +involuntarily boiling. Geoffrey spread his shut fists across the +table and shouted with laughter, Ciccio threw back his head and +showed all his teeth in a loud laugh of delighted derision. Alvina +laughed also. But she flushed. There was a certain biting, +annihilating quality in Louis' derision of the absentee. And the +others enjoyed it so much. At moments Alvina caught her lip between +her teeth, it was so screamingly funny, and so annihilating. She +laughed in spite of herself. In spite of herself she was shaken into +a convulsion of laughter. Louis was masterful--he mastered her +psyche. She laughed till her head lay helpless on the chair, she +could not move. Helpless, inert she lay, in her orgasm of laughter. +The end of Mr. May. Yet she was hurt. + +And then Madame wiped her own shrewd black eyes, and nodded slow +approval. Suddenly Louis started and held up a warning finger. They +all at once covered their smiles and pulled themselves together. +Only Alvina lay silently laughing. + +"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Rollings!" they heard Mr. May's voice. "Your +company is lively. Is Miss Houghton here? May I go through?" + +They heard his quick little step and his quick little tap. + +"Come in," called Madame. + +The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras all sat with straight faces. Only poor Alvina +lay back in her chair in a new weak convulsion. Mr. May glanced +quickly round, and advanced to Madame. + +"Oh, good-morning, Madame, so glad to see you downstairs," he said, +taking her hand and bowing ceremoniously. "Excuse my intruding on +your mirth!" He looked archly round. Alvina was still incompetent. +She lay leaning sideways in her chair, and could not even speak to +him. + +"It was evidently a good joke," he said. "May I hear it too?" + +"Oh," said Madame, drawling. "It was no joke. It was only Louis +making a fool of himself, doing a turn." + +"Must have been a good one," said Mr. May. "Can't we put it on?" + +"No," drawled Madame, "it was nothing--just a non-sensical mood of +the moment. Won't you sit down? You would like a little +whiskey?--yes?" + +Max poured out whiskey and water for Mr. May. + +Alvina sat with her face averted, quiet, but unable to speak to Mr. +May. Max and Louis had become polite. Geoffrey stared with his big, +dark-blue eyes stolidly at the newcomer. Ciccio leaned with his arms +on his knees, looking sideways under his long lashes at the inert +Alvina. + +"Well," said Madame, "and are you satisfied with your houses?" + +"Oh yes," said Mr. May. "Quite! The two nights have been excellent. +Excellent!" + +"Ah--I am glad. And Miss Houghton tells me I should not dance +tomorrow, it is too soon." + +"Miss Houghton _knows_," said Mr. May archly. + +"Of course!" said Madame. "I must do as she tells me." + +"Why yes, since it is for your good, and not hers." + +"Of course! Of course! It is very kind of her." + +"Miss Houghton is _most_ kind--to _every one_," said Mr. May. + +"I am sure," said Madame. "And I am very glad you have been such a +good Kishwégin. That is very nice also." + +"Yes," replied Mr. May. "I begin to wonder if I have mistaken my +vocation. I should have been _on_ the boards, instead of behind +them." + +"No doubt," said Madame. "But it is a little late--" + +The eyes of the foreigners, watching him, flattered Mr. May. + +"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Yes. Popular taste is a mysterious +thing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work +as much as they did?" + +Madame watched him with her black eyes. + +"No," she replied. "They don't. The pictures are driving us away. +Perhaps we shall last for ten years more. And after that, we are +finished." + +"You think so," said Mr. May, looking serious. + +"I am sure," she said, nodding sagely. + +"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry and petulant. + +"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. The pictures are cheap, and +they are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of the +heart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these. +And so they like them, and they don't like us, because they must +_feel_ the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them from +the spirit. There!" + +"And they don't want to appreciate and to feel?" said Mr. May. + +"No. They don't want. They want it all through the eye, and +finished--so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In +all countries, the same. And so--in ten years' time--no more +Kishwégin at all." + +"No. Then what future have you?" said Mr. May gloomily. + +"I may be dead--who knows. If not, I shall have my little apartment +in Lausanne, or in Bellizona, and I shall be a bourgeoise once more, +and the good Catholic which I am." + +"Which I am also," said Mr. May. + +"So! Are you? An American Catholic?" + +"Well--English--Irish--American." + +"So!" + +Mr. May never felt more gloomy in his life than he did that day. +Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head? + +There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara group either. For +Thursday, there was to be a change of program--"Kishwégin's +Wedding--" (with the white prisoner, be if said)--was to take the +place of the previous scene. Max of course was the director of the +rehearsal. Madame would not come near the theatre when she herself +was not to be acting. + +Though very quiet and unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly +assume an air of _hauteur_ and overbearing which was really very +annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put into +unholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal his +contempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the Cockney +word. + +"Bah! quelle tête de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuous and +angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the things +said to him, had once more failed to understand. + +"Comment?" queried Ciccio, in his slow, derisive way. + +"_Comment_!" sneered Max, in echo. "_What?_ _What?_ Why what _did_ I +say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if that seems more suitable to +you." + +"To whom? To me or to you?" said Ciccio, sidling up. + +"To you, lout of an Italian." + +Max's colour was up, he held himself erect, his brown hair seemed to +rise erect from his forehead, his blue eyes glared fierce. + +"That is to say, to me, from an uncivilized German pig, ah? ah?" + +All this in French. Alvina, as she sat at the piano, saw Max tall +and blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious +and convulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in +ordinary dress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves. +Ciccio was clutching a property knife. + +"Now! None of that! None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. But +Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite +unconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife. + +"A dirty Eyetalian," said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. "They +understand nothing." + +But the last word was smothered in Ciccio's spring and stab. Max +half started on to his guard, received the blow on his collar-bone, +near the pommel of the shoulder, reeled round on top of Mr. May, +whilst Ciccio sprang like a cat down from the stage and bounded +across the theatre and out of the door, leaving the knife rattling +on the boards behind him. Max recovered and sprang like a demon, +white with rage, straight out into the theatre after him. + +"Stop--stop--!" cried Mr. May. + +"Halte, Max! Max, Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis +sprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with the +spring of a man. + +Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the piano below, started up +and overturned her chair as Ciccio rushed past her. Now Max, white, +with set blue eyes, was upon her. + +"Don't--!" she cried, lifting her hand to stop his progress. He saw +her, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap over the seats and avoid +her, when Louis caught him and flung his arms round him. + +"Max--attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, tu sais que je t'aime. Tu +le sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le partir." + +Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking down +with hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled +as fiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was +panting and beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by +the arm. + +"Let him go, brother, he isn't worth it. What does he understand, +Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from the +south, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what +they are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It +was a dummy knife, but it was a heavy blow--the dog of an Italian. +Let us see." + +So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge of +his waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining the +shirt. + +"Are you cut, brother, brother?" said Louis. "Let us see." + +Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat and +pushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin +broken. + +"If the bone isn't broken!" said Louis anxiously. "If the bone isn't +broken! Lift thy arm, frère--lift. It hurts you--so--. No--no--it is +not broken--no--the bone is not broken." + +"There is no bone broken, I know," said Max. + +"The animal. He hasn't done _that_, at least." + +"Where do you imagine he's gone?" asked Mr. May. + +The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There was +no more rehearsal. + +"We had best go home and speak to Madame," said Mr. May, who was +very frightened for his evening performance. + +They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He was +gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from the +dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, +which she had on her arm. + +Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one come +in at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings had +told her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves +and gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, +without saying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her +shoes, she had her hat on, when the others arrived. + +"What is it?" she cried. + +She heard a hurried explanation from Louis. + +"Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn't worth all my pains!" cried poor +Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. "Why, Max, why didst +thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of +thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara +there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but one tribe, the tribe +of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirty Italian, or a dog of an +Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an +animal, too little _esprit_. But thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy +temper is a devil's, which maybe is worse than an animal's. Ah, this +Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Would we were away from it. +Will the week never pass? We shall have to find Ciccio. Without him the +company is ruined--until I get a substitute. I must get a substitute. +And how?--and where?--in this country?--tell me that. I am tired of +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe of Kishwe--no, never. I have +had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us break up, let us part, _mes +braves_, let us say adieu here in this _funeste_ Woodhouse." + +"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Louis, "let us hope. Let us swear a +closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwégin. Let us never part. +Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost not +want to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou--" + +Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside his +face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May. + +In a while Madame came out to them. + +"Oh," she said. "You have not gone away! We are wondering which way +Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey +will go on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough +or to Marchay?" + +"Ask the policeman in the market-place," said Alvina. "He's sure to +have noticed him, because Ciccio's yellow bicycle is so uncommon." + +Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among +themselves where Ciccio might be. + +Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the +Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly. + +"Ah!" said Madame. "And now how to find him, in that great town. I +am afraid he will leave us without pity." + +"Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes," said +Louis. "They were always good friends." + +They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders. + +"Always good friends," he said. "Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at +his cousin's in Battersea. In Knarborough, I don't know." + +"How much money had he?" asked Mr. May. + +Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders. + +"Who knows?" she said. + +"These Italians," said Louis, turning to Mr. May. "They have always +money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can +help. They are like this--" And he made the Neapolitan gesture +drawing in the air with his fingers. + +"But would he abandon you all without a word?" cried Mr. May. + +"Yes! Yes!" said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. "_He_ would. +He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it." + +"And what point would he make for?" + +"What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to +his cousin--and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough +money to buy land, or whatever it is." + +"And so good-bye to him," said Mr. May bitterly. + +"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madame, looking at Geoffrey. + +Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade +away. + +"No," he said. "I don't know. He will leave a message at Battersea, +I know. But I don't know if he will go to Italy." + +"And you don't know where to find him in Knarborough?" asked Mr. +May, sharply, very much on the spot. + +"No--I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London." +It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May. + +"Alors!" said Madame, cutting through this futility. "Go thou to +Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see--and be back at the theatre for work. +Go now. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him +to come out of kindness to me. Tell him." + +And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride +through the rain to Knarborough. + +"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is a +little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will +remember." + +Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care +very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, +but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was +dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling +him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for +three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the +Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to +Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it. + +He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the +music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them. +They gave him a welcome and a whiskey--but none of them had seen +Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. +He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings +strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he +went to the Italians down in the Marsh--he knew these people always +ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland +Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters +on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man +with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose. + +Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to +Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He +pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into +the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross +the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to +dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their way +across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and +his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new +tram-track. + +As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and +Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead--another cyclist. He moved to his +side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong +acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the +humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on +the low racing machine. + +"Hi Cic'--! Ciccio!" he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle. + +"Ha-er-er!" he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way +down the darkness. + +He turned--saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round, +and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey. + +"Toi!" said Ciccio. + +"Hé! Où vas-tu?" + +"Hé!" ejaculated Ciccio. + +Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously +ejaculated. + +"Coming back?" asked Geoffrey. + +"Where've you been?" retorted Ciccio. + +"Knarborough--looking for thee. Where have you--?" + +"Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses." + +"Come off?" + +"Hé!" + +"Hurt?" + +"Nothing." + +"Max is all right." + +"Merde!" + +"Come on, come back with me." + +"Nay." Ciccio shook his head. + +"Madame's crying. Wants thee to come back." + +Ciccio shook his head. + +"Come on, Cic'--" said Geoffrey. + +Ciccio shook his head. + +"Never?" said Geoffrey. + +"Basta--had enough," said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace. + +"Come for a bit, and we'll clear together." + +Ciccio again shook his head. + +"What, is it adieu?" + +Ciccio did not speak. + +"Don't go, comrade," said Geoffrey. + +"Faut," said Ciccio, slightly derisive. + +"Eh alors! I'd like to come with thee. What?" + +"Where?" + +"Doesn't matter. Thou'rt going to Italy?" + +"Who knows!--seems so." + +"I'd like to go back." + +"Eh alors!" Ciccio half veered round. + +"Wait for me a few days," said Geoffrey. + +"Where?" + +"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym's, 6 Hampden +Street. Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?" + +"I'll think about it." + +"Eleven o'clock, eh?" + +"I'll think about it." + +"Friends ever--Ciccio--eh?" Geoffrey held out his hand. + +Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissed +farewell, on either cheek. + +"Tomorrow, Cic'--" + +"Au revoir, Gigi." + +Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey +waited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him +in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He +went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on +tenterhooks till ten o'clock. + +She heard the news, and said: + +"Tomorrow I go to fetch him." And with this she went to bed. + +In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvina +appeared at nine o'clock. + +"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go to +Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because +I haven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell +the young men, and we will go now, on the tram-car." + +"But I am not properly dressed," said Alvina. + +"Who will see?" said Madame. "Come, let us go." + +They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of Hampden +Street at five minutes to eleven. + +"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these young +men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have +caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him--who knows? Perhaps +he will go off to Italy all the same." + +They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And +then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing +town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode +up muddily on his bicycle. + +"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at +the Geisha Restaurant--or tea or something," said Madame. + +Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last +Geoffrey returned, shaking his head. + +"He won't come?" cried Madame. + +"No." + +"He says he is going back to Italy?" + +"To London." + +"It is the same. You can never trust them. Is he quite obstinate?" + +Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings of +defection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited. + +"We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all," she +said fretfully. + +Geoffrey watched her stolidly, impassively. + +"Dost thou want to go with him?" she asked suddenly. + +Geoffrey smiled sheepishly, and his colour deepened. But he did not +speak. + +"Go then--" she said. "Go then! Go with him! But for the sake of my +honour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Houghton's +father lose these two nights? Where is your shame? Finish this week +and then go, go--But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have +finished with him. But let him finish this engagement. Don't put me +to shame, don't destroy my honour, and the honour of the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Tell him that." + +Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic little +black hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat-and-skirt, stood +there at the street-corner staring before her, shivering a little +with cold, but saying no word of any sort. + +Again Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. His face was impassive. + +"He says he doesn't want," he said. + +"Ah!" she cried suddenly in French, "the ungrateful, the animal! He +shall suffer. See if he shall not suffer. The low canaille, without +faith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, such canaille should +be beaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Will no one +beat him for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves +England he shall feel the hand of Kishwégin, and it shall be heavier +than the Black Hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a +woman's word to be broken against her will. Ah, canaille, canaille! +Neither faith nor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Trust them +not, dogs of the south." She took a few agitated steps down the +pavement. Then she raised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger +and bitter disappointment. + +"Wait a bit," said Alvina. "I'll go." She was touched. + +"No. Don't you!" cried Madame. + +"Yes I will," she said. The light of battle was in her eyes. "You'll +come with me to the door," she said to Geoffrey. + +Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way up a long narrow stair, +covered with yellow-and-brown oil-cloth, rather worn, on to the top +of the house. + +"Ciccio," he said, outside the door. + +"Oui!" came the curly voice of Ciccio. + +Geoffrey opened the door. Ciccio was sitting on a narrow bed, in a +rather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof. + +"Don't come in," said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulder +at him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and +stood with her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the +bed, a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare +boards between his feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood +watching him with wide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly, and +saying nothing. He looked up at her steadily, on his guard, from +under his long black lashes. + +"Won't you come?" she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. He +flicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger. She +wondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long, so very +long. Still she smiled at him, and still he gave no sign. + +"Do come!" she urged, never taking her eyes from him. + +He made not the slightest movement, but sat with his hands dropped +between his knees, watching her, the cigarette wavering up its blue +thread of smoke. + +"Won't you?" she said, as she stood with her back to the door. +"Won't you come?" She smiled strangely and vividly. + +Suddenly she took a pace forward, stooped, watching his face as if +timidly, caught his brown hand in her own and lifted it towards +herself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was not +withdrawn. + +"You will come, won't you?" she said, smiling gently into his +strange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the +dark pupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his +softening round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of +its silent, gentler moments. And suddenly she kissed his hand, +kissed it twice, quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a +silver ring. Even as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the +silver ring seemed to her a symbol of his subjection, inferiority. +She drew his hand slightly. And he rose to his feet. + +She turned round and took the door-handle, still holding his fingers +in her left hand. + +"You are coming, aren't you?" she said, looking over her shoulder +into his eyes. And taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let +go his hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, and +taking his coat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders and drew it +on. Then he picked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked +cigarette, which lay smoking still. He followed her out of the room, +walking with his head rather forward, in the half loutish, +sensual-subjected way of the Italians. + +As they entered the street, they saw the trim, French figure of +Madame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very white +under her spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Ciccio +following behind Alvina in his dark, hangdog fashion, and she did +not move a muscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She +was watching his face. + +"Te voilà donc!" she said, without expression. "Allons boire un +café, hé? Let us go and drink some coffee." She had now put an +inflection of tenderness into her voice. But her eyes were black +with anger. Ciccio smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, and +turned to walk alongside. + +Madame said nothing as they went. Geoffrey passed on his bicycle, +calling out that he would go straight to Woodhouse. + +When the three sat with their cups of coffee, Madame pushed up her +veil just above her eyes, so that it was a black band above her +brows. Her face was pale and full like a child's, but almost stonily +expressionless, her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched +both Ciccio and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks. + +"Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you?" she +said, with an amiable intonation which her strange black looks +belied. + +"Yes," said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, while +Ciccio sat sheepishly, turning aside his ducked head, the slow, +stupid, yet fine smile on his lips. + +"And no more trouble with Max, hein?--you Ciccio?" said Madame, +still with the amiable intonation and the same black, watching eyes. +"No more of these stupid scenes, hein? What? Do you answer me." + +"No more from me," he said, looking up at her with a narrow, +cat-like look in his derisive eyes. + +"Ho? No? No more? Good then! It is good! We are glad, aren't we, +Miss Houghton, that Ciccio has come back and there are to be no +more rows?--hein?--aren't we?" + +"_I'm_ awfully glad," said Alvina. + +"Awfully glad--yes--awfully glad! You hear, you Ciccio. And you +remember another time. What? Don't you? Hé?" + +He looked up at her, the slow, derisive smile curling his lips. + +"Sure," he said slowly, with subtle intonation. + +"Yes. Good! Well then! Well then! We are all friends. We are all +friends, aren't we, all the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Hé? What you think? +What you say?" + +"Yes," said Ciccio, again looking up at her with his yellow, +glinting eyes. + +"All right! All right then! It is all right--forgotten--" Madame +sounded quite frank and restored. But the sullen watchfulness in her +eyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio's, as he glanced at her, +showed another state behind the obviousness of the words. "And Miss +Houghton is one of us! Yes? She has united us once more, and so she +has become one of us." Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round +white face. + +"I should love to be one of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras," said Alvina. + +"Yes--well--why not? Why not become one? Why not? What you say, +Ciccio? You can play the piano, perhaps do other things. Perhaps +better than Kishwégin. What you say, Ciccio, should she not join us? +Is she not one of us?" + +He smiled and showed his teeth but did not answer. + +"Well, what is it? Say then? Shall she not?" + +"Yes," said Ciccio, unwilling to commit himself. + +"Yes, so I say! So I say. Quite a good idea! We will think of it, +and speak perhaps to your father, and you shall come! Yes." + +So the two women returned to Woodhouse by the tram-car, while Ciccio +rode home on his bicycle. It was surprising how little Madame and +Alvina found to say to one another. + +Madame effected the reunion of her troupe, and all seemed pretty +much as before. She had decided to dance the next night, the +Saturday night. On Sunday the party would leave for Warsall, about +thirty miles away, to fulfil their next engagement. + +That evening Ciccio, whenever he had a moment to spare, watched +Alvina. She knew it. But she could not make out what his watching +meant. In the same way he might have watched a serpent, had he found +one gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively, +but persistently. And yet he did not want to meet her glance. He +avoided her, and watched her. As she saw him standing, in his +negligent, muscular, slouching fashion, with his head dropped +forward, and his eyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. But +there was a sort of _finesse_ about his face. His skin was +delicately tawny, and slightly lustrous. The eyes were set in so +dark, that one expected them to be black and flashing. And then one +met the yellow pupils, sulphureous and remote. It was like meeting a +lion. His long, fine nose, his rather long, rounded chin and curling +lips seemed refined through ages of forgotten culture. He was +waiting: silent there, with something muscular and remote about his +very droop, he was waiting. What for? Alvina could not guess. She +wanted to meet his eye, to have an open understanding with him. But +he would not. When she went up to talk to him, he answered in his +stupid fashion, with a smile of the mouth and no change of the eyes, +saying nothing at all. Obstinately he held away from her. When he +was in his war-paint, for one moment she hated his muscular, +handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid and full. The fine +sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly. +Ciccio's velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so +full and softly powerful, sickened her. + +She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing +Kishwégin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had +avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina--elusive and yet +conscious, a distance, and yet a connection. + +Madame danced beautifully. No denying it, she was an artist. She +became something quite different: fresh, virginal, pristine, a magic +creature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and +attractive. Her _braves_ became glamorous and heroic at once, and +magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for +Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow +which surrounded Kishwégin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now: +without war-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time +suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and +remote. A stranger--and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano, +almost in tears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had +nothing to do with it. + +Madame, with her long dark hair hanging in finely-brushed tresses, +her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How +soft she was on her feet. How humble and remote she seemed, as +across a chasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an +eternity of inaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the +dead bear was exquisite: her dark, secretive curiosity, her +admiration of the massive, male strength of the creature, her +quivers of triumph over the dead beast, her cruel exultation, and +her fear that he was not really dead. It was a lovely sight, +suggesting the world's morning, before Eve had bitten any +white-fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky, dark-eyed, and +still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the white prisoner! Now +indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Her fascination +was ruthless. She kneeled by the dead _brave_, her husband, as she +had knelt by the bear: in fear and admiration and doubt and +exultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot. Dead +meat like the bear! And a flash of delight went over her, that +changed into a sob of mortal anguish. And then, flickering, wicked, +doubtful, she watched Ciccio wrestling with the bear. + +She was the clue to all the action, was Kishwégin. And her dark +_braves_ seemed to become darker, more secret, malevolent, burning +with a cruel fire, and at the same time wistful, knowing their end. +Ciccio laughed in a strange way, as he wrestled with the bear, as he +had never laughed on the previous evenings. The sound went out into +the audience, a soft, malevolent, derisive sound. And when the bear +was supposed to have crushed him, and he was to have fallen, he +reeled out of the bear's arms and said to Madame, in his derisive +voice: + +"Vivo sempre, Madame." And then he fell. + +Madame stopped as if shot, hearing his words: "I am still alive, +Madame." She remained suspended motionless, suddenly wilted. Then +all at once her hand went to her mouth with a scream: + +"The Bear!" + +So the scene concluded itself. But instead of the tender, +half-wistful triumph of Kishwégin, a triumph electric as it should +have been when she took the white man's hand and kissed it, there +was a doubt, a hesitancy, a nullity, and Max did not quite know what +to do. + +After the performance, neither Madame nor Max dared say anything to +Ciccio about his innovation into the play. Louis felt he had to +speak--it was left to him. + +"I say, Cic'--" he said, "why did you change the scene? It might +have spoiled everything if Madame wasn't such a genius. Why did you +say that?" + +"Why," said Ciccio, answering Louis' French in Italian, "I am tired +of being dead, you see." + +Madame and Max heard in silence. + +When Alvina had played _God Save the King_ she went round behind the +stage. But Ciccio and Geoffrey had already packed up the property, +and left. Madame was talking to James Houghton. Louis and Max were +busy together. Mr. May came to Alvina. + +"Well," he said. "That closes another week. I think we've done very +well, in face of difficulties, don't you?" + +"Wonderfully," she said. + +But poor Mr. May spoke and looked pathetically. He seemed to feel +forlorn. Alvina was not attending to him. Her eye was roving. She +took no notice of him. + +Madame came up. + +"Well, Miss Houghton," she said, "time to say good-bye, I suppose." + +"How do you feel after dancing?" asked Alvina. + +"Well--not so strong as usual--but not so bad, you know. I shall be +all right--thanks to you. I think your father is more ill than I. To +me he looks very ill." + +"Father wears himself away," said Alvina. + +"Yes, and when we are no longer young, there is not so much to wear. +Well, I must thank you once more--" + +"What time do you leave in the morning?" + +"By the train at half-past ten. If it doesn't rain, the young men +will cycle--perhaps all of them. Then they will go when they like--" + +"I will come round to say good-bye--" said Alvina. + +"Oh no--don't disturb yourself--" + +"Yes, I want to take home the things--the kettle for the bronchitis, +and those things--" + +"Oh thank you very much--but don't trouble yourself. I will send +Ciccio with them--or one of the others--" + +"I should like to say good-bye to you all," persisted Alvina. + +Madame glanced round at Max and Louis. + +"Are we not all here? No. The two have gone. No! Well! Well what +time will you come?" + +"About nine?" + +"Very well, and I leave at ten. Very well. Then _au revoir_ till the +morning. Good-night." + +"Good-night," said Alvina. Her colour was rather flushed. + +She walked up with Mr. May, and hardly noticed he was there. After +supper, when James Houghton had gone up to count his pennies, Alvina +said to Miss Pinnegar: + +"Don't you think father looks rather seedy, Miss Pinnegar?" + +"I've been thinking so a long time," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. + +"What do you think he ought to do?" + +"He's killing himself down there, in all weathers and freezing in +that box-office, and then the bad atmosphere. He's killing himself, +that's all." + +"What can we do?" + +"Nothing so long as there's that place down there. Nothing at all." + +Alvina thought so too. So she went to bed. + +She was up in time, and watching the clock. It was a grey morning, +but not raining. At five minutes to nine, she hurried off to Mrs. +Rollings. In the back yard the bicycles were out, glittering and +muddy according to their owners. Ciccio was crouching mending a +tire, crouching balanced on his toes, near the earth. He turned like +a quick-eared animal glancing up as she approached, but did not +rise. + +"Are you getting ready to go?" she said, looking down at him. He +screwed his head round to her unwillingly, upside down, his chin +tilted up at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes +rested on his face, puzzled. His chin seemed so large, aggressive. +He was a little bit repellent and brutal, inverted. Yet she +continued: + +"Would you help me to carry back the things we brought for Madame?" + +He rose to his feet, but did not look at her. He was wearing broken +cycling shoes. He stood looking at his bicycle tube. + +"Not just yet," she said. "I want to say good-bye to Madame. Will +you come in half an hour?" + +"Yes, I will come," he said, still watching his bicycle tube, which +sprawled nakedly on the floor. The forward drop of his head was +curiously beautiful to her, the straight, powerful nape of the neck, +the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The way +the neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. +There was something mindless but _intent_ about the forward reach of +his head. His face seemed colourless, neutral-tinted and +expressionless. + +She went indoors. The young men were moving about making +preparations. + +"Come upstairs, Miss Houghton!" called Madame's voice from above. +Alvina mounted, to find Madame packing. + +"It is an uneasy moment, when we are busy to move," said Madame, +looking up at Alvina as if she were a stranger. + +"I'm afraid I'm in the way. But I won't stay a minute." + +"Oh, it is all right. Here are the things you brought--" Madame +indicated a little pile--"and thank you _very_ much, _very_ much. I +feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one little token of +my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionaires in the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Just a little remembrance of our troublesome +visit to Woodhouse." + +She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, woven +in a weird, lovely pattern, with soft deerskin soles and sides. + +"They belong to Kishwégin, so it is Kishwégin who gives them to you, +because she is grateful to you for saving her life, or at least from +a long illness." + +"Oh--but I don't want to take them--" said Alvina. + +"You don't like them? Why?" + +"I think they're lovely, lovely! But I don't want to take them from +you--" + +"If I give them, you do not take them from me. You receive them. +Hé?" And Madame pressed back the slippers, opening her plump +jewelled hands in a gesture of finality. + +"But I don't like to take _these_," said Alvina. "I feel they belong +to Natcha-Kee-Tawara. And I don't want to rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara, do +I? Do take them back." + +"No, I have given them. You cannot rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara in taking a +pair of shoes--impossible!" + +"And I'm sure they are much too small for me." + +"Ha!" exclaimed Madame. "It is that! Try." + +"I know they are," said Alvina, laughing confusedly. + +She sat down and took off her own shoe. The moccasin was a little +too short--just a little. But it was charming on the foot, charming. + +"Yes," said Madame. "It is too short. Very well. I must find you +something else." + +"Please don't," said Alvina. "Please don't find me anything. I don't +want anything. Please!" + +"What?" said Madame, eyeing her closely. "You don't want? Why? You +don't want anything from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, or from Kishwégin? Hé? +From which?" + +"Don't give me anything, please," said Alvina. + +"All right! All right then. I won't. I won't give you anything. I +can't give you anything you want from Natcha-Kee-Tawara." + +And Madame busied herself again with the packing. + +"I'm awfully sorry you are going," said Alvina. + +"Sorry? Why? Yes, so am I sorry we shan't see you any more. Yes, so +I am. But perhaps we shall see you another time--hé? I shall send +you a post-card. Perhaps I shall send one of the young men on his +bicycle, to bring you something which I shall buy for you. Yes? +Shall I?" + +"Oh! I should be awfully glad--but don't buy--" Alvina checked +herself in time. "Don't buy anything. Send me a little thing from +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. I _love_ the slippers--" + +"But they are too small," said Madame, who had been watching her +with black eyes that read every motive. Madame too had her +avaricious side, and was glad to get back the slippers. "Very +well--very well, I will do that. I will send you some small thing +from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, and one of the young men shall bring it. +Perhaps Ciccio? Hé?" + +"Thank you _so_ much," said Alvina, holding out her hand. "Good-bye. +I'm so sorry you're going." + +"Well--well! We are not going so very far. Not so very far. Perhaps +we shall see each other another day. It may be. Good-bye!" + +Madame took Alvina's hand, and smiled at her winsomely all at once, +kindly, from her inscrutable black eyes. A sudden unusual kindness. +Alvina flushed with surprise and a desire to cry. + +"Yes. I am sorry you are not with Natcha-Kee-Tawara. But we shall +see. Good-bye. I shall do my packing." + +Alvina carried down the things she had to remove. Then she went to +say good-bye to the young men, who were in various stages of their +toilet. Max alone was quite presentable. + +Ciccio was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire. She +watched his brown thumbs press it into place. He was quick and sure, +much more capable, and even masterful, than you would have supposed, +seeing his tawny Mediterranean hands. He spun the wheel round, +patting it lightly. + +"Is it finished?" + +"Yes, I think." He reached his pump and blew up the tire. She +watched his softly-applied force. What physical, muscular force +there was in him. Then he swung round the bicycle, and stood it +again on its wheels. After which he quickly folded his tools. + +"Will you come now?" she said. + +He turned, rubbing his hands together, and drying them on an old +cloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his cap, and +picked up the things from the table. + +"Where are you going?" Max asked. + +Ciccio jerked his head towards Alvina. + +"Oh, allow me to carry them, Miss Houghton. He is not fit--" said +Max. + +True, Ciccio had no collar on, and his shoes were burst. + +"I don't mind," said Alvina hastily. "He knows where they go. He +brought them before." + +"But I will carry them. I am dressed. Allow me--" and he began to +take the things. "You get dressed, Ciccio." + +Ciccio looked at Alvina. + +"Do you want?" he said, as if waiting for orders. + +"Do let Ciccio take them," said Alvina to Max. "Thank you _ever_ so +much. But let him take them." + +So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morning streets, with the +Italian, who was down at heel and encumbered with an armful of +sick-room apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he said +nothing. + +"We will go in this way," she said, suddenly opening the hall door. +She had unlocked it before she went out, for that entrance was +hardly ever used. So she showed the Italian into the sombre +drawing-room, with its high black bookshelves with rows and rows of +calf-bound volumes, its old red and flowered carpet, its grand piano +littered with music. Ciccio put down the things as she directed, and +stood with his cap in his hands, looking aside. + +"Thank you so much," she said, lingering. + +He curled his lips in a faint deprecatory smile. + +"Nothing," he murmured. + +His eye had wandered uncomfortably up to a portrait on the wall. + +"That was my mother," said Alvina. + +He glanced down at her, but did not answer. + +"I am so sorry you're going away," she said nervously. She stood +looking up at him with wide blue eyes. + +The faint smile grew on the lower part of his face, which he kept +averted. Then he looked at her. + +"We have to move," he said, with his eyes watching her reservedly, +his mouth twisting with a half-bashful smile. + +"Do you like continually going away?" she said, her wide blue eyes +fixed on his face. + +He nodded slightly. + +"We have to do it. I like it." + +What he said meant nothing to him. He now watched her fixedly, with +a slightly mocking look, and a reserve he would not relinquish. + +"Do you think I shall ever see you again?" she said. + +"Should you like--?" he answered, with a sly smile and a faint +shrug. + +"I should like awfully--" a flush grew on her cheek. She heard Miss +Pinnegar's scarcely audible step approaching. + +He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up the +corners of his eyes slyly, his nose seeming slyly to sharpen. + +"All right. Next week, eh? In the morning?" + +"Do!" cried Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar came through the door. He +glanced quickly over his shoulder. + +"Oh!" cried Miss Pinnegar. "I couldn't imagine who it was." She eyed +the young fellow sharply. + +"Couldn't you?" said Alvina. "We brought back these things." + +"Oh yes. Well--you'd better come into the other room, to the fire," +said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I shall go along. Good-bye!" said Ciccio, and with a slight bow to +Alvina, and a still slighter to Miss Pinnegar, he was out of the +room and out of the front door, as if turning tail. + +"I suppose they're going this morning," said Miss Pinnegar. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE + + +Alvina wept when the Natchas had gone. She loved them so much, she +wanted to be with them. Even Ciccio she regarded as only one of the +Natchas. She looked forward to his coming as to a visit from the +troupe. + +How dull the theatre was without them! She was tired of the +Endeavour. She wished it did not exist. The rehearsal on the Monday +morning bored her terribly. Her father was nervous and irritable. +The previous week had tried him sorely. He had worked himself into a +state of nervous apprehension such as nothing would have justified, +unless perhaps, if the wooden walls of the Endeavour had burnt to +the ground, with James inside victimized like another Samson. He had +developed a nervous horror of all artistes. He did not feel safe for +one single moment whilst he depended on a single one of them. + +"We shall have to convert into all pictures," he said in a nervous +fever to Mr. May. "Don't make any more engagements after the end of +next month." + +"Really!" said Mr. May. "Really! Have you quite decided?" + +"Yes quite! Yes quite!" James fluttered. "I have written about a new +machine, and the supply of films from Chanticlers." + +"Really!" said Mr. May. "Oh well then, in that case--" But he was +filled with dismay and chagrin. + +"Of cauce," he said later to Alvina, "I can't _possibly_ stop on if +we are nothing but a picture show!" And he arched his blanched and +dismal eyelids with ghastly finality. + +"Why?" cried Alvina. + +"Oh--why!" He was rather ironic. "Well, it's not my line at _all_. +I'm not a _film-operator_!" And he put his head on one side with a +grimace of contempt and superiority. + +"But you are, as well," said Alvina. + +"Yes, _as well_. But not _only_! You _may_ wash the dishes in the +scullery. But you're not only the _char_, are you?" + +"But is it the same?" cried Alvina. + +"Of cauce!" cried Mr. May. "Of _cauce_ it's the same." + +Alvina laughed, a little heartlessly, into his pallid, stricken +eyes. + +"But what will you do?" she asked. + +"I shall have to look for something else," said the injured but +dauntless little man. "There's nothing _else_, is there?" + +"Wouldn't you stay on?" she asked. + +"I wouldn't think of it. I wouldn't think of it." He turtled like an +injured pigeon. + +"Well," she said, looking laconically into his face: "It's between +you and father--" + +"Of _cauce_!" he said. "Naturally! Where else--!" But his tone was a +little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes on Alvina. + +Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, judicious but aloof, "it's a move in the +right direction. But I doubt if it'll do any good." + +"Do you?" said Alvina. "Why?" + +"I don't believe in the place, and I never did," declared Miss +Pinnegar. "I don't believe any good will come of it." + +"But why?" persisted Alvina. "What makes you feel so sure about it?" + +"I don't know. But that's how I feel. And I have from the first. It +was wrong from the first. It was wrong to begin it." + +"But why?" insisted Alvina, laughing. + +"Your father had no business to be led into it. He'd no business to +touch this show business. It isn't like him. It doesn't belong to +him. He's gone against his own nature and his own life." + +"Oh but," said Alvina, "father was a showman even in the shop. He +always was. Mother said he was like a showman in a booth." + +Miss Pinnegar was taken aback. + +"Well!" she said sharply. "If _that's_ what you've seen in +him!"--there was a pause. "And in that case," she continued tartly, +"I think some of the showman has come out in his daughter! or +show-woman!--which doesn't improve it, to my idea." + +"Why is it any worse?" said Alvina. "I enjoy it--and so does +father." + +"No," cried Miss Pinnegar. "There you're wrong! There you make a +mistake. It's all against his better nature." + +"Really!" said Alvina, in surprise. "What a new idea! But which is +father's better nature?" + +"You may not know it," said Miss Pinnegar coldly, "and if so, I can +never tell you. But that doesn't alter it." She lapsed into dead +silence for a moment. Then suddenly she broke out, vicious and cold: +"He'll go on till he's killed himself, and _then_ he'll know." + +The little adverb _then_ came whistling across the space like a +bullet. It made Alvina pause. Was her father going to die? She +reflected. Well, all men must die. + +She forgot the question in others that occupied her. First, could +she bear it, when the Endeavour was turned into another cheap and +nasty film-shop? The strange figures of the artistes passing under +her observation had really entertained her, week by week. Some weeks +they had bored her, some weeks she had detested them, but there was +always a chance in the coming week. Think of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras! + +She thought too much of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She knew it. And she +tried to force her mind to the contemplation of the new state of +things, when she banged at the piano to a set of dithering and +boring pictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr. May--or +a new operator, a new manager. The new manager!--she thought of him +for a moment--and thought of the mechanical factory-faced persons +who _managed_ Wright's and the Woodhouse Empire. + +But her mind fell away from this barren study. She was obsessed by +the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. They seemed to have fascinated her. Which of +them it was, or what it was that had cast the spell over her, she +did not know. But she was as if hypnotized. She longed to be with +them. Her soul gravitated towards them all the time. + +Monday passed, and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: and +Wednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping their +promise--either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their +promise? She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her soul was +stubborn within her. + +On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the Endeavour. Mr. +May found James Houghton fainting in the box-office after the +performance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina, +nor the performance. He sent the chocolate-and-orange boy across to +the Pear Tree for brandy. + +James revived. "I'm all right," he said, in a brittle fashion. "I'm +all right. Don't bother." So he sat with his head on his hand in the +box-office, and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the film. + +When the interval arrived, Mr. May hurried to the box-office, a +narrow hole that James could just sit in, and there he found the +invalid in the same posture, semi-conscious. He gave him more +brandy. + +"I'm all right, I tell you," said James, his eyes flaring. "Leave me +alone." But he looked anything but all right. + +Mr. May hurried for Alvina. When the daughter entered the ticket +place, her father was again in a state of torpor. + +"Father," she said, shaking his shoulder gently. "What's the +matter." + +He murmured something, but was incoherent. She looked at his face. +It was grey and blank. + +"We shall have to get him home," she said. "We shall have to get a +cab." + +"Give him a little brandy," said Mr. May. + +The boy was sent for the cab, James swallowed a spoonful of brandy. +He came to himself irritably. + +"What? What," he said. "I won't have all this fuss. Go on with the +performance, there's no need to bother about me." His eye was wild. + +"You must go home, father," said Alvina. + +"Leave me alone! Will you leave me alone! Hectored by women all my +life--hectored by women--first one, then another. I won't stand +it--I won't stand it--" He looked at Alvina with a look of frenzy as +he lapsed again, fell with his head on his hands on his +ticket-board. Alvina looked at Mr. May. + +"We must get him home," she said. She covered him up with a coat, +and sat by him. The performance went on without music. At last the +cab came. James, unconscious, was driven up to Woodhouse. He had to +be carried indoors. Alvina hurried ahead to make a light in the dark +passage. + +"Father's ill!" she announced to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Didn't I say so!" said Miss Pinnegar, starting from her chair. + +The two women went out to meet the cab-man, who had James in his +arms. + +"Can you manage?" cried Alvina, showing a light. + +"He doesn't weigh much," said the man. + +"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!" went Miss Pinnegar's tongue, in a rapid +tut-tut of distress. "What have I said, now," she exclaimed. "What +have I said all along?" + +James was laid on the sofa. His eyes were half-shut. They made him +drink brandy, the boy was sent for the doctor, Alvina's bed was +warmed. The sick man was got to bed. And then started another vigil. +Alvina sat up in the sick room. James started and muttered, but did +not regain consciousness. Dawn came, and he was the same. Pneumonia +and pleurisy and a touch of meningitis. Alvina drank her tea, took a +little breakfast, and went to bed at about nine o'clock in the +morning, leaving James in charge of Miss Pinnegar. Time was all +deranged. + +Miss Pinnegar was a nervous nurse. She sat in horror and +apprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James in +terror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what she +could. But one would have said she was repulsed, she found her task +unconsciously repugnant. + +During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings came up and said that +the Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to Miss +Houghton. + +"Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Houghton is seriously ill," said +Miss Pinnegar sharply. + +When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon she found +a package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame: "To +Miss Houghton, with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks from +Kishwégin." + +The comb with its carved, beast-faced serpent was her portion. +Alvina asked if there had been any other message. None. + +Mr. May came in, and stayed for a dismal half-hour. Then Alvina went +back to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious. +Miss Pinnegar came down, red eyed and sullen looking. The condition +of James gave little room for hope. + +In the early morning he died. Alvina called Mrs. Rollings, and they +composed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and not light. +Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly +chamber at the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could +not. At half-past seven she arose, and started the business of the +new day. The doctor came--she went to the registrar--and so on. + +Mr. May came. It was decided to keep open the theatre. He would find +some one else for the piano, some one else to issue the tickets. + +In the afternoon arrived Frederick Houghton, James's cousin and +nearest relative. He was a middle-aged, blond, florid, church-going +draper from Knarborough, well-to-do and very _bourgeois_. He tried +to talk to Alvina in a fatherly fashion, or a friendly, or a helpful +fashion. But Alvina could not listen to him. He got on her nerves. + +Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She was +in the drawing-room with her cousin, to give the interview its +proper air of solemnity. She saw Ciccio rearing his yellow bicycle +against the wall, and going with his head forward along the narrow, +dark way of the back yard, to the scullery door. + +"Excuse me a minute," she said to her cousin, who looked up +irritably as she left the room. + +She was just in time to open the door as Ciccio tapped. She stood on +the doorstep above him. He looked up, with a faint smile, from under +his black lashes. + +"How nice of you to come," she said. But her face was blanched and +tired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in their +tiredness, as she glanced down at Ciccio. He seemed to her far away. + +"Madame asks how is Mr. Houghton," he said. + +"Father! He died this morning," she said quietly. + +"He died!" exclaimed the Italian, a flash of fear and dismay going +over his face. + +"Yes--this morning." She had neither tears nor emotion, but just +looked down on him abstractedly, from her height on the kitchen +step. He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his +eyes again, and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from +across a distance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a +wide, abstract distance. + +He turned and looked down the dark yard, towards the gate where he +could just see the pale grey tire of his bicycle, and the yellow +mud-guard. He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went for +ever. Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina, +as if studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep, +neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to +see him. He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes, +until she met his look. And then he gave the faintest gesture with his +head, as of summons towards him. Her soul started, and died in her. And +again he gave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head, +backwards and sideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too +was closed and expressionless. But in his eyes, which kept hers, there +was a dark flicker of ascendancy. He was going to triumph over her. She +knew it. And her soul sank as if it sank out of her body. It sank away +out of her body, left her there powerless, soulless. + +And yet as he turned, with his head stretched forward, to move away: +as he glanced slightly over his shoulder: she stepped down from the +step, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the +dark yard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was +a corner made by a shed. Here he turned, lingeringly, to her, and +she lingered in front of him. + +Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awful +submission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him, +like a victim. There was a faint smile in his eyes. He stretched +forward over her. + +"You love me? Yes?--Yes?" he said, in a voice that seemed like a +palpable contact on her. + +"Yes," she whispered involuntarily, soulless, like a victim. He put +his arm round her, subtly, and lifted her. + +"Yes," he re-echoed, almost mocking in his triumph. "Yes. Yes!" And +smiling, he kissed her, delicately, with a certain finesse of +knowledge. She moaned in spirit, in his arms, felt herself dead, +dead. And he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse which +seemed like coals of fire on her head. + +They heard footsteps. Miss Pinnegar was coming to look for her. +Ciccio set her down, looked long into her eyes, inscrutably, +smiling, and said: + +"I come tomorrow." + +With which he ducked and ran out of the yard, picking up his bicycle +like a feather, and, taking no notice of Miss Pinnegar, letting the +yard-door bang to behind him. + +"Alvina!" said Miss Pinnegar. + +But Alvina did not answer. She turned, slipped past, ran indoors and +upstairs to the little bare bedroom she had made her own. She locked +the door and kneeled down on the floor, bowing down her head to her +knees in a paroxysm on the floor. In a paroxysm--because she loved +him. She doubled herself up in a paroxysm on her knees on the +floor--because she loved him. It was far more like pain, like agony, +than like joy. She swayed herself to and fro in a paroxysm of +unbearable sensation, because she loved him. + +Miss Pinnegar came and knocked at the door. + +"Alvina! Alvina! Oh, you are there! Whatever are you doing? Aren't +you coming down to speak to your cousin?" + +"Soon," said Alvina. + +And taking a pillow from the bed, she crushed it against herself and +swayed herself unconsciously, in her orgasm of unbearable feeling. +Right in her bowels she felt it--the terrible, unbearable feeling. +How could she bear it. + +She crouched over until she became still. A moment of stillness +seemed to cover her like sleep: an eternity of sleep in that one +second. Then she roused and got up. She went to the mirror, still, +evanescent, and tidied her hair, smoothed her face. She was so +still, so remote, she felt that nothing, nothing could ever touch +her. + +And so she went downstairs, to that horrible cousin of her father's. +She seemed so intangible, remote and virginal, that her cousin and +Miss Pinnegar both failed to make anything of her. She answered +their questions simply, but did not talk. They talked to each other. +And at last the cousin went away, with a profound dislike of Miss +Alvina. + +She did not notice. She was only glad he was gone. And she went +about for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept deeply +that night, without dreams. + +The next day was Saturday. It came with a great storm of wind and +rain and hail: a fury. Alvina looked out in dismay. She knew Ciccio +would not be able to come--he could not cycle, and it was impossible +to get by train and return the same day. She was almost relieved. +She was relieved by the intermission of fate, she was thankful for +the day of neutrality. + +In the early afternoon came a telegram: Coming both tomorrow morning +deepest sympathy Madame. Tomorrow was Sunday: and the funeral was in +the afternoon. Alvina felt a burning inside her, thinking of Ciccio. +She winced--and yet she wanted him to come. Terribly she wanted him +to come. + +She showed the telegram to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Good gracious!" said the weary Miss Pinnegar. "Fancy those people. +And I warrant they'll want to be at the funeral. As if he was +anything to _them_--" + +"I think it's very nice of her," said Alvina. + +"Oh well," said Miss Pinnegar. "If you think so. I don't fancy he +would have wanted such people following, myself. And what does she +mean by _both_. Who's the other?" Miss Pinnegar looked sharply at +Alvina. + +"Ciccio," said Alvina. + +"The Italian! Why goodness me! What's _he_ coming for? I can't make +you out, Alvina. Is that his name, Chicho? I never heard such a +name. Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. There won't be room +for them in the cabs." + +"We'll order another." + +"More expense. I never knew such impertinent people--" + +But Alvina did not hear her. On the next morning she dressed herself +carefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Carefully she did +her hair. Ciccio and Madame were coming. The thought of Ciccio made +her shudder. She hung about, waiting. Luckily none of the funeral +guests would arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless, +musing, by the fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to +Miss Pinnegar and Mrs. Rollings. Miss Pinnegar, red-eyed and +yellow-skinned, was irritable beyond words. + +It was nearly mid-day when Alvina heard the gate. She hurried to +open the front door. Madame was in her little black hat and her +black spotted veil, Ciccio in a black overcoat was closing the yard +door behind her. + +"Oh, my dear girl!" Madame cried, trotting forward with outstretched +black-kid hands, one of which held an umbrella: "I am so shocked--I +am so shocked to hear of your poor father. Am I to believe it?--am I +really? No, I can't." + +She lifted her veil, kissed Alvina, and dabbed her eyes. Ciccio came +up the steps. He took off his hat to Alvina, smiled slightly as he +passed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door +and ushered them into the drawing-room. + +Madame looked round like a bird, examining the room and the +furniture. She was evidently a little impressed. But all the time +she was uttering her condolences. + +"Tell me, poor girl, how it happened?" + +"There isn't much to tell," said Alvina, and she gave the brief +account of James's illness and death. + +"Worn out! Worn out!" Madame said, nodding slowly up and down. Her +black veil, pushed up, sagged over her brows like a mourning band. +"You cannot afford to waste the stamina. And will you keep on the +theatre--with Mr. May--?" + +Ciccio was sitting looking towards the fire. His presence made +Alvina tremble. She noticed how the fine black hair of his head +showed no parting at all--it just grew like a close cap, and was +pushed aside at the forehead. Sometimes he looked at her, as Madame +talked, and again looked at her, and looked away. + +At last Madame came to a halt. There was a long pause. + +"You will stay to the funeral?" said Alvina. + +"Oh my dear, we shall be too much--" + +"No," said Alvina. "I have arranged for you--" + +"There! You think of everything. But I will come, not Ciccio. He +will not trouble you." + +Ciccio looked up at Alvina. + +"I should like him to come," said Alvina simply. But a deep flush +began to mount her face. She did not know where it came from, she +felt so cold. And she wanted to cry. + +Madame watched her closely. + +"Siamo di accordo," came the voice of Ciccio. + +Alvina and Madame both looked at him. He sat constrained, with his +face averted, his eyes dropped, but smiling. + +Madame looked closely at Alvina. + +"Is it true what he says?" she asked. + +"I don't understand him," said Alvina. "I don't understand what he +said." + +"That you have agreed with him--" + +Madame and Ciccio both watched Alvina as she sat in her new black +dress. Her eyes involuntarily turned to his. + +"I don't know," she said vaguely. "Have I--?" and she looked at him. + +Madame kept silence for some moments. Then she said gravely: + +"Well!--yes!--well!" She looked from one to another. "Well, there is +a lot to consider. But if you have decided--" + +Neither of them answered. Madame suddenly rose and went to Alvina. +She kissed her on either cheek. + +"I shall protect you," she said. + +Then she returned to her seat. + +"What have you said to Miss Houghton?" she said suddenly to Ciccio, +tackling him direct, and speaking coldly. + +He looked at Madame with a faint derisive smile. Then he turned to +Alvina. She bent her head and blushed. + +"Speak then," said Madame, "you have a reason." She seemed +mistrustful of him. + +But he turned aside his face, and refused to speak, sitting as if he +were unaware of Madame's presence. + +"Oh well," said Madame. "I shall be there, Signorino." + +She spoke with a half-playful threat. Ciccio curled his lip. + +"You do not know him yet," she said, turning to Alvina. + +"I know that," said Alvina, offended. Then she added: "Wouldn't you +like to take off your hat?" + +"If you truly wish me to stay," said Madame. + +"Yes, please do. And will you hang your coat in the hall?" she said +to Ciccio. + +"Oh!" said Madame roughly. "He will not stay to eat. He will go out +to somewhere." + +Alvina looked at him. + +"Would you rather?" she said. + +He looked at her with sardonic yellow eyes. + +"If you want," he said, the awkward, derisive smile curling his lips +and showing his teeth. + +She had a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The +thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her +sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world +face that decided her--for it sent the deep spasm across her. + +"I'd like you to stay," she said. + +A smile of triumph went over his face. Madame watched him stonily as +she stood beside her chair, one hand lightly balanced on her hip. +Alvina was reminded of Kishwégin. But even in Madame's stony +mistrust there was an element of attraction towards him. He had +taken his cigarette case from his pocket. + +"On ne fume pas dans le salon," said Madame brutally. + +"Will you put your coat in the passage?--and do smoke if you wish," +said Alvina. + +He rose to his feet and took off his overcoat. His face was +obstinate and mocking. He was rather floridly dressed, though in +black, and wore boots of black patent leather with tan uppers. +Handsome he was--but undeniably in bad taste. The silver ring was +still on his finger--and his close, fine, unparted hair went badly +with smart English clothes. He looked common--Alvina confessed it. +And her heart sank. But what was she to do? He evidently was not +happy. Obstinacy made him stick out the situation. + +Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the dead +James. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face, and crossed +herself as she wept. + +"Un bel homme, cependant," she whispered. "Mort en un jour. C'est +trop fort, voyez!" And she sniggered with fear and sobs. + +They went down to Alvina's bare room. Madame glanced round, as she +did in every room she entered. + +"This was father's bedroom," said Alvina. "The other was mine. He +wouldn't have it anything but like this--bare." + +"Nature of a monk, a hermit," whispered Madame. "Who would have +thought it! Ah, the men, the men!" + +And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the small +mirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stood +waiting. + +"And now--" whispered Madame, suddenly turning: "What about this +Ciccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voice +above a whisper, upstairs there. But so it was. + +She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvina +looked back at her, but did not know what to say. + +"What about him, hein? Will you marry him? Why will you?" + +"I suppose because I like him," said Alvina, flushing. + +Madame made a little grimace. + +"Oh yes!" she whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. "Oh +yes!--because you like him! But you know nothing _of_ him--nothing. +How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a real bad +character. How would you like him then?" + +"He isn't, is he?" said Alvina. + +"I don't know. I don't know. He may be. Even I, I don't know +him--no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He +is a man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist's model. He +sticks to nothing--" + +"How old is he?" asked Alvina. + +"He is twenty-five--a boy only. And you? You are older." + +"Thirty," confessed Alvina. + +"Thirty! Well now--so much difference! How can you trust him? How +can you? Why does he want to marry you--why?" + +"I don't know--" said Alvina. + +"No, and I don't know. But I know something of these Italian men, +who are labourers in every country, just labourers and under-men +always, always down, down, down--" And Madame pressed her spread +palms downwards. "And so--when they have a chance to come up--" she +raised her hand with a spring--"they are very conceited, and they +take their chance. He will want to rise, by you, and you will go +down, with him. That is how it is. I have seen it before--yes--more +than one time--" + +"But," said Alvina, laughing ruefully. "He can't rise much because +of me, can he?" + +"How not? How not? In the first place, you are English, and he +thinks to rise by that. Then you are not of the lower class, you are +of the higher class, the class of the masters, such as employ Ciccio +and men like him. How will he not rise in the world by you? Yes, he +will rise very much. Or he will draw you down, down--Yes, one or +another. And then he thinks that now you have money--now your father +is dead--" here Madame glanced apprehensively at the closed +door--"and they all like money, yes, very much, all Italians--" + +"Do they?" said Alvina, scared. "I'm sure there won't _be_ any +money. I'm sure father is in debt." + +"What? You think? Do you? Really? Oh poor Miss Houghton! Well--and +will you tell Ciccio that? Eh? Hein?" + +"Yes--certainly--if it matters," said poor Alvina. + +"Of course it matters. Of course it matters very much. It matters to +him. Because he will not have much. He saves, saves, saves, as they +all do, to go back to Italy and buy a piece of land. And if he has +you, it will cost him much more, he cannot continue with +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. All will be much more difficult--" + +"Oh, I will tell him in time," said Alvina, pale at the lips. + +"You will tell him! Yes. That is better. And then you will see. But +he is obstinate--as a mule. And if he will still have you, then you +must think. Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man, +a dirty Eyetalian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not +pleasant for you, who have not known it. I also have not known it. +But I have seen--" Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while +Madame darted looks, as from bright, deep black glass. + +"Yes," said Alvina. "I should hate being a labourer's wife in a +nasty little house in a street--" + +"In a house?" cried Madame. "It would not be in a house. They live +many together in one house. It would be two rooms, or even one room, +in another house with many people not quite clean, you see--" + +Alvina shook her head. + +"I couldn't stand that," she said finally. + +"No!" Madame nodded approval. "No! you could not. They live in a bad +way, the Italians. They do not know the English home--never. They +don't like it. Nor do they know the Swiss clean and proper house. +No. They don't understand. They run into their holes to sleep or to +shelter, and that is all." + +"The same in Italy?" said Alvina. + +"Even more--because there it is sunny very often--" + +"And you don't need a house," said Alvina. "I should like that." + +"Yes, it is nice--but you don't know the life. And you would be +alone with people like animals. And if you go to Italy he will beat +you--he will beat you--" + +"If I let him," said Alvina. + +"But you can't help it, away there from everybody. Nobody will help +you. If you are a wife in Italy, nobody will help you. You are his +property, when you marry by Italian law. It is not like England. +There is no divorce in Italy. And if he beats you, you are +helpless--" + +"But why should he beat me?" said Alvina. "Why should he want to?" + +"They do. They are so jealous. And then they go into their +ungovernable tempers, horrible tempers--" + +"Only when they are provoked," said Alvina, thinking of Max. + +"Yes, but you will not know what provokes him. Who can _say_ when he +will be provoked? And then he beats you--" + +There seemed to be a gathering triumph in Madame's bright black +eyes. Alvina looked at her, and turned to the door. + +"At any rate I know now," she said, in rather a flat voice. + +"And it is _true_. It is all of it true," whispered Madame +vindictively. Alvina wanted to run from her. + +"I _must_ go to the kitchen," she said. "Shall we go down?" + +Alvina did not go into the drawing-room with Madame. She was too +much upset, and she had almost a horror of seeing Ciccio at that +moment. + +Miss Pinnegar, her face stained carmine by the fire, was helping +Mrs. Rollings with the dinner. + +"Are they both staying, or only one?" she said tartly. + +"Both," said Alvina, busying herself with the gravy, to hide her +distress and confusion. + +"The man as well," said Miss Pinnegar. "What does the woman want to +bring _him_ for? I'm sure I don't know what your father would say--a +common show-fellow, _looks_ what he is--and staying to dinner." + +Miss Pinnegar was thoroughly out of temper as she tried the +potatoes. Alvina set the table. Then she went to the drawing-room. + +"Will you come to dinner?" she said to her two guests. + +Ciccio rose, threw his cigarette into the fire, and looked round. +Outside was a faint, watery sunshine: but at least it was out of +doors. He felt himself imprisoned and out of his element. He had an +irresistible impulse to go. + +When he got into the hall he laid his hand on his hat. The stupid, +constrained smile was on his face. + +"I'll go now," he said. + +"We have set the table for you," said Alvina. + +"Stop now, since you have stopped for so long," said Madame, darting +her black looks at him. + +But he hurried on his coat, looking stupid. Madame lifted her +eyebrows disdainfully. + +"This is polite behaviour!" she said sarcastically. + +Alvina stood at a loss. + +"You return to the funeral?" said Madame coldly. + +He shook his head. + +"When you are ready to go," he said. + +"At four o'clock," said Madame, "when the funeral has come home. +Then we shall be in time for the train." + +He nodded, smiled stupidly, opened the door, and went. + +"This is just like him, to be so--so--" Madame could not express +herself as she walked down to the kitchen. + +"Miss Pinnegar, this is Madame," said Alvina. + +"How do you do?" said Miss Pinnegar, a little distant and +condescending. Madame eyed her keenly. + +"Where is the man? I don't know his name," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"He wouldn't stay," said Alvina. "What _is_ his name, Madame?" + +"Marasca--Francesco. Francesco Marasca--Neapolitan." + +"Marasca!" echoed Alvina. + +"It has a bad sound--a sound of a bad augury, bad sign," said +Madame. "Ma-rà-sca!" She shook her head at the taste of the +syllables. + +"Why do you think so?" said Alvina. "Do you think there is a meaning +in sounds? goodness and badness?" + +"Yes," said Madame. "Certainly. Some sounds are good, they are for +life, for creating, and some sounds are bad, they are for +destroying. Ma-rà-sca!--that is bad, like swearing." + +"But what sort of badness? What does it do?" said Alvina. + +"What does it do? It sends life down--down--instead of lifting it +up." + +"Why should things always go up? Why should life always go up?" said +Alvina. + +"I don't know," said Madame, cutting her meat quickly. There was a +pause. + +"And what about other names," interrupted Miss Pinnegar, a little +lofty. "What about Houghton, for example?" + +Madame put down her fork, but kept her knife in her hand. She looked +across the room, not at Miss Pinnegar. + +"Houghton--! Huff-ton!" she said. "When it is said, it has a sound +_against_: that is, against the neighbour, against humanity. But +when it is written _Hough-ton!_ then it is different, it is _for_." + +"It is always pronounced _Huff-ton_," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"By us," said Alvina. + +"We ought to know," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Madame turned to look at the unhappy, elderly woman. + +"You are a relative of the family?" she said. + +"No, not a relative. But I've been here many years," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"Oh, yes!" said Madame. Miss Pinnegar was frightfully affronted. The +meal, with the three women at table, passed painfully. + +Miss Pinnegar rose to go upstairs and weep. She felt very forlorn. +Alvina rose to wipe the dishes, hastily, because the funeral guests +would all be coming. Madame went into the drawing-room to smoke her +sly cigarette. + +Mr. May was the first to turn up for the lugubrious affair: very +tight and tailored, but a little extinguished, all in black. He +never wore black, and was very unhappy in it, being almost morbidly +sensitive to the impression the colour made on him. He was set to +entertain Madame. + +She did not pretend distress, but sat black-eyed and watchful, very +much her business self. + +"What about the theatre?--will it go on?" she asked. + +"Well I don't know. I don't know Miss Houghton's intentions," said +Mr. May. He was a little stilted today. + +"It's hers?" said Madame. + +"Why, as far as I understand--" + +"And if she wants to sell out--?" + +Mr. May spread his hands, and looked dismal, but distant. + +"You should form a company, and carry on--" said Madame. + +Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing himself up in an odd +fashion, so that he looked as if he were trussed. But Madame's +shrewd black eyes and busy mind did not let him off. + +"Buy Miss Houghton out--" said Madame shrewdly. + +"Of cauce," said Mr. May. "Miss Houghton herself must decide." + +"Oh sure--! You--are you married?" + +"Yes." + +"Your wife here?" + +"My wife is in London." + +"And children--?" + +"A daughter." + +Madame slowly nodded her head up and down, as if she put thousands +of two-and-two's together. + +"You think there will be much to come to Miss Houghton?" she said. + +"Do you mean property? I really can't say. I haven't enquired." + +"No, but you have a good idea, eh?" + +"I'm afraid I haven't. + +"No! Well! It won't be much, then?" + +"Really, I don't know. I should say, not a _large_ fortune--!" + +"No--eh?" Madame kept him fixed with her black eyes. "Do you think +the other one will get anything?" + +"The _other one_--?" queried Mr. May, with an uprising cadence. +Madame nodded slightly towards the kitchen. + +"The old one--the Miss--Miss Pin--Pinny--what you call her." + +"Miss Pinnegar! The manageress of the work-girls? Really, I don't +know at all--" Mr. May was most freezing. + +"Ha--ha! Ha--ha!" mused Madame quietly. Then she asked: "Which +work-girls do you say?" + +And she listened astutely to Mr. May's forced account of the +work-room upstairs, extorting all the details she desired to gather. +Then there was a pause. Madame glanced round the room. + +"Nice house!" she said. "Is it their own?" + +"So I _believe_--" + +Again Madame nodded sagely. "Debts perhaps--eh? Mortgage--" and she +looked slyly sardonic. + +"Really!" said Mr. May, bouncing to his feet. "Do you mind if I go +to speak to Mrs. Rollings--" + +"Oh no--go along," said Madame, and Mr. May skipped out in a temper. + + + +Madame was left alone in her comfortable chair, studying details of +the room and making accounts in her own mind, until the actual +funeral guests began to arrive. And then she had the satisfaction of +sizing them up. Several arrived with wreaths. The coffin had been +carried down and laid in the small sitting-room--Mrs. Houghton's +sitting-room. It was covered with white wreaths and streamers of +purple ribbon. There was a crush and a confusion. + +And then at last the hearse and the cabs had arrived--the coffin was +carried out--Alvina followed, on the arm of her father's cousin, +whom she disliked. Miss Pinnegar marshalled the other mourners. It +was a wretched business. + +But it was a great funeral. There were nine cabs, besides the +hearse--Woodhouse had revived its ancient respect for the house of +Houghton. A posse of minor tradesmen followed the cabs--all in black +and with black gloves. The richer tradesmen sat in the cabs. + +Poor Alvina, this was the only day in all her life when she was the +centre of public attention. For once, every eye was upon her, every +mind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina! said every member of the +Woodhouse "middle class": Poor Alvina Houghton, said every collier's +wife. Poor thing, left alone--and hardly a penny to bless herself +with. Lucky if she's not left with a pile of debts. James Houghton +ran through some money in his day. Ay, if she had her rights she'd +be a rich woman. Why, her mother brought three or four thousands +with her. Ay, but James sank it all in Throttle-Ha'penny and +Klondyke and the Endeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He +paid his way. I'm not so sure about that. Look how he served his +wife, and now Alvina. I'm not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He +was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll +spend no more money, anyhow. No, he went sudden, didn't he? But he +was getting very frail, if you noticed. Oh yes, why he fair seemed +to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon as that place pays its way? +What, the Endeavour?--they say it does. They say it makes a nice +bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ay, it is. Perhaps it won't be +now Mr. Houghton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he _will_ leave +much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got's mortgaged up to the +hilt. He'll leave debts, you see if he doesn't. What is she going to +do then? She'll have to go out of Manchester House--her and Miss +Pinnegar. Wonder what she'll do. Perhaps she'll take up that +nursing. She never made much of that, did she--and spent a sight of +money on her training, they say. She's a bit like her father in the +business line--all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turn up +and marry her. I don't know, she doesn't seem to hook on, does she? +Why she's never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged +once. Ay, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was +on. Can you remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she? +No, I never knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, you +know, learning for his head master's place. Why didn't she marry him +then? Perhaps he never asked her. Ay, there's that to it. She'd have +looked down her nose at him, times gone by. Ay, but that's all over, +my boy. She'd snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that +manager. Why, _that's_ something awful. Haven't you ever watched her +in the Cinema? She never lets him alone. And it's anybody alike. Oh, +she doesn't respect herself. I don't consider. No girl who respected +herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller's +head. Does she, though? Ay, any performer or anybody. She's a tidy +age, though. She's not much chance of getting off. How old do you +reckon she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she +_looks_ it. She does beguy--a dragged old maid. Oh but she +sprightles up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on +to somebody. I wonder why she never did take? It's funny. Oh, she +was too high and mighty before, and now it's too late. Nobody wants +her. And she's got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that's +her father's cousin who she's walking with. Look, they're coming. +He's a fine-looking man, isn't he? You'd have thought they'd have +buried Miss Frost beside Mrs. Houghton. You would, wouldn't you? I +should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was +made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her +than her own mother. She _was_ good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvina +thought the world of her. That's her stone--look, down there. Not a +very grand one, considering. No, it isn't. Look, there's room for +Alvina's name underneath. Sh!-- + +Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the +many faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her +own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out +of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her--how she disliked +his presence. + +In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and her +father. She felt so desolate--it all seemed so empty. Bitterly she +cried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying started +Miss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather +horrible. The afterwards--the horrible afterwards. + +There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold +day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the open +grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black seal-skin +furs were not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by +the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in +the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother--and for Miss +Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would +have to part. Miss Pinnegar had been so fond of her father, in a +quaint, reserved way. Poor Miss Pinnegar, that was all life had +offered her. Well, after all, it had been a home and a home life. To +which home and home life Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning, +knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was +gone. Strange, that he was gone. But he was weary, worn very thin +and weary. He had lived his day. How different it all was, now, at +his death, from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and +thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and learn and lose. + +For one moment she looked at Madame, who was shuddering with cold, +her face hidden behind her black spotted veil. But Madame seemed +immensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio--what was his name? She +could not think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's +slow enunciation. Marasca--maraschino. Marasca! Maraschino! What was +maraschino? Where had she heard it. Cudgelling her brains, she +remembered the doctors, and the suppers after the theatre. And +maraschino--why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the +innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to +smack his lips, saying the word _maraschino_. Yet she didn't think +much of it. Hot, bitterish stuff--nothing: not like green +Chartreuse, which Dr. James gave her. Maraschino! Yes, that was it. +Made from cherries. Well, Ciccio's name was nearly the same. +Ridiculous! But she supposed Italian words were a good deal alike. + +Ciccio, the marasca, the bitter cherry, was standing on the edge of +the crowd, looking on. He had no connection whatever with the +proceedings--stood outside, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bitten by +the wind, and hating the people who stared at him. He saw the trim, +plump figure of Madame, like some trim plump partridge among a flock +of barn-yard fowls. And he depended on her presence. Without her, he +would have felt too horribly uncomfortable on that raw hillside. She +and he were in some way allied. But these others, how alien and +uncouth he felt them. Impressed by their fine clothes, the English +working-classes were none the less barbarians to him, uncivilized: +just as he was to them an uncivilized animal. Uncouth, they seemed +to him, all raw angles and harshness, like their own weather. Not +that he thought about them. But he felt it in his flesh, the +harshness and discomfort of them. And Alvina was one of them. As she +stood there by the grave, pale and pinched and reserved looking, she +was of a piece with the hideous cold grey discomfort of the whole +scene. Never had anything been more uncongenial to him. He was dying +to get away--to clear out. That was all he wanted. Only some +southern obstinacy made him watch, from the duskiness of his face, +the pale, reserved girl at the grave. Perhaps he even disliked her, +at that time. But he watched in his dislike. + +When the ceremony was over, and the mourners turned away to go back +to the cabs, Madame pressed forward to Alvina. + +"I shall say good-bye now, Miss Houghton. We must go to the station +for the train. And thank you, thank you. Good-bye." + +"But--" Alvina looked round. + +"Ciccio is there. I see him. We must catch the train." + +"Oh but--won't you drive? Won't you ask Ciccio to drive with you in +the cab? Where is he?" + +Madame pointed him out as he hung back among the graves, his black +hat cocked a little on one side. He was watching. Alvina broke away +from her cousin, and went to him. + +"Madame is going to drive to the station," she said. "She wants you +to get in with her." + +He looked round at the cabs. + +"All right," he said, and he picked his way across the graves to +Madame, following Alvina. + +"So, we go together in the cab," said Madame to him. Then: +"Good-bye, my dear Miss Houghton. Perhaps we shall meet once more. +Who knows? My heart is with you, my dear." She put her arms round +Alvina and kissed her, a little theatrically. The cousin looked on, +very much aloof. Ciccio stood by. + +"Come then, Ciccio," said Madame. + +"Good-bye," said Alvina to him. "You'll come again, won't you?" She +looked at him from her strained, pale face. + +"All right," he said, shaking her hand loosely. It sounded +hopelessly indefinite. + +"You will come, won't you?" she repeated, staring at him with +strained, unseeing blue eyes. + +"All right," he said, ducking and turning away. + +She stood quite still for a moment, quite lost. Then she went on +with her cousin to her cab, home to the funeral tea. + +"Good-bye!" Madame fluttered a black-edged handkerchief. But Ciccio, +most uncomfortable in his four-wheeler, kept hidden. + +The funeral tea, with its baked meats and sweets, was a terrible +affair. But it came to an end, as everything comes to an end, and +Miss Pinnegar and Alvina were left alone in the emptiness of +Manchester House. + +"If you weren't here, Miss Pinnegar, I should be quite by myself," +said Alvina, blanched and strained. + +"Yes. And so should I without you," said Miss Pinnegar doggedly. +They looked at each other. And that night both slept in Miss +Pinnegar's bed, out of sheer terror of the empty house. + +During the days following the funeral, no one could have been more +tiresome than Alvina. James had left everything to his daughter, +excepting some rights in the work-shop, which were Miss Pinnegar's. +But the question was, how much did "everything" amount to? There +was something less than a hundred pounds in the bank. There was a +mortgage on Manchester House. There were substantial bills owing on +account of the Endeavour. Alvina had about a hundred pounds left +from the insurance money, when all funeral expenses were paid. Of +that she was sure, and of nothing else. + +For the rest, she was almost driven mad by people coming to talk to +her. The lawyer came, the clergyman came, her cousin came, the old, +stout, prosperous tradesmen of Woodhouse came, Mr. May came, Miss +Pinnegar came. And they all had schemes, and they all had advice. +The chief plan was that the theatre should be sold up: and that +Manchester House should be sold, reserving a lease on the top floor, +where Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms were: that Miss Pinnegar and Alvina +should move into a small house, Miss Pinnegar keeping the work-room, +Alvina giving music-lessons: that the two women should be partners +in the work-shop. + +There were other plans, of course. There was a faction against the +chapel faction, which favoured the plan sketched out above. The +theatre faction, including Mr. May and some of the more florid +tradesmen, favoured the risking of everything in the Endeavour. +Alvina was to be the proprietress of the Endeavour, she was to run +it on some sort of successful lines, and abandon all other +enterprise. Minor plans included the election of Alvina to the post +of parish nurse, at six pounds a month: a small private school; a +small haberdashery shop; and a position in the office of her +cousin's Knarborough business. To one and all Alvina answered with a +tantalizing: "I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know. I +can't say yet. I shall see. I shall see." Till one and all became +angry with her. They were all so benevolent, and all so sure that +they were proposing the very best thing she could do. And they were +all nettled, even indignant that she did not jump at their +proposals. She listened to them all. She even invited their advice. +Continually she said: "Well, what do _you_ think of it?" And she +repeated the chapel plan to the theatre group, the theatre plan to +the chapel party, the nursing to the pianoforte proposers, the +haberdashery shop to the private school advocates. "Tell me what +_you_ think," she said repeatedly. And they all told her they +thought _their_ plan was best. And bit by bit she told every +advocate the proposal of every other advocate "Well, Lawyer Beeby +thinks--" and "Well now, Mr. Clay, the minister, advises--" and so +on and so on, till it was all buzzing through thirty benevolent and +officious heads. And thirty benevolently-officious wills were +striving to plant each one its own particular scheme of benevolence. +And Alvina, naïve and pathetic, egged them all on in their strife, +without even knowing what she was doing. One thing only was certain. +Some obstinate will in her own self absolutely refused to have her +mind made up. She would _not_ have her mind made up for her, and she +would not make it up for herself. And so everybody began to say "I'm +getting tired of her. You talk to her, and you get no forrarder. She +slips off to something else. I'm not going to bother with her any +more." In truth, Woodhouse was in a fever, for three weeks or more, +arranging Alvina's unarrangeable future for her. Offers of charity +were innumerable--for three weeks. + +Meanwhile, the lawyer went on with the proving of the will and the +drawing up of a final account of James's property; Mr. May went on +with the Endeavour, though Alvina did not go down to play; Miss +Pinnegar went on with the work-girls: and Alvina went on unmaking +her mind. + +Ciccio did not come during the first week. Alvina had a post-card +from Madame, from Cheshire: rather far off. But such was the buzz +and excitement over her material future, such a fever was worked up +round about her that Alvina, the petty-propertied heroine of the +moment, was quite carried away in a storm of schemes and benevolent +suggestions. She answered Madame's post-card, but did not give much +thought to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. As a matter of fact, she was +enjoying a real moment of importance, there at the centre of +Woodhouse's rather domineering benevolence: a benevolence which she +unconsciously, but systematically frustrated. All this scheming for +selling out and making reservations and hanging on and fixing prices +and getting private bids for Manchester House and for the Endeavour, +the excitement of forming a Limited Company to run the Endeavour, of +seeing a lawyer about the sale of Manchester House and the +auctioneer about the sale of the furniture, of receiving men who +wanted to pick up the machines upstairs cheap, and of keeping +everything dangling, deciding nothing, putting everything off till +she had seen somebody else, this for the moment fascinated her, went +to her head. It was not until the second week had passed that her +excitement began to merge into irritation, and not until the third +week had gone by that she began to feel herself entangled in an +asphyxiating web of indecision, and her heart began to sing because +Ciccio had never turned up. Now she would have given anything to see +the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras again. But she did not know where they were. +Now she began to loathe the excitement of her property: doubtfully +hers, every stick of it. Now she would give anything to get away +from Woodhouse, from the horrible buzz and entanglement of her +sordid affairs. Now again her wild recklessness came over her. + +She suddenly said she was going away somewhere: she would not say +where. She cashed all the money she could: a hundred-and-twenty-five +pounds. She took the train to Cheshire, to the last address of the +Natcha-Kee-Tawaras: she followed them to Stockport: and back to +Chinley: and there she was stuck for the night. Next day she dashed +back almost to Woodhouse, and swerved round to Sheffield. There, in +that black town, thank heaven, she saw their announcement on the +wall. She took a taxi to their theatre, and then on to their +lodgings. The first thing she saw was Louis, in his shirt sleeves, +on the landing above. + +She laughed with excitement and pleasure. She seemed another woman. +Madame looked up, almost annoyed, when she entered. + +"I couldn't keep away from you, Madame," she cried. + +"Evidently," said Madame. + +Madame was darning socks for the young men. She was a wonderful +mother for them, sewed for them, cooked for them, looked after them +most carefully. Not many minutes was Madame idle. + +"Do you mind?" said Alvina. + +Madame darned for some moments without answering. + +"And how is everything at Woodhouse?" she asked. + +"I couldn't bear it any longer. I couldn't bear it. So I collected +all the money I could, and ran away. Nobody knows where I am." + +Madame looked up with bright, black, censorious eyes, at the flushed +girl opposite. Alvina had a certain strangeness and brightness, +which Madame did not know, and a frankness which the Frenchwoman +mistrusted, but found disarming. + +"And all the business, the will and all?" said Madame. + +"They're still fussing about it." + +"And there is some money?" + +"I have got a hundred pounds here," laughed Alvina. "What there will +be when everything is settled, I don't know. But not very much, I'm +sure of that." + +"How much do you think? A thousand pounds?" + +"Oh, it's just possible, you know. But it's just as likely there +won't be another penny--" + +Madame nodded slowly, as always when she did her calculations. + +"And if there is nothing, what do you intend?" said Madame. + +"I don't know," said Alvina brightly. + +"And if there is something?" + +"I don't know either. But I thought, if you would let me play for +you, I could keep myself for some time with my own money. You said +perhaps I might be with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. I wish you would let +me." + +Madame bent her head so that nothing showed but the bright black +folds of her hair. Then she looked up, with a slow, subtle, rather +jeering smile. + +"Ciccio didn't come to see you, hein?" + +"No," said Alvina. "Yet he promised." + +Again Madame smiled sardonically. + +"Do you call it a promise?" she said. "You are easy to be satisfied +with a word. A hundred pounds? No more?" + +"A hundred and twenty--" + +"Where is it?" + +"In my bag at the station--in notes. And I've got a little here--" +Alvina opened her purse, and took out some little gold and silver. + +"At the station!" exclaimed Madame, smiling grimly. "Then perhaps +you have nothing." + +"Oh, I think it's quite safe, don't you--?" + +"Yes--maybe--since it is England. And you think a hundred and twenty +pounds is enough?" + +"What for?" + +"To satisfy Ciccio." + +"I wasn't thinking of him," cried Alvina. + +"No?" said Madame ironically. "I can propose it to him. Wait one +moment." She went to the door and called Ciccio. + +He entered, looking not very good-tempered. + +"Be so good, my dear," said Madame to him, "to go to the station and +fetch Miss Houghton's little bag. You have got the ticket, have +you?" Alvina handed the luggage ticket to Madame. "Midland Railway," +said Madame. "And, Ciccio, you are listening--? Mind! There is a +hundred and twenty pounds of Miss Houghton's money in the bag. You +hear? Mind it is not lost." + +"It's all I have," said Alvina. + +"For the time, for the time--till the will is proved, it is all the +cash she has. So mind doubly. You hear?" + +"All right," said Ciccio. + +"Tell him what sort of a bag, Miss Houghton," said Madame. + +Alvina told him. He ducked and went. Madame listened for his final +departure. Then she nodded sagely at Alvina. + +"Take off your hat and coat, my dear. Soon we will have tea--when +Cic' returns. Let him think, let him think what he likes. So much +money is certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It will +make all the difference that there is so much cash--yes, so much--" + +"But would it _really_ make a difference to him?" cried Alvina. + +"Oh my dear!" exclaimed Madame. "Why should it not? We are on earth, +where we must eat. We are not in Paradise. If it were a thousand +pounds, then he would want very badly to marry you. But a hundred +and twenty is better than a blow to the eye, eh? Why sure!" + +"It's dreadful, though--!" said Alvina. + +"Oh la-la! Dreadful! If it was Max, who is sentimental, then no, the +money is nothing. But all the others--why, you see, they are men, +and they know which side to butter their bread. Men are like cats, +my dear, they don't like their bread without butter. Why should +they? Nor do I, nor do I." + +"Can I help with the darning?" said Alvina. + +"Hein? I shall give you Ciccio's socks, yes? He pushes holes in the +toes--you see?" Madame poked two fingers through the hole in the +toe of a red-and-black sock, and smiled a little maliciously at +Alvina. + +"I don't mind which sock I darn," she said. + +"No? You don't? Well then, I give you another. But if you like I +will speak to him--" + +"What to say?" asked Alvina. + +"To say that you have so much money, and hope to have more. And that +you like him--Yes? Am I right? You like him very much?--hein? Is it +so?" + +"And then what?" said Alvina. + +"That he should tell me if he should like to marry you also--quite +simply. What? Yes?" + +"No," said Alvina. "Don't say anything--not yet." + +"Hé? Not yet? Not yet. All right, not yet then. You will see--" + +Alvina sat darning the sock and smiling at her own shamelessness. +The point that amused her most of all was the fact that she was not +by any means sure she wanted to marry him. There was Madame spinning +her web like a plump prolific black spider. There was Ciccio, the +unrestful fly. And there was herself, who didn't know in the least +what she was doing. There sat two of them, Madame and herself, +darning socks in a stuffy little bedroom with a gas fire, as if they +had been born to it. And after all, Woodhouse wasn't fifty miles +away. + +Madame went downstairs to get tea ready. Wherever she was, she +superintended the cooking and the preparation of meals for her young +men, scrupulous and quick. She called Alvina downstairs. Ciccio came +in with the bag. + +"See, my dear, that your money is safe," said Madame. + +Alvina unfastened her bag and counted the crisp white notes. + +"And now," said Madame, "I shall lock it in my little bank, yes, +where it will be safe. And I shall give you a receipt, which the +young men will witness." + +The party sat down to tea, in the stuffy sitting-room. + +"Now, boys," said Madame, "what do you say? Shall Miss Houghton join +the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Shall she be our pianist?" + +The eyes of the four young men rested on Alvina. Max, as being the +responsible party, looked business-like. Louis was tender, Geoffrey +round-eyed and inquisitive, Ciccio furtive. + +"With great pleasure," said Max. "But can the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras +afford to pay a pianist for themselves?" + +"No," said Madame. "No. I think not. Miss Houghton will come for one +month, to prove, and in that time she shall pay for herself. Yes? So +she fancies it." + +"Can we pay her expenses?" said Max. + +"No," said Alvina. "Let me pay everything for myself, for a month. I +should like to be with you, awfully--" + +She looked across with a look half mischievous, half beseeching at +the erect Max. He bowed as he sat at table. + +"I think we shall all be honoured," he said. + +"Certainly," said Louis, bowing also over his tea-cup. + +Geoffrey inclined his head, and Ciccio lowered his eyelashes in +indication of agreement. + +"Now then," said Madame briskly, "we are all agreed. Tonight we will +have a bottle of wine on it. Yes, gentlemen? What d'you say? +Chianti--hein?" + +They all bowed above the table. + +"And Miss Houghton shall have her professional name, eh? Because we +cannot say Miss Houghton--what?" + +"Do call me Alvina," said Alvina. + +"Alvina--Al-vy-na! No, excuse me, my dear, I don't like it. I don't +like this 'vy' sound. Tonight we shall find a name." + +After tea they inquired for a room for Alvina. There was none in the +house. But two doors away was another decent lodging-house, where a +bedroom on the top floor was found for her. + +"I think you are very well here," said Madame. + +"Quite nice," said Alvina, looking round the hideous little room, +and remembering her other term of probation, as a maternity nurse. + +She dressed as attractively as possible, in her new dress of black +voile, and imitating Madame, she put four jewelled rings on her +fingers. As a rule she only wore the mourning-ring of black enamel +and diamond, which had been always on Miss Frost's finger. Now she +left off this, and took four diamond rings, and one good sapphire. +She looked at herself in her mirror as she had never done before, +really interested in the effect she made. And in her dress she +pinned a valuable old ruby brooch. + +Then she went down to Madame's house. Madame eyed her shrewdly, with +just a touch of jealousy: the eternal jealousy that must exist +between the plump, pale partridge of a Frenchwoman, whose black hair +is so glossy and tidy, whose black eyes are so acute, whose black +dress is so neat and _chic_, and the rather thin Englishwoman in +soft voile, with soft, rather loose brown hair and demure, blue-grey +eyes. + +"Oh--a difference--what a difference! When you have a little more +flesh--then--" Madame made a slight click with her tongue. "What a +good brooch, eh?" Madame fingered the brooch. "Old paste--old +paste--antique--" + +"No," said Alvina. "They are real rubies. It was my +great-grandmother's." + +"Do you mean it? Real? Are you sure--" + +"I think I'm quite sure." + +Madame scrutinized the jewels with a fine eye. + +"Hm!" she said. And Alvina did not know whether she was sceptical, +or jealous, or admiring, or really impressed. + +"And the diamonds are real?" said Madame, making Alvina hold up her +hands. + +"I've always understood so," said Alvina. + +Madame scrutinized, and slowly nodded her head. Then she looked into +Alvina's eyes, really a little jealous. + +"Another four thousand francs there," she said, nodding sagely. + +"Really!" said Alvina. + +"For sure. It's enough--it's enough--" + +And there was a silence between the two women. + +The young men had been out shopping for the supper. Louis, who knew +where to find French and German stuff, came in with bundles, Ciccio +returned with a couple of flasks, Geoffrey with sundry moist papers +of edibles. Alvina helped Madame to put the anchovies and sardines +and tunny and ham and salami on various plates, she broke off a bit +of fern from one of the flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she +set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the +time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed +and was gay, she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very +deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, +common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or +care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were +watching her. Max gave his assistance wherever possible. Geoffrey +watched her rings, half spell-bound. But Alvina was concerned only +to flatter the plump, white, soft vanity of Madame. She carefully +chose for Madame the finest plate, the clearest glass, the +whitest-hafted knife, the most delicate fork. All of which Madame +saw, with acute eyes. + +At the theatre the same: Alvina played for Kishwégin, only for +Kishwégin. And Madame had the time of her life. + +"You know, my dear," she said afterward to Alvina, "I understand +sympathy in music. Music goes straight to the heart." And she kissed +Alvina on both cheeks, throwing her arms round her neck +dramatically. + +"I'm _so_ glad," said the wily Alvina. + +And the young men stirred uneasily, and smiled furtively. + +They hurried home to the famous supper. Madame sat at one end of the +table, Alvina at the other. Madame had Max and Louis by her side, +Alvina had Ciccio and Geoffrey. Ciccio was on Alvina's right hand: a +delicate hint. + +They began with hors d'oeuvres and tumblers three parts full of +Chianti. Alvina wanted to water her wine, but was not allowed to +insult the sacred liquid. There was a spirit of great liveliness and +conviviality. Madame became paler, her eyes blacker, with the wine +she drank, her voice became a little raucous. + +"Tonight," she said, "the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras make their feast of +affiliation. The white daughter has entered the tribe of the +Hirondelles, swallows that pass from land to land, and build their +nests between roof and wall. A new swallow, a new Huron from the +tents of the pale-face, from the lodges of the north, from the tribe +of the Yenghees." Madame's black eyes glared with a kind of wild +triumph down the table at Alvina. "Nameless, without having a name, +comes the maiden with the red jewels, dark-hearted, with the red +beams. Wine from the pale-face shadows, drunken wine for Kishwégin, +strange wine for the _braves_ in their nostrils, Vaali, _à vous_." + +Madame lifted her glass. + +"Vaali, drink to her--Boire à elle--" She thrust her glass forwards +in the air. The young men thrust their glasses up towards Alvina, in +a cluster. She could see their mouths all smiling, their teeth white +as they cried in their throats: "Vaali! Vaali! Boire à vous." + +Ciccio was near to her. Under the table he laid his hand on her +knee. Quickly she put forward her hand to protect herself. He took +her hand, and looked at her along the glass as he drank. She saw his +throat move as the wine went down it. He put down his glass, still +watching her. + +"Vaali!" he said, in his throat. Then across the table "Hé, +Gigi--Viale! Le Petit Chemin! Comment? Me prends-tu? L'allée--" + +There came a great burst of laughter from Louis. + +"It is good, it is good!" he cried. "Oh Madame! Viale, it is Italian +for the little way, the alley. That is too rich." + +Max went off into a high and ribald laugh. + +"L'allée italienne!" he said, and shouted with laughter. + +"Alley or avenue, what does it matter," cried Madame in French, "so +long as it is a good journey." + +Here Geoffrey at last saw the joke. With a strange determined +flourish he filled his glass, cocking up his elbow. + +"A toi, Cic'--et bon voyage!" he said, and then he tilted up his +chin and swallowed in great throatfuls. + +"Certainly! Certainly!" cried Madame. "To thy good journey, my +Ciccio, for thou art not a great traveller--" + +"Na, pour _ça_, y'a plus d'une voie," said Geoffrey. + +During this passage in French Alvina sat with very bright eyes +looking from one to another, and not understanding. But she knew it +was something improper, on her account. Her eyes had a bright, +slightly-bewildered look as she turned from one face to another. +Ciccio had let go her hand, and was wiping his lips with his +fingers. He too was a little self-conscious. + +"Assez de cette éternelle voix italienne," said Madame. "Courage, +courage au chemin d'Angleterre." + +"Assez de cette éternelle voix rauque," said Ciccio, looking round. +Madame suddenly pulled herself together. + +"They will not have my name. They will call you Allay!" she said to +Alvina. "Is it good? Will it do?" + +"Quite," said Alvina. + +And she could not understand why Gigi, and then the others after +him, went off into a shout of laughter. She kept looking round with +bright, puzzled eyes. Her face was slightly flushed and tender +looking, she looked naïve, young. + +"Then you will become one of the tribe of Natcha-Kee-Tawara, of the +name Allaye? Yes?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. + +"And obey the strict rules of the tribe. Do you agree?" + +"Yes." + +"Then listen." Madame primmed and preened herself like a black +pigeon, and darted glances out of her black eyes. + +"We are one tribe, one nation--say it." + +"We are one tribe, one nation," repeated Alvina. + +"Say all," cried Madame. + +"We are one tribe, one nation--" they shouted, with varying accent. + +"Good!" said Madame. "And no nation do we know but the nation of the +Hirondelles--" + +"No nation do we know but the nation of the Hirondelles," came the +ragged chant of strong male voices, resonant and gay with mockery. + +"Hurons--Hirondelles, means _swallows_," said Madame. + +"Yes, I know," said Alvina. + +"So! you know! Well, then! We know no nation but the Hirondelles. WE +HAVE NO LAW BUT HURON LAW!" + +"We have no law but Huron law!" sang the response, in a deep, +sardonic chant. + +"WE HAVE NO LAWGIVER EXCEPT KISHWÉGIN." + +"We have no lawgiver except Kishwégin," they sang sonorous. + +"WE HAVE NO HOME BUT THE TENT OF KISHWÉGIN." + +"We have no home but the tent of Kishwégin." + +"THERE IS NO GOOD BUT THE GOOD OF NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA." + +"There is no good but the good of Natcha-Kee-Tawara." + +"WE ARE THE HIRONDELLES." + +"We are the Hirondelles." + +"WE ARE KISHWÉGIN." + +"We are Kishwégin." + +"WE ARE MONDAGUA." + +"We are Mondagua--" + +"WE ARE ATONQUOIS--" + +"We are Atonquois--" + +"WE ARE PACOHUILA--" + +"We are Pacohuila--" + +"WE ARE WALGATCHKA--" + +"We are Walgatchka--" + +"WE ARE ALLAYE--" + +"We are Allaye--" + +"La musica! Pacohuila, la musica!" cried Madame, starting to her +feet and sounding frenzied. + +Ciccio got up quickly and took his mandoline from its case. + +"A--A--Ai--Aii--eee--ya--" began Madame, with a long, faint wail. +And on the wailing mandoline the music started. She began to dance a +slight but intense dance. Then she waved for a partner, and set up a +tarantella wail. Louis threw off his coat and sprang to tarantella +attention, Ciccio rang out the peculiar tarantella, and Madame and +Louis danced in the tight space. + +"Brava--Brava!" cried the others, when Madame sank into her place. +And they crowded forward to kiss her hand. One after the other, they +kissed her fingers, whilst she laid her left hand languidly on the +head of one man after another, as she sat slightly panting. Ciccio +however did not come up, but sat faintly twanging the mandoline. Nor +did Alvina leave her place. + +"Pacohuila!" cried Madame, with an imperious gesture. "Allaye! +Come--" + +Ciccio laid down his mandoline and went to kiss the fingers of +Kishwégin. Alvina also went forward. Madame held out her hand. +Alvina kissed it. Madame laid her hand on the head of Alvina. + +"This is the squaw Allaye, this is the daughter of Kishwégin," she +said, in her Tawara manner. + +"And where is the _brave_ of Allaye, where is the arm that upholds +the daughter of Kishwégin, which of the Swallows spreads his wings +over the gentle head of the new one!" + +"Pacohuila!" said Louis. + +"Pacohuila! Pacohuila! Pacohuila!" said the others. + +"Spread soft wings, spread dark-roofed wings, Pacohuila," said +Kishwégin, and Ciccio, in his shirt-sleeves solemnly spread his +arms. + +"Stoop, stoop, Allaye, beneath the wings of Pacohuila," said +Kishwégin, faintly pressing Alvina on the shoulder. + +Alvina stooped and crouched under the right arm of Pacohuila. + +"Has the bird flown home?" chanted Kishwégin, to one of the strains +of their music. + +"The bird is home--" chanted the men. + +"Is the nest warm?" chanted Kishwégin. + +"The nest is warm." + +"Does the he-bird stoop--?" + +"He stoops." + +"Who takes Allaye?" + +"Pacohuila." + +Ciccio gently stooped and raised Alvina to her feet. + +"C'est ça!" said Madame, kissing her. "And now, children, unless the +Sheffield policeman will knock at our door, we must retire to our +wigwams all--" + +Ciccio was watching Alvina. Madame made him a secret, imperative +gesture that he should accompany the young woman. + +"You have your key, Allaye?" she said. + +"Did I have a key?" said Alvina. + +Madame smiled subtly as she produced a latch-key. + +"Kishwégin must open your doors for you all," she said. Then, with a +slight flourish, she presented the key to Ciccio. "I give it to him? +Yes?" she added, with her subtle, malicious smile. + +Ciccio, smiling slightly, and keeping his head ducked, took the key. +Alvina looked brightly, as if bewildered, from one to another. + +"Also the light!" said Madame, producing a pocket flash-light, which +she triumphantly handed to Ciccio. Alvina watched him. She noticed +how he dropped his head forward from his straight, strong shoulders, +how beautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape and back +of the head. It produced a kind of dazed submission in her, the +drugged sense of unknown beauty. + +"And so good-night, Allaye--bonne nuit, fille des Tawara." Madame +kissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks at her. + +Each _brave_ also kissed her hand, with a profound salute. Then the +men shook hands warmly with Ciccio, murmuring to him. + +He did not put on his hat nor his coat, but ran round as he was to +the neighbouring house with her, and opened the door. She entered, +and he followed, flashing on the light. So she climbed weakly up the +dusty, drab stairs, he following. When she came to her door, she +turned and looked at him. His face was scarcely visible, it seemed, +and yet so strange and beautiful. It was the unknown beauty which +almost killed her. + +"You aren't coming?" she quavered. + +He gave an odd, half-gay, half-mocking twitch of his thick dark +brows, and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing +at her boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark Southerner he +was. Her instinct was to defend herself. When suddenly she found +herself in the dark. + +She gasped. And as she gasped, he quite gently put her inside her +room, and closed the door, keeping one arm round her all the time. +She felt his heavy muscular predominance. So he took her in both +arms, powerful, mysterious, horrible in the pitch dark. Yet the +sense of the unknown beauty of him weighed her down like some force. +If for one moment she could have escaped from that black spell of +his beauty, she would have been free. But she could not. He was +awful to her, shameless so that she died under his shamelessness, +his smiling, progressive shamelessness. Yet she could not see him +ugly. If only she could, for one second, have seen him ugly, he +would not have killed her and made her his slave as he did. But the +spell was on her, of his darkness and unfathomed handsomeness. And +he killed her. He simply took her and assassinated her. How she +suffered no one can tell. Yet all the time, his lustrous dark +beauty, unbearable. + +When later she pressed her face on his chest and cried, he held her +gently as if she was a child, but took no notice, and she felt in +the darkness that he smiled. It was utterly dark, and she knew he +smiled, and she began to get hysterical. But he only kissed her, his +smiling deepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but +sensible, as he carried her away once more. He intended her to be +his slave, she knew. And he seemed to throw her down and suffocate +her like a wave. And she could have fought, if only the sense of his +dark, rich handsomeness had not numbed her like a venom. So she was +suffocated in his passion. + +In the morning when it was light he turned and looked at her from +under his long black lashes, a long, steady, cruel, faintly-smiling +look from his tawny eyes, searching her as if to see whether she +were still alive. And she looked back at him, heavy-eyed and half +subjected. He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her. And she +turned her face to the wall, feeling beaten. Yet not quite beaten +to death. Save for the fatal numbness of her love for him, she could +still have escaped him. But she lay inert, as if envenomed. He +wanted to make her his slave. + +When she went down to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras for breakfast she found +them waiting for her. She was rather frail and tender-looking, with +wondering eyes that showed she had been crying. + +"Come, daughter of the Tawaras," said Madame brightly to her. "We +have been waiting for you. Good-morning, and all happiness, eh? +Look, it is a gift-day for you--" + +Madame smilingly led Alvina to her place. Beside her plate was a +bunch of violets, a bunch of carnations, a pair of exquisite bead +moccasins, and a pair of fine doeskin gloves delicately decorated +with feather-work on the cuffs. The slippers were from Kishwégin, +the gloves from Mondagua, the carnations from Atonquois, the violets +from Walgatchka--all _To the Daughter of the Tawaras, Allaye_, as it +said on the little cards. + +"The gift of Pacohuila you know," said Madame, smiling. "The +brothers of Pacohuila are your brothers." + +One by one they went to her and each one laid the back of her +fingers against his forehead, saying in turn: + +"I am your brother Mondagua, Allaye!" + +"I am your brother Atonquois, Allaye!" + +"I am your brother Walgatchka, Allaye, best brother, you know--" So +spoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, almost solemn eyes of +affection. Alvina smiled a little wanly, wondering where she was. It +was all so solemn. Was it all mockery, play-acting? She felt +bitterly inclined to cry. + +Meanwhile Madame came in with the coffee, which she always made +herself, and the party sat down to breakfast. Ciccio sat on Alvina's +right, but he seemed to avoid looking at her or speaking to her. All +the time he looked across the table, with the half-asserted, knowing +look in his eyes, at Gigi: and all the time he addressed himself to +Gigi, with the throaty, rich, plangent quality in his voice, that +Alvina could not bear, it seemed terrible to her: and he spoke in +French: and the two men seemed to be exchanging unspeakable +communications. So that Alvina, for all her wistfulness and +subjectedness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon as +possible from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and +public recognition from Ciccio--none of which she got. She returned +to her own house, to her own room, anxious to tidy everything, not +wishing to have her landlady in the room. And she half expected +Ciccio to come to speak to her. + +As she was busy washing a garment in the bowl, her landlady knocked +and entered. She was a rough and rather beery-looking Yorkshire +woman, not attractive. + +"Oh, yo'n made yer bed then, han' yer!" + +"Yes," said Alvina. "I've done everything." + +"I see yer han. Yo'n bin sharp." + +Alvina did not answer. + +"Seems yer doin' yersen a bit o' weshin'." + +Still Alvina didn't answer. + +"Yo' can 'ing it i' th' back yard." + +"I think it'll dry here," said Alvina. + +"Isna much dryin' up here. Send us howd when 't's ready. Yo'll +'appen be wantin' it. I can dry it off for yer i' t' kitchen. You +don't take a drop o' nothink, do yer?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I don't like it." + +"Summat a bit stronger 'n 't bottle, my sakes alive! Well, yo mun +ha'e yer fling, like t' rest. But coom na, which on 'em is it? I +catched sight on 'im goin' out, but I didna ma'e out then which on +'em it wor. He--eh, it's a pity you don't take a drop of nothink, +it's a world's pity. Is it the fairest on 'em, the tallest." + +"No," said Alvina. "The darkest one." + +"Oh ay! Well, 's a strappin' anuff feller, for them as goes that +road. I thought Madame was partikler. I s'll charge yer a bit more, +yer know. I s'll 'ave to make a bit out of it. _I'm_ partikler as a +rule. I don't like 'em comin' in an' goin' out, you know. Things get +said. You look so quiet, you do. Come now, it's worth a hextra quart +to me, else I shan't have it, I shan't. You can't make as free as +all that with the house, you know, be it what it may--" + +She stood red-faced and dour in the doorway. Alvina quietly gave her +half-a-sovereign. + +"Nay, lass," said the woman, "if you share niver a drop o' th' +lashins, you mun split it. Five shillin's is oceans, ma wench. I'm +not down on you--not me. On'y we've got to keep up appearances a +bit, you know. Dash my rags, it's a caution!" + +"I haven't got five shillings--" said Alvina. + +"Yer've not? All right, gi'e 's ha 'efcrown today, an' t'other +termorrer. It'll keep, it'll keep. God bless you for a good wench. +A' open 'eart 's worth all your bum-righteousness. It is for me. An' +a sight more. You're all right, ma wench, you're all right--" + +And the rather bleary woman went nodding away. + +Alvina ought to have minded. But she didn't. She even laughed into +her ricketty mirror. At the back of her thoughts, all she minded was +that Ciccio did not pay her some attention. She really expected him +now to come to speak to her. If she could have imagined how far he +was from any such intention. + +So she loitered unwillingly at her window high over the grey, hard, +cobbled street, and saw her landlady hastening along the black +asphalt pavement, her dirty apron thrown discreetly over what was +most obviously a quart jug. She followed the squat, intent figure +with her eye, to the public-house at the corner. And then she saw +Ciccio humped over his yellow bicycle, going for a steep and +perilous ride with Gigi. + +Still she lingered in her sordid room. She could feel Madame was +expecting her. But she felt inert, weak, incommunicative. Only a +real fear of offending Madame drove her down at last. + +Max opened the door to let her in. + +"Ah!" he said. "You've come. We were wondering about you." + +"Thank you," she said, as she passed into the dirty hall where still +two bicycles stood. + +"Madame is in the kitchen," he said. + +Alvina found Madame trussed in a large white apron, busy rubbing a +yellow-fleshed hen with lemon, previous to boiling. + +"Ah!" said Madame. "So there you are! I have been out and done my +shopping, and already begun to prepare the dinner. Yes, you may help +me. Can you wash leeks? Yes? Every grain of sand? Shall I trust you +then--?" + +Madame usually had a kitchen to herself, in the morning. She either +ousted her landlady, or used her as second cook. For Madame was a +gourmet, if not gourmand. If she inclined towards self-indulgence in +any direction, it was in the direction of food. She _loved_ a good +table. And hence the Tawaras saved less money than they might. She +was an exacting, tormenting, bullying cook. Alvina, who knew well +enough how to prepare a simple dinner, was offended by Madame's +exactions. Madame turning back the green leaves of a leek, and +hunting a speck of earth down into the white, like a flea in a bed, +was too much for Alvina. + +"I'm afraid I shall never be particular enough," she said. "Can't I +do anything else for you?" + +"For me? I need nothing to be done for me. But for the young +men--yes, I will show you in one minute--" + +And she took Alvina upstairs to her room, and gave her a pair of the +thin leather trousers fringed with hair, belonging to one of the +_braves_. A seam had ripped. Madame gave Alvina a fine awl and some +waxed thread. + +"The leather is not good in these things of Gigi's," she said. "It +is badly prepared. See, like this." And she showed Alvina another +place where the garment was repaired. "Keep on your apron. At the +week-end you must fetch more clothes, not spoil this beautiful gown +of voile. Where have you left your diamonds? What? In your room? Are +they locked? Oh my dear--!" Madame turned pale and darted looks of +fire at Alvina. "If they are stolen--!" she cried. "Oh! I have +become quite weak, hearing you!" She panted and shook her head. "If +they are not stolen, you have the Holy Saints alone to be thankful +for keeping them. But run, run!" + +And Madame really stamped her foot. + +"Bring me everything you've got--every _thing_ that is valuable. I +shall lock it up. How _can_ you--" + +Alvina was hustled off to her lodging. Fortunately nothing was gone. +She brought all to Madame, and Madame fingered the treasures +lovingly. + +"Now what you want you must ask me for," she said. + +With what close curiosity Madame examined the ruby brooch. + +"You can have that if you like, Madame," said Alvina. + +"You mean--what?" + +"I will give you that brooch if you like to take it--" + +"Give me this--!" cried Madame, and a flash went over her face. Then +she changed into a sort of wheedling. "No--no. I shan't take it! I +shan't take it. You don't want to give away such a thing." + +"I don't mind," said Alvina. "Do take it if you like it." + +"Oh no! Oh no! I can't take it. A beautiful thing it is, really. It +would be worth over a thousand francs, because I believe it is quite +genuine." + +"I'm sure it's genuine," said Alvina. "Do have it since you like +it." + +"Oh, I can't! I can't!--" + +"Yes do--" + +"The beautiful red stones!--antique gems, antique gems--! And do you +really give it to me?" + +"Yes, I should like to." + +"You are a girl with a noble heart--" Madame threw her arms round +Alvina's neck, and kissed her. Alvina felt very cool about it. +Madame locked up the jewels quickly, after one last look. + +"My fowl," she said, "which must not boil too fast." + +At length Alvina was called down to dinner. The young men were at +table, talking as young men do, not very interestingly. After the +meal, Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise +vibrate through the house. + +"I shall go and look at the town," said Alvina. + +"And who shall go with you?" asked Madame. + +"I will go alone," said Alvina, "unless you will come, Madame." + +"Alas no, I can't. I can't come. Will you really go alone?" + +"Yes, I want to go to the women's shops," said Alvina. + +"You want to! All right then! And you will come home at tea-time, +yes?" + +As soon as Alvina had gone out Ciccio put away his mandoline and lit +a cigarette. Then after a while he hailed Geoffrey, and the two +young men sallied forth. Alvina, emerging from a draper's shop in +Rotherhampton Broadway, found them loitering on the pavement +outside. And they strolled along with her. So she went into a shop +that sold ladies' underwear, leaving them on the pavement. She +stayed as long as she could. But there they were when she came out. +They had endless lounging patience. + +"I thought you would be gone on," she said. + +"No hurry," said Ciccio, and he took away her parcels from her, as +if he had a right. She wished he wouldn't tilt the flap of his black +hat over one eye, and she wished there wasn't quite so much +waist-line in the cut of his coat, and that he didn't smoke +cigarettes against the end of his nose in the street. But wishing +wouldn't alter him. He strayed alongside as if he half belonged, and +half didn't--most irritating. + +She wasted as much time as possible in the shops, then they took the +tram home again. Ciccio paid the three fares, laying his hand +restrainingly on Gigi's hand, when Gigi's hand sought pence in his +trouser pocket, and throwing his arm over his friend's shoulder, in +affectionate but vulgar triumph, when the fares were paid. Alvina +was on her high horse. + +They tried to talk to her, they tried to ingratiate themselves--but +she wasn't having any. She talked with icy pleasantness. And so the +tea-time passed, and the time after tea. The performance went rather +mechanically, at the theatre, and the supper at home, with bottled +beer and boiled ham, was a conventionally cheerful affair. Even +Madame was a little afraid of Alvina this evening. + +"I am tired, I shall go early to my room," said Alvina. + +"Yes, I think we are all tired," said Madame. + +"Why is it?" said Max metaphysically--"why is it that two merry +evenings never follow one behind the other." + +"Max, beer makes thee a _farceur_ of a fine quality," said Madame. +Alvina rose. + +"Please don't get up," she said to the others. "I have my key and +can see quite well," she said. "Good-night all." + +They rose and bowed their good-nights. But Ciccio, with an obstinate +and ugly little smile on his face, followed her. + +"Please don't come," she said, turning at the street door. But +obstinately he lounged into the street with her. He followed her to +her door. + +"Did you bring the flash-light?" she said. "The stair is so dark." + +He looked at her, and turned as if to get the light. Quickly she +opened the house-door and slipped inside, shutting it sharply in his +face. He stood for some moments looking at the door, and an ugly +little look mounted his straight nose. He too turned indoors. + +Alvina hurried to bed and slept well. And the next day the same, she +was all icy pleasantness. The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were a little bit +put out by her. She was a spoke in their wheel, a scotch to their +facility. She made them irritable. And that evening--it was +Friday--Ciccio did not rise to accompany her to her house. And she +knew they were relieved that she had gone. + +That did not please her. The next day, which was Saturday, the last +and greatest day of the week, she found herself again somewhat of an +outsider in the troupe. The tribe had assembled in its old unison. +She was the intruder, the interloper. And Ciccio never looked at +her, only showed her the half-averted side of his cheek, on which +was a slightly jeering, ugly look. + +"Will you go to Woodhouse tomorrow?" Madame asked her, rather +coolly. They none of them called her Allaye any more. + +"I'd better fetch some things, hadn't I?" said Alvina. + +"Certainly, if you think you will stay with us." + +This was a nasty slap in the face for her. But: + +"I want to," she said. + +"Yes! Then you will go to Woodhouse tomorrow, and come to Mansfield +on Monday morning? Like that shall it be? You will stay one night at +Woodhouse?" + +Through Alvina's mind flitted the rapid thought--"They want an +evening without me." Her pride mounted obstinately. She very nearly +said--"I may stay in Woodhouse altogether." But she held her tongue. + +After all, they were very common people. They ought to be glad to +have her. Look how Madame snapped up that brooch! And look what an +uncouth lout Ciccio was! After all, she was demeaning herself +shamefully staying with them in common, sordid lodgings. After all, +she had been bred up differently from that. They had horribly low +standards--such low standards--not only of morality, but of life +altogether. Really, she had come down in the world, conforming to +such standards of life. She evoked the images of her mother and Miss +Frost: ladies, and noble women both. Whatever could she be thinking +of herself! + +However, there was time for her to retrace her steps. She had not +given herself away. Except to Ciccio. And her heart burned when she +thought of him, partly with anger and mortification, partly, alas, +with undeniable and unsatisfied love. Let her bridle as she might, +her heart burned, and she wanted to look at him, she wanted him to +notice her. And instinct told her that he might ignore her for ever. +She went to her room an unhappy woman, and wept and fretted till +morning, chafing between humiliation and yearning. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE + + +Alvina rose chastened and wistful. As she was doing her hair, she +heard the plaintive nasal sound of Ciccio's mandoline. She looked +down the mixed vista of back-yards and little gardens, and was able +to catch sight of a portion of Ciccio, who was sitting on a box in +the blue-brick yard of his house, bare-headed and in his +shirt-sleeves, twitching away at the wailing mandoline. It was not a +warm morning, but there was a streak of sunshine. Alvina had noticed +that Ciccio did not seem to feel the cold, unless it were a wind or +a driving rain. He was playing the wildly-yearning Neapolitan songs, +of which Alvina knew nothing. But, although she only saw a section +of him, the glimpse of his head was enough to rouse in her that +overwhelming fascination, which came and went in spells. His +remoteness, his southernness, something velvety and dark. So easily +she might miss him altogether! Within a hair's-breadth she had let +him disappear. + +She hurried down. Geoffrey opened the door to her. She smiled at him +in a quick, luminous smile, a magic change in her. + +"I could hear Ciccio playing," she said. + +Geoffrey spread his rather thick lips in a smile, and jerked his +head in the direction of the back door, with a deep, intimate look +into Alvina's eyes, as if to say his friend was lovesick. + +"Shall I go through?" said Alvina. + +Geoffrey laid his large hand on her shoulder for a moment, looked +into her eyes, and nodded. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a +rather flat, handsome face, well-coloured, and with the look of the +Alpine ox about him, slow, eternal, even a little mysterious. Alvina +was startled by the deep, mysterious look in his dark-fringed +ox-eyes. The odd arch of his eyebrows made him suddenly seem not +quite human to her. She smiled to him again, startled. But he only +inclined his head, and with his heavy hand on her shoulder gently +impelled her towards Ciccio. + +When she came out at the back she smiled straight into Ciccio's +face, with her sudden, luminous smile. His hand on the mandoline +trembled into silence. He sat looking at her with an instant +re-establishment of knowledge. And yet she shrank from the long, +inscrutable gaze of his black-set, tawny eyes. She resented him a +little. And yet she went forward to him and stood so that her dress +touched him. And still he gazed up at her, with the heavy, +unspeaking look, that seemed to bear her down: he seemed like some +creature that was watching her for his purposes. She looked aside at +the black garden, which had a wiry goose-berry bush. + +"You will come with me to Woodhouse?" she said. + +He did not answer till she turned to him again. Then, as she met his +eyes, + +"To Woodhouse?" he said, watching her, to fix her. + +"Yes," she said, a little pale at the lips. + +And she saw his eternal smile of triumph slowly growing round his +mouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred +his tawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched +her as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of +ferocity. In his eyes was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something +fathomless, deepening black and abysmal, but somehow sweet to her. + +"Will you?" she repeated. + +But his eyes had already begun to glimmer their consent. He turned +aside his face, as if unwilling to give a straight answer. + +"Yes," he said. + +"Play something to me," she cried. + +He lifted his face to her, and shook his head slightly. + +"Yes do," she said, looking down on him. + +And he bent his head to the mandoline, and suddenly began to sing a +Neapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at +her again as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a +curious mocking caress as the muted _voix blanche_ came through his +lips at her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The sound +penetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the +high thread of his voice. She could see the Adam's apple move in his +throat, his brows tilted as he looked along his lashes at her all the +time. Here was the strange sphinx singing again, and herself between +its paws! She seemed almost to melt into his power. + +Madame intervened to save her. + +"What, serenade before breakfast! You have strong stomachs, I say. +Eggs and ham are more the question, hein? Come, you smell them, +don't you?" + +A flicker of contempt and derision went over Ciccio's face as he +broke off and looked aside. + +"I prefer the serenade," said Alvina. "I've had ham and eggs +before." + +"You do, hein? Well--always, you won't. And now you must eat the ham +and eggs, however. Yes? Isn't it so?" + +Ciccio rose to his feet, and looked at Alvina: as he would have +looked at Gigi, had Gigi been there. His eyes said unspeakable +things about Madame. Alvina flashed a laugh, suddenly. And a +good-humoured, half-mocking smile came over his face too. + +They turned to follow Madame into the house. And as Alvina went +before him, she felt his fingers stroke the nape of her neck, and +pass in a soft touch right down her back. She started as if some +unseen creature had stroked her with its paw, and she glanced +swiftly round, to see the face of Ciccio mischievous behind her +shoulder. + +"Now I think," said Madame, "that today we all take the same train. +We go by the Great Central as far as the junction, together. Then +you, Allaye, go on to Knarborough, and we leave you until tomorrow. +And now there is not much time." + +"I am going to Woodhouse," said Ciccio in French. + +"You also! By the train, or the bicycle?" + +"Train," said Ciccio. + +"Waste so much money?" + +Ciccio raised his shoulders slightly. + +When breakfast was over, and Alvina had gone to her room, Geoffrey +went out into the back yard, where the bicycles stood. + +"Cic'," he said. "I should like to go with thee to Woodhouse. Come +on bicycle with me." + +Ciccio shook his head. + +"I'm going in train with _her_," he said. + +Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger. + +"I would like to see how it is, there, _chez elle_," he said. + +"Ask _her_," said Ciccio. + +Geoffrey watched him suddenly. + +"Thou forsakest me," he said. "I would like to see it, there." + +"Ask _her_," repeated Ciccio. "Then come on bicycle." + +"You're content to leave me," muttered Geoffrey. + +Ciccio touched his friend on his broad cheek, and smiled at him with +affection. + +"I don't leave thee, Gigi. I asked thy advice. You said, Go. But +come. Go and ask her, and then come. Come on bicycle, eh? Ask her! +Go on! Go and ask her." + +Alvina was surprised to hear a tap at her door, and Gigi's voice, in +his strong foreign accent: + +"Mees Houghton, I carry your bag." + +She opened her door in surprise. She was all ready. + +"There it is," she said, smiling at him. + +But he confronted her like a powerful ox, full of dangerous force. +Her smile had reassured him. + +"Na, Allaye," he said, "tell me something." + +"What?" laughed Alvina. + +"Can I come to Woodhouse?" + +"When?" + +"Today. Can I come on bicycle, to tea, eh? At your house with you +and Ciccio? Eh?" + +He was smiling with a thick, doubtful, half sullen smile. + +"Do!" said Alvina. + +He looked at her with his large, dark-blue eyes. + +"Really, eh?" he said, holding out his large hand. + +She shook hands with him warmly. + +"Yes, really!" she said. "I wish you would." + +"Good," he said, a broad smile on his thick mouth. And all the time +he watched her curiously, from his large eyes. + +"Ciccio--a good chap, eh?" he said. + +"Is he?" laughed Alvina. + +"Ha-a--!" Gigi shook his head solemnly. "The best!" He made such +solemn eyes, Alvina laughed. He laughed too, and picked up her bag +as if it were a bubble. + +"Na Cic'--" he said, as he saw Ciccio in the street. "Sommes +d'accord." + +"Ben!" said Ciccio, holding out his hand for the bag. "Donne." + +"Ne-ne," said Gigi, shrugging. + +Alvina found herself on the new and busy station that Sunday morning, +one of the little theatrical company. It was an odd experience. They +were so obviously a theatrical company--people apart from the world. +Madame was darting her black eyes here and there, behind her spotted +veil, and standing with the ostensible self-possession of her +profession. Max was circling round with large strides, round a big +black box on which the red words Natcha-Kee-Tawara showed mystic, and +round the small bunch of stage fittings at the end of the platform. +Louis was waiting to get the tickets, Gigi and Ciccio were bringing up +the bicycles. They were a whole train of departure in themselves, busy, +bustling, cheerful--and curiously apart, vagrants. + +Alvina strolled away towards the half-open bookstall. Geoffrey was +standing monumental between her and the company. She returned to +him. + +"What time shall we expect you?" she said. + +He smiled at her in his broad, friendly fashion. + +"Expect me to be there? Why--" he rolled his eyes and proceeded to +calculate. "At four o'clock." + +"Just about the time when we get there," she said. + +He looked at her sagely, and nodded. + +They were a good-humoured company in the railway carriage. The men +smoked cigarettes and tapped off the ash on the heels of their +boots, Madame watched every traveller with professional curiosity. +Max scrutinized the newspaper, Lloyds, and pointed out items to +Louis, who read them over Max's shoulder, Ciccio suddenly smacked +Geoffrey on the thigh, and looked laughing into his face. So till +they arrived at the junction. And then there was a kissing and a +taking of farewells, as if the company were separating for ever. +Louis darted into the refreshment bar and returned with little pies +and oranges, which he deposited in the carriage, Madame presented +Alvina with a packet of chocolate. And it was "Good-bye, good-bye, +Allaye! Good-bye, Ciccio! Bon voyage. Have a good time, both." + +So Alvina sped on in the fast train to Knarborough with Ciccio. + +"I _do_ like them all," she said. + +He opened his mouth slightly and lifted his head up and down. She +saw in the movement how affectionate he was, and in his own way, how +emotional. He loved them all. She put her hand to his. He gave her +hand one sudden squeeze, of physical understanding, then left it as +if nothing had happened. There were other people in the carriage +with them. She could not help feeling how sudden and lovely that +moment's grasp of his hand was: so warm, so whole. + +And thus they watched the Sunday morning landscape slip by, as they +ran into Knarborough. They went out to a little restaurant to eat. +It was one o'clock. + +"Isn't it strange, that we are travelling together like this?" she +said, as she sat opposite him. + +He smiled, looking into her eyes. + +"You think it's strange?" he said, showing his teeth slightly. + +"Don't you?" she cried. + +He gave a slight, laconic laugh. + +"And I can hardly bear it that I love you so much," she said, +quavering, across the potatoes. + +He glanced furtively round, to see if any one was listening, if any +one might hear. He would have hated it. But no one was near. Beneath +the tiny table, he took her two knees between his knees, and pressed +them with a slow, immensely powerful pressure. Helplessly she put +her hand across the table to him. He covered it for one moment with +his hand, then ignored it. But her knees were still between the +powerful, living vice of his knees. + +"Eat!" he said to her, smiling, motioning to her plate. And he +relaxed her. + +They decided to go out to Woodhouse on the tram-car, a long hour's +ride. Sitting on the top of the covered car, in the atmosphere of +strong tobacco smoke, he seemed self-conscious, withdrawn into his +own cover, so obviously a dark-skinned foreigner. And Alvina, as she +sat beside him, was reminded of the woman with the negro husband, +down in Lumley. She understood the woman's reserve. She herself +felt, in the same way, something of an outcast, because of the man +at her side. An outcast! And glad to be an outcast. She clung to +Ciccio's dark, despised foreign nature. She loved it, she +worshipped it, she defied all the other world. Dark, he sat beside +her, drawn in to himself, overcast by his presumed inferiority among +these northern industrial people. And she was with him, on his side, +outside the pale of her own people. + +There were already acquaintances on the tram. She nodded in answer +to their salutation, but so obviously from a distance, that they +kept turning round to eye her and Ciccio. But they left her alone. +The breach between her and them was established for ever--and it was +her will which established it. + +So up and down the weary hills of the hilly, industrial countryside, +till at last they drew near to Woodhouse. They passed the ruins of +Throttle-Ha'penny, and Alvina glanced at it indifferent. They ran +along the Knarborough Road. A fair number of Woodhouse young people +were strolling along the pavements in their Sunday clothes. She knew +them all. She knew Lizzie Bates's fox furs, and Fanny Clough's lilac +costume, and Mrs. Smitham's winged hat. She knew them all. And +almost inevitably the old Woodhouse feeling began to steal over her, +she was glad they could not see her, she was a little ashamed of +Ciccio. She wished, for the moment, Ciccio were not there. And as +the time came to get down, she looked anxiously back and forth to +see at which halt she had better descend--where fewer people would +notice her. But then she threw her scruples to the wind, and +descended into the staring, Sunday afternoon street, attended by +Ciccio, who carried her bag. She knew she was a marked figure. + +They slipped round to Manchester House. Miss Pinnegar expected +Alvina, but by the train, which came later. So she had to be knocked +up, for she was lying down. She opened the door looking a little +patched in her cheeks, because of her curious colouring, and a +little forlorn, and a little dumpy, and a little irritable. + +"I didn't know there'd be two of you," was her greeting. + +"Didn't you," said Alvina, kissing her. "Ciccio came to carry my +bag." + +"Oh," said Miss Pinnegar. "How do you do?" and she thrust out her +hand to him. He shook it loosely. + +"I had your wire," said Miss Pinnegar. "You said the train. Mrs. +Rollings is coming in at four again--" + +"Oh all right--" said Alvina. + +The house was silent and afternoon-like. Ciccio took off his coat +and sat down in Mr. Houghton's chair. Alvina told him to smoke. He +kept silent and reserved. Miss Pinnegar, a poor, patch-cheeked, +rather round-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she +did not quite know what to say or do. + +She followed Alvina upstairs to her room. + +"I can't think why you bring _him_ here," snapped Miss Pinnegar. "I +don't know what you're thinking about. The whole place is talking +already." + +"I don't care," said Alvina. "I like him." + +"Oh--for shame!" cried Miss Pinnegar, lifting her hand with Miss +Frost's helpless, involuntary movement. "What do you think of +yourself? And your father a month dead." + +"It doesn't matter. Father _is_ dead. And I'm sure the dead don't +mind." + +"I never _knew_ such things as you say." + +"Why? I mean them." + +Miss Pinnegar stood blank and helpless. + +"You're not asking him to stay the night," she blurted. + +"Yes. And I'm going back with him to Madame tomorrow. You know I'm +part of the company now, as pianist." + +"And are you going to marry him?" + +"I don't know." + +"How _can_ you say you don't know! Why, it's awful. You make me feel +I shall go out of my mind." + +"But I _don't_ know," said Alvina. + +"It's incredible! Simply incredible! I believe you're out of your +senses. I used to think sometimes there was something wrong with +your mother. And that's what it is with you. You're not quite right +in your mind. You need to be looked after." + +"Do I, Miss Pinnegar! Ah, well, don't you trouble to look after me, +will you?" + +"No one will if I don't." + +"I hope no one will." + +There was a pause. + +"I'm ashamed to live another day in Woodhouse," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"_I'm_ leaving it for ever," said Alvina. + +"I should think so," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Suddenly she sank into a chair, and burst into tears, wailing: + +"Your poor father! Your poor father!" + +"I'm sure the dead are all right. Why must you pity him?" + +"You're a lost girl!" cried Miss Pinnegar. + +"Am I really?" laughed Alvina. It sounded funny. + +"Yes, you're a lost girl," sobbed Miss Pinnegar, on a final note of +despair. + +"I like being lost," said Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled and +forlorn. Alvina went to her and laid her hand on her shoulder. + +"Don't fret, Miss Pinnegar," she said. "Don't be silly. I love to be +with Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the end I shall marry him. But if +I don't--" her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnegar's heavy arm till +it hurt--"I wouldn't lose a minute of him, no, not for anything +would I." + +Poor Miss Pinnegar dwindled, convinced. + +"You make it hard for _me_, in Woodhouse," she said, hopeless. + +"Never mind," said Alvina, kissing her. "Woodhouse isn't heaven and +earth." + +"It's been my home for forty years." + +"It's been mine for thirty. That's why I'm glad to leave it." There +was a pause. + +"I've been thinking," said Miss Pinnegar, "about opening a little +business in Tamworth. You know the Watsons are there." + +"I believe you'd be happy," said Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar pulled herself together. She had energy and courage +still. + +"I don't want to stay here, anyhow," she said. "Woodhouse has +nothing for me any more." + +"Of course it hasn't," said Alvina. "I think you'd be happier away +from it." + +"Yes--probably I should--now!" + +None the less, poor Miss Pinnegar was grey-haired, she was almost a +dumpy, odd old woman. + +They went downstairs. Miss Pinnegar put on the kettle. + +"Would you like to see the house?" said Alvina to Ciccio. + +He nodded. And she took him from room to room. His eyes looked +quickly and curiously over everything, noticing things, but without +criticism. + +"This was my mother's little sitting-room," she said. "She sat here +for years, in this chair." + +"Always here?" he said, looking into Alvina's face. + +"Yes. She was ill with her heart. This is another photograph of her. +I'm not like her." + +"Who is _that_?" he asked, pointing to a photograph of the handsome, +white-haired Miss Frost. + +"That was Miss Frost, my governess. She lived here till she died. I +loved her--she meant everything to me." + +"She also dead--?" + +"Yes, five years ago." + +They went to the drawing-room. He laid his hand on the keys of the +piano, sounding a chord. + +"Play," she said. + +He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wished her to play. She +sat and played one of Kishwégin's pieces. He listened, faintly +smiling. + +"Fine piano--eh?" he said, looking into her face. + +"I like the tone," she said. + +"Is it yours?" + +"The piano? Yes. I suppose everything is mine--in name at least. I +don't know how father's affairs are really." + +He looked at her, and again his eye wandered over the room. He saw a +little coloured portrait of a child with a fleece of brownish-gold +hair and surprised eyes, in a pale-blue stiff frock with a broad +dark-blue sash. + +"You?" he said. + +"Do you recognize me?" she said. "Aren't I comical?" + +She took him upstairs--first to the monumental bedroom. + +"This was mother's room," she said. "Now it is mine." + +He looked at her, then at the things in the room, then out of the +window, then at her again. She flushed, and hurried to show him his +room, and the bath-room. Then she went downstairs. + +He kept glancing up at the height of the ceilings, the size of the +rooms, taking in the size and proportion of the house, and the +quality of the fittings. + +"It is a big house," he said. "Yours?" + +"Mine in name," said Alvina. "Father left all to me--and his debts +as well, you see." + +"Much debts?" + +"Oh yes! I don't quite know how much. But perhaps more debts than +there is property. I shall go and see the lawyer in the morning. +Perhaps there will be nothing at all left for me, when everything is +paid." + +She had stopped on the stairs, telling him this, turning round to +him, who was on the steps above. He looked down on her, calculating. +Then he smiled sourly. + +"Bad job, eh, if it is all gone--!" he said. + +"I don't mind, really, if I can live," she said. + +He spread his hands, deprecating, not understanding. Then he glanced +up the stairs and along the corridor again, and downstairs into the +hall. + +"A fine big house. Grand if it was yours," he said. + +"I wish it were," she said rather pathetically, "if you like it so +much." + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"Hé!" he said. "How not like it!" + +"I don't like it," she said. "I think it's a gloomy miserable hole. +I hate it. I've lived here all my life and seen everything bad +happen here. I hate it." + +"Why?" he said, with a curious, sarcastic intonation. + +"It's a bad job it isn't yours, for certain," he said, as they +entered the living-room, where Miss Pinnegar sat cutting bread and +butter. + +"What?" said Miss Pinnegar sharply. + +"The house," said Alvina. + +"Oh well, we don't know. We'll hope for the best," replied Miss +Pinnegar, arranging the bread and butter on the plate. Then, rather +tart, she added: "It is a bad job. And a good many things are a bad +job, besides that. If Miss Houghton had what she _ought_ to have, +things would be very different, I assure you." + +"Oh yes," said Ciccio, to whom this address was directed. + +"Very different indeed. If all the money hadn't been--lost--in the +way it has, Miss Houghton wouldn't be playing the piano, for one +thing, in a cinematograph show." + +"No, perhaps not," said Ciccio. + +"Certainly not. It's not the right thing for her to be doing, _at +all_!" + +"You think not?" said Ciccio. + +"Do you imagine it is?" said Miss Pinnegar, turning point blank on +him as he sat by the fire. + +He looked curiously at Miss Pinnegar, grinning slightly. + +"Hé!" he said. "How do I know!" + +"I should have thought it was obvious," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"Hé!" he ejaculated, not fully understanding. + +"But of course those that are used to nothing better can't see +anything but what they're used to," she said, rising and shaking the +crumbs from her black silk apron, into the fire. He watched her. + +Miss Pinnegar went away into the scullery. Alvina was laying a fire +in the drawing-room. She came with a dustpan to take some coal from +the fire of the living-room. + +"What do you want?" said Ciccio, rising. And he took the shovel from +her hand. + +"Big, hot fires, aren't they?" he said, as he lifted the burning +coals from the glowing mass of the grate. + +"Enough," said Alvina. "Enough! We'll put it in the drawing-room." +He carried the shovel of flaming, smoking coals to the other room, +and threw them in the grate on the sticks, watching Alvina put on +more pieces of coal. + +"Fine, a fire! Quick work, eh? A beautiful thing, a fire! You know +what they say in my place: You can live without food, but you can't +live without fire." + +"But I thought it was always hot in Naples," said Alvina. + +"No, it isn't. And my village, you know, when I was small boy, that +was in the mountains, an hour quick train from Naples. Cold in the +winter, hot in the summer--" + +"As cold as England?" said Alvina. + +"Hé--and colder. The wolves come down. You could hear them crying in +the night, in the frost--" + +"How terrifying--!" said Alvina. + +"And they will kill the dogs! Always they kill the dogs. You know, +they hate dogs, wolves do." He made a queer noise, to show how +wolves hate dogs. Alvina understood, and laughed. + +"So should I, if I was a wolf," she said. + +"Yes--eh?" His eyes gleamed on her for a moment. + +"Ah but, the poor dogs! You find them bitten--carried away among the +trees or the stones, hard to find them, poor things, the next day." + +"How frightened they must be--!" said Alvina. + +"Frightened--hu!" he made sudden gesticulations and ejaculations, +which added volumes to his few words. + +"And did you like it, your village?" she said. + +He put his head on one side in deprecation. + +"No," he said, "because, you see--hé, there is nothing to do--no +money--work--work--work--no life--you see nothing. When I was a +small boy my father, he died, and my mother comes with me to Naples. +Then I go with the little boats on the sea--fishing, carrying +people--" He flourished his hand as if to make her understand all +the things that must be wordless. He smiled at her--but there was a +faint, poignant sadness and remoteness in him, a beauty of old +fatality, and ultimate indifference to fate. + +"And were you very poor?" + +"Poor?--why yes! Nothing. Rags--no shoes--bread, little fish from +the sea--shell-fish--" + +His hands flickered, his eyes rested on her with a profound look of +knowledge. And it seemed, in spite of all, one state was very much +the same to him as another, poverty was as much life as affluence. +Only he had a sort of jealous idea that it was humiliating to be +poor, and so, for vanity's sake, he would have possessions. The +countless generations of civilization behind him had left him an +instinct of the world's meaninglessness. Only his little modern +education made money and independence an _idée fixe_. Old instinct +told him the world was nothing. But modern education, so shallow, +was much more efficacious than instinct. It drove him to make a show +of himself to the world. Alvina watching him, as if hypnotized, saw +his old beauty, formed through civilization after civilization; and +at the same time she saw his modern vulgarianism, and decadence. + +"And when you go back, you will go back to your old village?" she +said. + +He made a gesture with his head and shoulders, evasive, +non-committal. + +"I don't know, you see," he said. + +"What is the name of it?" + +"Pescocalascio." He said the word subduedly, unwillingly. + +"Tell me again," said Alvina. + +"Pescocalascio." + +She repeated it. + +"And tell me how you spell it," she said. + +He fumbled in his pocket for a pencil and a piece of paper. She rose +and brought him an old sketch-book. He wrote, slowly, but with the +beautiful Italian hand, the name of his village. + +"And write your name," she said. + +"Marasca Francesco," he wrote. + +"And write the name of your father and mother," she said. He looked +at her enquiringly. + +"I want to see them," she said. + +"Marasca Giovanni," he wrote, and under that "Califano Maria." + +She looked at the four names, in the graceful Italian script. And +one after the other she read them out. He corrected her, smiling +gravely. When she said them properly, he nodded. + +"Yes," he said. "That's it. You say it well." + +At that moment Miss Pinnegar came in to say Mrs. Rollings had seen +another of the young men riding down the street. + +"That's Gigi! He doesn't know how to come here," said Ciccio, +quickly taking his hat and going out to find his friend. + +Geoffrey arrived, his broad face hot and perspiring. + +"Couldn't you find it?" said Alvina. + +"I find the house, but I couldn't find no door," said Geoffrey. + +They all laughed, and sat down to tea. Geoffrey and Ciccio talked to +each other in French, and kept each other in countenance. +Fortunately for them, Madame had seen to their table-manners. But +still they were far too free and easy to suit Miss Pinnegar. + +"Do you know," said Ciccio in French to Geoffrey, "what a fine house +this is?" + +"No," said Geoffrey, rolling his large eyes round the room, and +speaking with his cheek stuffed out with food. "Is it?" + +"Ah--if it was _hers_, you know--" + +And so, after tea, Ciccio said to Alvina: + +"Shall you let Geoffrey see the house?" + +The tour commenced again. Geoffrey, with his thick legs planted +apart, gazed round the rooms, and made his comments in French to +Ciccio. When they climbed the stairs, he fingered the big, smooth +mahogany bannister-rail. In the bedroom he stared almost dismayed +at the colossal bed and cupboard. In the bath-room he turned on the +old-fashioned, silver taps. + +"Here is my room--" said Ciccio in French. + +"Assez éloigné!" replied Gigi. Ciccio also glanced along the +corridor. + +"Yes," he said. "But an open course--" + +"Look, my boy--if you could marry _this_--" meaning the house. + +"Ha, she doesn't know if it hers any more! Perhaps the debts cover +every bit of it." + +"Don't say so! Na, that's a pity, that's a pity! La pauvre +fille--pauvre demoiselle!" lamented Geoffrey. + +"Isn't it a pity! What dost say?" + +"A thousand pities! A thousand pities! Look, my boy, love needs no +havings, but marriage does. Love is for all, even the grasshoppers. +But marriage means a kitchen. That's how it is. La pauvre +demoiselle; c'est malheur pour elle." + +"That's true," said Ciccio. "Et aussi pour moi. For me as well." + +"For thee as well, cher! Perhaps--" said Geoffrey, laying his arm on +Ciccio's shoulder, and giving him a sudden hug. They smiled to each +other. + +"Who knows!" said Ciccio. + +"Who knows, truly, my Cic'." + +As they went downstairs to rejoin Alvina, whom they heard playing on +the piano in the drawing-room, Geoffrey peeped once more into the +big bedroom. + +"Tu n'es jamais monté si haut, mon beau. Pour moi, ça serait +difficile de m'élever. J'aurais bien peur, moi. Tu te trouves aussi +un peu ébahi, hein? n'est-ce pas?" + +"Y'a place pour trois," said Ciccio. + +"Non, je crêverais, là haut. Pas pour moi!" + +And they went laughing downstairs. + +Miss Pinnegar was sitting with Alvina, determined not to go to +Chapel this evening. She sat, rather hulked, reading a novel. Alvina +flirted with the two men, played the piano to them, and suggested a +game of cards. + +"Oh, Alvina, you will never bring out the cards tonight!" +expostulated poor Miss Pinnegar. + +"But, Miss Pinnegar, it can't possibly hurt anybody." + +"You know what I think--and what your father thought--and your +mother and Miss Frost--" + +"You see I think it's only prejudice," said Alvina. + +"Oh very well!" said Miss Pinnegar angrily. + +And closing her book, she rose and went to the other room. + +Alvina brought out the cards, and a little box of pence which +remained from Endeavour harvests. At that moment there was a knock. +It was Mr. May. Miss Pinnegar brought him in, in triumph. + +"Oh!" he said. "Company! I heard you'd come, Miss Houghton, so I +_hastened_ to pay my compliments. I didn't know you had _company_. +How do you do, Francesco! How do you do, Geoffrey. Comment +allez-vous, alors?" + +"Bien!" said Geoffrey. "You are going to take a hand?" + +"Cards on Sunday evening! Dear me, what a revolution! Of course, I'm +not _bigoted_. If Miss Houghton asks me--" + +Miss Pinnegar looked solemnly at Alvina. + +"Yes, do take a hand, Mr. May," said Alvina. + +"Thank you, I will then, if I may. Especially as I see those +tempting piles of pennies and ha'pennies. Who is bank, may I ask? Is +Miss Pinnegar going to play too?" + +But Miss Pinnegar had turned her poor, bowed back, and departed. + +"I'm afraid she's offended," said Alvina. + +"But why? We don't put _her_ soul in danger, do we now? I'm a good +Catholic, you know, I _can't_ do with these provincial little +creeds. Who deals? Do you, Miss Houghton? But I'm afraid we shall +have a rather _dry_ game? What? Isn't that your opinion?" + +The other men laughed. + +"If Miss Houghton would just _allow_ me to run round and bring +something in. Yes? May I? That would be _so_ much more cheerful. +What is your choice, gentlemen?" + +"Beer," said Ciccio, and Geoffrey nodded. + +"Beer! Oh really! Extraor'nary! I always take a little whiskey +myself. What kind of beer? Ale?--or bitter? I'm afraid I'd better +bring bottles. Now how can I secrete them? You haven't a small +travelling case, Miss Houghton? Then I shall look as if I'd just +been taking a _journey_. Which I have--to the Sun and back: and if +_that_ isn't far enough, even for Miss Pinnegar and John Wesley, +why, I'm sorry." + +Alvina produced the travelling case. + +"Excellent!" he said. "Excellent! It will hold half-a-dozen +beautifully. Now--" he fell into a whisper--"hadn't I better sneak +out at the front door, and so escape the clutches of the watch-dog?" + +Out he went, on tip-toe, the other two men grinning at him. +Fortunately there were glasses, the best old glasses, in the side +cupboard in the drawing room. But unfortunately, when Mr. May +returned, a corkscrew was in request. So Alvina stole to the +kitchen. Miss Pinnegar sat dumped by the fire, with her spectacles +and her book. She watched like a lynx as Alvina returned. And she +saw the tell-tale corkscrew. So she dumped a little deeper in her +chair. + +"There was a sound of revelry by night!" For Mr. May, after a long +depression, was in high feather. They shouted, positively shouted +over their cards, they roared with excitement, expostulation, and +laughter. Miss Pinnegar sat through it all. But at one point she +could bear it no longer. + +The drawing-room door opened, and the dumpy, hulked, faded woman in +a black serge dress stood like a rather squat avenging angel in the +doorway. + +"What would your _father_ say to this?" she said sternly. + +The company suspended their laughter and their cards, and looked +around. Miss Pinnegar wilted and felt strange under so many eyes. + +"Father!" said Alvina. "But why father?" + +"You lost girl!" said Miss Pinnegar, backing out and closing the +door. + +Mr. May laughed so much that he knocked his whiskey over. + +"There," he cried, helpless, "look what she's cost me!" And he went +off into another paroxysm, swelling like a turkey. + +Ciccio opened his mouth, laughing silently. + +"Lost girl! Lost girl! How lost, when you are at home?" said +Geoffrey, making large eyes and looking hither and thither as if +_he_ had lost something. + +They all went off again in a muffled burst. + +"No but, really," said Mr. May, "drinking and card-playing with +strange men in the drawing-room on Sunday evening, of _cauce_ it's +scandalous. It's _terrible_! I don't know how ever you'll be saved, +after such a sin. And in Manchester House, too--!" He went off into +another silent, turkey-scarlet burst of mirth, wriggling in his +chair and squealing faintly: "Oh, I love it, I love it! _You lost +girl!_ Why of _cauce_ she's lost! And Miss Pinnegar has only just +found it out. Who _wouldn't_ be lost? Why even Miss Pinnegar would +be lost if she could. Of _cauce_ she would! Quite natch'ral!" + +Mr. May wiped his eyes, with his handkerchief which had +unfortunately mopped up his whiskey. + +So they played on, till Mr. May and Geoffrey had won all the +pennies, except twopence of Ciccio's. Alvina was in debt. + +"Well I think it's been a most agreeable game," said Mr. May. "Most +agreeable! Don't you all?" + +The two other men smiled and nodded. + +"I'm only sorry to think Miss Houghton has _lost_ so steadily all +evening. Really quite remarkable. But _then_--you see--I comfort +myself with the reflection 'Lucky in cards, unlucky in love.' I'm +certainly _hounded_ with misfortune in love. And I'm _sure_ Miss +Houghton would rather be unlucky in cards than in love. What, isn't +it so?" + +"Of course," said Alvina. + +"There, you see, _of cauce_! Well, all we can do after that is to +wish her success in love. Isn't that so, gentlemen? I'm sure _we_ +are all quite willing to do our best to contribute to it. Isn't it +so, gentlemen? Aren't we all ready to do our best to contribute to +Miss Houghton's happiness in love? Well then, let us drink to it." +He lifted his glass, and bowed to Alvina. "With _every_ wish for +your success in love, Miss Houghton, and your _devoted_ servant--" +He bowed and drank. + +Geoffrey made large eyes at her as he held up his glass. + +"_I_ know you'll come out all right in love, _I_ know," he said +heavily. + +"And you, Ciccio? Aren't you drinking?" said Mr. May. + +Ciccio held up his glass, looked at Alvina, made a little mouth at +her, comical, and drank his beer. + +"Well," said Mr. May, "_beer_ must confirm it, since words won't." + +"What time is it?" said Alvina. "We must have supper." + +It was past nine o'clock. Alvina rose and went to the kitchen, the +men trailing after her. Miss Pinnegar was not there. She was not +anywhere. + +"Has she gone to bed?" said Mr. May. And he crept stealthily +upstairs on tip-toe, a comical, flush-faced, tubby little man. He +was familiar with the house. He returned prancing. + +"I heard her cough," he said. "There's a light under her door. She's +gone to bed. Now haven't I always said she was a good soul? I shall +drink her health. Miss Pinnegar--" and he bowed stiffly in the +direction of the stairs--"your health, and a _good night's rest_." + +After which, giggling gaily, he seated himself at the head of the +table and began to carve the cold mutton. + +"And where are the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras this week?" he asked. They +told him. + +"Oh? And you two are cycling back to the camp of Kishwégin tonight? +We mustn't prolong our cheerfulness _too_ far." + +"Ciccio is staying to help me with my bag tomorrow," said Alvina. +"You know I've joined the Tawaras permanently--as pianist." + +"No, I didn't know that! Oh really! Really! Oh! Well! I see! +Permanently! Yes, I am surprised! Yes! As pianist? And if I might +ask, what is your share of the tribal income?" + +"That isn't settled yet," said Alvina. + +"No! Exactly! Exactly! It _wouldn't_ be settled yet. And you say it +is a permanent engagement? Of _cauce_, at such a figure." + +"Yes, it is a permanent engagement," said Alvina. + +"Really! What a blow you give me! You won't come back to the +Endeavour? What? Not at all?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I shall sell out of the Endeavour." + +"Really! You've decided, have you? Oh! This is news to me. And is +_this_ quite final, too?" + +"Quite," said Alvina. + +"I see! Putting two and two together, if I may say so--" and he +glanced from her to the young men--"I _see_. Most decidedly, most +one-sidedly, if I may use the vulgarism, I _see--e--e!_ Oh! but what +a blow you give me! What a blow you give me!" + +"Why?" said Alvina. + +"What's to become of the Endeavour? and consequently, of poor me?" + +"Can't you keep it going?--form a company?" + +"I'm afraid I can't. I've done my best. But I'm afraid, you know, +you've landed me." + +"I'm so sorry," said Alvina. "I hope not." + +"Thank you for the _hope_" said Mr. May sarcastically. "They say +hope is sweet. _I_ begin to find it a little _bitter_!" + +Poor man, he had already gone quite yellow in the face. Ciccio and +Geoffrey watched him with dark-seeing eyes. + +"And when are you going to let this fatal decision take effect?" +asked Mr. May. + +"I'm going to see the lawyer tomorrow, and I'm going to tell him to +sell everything and clear up as soon as possible," said Alvina. + +"Sell everything! This house, and all it contains?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. "Everything." + +"Really!" Mr. May seemed smitten quite dumb. "I feel as if the world +had suddenly come to an end," he said. + +"But hasn't your world often come to an end before?" said Alvina. + +"Well--I suppose, once or twice. But _never_ quite on top of me, you +see, before--" + +There was a silence. + +"And have you told Miss Pinnegar?" said Mr. May. + +"Not finally. But she has decided to open a little business in +Tamworth, where she has relations." + +"Has she! And are you _really_ going to _tour_ with these young +people--?" he indicated Ciccio and Gigi. "And at _no_ salary!" His +voice rose. "Why! It's almost _White Slave Traffic_, on Madame's +part. Upon my word!" + +"I don't think so," said Alvina. "Don't you see that's insulting." + +"_Insulting!_ Well, I don't know. I think it's the _truth_--" + +"Not to be said to me, for all that," said Alvina, quivering with +anger. + +"Oh!" perked Mr. May, yellow with strange rage. "Oh! I mustn't say +what I think! Oh!" + +"Not if you think those things--" said Alvina. + +"Oh really! The difficulty is, you see, I'm afraid I _do_ think +them--" Alvina watched him with big, heavy eyes. + +"Go away," she said. "Go away! I won't be insulted by you." + +"No _indeed!_" cried Mr. May, starting to his feet, his eyes almost +bolting from his head. "No _indeed!_ I wouldn't _think_ of insulting +you in the presence of these _two_ young gentlemen." + +Ciccio rose slowly, and with a slow, repeated motion of the head, +indicated the door. + +"Allez!" he said. + +"_Certainement!_" cried Mr. May, flying at Ciccio, verbally, like an +enraged hen yellow at the gills. "_Certainement!_ Je m'en vais. +Cette compagnie n'est pas de ma choix." + +"Allez!" said Ciccio, more loudly. + +And Mr. May strutted out of the room like a bird bursting with its +own rage. Ciccio stood with his hands on the table, listening. They +heard Mr. May slam the front door. + +"Gone!" said Geoffrey. + +Ciccio smiled sneeringly. + +"Voyez, un cochon de lait," said Gigi amply and calmly. + +Ciccio sat down in his chair. Geoffrey poured out some beer for him, +saying: + +"Drink, my Cic', the bubble has burst, prfff!" And Gigi knocked in +his own puffed cheek with his fist. "Allaye, my dear, your health! +We are the Tawaras. We are Allaye! We are Pacohuila! We are +Walgatchka! Allons! The milk-pig is stewed and eaten. Voilà!" He +drank, smiling broadly. + +"One by one," said Geoffrey, who was a little drunk: "One by one we +put them out of the field, they are _hors de combat_. Who remains? +Pacohuila, Walgatchka, Allaye--" + +He smiled very broadly. Alvina was sitting sunk in thought and +torpor after her sudden anger. + +"Allaye, what do you think about? You are the bride of Tawara," said +Geoffrey. + +Alvina looked at him, smiling rather wanly. + +"And who is Tawara?" she asked. + +He raised his shoulders and spread his hands and swayed his head +from side to side, for all the world like a comic mandarin. + +"There!" he cried. "The question! Who is Tawara? Who? Tell me! +Ciccio is he--and I am he--and Max and Louis--" he spread his hand +to the distant members of the tribe. + +"I can't be the bride of all four of you," said Alvina, laughing. + +"No--no! No--no! Such a thing does not come into my mind. But you +are the Bride of Tawara. You dwell in the tent of Pacohuila. And +comes the day, should it ever be so, there is no room for you in the +tent of Pacohuila, then the lodge of Walgatchka the bear is open for +you. Open, yes, wide open--" He spread his arms from his ample +chest, at the end of the table. "Open, and when Allaye enters, it is +the lodge of Allaye, Walgatchka is the bear that serves Allaye. By +the law of the Pale Face, by the law of the Yenghees, by the law of +the Fransayes, Walgatchka shall be husband-bear to Allaye, that day +she lifts the door-curtain of his tent--" + +He rolled his eyes and looked around. Alvina watched him. + +"But I might be afraid of a husband-bear," she said. + +Geoffrey got on to his feet. + +"By the Manitou," he said, "the head of the bear Walgatchka is +humble--" here Geoffrey bowed his head--"his teeth are as soft as +lilies--" here he opened his mouth and put his finger on his small +close teeth--"his hands are as soft as bees that stroke a flower--" +here he spread his hands and went and suddenly flopped on his knees +beside Alvina, showing his hands and his teeth still, and rolling +his eyes. "Allaye can have no fear at all of the bear Walgatchka," +he said, looking up at her comically. + +Ciccio, who had been watching and slightly grinning, here rose to +his feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up. + +"Basta!" he said. "Tu es saoul. You are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. How +are you going to ride to Mansfield, hein?--great beast." + +"Ciccio," said Geoffrey solemnly. "I love thee, I love thee as a +brother, and also more. I love thee as a brother, my Ciccio, as thou +knowest. But--" and he puffed fiercely--"I am the slave of Allaye, I +am the tame bear of Allaye." + +"Get up," said Ciccio, "get up! Per bacco! She doesn't want a tame +bear." He smiled down on his friend. + +Geoffrey rose to his feet and flung his arms round Ciccio. + +"Cic'," he besought him. "Cic'--I love thee as a brother. But let me +be the tame bear of Allaye, let me be the gentle bear of Allaye." + +"All right," said Ciccio. "Thou art the tame bear of Allaye." + +Geoffrey strained Ciccio to his breast. + +"Thank you! Thank you! Salute me, my own friend." + +And Ciccio kissed him on either cheek. Whereupon Geoffrey +immediately flopped on his knees again before Alvina, and presented +her his broad, rich-coloured cheek. + +"Salute your bear, Allaye," he cried. "Salute your slave, the tame +bear Walgatchka, who is a wild bear for all except Allaye and his +brother Pacohuila the Puma." Geoffrey growled realistically as a +wild bear as he kneeled before Alvina, presenting his cheek. + +Alvina looked at Ciccio, who stood above, watching. Then she lightly +kissed him on the cheek, and said: + +"Won't you go to bed and sleep?" + +Geoffrey staggered to his feet, shaking his head. + +"No--no--" he said. "No--no! Walgatchka must travel to the tent of +Kishwégin, to the Camp of the Tawaras." + +"Not tonight, _mon brave_," said Ciccio. "Tonight we stay here, +hein. Why separate, hein?--frère?" + +Geoffrey again clasped Ciccio in his arms. + +"Pacohuila and Walgatchka are blood-brothers, two bodies, one blood. +One blood, in two bodies; one stream, in two valleys: one lake, +between two mountains." + +Here Geoffrey gazed with large, heavy eyes on Ciccio. Alvina brought +a candle and lighted it. + +"You will manage in the one room?" she said. "I will give you +another pillow." + +She led the way upstairs. Geoffrey followed, heavily. Then Ciccio. +On the landing Alvina gave them the pillow and the candle, smiled, +bade them good-night in a whisper, and went downstairs again. She +cleared away the supper and carried away all glasses and bottles +from the drawing-room. Then she washed up, removing all traces of +the feast. The cards she restored to their old mahogany box. +Manchester House looked itself again. + +She turned off the gas at the meter, and went upstairs to bed. From +the far room she could hear the gentle, but profound vibrations of +Geoffrey's snoring. She was tired after her day: too tired to +trouble about anything any more. + +But in the morning she was first downstairs. She heard Miss +Pinnegar, and hurried. Hastily she opened the windows and doors to +drive away the smell of beer and smoke. She heard the men rumbling +in the bath-room. And quickly she prepared breakfast and made a +fire. Mrs. Rollings would not appear till later in the day. At a +quarter to seven Miss Pinnegar came down, and went into the scullery +to make her tea. + +"Did both the men stay?" she asked. + +"Yes, they both slept in the end room," said Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar said no more, but padded with her tea and her boiled +egg into the living room. In the morning she was wordless. + +Ciccio came down, in his shirt-sleeves as usual, but wearing a +collar. He greeted Miss Pinnegar politely. + +"Good-morning!" she said, and went on with her tea. + +Geoffrey appeared. Miss Pinnegar glanced once at him, sullenly, and +briefly answered his good-morning. Then she went on with her egg, +slow and persistent in her movements, mum. + +The men went out to attend to Geoffrey's bicycle. The morning was +slow and grey, obscure. As they pumped up the tires, they heard some +one padding behind. Miss Pinnegar came and unbolted the yard door, +but ignored their presence. Then they saw her return and slowly +mount the outer stair-ladder, which went up to the top floor. Two +minutes afterwards they were startled by the irruption of the +work-girls. As for the work-girls, they gave quite loud, startled +squeals, suddenly seeing the two men on their right hand, in the +obscure morning. And they lingered on the stair-way to gaze in rapt +curiosity, poking and whispering, until Miss Pinnegar appeared +overhead, and sharply rang a bell which hung beside the entrance +door of the work-rooms. + +After which excitements Geoffrey and Ciccio went in to breakfast, +which Alvina had prepared. + +"You have done it all, eh?" said Ciccio, glancing round. + +"Yes. I've made breakfast for years, now," said Alvina. + +"Not many more times here, eh?" he said, smiling significantly. + +"I hope not," said Alvina. + +Ciccio sat down almost like a husband--as if it were his right. + +Geoffrey was very quiet this morning. He ate his breakfast, and rose +to go. + +"I shall see you soon," he said, smiling sheepishly and bowing to +Alvina. Ciccio accompanied him to the street. + +When Ciccio returned, Alvina was once more washing dishes. + +"What time shall we go?" he said. + +"We'll catch the one train. I must see the lawyer this morning." + +"And what shall you say to him?" + +"I shall tell him to sell everything--" + +"And marry me?" + +She started, and looked at him. + +"You don't want to marry, do you?" she said. + +"Yes, I do." + +"Wouldn't you rather wait, and see--" + +"What?" he said. + +"See if there is any money." + +He watched her steadily, and his brow darkened. + +"Why?" he said. + +She began to tremble. + +"You'd like it better if there was money." + +A slow, sinister smile came on his mouth. His eyes never smiled, +except to Geoffrey, when a flood of warm, laughing light sometimes +suffused them. + +"You think I should!" + +"Yes. It's true, isn't it? You would!" + +He turned his eyes aside, and looked at her hands as she washed the +forks. They trembled slightly. Then he looked back at her eyes +again, that were watching him large and wistful and a little +accusing. + +His impudent laugh came on his face. + +"Yes," he said, "it is always better if there is money." He put his +hand on her, and she winced. "But I marry you for love, you know. +You know what love is--" And he put his arms round her, and laughed +down into her face. + +She strained away. + +"But you can have love without marriage," she said. "You know that." + +"All right! All right! Give me love, eh? I want that." + +She struggled against him. + +"But not now," she said. + +She saw the light in his eyes fix determinedly, and he nodded. + +"Now!" he said. "Now!" + +His yellow-tawny eyes looked down into hers, alien and overbearing. + +"I can't," she struggled. "I can't now." + +He laughed in a sinister way: yet with a certain warmheartedness. + +"Come to that big room--" he said. + +Her face flew fixed into opposition. + +"I can't now, really," she said grimly. + +His eyes looked down at hers. Her eyes looked back at him, hard and +cold and determined. They remained motionless for some seconds. +Then, a stray wisp of her hair catching his attention, desire filled +his heart, warm and full, obliterating his anger in the combat. For +a moment he softened. He saw her hardness becoming more assertive, +and he wavered in sudden dislike, and almost dropped her. Then again +the desire flushed his heart, his smile became reckless of her, and +he picked her right up. + +"Yes," he said. "Now." + +For a second, she struggled frenziedly. But almost instantly she +recognized how much stronger he was, and she was still, mute and +motionless with anger. White, and mute, and motionless, she was taken +to her room. And at the back of her mind all the time she wondered at +his deliberate recklessness of her. Recklessly, he had his will of +her--but deliberately, and thoroughly, not rushing to the issue, but +taking everything he wanted of her, progressively, and fully, leaving +her stark, with nothing, nothing of herself--nothing. + +When she could lie still she turned away from him, still mute. And +he lay with his arms over her, motionless. Noises went on, in the +street, overhead in the work-room. But theirs was complete silence. + +At last he rose and looked at her. + +"Love is a fine thing, Allaye," he said. + +She lay mute and unmoving. He approached, laid his hand on her +breast, and kissed her. + +"Love," he said, asserting, and laughing. + +But still she was completely mute and motionless. He threw +bedclothes over her and went downstairs, whistling softly. + +She knew she would have to break her own trance of obstinacy. So she +snuggled down into the bedclothes, shivering deliciously, for her +skin had become chilled. She didn't care a bit, really, about her +own downfall. She snuggled deliciously in the sheets, and admitted +to herself that she loved him. In truth, she loved him--and she was +laughing to herself. + +Luxuriously, she resented having to get up and tackle her heap of +broken garments. But she did it. She took other clothes, adjusted +her hair, tied on her apron, and went downstairs once more. She +could not find Ciccio: he had gone out. A stray cat darted from the +scullery, and broke a plate in her leap. Alvina found her washing-up +water cold. She put on more, and began to dry her dishes. + +Ciccio returned shortly, and stood in the doorway looking at her. +She turned to him, unexpectedly laughing. + +"What do you think of yourself?" she laughed. + +"Well," he said, with a little nod, and a furtive look of triumph +about him, evasive. He went past her and into the room. Her inside +burned with love for him: so elusive, so beautiful, in his silent +passing out of her sight. She wiped her dishes happily. Why was she +so absurdly happy, she asked herself? And why did she still fight so +hard against the sense of his dark, unseizable beauty? Unseizable, +for ever unseizable! That made her almost his slave. She fought +against her own desire to fall at his feet. Ridiculous to be so +happy. + +She sang to herself as she went about her work downstairs. Then she +went upstairs, to do the bedrooms and pack her bag. At ten o'clock +she was to go to the family lawyer. + +She lingered over her possessions: what to take, and what not to +take. And so doing she wasted her time. It was already ten o'clock +when she hurried downstairs. He was sitting quite still, waiting. He +looked up at her. + +"Now I must hurry," she said. "I don't think I shall be more than an +hour." + +He put on his hat and went out with her. + +"I shall tell the lawyer I am engaged to you. Shall I?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said. "Tell him what you like." He was indifferent. + +"Because," said Alvina gaily, "we can please ourselves what we do, +whatever we say. I shall say we think of getting married in the +summer, when we know each other better, and going to Italy." + +"Why shall you say all that?" said Ciccio. + +"Because I shall _have_ to give some account of myself, or they'll +make me do something I don't want to do. You might come to the +lawyer's with me, will you? He's an awfully nice old man. Then he'd +believe in you." + +But Ciccio shook his head. + +"No," he said. "I shan't go. He doesn't want to see _me_." + +"Well, if you don't want to. But I remember your name, Francesco +Marasca, and I remember Pescocalascio." + +Ciccio heard in silence, as they walked the half-empty, +Monday-morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina. +Some hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at +Ciccio. Ciccio however stood aside and turned his back. + +"Oh yes," Alvina said. "I am staying with friends, here and there, +for a few weeks. No, I don't know when I shall be back. Good-bye!" + +"You're looking well, Alvina," people said to her. "I think you're +looking wonderful. A change does you good." + +"It does, doesn't it," said Alvina brightly. And she was pleased she +was looking well. + +"Well, good-bye for a minute," she said, glancing smiling into his +eyes and nodding to him, as she left him at the gate of the lawyer's +house, by the ivy-covered wall. + +The lawyer was a little man, all grey. Alvina had known him since +she was a child: but rather as an official than an individual. She +arrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinized her +sharply, officially, before beginning. + +"Well, Miss Houghton, and what news have you?" + +"I don't think I've any, Mr. Beeby. I came to you for news." + +"Ah!" said the lawyer, and he fingered a paper-weight that covered a +pile of papers. "I'm afraid there is nothing very pleasant, +unfortunately. And nothing very unpleasant either, for that matter." + + + +He gave her a shrewd little smile. + +"Is the will proved?" + +"Not yet. But I expect it will be through in a few days' time." + +"And are all the claims in?" + +"Yes. I _think_ so. I think so!" And again he laid his hand on the +pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran through the edges +with the tips of his fingers. + +"All those?" said Alvina. + +"Yes," he said quietly. It sounded ominous. + +"Many!" said Alvina. + +"A fair amount! A fair amount! Let me show you a statement." + +He rose and brought her a paper. She made out, with the lawyer's +help, that the claims against her father's property exceeded the +gross estimate of his property by some seven hundred pounds. + +"Does it mean we owe seven hundred pounds?" she asked. + +"That is only on the _estimate_ of the property. It might, of +course, realize much more, when sold--or it might realize less." + +"How awful!" said Alvina, her courage sinking. + +"Unfortunate! Unfortunate! However, I don't think the realization of +the property would amount to less than the estimate. I don't think +so." + +"But even then," said Alvina. "There is sure to be something +owing--" + +She saw herself saddled with her father's debts. + +"I'm afraid so," said the lawyer. + +"And then what?" said Alvina. + +"Oh--the creditors will have to be satisfied with a little less than +they claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you see. I don't +expect they will complain a great deal. In fact, some of them will +be less badly off than they feared. No, on that score we need not +trouble further. Useless if we do, anyhow. But now, about yourself. +Would you like me to try to compound with the creditors, so that you +could have some sort of provision? They are mostly people who know +you, know your condition: and I might try--" + +"Try what?" said Alvina. + +"To make some sort of compound. Perhaps you might retain a lease of +Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms. Perhaps even something might be done +about the cinematograph. What would you like--?" + +Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivy +sprays, and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not, she +could not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had +confidently expected a few hundred pounds: even a thousand or more. +And that would make her _something_ of a catch, to people who had +nothing. But now!--nothing!--nothing at the back of her but her +hundred pounds. When that was gone--! + +In her dilemma she looked at the lawyer. + +"You didn't expect it would be quite so bad?" he said. + +"I think I didn't," she said. + +"No. Well--it might have been worse." + +Again he waited. And again she looked at him vacantly. + +"What do you think?" he said. + +For answer, she only looked at him with wide eyes. + +"Perhaps you would rather decide later." + +"No," she said. "No. It's no use deciding later." + +The lawyer watched her with curious eyes, his hand beat a little +impatiently. + +"I will do my best," he said, "to get what I can for you." + +"Oh well!" she said. "Better let everything go. I don't _want_ to +hang on. Don't bother about me at all. I shall go away, anyhow." + +"You will go away?" said the lawyer, and he studied his +finger-nails. + +"Yes. I shan't stay here." + +"Oh! And may I ask if you have any definite idea, where you will +go?" + +"I've got an engagement as pianist, with a travelling theatrical +company." + +"Oh indeed!" said the lawyer, scrutinizing her sharply. She stared +away vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of +his finger-nails once more. "And at a sufficient salary?" + +"Quite sufficient, thank you," said Alvina. + +"Oh! Well! Well now!--" He fidgetted a little. "You see, we are all +old neighbours and connected with your father for many years. +We--that is the persons interested, and myself--would not like to +think that you were driven out of Woodhouse--er--er--destitute. +If--er--we could come to some composition--make some arrangement +that would be agreeable to you, and would, in some measure, secure +you a means of livelihood--" + +He watched Alvina with sharp blue eyes. Alvina looked back at him, +still vacantly. + +"No--thanks awfully!" she said. "But don't bother. I'm going away." + +"With the travelling theatrical company?" + +"Yes." + +The lawyer studied his finger-nails intensely. + +"Well," he said, feeling with a finger-tip an imaginary roughness of +one nail-edge. "Well, in that case--In that case--Supposing you have +made an irrevocable decision--" + +He looked up at her sharply. She nodded slowly, like a porcelain +mandarin. + +"In that case," he said, "we must proceed with the valuation and the +preparation for the sale." + +"Yes," she said faintly. + +"You realize," he said, "that everything in Manchester House, except +your private personal property, and that of Miss Pinnegar, belongs +to the claimants, your father's creditors, and may not be removed +from the house." + +"Yes," she said. + +"And it will be necessary to make an account of everything in the +house. So if you and Miss Pinnegar will put your possessions +strictly apart--But I shall see Miss Pinnegar during the course of +the day. Would you ask her to call about seven--I think she is free +then--" + +Alvina sat trembling. + +"I shall pack my things today," she said. + +"Of course," said the lawyer, "any little things to which you may be +attached the claimants would no doubt wish you to regard as your +own. For anything of greater value--your piano, for example--I +should have to make a personal request--" + +"Oh, I don't want anything--" said Alvina. + +"No? Well! You will see. You will be here a few days?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I'm going away today." + +"Today! Is that also irrevocable?" + +"Yes. I must go this afternoon." + +"On account of your engagement? May I ask where your company is +performing this week? Far away?" + +"Mansfield!" + +"Oh! Well then, in case I particularly wished to see you, you could +come over?" + +"If necessary," said Alvina. "But I don't want to come to Woodhouse +unless it _is_ necessary. Can't we write?" + +"Yes--certainly! Certainly!--most things! Certainly! And now--" + +He went into certain technical matters, and Alvina signed some +documents. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an hour +in the room. + +"Well, good-morning, Miss Houghton. You will hear from me, and I +from you. I wish you a pleasant experience in your new occupation. +You are not leaving Woodhouse for ever." + +"Good-bye!" she said. And she hurried to the road. + +Try as she might, she felt as if she had had a blow which knocked +her down. She felt she had had a blow. + +At the lawyer's gate she stood a minute. There, across a little +hollow, rose the cemetery hill. There were her graves: her mother's, +Miss Frost's, her father's. Looking, she made out the white cross at +Miss Frost's grave, the grey stone at her parents'. Then she turned +slowly, under the church wall, back to Manchester House. + +She felt humiliated. She felt she did not want to see anybody at all. +She did not want to see Miss Pinnegar, nor the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras: and +least of all, Ciccio. She felt strange in Woodhouse, almost as if the +ground had risen from under her feet and hit her over the mouth. The +fact that Manchester House and its very furniture was under seal to be +sold on behalf of her father's creditors made her feel as if all her +Woodhouse life had suddenly gone smash. She loathed the thought of +Manchester House. She loathed staying another minute in it. + +And yet she did not want to go to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras either. The +church clock above her clanged eleven. She ought to take the +twelve-forty train to Mansfield. Yet instead of going home she +turned off down the alley towards the fields and the brook. + +How many times had she gone that road! How many times had she seen +Miss Frost bravely striding home that way, from her music-pupils. +How many years had she noticed a particular wild cherry-tree come +into blossom, a particular bit of black-thorn scatter its whiteness +in among the pleached twigs of a hawthorn hedge. How often, how many +springs had Miss Frost come home with a bit of this black-thorn in +her hand! + +Alvina did _not_ want to go to Mansfield that afternoon. She felt +insulted. She knew she would be much cheaper in Madame's eyes. She knew +her own position with the troupe would be humiliating. It would be +openly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeningly +humiliating to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour of +Woodhouse's calculated benevolence. She hardly knew which was worse: +the cool look of insolent half-contempt, half-satisfaction with which +Madame would receive the news of her financial downfall, or the +officious patronage which she would meet from the Woodhouse magnates. +She knew exactly how Madame's black eyes would shine, how her mouth +would curl with a sneering, slightly triumphant smile, as she heard the +news. And she could hear the bullying tone in which Henry Wagstaff +would dictate the Woodhouse benevolence to her. She wanted to go away +from them all--from them all--for ever. + +Even from Ciccio. For she felt he insulted her too. Subtly, they all +did it. They had regard for her possibilities as an heiress. Five +hundred, even two hundred pounds would have made all the difference. +Useless to deny it. Even to Ciccio. Ciccio would have had a lifelong +respect for her, if she had come with even so paltry a sum as two +hundred pounds. Now she had nothing, he would coolly withhold this +respect. She felt he might jeer at her. And she could not get away +from this feeling. + +Mercifully she had the bit of ready money. And she had a few +trinkets which might be sold. Nothing else. Mercifully, for the mere +moment, she was independent. + +Whatever else she did, she must go back and pack. She must pack her +two boxes, and leave them ready. For she felt that once she had +left, she could never come back to Woodhouse again. If England had +cliffs all round--why, when there was nowhere else to go and no +getting beyond, she could walk over one of the cliffs. Meanwhile, +she had her short run before her. She banked hard on her +independence. + +So she turned back to the town. She would not be able to take the +twelve-forty train, for it was already mid-day. But she was glad. +She wanted some time to herself. She would send Ciccio on. Slowly +she climbed the familiar hill--slowly--and rather bitterly. She felt +her native place insulted her: and she felt the Natchas insulted +her. In the midst of the insult she remained isolated upon herself, +and she wished to be alone. + +She found Ciccio waiting at the end of the yard: eternally waiting, +it seemed. He was impatient. + +"You've been a long time," he said. + +"Yes," she answered. + +"We shall have to make haste to catch the train." + +"I can't go by this train. I shall have to come on later. You can +just eat a mouthful of lunch, and go now." + +They went indoors. Miss Pinnegar had not yet come down. Mrs. +Rollings was busily peeling potatoes. + +"Mr. Marasca is going by the train, he'll have to have a little cold +meat," said Alvina. "Would you mind putting it ready while I go +upstairs?" + +"Sharpses and Fullbankses sent them bills," said Mrs. Rollings. +Alvina opened them, and turned pale. It was thirty pounds, the total +funeral expenses. She had completely forgotten them. + +"And Mr. Atterwell wants to know what you'd like put on th' +headstone for your father--if you'd write it down." + +"All right." + +Mrs. Rollings popped on the potatoes for Miss Pinnegar's dinner, and +spread the cloth for Ciccio. When he was eating, Miss Pinnegar came +in. She inquired for Alvina--and went upstairs. + +"Have you had your dinner?" she said. For there was Alvina sitting +writing a letter. + +"I'm going by a later train," said Alvina. + +"Both of you?" + +"No. He's going now." + +Miss Pinnegar came downstairs again, and went through to the +scullery. When Alvina came down, she returned to the living room. + +"Give this letter to Madame," Alvina said to Ciccio. "I shall be at +the hall by seven tonight. I shall go straight there." + +"Why can't you come now?" said Ciccio. + +"I can't possibly," said Alvina. "The lawyer has just told me +father's debts come to much more than everything is worth. Nothing +is ours--not even the plate you're eating from. Everything is under +seal to be sold to pay off what is owing. So I've got to get my own +clothes and boots together, or they'll be sold with the rest. Mr. +Beeby wants you to go round at seven this evening, Miss +Pinnegar--before I forget." + +"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "Really! The house and the furniture +and everything got to be sold up? Then we're on the streets! I can't +believe it." + +"So he told me," said Alvina. + +"But how positively awful," said Miss Pinnegar, sinking motionless +into a chair. + +"It's not more than I expected," said Alvina. "I'm putting my things +into my two trunks, and I shall just ask Mrs. Slaney to store them +for me. Then I've the bag I shall travel with." + +"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "I can't believe it! And when have +we got to get out?" + +"Oh, I don't think there's a desperate hurry. They'll take an +inventory of all the things, and we can live on here till they're +actually ready for the sale." + +"And when will that be?" + +"I don't know. A week or two." + +"And is the cinematograph to be sold the same?" + +"Yes--everything! The piano--even mother's portrait--" + +"It's impossible to believe it," said Miss Pinnegar. "It's +impossible. He can never have left things so bad." + +"Ciccio," said Alvina. "You'll really have to go if you are to catch +the train. You'll give Madame my letter, won't you? I should hate +you to miss the train. I know she can't bear me already, for all the +fuss and upset I cause." + +Ciccio rose slowly, wiping his mouth. + +"You'll be there at seven o'clock?" he said. + +"At the theatre," she replied. + +And without more ado, he left. + +Mrs. Rollings came in. + +"You've heard?" said Miss Pinnegar dramatically. + +"I heard somethink," said Mrs. Rollings. + +"Sold up! Everything to be sold up. Every stick and rag! I never +thought I should live to see the day," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"You might almost have expected it," said Mrs. Rollings. "But you're +all right, yourself, Miss Pinnegar. Your money isn't with his, is +it?" + +"No," said Miss Pinnegar. "What little I have put by is safe. But +it's not enough to live on. It's not enough to keep me, even +supposing I only live another ten years. If I only spend a pound a +week, it costs fifty-two pounds a year. And for ten years, look at +it, it's five hundred and twenty pounds. And you couldn't say less. +And I haven't half that amount. I never had more than a wage, you +know. Why, Miss Frost earned a good deal more than I do. And _she_ +didn't leave much more than fifty. Where's the money to come +from--?" + +"But if you've enough to start a little business--" said Alvina. + +"Yes, it's what I shall _have_ to do. It's what I shall have to do. +And then what about you? What about you?" + +"Oh, don't bother about me," said Alvina. + +"Yes, it's all very well, don't bother. But when you come to my age, +you know you've _got_ to bother, and bother a great deal, if you're +not going to find yourself in a position you'd be sorry for. You +_have_ to bother. And _you'll_ have to bother before you've done." + +"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," said Alvina. + +"Ha, sufficient for a good many days, it seems to me." + +Miss Pinnegar was in a real temper. To Alvina this seemed an odd way +of taking it. The three women sat down to an uncomfortable dinner of +cold meat and hot potatoes and warmed-up pudding. + +"But whatever you do," pronounced Miss Pinnegar; "whatever you do, +and however you strive, in this life, you're knocked down in the +end. You're always knocked down." + +"It doesn't matter," said Alvina, "if it's only in the end. It +doesn't matter if you've had your life." + +"You've never had your life, till you're dead," said Miss Pinnegar. +"And if you work and strive, you've a right to the fruits of your +work." + +"It doesn't matter," said Alvina laconically, "so long as you've +enjoyed working and striving." + +But Miss Pinnegar was too angry to be philosophic. Alvina knew it +was useless to be either angry or otherwise emotional. None the +less, she also felt as if she had been knocked down. And she almost +envied poor Miss Pinnegar the prospect of a little, day-by-day +haberdashery shop in Tamworth. Her own problem seemed so much more +menacing. "Answer or die," said the Sphinx of fate. Miss Pinnegar +could answer her own fate according to its question. She could say +"haberdashery shop," and her sphinx would recognize this answer as +true to nature, and would be satisfied. But every individual has his +own, or her own fate, and her own sphinx. Alvina's sphinx was an +old, deep thoroughbred, she would take no mongrel answers. And her +thoroughbred teeth were long and sharp. To Alvina, the last of the +fantastic but pure-bred race of Houghton, the problem of her fate +was terribly abstruse. + +The only thing to do was not to solve it: to stray on, and answer +fate with whatever came into one's head. No good striving with fate. +Trust to a lucky shot, or take the consequences. + +"Miss Pinnegar," said Alvina. "Have we any money in hand?" + +"There is about twenty pounds in the bank. It's all shown in my +books," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"We couldn't take it, could we?" + +"Every penny shows in the books." + +Alvina pondered again. + +"Are there more bills to come in?" she asked. "I mean my bills. Do I +owe anything?" + +"I don't think you do," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I'm going to keep the insurance money, any way. They can say what +they like. I've got it, and I'm going to keep it." + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, "it's not my business. But there's +Sharps and Fullbanks to pay." + +"I'll pay those," said Alvina. "You tell Atterwell what to put on +father's stone. How much does it cost?" + +"Five shillings a letter, you remember." + +"Well, we'll just put the name and the date. How much will that be? +James Houghton. Born 17th January--" + +"You'll have to put 'Also of,'" said Miss Pinnegar. + +"Also of--" said Alvina. "One--two--three--four--five--six--. Six +letters--thirty shillings. Seems an awful lot for _Also of_--" + +"But you can't leave it out," said Miss Pinnegar. "You can't +economize over that." + +"I begrudge it," said Alvina. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT + + +For days, after joining the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, Alvina was very +quiet, subdued, and rather remote, sensible of her humiliating +position as a hanger-on. They none of them took much notice of her. +They drifted on, rather disjointedly. The cordiality, the _joie de +vivre_ did not revive. Madame was a little irritable, and very +exacting, and inclined to be spiteful. Ciccio went his way with +Geoffrey. + +In the second week, Madame found out that a man had been +surreptitiously inquiring about them at their lodgings, from the +landlady and the landlady's blowsy daughter. It must have been a +detective--some shoddy detective. Madame waited. Then she sent Max +over to Mansfield, on some fictitious errand. Yes, the lousy-looking +dogs of detectives had been there too, making the most minute +enquiries as to the behaviour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, what they +did, how their sleeping was arranged, how Madame addressed the men, +what attitude the men took towards Alvina. + +Madame waited again. And again, when they moved to Doncaster, the +same two mongrel-looking fellows were lurking in the street, and +plying the inmates of their lodging-house with questions. All the +Natchas caught sight of the men. And Madame cleverly wormed out of +the righteous and respectable landlady what the men had asked. Once +more it was about the sleeping accommodation--whether the landlady +heard anything in the night--whether she noticed anything in the +bedrooms, in the beds. + +No doubt about it, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were under suspicion. They +were being followed, and watched. What for? Madame made a shrewd +guess. "They want to say we are immoral foreigners," she said. + +"But what have our personal morals got to do with them?" said Max +angrily. + +"Yes--but the English! They are so pure," said Madame. + +"You know," said Louis, "somebody must have put them up to it--" + +"Perhaps," said Madame, "somebody on account of Allaye." + +Alvina went white. + +"Yes," said Geoffrey. "White Slave Traffic! Mr. May said it." + +Madame slowly nodded. + +"Mr. May!" she said. "Mr. May! It is he. He knows all about +morals--and immorals. Yes, I know. Yes--yes--yes! He suspects all +our immoral doings, _mes braves_." + +"But there aren't any, except mine," cried Alvina, pale to the lips. + +"You! You! There you are!" Madame smiled archly, and rather +mockingly. + +"What are we to do?" said Max, pale on the cheekbones. + +"Curse them! Curse them!" Louis was muttering, in his rolling +accent. + +"Wait," said Madame. "Wait. They will not do anything to us. You are +only dirty foreigners, _mes braves_. At the most they will ask us +only to leave their pure country." + +"We don't interfere with none of them," cried Max. + +"Curse them," muttered Louis. + +"Never mind, _mon cher_. You are in a pure country. Let us wait." + +"If you think it's me," said Alvina, "I can go away." + +"Oh, my dear, you are only the excuse," said Madame, smiling +indulgently at her. "Let us wait, and see." + +She took it smilingly. But her cheeks were white as paper, and her +eyes black as drops of ink, with anger. + +"Wait and see!" she chanted ironically. "Wait and see! If we must +leave the dear country--then _adieu!_" And she gravely bowed to an +imaginary England. + +"I feel it's my fault. I feel I ought to go away," cried Alvina, who +was terribly distressed, seeing Madame's glitter and pallor, and the +black brows of the men. Never had Ciccio's brow looked so ominously +black. And Alvina felt it was all her fault. Never had she +experienced such a horrible feeling: as if something repulsive were +creeping on her from behind. Every minute of these weeks was a +horror to her: the sense of the low-down dogs of detectives hanging +round, sliding behind them, trying to get hold of some clear proof +of immorality on their part. And then--the unknown vengeance of the +authorities. All the repulsive secrecy, and all the absolute power +of the police authorities. The sense of a great malevolent power +which had them all the time in its grip, and was watching, feeling, +waiting to strike the morbid blow: the sense of the utter +helplessness of individuals who were not even accused, only watched +and enmeshed! the feeling that they, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, herself +included, must be monsters of hideous vice, to have provoked all +this: and yet the sane knowledge that they, none of them, _were_ +monsters of vice; this was quite killing. The sight of a policeman +would send up Alvina's heart in a flame of fear, agony; yet she knew +she had nothing legally to be afraid of. Every knock at the door was +horrible. + +She simply could not understand it. Yet there it was: they were +watched, followed. Of that there was no question. And all she could +imagine was that the troupe was secretly accused of White Slave +Traffic by somebody in Woodhouse. Probably Mr. May had gone the +round of the benevolent magnates of Woodhouse, concerning himself +with her virtue, and currying favour with his concern. Of this she +became convinced, that it was concern for her virtue which had +started the whole business: and that the first instigator was Mr. +May, who had got round some vulgar magistrate or County Councillor. + +Madame did not consider Alvina's view very seriously. She thought it +was some personal malevolence against the Tawaras themselves, +probably put up by some other professionals, with whom Madame was +not popular. + +Be that as it may, for some weeks they went about in the shadow of +this repulsive finger which was following after them, to touch them +and destroy them with the black smear of shame. The men were silent +and inclined to be sulky. They seemed to hold together. They seemed +to be united into a strong, four-square silence and tension. They +kept to themselves--and Alvina kept to herself--and Madame kept to +herself. So they went about. + +And slowly the cloud melted. It never broke. Alvina felt that the +very force of the sullen, silent fearlessness and fury in the +Tawaras had prevented its bursting. Once there had been a weakening, +a cringing, they would all have been lost. But their hearts hardened +with black, indomitable anger. And the cloud melted, it passed away. +There was no sign. + +Early summer was now at hand. Alvina no longer felt at home with the +Natchas. While the trouble was hanging over, they seemed to ignore +her altogether. The men hardly spoke to her. They hardly spoke to +Madame, for that matter. They kept within the four-square enclosure +of themselves. + +But Alvina felt herself particularly excluded, left out. And when +the trouble of the detectives began to pass off, and the men became +more cheerful again, wanted her to jest and be familiar with them, +she responded verbally, but in her heart there was no response. + +Madame had been quite generous with her. She allowed her to pay for +her room, and the expense of travelling. But she had her food with +the rest. Wherever she was, Madame bought the food for the party, +and cooked it herself. And Alvina came in with the rest: she paid no +board. + +She waited, however, for Madame to suggest a small salary--or at +least, that the troupe should pay her living expenses. But Madame +did not make such a suggestion. So Alvina knew that she was not very +badly wanted. And she guarded her money, and watched for some other +opportunity. + +It became her habit to go every morning to the public library of the +town in which she found herself, to look through the advertisements: +advertisements for maternity nurses, for nursery governesses, +pianists, travelling companions, even ladies' maids. For some weeks +she found nothing, though she wrote several letters. + +One morning Ciccio, who had begun to hang round her again, +accompanied her as she set out to the library. But her heart was +closed against him. + +"Why are you going to the library?" he asked her. It was in +Lancaster. + +"To look at the papers and magazines." + +"Ha-a! To find a job, eh?" + +His cuteness startled her for a moment. + +"If I found one I should take it," she said. + +"Hé! I know that," he said. + +It so happened that that very morning she saw on the notice-board of +the library an announcement that the Borough Council wished to +engage the services of an experienced maternity nurse, applications +to be made to the medical board. Alvina wrote down the directions. +Ciccio watched her. + +"What is a maternity nurse?" he said. + +"An _accoucheuse_!" she said. "The nurse who attends when babies are +born." + +"Do you know how to do that?" he said, incredulous, and jeering +slightly. + +"I was trained to do it," she said. + +He said no more, but walked by her side as she returned to the +lodgings. As they drew near the lodgings, he said: + +"You don't want to stop with us any more?" + +"I can't," she said. + +He made a slight, mocking gesture. + +"'I can't,'" he repeated. "Why do you always say you can't?" + +"Because I can't," she said. + +"Pff--!" he went, with a whistling sound of contempt. + +But she went indoors to her room. Fortunately, when she had finally +cleared her things from Manchester House, she had brought with her +her nurse's certificate, and recommendations from doctors. She wrote +out her application, took the tram to the Town Hall and dropped it +in the letterbox there. Then she wired home to her doctor for +another reference. After which she went to the library and got out a +book on her subject. If summoned, she would have to go before the +medical board on Monday. She had a week. She read and pondered hard, +recalling all her previous experience and knowledge. + +She wondered if she ought to appear before the board in uniform. Her +nurse's dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney's, in +Woodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse was +finished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to some +boot-and-shoe people: at least the boot-and-shoe people had the +house. They had given four thousand pounds for it--which was above +the lawyer's estimate. On the other hand, the theatre was sold for +almost nothing. It all worked out that some thirty-three pounds, +which the creditors made up to fifty pounds, remained for Alvina. +She insisted on Miss Pinnegar's having half of this. And so that was +all over. Miss Pinnegar was already in Tamworth, and her little shop +would be opened next week. She wrote happily and excitedly about it. + +Sometimes fate acts swiftly and without a hitch. On Thursday Alvina +received her notice that she was to appear before the Board on the +following Monday. And yet she could not bring herself to speak of it +to Madame till the Saturday evening. When they were all at supper, +she said: + +"Madame, I applied for a post of maternity nurse, to the Borough of +Lancaster." + +Madame raised her eyebrows. Ciccio had said nothing. + +"Oh really! You never told me." + +"I thought it would be no use if it all came to nothing. They want +me to go and see them on Monday, and then they will decide--" + +"Really! Do they! On Monday? And then if you get this work you will +stay here? Yes?" + +"Yes, of course." + +"Of course! Of course! Yes! H'm! And if not?" + +The two women looked at each other. + +"What?" said Alvina. + +"If you _don't_ get it--! You are not _sure_?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I am not a bit sure." + +"Well then--! Now! And if you don't get it--?" + +"What shall I do, you mean?" + +"Yes, what shall you do?" + +"I don't know." + +"How! you don't know! Shall you come back to us, then?" + +"I will if you like--" + +"If I like! If _I_ like! Come, it is not a question of if _I_ like. +It is what do you want to do yourself." + +"I feel you don't want me very badly," said Alvina. + +"Why? Why do you feel? Who makes you? Which of us makes you feel so? +Tell me." + +"Nobody in particular. But I feel it." + +"Oh we-ell! If nobody makes you, and yet you feel it, it must be in +yourself, don't you see? Eh? Isn't it so?" + +"Perhaps it is," admitted Alvina. + +"We-ell then! We-ell--" So Madame gave her her congé. "But if you +like to come back--if you _laike_--then--" Madame shrugged her +shoulders--"you must come, I suppose." + +"Thank you," said Alvina. + +The young men were watching. They seemed indifferent. Ciccio turned +aside, with his faint, stupid smile. + +In the morning Madame gave Alvina all her belongings, from the +little safe she called her bank. + +"There is the money--so--and so--and so--that is correct. Please +count it once more!--" Alvina counted it and kept it clutched in her +hand. "And there are your rings, and your chain, and your +locket--see--all--everything--! But not the brooch. Where is the +brooch? Here! Shall I give it back, hein?" + +"I gave it to you," said Alvina, offended. She looked into Madame's +black eyes. Madame dropped her eyes. + +"Yes, you gave it. But I thought, you see, as you have now not much +mo-oney, perhaps you would like to take it again--" + +"No, thank you," said Alvina, and she went away, leaving Madame with +the red brooch in her plump hand. + +"Thank goodness I've given her something valuable," thought Alvina +to herself, as she went trembling to her room. + +She had packed her bag. She had to find new rooms. She bade good-bye +to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. Her face was cold and distant, but she +smiled slightly as she bade them good-bye. + +"And perhaps," said Madame, "per-haps you will come to Wigan +tomorrow afternoon--or evening? Yes?" + +"Thank you," said Alvina. + +She went out and found a little hotel, where she took her room for +the night, explaining the cause of her visit to Lancaster. Her heart +was hard and burning. A deep, burning, silent anger against +everything possessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind. + +And therefore, the next day, everything went as if by magic. She had +decided that at the least sign of indifference from the medical +board people she would walk away, take her bag, and go to +Windermere. She had never been to the Lakes. And Windermere was not +far off. She would not endure one single hint of contumely from any +one else. She would go straight to Windermere, to see the big lake. +Why not do as she wished! She could be quite happy by herself among +the lakes. And she would be absolutely free, absolutely free. She +rather looked forward to leaving the Town Hall, hurrying to take her +bag and off to the station and freedom. Hadn't she still got about a +hundred pounds? Why bother for one moment? To be quite alone in the +whole world--and quite, quite free, with her hundred pounds--the +prospect attracted her sincerely. + +And therefore, everything went charmingly at the Town Hall. The +medical board were charming to her--charming. There was no +hesitation at all. From the first moment she was engaged. And she +was given a pleasant room in a hospital in a garden, and the matron +was charming to her, and the doctors most courteous. + +When could she undertake to commence her duties? When did they want +her? The very _moment_ she could come. She could begin tomorrow--but +she had no uniform. Oh, the matron would lend her uniform and +aprons, till her box arrived. + +So there she was--by afternoon installed in her pleasant little room +looking on the garden, and dressed in a nurse's uniform. It was all +sudden like magic. She had wired to Madame, she had wired for her +box. She was another person. + +Needless to say, she was glad. Needless to say that, in the morning, +when she had thoroughly bathed, and dressed in clean clothes, and +put on the white dress, the white apron, and the white cap, she felt +another person. So clean, she felt, so thankful! Her skin seemed +caressed and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt. +It was so different from being with the Natchas. + +In the garden the snowballs, guelder-roses, swayed softly among +green foliage, there was pink may-blossom, and single scarlet +may-blossom, and underneath the young green of the trees, irises +rearing purple and moth-white. A young gardener was working--and a +convalescent slowly trailed a few paces. + +Having ten minutes still, Alvina sat down and wrote to Ciccio: "I am +glad I have got this post as nurse here. Every one is most kind, and +I feel at home already. I feel quite happy here. I shall think of my +days with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, and of you, who were such a +stranger to me. Good-bye.--A. H." + +This she addressed and posted. No doubt Madame would find occasion +to read it. But let her. + +Alvina now settled down to her new work. There was of course a great +deal to do, for she had work both in the hospital and out in the +town, though chiefly out in the town. She went rapidly from case to +case, as she was summoned. And she was summoned at all hours. So +that it was tiring work, which left her no time to herself, except +just in snatches. + +She had no serious acquaintance with anybody, she was too busy. The +matron and sisters and doctors and patients were all part of her +day's work, and she regarded them as such. The men she chiefly +ignored: she felt much more friendly with the matron. She had many a +cup of tea and many a chat in the matron's room, in the quiet, sunny +afternoons when the work was not pressing. Alvina took her quiet +moments when she could: for she never knew when she would be rung up +by one or other of the doctors in the town. + +And so, from the matron, she learned to crochet. It was work she had +never taken to. But now she had her ball of cotton and her hook, and +she worked away as she chatted. She was in good health, and she was +getting fatter again. With the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, she had improved +a good deal, her colour and her strength had returned. But +undoubtedly the nursing life, arduous as it was, suited her best. +She became a handsome, reposeful woman, jolly with the other nurses, +really happy with her friend the matron, who was well-bred and wise, +and never over-intimate. + +The doctor with whom Alvina had most to do was a Dr. Mitchell, a +Scotchman. He had a large practice among the poor, and was an +energetic man. He was about fifty-four years old, tall, +largely-built, with a good figure, but with extraordinarily large +feet and hands. His face was red and clean-shaven, his eyes blue, +his teeth very good. He laughed and talked rather mouthingly. +Alvina, who knew what the nurses told her, knew that he had come as +a poor boy and bottle-washer to Dr. Robertson, a fellow-Scotchman, +and that he had made his way up gradually till he became a doctor +himself, and had an independent practice. Now he was quite rich--and +a bachelor. But the nurses did not set their bonnets at him very +much, because he was rather mouthy and overbearing. + +In the houses of the poor he was a great autocrat. + +"What is that stuff you've got there!" he inquired largely, seeing a +bottle of somebody's Soothing Syrup by a poor woman's bedside. "Take +it and throw it down the sink, and the next time you want a soothing +syrup put a little boot-blacking in hot water. It'll do you just as +much good." + +Imagine the slow, pompous, large-mouthed way in which the red-faced, +handsomely-built man pronounced these words, and you realize why the +poor set such store by him. + +He was eagle-eyed. Wherever he went, there was a scuffle directly +his foot was heard on the stairs. And he knew they were hiding +something. He sniffed the air: he glanced round with a sharp eye: +and during the course of his visit picked up a blue mug which was +pushed behind the looking-glass. He peered inside--and smelled it. + +"Stout?" he said, in a tone of indignant inquiry: God-Almighty would +presumably take on just such a tone, finding the core of an apple +flung away among the dead-nettle of paradise: "Stout! Have you been +drinking stout?" This as he gazed down on the wan mother in the bed. + +"They gave me a drop, doctor. I felt that low." + +The doctor marched out of the room, still holding the mug in his +hand. The sick woman watched him with haunted eyes. The attendant +women threw up their hands and looked at one another. Was he going +for ever? There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue +mug downstairs. He returned with a solemn stride. + +"There!" he said. "And the next person that gives you stout will be +thrown down along with the mug." + +"Oh doctor, the bit o' comfort!" wailed the sick woman. "It ud never +do me no harm." + +"Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yours! Harm! Do you know +better than I do? What have I come here for? To be told by _you_ +what will do you harm and what won't? It appears to me you need no +doctor here, you know everything already--" + +"Oh no, doctor. It's not like that. But when you feel as if you'd +sink through the bed, an' you don't know what to do with yourself--" + +"Take a little beef-tea, or a little rice pudding. Take +_nourishment_, don't take that muck. Do you hear--" charging upon +the attendant women, who shrank against the wall--"she's to have +nothing alcoholic at all, and don't let me catch you giving it her." + +"They say there's nobbut fower per cent. i' stout," retorted the +daring female. + +"Fower per cent.," mimicked the doctor brutally. "Why, what does an +ignorant creature like _you_ know about fower per cent." + +The woman muttered a little under her breath. + +"What? Speak out. Let me hear what you've got to say, my woman. I've +no doubt it's something for my benefit--" + +But the affronted woman rushed out of the room, and burst into tears +on the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told +the patient how she was to behave, concluding: + +"Nourishment! Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don't tell me +you can't take it. Push it down if it won't go down by itself--" + +"Oh doctor--" + +"Don't say _oh doctor_ to me. Do as I tell you. That's _your_ +business." After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor +car was shortly heard. + +Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the people +stood it. But soon she realized that they loved it--particularly the +women. + +"Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell's been. I'm scared to death of +him, for fear he's going to shout at me." + +"Why does everybody put up with him?" asked innocent Alvina. + +"Oh, he's good-hearted, nurse, he _does_ feel for you." + +And everywhere it was the same: "Oh, he's got a heart, you know. +He's rough, but he's got a heart. I'd rather have him than your +smarmy slormin sort. Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell, I don't +care what you say." + +But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart which +had all the women scurrying like chickens was not particularly +attractive. + +The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him if +possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had to +submit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer, +invariably, was: + +"And keep off the beer." + +"Oh ay!" + +"Keep off the beer, or I shan't set foot in this house again." + +"Tha's got a red enough face on thee, tha nedna shout." + +"My face is red with exposure to all weathers, attending ignorant +people like you. I never touch alcohol in any form." + +"No, an' I dunna. I drink a drop o' beer, if that's what you ca' +touchin' alcohol. An' I'm none th' wuss for it, tha sees." + +"You've heard what I've told you." + +"Ah, I have." + +"And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself. +_I_ shan't attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs. +Larrick"--this to the wife. + +"I do, doctor. And I know it's true what you say. An' I'm at him +night an' day about it--" + +"Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He +mustn't think _I'm_ going to be running after him, if he disobeys my +orders." And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to +complain. + +None the less the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell. +If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to +hear the housewife chuntering. + +"Oh my lawk, come in nurse! What a day! Doctor's not been yet. And +he's bound to come now I've just cleaned up, trapesin' wi' his gret +feet. He's got the biggest understandin's of any man i' Lancaster. +My husband says they're the best pair o' pasties i' th' kingdom. An' +he does make such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th' +mat, marches straight up your clean stairs--" + +"Why don't you tell him to wipe his feet?" said Alvina. + +"Oh my word! Fancy me telling him! He'd jump down my throat with +both feet afore I'd opened my mouth. He's not to be spoken to, he +isn't. He's my-lord, he is. You mustn't look, or you're done for." + +Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for browbeating them, +and having a heart over and above. + +Sometimes he was given a good hit--though nearly always by a man. It +happened he was in a workman's house when the man was at dinner. + +"Canna yer gi'e a man summat better nor this 'ere pap, Missis?" said +the hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding. + +"Oh go on," cried the wife. "I hadna time for owt else." Dr. +Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway. + +"Rice pudding!" he exclaimed largely. "You couldn't have anything +more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of my +life--every day of my life, I do." + +The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustache +copiously with it. He did not answer. + +"Do you doctor!" cried the woman. "And never no different." + +"Never," said the doctor. + +"Fancy that! You're that fond of them?" + +"I find they agree with me. They are light and digestible. And my +stomach is as weak as a baby's." + +The labourer wiped his big moustache on his sleeve. + +"Mine _isna_, tha sees," he said, "so pap's no use. 'S watter ter +me. I want ter feel as I've had summat: a bit o' suetty dumplin' an' +a pint o' hale, summat ter fill th' hole up. An' tha'd be th' same +if tha did my work." + +"If I did your work," sneered the doctor. "Why I do ten times the +work that any one of you does. It's just the work that has ruined my +digestion, the never getting a quiet meal, and never a whole night's +rest. When do you think _I_ can sit at table and digest my dinner? I +have to be off looking after people like you--" + +"Eh, tha can ta'e th' titty-bottle wi' thee," said the labourer. + +But Dr. Mitchell was furious for weeks over this. It put him in a +black rage to have his great manliness insulted. Alvina was quietly +amused. + +The doctor began by being rather lordly and condescending with her. +But luckily she felt she knew her work at least as well as he knew +it. She smiled and let him condescend. Certainly she neither feared +nor even admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him: +the great, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and +his stomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness and +his good heart which was as selfish as it could be. Nothing can be +more cocksuredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its own +beneficence. He was a little too much the teetotaller on the one +hand to be so largely manly on the other. Alvina preferred the +labourers with their awful long moustaches that got full of food. +And he was a little too loud-mouthedly lordly to be in human good +taste. + +As a matter of fact, he was conscious of the fact that he had risen +to be a gentleman. Now if a man is conscious of being a _gentleman_, +he is bound to be a little less than a _man_. But if he is gnawed +with anxiety lest he may _not_ be a gentleman, he is only pitiable. +There is a third case, however. If a man must loftily, by his +manner, assert that he is _now_ a gentleman, he shows himself a +clown. For Alvina, poor Dr. Mitchell fell into this third category, +of clowns. She tolerated him good-humouredly, as women so often +tolerate ninnies and _poseurs_. She smiled to herself when she saw +his large and important presence on the board. She smiled when she +saw him at a sale, buying the grandest pieces of antique furniture. +She smiled when he talked of going up to Scotland, for grouse +shooting, or of snatching an hour on Sunday morning, for golf. And +she talked him over, with quiet, delicate malice, with the matron. +He was no favourite at the hospital. + +Gradually Dr. Mitchell's manner changed towards her. From his +imperious condescension he took to a tone of uneasy equality. This +did not suit him. Dr. Mitchell had no equals: he had only the vast +stratum of inferiors, towards whom he exercised his quite profitable +beneficence--it brought him in about two thousand a year: and then +his superiors, people who had been born with money. It was the +tradesmen and professionals who had started at the bottom and +clambered to the motor-car footing, who distressed him. And +therefore, whilst he treated Alvina on this uneasy tradesman +footing, he felt himself in a false position. + +She kept her attitude of quiet amusement, and little by little he +sank. From being a lofty creature soaring over her head, he was now +like a big fish poking its nose above water and making eyes at her. +He treated her with rather presuming deference. + +"You look tired this morning," he barked at her one hot day. + +"I think it's thunder," she said. + +"Thunder! Work, you mean," and he gave a slight smile. "I'm going to +drive you back." + +"Oh no, thanks, don't trouble! I've got to call on the way." + +"Where have you got to call?" + +She told him. + +"Very well. That takes you no more than five minutes. I'll wait for +you. Now take your cloak." + +She was surprised. Yet, like other women, she submitted. + +As they drove he saw a man with a barrow of cucumbers. He stopped +the car and leaned towards the man. + +"Take that barrow-load of poison and _bury_ it!" he shouted, in his +strong voice. The busy street hesitated. + +"What's that, mister?" replied the mystified hawker. + +Dr. Mitchell pointed to the green pile of cucumbers. + +"Take that barrow-load of poison, and bury it," he called, "before +you do anybody any more harm with it." + +"What barrow-load of poison's that?" asked the hawker, approaching. +A crowd began to gather. + +"What barrow-load of poison is that!" repeated the doctor. "Why your +barrow-load of cucumbers." + +"Oh," said the man, scrutinizing his cucumbers carefully. To be +sure, some were a little yellow at the end. "How's that? Cumbers is +right enough: fresh from market this morning." + +"Fresh or not fresh," said the doctor, mouthing his words +distinctly, "you might as well put poison into your stomach, as +those things. Cucumbers are the worst thing you can eat." + +"Oh!" said the man, stuttering. "That's 'appen for them as doesn't +like them. I niver knowed a cumber do _me_ no harm, an' I eat 'em +like a happle." Whereupon the hawker took a "cumber" from his +barrow, bit off the end, and chewed it till the sap squirted. +"What's wrong with that?" he said, holding up the bitten cucumber. + +"I'm not talking about what's wrong with that," said the doctor. "My +business is what's wrong with the stomach it goes into. I'm a +doctor. And I know that those things cause me half my work. They +cause half the internal troubles people suffer from in summertime." + +"Oh ay! That's no loss to you, is it? Me an' you's partners. More +cumbers I sell, more graft for you, 'cordin' to that. What's wrong +then. _Cum-bers! Fine fresh Cum-berrrs! All fresh and juisty, all +cheap and tasty--!_" yelled the man. + +"I am a doctor not only to cure illness, but to prevent it where I +can. And cucumbers are poison to everybody." + +"_Cum-bers! Cum-bers! Fresh cumbers!_" yelled the man, + +Dr. Mitchell started his car. + +"When will they learn intelligence?" he said to Alvina, smiling and +showing his white, even teeth. + +"I don't care, you know, myself," she said. "I should always let +people do what they wanted--" + +"Even if you knew it would do them harm?" he queried, smiling with +amiable condescension. + +"Yes, why not! It's their own affair. And they'll do themselves harm +one way or another." + +"And you wouldn't try to prevent it?" + +"You might as well try to stop the sea with your fingers." + +"You think so?" smiled the doctor. "I see, you are a pessimist. You +are a pessimist with regard to human nature." + +"Am I?" smiled Alvina, thinking the rose would smell as sweet. It +seemed to please the doctor to find that Alvina was a pessimist with +regard to human nature. It seemed to give her an air of distinction. +In his eyes, she _seemed_ distinguished. He was in a fair way to +dote on her. + +She, of course, when he began to admire her, liked him much better, +and even saw graceful, boyish attractions in him. There was really +something childish about him. And this something childish, since it +looked up to her as if she were the saving grace, naturally +flattered her and made her feel gentler towards him. + +He got in the habit of picking her up in his car, when he could. And +he would tap at the matron's door, smiling and showing all his +beautiful teeth, just about tea-time. + +"May I come in?" His voice sounded almost flirty. + +"Certainly." + +"I see you're having tea! Very nice, a cup of tea at this hour!" + +"Have one too, doctor." + +"I will with pleasure." And he sat down wreathed with smiles. Alvina +rose to get a cup. "I didn't intend to disturb you, nurse," he said. +"Men are always intruders," he smiled to the matron. + +"Sometimes," said the matron, "women are charmed to be intruded +upon." + +"Oh really!" his eyes sparkled. "Perhaps _you_ wouldn't say so, +nurse?" he said, turning to Alvina. Alvina was just reaching at the +cupboard. Very charming she looked, in her fresh dress and cap and +soft brown hair, very attractive her figure, with its full, soft +loins. She turned round to him. + +"Oh yes," she said. "I quite agree with the matron." + +"Oh, you do!" He did not quite know how to take it. "But you mind +being disturbed at your tea, I am sure." + +"No," said Alvina. "We are so used to being disturbed." + +"Rather weak, doctor?" said the matron, pouring the tea. + +"Very weak, please." + +The doctor was a little laboured in his gallantry, but unmistakably +gallant. When he was gone, the matron looked demure, and Alvina +confused. Each waited for the other to speak. + +"Don't you think Dr. Mitchell is quite coming out?" said Alvina. + +"Quite! _Quite_ the ladies' man! I wonder who it is can be +_bringing_ him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure." She looked +wickedly at Alvina. + +"No, don't look at me," laughed Alvina, "_I_ know nothing about it." + +"Do you think it may be _me_!" said the matron, mischievous. + +"I'm sure of it, matron! He begins to show some taste at last." + +"There now!" said the matron. "I shall put my cap straight." And she +went to the mirror, fluffing her hair and settling her cap. + +"There!" she said, bobbing a little curtsey to Alvina. + +They both laughed, and went off to work. + +But there was no mistake, Dr. Mitchell was beginning to expand. With +Alvina he quite unbent, and seemed even to sun himself when she was +near, to attract her attention. He smiled and smirked and became +oddly self-conscious: rather uncomfortable. He liked to hang over +her chair, and he made a great event of offering her a cigarette +whenever they met, although he himself never smoked. He had a gold +cigarette case. + +One day he asked her in to see his garden. He had a pleasant old +square house with a big walled garden. He showed her his flowers and +his wall-fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade her +admire his asparagus. And then he gave her tea in the drawing-room, +with strawberries and cream and cakes, of all of which he ate +nothing. But he smiled expansively all the time. He was a made man: +and now he was really letting himself go, luxuriating in everything; +above all, in Alvina, who poured tea gracefully from the old +Georgian tea-pot, and smiled so pleasantly above the Queen Anne +tea-cups. + +And she, wicked that she was, admired every detail of his +drawing-room. It was a pleasant room indeed, with roses outside the +French door, and a lawn in sunshine beyond, with bright red flowers +in beds. But indoors, it was insistently antique. Alvina admired the +Jacobean sideboard and the Jacobean arm-chairs and the Hepplewhite +wall-chairs and the Sheraton settee and the Chippendale stands and +the Axminster carpet and the bronze clock with Shakespeare and +Ariosto reclining on it--yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the +clock--and the ormolu cabinet and the bead-work foot-stools and the +dreadful Sèvres dish with a cherub in it and--but why enumerate. She +admired _everything_! And Dr. Mitchell's heart expanded in his bosom +till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at her feet or +did something extraordinary. He had never even imagined what it was +to be so expanded: what a delicious feeling. He could have kissed +her feet in an ecstasy of wild expansion. But habit, so far, +prevented his doing more than beam. + +Another day he said to her, when they were talking of age: + +"You are as young as you feel. Why, when I was twenty I felt I had +all the cares and responsibility of the world on my shoulders. And +now I am middle-aged more or less, I feel as light as if I were just +beginning life." He beamed down at her. + +"Perhaps you _are_ only just beginning your _own_ life," she said. +"You have lived for your work till now." + +"It may be that," he said. "It may be that up till now I have lived +for others, for my patients. And now perhaps I may be allowed to +live a little more for myself." He beamed with real luxury, saw the +real luxury of life begin. + +"Why shouldn't you?" said Alvina. + +"Oh yes, I intend to," he said, with confidence. + +He really, by degrees, made up his mind to marry now, and to retire +in part from his work. That is, he would hire another assistant, +and give himself a fair amount of leisure. He was inordinately proud +of his house. And now he looked forward to the treat of his life: +hanging round the woman he had made his wife, following her about, +feeling proud of her and his house, talking to her from morning till +night, really finding himself in her. When he had to go his rounds +she would go with him in the car: he made up his mind she would be +willing to accompany him. He would teach her to drive, and they +would sit side by side, she driving him and waiting for him. And he +would run out of the houses of his patients, and find her sitting +there, and he would get in beside her and feel so snug and so sure +and so happy as she drove him off to the next case, he informing her +about his work. + +And if ever she did not go out with him, she would be there on the +doorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car. And they +would have long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he +luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they +would be snug for hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to +bed. And in the morning he need not rush off. He would loiter about +with her, they would loiter down the garden looking at every new +flower and every new fruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and +no cap on her hair, he would never be able to tear himself away from +her. Every morning it would be unbearable to have to tear himself +away from her, and every hour he would be rushing back to her. They +would be simply everything to one another. And how he would enjoy +it! Ah! + +He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would take +her away from him. That was his first thought. But then--! Ah well, +he would have to leave it till the time. Love's young dream is never +so delicious as at the virgin age of fifty-three. + +But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he had +put a plain question. It was August Bank Holiday, that for ever +black day of the declaration of war, when his question was put. For +this year of our story is the fatal year 1914. + +There was quite a stir in the town over the declaration of war. But +most people felt that the news was only intended to give an extra +thrill to the all-important event of Bank Holiday. Half the world +had gone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the +Lakes or into the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fête, +notwithstanding. And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a +real holiday mood. + +So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at the +Hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three, +for tea. + +"What do you think of this new war?" said Alvina. + +"Oh, it will be over in six weeks," said the doctor easily. And +there they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered +if it would affect the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She had never heard any +more of them. + +"Where would you have liked to go today?" said the doctor, turning +to smile at her as he drove the car. + +"I think to Windermere--into the Lakes," she said. + +"We might make a tour of the Lakes before long," he said. She was +not thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech. + +"How nice!" she said vaguely. + +"We could go in the car, and take them as we chose," said the +doctor. + +"Yes," she said, wondering at him now. + +When they had had tea, quietly and gallantly tête-à-tête in his +drawing-room, he asked her if she would like to see the other rooms +of the house. She thanked him, and he showed her the substantial oak +dining-room, and the little room with medical works and a revolving +chair, which he called his study: then the kitchen and the pantry, +the housekeeper looking askance; then upstairs to his bedroom, which +was very fine with old mahogany tall-boys and silver candle-sticks +on the dressing-table, and brushes with green ivory backs, and a +hygienic white bed and straw mats: then the visitors' bedroom +corresponding, with its old satin-wood furniture and cream-coloured +chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a pale carpet with +reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that, +isn't that beautiful, I've never seen anything like that! came the +gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina. And he smiled and +gloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and +how dark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had +impressed Ciccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel +themselves masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She +smiled to herself rather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling +unaccountably uneasy and wistful, yearning into the distance again: +a trick she thought she had happily lost. + +The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a big +man, and he always wore navy blue suits, well-tailored and +immaculate. Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue +suits, especially if they had reddish faces and rather big feet and +if their hair was wearing thin, were a special type all to +themselves, solid and rather namby-pamby and tiresome. + +"What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roof +makes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and +the fascinating little window!" She crouched in the hollow of the +small dormer window. "Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I +know I should want this room for my own." + +"Then have it," he said. "Have it for _one_ of your own." + +She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He was +leaning forward to her, smiling, self-conscious, tentative, and +eager. She thought it best to laugh it off. + +"I was only talking like a child, from the imagination," she said. + +"I quite understand that," he replied deliberately. "But I am +speaking what I _mean_--" + +She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smiling +and smirking broadly at her. + +"Won't you marry me, and come and have this garret for your own?" He +spoke as if he were offering her a chocolate. He smiled with curious +uncertainty. + +"I don't know," she said vaguely. + +His smile broadened. + +"Well now," he said, "make up your mind. I'm not good at _talking_ +about love, you know. But I think I'm pretty good at _feeling_ it, +you know. I want you to come here and be happy: with me." He added +the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if to +commit himself finally. + +"But I've never thought about it," she said, rapidly cogitating. + +"I know you haven't. But think about it now--" He began to be hugely +pleased with himself. "Think about it now. And tell me if you could +put up with _me_, as well as the garret." He beamed and put his head +a little on one side--rather like Mr. May, for one second. But he +was much more dangerous than Mr. May. He was overbearing, and had +the devil's own temper if he was thwarted. This she knew. He was a +big man in a navy blue suit, with very white teeth. + +Again she thought she had better laugh it off. + +"It's you I _am_ thinking about," she laughed, flirting still. "It's +you I _am_ wondering about." + +"Well," he said, rather pleased with himself, "you wonder about me +till you've made up your mind--" + +"I will--" she said, seizing the opportunity. "I'll wonder about you +till I've made up my mind--shall I?" + +"Yes," he said. "That's what I wish you to do. And the next time I +ask you, you'll let me know. That's it, isn't it?" He smiled +indulgently down on her: thought her face young and charming, +charming. + +"Yes," she said. "But don't ask me too soon, will you?" + +"How, too soon--?" He smiled delightedly. + +"You'll give me time to wonder about you, won't you? You won't ask +me again this month, will you?" + +"This month?" His eyes beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the +procrastination as much as she did. "But the month's only just +begun! However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won't ask you again +this month." + +"And I'll promise to wonder about you all the month," she laughed. + +"That's a bargain," he said. + +They went downstairs, and Alvina returned to her duties. She was +very much excited, very much excited indeed. A big, well-to-do man +in a navy blue suit, of handsome appearance, aged fifty-three, with +white teeth and a delicate stomach: it _was_ exciting. A sure +position, a very nice home and lovely things in it, once they were +dragged about a bit. And of course he'd adore her. That went without +saying. She was as fussy as if some one had given her a lovely new +pair of boots. She was really fussy and pleased with herself: and +_quite_ decided she'd take it all on. That was how it put itself to +her: she would take it all on. + +Of course there was the man himself to consider. But he was quite +presentable. There was nothing at all against it: nothing at all. If +he had pressed her during the first half of the month of August, he +would almost certainly have got her. But he only beamed in +anticipation. + +Meanwhile the stir and restlessness of the war had begun, and was +making itself felt even in Lancaster. And the excitement and the +unease began to wear through Alvina's rather glamorous fussiness. +Some of her old fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had +been as if asleep these months, now woke rather irritably, and +chafed against its collar. Who was this elderly man, that she should +marry him? Who was he, that she should be kissed by him. Actually +kissed and fondled by him! Repulsive. She avoided him like the +plague. Fancy reposing against his broad, navy blue waistcoat! She +started as if she had been stung. Fancy seeing his red, smiling face +just above hers, coming down to embrace her! She pushed it away with +her open hand. And she ran away, to avoid the thought. + +And yet! And yet! She would be so comfortable, she would be so +well-off for the rest of her life. The hateful problem of material +circumstance would be solved for ever. And she knew well how hateful +material circumstances can make life. + +Therefore, she could not decide in a hurry. But she bore poor Dr. +Mitchell a deep grudge, that he could not grant her all the +advantages of his offer, and excuse her the acceptance of him +himself. She dared not decide in a hurry. And this very fear, like a +yoke on her, made her resent the man who drove her to decision. + +Sometimes she rebelled. Sometimes she laughed unpleasantly in the +man's face: though she dared not go _too_ far: for she was a little +afraid of him and his rabid temper, also. In her moments of sullen +rebellion she thought of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. She thought of them +deeply. She wondered where they were, what they were doing, how the +war had affected them. Poor Geoffrey was a Frenchman--he would have +to go to France to fight. Max and Louis were Swiss, it would not +affect them: nor Ciccio, who was Italian. She wondered if the troupe +was in England: if they would continue together when Geoffrey was +gone. She wondered if they thought of her. She felt they did. She +felt they did not forget her. She felt there was a connection. + +In fact, during the latter part of August she wondered a good deal +more about the Natchas than about Dr. Mitchell. But wondering about +the Natchas would not help her. She felt, if she knew where they +were, she would fly to them. But then she knew she wouldn't. + +When she was at the station she saw crowds and bustle. People were +seeing their young men off. Beer was flowing: sailors on the train +were tipsy: women were holding young men by the lapel of the coat. +And when the train drew away, the young men waving, the women cried +aloud and sobbed after them. + +A chill ran down Alvina's spine. This was another matter, apart from +her Dr. Mitchell. It made him feel very unreal, trivial. She did not +know what she was going to do. She realized she must do +something--take some part in the wild dislocation of life. She knew +that she would put off Dr. Mitchell again. + +She talked the matter over with the matron. The matron advised her +to procrastinate. Why not volunteer for war-service? True, she was a +maternity nurse, and this was hardly the qualification needed for +the nursing of soldiers. But still, she _was_ a nurse. + +Alvina felt this was the thing to do. Everywhere was a stir and a +seethe of excitement. Men were active, women were needed too. She +put down her name on the list of volunteers for active service. This +was on the last day of August. + +On the first of September Dr. Mitchell was round at the hospital +early, when Alvina was just beginning her morning duties there. He +went into the matron's room, and asked for Nurse Houghton. The +matron left them together. + +The doctor was excited. He smiled broadly, but with a tension of +nervous excitement. Alvina was troubled. Her heart beat fast. + +"Now!" said Dr. Mitchell. "What have you to say to me?" + +She looked up at him with confused eyes. He smiled excitedly and +meaningful at her, and came a little nearer. + +"Today is the day when you answer, isn't it?" he said. "Now then, +let me hear what you have to say." + +But she only watched him with large, troubled eyes, and did not +speak. He came still nearer to her. + +"Well then," he said, "I am to take it that silence gives consent." +And he laughed nervously, with nervous anticipation, as he tried to +put his arm round her. But she stepped suddenly back. + +"No, not yet," she said. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"I haven't given my answer," she said. + +"Give it then," he said, testily. + +"I've volunteered for active service," she stammered. "I felt I +ought to do something." + +"Why?" he asked. He could put a nasty intonation into that +monosyllable. "I should have thought you would answer _me_ first." + +She did not answer, but watched him. She did not like him. + +"I only signed yesterday," she said. + +"Why didn't you leave it till tomorrow? It would have looked +better." He was angry. But he saw a half-frightened, half-guilty +look on her face, and during the weeks of anticipation he had worked +himself up. + +"But put that aside," he smiled again, a little dangerously. "You +have still to answer my question. Having volunteered for war service +doesn't prevent your being engaged to me, does it?" + +Alvina watched him with large eyes. And again he came very near to +her, so that his blue-serge waistcoat seemed, to impinge on her, and +his purplish red face was above her. + +"I'd rather not be engaged, under the circumstances," she said. + +"Why?" came the nasty monosyllable. "What have the circumstances got +to do with it?" + +"Everything is so uncertain," she said. "I'd rather wait." + +"Wait! Haven't you waited long enough? There's nothing at all to +prevent your getting engaged to me now. Nothing whatsoever! Come +now. I'm old enough not to be played with. And I'm much too much in +love with you to let you go on indefinitely like this. Come now!" He +smiled imminent, and held out his large hand for her hand. "Let me +put the ring on your finger. It will be the proudest day of my life +when I make you my wife. Give me your hand--" + +Alvina was wavering. For one thing, mere curiosity made her want to +see the ring. She half lifted her hand. And but for the knowledge +that he would kiss her, she would have given it. But he would kiss +her--and against that she obstinately set her will. She put her hand +behind her back, and looked obstinately into his eyes. + +"Don't play a game with me," he said dangerously. + +But she only continued to look mockingly and obstinately into his +eyes. + +"Come," he said, beckoning for her to give her hand. + +With a barely perceptible shake of the head, she refused, staring at +him all the time. His ungovernable temper got the better of him. He +saw red, and without knowing, seized her by the shoulder, swung her +back, and thrust her, pressed her against the wall as if he would +push her through it. His face was blind with anger, like a hot, red +sun. Suddenly, almost instantaneously, he came to himself again and +drew back his hands, shaking his right hand as if some rat had +bitten it. + +"I'm sorry!" he shouted, beside himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean +it. I'm sorry." He dithered before her. + +She recovered her equilibrium, and, pale to the lips, looked at him +with sombre eyes. + +"I'm sorry!" he continued loudly, in his strange frenzy like a small +boy. "Don't remember! Don't remember! Don't think I did it." + +His face was a kind of blank, and unconsciously he wrung the hand +that had gripped her, as if it pained him. She watched him, and +wondered why on earth all this frenzy. She was left rather cold, she +did not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her. +There was nothing so very unnatural, after all, in being bumped up +suddenly against the wall. Certainly her shoulder hurt where he had +gripped it. But there were plenty of worse hurts in the world. She +watched him with wide, distant eyes. + +And he fell on his knees before her, as she backed against the +bookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress-bottom, +drawing it to him. Which made her rather abashed, and much more +uncomfortable. + +"Forgive me!" he said. "Don't remember! Forgive me! Love me! Love +me! Forgive me and love me! Forgive me and love me!" + +As Alvina was looking down dismayed on the great, red-faced, elderly +man, who in his crying-out showed his white teeth like a child, and +as she was gently trying to draw her skirt from his clutch, the +door opened, and there stood the matron, in her big frilled cap. +Alvina glanced at her, flushed crimson and looked down to the man. +She touched his face with her hand. + +"Never mind," she said. "It's nothing. Don't think about it." + +He caught her hand and clung to it. + +"Love me! Love me! Love me!" he cried. + +The matron softly closed the door again, withdrawing. + +"Love me! Love me!" + +Alvina was absolutely dumbfounded by this scene. She had no idea men +did such things. It did not touch her, it dumbfounded her. + +The doctor, clinging to her hand, struggled to his feet and flung +his arms round her, clasping her wildly to him. + +"You love me! You love me, don't you?" he said, vibrating and beside +himself as he pressed her to his breast and hid his face against her +hair. At such a moment, what was the good of saying she didn't? But +she didn't. Pity for his shame, however, kept her silent, motionless +and silent in his arms, smothered against the blue-serge waistcoat +of his broad breast. + +He was beginning to come to himself. He became silent. But he still +strained her fast, he had no idea of letting her go. + +"You will take my ring, won't you?" he said at last, still in the +strange, lamentable voice. "You will take my ring." + +"Yes," she said coldly. Anything for a quiet emergence from this +scene. + +He fumbled feverishly in his pocket with one hand, holding her still +fast by the other arm. And with one hand he managed to extract the +ring from its case, letting the case roll away on the floor. It was +a diamond solitaire. + +"Which finger? Which finger is it?" he asked, beginning to smile +rather weakly. She extricated her hand, and held out her engagement +finger. Upon it was the mourning-ring Miss Frost had always worn. +The doctor slipped the diamond solitaire above the mourning ring, +and folded Alvina to his breast again. + +"Now," he said, almost in his normal voice. "Now I know you love +me." The pleased self-satisfaction in his voice made her angry. She +managed to extricate herself. + +"You will come along with me now?" he said. + +"I can't," she answered. "I must get back to my work here." + +"Nurse Allen can do that." + +"I'd rather not." + +"Where are you going today?" + +She told him her cases. + +"Well, you will come and have tea with me. I shall expect you to +have tea with me every day." + +But Alvina was straightening her crushed cap before the mirror, and +did not answer. + +"We can see as much as we like of each other now we're engaged," he +said, smiling with satisfaction. + +"I wonder where the matron is," said Alvina, suddenly going into the +cool white corridor. He followed her. And they met the matron just +coming out of the ward. + +"Matron!" said Dr. Mitchell, with a return of his old mouthing +importance. "You may congratulate Nurse Houghton and me on our +engagement--" He smiled largely. + +"I may congratulate _you_, you mean," said the matron. + +"Yes, of course. And both of us, since we are now one," he replied. + +"Not quite, yet," said the matron gravely. + +And at length she managed to get rid of him. + +At once she went to look for Alvina, who had gone to her duties. + +"Well, I _suppose_ it is all right," said the matron gravely. + +"No it isn't," said Alvina. "I shall _never_ marry him." + +"Ah, never is a long while! Did he hear me come in?" + +"No, I'm sure he didn't." + +"Thank goodness for that." + +"Yes indeed! It was perfectly horrible. Following me round on his +knees and shouting for me to love him! Perfectly horrible!" + +"Well," said the matron. "You never know what men will do till +you've known them. And then you need be surprised at nothing, +_nothing_. I'm surprised at nothing they do--" + +"I must say," said Alvina, "I was surprised. Very unpleasantly." + +"But you accepted him--" + +"Anything to quieten him--like a hysterical child." + +"Yes, but I'm not sure you haven't taken a very risky way of +quietening him, giving him what he wanted--" + +"I think," said Alvina, "I can look after myself. I may be moved any +day now." + +"Well--!" said the matron. "He may prevent your getting moved, you +know. He's on the board. And if he says you are indispensable--" + +This was a new idea for Alvina to cogitate. She had counted on a +speedy escape. She put his ring in her apron pocket, and there she +forgot it until he pounced on her in the afternoon, in the house of +one of her patients. He waited for her, to take her off. + +"Where is your ring?" he said. + +And she realized that it lay in the pocket of a soiled, discarded +apron--perhaps lost for ever. + +"I shan't wear it on duty," she said. "You know that." + +She had to go to tea with him. She avoided his love-making, by +telling him any sort of spooniness revolted her. And he was too much +an old bachelor to take easily to a fondling habit--before marriage, +at least. So he mercifully left her alone: he was on the whole +devoutly thankful she wanted to be left alone. But he wanted her to +be there. That was his greatest craving. He wanted her to be always +there. And so he craved for marriage: to possess her entirely, and +to have her always there with him, so that he was never alone. Alone +and apart from all the world: but by her side, always by her side. + +"Now when shall we fix the marriage?" he said. "It is no good +putting it back. We both know what we are doing. And now the +engagement is announced--" + +He looked at her anxiously. She could see the hysterical little boy +under the great, authoritative man. + +"Oh, not till after Christmas!" she said. + +"After Christmas!" he started as if he had been bitten. "Nonsense! +It's nonsense to wait so long. Next month, at the latest." + +"Oh no," she said. "I don't think so soon." + +"Why not? The sooner the better. You had better send in your +resignation at once, so that you're free." + +"Oh but is there any need? I may be transferred for war service." + +"That's not likely. You're our only maternity nurse--" + +And so the days went by. She had tea with him practically every +afternoon, and she got used to him. They discussed the furnishing--she +could not help suggesting a few alterations, a few arrangements +according to _her_ idea. And he drew up a plan of a wedding tour in +Scotland. Yet she was quite certain she would not marry him. The matron +laughed at her certainty. "You will drift into it," she said. "He is +tying you down by too many little threads." + +"Ah, well, you'll see!" said Alvina. + +"Yes," said the matron. "I _shall_ see." + +And it was true that Alvina's will was indeterminate, at this time. +She was _resolved_ not to marry. But her will, like a spring that is +hitched somehow, did not fly direct against the doctor. She had sent +in her resignation, as he suggested. But not that she might be free +to marry him, but that she might be at liberty to flee him. So she +told herself. Yet she worked into his hands. + +One day she sat with the doctor in the car near the station--it was +towards the end of September--held up by a squad of soldiers in +khaki, who were marching off with their band wildly playing, to +embark on the special troop train that was coming down from the +north. The town was in great excitement. War-fever was spreading +everywhere. Men were rushing to enlist--and being constantly +rejected, for it was still the days of regular standards. + +As the crowds surged on the pavement, as the soldiers tramped to the +station, as the traffic waited, there came a certain flow in the +opposite direction. The 4:15 train had come in. People were +struggling along with luggage, children were running with spades and +buckets, cabs were crawling along with families: it was the seaside +people coming home. Alvina watched the two crowds mingle. + +And as she watched she saw two men, one carrying a mandoline case +and a suit-case which she knew. It was Ciccio. She did not know the +other man; some theatrical individual. The two men halted almost +near the car, to watch the band go by. Alvina saw Ciccio quite near +to her. She would have liked to squirt water down his brown, +handsome, oblivious neck. She felt she hated him. He stood there, +watching the music, his lips curling in his faintly-derisive Italian +manner, as he talked to the other man. His eyelashes were as long +and dark as ever, his eyes had still the attractive look of being +set in with a smutty finger. He had got the same brownish suit on, +which she disliked, the same black hat set slightly, jauntily over +one eye. He looked common: and yet with that peculiar southern +aloofness which gave him a certain beauty and distinction in her +eyes. She felt she hated him, rather. She felt she had been let down +by him. + +The band had passed. A child ran against the wheel of the standing +car. Alvina suddenly reached forward and made a loud, screeching +flourish on the hooter. Every one looked round, including the laden, +tramping soldiers. + +"We can't move yet," said Dr. Mitchell. + +But Alvina was looking at Ciccio at that moment. He had turned with +the rest, looking inquiringly at the car. And his quick eyes, the +whites of which showed so white against his duskiness, the yellow +pupils so non-human, met hers with a quick flash of recognition. His +mouth began to curl in a smile of greeting. But she stared at him +without moving a muscle, just blankly stared, abstracting every +scrap of feeling, even of animosity or coldness, out of her gaze. +She saw the smile die on his lips, his eyes glance sideways, and +again sideways, with that curious animal shyness which characterized +him. It was as if he did not want to see her looking at him, and ran +from side to side like a caged weasel, avoiding her blank, glaucous +look. + +She turned pleasantly to Dr. Mitchell. + +"What did you say?" she asked sweetly. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED + + +Alvina found it pleasant to be respected as she was respected in +Lancaster. It is not only the prophet who hath honour _save_ in his +own country: it is every one with individuality. In this northern +town Alvina found that her individuality really told. Already she +belonged to the revered caste of medicine-men. And into the bargain +she was a personality, a person. + +Well and good. She was not going to cheapen herself. She felt that +even in the eyes of the natives--the well-to-do part, at least--she +lost a _little_ of her distinction when she was engaged to Dr. +Mitchell. The engagement had been announced in _The Times_, _The +Morning Post_, _The Manchester Guardian_, and the local _News_. No +fear about its being known. And it cast a slight slur of vulgar +familiarity over her. In Woodhouse, she knew, it elevated her in the +common esteem tremendously. But she was no longer in Woodhouse. She +was in Lancaster. And in Lancaster her engagement pigeonholed her. +Apart from Dr. Mitchell she had a magic potentiality. Connected with +him, she was a known and labelled quantity. + +This she gathered from her contact with the local gentry. The matron +was a woman of family, who somehow managed, in her big, white, +frilled cap, to be distinguished like an abbess of old. The really +toney women of the place came to take tea in her room, and these +little teas in the hospital were like a little elegant female +conspiracy. There was a slight flavour of art and literature about. +The matron had known Walter Pater, in the somewhat remote past. + +Alvina was admitted to these teas with the few women who formed the +toney intellectual élite of this northern town. There was a certain +freemasonry in the matron's room. The matron, a lady-doctor, a +clergyman's daughter, and the wives of two industrial magnates of +the place, these five, and then Alvina, formed the little group. +They did not meet a great deal outside the hospital. But they always +met with that curious female freemasonry which can form a law unto +itself even among most conventional women. They talked as they would +never talk before men, or before feminine outsiders. They threw +aside the whole vestment of convention. They discussed plainly the +things they thought about--even the most secret--and they were quite +calm about the things they did--even the most impossible. Alvina +felt that her transgression was a very mild affair, and that her +engagement was really _infra dig_. + +"And are you going to marry him?" asked Mrs. Tuke, with a long, cool +look. + +"I can't _imagine_ myself--" said Alvina. + +"Oh, but so many things happen outside one's imagination. That's +where your body has you. I can't _imagine_ that I'm going to have a +child--" She lowered her eyelids wearily and sardonically over her +large eyes. + +Mrs. Tuke was the wife of the son of a local manufacturer. She was +about twenty-eight years old, pale, with great dark-grey eyes and an +arched nose and black hair, very like a head on one of the lovely +Syracusan coins. The odd look of a smile which wasn't a smile, at +the corners of the mouth, the arched nose, and the slowness of the +big, full, classic eyes gave her the dangerous Greek look of the +Syracusan women of the past: the dangerous, heavily-civilized women +of old Sicily: those who laughed about the latomia. + +"But do you think you can have a child without wanting it _at all_?" +asked Alvina. + +"Oh, but there isn't _one bit_ of me wants it, not _one bit_. My +_flesh_ doesn't want it. And my mind doesn't--yet there it is!" She +spread her fine hands with a flicker of inevitability. + +"Something must want it," said Alvina. + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Tuke. "The universe is one big machine, and we're +just part of it." She flicked out her grey silk handkerchief, and +dabbed her nose, watching with big, black-grey eyes the fresh face +of Alvina. + +"There's not _one bit_ of me concerned in having this child," she +persisted to Alvina. "My flesh isn't concerned, and my mind isn't. +And _yet_!--_le voilà!_--I'm just _planté_. I can't _imagine_ why I +married Tommy. And yet--I did--!" She shook her head as if it was +all just beyond her, and the pseudo-smile at the corners of her +ageless mouth deepened. + +Alvina was to nurse Mrs. Tuke. The baby was expected at the end of +August. But already the middle of September was here, and the baby +had not arrived. + +The Tukes were not very rich--the young ones, that is. Tommy wanted +to compose music, so he lived on what his father gave him. His +father gave him a little house outside the town, a house furnished +with expensive bits of old furniture, in a way that the townspeople +thought insane. But there you are--Effie would insist on dabbing a +rare bit of yellow brocade on the wall, instead of a picture, and in +painting apple-green shelves in the recesses of the whitewashed wall +of the dining-room. Then she enamelled the hall-furniture yellow, +and decorated it with curious green and lavender lines and flowers, +and had unearthly cushions and Sardinian pottery with unspeakable +peaked griffins. + +What were you to make of such a woman! Alvina slept in her house +these days, instead of at the hospital. For Effie was a very bad +sleeper. She would sit up in bed, the two glossy black plaits +hanging beside her white, arch face, wrapping loosely round her her +dressing-gown of a sort of plumbago-coloured, dark-grey silk lined +with fine silk of metallic blue, and there, ivory and jet-black and +grey like black-lead, she would sit in the white bedclothes +flicking her handkerchief and revealing a flicker of kingfisher-blue +silk and white silk night dress, complaining of her neuritis nerve +and her own impossible condition, and begging Alvina to stay with +her another half-hour, and suddenly studying the big, blood-red +stone on her finger as if she was reading something in it. + +"I believe I shall be like the woman in the _Cent Nouvelles_ and +carry my child for five years. Do you know that story? She said that +eating a parsley leaf on which bits of snow were sticking started +the child in her. It might just as well--" + +Alvina would laugh and get tired. There was about her a kind of half +bitter sanity and nonchalance which the nervous woman liked. + +One night as they were sitting thus in the bedroom, at nearly eleven +o'clock, they started and listened. Dogs in the distance had also +started to yelp. A mandoline was wailing its vibration in the night +outside, rapidly, delicately quivering. Alvina went pale. She knew +it was Ciccio. She had seen him lurking in the streets of the town, +but had never spoken to him. + +"What's this?" cried Mrs. Tuke, cocking her head on one side. +"Music! A mandoline! How extraordinary! Do you think it's a +serenade?--" And she lifted her brows archly. + +"I should think it is," said Alvina. + +"How extraordinary! What a moment to choose to serenade the lady! +_Isn't_ it like life--! I _must_ look at it--" + +She got out of bed with some difficulty, wrapped her dressing-gown +round her, pushed her feet into slippers, and went to the window. +She opened the sash. It was a lovely moonlight night of September. +Below lay the little front garden, with its short drive and its iron +gates that closed on the high-road. From the shadow of the high-road +came the noise of the mandoline. + +"Hello, Tommy!" called Mrs. Tuke to her husband, whom she saw on the +drive below her. "How's your musical ear--?" + +"All right. Doesn't it disturb you?" came the man's voice from the +moonlight below. + +"Not a bit. I like it. I'm waiting for the voice. '_O Richard, O mon +roi!_'--" + +But the music had stopped. + +"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke. "You've frightened him off! And we're +dying to be serenaded, aren't we, nurse?" She turned to Alvina. "Do +give me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won't you open the other +window and look out there--?" + +Alvina went to the second window. She stood looking out. + +"Do play again!" Mrs. Tuke called into the night. "Do sing +something." And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose that +hung in the moonlight from the wall, and with a flash of her white +arm she flung it toward the garden wall--ineffectually, of course. + +"Won't you play again?" she called into the night, to the unseen. +"Tommy, go indoors, the bird won't sing when you're about." + +"It's an Italian by the sound of him. Nothing I hate more than +emotional Italian music. Perfectly nauseating." + +"Never mind, dear. I know it sounds as if all their insides were +coming out of their mouth. But we want to be serenaded, don't we, +nurse?--" + +Alvina stood at her window, but did not answer. + +"Ah-h?" came the odd query from Mrs. Tuke. "Don't you like it?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. "Very much." + +"And aren't you dying for the song?" + +"Quite." + +"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke, into the moonlight. "Una canzone +bella-bella--molto bella--" + +She pronounced her syllables one by one, calling into the night. It +sounded comical. There came a rude laugh from the drive below. + +"Go indoors, Tommy! He won't sing if you're there. Nothing will sing +if you're there," called the young woman. + +They heard a footstep on the gravel, and then the slam of the hall +door. + +"Now!" cried Mrs. Tuke. + +They waited. And sure enough, came the fine tinkle of the mandoline, +and after a few moments, the song. It was one of the well-known +Neapolitan songs, and Ciccio sang it as it should be sung. + +Mrs. Tuke went across to Alvina. + +"Doesn't he put his _bowels_ into it--?" she said, laying her hand +on her own full figure, and rolling her eyes mockingly. "I'm _sure_ +it's more effective than senna-pods." + +Then she returned to her own window, huddled her furs over her +breast, and rested her white elbows in the moonlight. + + + "Torn' a Surrientu + Fammi campar--" + +The song suddenly ended, in a clamorous, animal sort of yearning. +Mrs. Tuke was quite still, resting her chin on her fingers. Alvina +also was still. Then Mrs. Tuke slowly reached for the rose-buds on +the old wall. + +"Molto bella!" she cried, half ironically. "Molto bella! Je vous +envoie une rose--" And she threw the roses out on to the drive. A +man's figure was seen hovering outside the gate, on the high-road. +"Entrez!" called Mrs. Tuke. "Entrez! Prenez votre rose. Come in and +take your rose." + +The man's voice called something from the distance. + +"What?" cried Mrs. Tuke. + +"Je ne peux pas entrer." + +"Vous ne pouvez pas entrer? Pourquoi alors! La porte n'est pas +fermée à clef. Entrez donc!" + +"Non. On n'entre pas--" called the well-known voice of Ciccio. + +"Quoi faire, alors! Alvina, take him the rose to the gate, will you? +Yes do! Their singing is horrible, I think. I can't go down to him. +But do take him the roses, and see what he looks like. Yes do!" Mrs. +Tuke's eyes were arched and excited. Alvina looked at her slowly. +Alvina also was smiling to herself. + +She went slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. From a +bush at the side she pulled two sweet-smelling roses. Then in the +drive she picked up Effie's flowers. Ciccio was standing outside the +gate. + +"Allaye!" he said, in a soft, yearning voice. + +"Mrs. Tuke sent you these roses," said Alvina, putting the flowers +through the bars of the gate. + +"Allaye!" he said, caressing her hand, kissing it with a soft, +passionate, yearning mouth. Alvina shivered. Quickly he opened the +gate and drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wall, +and put his arms round her, lifting her from her feet with +passionate yearning. + +"Allaye!" he said. "I love you, Allaye, my beautiful, Allaye. I love +you, Allaye!" He held her fast to his breast and began to walk away +with her. His throbbing, muscular power seemed completely to envelop +her. He was just walking away with her down the road, clinging fast +to her, enveloping her. + +"Nurse! Nurse! I can't see you! Nurse!--" came the long call of Mrs. +Tuke through the night. Dogs began to bark. + +"Put me down," murmured Alvina. "Put me down, Ciccio." + +"Come with me to Italy. Come with me to Italy, Allaye. I can't go to +Italy by myself, Allaye. Come with me, be married to me--Allaye, +Allaye--" + +His voice was a strange, hoarse whisper just above her face, he +still held her in his throbbing, heavy embrace. + +"Yes--yes!" she whispered. "Yes--yes! But put me down, Ciccio. Put +me down." + +"Come to Italy with me, Allaye. Come with me," he still reiterated, +in a voice hoarse with pain and yearning. + +"Nurse! Nurse! Wherever are you? Nurse! I want you," sang the +uneasy, querulous voice of Mrs. Tuke. + +"Do put me down!" murmured Alvina, stirring in his arms. + +He slowly relaxed his clasp, and she slid down like rain to earth. +But still he clung to her. + +"Come with me, Allaye! Come with me to Italy!" he said. + +She saw his face, beautiful, non-human in the moonlight, and she +shuddered slightly. + +"Yes!" she said. "I will come. But let me go now. Where is your +mandoline?" + +He turned round and looked up the road. + +"Nurse! You absolutely _must_ come. I can't bear it," cried the +strange voice of Mrs. Tuke. + +Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, and +through the gate into the drive. + +"You must come!" came the voice in pain from the upper window. + +Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tuke crouched in a chair, with a +drawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly gripped her, +she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists hard on +her face. + +"The pains have begun," said Alvina, hurrying to her. + +"Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it!" cried the woman +in travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she +could. And from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the +Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night. + + "E tu dic' Io part', addio! + T'alluntare di sta core, + Nel paese del amore + Tien' o cor' di non turnar' + --Ma nun me lasciar'--" + +It was almost unendurable. But suddenly Mrs. Tuke became quite +still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two +jet-black plaits dropping on either side of her ivory face, her big +eyes fixed staring into space. At the line-- + + Ma nun me lasciar'-- + +she began to murmur softly to herself--"Yes, it's dreadful! It's +horrible! I can't understand it. What does it mean, that noise? It's +as bad as these pains. What does it mean? What does he say? I can +understand a little Italian--" She paused. And again came the sudden +complaint: + + Ma nun me lasciar'-- + +"Ma nun me lasciar'--!" she murmured, repeating the music. "That +means--Don't leave me! Don't leave me! But why? Why shouldn't one +human being go away from another? What does it mean? That _awful_ +noise! Isn't love the most horrible thing! I think it's horrible. It +just does one in, and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm +howling with one sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two +hellish animals howling through the night! I'm not myself, he's not +himself. Oh, I think it's horrible. What does he look like, Nurse? +Is he beautiful? Is he a great hefty brute?" + +She looked with big, slow, enigmatic eyes at Alvina. + +"He's a man I knew before," said Alvina. + +Mrs. Tuke's face woke from its half-trance. + +"Really! Oh! A man you knew before! Where?" + +"It's a long story," said Alvina. "In a travelling music-hall +troupe." + +"In a travelling music-hall troupe! How extraordinary! Why, how did +you come across such an individual--?" + +Alvina explained as briefly as possible. Mrs. Tuke watched her. + +"Really!" she said. "You've done all those things!" And she +scrutinized Alvina's face. "You've had some effect on him, that's +evident," she said. Then she shuddered, and dabbed her nose with her +handkerchief. "Oh, the flesh is a _beastly_ thing!" she cried. "To +make a man howl outside there like that, because you're here. And to +make me howl because I've got a child inside me. It's unbearable! +What does he look like, really?" + +"I don't know," said Alvina. "Not extraordinary. Rather a hefty +brute--" + +Mrs. Tuke glanced at her, to detect the irony. + +"I should like to see him," she said. "Do you think I might?" + +"I don't know," said Alvina, non-committal. + +"Do you think he might come up? Ask him. Do let me see him." + +"Do you really want to?" said Alvina. + +"Of course--" Mrs. Tuke watched Alvina with big, dark, slow eyes. +Then she dragged herself to her feet. Alvina helped her into bed. + +"Do ask him to come up for a minute," Effie said. "We'll give him a +glass of Tommy's famous port. Do let me see him. Yes do!" She +stretched out her long white arm to Alvina, with sudden imploring. + +Alvina laughed, and turned doubtfully away. + +The night was silent outside. But she found Ciccio leaning against a +gate-pillar. He started up. + +"Allaye!" he said. + +"Will you come in for a moment? I can't leave Mrs. Tuke." + +Ciccio obediently followed Alvina into the house and up the stairs, +without a word. He was ushered into the bedroom. He drew back when +he saw Effie in the bed, sitting with her long plaits and her dark +eyes, and the subtle-seeming smile at the corners of her mouth. + +"Do come in!" she said. "I want to thank you for the music. Nurse +says it was for her, but I enjoyed it also. Would you tell me the +words? I think it's a wonderful song." + +Ciccio hung back against the door, his head dropped, and the shy, +suspicious, faintly malicious smile on his face. + +"Have a glass of port, do!" said Effie. "Nurse, give us all one. I +should like one too. And a biscuit." Again she stretched out her +long white arm from the sudden blue lining of her wrap, suddenly, as +if taken with the desire. Ciccio shifted on his feet, watching +Alvina pour out the port. + +He swallowed his in one swallow, and put aside his glass. + +"Have some more!" said Effie, watching over the top of her glass. + +He smiled faintly, stupidly, and shook his head. + +"Won't you? Now tell me the words of the song--" + +He looked at her from out of the dusky hollows of his brow, and did +not answer. The faint, stupid half-smile, half-sneer was on his +lips. + +"Won't you tell them me? I understood one line--" + +Ciccio smiled more pronouncedly as he watched her, but did not +speak. + +"I understood one line," said Effie, making big eyes at him. "_Ma +non me lasciare_--_Don't leave me!_ There, isn't that it?" + +He smiled, stirred on his feet, and nodded. + +"Don't leave me! There, I knew it was that. Why don't you want Nurse +to leave you? Do you want her to be with you _every minute_?" + +He smiled a little contemptuously, awkwardly, and turned aside his +face, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance. +It was swift, and full of the terrible yearning which so horrified +her. + +At the same moment a spasm crossed her face, her expression went +blank. + +"Shall we go down?" said Alvina to Ciccio. + +He turned immediately, with his cap in his hand, and followed. In +the hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline from the +chest. He could hear the stifled cries and exclamations from Mrs. +Tuke. At the same moment the door of the study opened, and the +musician, a burly fellow with troubled hair, came out. + +"Is that Mrs. Tuke?" he snapped anxiously. + +"Yes. The pains have begun," said Alvina. + +"Oh God! And have you left her!" He was quite irascible. + +"Only for a minute," said Alvina. + +But with a _Pf_! of angry indignation, he was climbing the stairs. + +"She is going to have a child," said Alvina to Ciccio. "I shall have +to go back to her." And she held out her hand. + +He did not take her hand, but looked down into her face with the +same slightly distorted look of overwhelming yearning, yearning +heavy and unbearable, in which he was carried towards her as on a +flood. + +"Allaye!" he said, with a faint lift of the lip that showed his +teeth, like a pained animal: a curious sort of smile. He could not +go away. + +"I shall have to go back to her," she said. + +"Shall you come with me to Italy, Allaye?" + +"Yes. Where is Madame?" + +"Gone! Gigi--all gone." + +"Gone where?" + +"Gone back to France--called up." + +"And Madame and Louis and Max?" + +"Switzerland." + +He stood helplessly looking at her. + +"Well, I must go," she said. + +He watched her with his yellow eyes, from under his long black +lashes, like some chained animal, haunted by doom. She turned and +left him standing. + +She found Mrs. Tuke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets, and +crying: "No, Tommy dear. I'm awfully fond of you, you know I am. But +go away. Oh God, go away. And put a space between us. Put a space +between us!" she almost shrieked. + +He pushed up his hair. He had been working on a big choral work +which he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented. + +"Can't you stand my presence!" he shouted, and dashed downstairs. + +"Nurse!" cried Effie. "It's _no use_ trying to get a grip on life. +You're just at the mercy of _Forces_," she shrieked angrily. + +"Why not?" said Alvina. "There are good life-forces. Even the will +of God is a life-force." + +"You don't understand! I want to be _myself_. And I'm _not_ myself. +I'm just torn to pieces by _Forces_. It's horrible--" + +"Well, it's not my fault. I didn't make the universe," said Alvina. +"If you have to be torn to pieces by forces, well, you have. Other +forces will put you together again." + +"I don't want them to. I want to be myself. I don't want to be +nailed together like a chair, with a hammer. I want to be myself." + +"You won't be nailed together like a chair. You should have faith in +life." + +"But I hate life. It's nothing but a mass of forces. _I_ am +intelligent. Life isn't intelligent. Look at it at this moment. Do +you call this intelligent? Oh--Oh! It's horrible! Oh--!" She was +wild and sweating with her pains. Tommy flounced out downstairs, +beside himself. He was heard talking to some one in the moonlight +outside. To Ciccio. He had already telephoned wildly for the doctor. +But the doctor had replied that Nurse would ring him up. + +The moment Mrs. Tuke recovered her breath she began again. + +"I hate life, and faith, and such things. Faith is only fear. And +life is a mass of unintelligent forces to which intelligent beings +are submitted. Prostituted. Oh--oh!!--prostituted--" + +"Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence," said +Alvina. + +"Bigger than intelligence!" shrieked Effie. "_Nothing_ is bigger +than intelligence. Your man is a hefty brute. His yellow eyes +_aren't_ intelligent. They're _animal_--" + +"No," said Alvina. "Something else. I wish he didn't attract me--" + +"There! Because you're not content to be at the mercy of _Forces_!" +cried Effie. "I'm not. I'm not. I want to be myself. And so forces +tear me to pieces! Tear me to pie--eee--Oh-h-h! No!--" + +Downstairs Tommy had walked Ciccio back into the house again, and +the two men were drinking port in the study, discussing Italy, for +which Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated all +Italian music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all +through the night, Tommy being strictly forbidden to interfere +upstairs, or even to fetch the doctor. They drank three and a half +bottles of port, and were discovered in the morning by Alvina fast +asleep in the study, with the electric light still burning. Tommy +slept with his fair and ruffled head hanging over the edge of the +couch like some great loose fruit, Ciccio was on the floor, face +downwards, his face in his folded arms. + +Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the inert Ciccio. In the +end, she had to leave him and rouse Tommy first: who in rousing fell +off the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably. So that he +turned on Alvina in a fury, and asked her what the hell she thought +she was doing. In answer to which Alvina held up a finger warningly, +and Tommy, suddenly remembering, fell back as if he had been struck. + +"She is sleeping now," said Alvina. + +"Is it a boy or a girl?" he cried. + +"It isn't born yet," she said. + +"Oh God, it's an accursed fugue!" cried the bemused Tommy. After +which they proceeded to wake Ciccio, who was like the dead doll in +Petrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he +smiled at Alvina, and said: "Allaye!" + +The dark, waking smile upset her badly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE WEDDED WIFE + + +The upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough without +telling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for +a week-end, to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage +was presumably with Dr. Mitchell--though she had given him no +definite word. However, her month's notice was up, so she was +legally free. And therefore she packed a rather large bag with all +her ordinary things, and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the +nursing paraphernalia behind. + +She knew Scarborough quite well: and quite quickly found rooms which +she had occupied before, in a boarding-house where she had stayed +with Miss Frost long ago. Having recovered from her journey, she +went out on to the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the +sea was before her. What was she to do? + +She had run away from both men--from Ciccio as well as from +Mitchell. She had spent the last fortnight more or less avoiding the +pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free +from Mrs. Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men. +Mrs. Tuke had a baby daughter, and was getting well. Ciccio was +living with the Tukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him, and had half +engaged him as a sort of personal attendant: the sort of thing Tommy +would do, not having paid his butcher's bills. + +So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sick +of being badgered about. She didn't really want to marry anybody. +Why should she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself. +How sick she was of other people and their importunities! What was +she to do? She decided to offer herself again, in a little while, +for war service--in a new town this time. Meanwhile she wanted to be +by herself. + +She made excursions, she walked on the moors, in the brief but +lovely days of early October. For three days it was all so sweet and +lovely--perfect liberty, pure, almost paradisal. + +The fourth day it rained: simply rained all day long, and was cold, +dismal, disheartening beyond words. There she sat, stranded in the +dismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o'clock, +having decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in the +war-hospitals at once: not to leave off until she had found it. + +But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fiancé, was +with her on the quay of some harbour, and was reproaching her +bitterly, even reviling her, for having come too late, so that they +had missed their ship. They were there to catch the boat--and she, +for dilatoriness, was an hour late, and she could see the broad +stern of the steamer not far off. Just an hour late. She showed +Alexander her watch--exactly ten o'clock, instead of nine. And he +was more angry than ever, because her watch was slow. He pointed to +the harbour clock--it was ten minutes past ten. + +When she woke up she was thinking of Alexander. It was such a long +time since she had thought of him. She wondered if he had a right to +be angry with her. + +The day was still grey, with sweepy rain-clouds on the +sea--gruesome, objectionable. It was a prolongation of yesterday. +Well, despair was no good, and being miserable was no good either. +She got no satisfaction out of either mood. The only thing to do was +to act: seize hold of life and wring its neck. + +She took the time-table that hung in the hall: the time-table, that +magic carpet of today. When in doubt, _move_. This was the maxim. +Move. Where to? + +Another click of a resolution. She would wire to Ciccio and meet +him--where? York--Leeds--Halifax--? She looked up the places in the +time-table, and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram, that she +would be at Leeds that evening. Would he get it in time? Chance it. + +She hurried off and sent the telegram. Then she took a little +luggage, told the people of her house she would be back next day, +and set off. She did not like whirling in the direction of +Lancaster. But no matter. + +She waited a long time for the train from the north to come in. The +first person she saw was Tommy. He waved to her and jumped from the +moving train. + +"I say!" he said. "So glad to see you! Ciccio is with me. Effie +insisted on my coming to see you." + +There was Ciccio climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant! This +was too much for her. + +"So you came with your valet?" she said, as Ciccio stood with the +bag. + +"Not a bit," said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man's +shoulder. "We're the best of friends. I don't carry bags because my +heart is rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you +better in uniform. Black doesn't suit you. You don't _mind_--" + +"Yes, I do. But I've only got black clothes, except uniforms." + +"Well look here now--! You're not going on anywhere tonight, are +you?" + +"It is too late." + +"Well now, let's turn into the hotel and have a talk. I'm acting +under Effie's orders, as you may gather--" + +At the hotel Tommy gave her a letter from his wife: to the tune +of--don't marry this Italian, you'll put yourself in a wretched +hole, and one wants to avoid getting into holes. _I know_--concluded +Effie, on a sinister note. + +Tommy sang another tune. Ciccio was a lovely chap, a rare chap, a +treat. He, Tommy, could quite understand any woman's wanting to +marry him--didn't agree a bit with Effie. But marriage, you know, +was so final. And then with this war on: you never knew how things +might turn out: a foreigner and all that. And then--you won't mind +what I say--? We won't talk about class and that rot. If the man's +good enough, he's good enough by himself. But is he your +intellectual equal, nurse? After all, it's a big point. You don't +want to marry a man you can't talk to. Ciccio's a treat to be with, +because he's so natural. But it isn't a _mental_ treat-- + +Alvina thought of Mrs. Tuke, who complained that Tommy talked music +and pseudo-philosophy _by the hour_ when he was wound up. She saw +Effie's long, outstretched arm of repudiation and weariness. + +"Of course!"--another of Mrs. Tuke's exclamations. "Why not _be_ +atavistic if you _can_ be, and follow at a man's heel just because +he's a man. Be like barbarous women, a slave." + +During all this, Ciccio stayed out of the room, as bidden. It was +not till Alvina sat before her mirror that he opened her door +softly, and entered. + +"I come in," he said, and he closed the door. + +Alvina remained with her hair-brush suspended, watching him. He came +to her, smiling softly, to take her in his arms. But she put the +chair between them. + +"Why did you bring Mr. Tuke?" she said. + +He lifted his shoulders. + +"I haven't brought him," he said, watching her. + +"Why did you show him the telegram?" + +"It was Mrs. Tuke took it." + +"Why did you give it her?" + +"It was she who gave it me, in her room. She kept it in her room +till I came and took it." + +"All right," said Alvina. "Go back to the Tukes." And she began +again to brush her hair. + +Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes. + +"What you mean?" he said. "I shan't go, Allaye. You come with me." + +"Ha!" she sniffed scornfully. "I shall go where I like." + +But slowly he shook his head. + +"You'll come, Allaye," he said. "You come with me, with Ciccio." + +She shuddered at the soft, plaintive entreaty. + +"How can I go with you? How can I depend on you at all?" + +Again he shook his head. His eyes had a curious yellow fire, +beseeching, plaintive, with a demon quality of yearning compulsion. + +"Yes, you come with me, Allaye. You come with me, to Italy. You +don't go to that other man. He is too old, not healthy. You come +with me to Italy. Why do you send a telegram?" + +Alvina sat down and covered her face, trembling. + +"I can't! I can't! I can't!" she moaned. "I can't do it." + +"Yes, you come with me. I have money. You come with me, to my place +in the mountains, to my uncle's house. Fine house, you like it. Come +with me, Allaye." + +She could not look at him. + +"Why do you want me?" she said. + +"Why I want you?" He gave a curious laugh, almost of ridicule. "I +don't know that. You ask me another, eh?" + +She was silent, sitting looking downwards. + +"I can't, I think," she said abstractedly, looking up at him. + +He smiled, a fine, subtle smile, like a demon's, but inexpressibly +gentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he was +reaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could she recoil. + +"You come, Allaye," he said softly, with his foreign intonation. +"You come. You come to Italy with me. Yes?" He put his hand on her, +and she started as if she had been struck. But his hands, with the +soft, powerful clasp, only closed her faster. + +"Yes?" he said. "Yes? All right, eh? All right!"--he had a strange +mesmeric power over her, as if he possessed the sensual secrets, and +she was to be subjected. + +"I can't," she moaned, trying to struggle. But she was powerless. + +Dark and insidious he was: he had no regard for her. How could a +man's movements be so soft and gentle, and yet so inhumanly +regardless! He had no regard for her. Why didn't she revolt? Why +couldn't she? She was as if bewitched. She couldn't fight against +her bewitchment. Why? Because he seemed to her beautiful, so +beautiful. And this left her numb, submissive. Why must she see him +beautiful? Why was she will-less? She felt herself like one of the +old sacred prostitutes: a sacred prostitute. + +In the morning, very early, they left for Scarborough, leaving a +letter for the sleeping Tommy. In Scarborough they went to the +registrar's office: they could be married in a fortnight's time. And +so the fortnight passed, and she was under his spell. Only she knew +it. She felt extinguished. Ciccio talked to her: but only ordinary +things. There was no wonderful intimacy of speech, such as she had +always imagined, and always craved for. No. He loved her--but it was +in a dark, mesmeric way, which did not let her be herself. His love +did not stimulate her or excite her. It extinguished her. She had to +be the quiescent, obscure woman: she felt as if she were veiled. Her +thoughts were dim, in the dim back regions of consciousness--yet, +somewhere, she almost exulted. Atavism! Mrs. Tuke's word would play +in her mind. Was it atavism, this sinking into extinction under the +spell of Ciccio? Was it atavism, this strange, sleep-like submission +to his being? Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was. But it was also heavy +and sweet and rich. Somewhere, she was content. Somewhere even she +was vastly proud of the dark veiled eternal loneliness she felt, +under his shadow. + +And so it had to be. She shuddered when she touched him, because he +was so beautiful, and she was so submitted. She quivered when he +moved as if she were his shadow. Yet her mind remained distantly +clear. She would criticize him, find fault with him, the things he +did. But _ultimately_ she could find no fault with him. She had lost +the power. She didn't care. She had lost the power to care about his +faults. Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference! She was drugged. And +she knew it. Would she ever wake out of her dark, warm coma? She +shuddered, and hoped not. Mrs. Tuke would say atavism. Atavism! The +word recurred curiously. + +But under all her questionings she felt well; a nonchalance deep as +sleep, a passivity and indifference so dark and sweet she felt it +must be evil. Evil! She was evil. And yet she had no power to be +otherwise. They were legally married. And she was glad. She was +relieved by knowing she could not escape. She was Mrs. Marasca. What +was the good of trying to be Miss Houghton any longer? Marasca, the +bitter cherry. Some dark poison fruit she had eaten. How glad she +was she had eaten it! How beautiful he was! And no one saw it but +herself. For her it was so potent it made her tremble when she +noticed him. His beauty, his dark shadow. Ciccio really was much +handsomer since his marriage. He seemed to emerge. Before, he had +seemed to make himself invisible in the streets, in England, +altogether. But now something unfolded in him, he was a potent, +glamorous presence, people turned to watch him. There was a certain +dark, leopard-like pride in the air about him, something that the +English people watched. + +He wanted to go to Italy. And now it was _his_ will which counted. +Alvina, as his wife, must submit. He took her to London the day +after the marriage. He wanted to get away to Italy. He did not like +being in England, a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spy craze. + +In London they stayed at his cousin's house. His cousin kept a +restaurant in Battersea, and was a flourishing London Italian, a +real London product with all the good English virtues of cleanliness +and honesty added to an Italian shrewdness. His name was Giuseppe +Califano, and he was pale, and he had four children of whom he was +very proud. He received Alvina with an affable respect, as if she +were an asset in the family, but as if he were a little uneasy and +disapproving. She had _come down_, in marrying Ciccio. She had lost +caste. He rather seemed to exult over her degradation. For he was a +northernized Italian, he had accepted English standards. His +children were English brats. He almost patronized Alvina. + +But then a long, slow look from her remote blue eyes brought him up +sharp, and he envied Ciccio suddenly, he was almost in love with her +himself. She disturbed him. She disturbed him in his new English +aplomb of a London _restaurateur_, and she disturbed in him the old +Italian dark soul, to which he was renegade. He tried treating her +as an English lady. But the slow, remote look in her eyes made this +fall flat. He had to be Italian. + +And he was jealous of Ciccio. In Ciccio's face was a lurking smile, +and round his fine nose there seemed a subtle, semi-defiant triumph. +After all, he had triumphed over his well-to-do, Anglicized cousin. +With a stealthy, leopard-like pride Ciccio went through the streets +of London in those wild early days of war. He was the one victor, +arching stealthily over the vanquished north. + +Alvina saw nothing of all these complexities. For the time being, +she was all dark and potent. Things were curious to her. It was +curious to be in Battersea, in this English-Italian household, where +the children spoke English more readily than Italian. It was strange +to be high over the restaurant, to see the trees of the park, to +hear the clang of trams. It was strange to walk out and come to the +river. It was strange to feel the seethe of war and dread in the +air. But she did not question. She seemed steeped in the passional +influence of the man, as in some narcotic. She even forgot Mrs. +Tuke's atavism. Vague and unquestioning she went through the days, +she accompanied Ciccio into town, she went with him to make +purchases, or she sat by his side in the music hall, or she stayed +in her room and sewed, or she sat at meals with the Califanos, a +vague brightness on her face. And Mrs. Califano was very nice to +her, very gentle, though with a suspicion of malicious triumph, +mockery, beneath her gentleness. Still, she was nice and womanly, +hovering as she was between her English emancipation and her Italian +subordination. She half pitied Alvina, and was more than half +jealous of her. + +Alvina was aware of nothing--only of the presence of Ciccio. It was +his physical presence which cast a spell over her. She lived within +his aura. And she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark +nature over her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly +within his presence, quivering within his influence, as if his blood +beat in her. She _knew_ she was subjected. One tiny corner of her +knew, and watched. + +He was very happy, and his face had a real beauty. His eyes glowed with +lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, happy wild creature +seen remote under a bush. And he was very good to her. His tenderness +made her quiver into a swoon of complete self-forgetfulness, as if the +flood-gates of her depths opened. The depth of his warm, mindless, +enveloping love was immeasurable. She felt she could sink forever into +his warm, pulsating embrace. + +Afterwards, later on, when she was inclined to criticize him, she +would remember the moment when she saw his face at the Italian +Consulate in London. There were many people at the Consulate, +clamouring for passports--a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They had +waited their turn and got inside--Ciccio was not good at pushing his +way. And inside a courteous tall old man with a white beard had +lifted the flap for Alvina to go inside the office and sit down to +fill in the form. She thanked the old man, who bowed as if he had a +reputation to keep up. + +Ciccio followed, and it was he who had to sit down and fill up the +form, because she did not understand the Italian questions. She +stood at his side, watching the excited, laughing, noisy, east-end +Italians at the desk. The whole place had a certain free-and-easy +confusion, a human, unofficial, muddling liveliness which was not +quite like England, even though it was in the middle of London. + +"What was your mother's name?" Ciccio was asking her. She turned to +him. He sat with the pen perched flourishingly at the end of his +fingers, suspended in the serious and artistic business of filling in a +form. And his face had a dark luminousness, like a dark transparence +which was shut and has now expanded. She quivered, as if it was more +than she could bear. For his face was open like a flower right to +the depths of his soul, a dark, lovely translucency, vulnerable to +the deep quick of his soul. The lovely, rich darkness of his southern +nature, so different from her own, exposing itself now in its passional +vulnerability, made her go white with a kind of fear. For an instant, +her face seemed drawn and old as she looked down at him, answering his +questions. Then her eyes became sightless with tears, she stooped as if +to look at his writing, and quickly kissed his fingers that held the +pen, there in the midst of the crowded, vulgar Consulate. + +He stayed suspended, again looking up at her with the bright, +unfolded eyes of a wild creature which plays and is not seen. A +faint smile, very beautiful to her, was on his face. What did he see +when he looked at her? She did not know, she did not know. And she +would never know. For an instant, she swore inside herself that God +Himself should not take her away from this man. She would commit +herself to him through every eternity. And then the vagueness came +over her again, she turned aside, photographically seeing the crowd +in the Consulate, but really unconscious. His movement as he rose +seemed to move her in her sleep, she turned to him at once. + +It was early in November before they could leave for Italy, and her +dim, lustrous state lasted all the time. She found herself at +Charing Cross in the early morning, in all the bustle of catching +the Continental train. Giuseppe was there, and Gemma his wife, and +two of the children, besides three other Italian friends of Ciccio. +They all crowded up the platform. Giuseppe had insisted that Ciccio +should take second-class tickets. They were very early. Alvina and +Ciccio were installed in a second-class compartment, with all their +packages, Ciccio was pale, yellowish under his tawny skin, and +nervous. He stood excitedly on the platform talking in Italian--or +rather, in his own dialect--whilst Alvina sat quite still in her +corner. Sometimes one of the women or one of the children came to +say a few words to her, or Giuseppe hurried to her with illustrated +papers. They treated her as if she were some sort of invalid or +angel, now she was leaving. But most of their attention they gave to +Ciccio, talking at him rapidly all at once, whilst he answered, and +glanced in this way and that, under his fine lashes, and smiled his +old, nervous, meaningless smile. He was curiously upset. + +Time came to shut the doors. The women and children kissed Alvina, +saying: + +"You'll be all right, eh? Going to Italy--!" And then profound and +meaningful nods, which she could not interpret, but which were +fraught surely with good-fellowship. + +Then they all kissed Ciccio. The men took him in their arms and +kissed him on either cheek, the children lifted their faces in eager +anticipation of the double kiss. Strange, how eager they were for +this embrace--how they all kept taking Ciccio's hand, one after the +other, whilst he smiled constrainedly and nervously. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE JOURNEY ACROSS + + +The train began to move. Giuseppe ran alongside, holding Ciccio's +hand still; the women and children were crying and waving their +handkerchiefs, the other men were shouting messages, making strange, +eager gestures. And Alvina sat quite still, wonderingly. And so the +big, heavy train drew out, leaving the others small and dim on the +platform. It was foggy, the river was a sea of yellow beneath the +ponderous iron bridge. The morning was dim and dank. + +The train was very full. Next to Alvina sat a trim Frenchwoman +reading _L'Aiglon_. There was a terrible encumbrance of packages and +luggage everywhere. Opposite her sat Ciccio, his black overcoat open +over his pale-grey suit, his black hat a little over his left eye. +He glanced at her from time to time, smiling constrainedly. She +remained very still. They ran through Bromley and out into the open +country. It was grey, with shivers of grey sunshine. On the downs +there was thin snow. The air in the train was hot, heavy with the +crowd and tense with excitement and uneasiness. The train seemed to +rush ponderously, massively, across the Weald. + +And so, through Folkestone to the sea. There was sun in the sky now, +and white clouds, in the sort of hollow sky-dome above the grey +earth with its horizon walls of fog. The air was still. The sea +heaved with a sucking noise inside the dock. Alvina and Ciccio sat +aft on the second-class deck, their bags near them. He put a white +muffler round himself, Alvina hugged herself in her beaver scarf and +muff. She looked tender and beautiful in her still vagueness, and +Ciccio, hovering about her, was beautiful too, his estrangement gave +him a certain wistful nobility which for the moment put him beyond +all class inferiority. The passengers glanced at them across the +magic of estrangement. + +The sea was very still. The sun was fairly high in the open sky, +where white cloud-tops showed against the pale, wintry blue. Across +the sea came a silver sun-track. And Alvina and Ciccio looked at the +sun, which stood a little to the right of the ship's course. + +"The sun!" said Ciccio, nodding towards the orb and smiling to her. + +"I love it," she said. + +He smiled again, silently. He was strangely moved: she did not know +why. + +The wind was cold over the wintry sea, though the sun's beams were +warm. They rose, walked round the cabins. Other ships were at +sea--destroyers and battleships, grey, low, and sinister on the +water. Then a tall bright schooner glimmered far down the channel. +Some brown fishing smacks kept together. All was very still in the +wintry sunshine of the Channel. + +So they turned to walk to the stern of the boat. And Alvina's heart +suddenly contracted. She caught Ciccio's arm, as the boat rolled +gently. For there behind, behind all the sunshine, was England. +England, beyond the water, rising with ash-grey, corpse-grey cliffs, +and streaks of snow on the downs above. England, like a long, +ash-grey coffin slowly submerging. She watched it, fascinated and +terrified. It seemed to repudiate the sunshine, to remain +unilluminated, long and ash-grey and dead, with streaks of snow like +cerements. That was England! Her thoughts flew to Woodhouse, the +grey centre of it all. Home! + +Her heart died within her. Never had she felt so utterly strange and +far-off. Ciccio at her side was as nothing, as spell-bound she +watched, away off, behind all the sunshine and the sea, the grey, +snow-streaked substance of England slowly receding and sinking, +submerging. She felt she could not believe it. It was like looking +at something else. What? It was like a long, ash-grey coffin, +winter, slowly submerging in the sea. England? + +She turned again to the sun. But clouds and veils were already +weaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreover. She +sat very still for a long time, almost an eternity. And when she +looked round again there was only a bank of mist behind, beyond the +sea: a bank of mist, and a few grey, stalking ships. She must watch +for the coast of France. + +And there it was already, looming up grey and amorphous, patched +with snow. It had a grey, heaped, sordid look in the November light. +She had imagined Boulogne gay and brilliant. Whereas it was more +grey and dismal than England. But not that magical, mystic, phantom +look. + +The ship slowly put about, and backed into the harbour. She watched +the quay approach. Ciccio was gathering up the luggage. Then came +the first cry one ever hears: "_Porteur! Porteur!_ Want a +_porteur_?" A porter in a blouse strung the luggage on his strap, +and Ciccio and Alvina entered the crush for the exit and the +passport inspection. There was a tense, eager, frightened crowd, and +officials shouting directions in French and English. Alvina found +herself at last before a table where bearded men in uniforms were +splashing open the big pink sheets of the English passports: she +felt strange and uneasy, that her passport was unimpressive and +Italian. The official scrutinized her, and asked questions of +Ciccio. Nobody asked her anything--she might have been Ciccio's +shadow. So they went through to the vast, crowded cavern of a +Customs house, where they found their porter waving to them in the +mob. Ciccio fought in the mob while the porter whisked off Alvina to +get seats in the big train. And at last she was planted once more in +a seat, with Ciccio's place reserved beside her. And there she sat, +looking across the railway lines at the harbour, in the last burst +of grey sunshine. Men looked at her, officials stared at her, +soldiers made remarks about her. And at last, after an eternity, +Ciccio came along the platform, the porter trotting behind. + +They sat and ate the food they had brought, and drank wine and tea. +And after weary hours the train set off through snow-patched country +to Paris. Everywhere was crowded, the train was stuffy without being +warm. Next to Alvina sat a large, fat, youngish Frenchman who +overflowed over her in a hot fashion. Darkness began to fall. The +train was very late. There were strange and frightening delays. +Strange lights appeared in the sky, everybody seemed to be listening +for strange noises. It was all such a whirl and confusion that +Alvina lost count, relapsed into a sort of stupidity. Gleams, +flashes, noises and then at last the frenzy of Paris. + +It was night, a black city, and snow falling, and no train that +night across to the Gare de Lyon. In a state of semi-stupefaction +after all the questionings and examinings and blusterings, they +were finally allowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant +another wild tussle with a Paris taxi-driver, in the filtering snow. +So they were deposited in the Gare de Lyon. + +And the first person who rushed upon them was Geoffrey, in a rather +grimy private's uniform. He had already seen some hard service, and +had a wild, bewildered look. He kissed Ciccio and burst into tears +on his shoulder, there in the great turmoil of the entrance hall of +the Gare de Lyon. People looked, but nobody seemed surprised. +Geoffrey sobbed, and the tears came silently down Ciccio's cheeks. + +"I've waited for you since five o'clock, and I've got to go back +now. Ciccio! Ciccio! I wanted so badly to see you. I shall never see +thee again, brother, my brother!" cried Gigi, and a sob shook him. + +"Gigi! Mon Gigi. Tu as done regu ma lettre?" + +"Yesterday. O Ciccio, Ciccio, I shall die without thee!" + +"But no, Gigi, frère. You won't die." + +"Yes, Ciccio, I shall. I know I shall." + +"I say _no_, brother," said Ciccio. But a spasm suddenly took him, +he pulled off his hat and put it over his face and sobbed into it. + +"Adieu, ami! Adieu!" cried Gigi, clutching the other man's arm. +Ciccio took his hat from his tear-stained face and put it on his +head. Then the two men embraced. + +"_Toujours à toi!_" said Geoffrey, with a strange, solemn salute in +front of Ciccio and Alvina. Then he turned on his heel and marched +rapidly out of the station, his soiled soldier's overcoat flapping +in the wind at the door. Ciccio watched him go. Then he turned and +looked with haunted eyes into the eyes of Alvina. And then they +hurried down the desolate platform in the darkness. Many people, +Italians, largely, were camped waiting there, while bits of snow +wavered down. Ciccio bought food and hired cushions. The train +backed in. There was a horrible fight for seats, men scrambling +through windows. Alvina got a place--but Ciccio had to stay in the +corridor. + +Then the long night journey through France, slow and blind. The +train was now so hot that the iron plate on the floor burnt Alvina's +feet. Outside she saw glimpses of snow. A fat Italian hotel-keeper +put on a smoking cap, covered the light, and spread himself before +Alvina. In the next carriage a child was screaming. It screamed all +the night--all the way from Paris to Chambéry it screamed. The train +came to sudden halts, and stood still in the snow. The hotel-keeper +snored. Alvina became almost comatose, in the burning heat of the +carriage. And again the train rumbled on. And again she saw glimpses +of stations, glimpses of snow, through the chinks in the curtained +windows. And again there was a jerk and a sudden halt, a drowsy +mutter from the sleepers, somebody uncovering the light, and +somebody covering it again, somebody looking out, somebody tramping +down the corridor, the child screaming. + +The child belonged to two poor Italians--Milanese--a shred of a thin +little man, and a rather loose woman. They had five tiny children, +all boys: and the four who could stand on their feet all wore +scarlet caps. The fifth was a baby. Alvina had seen a French +official yelling at the poor shred of a young father on the +platform. + +When morning came, and the bleary people pulled the curtains, it was +a clear dawn, and they were in the south of France. There was no +sign of snow. The landscape was half southern, half Alpine. White +houses with brownish tiles stood among almond trees and cactus. It +was beautiful, and Alvina felt she had known it all before, in a +happier life. The morning was graceful almost as spring. She went +out in the corridor to talk to Ciccio. + +He was on his feet with his back to the inner window, rolling +slightly to the motion of the train. His face was pale, he had that +sombre, haunted, unhappy look. Alvina, thrilled by the southern +country, was smiling excitedly. + +"This is my first morning abroad," she said. + +"Yes," he answered. + +"I love it here," she said. "Isn't this like Italy?" + +He looked darkly out of the window, and shook his head. + +But the sombre look remained on his face. She watched him. And her +heart sank as she had never known it sink before. + +"Are you thinking of Gigi?" she said. + +He looked at her, with a faint, unhappy, bitter smile, but he said +nothing. He seemed far off from her. A wild unhappiness beat inside +her breast. She went down the corridor, away from him, to avoid this +new agony, which after all was not her agony. She listened to the +chatter of French and Italian in the corridor. She felt the +excitement and terror of France, inside the railway carriage: and +outside she saw white oxen slowly ploughing, beneath the lingering +yellow poplars of the sub-Alps, she saw peasants looking up, she saw +a woman holding a baby to her breast, watching the train, she saw +the excited, yeasty crowds at the station. And they passed a river, +and a great lake. And it all seemed bigger, nobler than England. She +felt vaster influences spreading around, the Past was greater, more +magnificent in these regions. For the first time the nostalgia of +the vast Roman and classic world took possession of her. And she +found it splendid. For the first time she opened her eyes on a +continent, the Alpine core of a continent. And for the first time +she realized what it was to escape from the smallish perfection of +England, into the grander imperfection of a great continent. + +Near Chambéry they went down for breakfast to the restaurant car. +And secretly, she was very happy. Ciccio's distress made her uneasy. +But underneath she was extraordinarily relieved and glad. Ciccio did +not trouble her very much. The sense of the bigness of the lands +about her, the excitement of travelling with Continental people, the +pleasantness of her coffee and rolls and honey, the feeling that +vast events were taking place--all this stimulated her. She had +brushed, as it were, the fringe of the terror of the war and the +invasion. Fear was seething around her. And yet she was excited and +glad. The vast world was in one of its convulsions, and she was +moving amongst it. Somewhere, she believed in the convulsion, the +event elated her. + +The train began to climb up to Modane. How wonderful the Alps +were!--what a bigness, an unbreakable power was in the mountains! Up +and up the train crept, and she looked at the rocky slopes, the +glistening peaks of snow in the blue heaven, the hollow valleys with +fir trees and low-roofed houses. There were quarries near the +railway, and men working. There was a strange mountain town, +dirty-looking. And still the train climbed up and up, in the hot +morning sunshine, creeping slowly round the mountain loops, so that +a little brown dog from one of the cottages ran alongside the train +for a long way, barking at Alvina, even running ahead of the +creeping, snorting train, and barking at the people ahead. Alvina, +looking out, saw the two unfamiliar engines snorting out their +smoke round the bend ahead. And the morning wore away to mid-day. + +Ciccio became excited as they neared Modane, the frontier station. +His eye lit up again, he pulled himself together for the entrance +into Italy. Slowly the train rolled in to the dismal station. And +then a confusion indescribable, of porters and masses of luggage, +the unspeakable crush and crowd at the customs barriers, the more +intense crowd through the passport office, all like a madness. + +They were out on the platform again, they had secured their places. +Ciccio wanted to have luncheon in the station restaurant. They went +through the passages. And there in the dirty station gang-ways and +big corridors dozens of Italians were lying on the ground, men, +women, children, camping with their bundles and packages in heaps. +They were either emigrants or refugees. Alvina had never seen people +herd about like cattle, dumb, brute cattle. It impressed her. She +could not grasp that an Italian labourer would lie down just where +he was tired, in the street, on a station, in any corner, like a +dog. + +In the afternoon they were slipping down the Alps towards Turin. And +everywhere was snow--deep, white, wonderful snow, beautiful and +fresh, glistening in the afternoon light all down the mountain +slopes, on the railway track, almost seeming to touch the train. And +twilight was falling. And at the stations people crowded in once +more. + +It had been dark a long time when they reached Turin. Many people +alighted from the train, many surged to get in. But Ciccio and +Alvina had seats side by side. They were becoming tired now. But +they were in Italy. Once more they went down for a meal. And then +the train set off again in the night for Alessandria and Genoa, Pisa +and Rome. + +It was night, the train ran better, there was a more easy sense in +Italy. Ciccio talked a little with other travelling companions. And +Alvina settled her cushion, and slept more or less till Genoa. After +the long wait at Genoa she dozed off again. She woke to see the sea +in the moonlight beneath her--a lovely silvery sea, coming right to +the carriage. The train seemed to be tripping on the edge of the +Mediterranean, round bays, and between dark rocks and under castles, +a night-time fairy-land, for hours. She watched spell-bound: +spell-bound by the magic of the world itself. And she thought to +herself: "Whatever life may be, and whatever horror men have made +of it, the world is a lovely place, a magic place, something to +marvel over. The world is an amazing place." + +This thought dozed her off again. Yet she had a consciousness of +tunnels and hills and of broad marshes pallid under a moon and a +coming dawn. And in the dawn there was Pisa. She watched the word +hanging in the station in the dimness: "Pisa." Ciccio told her +people were changing for Florence. It all seemed wonderful to +her--wonderful. She sat and watched the black station--then she +heard the sound of the child's trumpet. And it did not occur to her +to connect the train's moving on with the sound of the trumpet. + +But she saw the golden dawn, a golden sun coming out of level +country. She loved it. She loved being in Italy. She loved the +lounging carelessness of the train, she liked having Italian money, +hearing the Italians round her--though they were neither as +beautiful nor as melodious as she expected. She loved watching the +glowing antique landscape. She read and read again: "E pericoloso +sporgersi," and "E vietato fumare," and the other little magical +notices on the carriages. Ciccio told her what they meant, and how +to say them. And sympathetic Italians opposite at once asked him if +they were married and who and what his bride was, and they gazed at +her with bright, approving eyes, though she felt terribly bedraggled +and travel-worn. + +"You come from England? Yes! Nice contry!" said a man in a corner, +leaning forward to make this display of his linguistic capacity. + +"Not so nice as this," said Alvina. + +"Eh?" + +Alvina repeated herself. + +"Not so nice? Oh? No! Fog, eh!" The fat man whisked his fingers in +the air, to indicate fog in the atmosphere. "But nice contry! +Very--_convenient_." + +He sat up in triumph, having achieved this word. And the +conversation once more became a spatter of Italian. The women were +very interested. They looked at Alvina, at every atom of her. And +she divined that they were wondering if she was already with child. +Sure enough, they were asking Ciccio in Italian if she was "making +him a baby." But he shook his head and did not know, just a bit +constrained. So they ate slices of sausages and bread and fried +rice-balls, with wonderfully greasy fingers, and they drank red +wine in big throatfuls out of bottles, and they offered their fare +to Ciccio and Alvina, and were charmed when she said to Ciccio she +_would_ have some bread and sausage. He picked the strips off the +sausage for her with his fingers, and made her a sandwich with a +roll. The women watched her bite it, and bright-eyed and pleased +they said, nodding their heads-- + +"Buono? Buono?" + +And she, who knew this word, understood, and replied: + +"Yes, good! Buono!" nodding her head likewise. Which caused immense +satisfaction. The women showed the whole paper of sausage slices, +and nodded and beamed and said: + +"Se vuole ancora--!" + +And Alvina bit her wide sandwich, and smiled, and said: + +"Yes, awfully nice!" + +And the women looked at each other and said something, and Ciccio +interposed, shaking his head. But one woman ostentatiously wiped a +bottle mouth with a clean handkerchief, and offered the bottle to +Alvina, saying: + +"Vino buono. Vecchio! Vecchio!" nodding violently and indicating +that she should drink. She looked at Ciccio, and he looked back at +her, doubtingly. + +"Shall I drink some?" she said. + +"If you like," he replied, making an Italian gesture of +indifference. + +So she drank some of the wine, and it dribbled on to her chin. She +was not good at managing a bottle. But she liked the feeling of +warmth it gave her. She was very tired. + +"Si piace? Piace?" + +"Do you like it," interpreted Ciccio. + +"Yes, very much. What is very much?" she asked of Ciccio. + +"Molto." + +"Si, molto. Of course, I knew molto, from, music," she added. + +The women made noises, and smiled and nodded, and so the train +pulsed on till they came to Rome. There was again, the wild scramble +with luggage, a general leave taking, and then the masses of people +on the station at Rome. _Roma! Roma!_ What was it to Alvina but a +name, and a crowded, excited station, and Ciccio running after the +luggage, and the pair of them eating in a station restaurant? + +Almost immediately after eating, they were in the train once more, +with new fellow travellers, running south this time towards Naples. +In a daze of increasing weariness Alvina watched the dreary, to her +sordid-seeming Campagna that skirts the railway, the broken aqueduct +trailing in the near distance over the stricken plain. She saw a +tram-car, far out from everywhere, running up to cross the railway. +She saw it was going to Frascati. + +And slowly the hills approached--they passed the vines of the +foothills, the reeds, and were among the mountains. Wonderful little +towns perched fortified on rocks and peaks, mountains rose straight +up off the level plain, like old topographical prints, rivers +wandered in the wild, rocky places, it all seemed ancient and +shaggy, savage still, under all its remote civilization, this region +of the Alban Mountains south of Rome. So the train clambered up and +down, and went round corners. + +They had not far to go now. Alvina was almost too tired to care what +it would be like. They were going to Ciccio's native village. They +were to stay in the house of his uncle, his mother's brother. This +uncle had been a model in London. He had built a house on the land +left by Ciccio's grandfather. He lived alone now, for his wife was +dead and his children were abroad. Giuseppe was his son: Giuseppe of +Battersea, in whose house Alvina had stayed. + +This much Alvina knew. She knew that a portion of the land down at +Pescocalascio belonged to Ciccio: a bit of half-savage, ancient +earth that had been left to his mother by old Francesco Califano, +her hard-grinding peasant father. This land remained integral in the +property, and was worked by Ciccio's two uncles, Pancrazio and +Giovanni. Pancrazio was the well-to-do uncle, who had been a model +and had built a "villa." Giovanni was not much good. That was how +Ciccio put it. + +They expected Pancrazio to meet them at the station. Ciccio +collected his bundles and put his hat straight and peered out of the +window into the steep mountains of the afternoon. There was a town +in the opening between steep hills, a town on a flat plain that ran +into the mountains like a gulf. The train drew up. They had arrived. + +Alvina was so tired she could hardly climb down to the platform. It +was about four o'clock. Ciccio looked up and down for Pancrazio, but +could not see him. So he put his luggage into a pile on the +platform, told Alvina to stand by it, whilst he went off for the +registered boxes. A porter came and asked her questions, of which +she understood nothing. Then at last came Ciccio, shouldering one +small trunk, whilst a porter followed, shouldering another. Out they +trotted, leaving Alvina abandoned with the pile of hand luggage. She +waited. The train drew out. Ciccio and the porter came bustling +back. They took her out through the little gate, to where, in the +flat desert space behind the railway, stood two great drab +motor-omnibuses, and a rank of open carriages. Ciccio was handing up +the handbags to the roof of one of the big post-omnibuses. When it +was finished the man on the roof came down, and Ciccio gave him and +the station porter each sixpence. The station-porter immediately +threw his coin on the ground with a gesture of indignant contempt, +spread his arms wide and expostulated violently. Ciccio expostulated +back again, and they pecked at each other, verbally, like two birds. +It ended by the rolling up of the burly, black moustached driver of +the omnibus. Whereupon Ciccio quite amicably gave the porter two +nickel twopences in addition to the sixpence, whereupon the porter +quite lovingly wished him "buon' viaggio." + +So Alvina was stowed into the body of the omnibus, with Ciccio at +her side. They were no sooner seated than a voice was heard, in +beautifully-modulated English: + +"You are here! Why how have I missed you?" + +It was Pancrazio, a smallish, rather battered-looking, shabby +Italian of sixty or more, with a big moustache and reddish-rimmed +eyes and a deeply-lined face. He was presented to Alvina. + +"How have I missed you?" he said. "I was on the station when the +train came, and I did not see you." + +But it was evident he had taken wine. He had no further opportunity +to talk. The compartment was full of large, mountain-peasants with +black hats and big cloaks and overcoats. They found Pancrazio a seat +at the far end, and there he sat, with his deeply-lined, impassive +face and slightly glazed eyes. He had yellow-brown eyes like Ciccio. +But in the uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way, the +eyes looked dull like those of some old, rakish tom-cat, they were +slightly rimmed with red. A curious person! And his English, though +slow, was beautifully pronounced. He glanced at Alvina with slow, +impersonal glances, not at all a stare. And he sat for the most part +impassive and abstract as a Red Indian. + +At the last moment a large black priest was crammed in, and the door +shut behind him. Every available seat was let down and occupied. The +second great post-omnibus rolled away, and then the one for Mola +followed, rolling Alvina and Ciccio over the next stage of their +journey. + +The sun was already slanting to the mountain tops, shadows were +falling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged at a great +speed along a straight white road, which cut through the cultivated +level straight towards the core of the mountain. By the road-side, +peasant men in cloaks, peasant women in full-gathered dresses with +white bodices or blouses having great full sleeves, tramped in the +ridge of grass, driving cows or goats, or leading heavily-laden +asses. The women had coloured kerchiefs on their heads, like the +women Alvina remembered at the Sunday-School treats, who used to +tell fortunes with green little love-birds. And they all tramped +along towards the blue shadow of the closing-in mountains, leaving +the peaks of the town behind on the left. + +At a branch-road the 'bus suddenly stopped, and there it sat calmly +in the road beside an icy brook, in the falling twilight. Great +moth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood; the +peasants left behind began to come up again, in picturesque groups. +The icy brook tinkled, goats, pigs and cows wandered and shook their +bells along the grassy borders of the road and the flat, unbroken +fields, being driven slowly home. Peasants jumped out of the omnibus +on to the road, to chat--and a sharp air came in. High overhead, as +the sun went down, was the curious icy radiance of snow mountains, +and a pinkness, while shadow deepened in the valley. + +At last, after about half an hour, the youth who was conductor of +the omnibus came running down the wild side-road, everybody +clambered in, and away the vehicle charged, into the neck of the +plain. With a growl and a rush it swooped up the first loop of the +ascent. Great precipices rose on the right, the ruddiness of sunset +above them. The road wound and swirled, trying to get up the pass. +The omnibus pegged slowly up, then charged round a corner, swirled +into another loop, and pegged heavily once more. It seemed dark +between the closing-in mountains. The rocks rose very high, the +road looped and swerved from one side of the wide defile to the +other, the vehicle pulsed and persisted. Sometimes there was a +house, sometimes a wood of oak-trees, sometimes the glimpse of a +ravine, then the tall white glisten of snow above the earthly +blackness. And still they went on and on, up the darkness. + +Peering ahead, Alvina thought she saw the hollow between the peaks, +which was the top of the pass. And every time the omnibus took a new +turn, she thought it was coming out on the top of this hollow +between the heights. But no--the road coiled right away again. + +A wild little village came in sight. This was the destination. Again +no. Only the tall, handsome mountain youth who had sat across from +her, descended grumbling because the 'bus had brought him past his +road, the driver having refused to pull up. Everybody expostulated +with him, and he dropped into the shadow. The big priest squeezed +into his place. The 'bus wound on and on, and always towards that +hollow sky-line between the high peaks. + +At last they ran up between buildings nipped between high +rock-faces, and out into a little market-place, the crown of the +pass. The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended. +There she was, in a wild centre of an old, unfinished little +mountain town. The façade of a church rose from a small eminence. A +white road ran to the right, where a great open valley showed +faintly beyond and beneath. Low, squalid sort of buildings stood +around--with some high buildings. And there were bare little trees. +The stars were in the sky, the air was icy. People stood darkly, +excitedly about, women with an odd, shell-pattern head-dress of +gofered linen, something like a parlour-maid's cap, came and stared +hard. They were hard-faced mountain women. + +Pancrazio was talking to Ciccio in dialect. + +"I couldn't get a cart to come down," he said in English. "But I +shall find one here. Now what will you do? Put the luggage in +Grazia's place while you wait?--" + +They went across the open place to a sort of shop called the Post +Restaurant. It was a little hole with an earthen floor and a smell +of cats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier, in +which charcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Ciccio +ordered coffee with rum--and the hard-faced Grazia, in her unfresh +head-dress, dabbled the little dirty coffee-cups in dirty water, +took the coffee-pot out of the ashes, poured in the old black +boiling coffee three parts full, and slopped the cup over with rum. +Then she dashed in a spoonful of sugar, to add to the pool in the +saucer, and her customers were served. + +However, Ciccio drank up, so Alvina did likewise, burning her lips +smartly. Ciccio paid and ducked his way out. + +"Now what will you buy?" asked Pancrazio. + +"Buy?" said Ciccio. + +"Food," said Pancrazio. "Have you brought food?" + +"No," said Ciccio. + +So they trailed up stony dark ways to a butcher, and got a big red +slice of meat; to a baker, and got enormous flat loaves. Sugar and +coffee they bought. And Pancrazio lamented in his elegant English +that no butter was to be obtained. Everywhere the hard-faced women +came and stared into Alvina's face, asking questions. And both +Ciccio and Pancrazio answered rather coldly, with some _hauteur_. +There was evidently not too much intimacy between the people of +Pescocalascio and these semi-townfolk of Ossona. Alvina felt as if +she were in a strange, hostile country, in the darkness of the +savage little mountain town. + +At last they were ready. They mounted into a two-wheeled cart, +Alvina and Ciccio behind, Pancrazio and the driver in front, the +luggage promiscuous. The bigger things were left for the morrow. It +was icy cold, with a flashing darkness. The moon would not rise till +later. + +And so, without any light but that of the stars, the cart went +spanking and rattling downhill, down the pale road which wound down +the head of the valley to the gulf of darkness below. Down in the +darkness into the darkness they rattled, wildly, and without heed, +the young driver making strange noises to his dim horse, cracking a +whip and asking endless questions of Pancrazio. + +Alvina sat close to Ciccio. He remained almost impassive. The wind +was cold, the stars flashed. And they rattled down the rough, broad +road under the rocks, down and down in the darkness. Ciccio sat +crouching forwards, staring ahead. Alvina was aware of mountains, +rocks, and stars. + +"I didn't know it was so _wild_!" she said. + +"It is not much," he said. There was a sad, plangent note in his +voice. He put his hand upon her. + +"You don't like it?" he said. + +"I think it's lovely--wonderful," she said, dazed. + +He held her passionately. But she did not feel she needed +protecting. It was all wonderful and amazing to her. She could not +understand why he seemed upset and in a sort of despair. To her +there was magnificence in the lustrous stars and the steepnesses, +magic, rather terrible and grand. + +They came down to the level valley bed, and went rolling along. +There was a house, and a lurid red fire burning outside against the +wall, and dark figures about it. + +"What is that?" she said. "What are they doing?" + +"I don't know," said Ciccio. "Cosa fanno li--eh?" + +"Ka--? Fanno il buga'--" said the driver. + +"They are doing some washing," said Pancrazio, explanatory. + +"Washing!" said Alvina. + +"Boiling the clothes," said Ciccio. + +On the cart rattled and bumped, in the cold night, down the high-way +in the valley. Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes. +Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. She felt she was quite, +quite lost. She had gone out of the world, over the border, into +some place of mystery. She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to +England--all lost. + +They passed through a darkness of woods, with a swift sound of cold +water. And then suddenly the cart pulled up. Some one came out of a +lighted doorway in the darkness. + +"We must get down here--the cart doesn't go any further," said +Pancrazio. + +"Are we there?" said Alvina. + +"No, it is about a mile. But we must leave the cart." + +Ciccio asked questions in Italian. Alvina climbed down. + +"Good-evening! Are you cold?" came a loud, raucous, American-Italian +female voice. It was another relation of Ciccio's. Alvina stared and +looked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who +stood in the light of the doorway. + +"Rather cold," she said. + +"Come in, and warm yourself," said the young woman. + +"My sister's husband lives here," explained Pancrazio. + +Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of +inn. On the earthen floor glowed a great round pan of charcoal, +which looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at +a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was +pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave. + +"Warm yourself," said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of +fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down. +The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards. +Ciccio came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively, +watching Alvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature. +Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect. + +There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came and +said to her: + +"They want to know if we will stay the night here." + +"I would rather go on home," she said. + +He averted his face at the word home. + +"You see," said Pancrazio, "I think you might be more comfortable +here, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care for +it--" + +Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows in +their black hats. She was thinking how she would be "more +comfortable" here. + +"I would rather go on," she said. + +"Then we will get the donkey," said Pancrazio stoically. And Alvina +followed him out on to the high-road. + +From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a +lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes. +His legs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide +straps, and he was shod in silent skin sandals. + +"This is my brother Giovanni," said Pancrazio. "He is not quite +sensible." Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect. + +Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern to +Pancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the +ass. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the +lantern the things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather +precarious heap. Pancrazio tested the rope again. + +"There! Go on, and I shall come in a minute." + +"Ay-er-er!" cried Giovanni at the ass, striking the flank of the +beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark high-way, +stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading +the ass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the +quiet step of the ass. + +She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried the +lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were +trees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisy +water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountain +high-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead. + +"How strange it is!" said Alvina to Ciccio. "Are you glad you have +come home?" + +"It isn't my home," he replied, as if the word fretted him. "Yes, I +like to see it again. But it isn't the place for young people to +live in. You will see how you like it." + +She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. The +latter now came running to catch them up. + +"I think you will be tired," he said. "You ought to have stayed at +my relation's house down there." + +"No, I am not tired," said Alvina. "But I'm hungry." + +"Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house." + +They plodded in the darkness of the valley high-road. Pancrazio took +the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A +great flat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little +valise. Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing +him the lantern. Ciccio picked up the bread and put it under his +arm. + +"Break me a little piece," said Alvina. + +And in the darkness they both chewed bread. + +After a while, Pancrazio halted with the ass just ahead, and took +the lantern from Giovanni. + +"We must leave the road here," he said. + +And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small +track descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvina +ventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light. +In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all picked +their way down into the great white-bouldered bed of a mountain river. +It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars. +There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial-sounding. The place +seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes, +along the far shore. + +Pancrazio swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through the +uneven boulders till they came to the river itself--not very wide, +but rushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over. +Alvina crossed rather tremulous, followed by Pancrazio with the +light, and Ciccio with the bread and the valise. They could hear the +click of the ass and the ejaculations of Giovanni. + +Pancrazio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw the +dim ass come up, wander uneasily to the stream, plant his fore legs, +and sniff the water, his nose right down. + +"Er! Err!" cried Pancrazio, striking the beast on the flank. + +But it only lifted its nose and turned aside. It would not take the +stream. Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turned +upstream. + +"Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense," his voice +floated angrily across the chill darkness. + +Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony river-bed, in +the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the +men crawl upstream with the lantern. + +Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping +down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up +with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And +the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long +deliberation he drew back. Angry language sounded through the +crystal air. The group with the lantern moved again upstream, +becoming smaller. + +Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lantern looked small up the +distance. But there--a clocking, shouting, splashing sound. + +"He is going over," said Ciccio. + +Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern. + +"Oh the stupid beast! I could kill him!" cried he. + +"Isn't he used to the water?" said Alvina. + +"Yes, he is. But he won't go except where he thinks he will go. You +might kill him before he should go." + +They picked their way across the river bed, to the wild scrub and +bushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which +came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And +then they took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks. +Alvina felt the uneven scramble a great effort. But she got up. +Again they waited for the ass. And then again they struck off to +the right, under some trees. + +A house appeared dimly. + +"Is that it?" said Alvina. + +"No. It belongs to me. But that is not my house. A few steps +further. Now we are on my land." + +They were treading a rough sort of grass-land--and still climbing. +It ended in a sudden little scramble between big stones, and +suddenly they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking +house: but it was all dark. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Pancrazio, "they have done nothing that I told +them." He made queer noises of exasperation. + +"What?" said Alvina. + +"Neither made a fire nor anything. Wait a minute--" + +The ass came up. Ciccio, Alvina, Giovanni and the ass waited in the +frosty starlight under the wild house. Pancrazio disappeared round +the back. Ciccio talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy, as if he felt +depressed. + +Pancrazio returned with the lantern, and opened the big door. Alvina +followed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farm +implements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, and +whence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse of +lantern-light, as Pancrazio pulled the string and entered the +kitchen: a dim-walled room with a vaulted roof and a great dark, +open hearth, fireless: a bare room, with a little rough dark +furniture: an unswept stone floor: iron-barred windows, rather +small, in the deep-thickness of the wall, one-half shut with a drab +shutter. It was rather like a room on the stage, gloomy, not meant +to be lived in. + +"I will make a light," said Pancrazio, taking a lamp from the +mantel-piece, and proceeding to wind it up. + +Ciccio stood behind Alvina, silent. He had put down the bread and +valise on a wooden chest. She turned to him. + +"It's a beautiful room," she said. + +Which, with its high, vaulted roof, its dirty whitewash, its great +black chimney, it really was. But Ciccio did not understand. He +smiled gloomily. + +The lamp was lighted. Alvina looked round in wonder. + +"Now I will make a fire. You, Ciccio, will help Giovanni with the +donkey," said Pancrazio, scuttling with the lantern. + +Alvina looked at the room. There was a wooden settle in front of the +hearth, stretching its back to the room. There was a little table +under a square, recessed window, on whose sloping ledge were +newspapers, scattered letters, nails and a hammer. On the table were +dried beans and two maize cobs. In a corner were shelves, with two +chipped enamel plates, and a small table underneath, on which stood +a bucket of water with a dipper. Then there was a wooden chest, two +little chairs, and a litter of faggots, cane, vine-twigs, bare +maize-hubs, oak-twigs filling the corner by the hearth. + +Pancrazio came scrambling in with fresh faggots. + +"They have not done what I told them, the tiresome people!" he said. +"I told them to make a fire and prepare the house. You will be +uncomfortable in my poor home. I have no woman, nothing, everything +is wrong--" + +He broke the pieces of cane and kindled them in the hearth. Soon +there was a good blaze. Ciccio came in with the bags and the food. + +"I had better go upstairs and take my things off," said Alvina. "I +am so hungry." + +"You had better keep your coat on," said Pancrazio. "The room is +cold." Which it was, ice-cold. She shuddered a little. She took off +her hat and fur. + +"Shall we fry some meat?" said Pancrazio. + +He took a frying-pan, found lard in the wooden chest--it was the +food-chest--and proceeded to fry pieces of meat in a frying-pan over +the fire. Alvina wanted to lay the table. But there was no cloth. + +"We will sit here, as I do, to eat," said Pancrazio. He produced two +enamel plates and one soup-plate, three penny iron forks and two old +knives, and a little grey, coarse salt in a wooden bowl. These he +placed on the seat of the settle in front of the fire. Ciccio was +silent. + +The settle was dark and greasy. Alvina feared for her clothes. But +she sat with her enamel plate and her impossible fork, a piece of +meat and a chunk of bread, and ate. It was difficult--but the food +was good, and the fire blazed. Only there was a film of wood-smoke +in the room, rather smarting. Ciccio sat on the settle beside her, +and ate in large mouthfuls. + +"I think it's fun," said Alvina. + +He looked at her with dark, haunted, gloomy eyes. She wondered what +was the matter with him. + +"Don't you think it's fun?" she said, smiling. + +He smiled slowly. + +"You won't like it," he said. + +"Why not?" she cried, in panic lest he prophesied truly. + +Pancrazio scuttled in and out with the lantern. He brought wrinkled +pears, and green, round grapes, and walnuts, on a white cloth, and +presented them. + +"I think my pears are still good," he said. "You must eat them, and +excuse my uncomfortable house." + +Giovanni came in with a big bowl of soup and a bottle of milk. There +was room only for three on the settle before the hearth. He pushed +his chair among the litter of fire-kindling, and sat down. He had +bright, bluish eyes, and a fattish face--was a man of about fifty, +but had a simple, kindly, slightly imbecile face. All the men kept +their hats on. + +The soup was from Giovanni's cottage. It was for Pancrazio and him. +But there was only one spoon. So Pancrazio ate a dozen spoonfuls, +and handed the bowl to Giovanni--who protested and tried to +refuse--but accepted, and ate ten spoonfuls, then handed the bowl +back to his brother, with the spoon. So they finished the bowl +between them. Then Pancrazio found wine--a whitish wine, not very +good, for which he apologized. And he invited Alvina to coffee. +Which she accepted gladly. + +For though the fire was warm in front, behind was very cold. +Pancrazio stuck a long pointed stick down the handle of a saucepan, +and gave this utensil to Ciccio, to hold over the fire and scald the +milk, whilst he put the tin coffee-pot in the ashes. He took a long +iron tube or blow-pipe, which rested on two little feet at the far +end. This he gave to Giovanni to blow the fire. + +Giovanni was a fire-worshipper. His eyes sparkled as he took the +blowing tube. He put fresh faggots behind the fire--though Pancrazio +forbade him. He arranged the burning faggots. And then softly he +blew a red-hot fire for the coffee. + +"Basta! Basta!" said Ciccio. But Giovanni blew on, his eyes +sparkling, looking to Alvina. He was making the fire beautiful for +her. + +There was one cup, one enamelled mug, one little bowl. This was the +coffee-service. Pancrazio noisily ground the coffee. He seemed to do +everything, old, stooping as he was. + +At last Giovanni took his leave--the kettle which hung on the hook +over the fire was boiling over. Ciccio burnt his hand lifting it +off. And at last, at last Alvina could go to bed. + +Pancrazio went first with the candle--then Ciccio with the black +kettle--then Alvina. The men still had their hats on. Their boots +tramped noisily on the bare stairs. + +The bedroom was very cold. It was a fair-sized room with a concrete +floor and white walls, and window-door opening on a little balcony. +There were two high white beds on opposite sides of the room. The +wash-stand was a little tripod thing. + +The air was very cold, freezing, the stone floor was dead cold to +the feet. Ciccio sat down on a chair and began to take off his +boots. She went to the window. The moon had risen. There was a flood +of light on dazzling white snow tops, glimmering and marvellous in +the evanescent night. She went out for a moment on to the balcony. +It was a wonder-world: the moon over the snow heights, the pallid +valley-bed away below; the river hoarse, and round about her, +scrubby, blue-dark foothills with twiggy trees. Magical it all +was--but so cold. + +"You had better shut the door," said Ciccio. + +She came indoors. She was dead tired, and stunned with cold, and +hopelessly dirty after that journey. Ciccio had gone to bed without +washing. + +"Why does the bed rustle?" she asked him. + +It was stuffed with dry maize-leaves, the dry sheathes from the +cobs--stuffed enormously high. He rustled like a snake among dead +foliage. + +Alvina washed her hands. There was nothing to do with the water but +throw it out of the door. Then she washed her face, thoroughly, in +good hot water. What a blessed relief! She sighed as she dried +herself. + +"It does one good!" she sighed. + +Ciccio watched her as she quickly brushed her hair. She was almost +stupefied with weariness and the cold, bruising air. Blindly she +crept into the high, rustling bed. But it was made high in the +middle. And it was icy cold. It shocked her almost as if she had +fallen into water. She shuddered, and became semi-conscious with +fatigue. The blankets were heavy, heavy. She was dazed with +excitement and wonder. She felt vaguely that Ciccio was miserable, +and wondered why. + +She woke with a start an hour or so later. The moon was in the room. +She did not know where she was. And she was frightened. And she was +cold. A real terror took hold of her. Ciccio in his bed was quite +still. Everything seemed electric with horror. She felt she would +die instantly, everything was so terrible around her. She could not +move. She felt that everything around her was horrific, +extinguishing her, putting her out. Her very being was threatened. +In another instant she would be transfixed. + +Making a violent effort she sat up. The silence of Ciccio in his bed +was as horrible as the rest of the night. She had a horror of him +also. What would she do, where should she flee? She was +lost--lost--lost utterly. + +The knowledge sank into her like ice. Then deliberately she got out +of bed and went across to him. He was horrible and frightening, but +he was warm. She felt his power and his warmth invade her and +extinguish her. The mad and desperate passion that was in him sent +her completely unconscious again, completely unconscious. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO + + +There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut +off from everything she belonged to. Ovid isolated in Thrace might +well lament. The soul itself needs its own mysterious nourishment. +This nourishment lacking, nothing is well. + +At Pescocalascio it was the mysterious influence of the mountains +and valleys themselves which seemed always to be annihilating the +Englishwoman: nay, not only her, but the very natives themselves. +Ciccio and Pancrazio clung to her, essentially, as if she saved them +also from extinction. It needed all her courage. Truly, she had to +support the souls of the two men. + +At first she did not realize. She was only stunned with the +strangeness of it all: startled, half-enraptured with the terrific +beauty of the place, half-horrified by its savage annihilation of +her. But she was stunned. The days went by. + +It seems there are places which resist us, which have the power to +overthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country has its +potent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantly +refuse our living culture. And Alvina had struck one of them, here +on the edge of the Abruzzi. + +She was not in the village of Pescocalascio itself. That was a long +hour's walk away. Pancrazio's house was the chief of a tiny hamlet +of three houses, called Califano because the Califanos had made it. +There was the ancient, savage hole of a house, quite windowless, +where Pancrazio and Ciccio's mother had been born: the family home. +Then there was Pancrazio's villa. And then, a little below, another +newish, modern house in a sort of wild meadow, inhabited by the +peasants who worked the land. Ten minutes' walk away was another +cluster of seven or eight houses, where Giovanni lived. But there +was no shop, no post nearer than Pescocalascio, an hour's heavy +road up deep and rocky, wearying tracks. + +And yet, what could be more lovely than the sunny days: pure, hot, +blue days among the mountain foothills: irregular, steep little +hills half wild with twiggy brown oak-trees and marshes and broom +heaths, half cultivated, in a wild, scattered fashion. Lovely, in +the lost hollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing with +two great white oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wild +scrub that bordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered, +massive desert and across stream to the other scrubby savage shore, +and so up to the high-road. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina would +accompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid. And her sense of +the beauty of the place was an infinite relief to him. + +Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight. +Sometimes Alvina and Pancrazio were late returning with the ass. And +then gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, already +beginning to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again he +would balk the stream, while a violet-blue dusk descended on the +white, wide stream-bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark, +and in heaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the near +mountains was burning rose, against the dark-blue heavens. How +unspeakably lovely it was, no one could ever tell, the grand, pagan +twilight of the valleys, savage, cold, with a sense of ancient gods +who knew the right for human sacrifice. It stole away the soul of +Alvina. She felt transfigured in it, clairvoyant in another mystery +of life. A savage hardness came in her heart. The gods who had +demanded human sacrifice were quite right, immutably right. The +fierce, savage gods who dipped their lips in blood, these were the +true gods. + +The terror, the agony, the nostalgia of the heathen past was a +constant torture to her mediumistic soul. She did not know what it +was. But it was a kind of neuralgia in the very soul, never to be +located in the human body, and yet physical. Coming over the brow of +a heathy, rocky hillock, and seeing Ciccio beyond leaning deep over +the plough, in his white shirt-sleeves following the slow, waving, +moth-pale oxen across a small track of land turned up in the heathen +hollow, her soul would go all faint, she would almost swoon with +realization of the world that had gone before. And Ciccio was so +silent, there seemed so much dumb magic and anguish in him, as if he +were for ever afraid of himself and the thing he was. He seemed, in +his silence, to _concentrate_ upon her so terribly. She believed she +would not live. + +Sometimes she would go gathering acorns, large, fine acorns, a +precious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object of +veneration. Silently she would crouch filling the pannier. And far +off she would hear the sound of Giovanni chopping wood, of Ciccio +calling to the oxen or Pancrazio making noises to the ass, or the +sound of a peasant's mattock. Over all the constant speech of the +passing river, and the real breathing presence of the upper snows. +And a wild, terrible happiness would take hold of her, beyond +despair, but very like despair. No one would ever find her. She had +gone beyond the world into the pre-world, she had reopened on the +old eternity. + +And then Maria, the little elvish old wife of Giovanni, would come +up with the cows. One cow she held by a rope round its horns, and +she hauled it from the patches of young corn into the rough grass, +from the little plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria wore +the full-pleated white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a red +kerchief on her head. But her dress was dirty, and her face was +dirty, and the big gold rings of her ears hung from ears which +perhaps had never been washed. She was rather smoke-dried too, from +perpetual wood-smoke. + +Maria in her red kerchief hauling the white cow, and screaming at +it, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afraid of +cows. And then, screaming high in dialect, Maria would talk to her. +Alvina smiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was not +strictly a human speech. It was rather like the crying of +half-articulate animals. It certainly was not Italian. And yet +Alvina by dint of constant hearing began to pick up the coagulated +phrases. + +She liked Maria. She liked them all. They were all very kind to her, +as far as they knew. But they did not know. And they were kind with +each other. For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines, +and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They loved +her that she would strip maize-cobs or pick acorns. But they were +all anxious to serve her. And it seemed as if they needed some one +to serve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certain +magic glamour for them, and so long as she was happy, it was a +supreme joy and relief to them to have her there. But it seemed to +her she would not live. + +And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingled +with sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and the +house inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by +going about constantly working, dumb and elemental. But what was +Alvina to do? + +For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were the +kitchen and Alvina's bedroom: and the kitchen, with its little +grated windows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken pane +and must keep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a dark +cavern vaulted and bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settle +before the fire, the hard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keep +the fire going, with faggots of green oak. But the smoke hurt her +chest, she was not clean for one moment, and she could do nothing +else. The bedroom again was just impossibly cold. And there was no +other place. And from far away came the wild braying of an ass, +primeval and desperate in the snow. + +The house was quite large; but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on the +left of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of the +weather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, was +a big, long apartment where Pancrazio kept implements and tools and +potatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hopped +unexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, was +the cantina, a dark place with wine-barrels and more agricultural +stores. This was the whole of the downstairs. + +Going upstairs, half way up, at the turn of the stairs was the +opening of a sort of barn, a great wire-netting behind which showed +a glow of orange maize-cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were four +rooms. But Alvina's room alone was furnished. Pancrazio slept in the +unfurnished bedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was a +room with litter in it, a chest of drawers, and rubbish of old books +and photographs Pancrazio had brought from England. There was a +battered photograph of Lord Leighton, among others. The fourth room, +approached through the corn-chamber, was always locked. + +Outside was just as hopeless. There had been a little garden within +the stone enclosure. But fowls, geese, and the ass had made an end +of this. Fowl-droppings were everywhere, indoors and out, the ass +left his pile of droppings to steam in the winter air on the +threshold, while his heartrending bray rent the air. Roads there +were none: only deep tracks, like profound ruts with rocks in them, +in the hollows, and rocky, grooved tracks over the brows. The hollow +grooves were full of mud and water, and one struggled slipperily +from rock to rock, or along narrow grass-ledges. + +What was to be done, then, on mornings that were dark with sleet? +Pancrazio would bring a kettle of hot water at about half-past +eight. For had he not travelled Europe with English gentlemen, as a +sort of model-valet! Had he not _loved_ his English gentlemen? Even +now, he was infinitely happier performing these little attentions +for Alvina than attending to his wretched domains. + +Ciccio rose early, and went about in the hap-hazard, useless way of +Italians all day long, getting nothing done. Alvina came out of the +icy bedroom to the black kitchen. Pancrazio would be gallantly +heating milk for her, at the end of a long stick. So she would sit +on the settle and drink her coffee and milk, into which she dipped +her dry bread. Then the day was before her. + +She washed her cup and her enamelled plate, and she tried to clean +the kitchen. But Pancrazio had on the fire a great black pot, +dangling from the chain. He was boiling food for the eternal +pig--the only creature for which any cooking was done. Ciccio was +tramping in with faggots. Pancrazio went in and out, back and forth +from his pot. + +Alvina stroked her brow and decided on a method. Once she was rid of +Pancrazio, she would wash every cup and plate and utensil in boiling +water. Well, at last Pancrazio went off with his great black pan, +and she set to. But there were not six pieces of crockery in the +house, and not more than six cooking utensils. These were soon +scrubbed. Then she scrubbed the two little tables and the shelves. +She lined the food-chest with clean paper. She washed the high +window-ledges and the narrow mantel-piece, that had large mounds of +dusty candle-wax, in deposits. Then she tackled the settle. She +scrubbed it also. Then she looked at the floor. And even she, +English housewife as she was, realized the futility of trying to +wash it. As well try to wash the earth itself outside. It was just a +piece of stone-laid earth. She swept it as well as she could, and +made a little order in the faggot-heap in the corner. Then she +washed the little, high-up windows, to try and let in light. + +And what was the difference? A dank wet soapy smell, and not much +more. Maria had kept scuffling admiringly in and out, crying her +wonderment and approval. She had most ostentatiously chased out an +obtrusive hen, from this temple of cleanliness. And that was all. + +It was hopeless. The same black walls, the same floor, the same cold +from behind, the same green-oak wood-smoke, the same bucket of water +from the well--the same come-and-go of aimless busy men, the same +cackle of wet hens, the same hopeless nothingness. + +Alvina stood up against it for a time. And then she caught a bad +cold, and was wretched. Probably it was the wood-smoke. But her +chest was raw, she felt weak and miserable. She could not sit in her +bedroom, for it was too cold. If she sat in the darkness of the +kitchen she was hurt with smoke, and perpetually cold behind her +neck. And Pancrazio rather resented the amount of faggots consumed +for nothing. The only hope would have been in work. But there was +nothing in that house to be done. How could she even sew? + +She was to prepare the mid-day and evening meals. But with no pots, +and over a smoking wood fire, what could she prepare? Black and +greasy, she boiled potatoes and fried meat in lard, in a +long-handled frying pan. Then Pancrazio decreed that Maria should +prepare macaroni with the tomato sauce, and thick vegetable soup, +and sometimes polenta. This coarse, heavy food was wearying beyond +words. + +Alvina began to feel she would die, in the awful comfortless +meaninglessness of it all. True, sunny days returned and some magic. +But she was weak and feverish with her cold, which would not get +better. So that even in the sunshine the crude comfortlessness and +inferior savagery of the place only repelled her. + +The others were depressed when she was unhappy. + +"Do you wish you were back in England?" Ciccio asked her, with a +little sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looked at him without +answering. He ducked and went away. + +"We will make a fire-place in the other bedroom," said Pancrazio. + +No sooner said than done. Ciccio persuaded Alvina to stay in bed a +few days. She was thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rare +come-and-go. Pancrazio, Ciccio, Giovanni, Maria and a mason all set +about the fire-place. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carrying +stone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvina's doorway, with +her burden perched aloft, to shout a few unintelligible words. In +the intervals of lime-carrying she brought the invalid her soup or +her coffee or her hot milk. + +It turned out quite a good job--a pleasant room with two windows, +that would have all the sun in the afternoon, and would see the +mountains on one hand, the far-off village perched up on the other. +When she was well enough they set off one early Monday morning to +the market in Ossona. They left the house by starlight, but dawn +was coming by the time they reached the river. At the high-road, +Pancrazio harnessed the ass, and after endless delay they jogged off +to Ossona. The dawning mountains were wonderful, dim-green and mauve +and rose, the ground rang with frost. Along the roads many peasants +were trooping to market, women in their best dresses, some of thick +heavy silk with the white, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green, +lavender, dark-red, with gay kerchiefs on the head: men muffled in +cloaks, treading silently in their pointed skin sandals: asses with +loads, carts full of peasants, a belated cow. + +The market was lovely, there in the crown of the pass, in the old +town, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pigs, goats +stood and lay about under the bare little trees on the platform high +over the valley: some one had kindled a great fire of brush-wood, +and men crowded round, out of the blue frost. From laden asses +vegetables were unloaded, from little carts all kinds of things, +boots, pots, tin-ware, hats, sweet-things, and heaps of corn and +beans and seeds. By eight o'clock in the December morning the market +was in full swing: a great crowd of handsome mountain people, all +peasants, nearly all in costume, with different head-dresses. + +Ciccio and Pancrazio and Alvina went quietly about. They bought pots +and pans and vegetables and sweet-things and thick rush matting and +two wooden arm-chairs and one old soft arm-chair, going quietly and +bargaining modestly among the crowd, as Anglicized Italians do. + +The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock, and then, from +the terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderful +sight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the black +hats of the men, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the pale +lovely cattle, the many tethered asses--and she wondered if she +would die before she became one with it altogether. It was +impossible for her to become one with it altogether. Ciccio would +have to take her to England again, or to America. He was always +hinting at America. + +But then, Italy might enter the war. Even here it was the great +theme of conversation. She looked down on the seethe of the market. +The sun was warm on her. Ciccio and Pancrazio were bargaining for +two cowskin rugs: she saw Ciccio standing with his head rather +forward. Her husband! She felt her heart die away within her. + +All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did?--the same +sort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believed +they did. The same helpless passion for the man, the same remoteness +from the world's actuality? Probably, under all their tension of +money and money-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality and rather +horrible religion, probably they felt the same. She was one with +them. But she could never endure it for a life-time. It was only a +test on her. Ciccio must take her to America, or England--to America +preferably. + +And even as he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrilling +in her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous +to her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up +for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty +look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicate +light for him, there beyond all the women. He came straight towards +her, smiling his slow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if he +lost her. She knew how he loved her--almost inhumanly, elementally, +without communication. And she stood with her hand to her side, her +face frightened. She hardly noticed him. It seemed to her she was +with child. And yet in the whole market-place she was aware of +nothing but him. + +"We have bought the skins," he said. "Twenty-seven lire each." + +She looked at him, his dark skin, his golden eyes--so near to her, +so unified with her, yet so incommunicably remote. How far off was +his being from hers! + +"I believe I'm going to have a child," she said. + +"Eh?" he ejaculated quickly. But he had understood. His eyes shone +weirdly on her. She felt the strange terror and loveliness of his +passion. And she wished she could lie down there by that town gate, +in the sun, and swoon for ever unconscious. Living was almost too +great a demand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her and +enveloped her. There was nothing for her but to yield, yield, yield. +And yet she could not sink to earth. + +She saw Pancrazio carrying the skins to the little cart, which was +tilted up under a small, pale-stemmed tree on the platform above the +valley. Then she saw him making his way quickly back through the +crowd, to rejoin them. + +"Did you feel something?" said Ciccio. + +"Yes--here--!" she said, pressing her hand on her side as the +sensation trilled once more upon her consciousness. She looked at +him with remote, frightened eyes. + +"That's good--" he said, his eyes full of a triumphant, +incommunicable meaning. + +"Well!--And now," said Pancrazio, coming up, "shall we go and eat +something?" + +They jogged home in the little flat cart in the wintry afternoon. It +was almost night before they had got the ass untackled from the +shafts, at the wild lonely house where Pancrazio left the cart. +Giovanni was there with the lantern. Ciccio went on ahead with +Alvina, whilst the others stood to load up the ass by the high-way. + +Ciccio watched Alvina carefully. When they were over the river, and +among the dark scrub, he took her in his arms and kissed her with +long, terrible passion. She saw the snow-ridges flare with evening, +beyond his cheek. They had glowed dawn as she crossed the river +outwards, they were white-fiery now in the dusk sky as she returned. +What strange valley of shadow was she threading? What was the +terrible man's passion that haunted her like a dark angel? Why was +she so much beyond herself? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUSPENSE + + +Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs still +unstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them, in the +corn-place. + +"Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born?" he asked her. + +She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning gold +maize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruition. The +heap of maize on one side burned like hot sunshine, she felt it +really gave off warmth, it glowed, it burned. On the other side the +filmy, crackly, sere sheaths were also faintly sunny. Again and +again the long, red-gold, full ear of corn came clear in his hands, +and was put gently aside. He looked up at her, with his yellow eyes. + +"Yes, I think so," she said. "Will you?" + +"Yes, if they let me. I should like it to be born here." + +"Would you like to bring up a child here?" she asked. + +"You wouldn't be happy here, so long," he said, sadly. + +"Would you?" + +He slowly shook his head: indefinite. + +She was settling down. She had her room upstairs, her cups and +plates and spoons, her own things. Pancrazio had gone back to his +old habit, he went across and ate with Giovanni and Maria, Ciccio +and Alvina had their meals in their pleasant room upstairs. They +were happy alone. Only sometimes the terrible influence of the place +preyed on her. + +However, she had a clean room of her own, where she could sew and +read. She had written to the matron and Mrs. Tuke, and Mrs. Tuke had +sent books. Also she helped Ciccio when she could, and Maria was +teaching her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread. + +This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere, Alvina +and Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last maize. +Suddenly, in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out: the +drone of a bagpipe, and a man's high voice half singing, half +yelling a brief verse, at the end of which a wild flourish on some +other reedy wood instrument. Alvina sat still in surprise. It was a +strange, high, rapid, yelling music, the very voice of the +mountains. Beautiful, in our musical sense of the word, it was not. +But oh, the magic, the nostalgia of the untamed, heathen past which +it evoked. + +"It is for Christmas," said Ciccio. "They will come every day now." + +Alvina rose and went round to the little balcony. Two men stood +below, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the elder, +had a bagpipe whose bag was patched with shirting: the younger was +dressed in greenish clothes, he had his face lifted, and was yelling +the verses of the unintelligible Christmas ballad: short, rapid +verses, followed by a brilliant flourish on a short wooden pipe he +held ready in his hand. Alvina felt he was going to be out of +breath. But no, rapid and high came the next verse, verse after +verse, with the wild scream on the little new pipe in between, over +the roar of the bagpipe. And the crumbs of snow were like a speckled +veil, faintly drifting the atmosphere and powdering the littered +threshold where they stood--a threshold littered with faggots, +leaves, straw, fowls and geese and ass droppings, and rag thrown out +from the house, and pieces of paper. + +The carol suddenly ended, the young man snatched off his hat to +Alvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followed +by the bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly down the incline +between the twiggy wild oaks. + +"They will come every day now, till Christmas," said Ciccio. "They +go to every house." + +And sure enough, when Alvina went down, in the cold, silent house, +and out to the well in the still crumbling snow, she heard the sound +far off, strange, yelling, wonderful: and the same ache for she knew +not what overcame her, so that she felt one might go mad, there in +the veiled silence of these mountains, in the great hilly valley cut +off from the world. + +Ciccio worked all day on the land or round about. He was building a +little earth closet also: the obvious and unscreened place outside +was impossible. It was curious how little he went to Pescocalascio, +how little he mixed with the natives. He seemed always to withhold +something from them. Only with his relatives, of whom he had many, +he was more free, in a kind of family intimacy. + +Yet even here he was guarded. His uncle at the mill, an unwashed, +fat man with a wife who tinkled with gold and grime, and who shouted +a few lost words of American, insisted on giving Alvina wine and a +sort of cake made with cheese and rice. Ciccio too was feasted, in +the dark hole of a room. And the two natives seemed to press their +cheer on Alvina and Ciccio whole-heartedly. + +"How nice they are!" said Alvina when she had left. "They give so +freely." + +But Ciccio smiled a wry smile, silent. + +"Why do you make a face?" she said. + +"It's because you are a foreigner, and they think you will go away +again," he said. + +"But I should have thought that would make them less generous," she +said. + +"No. They like to give to foreigners. They don't like to give to the +people here. Giocomo puts water in the wine which he sells to the +people who go by. And if I leave the donkey in her shed, I give +Marta Maria something, or the next time she won't let me have it. +Ha, they are--they are sly ones, the people here." + +"They are like that everywhere," said Alvina. + +"Yes. But nowhere they say so many bad things about people as +here--nowhere where I have ever been." + +It was strange to Alvina to feel the deep-bed-rock distrust which +all the hill-peasants seemed to have of one another. They were +watchful, venomous, dangerous. + +"Ah," said Pancrazio, "I am glad there is a woman in my house once +more." + +"But did _nobody_ come in and do for you before?" asked Alvina. "Why +didn't you pay somebody?" + +"Nobody will come," said Pancrazio, in his slow, aristocratic +English. "Nobody will come, because I am a man, and if somebody +should see her at my house, they will all talk." + +"Talk!" Alvina looked at the deeply-lined man of sixty-six, "But +what will they say?" + +"Many bad things. Many bad things indeed. They are not good people +here. All saying bad things, and all jealous. They don't like me +because I have a house--they think I am too much a _signore_. They +say to me 'Why do you think you are a signore?' Oh, they are bad +people, envious, you cannot have anything to do with them." + +"They are nice to me," said Alvina. + +"They think you will go away. But if you stay, they will say bad +things. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people, evil against one +another, against everybody but strangers who don't know them--" + +Alvina felt the curious passion in Pancrazio's voice, the passion of a +man who has lived for many years in England and known the social +confidence of England, and who, coming back, is deeply injured by the +ancient malevolence of the remote, somewhat gloomy hill-peasantry. She +understood also why he was so glad to have her in his house, so proud, +why he loved serving her. She seemed to see a fairness, a luminousness +in the northern soul, something free, touched with divinity such as +"these people here" lacked entirely. + +When she went to Ossona with him, she knew everybody questioned him +about her and Ciccio. She began to get the drift of the +questions--which Pancrazio answered with reserve. + +"And how long are they staying?" + +This was an invariable, envious question. And invariably Pancrazio +answered with a reserved-- + +"Some months. As long as _they_ like." + +And Alvina could feel waves of black envy go out against Pancrazio, +because she was domiciled with him, and because she sat with him in +the flat cart, driving to Ossona. + +Yet Pancrazio himself was a study. He was thin, and very shabby, and +rather out of shape. Only in his yellow eyes lurked a strange +sardonic fire, and a leer which puzzled her. When Ciccio happened to +be out in the evening he would sit with her and tell her stories of +Lord Leighton and Millais and Alma Tadema and other academicians +dead and living. There would sometimes be a strange passivity on his +worn face, an impassive, almost Red Indian look. And then again he +would stir into a curious, arch, malevolent laugh, for all the world +like a debauched old tom-cat. His narration was like this: either +simple, bare, stoical, with a touch of nobility; or else satiric, +malicious, with a strange, rather repellent jeering. + +"Leighton--he wasn't Lord Leighton then--he wouldn't have me to sit +for him, because my figure was too poor, he didn't like it. He liked +fair young men, with plenty of flesh. But once, when he was doing a +picture--I don't know if you know it? It is a crucifixion, with a +man on a cross, and--" He described the picture. "No! Well, the +model had to be tied hanging on to a wooden cross. And it made you +suffer! Ah!" Here the odd, arch, diabolic yellow flare lit up +through the stoicism of Pancrazio's eyes. "Because Leighton, he was +cruel to his model. He wouldn't let you rest. 'Damn you, you've got +to keep still till I've finished with you, you devil,' so he said. +Well, for this man on the cross, he couldn't get a model who would +do it for him. They all tried it once, but they would not go again. +So they said to him, he must try Califano, because Califano was the +only man who would stand it. At last then he sent for me. 'I don't +like your damned figure, Califano,' he said to me, 'but nobody will +do this if you won't. Now will you do it? 'Yes!' I said, 'I will.' +So he tied me up on the cross. And he paid me well, so I stood it. +Well, he kept me tied up, hanging you know forwards naked on this +cross, for four hours. And then it was luncheon. And after luncheon +he would tie me again. Well, I suffered. I suffered so much, that I +must lean against the wall to support me to walk home. And in the +night I could not sleep, I could cry with the pains in my arms and +my ribs, I had no sleep. 'You've said you'd do it, so now you must,' +he said to me. 'And I will do it,' I said. And so he tied me up. +This cross, you know, was on a little raised place--I don't know +what you call it--" + +"A platform," suggested Alvina. + +"A platform. Now one day when he came to do something to me, when I +was tied up, he slipped back over this platform, and he pulled me, +who was tied on the cross, with him. So we all fell down, he with +the naked man on top of him, and the heavy cross on top of us both. +I could not move, because I was tied. And it was so, with me on top +of him, and the heavy cross, that he could not get out. So he had to +lie shouting underneath me until some one came to the studio to +untie me. No, we were not hurt, because the top of the cross fell so +that it did not crush us. 'Now you have had a taste of the cross,' I +said to him. 'Yes, you devil, but I shan't let you off,' he said to +me. + +"To make the time go he would ask me questions. Once he said, 'Now, +Califano, what time is it? I give you three guesses, and if you +guess right once I give you sixpence.' So I guessed three o'clock. +'That's one. Now then, what time is it? 'Again, three o'clock. +'That's two guesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time is +it? 'So now I was obstinate, and I said _Three o'clock_. He took out +his watch. 'Why damn you, how did you know? I give you a shilling--' +It was three o'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead of +sixpence as he had said--" + +It was strange, in the silent winter afternoon, downstairs in the +black kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancrazio and +hearing these stories of English painters. It was strange to look at +the battered figure of Pancrazio, and think how much he had been +crucified through the long years in London, for the sake of late +Victorian art. It was strangest of all to see through his yellow, +often dull, red-rimmed eyes these blithe and well-conditioned +painters. Pancrazio looked on them admiringly and contemptuously, as +an old, rakish tom-cat might look on such frivolous well-groomed +young gentlemen. + +As a matter of fact Pancrazio had never been rakish or debauched, +but mountain-moral, timid. So that the queer, half-sinister drop of +his eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare that +came into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a +sort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in his +battered body and give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt that +if she were left much alone with him she would need all her English +ascendancy not to be afraid of him. + +It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Ciccio +and Pancrazio set off for Pescocalascio for the first time. Snow had +fallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as they +climbed. And the sun was very bright. So that the mountains were +dazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound between +oak-trees and under the broom-scrub, climbing over the jumbled hills +that lay between the mountains, until the village came near. They +got on to a broader track, where the path from a distant village +joined theirs. They were all talking, in the bright clear air of the +morning. + +A little man came down an upper path. As he joined them near the +village he hailed them in English: + +"Good morning. Nice morning." + +"Does everybody speak English here?" asked Alvina. + +"I have been eighteen years in Glasgow. I am only here for a trip." + +He was a little Italian shop-keeper from Glasgow. He was most +friendly, insisted on paying for drinks, and coffee and almond +biscuits for Alvina. Evidently he also was grateful to Britain. + +The village was wonderful. It occupied the crown of an eminence in +the midst of the wide valley. From the terrace of the high-road the +valley spread below, with all its jumble of hills, and two rivers, +set in the walls of the mountains, a wide space, but imprisoned. It +glistened with snow under the blue sky. But the lowest hollows were +brown. In the distance, Ossona hung at the edge of a platform. Many +villages clung like pale swarms of birds to the far slopes, or +perched on the hills beneath. It was a world within a world, a +valley of many hills and townlets and streams shut in beyond access. + +Pescocalascio itself was crowded. The roads were sloppy with snow. +But none the less, peasants in full dress, their feet soaked in the +skin sandals, were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling, +bargaining for cloth, talking all the time. In the shop, which was +also a sort of inn, an ancient woman was making coffee over a +charcoal brazier, while a crowd of peasants sat at the tables at the +back, eating the food they had brought. + +Post was due at mid-day. Ciccio went to fetch it, whilst Pancrazio +took Alvina to the summit, to the castle. There, in the level +region, boys were snowballing and shouting. The ancient castle, +badly cracked by the last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on the +valley of many hills beneath, Califano a speck down the left, Ossona +a blot to the right, suspended, its towers and its castle clear in +the light. Behind the castle of Pescocalascio was a deep, steep +valley, almost a gorge, at the bottom of which a river ran, and +where Pancrazio pointed out the electricity works of the village, +deep in the gloom. Above this gorge, at the end, rose the long +slopes of the mountains, up to the vivid snow--and across again was +the wall of the Abruzzi. + +They went down, past the ruined houses broken by the earthquake. +Ciccio still had not come with the post. A crowd surged at the +post-office door, in a steep, black, wet side-street. Alvina's feet +were sodden. Pancrazio took her to the place where she could drink +coffee and a strega, to make her warm. On the platform of the +high-way, above the valley, people were parading in the hot sun. +Alvina noticed some ultra-smart young men. They came up to +Pancrazio, speaking English. Alvina hated their Cockney accent and +florid showy vulgar presence. They were more models. Pancrazio was +cool with them. + +Alvina sat apart from the crowd of peasants, on a chair the old +crone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancrazio ordered beer for +himself. Ciccio came with letters--long-delayed letters, that had +been censored. Alvina's heart went down. + +The first she opened was from Miss Pinnegar--all war and fear and +anxiety. The second was a letter, a real insulting letter from Dr. +Mitchell. "I little thought, at the time when I was hoping to make +you my wife, that you were carrying on with a dirty Italian +organ-grinder. So your fair-seeming face covered the schemes and +vice of your true nature. Well, I can only thank Providence which +spared me the disgust and shame of marrying you, and I hope that, +when I meet you on the streets of Leicester Square, I shall have +forgiven you sufficiently to be able to throw you a coin--" + +Here was a pretty little epistle! In spite of herself, she went pale +and trembled. She glanced at Ciccio. Fortunately he was turning +round talking to another man. She rose and went to the ruddy +brazier, as if to warm her hands. She threw on the screwed-up +letter. The old crone said something unintelligible to her. She +watched the letter catch fire--glanced at the peasants at the +table--and out at the wide, wild valley. The world beyond could not +help, but it still had the power to injure one here. She felt she +had received a bitter blow. A black hatred for the Mitchells of this +world filled her. + +She could hardly bear to open the third letter. It was from Mrs. +Tuke, and again, all war. Would Italy join the Allies? She ought to, +her every interest lay that way. Could Alvina bear to be so far off, +when such terrible events were happening near home? Could she +possibly be happy? Nurses were so valuable now. She, Mrs. Tuke, had +volunteered. She would do whatever she could. She had had to leave +off nursing Jenifer, who had an _excellent_ Scotch nurse, much +better than a mother. Well, Alvina and Mrs. Tuke might yet meet in +some hospital in France. So the letter ended. + +Alvina sat down, pale and trembling. Pancrazio was watching her +curiously. + +"Have you bad news?" he asked. + +"Only the war." + +"Ha!" and the Italian gesture of half-bitter "what can one do?" + +They were talking war--all talking war. The dandy young models had +left England because of the war, expecting Italy to come in. And +everybody talked, talked, talked. Alvina looked round her. It all +seemed alien to her, bruising upon the spirit. + +"Do you think I shall ever be able to come here alone and do my +shopping by myself?" she asked. + +"You must never come alone," said Pancrazio, in his curious, +benevolent courtesy. "Either Ciccio or I will come with you. You +must never come so far alone." + +"Why not?" she said. + +"You are a stranger here. You are not a contadina--" Alvina could +feel the oriental idea of women, which still leaves its mark on the +Mediterranean, threatening her with surveillance and subjection. She +sat in her chair, with cold wet feet, looking at the sunshine +outside, the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, the +men drinking at the counter, the cluster of peasant women bargaining +for dress-material. Ciccio was still turning talking in the rapid +way to his neighbour. She knew it was war. She noticed the movement +of his finely-modelled cheek, a little sallow this morning. + +And she rose hastily. + +"I want to go into the sun," she said. + +When she stood above the valley in the strong, tiring light, she +glanced round. Ciccio inside the shop had risen, but he was still +turning to his neighbour and was talking with all his hands and all +his body. He did not talk with his mind and lips alone. His whole +physique, his whole living body spoke and uttered and emphasized +itself. + +A certain weariness possessed her. She was beginning to realize +something about him: how he had no sense of home and domestic life, +as an Englishman has. Ciccio's home would never be his castle. His +castle was the piazza of Pescocalascio. His home was nothing to him +but a possession, and a hole to sleep in. He didn't _live_ in it. He +lived in the open air, and in the community. When the true Italian +came out in him, his veriest home was the piazza of Pescocalascio, +the little sort of market-place where the roads met in the village, +under the castle, and where the men stood in groups and talked, +talked, talked. This was where Ciccio belonged: his active, mindful +self. His active, mindful self was none of hers. She only had his +passive self, and his family passion. His masculine mind and +intelligence had its home in the little public square of his +village. She knew this as she watched him now, with all his body +talking politics. He could not break off till he had finished. And +then, with a swift, intimate handshake to the group with whom he had +been engaged, he came away, putting all his interest off from +himself. + +She tried to make him talk and discuss with her. But he wouldn't. An +obstinate spirit made him darkly refuse masculine conversation with +her. + +"If Italy goes to war, you will have to join up?" she asked him. + +"Yes," he said, with a smile at the futility of the question. + +"And I shall have to stay here?" + +He nodded, rather gloomily. + +"Do you want to go?" she persisted. + +"No, I don't want to go." + +"But you think Italy ought to join in?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"Then you _do_ want to go--" + +"I want to go if Italy goes in--and she ought to go in--" + +Curious, he was somewhat afraid of her, he half venerated her, and +half despised her. When she tried to make him discuss, in the +masculine way, he shut obstinately against her, something like a +child, and the slow, fine smile of dislike came on his face. +Instinctively he shut off all masculine communication from her, +particularly politics and religion. He would discuss both, +violently, with other men. In politics he was something of a +Socialist, in religion a freethinker. But all this had nothing to do +with Alvina. He would not enter on a discussion in English. + +Somewhere in her soul, she knew the finality of his refusal to hold +discussion with a woman. So, though at times her heart hardened with +indignant anger, she let herself remain outside. The more so, as +she felt that in matters intellectual he was rather stupid. Let him +go to the piazza or to the wine-shop, and talk. + +To do him justice, he went little. Pescocalascio was only half his +own village. The nostalgia, the campanilismo from which Italians +suffer, the craving to be in sight of the native church-tower, to +stand and talk in the native market place or piazza, this was only +half formed in Ciccio, taken away as he had been from Pescocalascio +when so small a boy. He spent most of his time working in the fields +and woods, most of his evenings at home, often weaving a special +kind of fishnet or net-basket from fine, frail strips of cane. It +was a work he had learned at Naples long ago. Alvina meanwhile would +sew for the child, or spin wool. She became quite clever at drawing +the strands of wool from her distaff, rolling them fine and even +between her fingers, and keeping her bobbin rapidly spinning away +below, dangling at the end of the thread. To tell the truth, she was +happy in the quietness with Ciccio, now they had their own pleasant +room. She loved his presence. She loved the quality of his silence, +so rich and physical. She felt he was never very far away: that he +was a good deal a stranger in Califano, as she was: that he clung to +her presence as she to his. Then Pancrazio also contrived to serve +her and shelter her, he too, loved her for being there. They both +revered her because she was with child. So that she lived more and +more in a little, isolate, illusory, wonderful world then, content, +moreover, because the living cost so little. She had sixty pounds of +her own money, always intact in the little case. And after all, the +high-way beyond the river led to Ossona, and Ossona gave access to +the railway, and the railway would take her anywhere. + +So the month of January passed, with its short days and its bits of +snow and bursts of sunshine. On sunny days Alvina walked down to the +desolate river-bed, which fascinated her. When Pancrazio was +carrying up stone or lime on the ass, she accompanied him. And +Pancrazio was always carrying up something, for he loved the +extraneous jobs like building a fire-place much more than the heavy +work of the land. Then she would find little tufts of wild narcissus +among the rocks, gold-centred pale little things, many on one stem. +And their scent was powerful and magical, like the sound of the men +who came all those days and sang before Christmas. She loved them. +There was green hellebore too, a fascinating plant--and one or two +little treasures, the last of the rose-coloured Alpine cyclamens, +near the earth, with snake-skin leaves, and so rose, so rose, like +violets for shadowiness. She sat and cried over the first she found: +heaven knows why. + +In February, as the days opened, the first almond trees flowered +among grey olives, in warm, level corners between the hills. But it +was March before the real flowering began. And then she had +continual bowl-fuls of white and blue violets, she had sprays of +almond blossom, silver-warm and lustrous, then sprays of peach and +apricot, pink and fluttering. It was a great joy to wander looking +for flowers. She came upon a bankside all wide with lavender +crocuses. The sun was on them for the moment, and they were opened +flat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars, with burning +centres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen some +metal burn lilac-flamed in the laboratory of the hospital at +Islington. All down the oak-dry bankside they burned their great +exposed stars. And she felt like going down on her knees and bending +her forehead to the earth in an oriental submission, they were so +royal, so lovely, so supreme. She came again to them in the morning, +when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs, +wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and old +grass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripes running +up their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear proud stripes on a +badger's face, or on some proud cat. She took a handful of the +sappy, shut, striped flames. In her room they opened into a grand +bowl of lilac fire. + +March was a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills. She +wandered, extending her range. Sometimes with a strange fear. But it +was a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she went +along the high-road with her letters, towards the village of Casa +Latina. The high-road was depressing, wherever there were houses. +For the houses had that sordid, ramshackle, slummy look almost +invariable on an Italian high-road. They were patched with a +hideous, greenish mould-colour, blotched, as if with leprosy. It +frightened her, till Pancrazio told her it was only the copper +sulphate that had sprayed the vines hitched on to the walls. But +none the less the houses were sordid, unkempt, slummy. One house by +itself could make a complete slum. + +Casa Latina was across the valley, in the shadow. Approaching it +were rows of low cabins--fairly new. They were the one-storey +dwellings commanded after the earthquake. And hideous they were. The +village itself was old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain. +Streams of cold water ran round it. The piazza was gloomy, forsaken. +But there was a great, twin-towered church, wonderful from outside. + +She went inside, and was almost sick with repulsion. The place was +large, whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and ex +voto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size and +tinselly, that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus on +the crucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on +their knees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded +fetish-worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from +the contamination of the dirty leather door-curtain. + +Enough of Casa Latina. She would never go _there_ again. She was +beginning to feel that, if she lived in this part of the world at +all, she must avoid the _inside_ of it. She must never, if she could +help it, enter into any interior but her own--neither into house nor +church nor even shop or post-office, if she could help it. The +moment she went through a door the sense of dark repulsiveness came +over her. If she was to save her sanity she must keep to the open +air, and avoid any contact with human interiors. When she thought of +the insides of the native people she shuddered with repulsion, as in +the great, degraded church of Casa Latina. They were horrible. + +Yet the outside world was so fair. Corn and maize were growing green +and silken, vines were in the small bud. Everywhere little grape +hyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her of +the many-breasted Artemis, a picture of whom, or of whose statue, +she had seen somewhere. Artemis with her clusters of breasts was +horrible to her, now she had come south: nauseating beyond words. +And the milky grape hyacinths reminded her. + +She turned with thankfulness to the magenta anemones that were so +gay. Some one told her that wherever Venus had shed a tear for +Adonis, one of these flowers had sprung. They were not tear-like. +And yet their red-purple silkiness had something pre-world about it, +at last. The more she wandered, the more the shadow of the by-gone +pagan world seemed to come over her. Sometimes she felt she would +shriek and go mad, so strong was the influence on her, something +pre-world and, it seemed to her now, vindictive. She seemed to feel +in the air strange Furies, Lemures, things that had haunted her with +their tomb-frenzied vindictiveness since she was a child and had +pored over the illustrated Classical Dictionary. Black and cruel +presences were in the under-air. They were furtive and slinking. +They bewitched you with loveliness, and lurked with fangs to hurt +you afterwards. There it was: the fangs sheathed in beauty: the +beauty first, and then, horribly, inevitably, the fangs. + +Being a great deal alone, in the strange place, fancies possessed +her, people took on strange shapes. Even Ciccio and Pancrazio. And +it came that she never wandered far from the house, from her room, +after the first months. She seemed to hide herself in her room. +There she sewed and spun wool and read, and learnt Italian. Her men +were not at all anxious to teach her Italian. Indeed her chief +teacher, at first, was a young fellow called Bussolo. He was a model +from London, and he came down to Califano sometimes, hanging about, +anxious to speak English. + +Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy with pale grey eyes and +a heavy figure. Yet he had a certain penetrating intelligence. + +"No, this country is a country for old men. It is only for old men," +he said, talking of Pescocalascio. "You won't stop here. Nobody +young can stop here." + +The odd plangent certitude in his voice penetrated her. And all the +young people said the same thing. They were all waiting to go away. +But for the moment the war held them up. + +Ciccio and Pancrazio were busy with the vines. As she watched them +hoeing, crouching, tying, tending, grafting, mindless and utterly +absorbed, hour after hour, day after day, thinking vines, living +vines, she wondered they didn't begin to sprout vine-buds and vine +stems from their own elbows and neck-joints. There was something to +her unnatural in the quality of the attention the men gave to the +wine. It was a sort of worship, almost a degradation again. And +heaven knows, Pancrazio's wine was poor enough, his grapes almost +invariably bruised with hail-stones, and half-rotten instead of +ripe. + +The loveliness of April came, with hot sunshine. Astonishing the +ferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to blaze. +Alvina was amazed. The burning day quite carried her away. She loved +it: it made her quite careless about everything, she was just swept +along in the powerful flood of the sunshine. In the end, she felt +that intense sunlight had on her the effect of night: a sort of +darkness, and a suspension of life. She had to hide in her room till +the cold wind blew again. + +Meanwhile the declaration of war drew nearer, and became inevitable. +She knew Ciccio would go. And with him went the chance of her +escape. She steeled herself to bear the agony of the knowledge that +he would go, and she would be left alone in this place, which +sometimes she hated with a hatred unspeakable. After a spell of hot, +intensely dry weather she felt she would die in this valley, wither +and go to powder as some exposed April roses withered and dried into +dust against a hot wall. Then the cool wind came in a storm, the +next day there was grey sky and soft air. The rose-coloured wild +gladioli among the young green corn were a dream of beauty, the +morning of the world. The lovely, pristine morning of the world, +before our epoch began. Rose-red gladioli among corn, in among the +rocks, and small irises, black-purple and yellow blotched with +brown, like a wasp, standing low in little desert places, that would +seem forlorn but for this weird, dark-lustrous magnificence. Then +there were the tiny irises, only one finger tall, growing in dry +places, frail as crocuses, and much tinier, and blue, blue as the +eye of the morning heaven, which was a morning earlier, more +pristine than ours. The lovely translucent pale irises, tiny and +morning-blue, they lasted only a few hours. But nothing could be +more exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that brought +back to Alvina the passionate nostalgia for the place. The human +influence was a bit horrible to her. But the flowers that came out +and uttered the earth in magical expression, they cast a spell on +her, bewitched her and stole her own soul away from her. + +She went down to Ciccio where he was weeding armfuls of rose-red +gladioli from the half-grown wheat, and cutting the lushness of the +first weedy herbage. He threw down his sheaves of gladioli, and with +his sickle began to cut the forest of bright yellow corn-marigolds. +He looked intent, he seemed to work feverishly. + +"Must they all be cut?" she said, as she went to him. + +He threw aside the great armful of yellow flowers, took off his cap, +and wiped the sweat from his brow. The sickle dangled loose in his +hand. + +"We have declared war," he said. + +In an instant she realized that she had seen the figure of the old +post-carrier dodging between the rocks. Rose-red and gold-yellow of +the flowers swam in her eyes. Ciccio's dusk-yellow eyes were +watching her. She sank on her knees on a sheaf of corn-marigolds. +Her eyes, watching him, were vulnerable as if stricken to death. +Indeed she felt she would die. + +"You will have to go?" she said. + +"Yes, we shall all have to go." There seemed a certain sound of +triumph in his voice. Cruel! + +She sank lower on the flowers, and her head dropped. But she would +not be beaten. She lifted her face. + +"If you are very long," she said, "I shall go to England. I can't +stay here very long without you." + +"You will have Pancrazio--and the child," he said. + +"Yes. But I shall still be myself. I can't stay here very long +without you. I shall go to England." + +He watched her narrowly. + +"I don't think they'll let you," he said. + +"Yes they will." + +At moments she hated him. He seemed to want to crush her altogether. +She was always making little plans in her mind--how she could get +out of that great cruel valley and escape to Rome, to English +people. She would find the English Consul and he would help her. She +would do anything rather than be really crushed. She knew how easy +it would be, once her spirit broke, for her to die and be buried in +the cemetery at Pescocalascio. + +And they would all be so sentimental about her--just as Pancrazio +was. She felt that in some way Pancrazio had killed his wife--not +consciously, but unconsciously, as Ciccio might kill _her_. +Pancrazio would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments. And he +seemed always anxious to prove that he had been so good to her. No +doubt he had been good to her, also. But there was something +underneath--malevolent in his spirit, some caged-in sort of cruelty, +malignant beyond his control. It crept out in his stories. And it +revealed itself in his fear of his dead wife. Alvina knew that in +the night the elderly man was afraid of his dead wife, and of her +ghost or her avenging spirit. He would huddle over the fire in fear. +In the same way the cemetery had a fascination of horror for +him--as, she noticed, for most of the natives. It was an ugly, +square place, all stone slabs and wall-cupboards, enclosed in +four-square stone walls, and lying away beneath Pescocalascio +village obvious as if it were on a plate. + +"That is our cemetery," Pancrazio said, pointing it out to her, +"where we shall all be carried some day." + +And there was fear, horror in his voice. He told her how the men had +carried his wife there--a long journey over the hill-tracks, almost +two hours. + +These were days of waiting--horrible days of waiting for Ciccio to +be called up. One batch of young men left the village--and there was +a lugubrious sort of saturnalia, men and women alike got rather +drunk, the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks of +distress. Crowds accompanied them to Ossona, whence they were +marched towards the railway. It was a horrible event. + +A shiver of horror and death went through the valley. In a +lugubrious way, they seemed to enjoy it. + +"You'll never be satisfied till you've gone," she said to Ciccio. +"Why don't they be quick and call you?" + +"It will be next week," he said, looking at her darkly. In the +twilight he came to her, when she could hardly see him. + +"Are you sorry you came here with me, Allaye?" he asked. There was +malice in the very question. + +She put down the spoon and looked up from the fire. He stood +shadowy, his head ducked forward, the firelight faint on his +enigmatic, timeless, half-smiling face. + +"I'm not sorry," she answered slowly, using all her courage. +"Because I love you--" + +She crouched quite still on the hearth. He turned aside his face. +After a moment or two he went out. She stirred her pot slowly and +sadly. She had to go downstairs for something. + +And there on the landing she saw him standing in the darkness with +his arm over his face, as if fending a blow. + +"What is it?" she said, laying her hand on him. He uncovered his +face. + +"I would take you away if I could," he said. + +"I can wait for you," she answered. + +He threw himself in a chair that stood at a table there on the broad +landing, and buried his head in his arms. + +"Don't wait for me! Don't wait for me!" he cried, his voice muffled. + +"Why not?" she said, filled with terror. He made no sign. "Why not?" +she insisted. And she laid her fingers on his head. + +He got up and turned to her. + +"I love you, even if it kills me," she said. + +But he only turned aside again, leaned his arm against the wall, and +hid his face, utterly noiseless. + +"What is it?" she said. "What is it? I don't understand." He wiped +his sleeve across his face, and turned to her. + +"I haven't any hope," he said, in a dull, dogged voice. + +She felt her heart and the child die within her. + +"Why?" she said. + +Was she to bear a hopeless child? + +"You _have_ hope. Don't make a scene," she snapped. And she went +downstairs, as she had intended. + +And when she got into the kitchen, she forgot what she had come for. +She sat in the darkness on the seat, with all life gone dark and +still, death and eternity settled down on her. Death and eternity +were settled down on her as she sat alone. And she seemed to hear +him moaning upstairs--"I can't come back. I can't come back." She +heard it. She heard it so distinctly, that she never knew whether it +had been an actual utterance, or whether it was her inner ear which +had heard the inner, unutterable sound. She wanted to answer, to +call to him. But she could not. Heavy, mute, powerless, there she +sat like a lump of darkness, in that doomed Italian kitchen. "I +can't come back." She heard it so fatally. + +She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancrazio. + +"Oh!" he cried, startled when, having come near the fire, he caught +sight of her. And he said something, frightened, in Italian. + +"Is it you? Why are you in the darkness?" he said. + +"I am just going upstairs again." + +"You frightened me." + +She went up to finish the preparing of the meal. Ciccio came down to +Pancrazio. The latter had brought a newspaper. The two men sat on +the settle, with the lamp between them, reading and talking the +news. + +Ciccio's group was called up for the following week, as he had said. +The departure hung over them like a doom. Those were perhaps the +worst days of all: the days of the impending departure. Neither of +them spoke about it. + +But the night before he left she could bear the silence no more. + +"You will come back, won't you?" she said, as he sat motionless in +his chair in the bedroom. It was a hot, luminous night. There was +still a late scent of orange blossom from the garden, the +nightingale was shaking the air with his sound. At times other, +honey scents wafted from the hills. + +"You will come back?" she insisted. + +"Who knows?" he replied. + +"If you make up your mind to come back, you will come back. We have +our fate in our hands," she said. + +He smiled slowly. + +"You think so?" he said. + +"I know it. If you don't come back it will be because you don't want +to--no other reason. It won't be because you can't. It will be +because you don't want to." + +"Who told you so?" he asked, with the same cruel smile. + +"I know it," she said. + +"All right," he answered. + +But he still sat with his hands abandoned between his knees. + +"So make up your mind," she said. + +He sat motionless for a long while: while she undressed and brushed +her hair and went to bed. And still he sat there unmoving, like a +corpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearable +presence in the room. She blew out the light, that she need not see +him. But in the darkness it was worse. + +At last he stirred--he rose. He came hesitating across to her. + +"I'll come back, Allaye," he said quietly. "Be damned to them all." +She heard unspeakable pain in his voice. + +"To whom?" she said, sitting up. + +He did not answer, but put his arms round her. + +"I'll come back, and we'll go to America," he said. + +"You'll come back to me," she whispered, in an ecstasy of pain and +relief. It was not her affair, where they should go, so long as he +really returned to her. + +"I'll come back," he said. + +"Sure?" she whispered, straining him to her. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST GIRL*** + + +******* This file should be named 23727-8.txt or 23727-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23727 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/23727-8.zip b/old/23727-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..297e755 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/23727-8.zip diff --git a/old/23727.txt b/old/23727.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9262a68 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/23727.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18107 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lost Girl, by D. H. Lawrence + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Lost Girl + + +Author: D. H. Lawrence + + + +Release Date: December 3, 2007 [eBook #23727] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST GIRL*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank, Roberta Staehlin, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +THE LOST GIRL + +by + +D. H. LAWRENCE + + + + + + + +New York +Thomas Seltzer +1921 + +Copyright, 1921, +by Thomas Seltzer, Inc. +All rights reserved + +First Printing, February, 1921 +Second Printing, February, 1921 +Third Printing, September, 1921 + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE 7 + + II THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON 27 + + III THE MATERNITY NURSE 36 + + IV TWO WOMEN DIE 49 + + V THE BEAU 64 + + VI HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR 95 + + VII NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA 130 + +VIII CICCIO 164 + + IX ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE 191 + + X THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE 235 + + XI HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT 273 + + XII ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED 304 + +XIII THE WEDDED WIFE 317 + + XIV THE JOURNEY ACROSS 327 + + XV THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO 350 + + XVI SUSPENSE 359 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE + + +Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of ten +thousand people, and three generations behind it. This space of +three generations argues a certain well-established society. The old +"County" has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to +flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic. Remains one +great and inaccessible magnate, the local coal owner: three +generations old, and clambering on the bottom step of the "County," +kicking off the mass below. Rule him out. + +A well established society in Woodhouse, full of fine shades, +ranging from the dark of coal-dust to grit of stone-mason and +sawdust of timber-merchant, through the lustre of lard and butter +and meat, to the perfume of the chemist and the disinfectant of the +doctor, on to the serene gold-tarnish of bank-managers, cashiers for +the firm, clergymen and such-like, as far as the automobile +refulgence of the general-manager of all the collieries. Here the +_ne plus ultra_. The general manager lives in the shrubberied +seclusion of the so-called Manor. The genuine Hall, abandoned by the +"County," has been taken over as offices by the firm. + +Here we are then: a vast substratum of colliers; a thick sprinkling +of tradespeople intermingled with small employers of labour and +diversified by elementary schoolmasters and nonconformist clergy; a +higher layer of bank-managers, rich millers and well-to-do +ironmasters, episcopal clergy and the managers of collieries, then +the rich and sticky cherry of the local coal-owner glistening over +all. + +Such the complicated social system of a small industrial town in the +Midlands of England, in this year of grace 1920. But let us go back +a little. Such it was in the last calm year of plenty, 1913. + +A calm year of plenty. But one chronic and dreary malady: that of +the odd women. Why, in the name of all prosperity, should every +class but the lowest in such a society hang overburdened with Dead +Sea fruit of odd women, unmarried, unmarriageable women, called old +maids? Why is it that every tradesman, every school-master, every +bank-manager, and every clergyman produces one, two, three or more +old maids? Do the middle-classes, particularly the lower +middle-classes, give birth to more girls than boys? Or do the lower +middle-class men assiduously climb up or down, in marriage, thus +leaving their true partners stranded? Or are middle-class women very +squeamish in their choice of husbands? + +However it be, it is a tragedy. Or perhaps it is not. + +Perhaps these unmarried women of the middle-classes are the famous +sexless-workers of our ant-industrial society, of which we hear so +much. Perhaps all they lack is an occupation: in short, a job. But +perhaps we might hear their own opinion, before we lay the law down. + +In Woodhouse, there was a terrible crop of old maids among the +"nobs," the tradespeople and the clergy. The whole town of women, +colliers' wives and all, held its breath as it saw a chance of one +of these daughters of comfort and woe getting off. They flocked to +the well-to-do weddings with an intoxication of relief. For let +class-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman +left stalely on the shelf, without a chance. They all _wanted_ the +middle-class girls to find husbands. Every one wanted it, including +the girls themselves. Hence the dismalness. + +Now James Houghton had only one child: his daughter Alvina. Surely +Alvina Houghton-- + +But let us retreat to the early eighties, when Alvina was a baby: or +even further back, to the palmy days of James Houghton. In his palmy +days, James Houghton was _creme de la creme_ of Woodhouse society. +The house of Houghton had always been well-to-do: tradespeople, we +must admit; but after a few generations of affluence, tradespeople +acquire a distinct _cachet_. Now James Houghton, at the age of +twenty-eight, inherited a splendid business in Manchester goods, in +Woodhouse. He was a tall, thin, elegant young man with side-whiskers, +genuinely refined, somewhat in the Bulwer style. He had a taste for +elegant conversation and elegant literature and elegant Christianity: +a tall, thin, brittle young man, rather fluttering in his manner, full +of facile ideas, and with a beautiful speaking voice: most beautiful. +Withal, of course, a tradesman. He courted a small, dark woman, older +than himself, daughter of a Derbyshire squire. He expected to get at +least ten thousand pounds with her. In which he was disappointed, for +he got only eight hundred. Being of a romantic-commercial nature, he +never forgave her, but always treated her with the most elegant +courtesy. To seehim peel and prepare an apple for her was an exquisite +sight. But that peeled and quartered apple was her portion. This +elegant Adam of commerce gave Eve her own back, nicely cored, and had +no more to do with her. Meanwhile Alvina was born. + +Before all this, however, before his marriage, James Houghton had +built Manchester House. It was a vast square building--vast, that +is, for Woodhouse--standing on the main street and high-road of the +small but growing town. The lower front consisted of two fine shops, +one for Manchester goods, one for silk and woollens. This was James +Houghton's commercial poem. + +For James Houghton was a dreamer, and something of a poet: commercial, +be it understood. He liked the novels of George Macdonald, and the +fantasies of that author, extremely. He wove one continual fantasy for +himself, a fantasy of commerce. He dreamed of silks and poplins, +luscious in texture and of unforeseen exquisiteness: he dreamed of +carriages of the "County" arrested before his windows, of exquisite +women ruffling charmed, entranced to his counter. And charming, +entrancing, he served them his lovely fabrics, which only he and they +could sufficiently appreciate. His fame spread, until Alexandra, +Princess of Wales, and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, the two +best-dressed women in Europe, floated down from heaven to the shop in +Woodhouse, and sallied forth to show what could be done by purchasing +from James Houghton. + +We cannot say why James Houghton failed to become the Liberty or the +Snelgrove of his day. Perhaps he had too much imagination. Be that as +it may, in those early days when he brought his wife to her new home, +his window on the Manchester side was a foam and a may-blossom of +muslins and prints, his window on the London side was an autumn evening +of silks and rich fabrics. What wife could fail to be dazzled! But she, +poor darling, from her stone hall in stony Derbyshire, was a little bit +repulsed by the man's dancing in front of his stock, like David before +the ark. + +The home to which he brought her was a monument. In the great bedroom +over the shop he had his furniture _built_: built of solid mahogany: oh +too, too solid. No doubt he hopped or skipped himself with satisfaction +into the monstrous matrimonial bed: it could only be mounted by means +of a stool and chair. But the poor, secluded little woman, older than +he, must have climbed up with a heavy heart, to lie and face the gloomy +Bastille of mahogany, the great cupboard opposite, or to turn wearily +sideways to the great cheval mirror, which performed a perpetual and +hideous bow before her grace. Such furniture! It could never be removed +from the room. + +The little child was born in the second year. And then James Houghton +decamped to a small, half-furnished bedroom at the other end of the +house, where he slept on a rough board and played the anchorite for the +rest of his days. His wife was left alone with her baby and the +built-in furniture. She developed heart disease, as a result of nervous +repressions. + +But like a butterfly James fluttered over his fabrics. He was a tyrant +to his shop-girls. No French marquis in a Dickens' novel could have +been more elegant and _raffine_ and heartless. The girls detested him. +And yet, his curious refinement and enthusiasm bore them away. They +submitted to him. The shop attracted much curiosity. But the +poor-spirited Woodhouse people were weak buyers. They wearied James +Houghton with their demand for common zephyrs, for red flannel which +they would scallop with black worsted, for black alpacas and bombazines +and merinos. He fluffed out his silk-striped muslins, his India +cotton-prints. But the natives shied off as if he had offered them the +poisoned robes of Herakles. + +There was a sale. These sales contributed a good deal to Mrs. +Houghton's nervous heart-disease. They brought the first signs of wear +and tear into the face of James Houghton. At first, of course, he +merely marked down, with discretion, his less-expensive stock of prints +and muslins, nuns-veilings and muslin delaines, with a few fancy +braidings and trimmings in guimp or bronze to enliven the affair. And +Woodhouse bought cautiously. + +After the sale, however, James Houghton felt himself at liberty to +plunge into an orgy of new stock. He flitted, with a tense look on his +face, to Manchester. After which huge bundles, bales and boxes arrived +in Woodhouse, and were dumped on the pavement of the shop. Friday +evening came, and with it a revelation in Houghton's window: the first +piques, the first strangely-woven and honey-combed toilet covers and +bed quilts, the first frill-caps and aprons for maid-servants: a wonder +in white. That was how James advertised it. "A Wonder in White." Who +knows but that he had been reading Wilkie Collins' famous novel! + +As the nine days of the wonder-in-white passed and receded, James +disappeared in the direction of London. A few Fridays later he came out +with his Winter Touch. Weird and wonderful winter coats, for +ladies--everything James handled was for ladies, he scorned the coarser +sex--: weird and wonderful winter coats for ladies, of thick, black, +pockmarked cloth, stood and flourished their bear-fur cuffs in the +background, while tippets, boas, muffs and winter-fancies coquetted in +front of the window-space. Friday-night crowds gathered outside: the +gas-lamps shone their brightest: James Houghton hovered in the +background like an author on his first night in the theatre. The +result was a sensation. Ten villages stared and crushed round the plate +glass. It was a sensation: but what sensation! In the breasts of the +crowd, wonder, admiration, _fear_, and ridicule. Let us stress the word +fear. The inhabitants of Woodhouse were afraid lest James Houghton +should impose his standards upon them. His goods were in excellent +taste: but his customers were in as bad taste as possible. They stood +outside and pointed, giggled, and jeered. Poor James, like an author on +his first night, saw his work fall more than flat. + +But still he believed in his own excellence: and quite justly. What +he failed to perceive was that the crowd hated excellence. Woodhouse +wanted a gently graduated progress in mediocrity, a mediocrity so +stale and flat that it fell outside the imagination of any sensitive +mortal. Woodhouse wanted a series of vulgar little thrills, as one +tawdry mediocrity was imported from Nottingham or Birmingham to take +the place of some tawdry mediocrity which Nottingham and Birmingham +had already discarded. That Woodhouse, as a very condition of its +own being, hated any approach to originality or real taste, this +James Houghton could never learn. He thought he had not been clever +enough, when he had been far, far too clever already. He always +thought that Dame Fortune was a capricious and fastidious dame, a +sort of Elizabeth of Austria or Alexandra, Princess of Wales, +elegant beyond his grasp. Whereas Dame Fortune, even in London or +Vienna, let alone in Woodhouse, was a vulgar woman of the middle and +lower middle-class, ready to put her heavy foot on anything that was +not vulgar, machine-made, and appropriate to the herd. When he saw +his delicate originalities, as well as his faint flourishes of +draper's fantasy, squashed flat under the calm and solid foot of +vulgar Dame Fortune, he fell into fits of depression bordering on +mysticism, and talked to his wife in a vague way of higher +influences and the angel Israfel. She, poor lady, was thoroughly +scared by Israfel, and completely unhooked by the vagaries of James. + +At last--we hurry down the slope of James' misfortunes--the real +days of Houghton's Great Sales began. Houghton's Great Bargain +Events were really events. After some years of hanging on, he let go +splendidly. He marked down his prints, his chintzes, his dimities +and his veilings with a grand and lavish hand. Bang went his blue +pencil through 3/11, and nobly he subscribed 1/0-3/4. Prices fell +like nuts. A lofty one-and-eleven rolled down to six-three, 1/6 +magically shrank into 4-3/4d, whilst good solid prints exposed +themselves at 3-3/4d per yard. + +Now this was really an opportunity. Moreover the goods, having +become a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, were +beginning to approximate to the public taste. And besides, good +sound stuff it was, no matter what the pattern. And so the little +Woodhouse girls went to school in petties and drawers made of +material which James had destined for fair summer dresses: petties +and drawers of which the little Woodhouse girls were ashamed, for +all that. For if they should chance to turn up their little skirts, +be sure they would raise a chorus among their companions: "Yah-h-h, +yer've got Houghton's threp'ny draws on!" + +All this time James Houghton walked on air. He still saw the Fata +Morgana snatching his fabrics round her lovely form, and pointing +him to wealth untold. True, he became also Superintendent of the +Sunday School. But whether this was an act of vanity, or whether it +was an attempt to establish an Entente Cordiale with higher powers, +who shall judge. + +Meanwhile his wife became more and more an invalid; the little +Alvina was a pretty, growing child. Woodhouse was really impressed +by the sight of Mrs. Houghton, small, pale and withheld, taking a +walk with her dainty little girl, so fresh in an ermine tippet and a +muff. Mrs. Houghton in shiny black bear's-fur, the child in the +white and spotted ermine, passing silent and shadowy down the +street, made an impression which the people did not forget. + +But Mrs. Houghton had pains at her heart. If, during her walk, she +saw two little boys having a scrimmage, she had to run to them with +pence and entreaty, leaving them dumfounded, whilst she leaned blue +at the lips against a wall. If she saw a carter crack his whip over +the ears of the horse, as the horse laboured uphill, she had to +cover her eyes and avert her face, and all her strength left her. + +So she stayed more and more in her room, and the child was given to +the charge of a governess. Miss Frost was a handsome, vigorous young +woman of about thirty years of age, with grey-white hair and +gold-rimmed spectacles. The white hair was not at all tragical: it +was a family _trait_. + +Miss Frost mattered more than any one else to Alvina Houghton, +during the first long twenty-five years of the girl's life. The +governess was a strong, generous woman, a musician by nature. She +had a sweet voice, and sang in the choir of the chapel, and took the +first class of girls in the Sunday-School of which James Houghton +was Superintendent. She disliked and rather despised James Houghton, +saw in him elements of a hypocrite, detested his airy and gracious +selfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all, his fairy +fantasy. As James went further into life, he became a dreamer. Sad +indeed that he died before the days of Freud. He enjoyed the most +wonderful and fairy-like dreams, which he could describe perfectly, +in charming, delicate language. At such times his beautifully +modulated voice all but sang, his grey eyes gleamed fiercely under +his bushy, hairy eyebrows, his pale face with its side-whiskers had +a strange _lueur_, his long thin hands fluttered occasionally. He +had become meagre in figure, his skimpy but genteel coat would be +buttoned over his breast, as he recounted his dream-adventures, +adventures that were half Edgar Allan Poe, half Andersen, with +touches of Vathek and Lord Byron and George Macdonald: perhaps more +than a touch of the last. Ladies were always struck by these +accounts. But Miss Frost never felt so strongly moved to impatience +as when she was within hearing. + +For twenty years, she and James Houghton treated each other with a +courteous distance. Sometimes she broke into open impatience with +him, sometimes he answered her tartly: "Indeed, indeed! Oh, indeed! +Well, well, I'm sorry you find it so--" as if the injury consisted +in her finding it so. Then he would flit away to the Conservative +Club, with a fleet, light, hurried step, as if pressed by fate. At +the club he played chess--at which he was excellent--and conversed. +Then he flitted back at half-past twelve, to dinner. + +The whole morale of the house rested immediately on Miss Frost. She +saw her line in the first year. She must defend the little Alvina, +whom she loved as her own, and the nervous, petulant, heart-stricken +woman, the mother, from the vagaries of James. Not that James had +any vices. He did not drink or smoke, was abstemious and clean as an +anchorite, and never lowered his fine tone. But still, the two +unprotected ones must be sheltered from him. Miss Frost +imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic +government. Her rule was quiet, strong, and generous. She was not +seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of +Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms with her own sure, +radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy, +reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to +give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered +home. She controlled the maid, and suggested the meals--meals which +James ate without knowing what he ate. She brought in flowers and +books, and, very rarely, a visitor. Visitors were out of place in +the dark sombreness of Manchester House. Her flowers charmed the +petulant invalid, her books she sometimes discussed with the airy +James: after which discussions she was invariably filled with +exasperation and impatience, whilst James invariably retired to the +shop, and was heard raising his musical voice, which the work-girls +hated, to one or other of the work-girls. + +James certainly had an irritating way of speaking of a book. He +talked of incidents, and effects, and suggestions, as if the whole +thing had just been a sensational-aesthetic attribute to himself. Not +a grain of human feeling in the man, said Miss Frost, flushing pink +with exasperation. She herself invariably took the human line. + +Meanwhile the shops began to take on a hopeless and frowsy look. +After ten years' sales, spring sales, summer sales, autumn sales, +winter sales, James began to give up the drapery dream. He himself +could not bear any more to put the heavy, pock-holed black cloth +coat, with wild bear cuffs and collar, on to the stand. He had +marked it down from five guineas to one guinea, and then, oh ignoble +day, to ten-and-six. He nearly kissed the gipsy woman with a basket +of tin saucepan-lids, when at last she bought it for five shillings, +at the end of one of his winter sales. But even she, in spite of the +bitter sleety day, would not put the coat on in the shop. She +carried it over her arm down to the Miners' Arms. And later, with a +shock that really hurt him, James, peeping bird-like out of his shop +door, saw her sitting driving a dirty rag-and-bone cart with a +green-white, mouldy pony, and flourishing her arms like some wild +and hairy-decorated squaw. For the long bear-fur, wet with sleet, +seemed like a _chevaux de frise_ of long porcupine quills round her +fore-arms and her neck. Yet such good, such wonderful material! James +eyed it for one moment, and then fled like a rabbit to the stove in +his back regions. + +The higher powers did not seem to fulfil the terms of treaty which +James hoped for. He began to back out from the Entente. The Sunday +School was a great trial to him. Instead of being carried away by +his grace and eloquence, the nasty louts of colliery boys and girls +openly banged their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to +speak. He said many acid and withering things, as he stood there on +the rostrum. But what is the good of saying acid things to those +little fiends and gall-bladders, the colliery children. The +situation was saved by Miss Frost's sweeping together all the big +girls, under her surveillance, and by her organizing that the tall +and handsome blacksmith who taught the lower boys should extend his +influence over the upper boys. His influence was more than +effectual. It consisted in gripping any recalcitrant boy just above +the knee, and jesting with him in a jocular manner, in the dialect. +The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith's hand need be, and his +dialect was as broad as could be wished. Between the grip and the +homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. So the Sunday +School paid more attention to James, whose prayers were beautiful. +But then one of the boys, a protege of Miss Frost, having been left +for half an hour in the obscure room with Mrs. Houghton, gave away +the secret of the blacksmith's grip, which secret so haunted the +poor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of her malady, and +made Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Houghton +resented something in the coarse Scotch manner of the minister of +that day. So that the superintendency of the Sunday School came to +an end. + +At the same time, Solomon had to divide his baby. That is, he let +the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor and +haberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bear +analysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joiners +appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room in +the shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and sawing, +and suffered. W. H. Johnson came out with a spick-and-span window, +and had his wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a +handsome, loud girl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked +in--even women, buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They +could have bought a tie for four-three from James Houghton. But no, +they would rather give sixpence-halfpenny for W.H. Johnson's fresh +but rubbishy stuff. And James, who had tried to rise to another +successful sale, saw the streams pass into the other doorway, and +heard the heavy feet on the hollow boards of the other shop: his +shop no more. + +After this cut at his pride and integrity he lay in retirement for a +while, mystically inclined. Probably he would have come to +Swedenborg, had not his clipt wings spread for a new flight. He hit +upon the brilliant idea of working up his derelict fabrics into +ready-mades: not men's clothes, oh no: women's, or rather, ladies'. +Ladies' Tailoring, said the new announcement. + +James Houghton was happy once more. A zig-zag wooden stair-way was +rigged up the high back of Manchester House. In the great lofts +sewing-machines of various patterns and movements were installed. A +manageress was advertised for, and work-girls were hired. So a new +phase of life started. At half-past six in the morning there was a +clatter of feet and of girls' excited tongues along the back-yard +and up the wooden stair-way outside the back wall. The poor invalid +heard every clack and every vibration. She could never get over her +nervous apprehension of an invasion. Every morning alike, she felt +an invasion of some enemy was breaking in on her. And all day long +the low, steady rumble of sewing-machines overhead seemed like the +low drumming of a bombardment upon her weak heart. To make matters +worse, James Houghton decided that he must have his sewing-machines +driven by some extra-human force. He installed another plant of +machinery--acetylene or some such contrivance--which was intended to +drive all the little machines from one big belt. Hence a further +throbbing and shaking in the upper regions, truly terrible to +endure. But, fortunately or unfortunately, the acetylene plant was +not a success. Girls got their thumbs pierced, and sewing machines +absolutely refused to stop sewing, once they had started, and +absolutely refused to start, once they had stopped. So that after a +while, one loft was reserved for disused and rusty, but expensive +engines. + +Dame Fortune, who had refused to be taken by fine fabrics and fancy +trimmings, was just as reluctant to be captured by ready-mades. +Again the good dame was thoroughly lower middle-class. James +Houghton designed "robes." Now Robes were the mode. Perhaps it was +Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who gave glory to the slim, +glove-fitting Princess Robe. Be that as it may, James Houghton +designed robes. His work-girls, a race even more callous than +shop-girls, proclaimed the fact that James tried on his own +inventions upon his own elegant thin person, before the privacy of +his own cheval mirror. And even if he did, why not? Miss Frost, +hearing this legend, looked sideways at the enthusiast. + +Let us remark in time that Miss Frost had already ceased to draw any +maintenance from James Houghton. Far from it, she herself +contributed to the upkeep of the domestic hearth and board. She had +fully decided never to leave her two charges. She knew that a +governess was an impossible item in Manchester House, as things +went. And so she trudged the country, giving music lessons to the +daughters of tradesmen and of colliers who boasted pianofortes. She +even taught heavy-handed but dauntless colliers, who were seized +with a passion to "play." Miles she trudged, on her round from +village to village: a white-haired woman with a long, quick stride, +a strong figure, and a quick, handsome smile when once her face +awoke behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Like many short-sighted +people, she had a certain intent look of one who goes her own way. + +The miners knew her, and entertained the highest respect and +admiration for her. As they streamed in a grimy stream home from +pit, they diverged like some magic dark river from off the pavement +into the horse-way, to give her room as she approached. And the men +who knew her well enough to salute her, by calling her name "Miss +Frost!" giving it the proper intonation of salute, were fussy men +indeed. "She's a lady if ever there was one," they said. And they +meant it. Hearing her name, poor Miss Frost would flash a smile and +a nod from behind her spectacles, but whose black face she smiled to +she never, or rarely knew. If she did chance to get an inkling, then +gladly she called in reply "Mr. Lamb," or "Mr. Calladine." In her +way she was a proud woman, for she was regarded with cordial +respect, touched with veneration, by at least a thousand colliers, +and by perhaps as many colliers' wives. That is something, for any +woman. + +Miss Frost charged fifteen shillings for thirteen weeks' lessons, +two lessons a week. And at that she was considered rather dear. She +was supposed to be making money. What money she made went chiefly to +support the Houghton household. In the meanwhile she drilled Alvina +thoroughly in theory and pianoforte practice, for Alvina was +naturally musical, and besides this she imparted to the girl the +elements of a young lady's education, including the drawing of +flowers in water-colour, and the translation of a Lamartine poem. + +Now incredible as it may seem, fate threw another prop to the +falling house of Houghton, in the person of the manageress of the +work-girls, Miss Pinnegar. James Houghton complained of Fortune, yet +to what other man would Fortune have sent two such women as Miss +Frost and Miss Pinnegar, _gratis_? Yet there they were. And doubtful +if James was ever grateful for their presence. + +If Miss Frost saved him from heaven knows what domestic debacle and +horror, Miss Pinnegar saved him from the workhouse. Let us not mince +matters. For a dozen years Miss Frost supported the heart-stricken, +nervous invalid, Clariss Houghton: for more than twenty years she +cherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the +child alike from a neurotic mother and a father such as James. For +nearly twenty years she saw that food was set on the table, and +clean sheets were spread on the beds: and all the time remained +virtually in the position of an outsider, without one grain of +established authority. + +And then to find Miss Pinnegar! In her way, Miss Pinnegar was very +different from Miss Frost. She was a rather short, stout, +mouse-coloured, creepy kind of woman with a high colour in her +cheeks, and dun, close hair like a cap. It was evident she was not a +lady: her grammar was not without reproach. She had pale grey eyes, +and a padding step, and a soft voice, and almost purplish cheeks. +Mrs. Houghton, Miss Frost, and Alvina did not like her. They +suffered her unwillingly. + +But from the first she had a curious ascendancy over James Houghton. +One would have expected his aesthetic eye to be offended. But no +doubt it was her voice: her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed +almost like a secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers +disliked being secretly touched, as it were beneath their clothing. +Miss Frost abhorred it: so did Mrs. Houghton. Miss Frost's voice was +clear and straight as a bell-note, open as the day. Yet Alvina, +though in loyalty she adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, did not +really mind the quiet suggestive power of Miss Pinnegar. For Miss +Pinnegar was not vulgarly insinuating. On the contrary, the things +she said were rather clumsy and downright. It was only that she +seemed to weigh what she said, secretly, before she said it, and +then she approached as if she would slip it into her hearer's +consciousness without his being aware of it. She seemed to slide her +speeches unnoticed into one's ears, so that one accepted them +without the slightest challenge. That was just her manner of +approach. In her own way, she was as loyal and unselfish as Miss +Frost. There are such poles of opposition between honesties and +loyalties. + +Miss Pinnegar had the _second_ class of girls in the Sunday School, +and she took second, subservient place in Manchester House. By force +of nature, Miss Frost took first place. Only when Miss Pinnegar +spoke to Mr. Houghton--nay, the very way she addressed herself to +him--"What do _you_ think, Mr. Houghton?"--then there seemed to be +assumed an immediacy of correspondence between the two, and an +unquestioned priority in their unison, his and hers, which was a +cruel thorn in Miss Frost's outspoken breast. This sort of secret +intimacy and secret exulting in having, _really_, the chief power, +was most repugnant to the white-haired woman. Not that there was, in +fact, any secrecy, or any form of unwarranted correspondence between +James Houghton and Miss Pinnegar. Far from it. Each of them would +have found any suggestion of such a possibility repulsive in the +extreme. It was simply an implicit correspondence between their two +psyches, an immediacy of understanding which preceded all +expression, tacit, wireless. + +Miss Pinnegar lived in: so that the household consisted of the +invalid, who mostly sat, in her black dress with a white lace collar +fastened by a twisted gold brooch, in her own dim room, doing +nothing, nervous and heart-suffering; then James, and the thin young +Alvina, who adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, and then these two +strange women. Miss Pinnegar never lifted up her voice in household +affairs: she seemed, by her silence, to admit her own inadequacy in +culture and intellect, when topics of interest were being discussed, +only coming out now and then with defiant platitudes and +truisms--for almost defiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian +point of view; yet after everything she would turn with her quiet, +triumphant assurance to James Houghton, and start on some point of +business, soft, assured, ascendant. The others shut their ears. + +Now Miss Pinnegar had to get her footing slowly. She had to let +James run the gamut of his creations. Each Friday night new wonders, +robes and ladies' "suits"--the phrase was very new--garnished the +window of Houghton's shop. It was one of the sights of the place, +Houghton's window on Friday night. Young or old, no individual, +certainly no female left Woodhouse without spending an excited and +usually hilarious ten minutes on the pavement under the window. +Muffled shrieks of young damsels who had just got their first view, +guffaws of sympathetic youths, continued giggling and expostulation +and "Eh, but what price the umbrella skirt, my girl!" and "You'd +like to marry me in _that_, my boy--what? not half!"--or else "Eh, +now, if you'd seen me in _that_ you'd have fallen in love with me at +first sight, shouldn't you?"--with a probable answer "I should have +fallen over myself making haste to get away"--loud guffaws:--all +this was the regular Friday night's entertainment in Woodhouse. +James Houghton's shop was regarded as a weekly comic issue. His +pique costumes with glass buttons and sort of steel-trimming collars +and cuffs were immortal. + +But why, once more, drag it out. Miss Pinnegar served in the shop on +Friday nights. She stood by her man. Sometimes when the shrieks grew +loudest she came to the shop door and looked with her pale grey eyes +at the ridiculous mob of lasses in tam-o-shanters and youths half +buried in caps. And she imposed a silence. They edged away. + +Meanwhile Miss Pinnegar pursued the sober and even tenor of her own +way. Whilst James lashed out, to use the local phrase, in robes and +"suits," Miss Pinnegar steadily ground away, producing strong, +indestructible shirts and singlets for the colliers, sound, +serviceable aprons for the colliers' wives, good print dresses for +servants, and so on. She executed no flights of fancy. She had her +goods made to suit her people. And so, underneath the foam and froth +of James' creative adventure flowed a slow but steady stream of +output and income. The women of Woodhouse came at last to _depend_ +on Miss Pinnegar. Growing lads in the pit reduce their garments to +shreds with amazing expedition. "I'll go to Miss Pinnegar for thy +shirts this time, my lad," said the harassed mothers, "and see if +_they'll_ stand thee." It was almost like a threat. But it served +Manchester House. + +James bought very little stock in these days: just remnants and +pieces for his immortal robes. It was Miss Pinnegar who saw the +travellers and ordered the unions and calicoes and grey flannel. +James hovered round and said the last word, of course. But what was +his last word but an echo of Miss Pinnegar's penultimate! He was not +interested in unions and twills. + +His own stock remained on hand. Time, like a slow whirlpool +churned it over into sight and out of sight, like a mass of dead +sea-weed in a backwash. There was a regular series of sales +fortnightly. The display of "creations" fell off. The new +entertainment was the Friday-night's sale. James would attack some +portion of his stock, make a wild jumble of it, spend a delirious +Wednesday and Thursday marking down, and then open on Friday +afternoon. In the evening there was a crush. A good moire underskirt +for one-and-eleven-three was not to be neglected, and a handsome +string-lace collarette for six-three would iron out and be worth at +least three-and-six. That was how it went: it would nearly all of +it iron out into something really nice, poor James' crumpled stock. +His fine, semi-transparent face flushed pink, his eyes flashed as he +took in the sixpences and handed back knots of tape or packets of +pins for the notorious farthings. What matter if the farthing change +had originally cost him a halfpenny! His shop was crowded with women +peeping and pawing and turning things over and commenting in loud, +unfeeling tones. For there were still many comic items. Once, for +example, he suddenly heaped up piles of hats, trimmed and untrimmed, +the weirdest, sauciest, most screaming shapes. Woodhouse enjoyed +itself that night. + +And all the time, in her quiet, polite, think-the-more fashion Miss +Pinnegar waited on the people, showing them considerable forbearance +and just a tinge of contempt. She became very tired those +evenings--her hair under its invisible hairnet became flatter, her +cheeks hung down purplish and mottled. But while James stood she +stood. The people did not like her, yet she influenced them. And the +stock slowly wilted, withered. Some was scrapped. The shop seemed to +have digested some of its indigestible contents. + +James accumulated sixpences in a miserly fashion. Luckily for her +work-girls, Miss Pinnegar took her own orders, and received payments +for her own productions. Some of her regular customers paid her a +shilling a week--or less. But it made a small, steady income. She +reserved her own modest share, paid the expenses of her department, +and left the residue to James. + +James had accumulated sixpences, and made a little space in his +shop. He had desisted from "creations." Time now for a new flight. +He decided it was better to be a manufacturer than a tradesman. His +shop, already only half its original size, was again too big. It +might be split once more. Rents had risen in Woodhouse. Why not cut +off another shop from his premises? + +No sooner said than done. In came the architect, with whom he had +played many a game of chess. Best, said the architect, take off one +good-sized shop, rather than halve the premises. James would be left +a little cramped, a little tight, with only one-third of his present +space. But as we age we dwindle. + +More hammering and alterations, and James found himself cooped in a +long, long narrow shop, very dark at the back, with a high oblong +window and a door that came in at a pinched corner. Next door to him +was a cheerful new grocer of the cheap and florid type. The new +grocer whistled "Just Like the Ivy," and shouted boisterously to his +shop-boy. In his doorway, protruding on James' sensitive vision, was +a pyramid of sixpence-halfpenny tins of salmon, red, shiny tins with +pink halved salmons depicted, and another yellow pyramid of +four-pence-halfpenny tins of pineapple. Bacon dangled in pale rolls +_almost_ over James' doorway, whilst straw and paper, redolent of +cheese, lard, and stale eggs filtered through the threshold. + +This was coming down in the world, with a vengeance. But what James +lost downstairs he tried to recover upstairs. Heaven knows what he +would have done, but for Miss Pinnegar. She kept her own work-rooms +against him, with a soft, heavy, silent tenacity that would have +beaten stronger men than James. But his strength lay in his +pliability. He rummaged in the empty lofts, and among the discarded +machinery. He rigged up the engines afresh, bought two new machines, +and started an elastic department, making elastic for garters and +for hat-chins. + +He was immensely proud of his first cards of elastic, and saw Dame +Fortune this time fast in his yielding hands. But, becoming used to +disillusionment, he almost welcomed it. Within six months he +realized that every inch of elastic cost him exactly sixty per cent. +more than he could sell it for, and so he scrapped his new +department. Luckily, he sold one machine and even gained two pounds +on it. + +After this, he made one last effort. This was hosiery webbing, which +could be cut up and made into as-yet-unheard-of garments. Miss +Pinnegar kept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much +more than abortive. And then James left her alone. + +Meanwhile the shop slowly churned its oddments. Every Thursday +afternoon James sorted out tangles of bits and bobs, antique +garments and occasional finds. With these he trimmed his window, so +that it looked like a historical museum, rather soiled and scrappy. +Indoors he made baskets of assortments: threepenny, sixpenny, +ninepenny and shilling baskets, rather like a bran pie in which +everything was a plum. And then, on Friday evening, thin and alert +he hovered behind the counter, his coat shabbily buttoned over his +narrow chest, his face agitated. He had shaved his side-whiskers, +so that they only grew becomingly as low as his ears. His rather +large, grey moustache was brushed off his mouth. His hair, gone very +thin, was brushed frail and floating over his baldness. But still a +gentleman, still courteous, with a charming voice he suggested the +possibilities of a pad of green parrots' tail-feathers, or of a few +yards of pink-pearl trimming or of old chenille fringe. The women +would pinch the thick, exquisite old chenille fringe, delicate and +faded, curious to feel its softness. But they wouldn't give +threepence for it. Tapes, ribbons, braids, buttons, feathers, +jabots, bussels, appliques, fringes, jet-trimmings, bugle-trimmings, +bundles of old coloured machine-lace, many bundles of strange cord, +in all colours, for old-fashioned braid-patterning, ribbons with +H.M.S. Birkenhead, for boys' sailor caps--everything that nobody +wanted, did the women turn over and over, till they chanced on a +find. And James' quick eyes watched the slow surge of his flotsam, +as the pot boiled but did not boil away. Wonderful that he did not +think of the days when these bits and bobs were new treasures. But +he did not. + +And at his side Miss Pinnegar quietly took orders for shirts, +discussed and agreed, made measurements and received instalments. + +The shop was now only opened on Friday afternoons and evenings, so +every day, twice a day, James was seen dithering bare-headed and +hastily down the street, as if pressed by fate, to the Conservative +Club, and twice a day he was seen as hastily returning, to his +meals. He was becoming an old man: his daughter was a young woman: +but in his own mind he was just the same, and his daughter was a +little child, his wife a young invalid whom he must charm by some +few delicate attentions--such as the peeled apple. + +At the club he got into more mischief. He met men who wanted to +extend a brickfield down by the railway. The brickfield was called +Klondyke. James had now a new direction to run in: down hill towards +Bagthorpe, to Klondyke. Big penny-daisies grew in tufts on the brink +of the yellow clay at Klondyke, yellow eggs-and-bacon spread their +midsummer mats of flower. James came home with clay smeared all over +him, discoursing brilliantly on grit and paste and presses and kilns +and stamps. He carried home a rough and pinkish brick, and gloated +over it. It was a _hard_ brick, it was a non-porous brick. It was an +ugly brick, painfully heavy and parched-looking. + +This time he was sure: Dame Fortune would rise like Persephone out +of the earth. He was all the more sure, because other men of the +town were in with him at this venture: sound, moneyed grocers and +plumbers. They were all going to become rich. + +Klondyke lasted a year and a half, and was not so bad, for in the +end, all things considered, James had lost not more than five per +cent. of his money. In fact, all things considered, he was about +square. And yet he felt Klondyke as the greatest blow of all. Miss +Pinnegar would have aided and abetted him in another scheme, if it +would but have cheered him. Even Miss Frost was nice with him. But +to no purpose. In the year after Klondyke he became an old man, he +seemed to have lost all his feathers, he acquired a plucked, +tottering look. + +Yet he roused up, after a coal-strike. Throttle-Ha'penny put new +life into him. During a coal-strike the miners themselves began +digging in the fields, just near the houses, for the surface coal. +They found a plentiful seam of drossy, yellowish coal behind the +Methodist New Connection Chapel. The seam was opened in the side of +a bank, and approached by a footrill, a sloping shaft down which the +men walked. When the strike was over, two or three miners still +remained working the soft, drossy coal, which they sold for +eight-and-sixpence a ton--or sixpence a hundredweight. But a mining +population scorned such dirt, as they called it. + +James Houghton, however, was seized with a desire to work the +Connection Meadow seam, as he called it. He gathered two miner +partners--he trotted endlessly up to the field, he talked, as he had +never talked before, with inumerable colliers. Everybody he met he +stopped, to talk Connection Meadow. + +And so at last he sank a shaft, sixty feet deep, rigged up a +corrugated-iron engine-house with a winding-engine, and lowered his +men one at a time down the shaft, in a big bucket. The whole affair +was ricketty, amateurish, and twopenny. The name Connection Meadow +was forgotten within three months. Everybody knew the place as +Throttle-Ha'penny. "What!" said a collier to his wife: "have we got +no coal? You'd better get a bit from Throttle-Ha'penny." "Nay," +replied the wife, "I'm sure I shan't. I'm sure I shan't burn that +muck, and smother myself with white ash." + +It was in the early Throttle-Ha'penny days that Mrs. Houghton died. +James Houghton cried, and put a black band on his Sunday silk hat. +But he was too feverishly busy at Throttle-Ha'penny, selling his +hundredweights of ash-pit fodder, as the natives called it, to +realize anything else. + +He had three men and two boys working his pit, besides a +superannuated old man driving the winding engine. And in spite of +all jeering, he flourished. Shabby old coal-carts rambled up behind +the New Connection, and filled from the pit-bank. The coal improved +a little in quality: it was cheap and it was handy. James could sell +at last fifty or sixty tons a week: for the stuff was easy getting. +And now at last he was actually handling money. He saw millions +ahead. + +This went on for more than a year. A year after the death of Mrs. +Houghton, Miss Frost became ill and suddenly died. Again James +Houghton cried and trembled. But it was Throttle-Ha'penny that made +him tremble. He trembled in all his limbs, at the touch of success. +He saw himself making noble provision for his only daughter. + +But alas--it is wearying to repeat the same thing over and over. +First the Board of Trade began to make difficulties. Then there was +a fault in the seam. Then the roof of Throttle-Ha'penny was so loose +and soft, James could not afford timber to hold it up. In short, +when his daughter Alvina was about twenty-seven years old, +Throttle-Ha'penny closed down. There was a sale of poor machinery, +and James Houghton came home to the dark, gloomy house--to Miss +Pinnegar and Alvina. + +It was a pinched, dreary house. James seemed down for the last time. +But Miss Pinnegar persuaded him to take the shop again on Friday +evening. For the rest, faded and peaked, he hurried shadowily down +to the club. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE RISE OF ALVINA HOUGHTON + + +The heroine of this story is Alvina Houghton. If we leave her out of +the first chapter of her own story it is because, during the first +twenty-five years of her life, she really was left out of count, or +so overshadowed as to be negligible. She and her mother were the +phantom passengers in the ship of James Houghton's fortunes. + +In Manchester House, every voice lowered its tone. And so from the +first Alvina spoke with a quiet, refined, almost convent voice. She +was a thin child with delicate limbs and face, and wide, grey-blue, +ironic eyes. Even as a small girl she had that odd ironic tilt of +the eyelids which gave her a look as if she were hanging back in +mockery. If she were, she was quite unaware of it, for under Miss +Frost's care she received no education in irony or mockery. Miss +Frost was straightforward, good-humoured, and a little earnest. +Consequently Alvina, or Vina as she was called, understood only the +explicit mode of good-humoured straightforwardness. + +It was doubtful which shadow was greater over the child: that of +Manchester House, gloomy and a little sinister, or that of Miss +Frost, benevolent and protective. Sufficient that the girl herself +worshipped Miss Frost: or believed she did. + +Alvina never went to school. She had her lessons from her beloved +governess, she worked at the piano, she took her walks, and for +social life she went to the Congregational Chapel, and to the +functions connected with the chapel. While she was little, she went +to Sunday School twice and to Chapel once on Sundays. Then +occasionally there was a magic lantern or a penny reading, to which +Miss Frost accompanied her. As she grew older she entered the choir +at chapel, she attended Christian Endeavour and P.S.A., and the +Literary Society on Monday evenings. Chapel provided her with a +whole social activity, in the course of which she met certain groups +of people, made certain friends, found opportunity for strolls into +the country and jaunts to the local entertainments. Over and above +this, every Thursday evening she went to the subscription library to +change the week's supply of books, and there again she met friends +and acquaintances. It is hard to overestimate the value of church or +chapel--but particularly chapel--as a social institution, in places +like Woodhouse. The Congregational Chapel provided Alvina with a +whole outer life, lacking which she would have been poor indeed. She +was not particularly religious by inclination. Perhaps her father's +beautiful prayers put her off. So she neither questioned nor +accepted, but just let be. + +She grew up a slim girl, rather distinguished in appearance, with a +slender face, a fine, slightly arched nose, and beautiful grey-blue +eyes over which the lids tilted with a very odd, sardonic tilt. The +sardonic quality was, however, quite in abeyance. She was ladylike, +not vehement at all. In the street her walk had a delicate, +lingering motion, her face looked still. In conversation she had +rather a quick, hurried manner, with intervals of well-bred repose +and attention. Her voice was like her father's, flexible and +curiously attractive. + +Sometimes, however, she would have fits of boisterous hilarity, not +quite natural, with a strange note half pathetic, half jeering. Her +father tended to a supercilious, sneering tone. In Vina it came out +in mad bursts of hilarious jeering. This made Miss Frost uneasy. She +would watch the girl's strange face, that could take on a gargoyle +look. She would see the eyes rolling strangely under sardonic +eyelids, and then Miss Frost would feel that never, never had she +known anything so utterly alien and incomprehensible and +unsympathetic as her own beloved Vina. For twenty years the strong, +protective governess reared and tended her lamb, her dove, only to +see the lamb open a wolf's mouth, to hear the dove utter the wild +cackle of a daw or a magpie, a strange sound of derision. At such +times Miss Frost's heart went cold within her. She dared not +realize. And she chid and checked her ward, restored her to the +usual impulsive, affectionate demureness. Then she dismissed the +whole matter. It was just an accidental aberration on the girl's +part from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly +the qualities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she +was taught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined +creature of her governess' desire. But there was an odd, derisive +look at the back of her eyes, a look of old knowledge and +deliberate derision. She herself was unconscious of it. But it was +there. And this it was, perhaps, that scared away the young men. + +Alvina reached the age of twenty-three, and it looked as if she were +destined to join the ranks of the old maids, so many of whom found +cold comfort in the Chapel. For she had no suitors. True there were +extraordinarily few young men of her class--for whatever her +condition, she had certain breeding and inherent culture--in +Woodhouse. The young men of the same social standing as herself were +in some curious way outsiders to her. Knowing nothing, yet her +ancient sapience went deep, deeper than Woodhouse could fathom. The +young men did not like her for it. They did not like the tilt of her +eyelids. + +Miss Frost, with anxious foreseeing, persuaded the girl to take over +some pupils, to teach them the piano. The work was distasteful to +Alvina. She was not a good teacher. She persevered in an off-hand +way, somewhat indifferent, albeit dutiful. + +When she was twenty-three years old, Alvina met a man called Graham. +He was an Australian, who had been in Edinburgh taking his medical +degree. Before going back to Australia, he came to spend some months +practising with old Dr. Fordham in Woodhouse--Dr. Fordham being in +some way connected with his mother. + +Alexander Graham called to see Mrs. Houghton. Mrs. Houghton did not +like him. She said he was creepy. He was a man of medium height, +dark in colouring, with very dark eyes, and a body which seemed to +move inside his clothing. He was amiable and polite, laughed often, +showing his teeth. It was his teeth which Miss Frost could not +stand. She seemed to see a strong mouthful of cruel, compact teeth. +She declared he had dark blood in his veins, that he was not a man +to be trusted, and that never, never would he make any woman's life +happy. + +Yet in spite of all, Alvina was attracted by him. The two would stay +together in the parlour, laughing and talking by the hour. What they +could find to talk about was a mystery. Yet there they were, +laughing and chatting, with a running insinuating sound through it +all which made Miss Frost pace up and down unable to bear herself. + +The man was always running in when Miss Frost was out. He contrived +to meet Alvina in the evening, to take a walk with her. He went a +long walk with her one night, and wanted to make love to her. But +her upbringing was too strong for her. + +"Oh no," she said. "We are only friends." + +He knew her upbringing was too strong for him also. + +"We're more than friends," he said. "We're more than friends." + +"I don't think so," she said. + +"Yes we are," he insisted, trying to put his arm round her waist. + +"Oh, don't!" she cried. "Let us go home." + +And then he burst out with wild and thick protestations of love, +which thrilled her and repelled her slightly. + +"Anyhow I must tell Miss Frost," she said. + +"Yes, yes," he answered. "Yes, yes. Let us be engaged at once." + +As they passed under the lamps he saw her face lifted, the eyes +shining, the delicate nostrils dilated, as of one who scents battle +and laughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud, +sinister recklessness. His hands trembled with desire. + +So they were engaged. He bought her a ring, an emerald set in tiny +diamonds. Miss Frost looked grave and silent, but would not openly +deny her approval. + +"You like him, don't you? You don't dislike him?" Alvina insisted. + +"I don't dislike him," replied Miss Frost. "How can I? He is a +perfect stranger to me." + +And with this Alvina subtly contented herself. Her father treated +the young man with suave attention, punctuated by fits of jerky +hostility and jealousy. Her mother merely sighed, and took sal +volatile. + +To tell the truth, Alvina herself was a little repelled by the man's +love-making. She found him fascinating, but a trifle repulsive. And +she was not sure whether she hated the repulsive element, or whether +she rather gloried in it. She kept her look of arch, half-derisive +recklessness, which was so unbearably painful to Miss Frost, and so +exciting to the dark little man. It was a strange look in a refined, +really virgin girl--oddly sinister. And her voice had a curious +bronze-like resonance that acted straight on the nerves of her +hearers: unpleasantly on most English nerves, but like fire on the +different susceptibilities of the young man--the darkie, as people +called him. + +But after all, he had only six weeks in England, before sailing to +Sydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry before he +sailed. Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people +first, she said. + +So the time passed, and he sailed. Alvina missed him, missed the +extreme excitement of him rather than the human being he was. Miss +Frost set to work to regain her influence over her ward, to remove +that arch, reckless, almost lewd look from the girl's face. It was a +question of heart against sensuality. Miss Frost tried and tried to +wake again the girl's loving heart--which loving heart was certainly +not occupied by _that man_. It was a hard task, an anxious, bitter +task Miss Frost had set herself. + +But at last she succeeded. Alvina seemed to thaw. The hard shining +of her eyes softened again to a sort of demureness and tenderness. +The influence of the man was revoked, the girl was left uninhabited, +empty and uneasy. + +She was due to follow her Alexander in three months' time, to +Sydney. Came letters from him, en route--and then a cablegram from +Australia. He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing her +trousseau, to follow. But owing to her change of heart, she lingered +indecisive. + +"_Do_ you love him, dear?" said Miss Frost with emphasis, knitting +her thick, passionate, earnest eyebrows. "Do you love him +sufficiently? _That's_ the point." + +The way Miss Frost put the question implied that Alvina did not and +could not love him--because Miss Frost could not. Alvina lifted her +large, blue eyes, confused, half-tender towards her governess, half +shining with unconscious derision. + +"I don't really know," she said, laughing hurriedly. "I don't +really." + +Miss Frost scrutinized her, and replied with a meaningful: + +"Well--!" + +To Miss Frost it was clear as daylight. To Alvina not so. In her +periods of lucidity, when she saw as clear as daylight also, she +certainly did not love the little man. She felt him a terrible +outsider, an inferior, to tell the truth. She wondered how he could +have the slightest attraction for her. In fact she could not +understand it at all. She was as free of him as if he had never +existed. The square green emerald on her finger was almost +non-sensical. She was quite, quite sure of herself. + +And then, most irritating, a complete _volte face_ in her feelings. +The clear-as-daylight mood disappeared as daylight is bound to +disappear. She found herself in a night where the little man loomed +large, terribly large, potent and magical, while Miss Frost had +dwindled to nothingness. At such times she wished with all her force +that she could travel like a cablegram to Australia. She felt it was +the only way. She felt the dark, passionate receptivity of Alexander +overwhelmed her, enveloped her even from the Antipodes. She felt +herself going distracted--she felt she was going out of her mind. +For she could not act. + +Her mother and Miss Frost were fixed in one line. Her father said: + +"Well, of course, you'll do as you think best. There's a great risk +in going so far--a great risk. You would be entirely unprotected." + +"I don't mind being unprotected," said Alvina perversely. + +"Because you don't understand what it means," said her father. + +He looked at her quickly. Perhaps he understood her better than the +others. + +"Personally," said Miss Pinnegar, speaking of Alexander, "I don't +care for him. But every one has their own taste." + +Alvina felt she was being overborne, and that she was letting +herself be overborne. She was half relieved. She seemed to nestle +into the well-known surety of Woodhouse. The other unknown had +frightened her. + +Miss Frost now took a definite line. + +"I feel you don't love him, dear. I'm almost sure you don't. So now +you have to choose. Your mother dreads your going--she dreads it. I +am certain you would never see her again. She says she can't bear +it--she can't bear the thought of you out there with Alexander. It +makes her shudder. She suffers dreadfully, you know. So you will +have to choose, dear. You will have to choose for the best." + +Alvina was made stubborn by pressure. She herself had come fully to +believe that she did not love him. She was quite sure she did not +love him. But out of a certain perversity, she wanted to go. + +Came his letter from Sydney, and one from his parents to her and one +to her parents. All seemed straightforward--not _very_ cordial, but +sufficiently. Over Alexander's letter Miss Frost shed bitter tears. +To her it seemed so shallow and heartless, with terms of endearment +stuck in like exclamation marks. He semed to have no thought, no +feeling for the girl herself. All he wanted was to hurry her out +there. He did not even mention the grief of her parting from her +English parents and friends: not a word. Just a rush to get her out +there, winding up with "And now, dear, I shall not be myself till I +see you here in Sydney--Your ever-loving Alexander." A selfish, +sensual creature, who would forget the dear little Vina in three +months, if she did not turn up, and who would neglect her in six +months, if she did. Probably Miss Frost was right. + +Alvina knew the tears she was costing all round. She went upstairs +and looked at his photograph--his dark and impertinent muzzle. Who +was _he_, after all? She did not know him. With cold eyes she looked +at him, and found him repugnant. + +She went across to her governess's room, and found Miss Frost in a +strange mood of trepidation. + +"Don't trust me, dear, don't trust what I say," poor Miss Frost +ejaculated hurriedly, even wildly. "Don't notice what I have said. +Act for yourself, dear. Act for yourself entirely. I am sure I am +wrong in trying to influence you. I know I am wrong. It is wrong and +foolish of me. Act just for yourself, dear--the rest doesn't matter. +The rest doesn't matter. Don't take _any_ notice of what I have +said. I know I am wrong." + +For the first time in her life Alvina saw her beloved governess +flustered, the beautiful white hair looking a little draggled, the +grey, near-sighted eyes, so deep and kind behind the gold-rimmed +glasses, now distracted and scared. Alvina immediately burst into +tears and flung herself into the arms of Miss Frost. Miss Frost also +cried as if her heart would break, catching her indrawn breath with +a strange sound of anguish, forlornness, the terrible crying of a +woman with a loving heart, whose heart has never been able to relax. +Alvina was hushed. In a second, she became the elder of the two. The +terrible poignancy of the woman of fifty-two, who now at last had +broken down, silenced the girl of twenty-three, and roused all her +passionate tenderness. The terrible sound of "Never now, never +now--it is too late," which seemed to ring in the curious, indrawn +cries of the elder woman, filled the girl with a deep wisdom. She +knew the same would ring in her mother's dying cry. Married or +unmarried, it was the same--the same anguish, realized in all its +pain after the age of fifty--the loss in never having been able to +relax, to submit. + +Alvina felt very strong and rich in the fact of her youth. For her +it was not too late. For Miss Frost it was for ever too late. + +"I don't want to go, dear," said Alvina to the elder woman. "I know +I don't care for him. He is nothing to me." + +Miss Frost became gradually silent, and turned aside her face. After +this there was a hush in the house. Alvina announced her intention +of breaking off her engagement. Her mother kissed her, and cried, +and said, with the selfishness of an invalid: + +"I couldn't have parted with you, I couldn't." Whilst the father +said: + +"I think you are wise, Vina. I have thought a lot about it." + +So Alvina packed up his ring and his letters and little presents, +and posted them over the seas. She was relieved, really: as if she +had escaped some very trying ordeal. For some days she went about +happily, in pure relief. She loved everybody. She was charming and +sunny and gentle with everybody, particularly with Miss Frost, whom +she loved with a deep, tender, rather sore love. Poor Miss Frost +seemed to have lost a part of her confidence, to have taken on a new +wistfulness, a new silence and remoteness. It was as if she found +her busy contact with life a strain now. Perhaps she was getting +old. Perhaps her proud heart had given way. + +Alvina had kept a little photograph of the man. She would often go +and look at it. Love?--no, it was not love! It was something more +primitive still. It was curiosity, deep, radical, burning curiosity. +How she looked and looked at his dark, impertinent-seeming face. A +flicker of derision came into her eyes. Yet still she looked. + +In the same manner she would look into the faces of the young men of +Woodhouse. But she never found there what she found in her +photograph. They all seemed like blank sheets of paper in +comparison. There was a curious pale surface-look in the faces of +the young men of Woodhouse: or, if there was some underneath +suggestive power, it was a little abject or humiliating, inferior, +common. They were all either blank or common. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MATERNITY NURSE + + +Of course Alvina made everybody pay for her mood of submission and +sweetness. In a month's time she was quite intolerable. + +"I can't stay here all my life," she declared, stretching her eyes +in a way that irritated the other inmates of Manchester House +extremely. "I know I can't. I can't bear it. I simply can't bear it, +and there's an end of it. I can't, I tell you. I can't bear it. I'm +buried alive--simply buried alive. And it's more than I can stand. +It is, really." + +There was an odd clang, like a taunt, in her voice. She was trying +them all. + +"But what do you want, dear?" asked Miss Frost, knitting her dark +brows in agitation. + +"I want to go away," said Alvina bluntly. + +Miss Frost gave a slight gesture with her right hand, of helpless +impatience. It was so characteristic, that Alvina almost laughed. + +"But where do you want to go?" asked Miss Frost. + +"I don't know. I don't care," said Alvina. "Anywhere, if I can get +out of Woodhouse." + +"Do you wish you had gone to Australia?" put in Miss Pinnegar. + +"No, I don't wish I had gone to Australia," retorted Alvina with a +rude laugh. "Australia isn't the only other place besides +Woodhouse." + +Miss Pinnegar was naturally offended. But the curious insolence +which sometimes came out in the girl was inherited direct from her +father. + +"You see, dear," said Miss Frost, agitated: "if you knew what you +wanted, it would be easier to see the way." + +"I want to be a nurse," rapped out Alvina. + +Miss Frost stood still, with the stillness of a middle-aged +disapproving woman, and looked at her charge. She believed that +Alvina was just speaking at random. Yet she dared not check her, in +her present mood. + +Alvina was indeed speaking at random. She had never thought of being +a nurse--the idea had never entered her head. If it had she would +certainly never have entertained it. But she had heard Alexander +speak of Nurse This and Sister That. And so she had rapped out her +declaration. And having rapped it out, she prepared herself to stick +to it. Nothing like leaping before you look. + +"A nurse!" repeated Miss Frost. "But do you feel yourself fitted to +be a nurse? Do you think you could bear it?" + +"Yes, I'm sure I could," retorted Alvina. "I want to be a maternity +nurse--" She looked strangely, even outrageously, at her governess. +"I want to be a maternity nurse. Then I shouldn't have to attend +operations." And she laughed quickly. + +Miss Frost's right hand beat like a wounded bird. It was reminiscent +of the way she beat time, insistently, when she was giving music +lessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beat +without time or reason. Alvina smiled brightly and cruelly. + +"Whatever put such an idea into your head, Vina?" asked poor Miss +Frost. + +"I don't know," said Alvina, still more archly and brightly. + +"Of course you don't mean it, dear," said Miss Frost, quailing. + +"Yes, I do. Why should I say it if I don't." + +Miss Frost would have done anything to escape the arch, bright, +cruel eyes of her charge. + +"Then we must think about it," she said, numbly. And she went away. + +Alvina floated off to her room, and sat by the window looking down +on the street. The bright, arch look was still on her face. But her +heart was sore. She wanted to cry, and fling herself on the breast +of her darling. But she couldn't. No, for her life she couldn't. +Some little devil sat in her breast and kept her smiling archly. + +Somewhat to her amazement, he sat steadily on for days and days. +Every minute she expected him to go. Every minute she expected to +break down, to burst into tears and tenderness and reconciliation. +But no--she did not break down. She persisted. They all waited for +the old loving Vina to be herself again. But the new and +recalcitrant Vina still shone hard. She found a copy of _The +Lancet_, and saw an advertisement of a home in Islington where +maternity nurses would be fully trained and equipped in six months' +time. The fee was sixty guineas. Alvina declared her intention of +departing to this training home. She had two hundred pounds of her +own, bequeathed by her grandfather. + +In Manchester House they were all horrified--not moved with grief, +this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate +step to take. Which it was. And which, in her curious perverseness, +Alvina must have intended it to be. Mrs. Houghton assumed a remote +air of silence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She +lapsed far away. She was really very weak. Miss Pinnegar said: "Well +really, if she wants to do it, why, she might as well try." And, as +often with Miss Pinnegar, this speech seemed to contain a veiled +threat. + +"A maternity nurse!" said James Houghton. "A maternity nurse! What +exactly do you mean by a maternity nurse?" + +"A trained mid-wife," said Miss Pinnegar curtly. "That's it, isn't +it? It is as far as I can see. A trained mid-wife." + +"Yes, of course," said Alvina brightly. + +"But--!" stammered James Houghton, pushing his spectacles up on to +his forehead, and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair +uncover his baldness. "I can't understand that any young girl of +any--any upbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose +such a--such an--occupation. I can't understand it." + +"Can't you?" said Alvina brightly. + +"Oh well, if she _does_--" said Miss Pinnegar cryptically. + +Miss Frost said very little. But she had serious confidential talks +with Dr. Fordham. Dr. Fordham didn't approve, certainly he +didn't--but neither did he see any great harm in it. At that time it +was rather the thing for young ladies to enter the nursing +profession, if their hopes had been blighted or checked in another +direction! And so, enquiries were made. Enquiries were made. + +The upshot was, that Alvina was to go to Islington for her six +months' training. There was a great bustle, preparing her nursing +outfit. Instead of a trousseau, nurse's uniforms in fine +blue-and-white stripe, with great white aprons. Instead of a wreath +of orange blossom, a rather chic nurse's bonnet of blue silk, and +for a trailing veil, a blue silk fall. + +Well and good! Alvina expected to become frightened, as the time +drew near. But no, she wasn't a bit frightened. Miss Frost watched +her narrowly. Would there not be a return of the old, tender, +sensitive, shrinking Vina--the exquisitely sensitive and nervous, +loving girl? No, astounding as it may seem, there was no return of +such a creature. Alvina remained bright and ready, the half-hilarious +clang remained in her voice, taunting. She kissed them all good-bye, +brightly and sprightlily, and off she set. She wasn't nervous. + +She came to St. Pancras, she got her cab, she drove off to her +destination--and as she drove, she looked out of the window. Horrid, +vast, stony, dilapidated, crumbly-stuccoed streets and squares of +Islington, grey, grey, greyer by far than Woodhouse, and +interminable. How exceedingly sordid and disgusting! But instead of +being repelled and heartbroken, Alvina enjoyed it. She felt her +trunk rumble on the top of the cab, and still she looked out on the +ghastly dilapidated flat facades of Islington, and still she smiled +brightly, as if there were some charm in it all. Perhaps for her +there was a charm in it all. Perhaps it acted like a tonic on the +little devil in her breast. Perhaps if she had seen tufts of +snowdrops--it was February--and yew-hedges and cottage windows, she +would have broken down. As it was, she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed +glimpsing in through uncurtained windows, into sordid rooms where +human beings moved as if sordidly unaware. She enjoyed the smell of +a toasted bloater, rather burnt. So common! so indescribably common! +And she detested bloaters, because of the hairy feel of the spines +in her mouth. But to smell them like this, to know that she was in +the region of "penny beef-steaks," gave her a perverse pleasure. + +The cab stopped at a yellow house at the corner of a square where +some shabby bare trees were flecked with bits of blown paper, bits +of paper and refuse cluttered inside the round railings of each +tree. She went up some dirty-yellowish steps, and rang the +"Patients'" bell, because she knew she ought not to ring the +"Tradesmen's." A servant, not exactly dirty, but unattractive, let +her into a hall painted a dull drab, and floored with cocoa-matting, +otherwise bare. Then up bare stairs to a room where a stout, pale, +common woman with two warts on her face, was drinking tea. It was +three o'clock. This was the matron. The matron soon deposited her in +a bedroom, not very small, but bare and hard and dusty-seeming, and +there left her. Alvina sat down on her chair, looked at her box +opposite her, looked round the uninviting room, and smiled to +herself. Then she rose and went to the window: a very dirty window, +looking down into a sort of well of an area, with other wells +ranging along, and straight opposite like a reflection another solid +range of back-premises, with iron stair-ways and horrid little doors +and washing and little W. C.'s and people creeping up and down like +vermin. Alvina shivered a little, but still smiled. Then slowly she +began to take off her hat. She put it down on the drab-painted chest +of drawers. + +Presently the servant came in with a tray, set it down, lit a naked +gas-jet, which roared faintly, and drew down a crackly dark-green +blind, which showed a tendency to fly back again alertly to the +ceiling. + +"Thank you," said Alvina, and the girl departed. + +Then Miss Houghton drank her black tea and ate her bread and +margarine. + +Surely enough books have been written about heroines in similar +circumstances. There is no need to go into the details of Alvina's +six months in Islington. + +The food was objectionable--yet Alvina got fat on it. The air was +filthy--and yet never had her colour been so warm and fresh, her +skin so soft. Her companions were almost without exception vulgar +and coarse--yet never had she got on so well with women of her own +age--or older than herself. She was ready with a laugh and a word, +and though she was unable to venture on indecencies herself, yet she +had an amazing faculty for _looking_ knowing and indecent beyond +words, rolling her eyes and pitching her eyebrows in a certain +way--oh, it was quite sufficient for her companions! And yet, if +they had ever actually demanded a dirty story or a really open +indecency from her, she would have been floored. + +But she enjoyed it. Amazing how she enjoyed it. She did not care +_how_ revolting and indecent these nurses were--she put on a look as +if she were in with it all, and it all passed off as easy as +winking. She swung her haunches and arched her eyes with the best +of them. And they behaved as if she were exactly one of themselves. +And yet, with the curious cold tact of women, they left her alone, +one and all, in private: just ignored her. + +It is truly incredible how Alvina became blooming and bouncing at +this time. Nothing shocked her, nothing upset her. She was always +ready with her hard, nurse's laugh and her nurse's quips. No one was +better than she at _double-entendres._ No one could better give the +nurse's leer. She had it all in a fortnight. And never once did she +feel anything but exhilarated and in full swing. It seemed to her +she had not a moment's time to brood or reflect about things--she +was too much in the swing. Every moment, in the swing, living, or +active in full swing. When she got into bed she went to sleep. When +she awoke, it was morning, and she got up. As soon as she was up and +dressed she had somebody to answer, something to say, something to +do. Time passed like an express train--and she seemed to have known +no other life than this. + +Not far away was a lying-in hospital. A dreadful place it was. There +she had to go, right off, and help with cases. There she had to +attend lectures and demonstrations. There she met the doctors and +students. Well, a pretty lot they were, one way and another. When +she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their +sort: just their very ticket. Her voice had the right twang, her +eyes the right roll, her haunches the right swing. She seemed +altogether just the ticket. And yet she wasn't. + +It would be useless to say she was not shocked. She was profoundly +and awfully shocked. Her whole state was perhaps largely the result +of shock: a sort of play-acting based on hysteria. But the dreadful +things she saw in the lying-in hospital, and afterwards, went deep, +and finished her youth and her tutelage for ever. How many infernos +deeper than Miss Frost could ever know, did she not travel? the +inferno of the human animal, the human organism in its convulsions, +the human social beast in its abjection and its degradation. + +For in her latter half she had to visit the slum cases. And such +cases! A woman lying on a bare, filthy floor, a few old coats thrown +over her, and vermin crawling everywhere, in spite of sanitary +inspectors. But what did the woman, the sufferer, herself care! She +ground her teeth and screamed and yelled with pains. In her calm +periods she lay stupid and indifferent--or she cursed a little. But +abject, stupid indifference was the bottom of it all: abject, brutal +indifference to everything--yes, everything. Just a piece of female +functioning, no more. + +Alvina was supposed to receive a certain fee for these cases she +attended in their homes. A small proportion of her fee she kept for +herself, the rest she handed over to the Home. That was the +agreement. She received her grudged fee callously, threatened and +exacted it when it was not forthcoming. Ha!--if they didn't have to +pay you at all, these slum-people, they would treat you with more +contempt than if you were one of themselves. It was one of the +hardest lessons Alvina had to learn--to bully these people, in their +own hovels, into some sort of obedience to her commands, and some +sort of respect for her presence. She had to fight tooth and nail +for this end. And in a week she was as hard and callous to them as +they to her. And so her work was well done. She did not hate them. +There they were. They had a certain life, and you had to take them +at their own worth in their own way. What else! If one should be +gentle, one was gentle. The difficulty did not lie there. The +difficulty lay in being sufficiently rough and hard: that was the +trouble. It cost a great struggle to be hard and callous enough. +Glad she would have been to be allowed to treat them quietly and +gently, with consideration. But pah--it was not their line. They +wanted to be callous, and if you were not callous to match, they +made a fool of you and prevented your doing your work. + +Was Alvina her own real self all this time? The mighty question +arises upon us, what is one's own real self? It certainly is not +what we think we are and ought to be. Alvina had been bred to think +of herself as a delicate, tender, chaste creature with unselfish +inclinations and a pure, "high" mind. Well, so she was, in the +more-or-less exhausted part of herself. But high-mindedness had +really come to an end with James Houghton, had really reached the +point, not only of pathetic, but of dry and anti-human, repulsive +quixotry. In Alvina high-mindedness was already stretched beyond the +breaking point. Being a woman of some flexibility of temper, +wrought through generations to a fine, pliant hardness, she flew +back. She went right back on high-mindedness. Did she thereby betray +it? + +We think not. If we turn over the head of the penny and look at the +tail, we don't thereby deny or betray the head. We do but adjust it +to its own complement. And so with high-mindedness. It is but one +side of the medal--the crowned reverse. On the obverse the three +legs still go kicking the soft-footed spin of the universe, the +dolphin flirts and the crab leers. + +So Alvina spun her medal, and her medal came down tails. Heads or +tails? Heads for generations. Then tails. See the poetic justice. + +Now Alvina decided to accept the decision of her fate. Or rather, +being sufficiently a woman, she didn't decide anything. She _was_ +her own fate. She went through her training experiences like another +being. She was not herself, said Everybody. When she came home to +Woodhouse at Easter, in her bonnet and cloak, everybody was simply +knocked out. Imagine that this frail, pallid, diffident girl, so +ladylike, was now a rather fat, warm-coloured young woman, strapping +and strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagine her mother's +startled, almost expiring: + +"Why, Vina dear!" + +Vina laughed. She knew how they were all feeling. + +"At least it agrees with your _health_," said her father, +sarcastically, to which Miss Pinnegar answered: + +"Well, that's a good deal." + +But Miss Frost said nothing the first day. Only the second day, at +breakfast, as Alvina ate rather rapidly and rather well, the +white-haired woman said quietly, with a tinge of cold contempt: + +"How changed you are, dear!" + +"Am I?" laughed Alvina. "Oh, not really." And she gave the arch look +with her eyes, which made Miss Frost shudder. + +Inwardly, Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from questioning. +Alvina was always speaking of the doctors: Doctor Young and Doctor +Headley and Doctor James. She spoke of theatres and music-halls with +these young men, and the jolly good time she had with them. And her +blue-grey eyes seemed to have become harder and greyer, lighter +somehow. In her wistfulness and her tender pathos, Alvina's eyes +would deepen their blue, so beautiful. And now, in her floridity, +they were bright and arch and light-grey. The deep, tender, flowery +blue was gone for ever. They were luminous and crystalline, like the +eyes of a changeling. + +Miss Frost shuddered, and abstained from question. She wanted, she +_needed_ to ask of her charge: "Alvina, have you betrayed yourself +with any of these young men?" But coldly her heart abstained from +asking--or even from seriously thinking. She left the matter +untouched for the moment. She was already too much shocked. + +Certainly Alvina represented the young doctors as very nice, but +rather fast young fellows. "My word, you have to have your wits +about you with them!" Imagine such a speech from a girl tenderly +nurtured: a speech uttered in her own home, and accompanied by a +florid laugh, which would lead a chaste, generous woman like Miss +Frost to imagine--well, she merely abstained from imagining +anything. She had that strength of mind. She never for one moment +attempted to answer the question to herself, as to whether Alvina +had betrayed herself with any of these young doctors, or not. The +question remained stated, but completely unanswered--coldly awaiting +its answer. Only when Miss Frost kissed Alvina good-bye at the +station, tears came to her eyes, and she said hurriedly, in a low +voice: + +"Remember we are all praying for you, dear!" + +"No, don't do that!" cried Alvina involuntarily, without knowing +what she said. + +And then the train moved out, and she saw her darling standing there +on the station, the pale, well-modelled face looking out from behind +the gold-rimmed spectacles, wistfully, the strong, rather stout +figure standing very still and unchangeable, under its coat and +skirt of dark purple, the white hair glistening under the folded +dark hat. Alvina threw herself down on the seat of her carriage. She +loved her darling. She would love her through eternity. She knew she +was right--amply and beautifully right, her darling, her beloved +Miss Frost. Eternally and gloriously right. + +And yet--and yet--it was a right which was fulfilled. There were +other rights. There was another side to the medal. Purity and +high-mindedness--the beautiful, but unbearable tyranny. The +beautiful, unbearable tyranny of Miss Frost! It was time now for +Miss Frost to die. It was time for that perfected flower to be +gathered to immortality. A lovely _immortel_. But an obstruction to +other, purple and carmine blossoms which were in bud on the stem. A +lovely edelweiss--but time it was gathered into eternity. +Black-purple and red anemones were due, real Adonis blood, and +strange individual orchids, spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss +Frost to die. She, Alvina, who loved her as no one else would ever +love her, with that love which goes to the core of the universe, +knew that it was time for her darling to be folded, oh, so gently +and softly, into immortality. Mortality was busy with the day after +her day. It was time for Miss Frost to die. As Alvina sat motionless +in the train, running from Woodhouse to Tibshelf, it decided itself +in her. + +She was glad to be back in Islington, among all the horrors of her +confinement cases. The doctors she knew hailed her. On the whole, +these young men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a +whole. Why drag in respect? Human functions were too obviously +established to make any great fuss about. And so the doctors put +their arms round Alvina's waist, because she was plump, and they +kissed her face, because the skin was soft. And she laughed and +squirmed a little, so that they felt all the more her warmth and +softness under their arm's pressure. + +"It's no use, you know," she said, laughing rather breathless, but +looking into their eyes with a curious definite look of unchangeable +resistance. This only piqued them. + +"What's no use?" they asked. + +She shook her head slightly. + +"It isn't any use your behaving like that with me," she said, with +the same challenging definiteness, finality: a flat negative. + +"Who're you telling?" they said. + +For she did not at all forbid them to "behave like that." Not in the +least. She almost encouraged them. She laughed and arched her eyes +and flirted. But her backbone became only the stronger and firmer. +Soft and supple as she was, her backbone never yielded for an +instant. It could not. She had to confess that she liked the young +doctors. They were alert, their faces were clean and bright-looking. +She liked the sort of intimacy with them, when they kissed her and +wrestled with her in the empty laboratories or corridors--often in +the intervals of most critical and appalling cases. She liked their +arm round her waist, the kisses as she reached back her face, +straining away, the sometimes desperate struggles. They took +unpardonable liberties. They pinched her haunches and attacked her +in unheard-of ways. Sometimes her blood really came up in the fight, +and she felt as if, with her hands, she could tear any man, any male +creature, limb from limb. A super-human, voltaic force filled her. +For a moment she surged in massive, inhuman, female strength. The +men always wilted. And invariably, when they wilted, she touched +them with a sudden gentle touch, pitying. So that she always +remained friends with them. When her curious Amazonic power left her +again, and she was just a mere woman, she made shy eyes at them once +more, and treated them with the inevitable female-to-male homage. + +The men liked her. They cocked their eyes at her, when she was not +looking, and wondered at her. They wondered over her. They had been +beaten by her, every one of them. But they did not openly know it. +They looked at her, as if she were Woman itself, some creature not +quite personal. What they noticed, all of them, was the way her +brown hair looped over her ears. There was something chaste, and +noble, and war-like about it. The remote quality which hung about +her in the midst of her intimacies and her frequencies, nothing high +or lofty, but something given to the struggle and as yet invincible +in the struggle, made them seek her out. + +They felt safe with her. They knew she would not let them down. She +would not intrigue into marriage, or try and make use of them in any +way. She didn't care about them. And so, because of her isolate +self-sufficiency in the fray, her wild, overweening backbone, they +were ready to attend on her and serve her. Headley in particular +hoped he might overcome her. He was a well-built fellow with sandy +hair and a pugnacious face. The battle-spirit was really roused in +him, and he heartily liked the woman. If he could have overcome her +he would have been mad to marry her. + +With him, she summoned up all her mettle. She had never to be off +her guard for a single minute. The treacherous suddenness of his +attack--for he was treachery itself--had to be met by the voltaic +suddenness of her resistance and counter-attack. It was nothing less +than magical the way the soft, slumbering body of the woman could +leap in one jet into terrible, overwhelming voltaic force, something +strange and massive, at the first treacherous touch of the man's +determined hand. His strength was so different from hers--quick, +muscular, lambent. But hers was deep and heaving, like the strange +heaving of an earthquake, or the heave of a bull as it rises from +earth. And by sheer non-human power, electric and paralysing, she +could overcome the brawny red-headed fellow. + +He was nearly a match for her. But she did not like him. The two +were enemies--and good acquaintances. They were more or less +matched. But as he found himself continually foiled, he became +sulky, like a bear with a sore head. And then she avoided him. + +She really liked Young and James much better. James was a quick, +slender, dark-haired fellow, a gentleman, who was always trying to +catch her out with his quickness. She liked his fine, slim limbs, +and his exaggerated generosity. He would ask her out to ridiculously +expensive suppers, and send her sweets and flowers, fabulously +recherche. He was always immaculately well-dressed. + +"Of course, as a lady _and_ a nurse," he said to her, "you are two +sorts of women in one." + +But she was not impressed by his wisdom. + +She was most strongly inclined to Young. He was a plump young man of +middle height, with those blue eyes of a little boy which are so +knowing: particularly of a woman's secrets. It is a strange thing +that these childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of +the other sex. Young was certainly innocent as far as acts went. Yet +his hair was going thin at the crown already. + +He also played with her--being a doctor, and she a nurse who +encouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her: and did _not_ +rouse her to contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness +of a little boy's, which nearly melted her. She could almost have +succumbed to him. If it had not been that with him there was no +question of succumbing. She would have had to take him between her +hands and caress and cajole him like a cherub, into a fall. And +though she would have like to do so, yet that inflexible stiffness +of her backbone prevented her. She could not do as she liked. There +was an inflexible fate within her, which shaped her ends. + +Sometimes she wondered to herself, over her own virginity. Was it +worth much, after all, behaving as she did? Did she care about it, +anyhow? Didn't she rather despise it? To sin in thought was as bad +as to sin in act. If the thought was the same as the act, how much +more was her behaviour equivalent to a whole committal? She wished +she were wholly committed. She wished she had gone the whole length. + +But sophistry and wishing did her no good. There she was, still +isolate. And still there was that in her which would preserve her +intact, sophistry and deliberate intention notwithstanding. Her time +was up. She was returning to Woodhouse virgin as she had left it. In +a measure she felt herself beaten. Why? Who knows. But so it was, +she felt herself beaten, condemned to go back to what she was +before. Fate had been too strong for her and her desires: fate which +was not an external association of forces, but which was integral in +her own nature. Her own inscrutable nature was her fate: sore +against her will. + +It was August when she came home, in her nurse's uniform. She was +beaten by fate, as far as chastity and virginity went. But she came +home with high material hopes. Here was James Houghton's own +daughter. She had an affluent future ahead of her. A fully-qualified +maternity nurse, she was going to bring all the babies of the +district easily and triumphantly into the world. She was going to +charge the regulation fee of two guineas a case: and even on a +modest estimate of ten babies a month, she would have twenty +guineas. For well-to-do mothers she would charge from three to five +guineas. At this calculation she would make an easy three hundred a +year, without slaving either. She would be independent, she could +laugh every one in the face. + +She bounced back into Woodhouse to make her fortune. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TWO WOMEN DIE + + +It goes without saying that Alvina Houghton did not make her fortune +as a maternity nurse. Being her father's daughter, we might almost +expect that she did not make a penny. But she did--just a few pence. +She had exactly four cases--and then no more. + +The reason is obvious. Who in Woodhouse was going to afford a +two-guinea nurse, for a confinement? And who who was going to engage +Alvina Houghton, even if they were ready to stretch their +purse-strings? After all, they all knew her as _Miss_ Houghton, with +a stress on the _Miss_, and they could not conceive of her as Nurse +Houghton. Besides, there seemed something positively indecent in +technically engaging one who was so much part of themselves. They +all preferred either a simple mid-wife, or a nurse procured out of +the unknown by the doctor. + +If Alvina wanted to make her fortune--or even her living--she should +have gone to a strange town. She was so advised by every one she +knew. But she never for one moment reflected on the advice. She had +become a maternity nurse in order to practise in Woodhouse, just as +James Houghton had purchased his elegancies to sell in Woodhouse. +And father and daughter alike calmly expected Woodhouse demand to +rise to their supply. So both alike were defeated in their +expectations. + +For a little while Alvina flaunted about in her nurse's uniform. +Then she left it off. And as she left it off she lost her bounce, +her colour, and her flesh. Gradually she shrank back to the old, +slim, reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face. +And now it seemed her face was a little too long, a little gaunt. +And in her civilian clothes she seemed a little dowdy, shabby. And +altogether, she looked older: she looked more than her age, which +was only twenty-four years. Here was the old Alvina come back, rather +battered and deteriorated, apparently. There was even a tiny touch of +the trollops in her dowdiness--so the shrewd-eyed collier-wives +decided. But she was a lady still, and unbeaten. Undeniably she was a +lady. And that was rather irritating to the well-to-do and florid +daughter of W.H. Johnson, next door but one. Undeniably a lady, and +undeniably unmastered. This last was irritating to the good-natured +but easy-coming young men in the Chapel Choir, where she resumed her +seat. These young men had the good nature of dogs that wag their tails +and expect to be patted. And Alvina did not pat them. To be sure, a +pat from such a shabbily-black-kid-gloved hand would not have been so +flattering--she need not imagine it! The way she hung back and looked +at them, the young men, as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and +yet with the well-bred indifference of a lady--well, it was almost +offensive. + +As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for the time being from her +interest in young men. Manchester House had settled down on her like +a doom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to worm +one's encumbered way in the gloom--unless one liked to go miles +round a back street, to the yard entry. There was James Houghton, +faintly powdered with coal-dust, flitting back and forth in a fever +of nervous frenzy, to Throttle-Ha'penny--so carried away that he +never saw his daughter at all the first time he came in, after her +return. And when she reminded him of her presence, with her--"Hello, +father!"--he merely glancied hurriedly at her, as if vexed with her +interruption, and said: + +"Well, Alvina, you're back. You're back to find us busy." And he +went off into his ecstasy again. + +Mrs. Houghton was now very weak, and so nervous in her weakness that +she could not bear the slightest sound. Her greatest horror was lest +her husband should come into the room. On his entry she became blue +at the lips immediately, so he had to hurry out again. At last he +stayed away, only hurriedly asking, each time he came into the +house, "How is Mrs. Houghton? Ha!" Then off into uninterrupted +Throttle-Ha'penny ecstasy once more. + +When Alvina went up to her mother's room, on her return, all the +poor invalid could do was to tremble into tears, and cry faintly: + +"Child, you look dreadful. It isn't you." + +This from the pathetic little figure in the bed had struck Alvina +like a blow. + +"Why not, mother?" she asked. + +But for her mother she had to remove her nurse's uniform. And at the +same time, she had to constitute herself nurse. Miss Frost, and a +woman who came in, and the servant had been nursing the invalid +between them. Miss Frost was worn and rather heavy: her old buoyancy +and brightness was gone. She had become irritable also. She was very +glad that Alvina had returned to take this responsibility of nursing +off her shoulders. For her wonderful energy had ebbed and oozed +away. + +Alvina said nothing, but settled down to her task. She was quiet and +technical with her mother. The two loved one another, with a curious +impersonal love which had not a single word to exchange: an almost +after-death love. In these days Mrs. Houghton never talked--unless +to fret a little. So Alvina sat for many hours in the lofty, sombre +bedroom, looking out silently on the street, or hurriedly rising to +attend the sick woman. For continually came the fretful murmur: + +"Vina!" + +To sit still--who knows the long discipline of it, nowadays, as our +mothers and grandmothers knew. To sit still, for days, months, and +years--perforce to sit still, with some dignity of tranquil bearing. +Alvina was old-fashioned. She had the old, womanly faculty for +sitting quiet and collected--not indeed for a life-time, but for +long spells together. And so it was during these months nursing her +mother. She attended constantly on the invalid: she did a good deal +of work about the house: she took her walks and occupied her place +in the choir on Sunday mornings. And yet, from August to January, +she seemed to be seated in her chair in the bedroom, sometimes +reading, but mostly quite still, her hands quietly in her lap, her +mind subdued by musing. She did not even think, not even remember. +Even such activity would have made her presence too disturbing in +the room. She sat quite still, with all her activities in +abeyance--except that strange will-to-passivity which was by no +means a relaxation, but a severe, deep, soul-discipline. + +For the moment there was a sense of prosperity--or probable +prosperity, in the house. And there was an abundance of +Throttle-Ha'penny coal. It was dirty ashy stuff. The lower bars of +the grate were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which +it was fatal to try to poke away. For if you poked and poked, you +raised white cumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a +few darkening and sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous +application, you could keep the room moderately warm, without +feeling you were consuming the house's meat and drink in the grate. +Which was one blessing. + +The days, the months darkened past, and Alvina returned to her old +thinness and pallor. Her fore-arms were thin, they rested very still +in her lap, there was a ladylike stillness about them as she took +her walk, in her lingering, yet watchful fashion. She saw +everything. Yet she passed without attracting any attention. + +Early in the year her mother died. Her father came and wept +self-conscious tears, Miss Frost cried a little, painfully. And +Alvina cried also: she did not quite know why or wherefore. Her poor +mother! Alvina had the old-fashioned wisdom to let be, and not to +think. After all, it was not for her to reconstruct her parents' +lives. She came after them. Her day was not their day, their life +was not hers. Returning up-channel to re-discover their course was +quite another matter from flowing down-stream into the unknown, as +they had done thirty years before. This supercilious and impertinent +exploration of the generation gone by, by the present generation, is +nothing to our credit. As a matter of fact, no generation repeats +the mistakes of the generation ahead, any more than any river +repeats its course. So the young need not be so proud of their +superiority over the old. The young generation glibly makes its own +mistakes: and _how_ detestable these new mistakes are, why, only the +future will be able to tell us. But be sure they are quite as +detestable, quite as full of lies and hypocrisy, as any of the +mistakes of our parents. There is no such thing as _absolute_ +wisdom. + +Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for ever +an infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand. + +So Alvina refrained from pondering on her mother's life and fate. +Whatever the fate of the mother, the fate of the daughter will be +otherwise. That is organically inevitable. The business of the +daughter is with her own fate, not with her mother's. + +Miss Frost however meditated bitterly on the fate of the poor dead +woman. Bitterly she brooded on the lot of woman. Here was Clariss +Houghton, married, and a mother--and dead. What a life! Who was +responsible? James Houghton. What ought James Houghton to have done +differently? Everything. In short, he should have been somebody +else, and not himself. Which is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of +idealism. The universe should be something else, and not what it is: +so the nonsense of idealistic conclusion. The cat should not catch +the mouse, the mouse should not nibble holes in the table-cloth, and +so on and so on, in the House that Jack Built. + +But Miss Frost sat by the dead in grief and despair. This was the +end of another woman's life: such an end! Poor Clariss: guilty +James. + +Yet why? Why was James more guilty than Clariss? Is the only aim and +end of a man's life, to make some woman, or parcel of women, happy? +Why? Why should anybody expect to be _made happy_, and develop +heart-disease if she isn't? Surely Clariss' heart-disease was a more +emphatic sign of obstinate self-importance than ever James' +shop-windows were. She expected to be _made happy_. Every woman in +Europe and America expects it. On her own head then if she is made +unhappy: for her expectation is arrogant and impertinent. The be-all +and end-all of life doesn't lie in feminine happiness--or in any +happiness. Happiness is a sort of soap-tablet--he won't be happy +till he gets it, and when he's got it, the precious baby, it'll cost +him his eyes and his stomach. Could anything be more puerile than a +mankind howling because it isn't happy: like a baby in the bath! + +Poor Clariss, however, was dead--and if she had developed +heart-disease because she wasn't happy, well, she had died of her +own heart-disease, poor thing. Wherein lies every moral that mankind +can wish to draw. + +Miss Frost wept in anguish, and saw nothing but another woman +betrayed to sorrow and a slow death. Sorrow and a slow death, +because a man had married her. Miss Frost wept also for herself, for +her own sorrow and slow death. Sorrow and slow death, because a man +had _not_ married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with these +exigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? Our mothers pined because +our fathers drank and were rakes. Our wives pine because we are +virtuous but inadequate. Who is this sphinx, this woman? Where is +the Oedipus that will solve her riddle of happiness, and then +strangle her?--only to marry his own mother! + +In the months that followed her mother's death, Alvina went on the +same, in abeyance. She took over the housekeeping, and received one +or two overflow pupils from Miss Frost, young girls to whom she gave +lessons in the dark drawing-room of Manchester House. She was +busy--chiefly with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to put in +order after her mother's death. + +She sorted all her mother's clothes--expensive, old-fashioned +clothes, hardly worn. What was to be done with them? She gave them +away, without consulting anybody. She kept a few private things, she +inherited a few pieces of jewellery. Remarkable how little trace her +mother left--hardly a trace. + +She decided to move into the big, monumental bedroom in front of the +house. She liked space, she liked the windows. She was strictly +mistress, too. So she took her place. Her mother's little +sitting-room was cold and disused. + +Then Alvina went through all the linen. There was still abundance, +and it was all sound. James had had such large ideas of setting up +house, in the beginning. And now he begrudged the household +expenses, begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have +liked to introduce margarine instead of butter. This last +degradation the women refused. But James was above food. + +The old Alvina seemed completely herself again. She was quiet, +dutiful, affectionate. She appealed in her old, childish way to Miss +Frost, and Miss Frost called her "Dear!" with all the old protective +gentleness. But there was a difference. Underneath her appearance of +appeal, Alvina was almost coldly independent. She did what she +thought she would. The old manner of intimacy persisted between her +and her darling. And perhaps neither of them knew that the intimacy +itself had gone. But it had. There was no spontaneous interchange +between them. It was a kind of deadlock. Each knew the great love +she felt for the other. But now it was a love static, inoperative. +The warm flow did not run any more. Yet each would have died for the +other, would have done anything to spare the other hurt. + +Miss Frost was becoming tired, dragged looking. She would sink into +a chair as if she wished never to rise again--never to make the +effort. And Alvina quickly would attend on her, bring her tea and +take away her music, try to make everything smooth. And continually +the young woman exhorted the elder to work less, to give up her +pupils. But Miss Frost answered quickly, nervously: + +"When I don't work I shan't live." + +"But why--?" came the long query from Alvina. And in her +expostulation there was a touch of mockery for such a creed. + +Miss Frost did not answer. Her face took on a greyish tinge. + +In these days Alvina struck up an odd friendship with Miss Pinnegar, +after so many years of opposition. She felt herself more in sympathy +with Miss Pinnegar--it was so easy to get on with her, she left so +much unsaid. What was left unsaid mattered more to Alvina now than +anything that was expressed. She began to hate outspokenness and +direct speaking-forth of the whole mind. It nauseated her. She +wanted tacit admission of difference, not open, wholehearted +communication. And Miss Pinnegar made this admission all along. She +never made you feel for an instant that she was one with you. She +was never even near. She kept quietly on her own ground, and left +you on yours. And across the space came her quiet commonplaces--but +fraught with space. + +With Miss Frost all was openness, explicit and downright. Not that +Miss Frost trespassed. She was far more well-bred than Miss +Pinnegar. But her very breeding had that Protestant, northern +quality which assumes that we have all the same high standards, +really, and all the same divine nature, intrinsically. It is a fine +assumption. But willy-nilly, it sickened Alvina at this time. + +She preferred Miss Pinnegar, and admired Miss Pinnegar's humble +wisdom with a new admiration. The two were talking of Dr. Headley, +who, they read in the newspaper, had disgraced himself finally. + +"I suppose," said Miss Pinnegar, "it takes his sort to make all +sorts." + +Such bits of homely wisdom were like relief from cramp and pain, to +Alvina. "It takes his sort to make all sorts." It took her sort too. +And it took her father's sort--as well as her mother's and Miss +Frost's. It took every sort to make all sorts. Why have standards +and a regulation pattern? Why have a human criterion? There's the +point! Why, in the name of all the free heavens, have human +criteria? Why? Simply for bullying and narrowness. + +Alvina felt at her ease with Miss Pinnegar. The two women talked +away to one another, in their quiet moments: and slipped apart like +conspirators when Miss Frost came in: as if there was something to +be ashamed of. If there was, heaven knows what it might have been, +for their talk was ordinary enough. But Alvina liked to be with Miss +Pinnegar in the kitchen. Miss Pinnegar wasn't competent and +masterful like Miss Frost: she was ordinary and uninspired, with +quiet, unobserved movements. But she was deep, and there was some +secret satisfaction in her very quality of secrecy. + +So the days and weeks and months slipped by, and Alvina was hidden +like a mole in the dark chambers of Manchester House, busy with +cooking and cleaning and arranging, getting the house in her own +order, and attending to her pupils. She took her walk in the +afternoon. Once and only once she went to Throttle-Ha'penny, and, +seized with sudden curiosity, insisted on being wound down in the +iron bucket to the little workings underneath. Everything was quite +tidy in the short gang-ways down below, timbered and in sound order. +The miners were competent enough. But water dripped dismally in +places, and there was a stale feeling in the air. + +Her father accompanied her, pointed her to the seam of +yellow-flecked coal, the shale and the bind, the direction of the +trend. He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the whole +affair, and seemed like some not quite trustworthy conjuror who had +conjured it all up by sleight of hand. In the background the miners +stood grey and ghostly, in the candle-light, and seemed to listen +sardonically. One of them, facile in his subordinate way as James in +his authoritative, kept chiming in: + +"Ay, that's the road it goes, Miss Huffen--yis, yo'll see th' roof +theer bellies down a bit--s' loose. No, you dunna get th' puddin' +stones i' this pit--s' not deep enough. Eh, they come down on you +plumb, as if th' roof had laid its egg on you. Ay, it runs a bit +thin down here--six inches. You see th' bed's soft, it's a sort o' +clay-bind, it's not clunch such as you get deeper. Oh, it's easy +workin'--you don't have to knock your guts out. There's no need for +shots, Miss Huffen--we bring it down--you see here--" And he +stooped, pointing to a shallow, shelving excavation which he was +making under the coal. The working was low, you must stoop all the +time. The roof and the timbered sides of the way seemed to press on +you. It was as if she were in her tomb for ever, like the dead and +everlasting Egyptians. She was frightened, but fascinated. The +collier kept on talking to her, stretching his bare, grey-black +hairy arm across her vision, and pointing with his knotted hand. The +thick-wicked tallow candles guttered and smelled. There was a +thickness in the air, a sense of dark, fluid presence in the thick +atmosphere, the dark, fluid, viscous voice of the collier making a +broad-vowelled, clapping sound in her ear. He seemed to linger near +her as if he knew--as if he knew--what? Something for ever +unknowable and inadmissible, something that belonged purely to the +underground: to the slaves who work underground: knowledge +humiliated, subjected, but ponderous and inevitable. And still his +voice went on clapping in her ear, and still his presence edged near +her, and seemed to impinge on her--a smallish, semi-grotesque, +grey-obscure figure with a naked brandished forearm: not human: a +creature of the subterranean world, melted out like a bat, fluid. +She felt herself melting out also, to become a mere vocal ghost, a +presence in the thick atmosphere. Her lungs felt thick and slow, her +mind dissolved, she felt she could cling like a bat in the long +swoon of the crannied, underworld darkness. Cling like a bat and +sway for ever swooning in the draughts of the darkness-- + +When she was up on the earth again she blinked and peered at the +world in amazement. What a pretty, luminous place it was, carved in +substantial luminosity. What a strange and lovely place, bubbling +iridescent-golden on the surface of the underworld. Iridescent +golden--could anything be more fascinating! Like lovely glancing +surface on fluid pitch. But a velvet surface. A velvet surface of +golden light, velvet-pile of gold and pale luminosity, and strange +beautiful elevations of houses and trees, and depressions of fields +and roads, all golden and floating like atmospheric majolica. Never +had the common ugliness of Woodhouse seemed so entrancing. She +thought she had never seen such beauty--a lovely luminous majolica, +living and palpitating, the glossy, svelte world-surface, the +exquisite face of all the darkness. It was like a vision. Perhaps +gnomes and subterranean workers, enslaved in the era of light, see +with such eyes. Perhaps that is why they are absolutely blind to +conventional ugliness. For truly nothing could be more hideous than +Woodhouse, as the miners had built it and disposed it. And yet, the +very cabbage-stumps and rotten fences of the gardens, the very +back-yards were instinct with magic, molten as they seemed with the +bubbling-up of the under-darkness, bubbling up of majolica weight +and luminosity, quite ignorant of the sky, heavy and satisfying. + +Slaves of the underworld! She watched the swing of the grey colliers +along the pavement with a new fascination, hypnotized by a new +vision. Slaves--the underground trolls and iron-workers, magic, +mischievous, and enslaved, of the ancient stories. But tall--the +miners seemed to her to loom tall and grey, in their enslaved magic. +Slaves who would cause the superimposed day-order to fall. Not +because, individually, they wanted to. But because, collectively, +something bubbled up in them, the force of darkness which had no +master and no control. It would bubble and stir in them as +earthquakes stir the earth. It would be simply disastrous, because +it had no master. There was no dark master in the world. The puerile +world went on crying out for a new Jesus, another Saviour from the +sky, another heavenly superman. When what was wanted was a Dark +Master from the underworld. + +So they streamed past her, home from work--grey from head to foot, +distorted in shape, cramped, with curious faces that came out pallid +from under their dirt. Their walk was heavy-footed and slurring, +their bearing stiff and grotesque. A stream they were--yet they +seemed to her to loom like strange, valid figures of fairy-lore, +unrealized and as yet unexperienced. The miners, the iron-workers, +those who fashion the stuff of the underworld. + +As it always comes to its children, the nostalgia of the repulsive, +heavy-footed Midlands came over her again, even whilst she was +there in the midst. The curious, dark, inexplicable and yet +insatiable craving--as if for an earthquake. To feel the earth heave +and shudder and shatter the world from beneath. To go down in the +debacle. + +And so, in spite of everything, poverty, dowdiness, obscurity, and +nothingness, she was content to stay in abeyance at home for the +time. True, she was filled with the same old, slow, dreadful craving +of the Midlands: a craving insatiable and inexplicable. But the very +craving kept her still. For at this time she did not translate it +into a desire, or need, for love. At the back of her mind somewhere +was the fixed idea, the fixed intention of finding love, a man. But +as yet, at this period, the idea was in abeyance, it did not act. +The craving that possessed her as it possesses everybody, in a +greater or less degree, in those parts, sustained her darkly and +unconsciously. + +A hot summer waned into autumn, the long, bewildering days drew in, +the transient nights, only a few breaths of shadow between noon and +noon, deepened and strengthened. A restlessness came over everybody. +There was another short strike among the miners. James Houghton, +like an excited beetle, scurried to and fro, feeling he was making +his fortune. Never had Woodhouse been so thronged on Fridays with +purchasers and money-spenders. The place seemed surcharged with +life. + +Autumn lasted beautiful till end of October. And then suddenly, cold +rain, endless cold rain, and darkness heavy, wet, ponderous. Through +the wind and rain it was a toil to move. Poor Miss Frost, who had +seemed almost to blossom again in the long hot days, regaining a +free cheerfulness that amounted almost to liveliness, and who even +caused a sort of scandal by her intimacy with a rather handsome but +common stranger, an insurance agent who had come into the place with +a good, unused tenor voice--now she wilted again. She had given the +rather florid young man tea in her room, and had laboured away at +his fine, metallic voice, correcting him and teaching him and +laughing with him and spending really a remarkable number of hours +alone with him in her room in Woodhouse--for she had given up +tramping the country, and had hired a music-room in a quiet street, +where she gave her lessons. And the young man had hung round, and +had never wanted to go away. They would prolong their tete-a-tete +and their singing on till ten o'clock at night, and Miss Frost would +return to Manchester House flushed and handsome and a little shy, +while the young man, who was common, took on a new boldness in the +streets. He had auburn hair, high colouring, and a rather +challenging bearing. He took on a new boldness, his own estimate of +himself rose considerably, with Miss Frost and his trained voice to +justify him. He was a little insolent and condescending to the +natives, who disliked him. For their lives they could not imagine +what Miss Frost could find in him. They began even to dislike her, +and a pretty scandal was started about the pair, in the pleasant +room where Miss Frost had her piano, her books, and her flowers. The +scandal was as unjust as most scandals are. Yet truly, all that +summer and autumn Miss Frost had a new and slightly aggressive +cheerfulness and humour. And Manchester House saw little of her, +comparatively. + +And then, at the end of September, the young man was removed by his +Insurance Company to another district. And at the end of October set +in the most abominable and unbearable weather, deluges of rain and +north winds, cutting the tender, summer-unfolded people to pieces. +Miss Frost wilted at once. A silence came over her. She shuddered +when she had to leave the fire. She went in the morning to her room, +and stayed there all the day, in a hot, close atmosphere, shuddering +when her pupils brought the outside weather with them to her. + +She was always subject to bronchitis. In November she had a bad +bronchitis cold. Then suddenly one morning she could not get up. +Alvina went in and found her semi-conscious. + +The girl was almost mad. She flew to the rescue. She despatched her +father instantly for the doctor, she heaped the sticks in the +bedroom grate and made a bright fire, she brough hot milk and +brandy. + +"Thank you, dear, thank you. It's a bronchial cold," whispered Miss +Frost hurriedly, trying to sip the milk. She could not. She didn't +want it. + +"I've sent for the doctor," said Alvina, in her cool voice, wherein +none the less there rang the old hesitancy of sheer love. + +Miss Frost lifted her eyes: + +"There's no need," she said, and she smiled winsomely at Alvina. + +It was pneumonia. Useless to talk of the distracted anguish of +Alvina during the next two days. She was so swift and sensitive in +her nursing, she seemed to have second sight. She talked to nobody. +In her silence her soul was alone with the soul of her darling. The +long semi-consciousness and the tearing pain of pneumonia, the +anguished sickness. + +But sometimes the grey eyes would open and smile with delicate +winsomeness at Alvina, and Alvina smiled back, with a cheery, +answering winsomeness. But that costs something. + +On the evening of the second day, Miss Frost got her hand from under +the bedclothes, and laid it on Alvina's hand. Alvina leaned down to +her. + +"Everything is for you, my love," whispered Miss Frost, looking with +strange eyes on Alvina's face. + +"Don't talk, Miss Frost," moaned Alvina. + +"Everything is for you," murmured the sick woman--"except--" and she +enumerated some tiny legacies which showed her generous, thoughtful +nature. + +"Yes, I shall remember," said Alvina, beyond tears now. + +Miss Frost smiled with her old bright, wonderful look, that had a +touch of queenliness in it. + +"Kiss me, dear," she whispered. + +Alvina kissed her, and could not suppress the whimpering of her +too-much grief. + +The night passed slowly. Sometimes the grey eyes of the sick woman +rested dark, dilated, haggard on Alvina's face, with a heavy, almost +accusing look, sinister. Then they closed again. And sometimes they +looked pathetic, with a mute, stricken appeal. Then again they +closed--only to open again tense with pain. Alvina wiped her +blood-phlegmed lips. + +In the morning she died--lay there haggard, death-smeared, with her +lovely white hair smeared also, and disorderly: she who had been so +beautiful and clean always. + +Alvina knew death--which is untellable. She knew that her darling +carried away a portion of her own soul into death. + +But she was alone. And the agony of being alone, the agony of grief, +passionate, passionate grief for her darling who was torn into +death--the agony of self-reproach, regret; the agony of remembrance; +the agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome, and sinisterly +accusing, and pathetically, despairingly appealing--probe after +probe of mortal agony, which throughout eternity would never lose +its power to pierce to the quick! + +Alvina seemed to keep strangely calm and aloof all the days after +the death. Only when she was alone she suffered till she felt her +heart really broke. + +"I shall never feel anything any more," she said in her abrupt way +to Miss Frost's friend, another woman of over fifty. + +"Nonsense, child!" expostulated Mrs. Lawson gently. + +"I shan't! I shall never have a heart to feel anything any more," +said Alvina, with a strange, distraught roll of the eyes. + +"Not like this, child. But you'll feel other things--" + +"I haven't the heart," persisted Alvina. + +"Not yet," said Mrs. Lawson gently. "You can't expect--But +time--time brings back--" + +"Oh well--but I don't believe it," said Alvina. + +People thought her rather hard. To one of her gossips Miss Pinnegar +confessed: + +"I thought she'd have felt it more. She cared more for her than she +did for her own mother--and her mother knew it. Mrs. Houghton +complained bitterly, sometimes, that _she_ had _no_ love. They were +everything to one another, Miss Frost and Alvina. I should have +thought she'd have felt it more. But you never know. A good thing if +she doesn't, really." + +Miss Pinnegar herself did not care one little bit that Miss Frost +was dead. She did not feel herself implicated. + +The nearest relatives came down, and everything was settled. The +will was found, just a brief line on a piece of notepaper expressing +a wish that Alvina should have everything. Alvina herself told the +verbal requests. All was quietly fulfilled. + +As it might well be. For there was nothing to leave. Just +sixty-three pounds in the bank--no more: then the clothes, piano, +books and music. Miss Frost's brother had these latter, at his own +request: the books and music, and the piano. Alvina inherited the +few simple trinkets, and about forty-five pounds in money. + +"Poor Miss Frost," cried Mrs. Lawson, weeping rather bitterly--"she +saved nothing for herself. You can see why she never wanted to grow +old, so that she couldn't work. You can see. It's a shame, it's a +shame, one of the best women that ever trod earth." + +Manchester House settled down to its deeper silence, its darker +gloom. Miss Frost was irreparably gone. With her, the reality went +out of the house. It seemed to be silently waiting to disappear. And +Alvina and Miss Pinnegar might move about and talk in vain. They +could never remove the sense of waiting to finish: it was all just +waiting to finish. And the three, James and Alvina and Miss +Pinnegar, waited lingering through the months, for the house to come +to an end. With Miss Frost its spirit passed away: it was no more. +Dark, empty-feeling, it seemed all the time like a house just before +a sale. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BEAU + + +Throttle-Ha'penny worked fitfully through the winter, and in the +spring broke down. By this time James Houghton had a pathetic, +childish look which touched the hearts of Alvina and Miss Pinnegar. +They began to treat him with a certain feminine indulgence, as he +fluttered round, agitated and bewildered. He was like a bird that +has flown into a room and is exhausted, enfeebled by its attempts to +fly through the false freedom of the window-glass. Sometimes he +would sit moping in a corner, with his head under his wing. But Miss +Pinnegar chased him forth, like the stealthy cat she was, chased him +up to the work-room to consider some detail of work, chased him into +the shop to turn over the old debris of the stock. At one time he +showed the alarming symptom of brooding over his wife's death. Miss +Pinnegar was thoroughly scared. But she was not inventive. It was +left to Alvina to suggest: "Why doesn't father let the shop, and +some of the house?" + +Let the shop! Let the last inch of frontage on the street! James +thought of it. Let the shop! Permit the name of Houghton to +disappear from the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a +nameless nobody, occupying obscure premises? + +He thought about it. And thinking about it, became so indignant at the +thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within his frail +frame. And then he came out with the most original of all his schemes. +Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house for the better +classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs of these +gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be +fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The +shop should be turned into an elegant hall-entrance, carpeted, with a +hall-porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the round +arch of which the words: "Manchester House" should appear large and +distinguished, making an arch also, whilst underneath, more refined and +smaller, should show the words: "Private Hotel." James was to be +proprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending to +correspondence: Miss Pinnegar was to be manageress, superintending the +servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the +equivocal position of "hostess." She was to shake hands with the +guests: she was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. For +in the prospectus James would include: "Trained nurse always on the +premises." + +"Why!" cried Miss Pinnegar, for once brutally and angrily hostile to +him: "You'll make it sound like a private lunatic asylum." + +"Will you explain why?" answered James tartly. + +For himself, he was enraptured with the scheme. He began to tot up +ideas and expenses. There would be the handsome entrance and hall: +there would be an extension of the kitchen and scullery: there would +be an installing of new hot-water and sanitary arrangements: there +would be a light lift-arrangment from the kitchen: there would be a +handsome glazed balcony or loggia or terrace on the first floor at +the back, over the whole length of the back-yard. This loggia would +give a wonderful outlook to the south-west and the west. In the +immediate foreground, to be sure, would be the yard of the +livery-stables and the rather slummy dwellings of the colliers, +sloping downhill. But these could be easily overlooked, for the eye +would instinctively wander across the green and shallow valley, to +the long upslope opposite, showing the Manor set in its clump of +trees, and farms and haystacks pleasantly dotted, and moderately far +off coal-mines with twinkling headstocks and narrow railwaylines +crossing the arable fields, and heaps of burning slag. The balcony +or covered terrace--James settled down at last to the word +_terrace_--was to be one of the features of the house: _the_ +feature. It was to be fitted up as a sort of elegant lounging +restaurant. Elegant teas, at two-and-six per head, and elegant +suppers, at five shillings without wine, were to be served here. + +As a teetotaller and a man of ascetic views, James, in his first +shallow moments, before he thought about it, assumed that his house +should be entirely non-alcoholic. A temperance house! Already he +winced. We all know what a provincial Temperance Hotel is. Besides, +there is magic in the sound of wine. _Wines Served_. The legend +attracted him immensely--as a teetotaller, it had a mysterious, +hypnotic influence. He must have wines. He knew nothing about them. +But Alfred Swayn, from the Liquor Vaults, would put him in the +running in five minutes. + +It was most curious to see Miss Pinnegar turtle up at the mention of +this scheme. When first it was disclosed to her, her colour came up +like a turkey's in a flush of indignant anger. + +"It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous!" she blurted, bridling and +ducking her head and turning aside, like an indignant turkey. + +"Ridiculous! Why? Will you explain why!" retorted James, turtling +also. + +"It's absolutely ridiculous!" she repeated, unable to do more than +splutter. + +"Well, we'll see," said James, rising to superiority. + +And again he began to dart absorbedly about, like a bird building a +nest. Miss Pinnegar watched him with a sort of sullen fury. She went +to the shop door to peep out after him. She saw him slip into the +Liquor Vaults, and she came back to announce to Alvina: + +"He's taken to drink!" + +"Drink?" said Alvina. + +"That's what it is," said Miss Pinnegar vindictively. "Drink!" + +Alvina sank down and laughed till she was weak. It all seemed really +too funny to her--too funny. + +"I can't see what it is to laugh at," said Miss Pinnegar. +"Disgraceful--it's disgraceful! But I'm not going to stop to be made +a fool of. I shall be no manageress, I tell you. It's absolutely +ridiculous. Who does he think will come to the place? He's out of +his mind--and it's drink; that's what it is! Going into the Liquor +Vaults at ten o'clock in the morning! That's where he gets his +ideas--out of whiskey--or brandy! But he's not going to make a fool +of me--" + +"Oh dear!" sighed Alvina, laughing herself into composure and a +little weariness. "I know it's _perfectly_ ridiculous. We shall have +to stop him." + +"I've said all I can say," blurted Miss Pinnegar. + +As soon as James came in to a meal, the two women attacked him. + +"But father," said Alvina, "there'll be nobody to come." + +"Plenty of people--plenty of people," said her father. "Look at The +Shakespeare's Head, in Knarborough." + +"Knarborough! Is this Knarborough!" blurted Miss Pinnegar. "Where +are the business men here? Where are the foreigners coming here for +business, where's our lace-trade and our stocking-trade?" + +"There _are_ business men," said James. "And there are ladies." + +"Who," retorted Miss Pinnegar, "is going to give half-a-crown for a +tea? They expect tea and bread-and-butter for fourpence, and cake +for sixpence, and apricots or pineapple for ninepence, and +ham-and-tongue for a shilling, and fried ham and eggs and jam and +cake as much as they can eat for one-and-two. If they expect a +knife-and-fork tea for a shilling, what are you going to give them +for half-a-crown?" + +"I know what I shall offer," said James. "And we may make it two +shillings." Through his mind flitted the idea of 1/11-1/2--but he +rejected it. "You don't realize that I'm catering for a higher class +of custom--" + +"But there _isn't_ any higher class in Woodhouse, father," said +Alvina, unable to restrain a laugh. + +"If you create a supply you create a demand," he retorted. + +"But how can you create a supply of better class people?" asked +Alvina mockingly. + +James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he were +preoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate little +boy who poses on the side of the angels--or so the women saw it. + +Miss Pinnegar was prepared to combat him now by sheer weight of +opposition. She would pitch her dead negative will obstinately +against him. She would not speak to him, she would not observe his +presence, she was stone deaf and stone blind: there _was_ no James. +This nettled him. And she miscalculated him. He merely took another +circuit, and rose another flight higher on the spiral of his +spiritual egotism. He believed himself finely and sacredly in the +right, that he was frustrated by lower beings, above whom it was his +duty to rise, to soar. So he soared to serene heights, and his +Private Hotel seemed a celestial injunction, an erection on a higher +plane. + +He saw the architect: and then, with his plans and schemes, he saw +the builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six or +seven hundred--but James had better see the plumber and fitter who +was going to instal the new hot water and sanitary system. James was +a little dashed. He had calculated much less. Having only a few +hundred pounds in possession after Throttle-Ha'penny, he was +prepared to mortgage Manchester House if he could keep in hand a +sufficent sum of money for the running of his establishment for a +year. He knew he would have to sacrifice Miss Pinnegar's work-room. +He knew, and he feared Miss Pinnegar's violent and unmitigated +hostility. Still--his obstinate spirit rose--he was quite prepared +to risk everything on this last throw. + +Miss Allsop, daughter of the builder, called to see Alvina. The +Allsops were great Chapel people, and Cassie Allsop was one of the +old maids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about +forty-two years old. In private, she was tyrannously exacting with +the servants, and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces. +But in public she had this nipped, wistful look. + +Alvina was surprised by this visit. When she found Miss Allsop at +the back door, all her inherent hostility awoke. + +"Oh, is it you, Miss Allsop! Will you come in." + +They sat in the middle room, the common living room of the house. + +"I called," said Miss Allsop, coming to the point at once, and +speaking in her Sunday-school-teacher voice, "to ask you if you know +about this Private Hotel scheme of your father's?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. + +"Oh, you do! Well, we wondered. Mr. Houghton came to father about +the building alterations yesterday. They'll be awfully expensive." + +"Will they?" said Alvina, making big, mocking eyes. + +"Yes, very. What do _you_ think of the scheme?" + +"I?--well--!" Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh. "To tell +the truth I haven't thought much about it at all." + +"Well I think you should," said Miss Allsop severely. "Father's sure +it won't pay--and it will cost I don't know how much. It is bound +to be a dead loss. And your father's getting on. You'll be left +stranded in the world without a penny to bless yourself with. I +think it's an awful outlook for you." + +"Do you?" said Alvina. + +Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the old +maids. + +"Oh, I do. Sincerely! I should do all I could to prevent him, if I +were you." + +Miss Allsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in her +mood. An old maid along with Cassie Allsop!--and James Houghton +fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester +House up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification, +in which _her_ peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and +spitefully. "Oh well, so be it," said her spirit vindictively. "Let +the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself." Her old anger +against her father arose again. + +Arthur Witham, the plumber, came in with James Houghton to examine +the house. Arthur Witham was also one of the Chapel men--as had been +his common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father +had left each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur, +the eldest, had already increased ten-fold. He was sly and slow and +uneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent. But he was not +bad-looking, a tight fellow with big blue eyes, who aspired to keep +his "h's" in the right place, and would have been a gentleman if he +could. + +Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in +the scullery. Arthur Witham saluted her with some respect. She liked +his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, +very watchful, and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered +and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear--she +handed him a candle--and she laughed to herself seeing his tight, +well-shaped hind-quarters protruding from under the sink like the +wrong end of a dog from a kennel. He was keen after money, was +Arthur--and bossy, creeping slyly after his own self-importance and +power. He wanted power--and he would creep quietly after it till he +got it: as much as he was capable of. His "h's" were a barbed-wire +fence and entanglement, preventing his unlimited progress. + +He emerged from under the sink, and they went to the kitchen and +afterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a little +aloof, and silent. When the tour of inspection was almost over, she +said innocently: + +"Won't it cost a great deal?" + +Arthur Witham slowly shook his head. Then he looked at her. She +smiled rather archly into his eyes. + +"It won't be done for nothing," he said, looking at her again. + +"We can go into that later," said James, leading off the plumber. + +"Good morning, Miss Houghton," said Arthur Witham. + +"Good morning, Mr. Witham," replied Alvina brightly. + +But she lingered in the background, and as Arthur Witham was going +she heard him say: "Well, I'll work it out, Mr. Houghton. I'll work +it out, and let you know tonight. I'll get the figures by tonight." + +The younger man's tone was a little off-hand, just a little +supercilious with her father, she thought. James's star was setting. + +In the afternoon, directly after dinner, Alvina went out. She +entered the shop, where sheets of lead and tins of paint and putty +stood about, varied by sheets of glass and fancy paper. Lottie +Witham, Arthur's wife, appeared. She was a woman of thirty-five, a +bit of a shrew, with social ambitions and no children. + +"Is Mr. Witham in?" said Alvina. + +Mrs. Witham eyed her. + +"I'll see," she answered, and she left the shop. + +Presently Arthur entered, in his shirt-sleeves: rather +attractive-looking. + +"I don't know what you'll think of me, and what I've come for," said +Alvina, with hurried amiability. Arthur lifted his blue eyes to her, +and Mrs. Witham appeared in the background, in the inner doorway. + +"Why, what is it?" said Arthur stolidly. + +"Make it as dear as you can, for father," said Alvina, laughing +nervously. + +Arthur's blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Witham advanced into the +shop. + +"Why? What's that for?" asked Lottie Witham shrewdly. + +Alvina turned to the woman. + +"Don't say anything," she said. "But we don't want father to go on +with this scheme. It's bound to fail. And Miss Pinnegar and I can't +have anything to do with it anyway. I shall go away." + +"It's bound to fail," said Arthur Witham stolidly. + +"And father has no money, I'm sure," said Alvina. + +Lottie Witham eyed the thin, nervous face of Alvina. For some +reason, she liked her. And of course, Alvina was considered a lady +in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to, with James's declining +fortunes: she was merely _considered_ a lady. The consideration was +no longer indisputable. + +"Shall you come in a minute?" said Lottie Witham, lifting the flap +of the counter. It was a rare and bold stroke on Mrs. Witham's part. +Alvina's immediate instinct was to refuse. But she liked Arthur +Witham, in his shirt sleeves. + +"Well--I must be back in a minute," she said, as she entered the +embrasure of the counter. She felt as if she were really venturing +on new ground. She was led into the new drawing-room, done in new +peacock-and-bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and brass and white +walls. This was the Withams' new house, and Lottie was proud of it. +The two women had a short confidential chat. Arthur lingered in the +doorway a while, then went away. + +Alvina did not really like Lottie Witham. Yet the other woman was +sharp and shrewd in the uptake, and for some reason she fancied +Alvina. So she was invited to tea at Manchester House. + +After this, so many difficulties rose up in James Houghton's way +that he was worried almost out of his life. His two women left him +alone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned his +scheme--he was simply driven out of it by untoward circumstances. + +Lottie Witham came to tea, and was shown over Manchester House. She +had no opinion at all of Manchester House--wouldn't hang a cat in +such a gloomy hole. _Still_, she was rather impressed by the sense +of superiority. + +"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed as she stood in Alvina's bedroom, +and looked at the enormous furniture, the lofty tableland of the +bed. + +"Oh my goodness! I wouldn't sleep in _that_ for a trifle, by myself! +Aren't you frightened out of your life? Even if I had Arthur at one +side of me, I should be that frightened on the other side I +shouldn't know what to do. Do you sleep here by yourself?" + +"Yes," said Alvina laughing. "I haven't got an Arthur, even for one +side." + +"Oh, my word, you'd want a husband on both sides, in that bed," said +Lottie Witham. + +Alvina was asked back to tea--on Wednesday afternoon, closing day. +Arthur was there to tea--very ill at ease and feeling as if his +hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched +closely to learn from her guest the secret of repose. The +indefinable repose and inevitability of a lady--even of a lady who +is nervous and agitated--this was the problem which occupied +Lottie's shrewd and active, but lower-class mind. She even did not +resent Alvina's laughing attempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur: +because Alvina was a lady, and her tactics must be studied. + +Alvina really liked Arthur, and thought a good deal about +him--heaven knows why. He and Lottie were quite happy together, and +he was absorbed in his petty ambitions. In his limited way, he was +invincibly ambitious. He would end by making a sufficient fortune, +and by being a town councillor and a J.P. But beyond Woodhouse he +did not exist. Why then should Alvina be attracted by him? Perhaps +because of his "closeness," and his secret determinedness. + +When she met him in the street she would stop him--though he was +always busy--and make him exchange a few words with her. And when +she had tea at his house, she would try to rouse his attention. But +though he looked at her, steadily, with his blue eyes, from under +his long lashes, still, she knew, he looked at her objectively. He +never conceived any connection with her whatsoever. + +It was Lottie who had a scheming mind. In the family of three +brothers there was one--not black sheep, but white. There was one +who was climbing out, to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second +brother. He had been a school-teacher in Woodhouse: had gone out to +South Africa and occupied a post in a sort of Grammar School in one +of the cities of Cape Colony. He had accumulated some money, to add +to his patrimony. Now he was in England, at Oxford, where he would +take his belated degree. When he had got his degree, he would return +to South Africa to become head of his school, at seven hundred a +year. + +Albert was thirty-two years old, and unmarried. Lottie was +determined he should take back to the Cape a suitable wife: +presumably Alvina. He spent his vacations in Woodhouse--and he was +only in his first year at Oxford. Well now, what could be more +suitable--a young man at Oxford, a young lady in Woodhouse. Lottie +told Alvina all about him, and Alvina was quite excited to meet him. +She imagined him a taller, more fascinating, educated Arthur. + +For the fear of being an old maid, the fear of her own virginity was +really gaining on Alvina. There was a terrible sombre futility, +nothingness, in Manchester House. She was twenty-six years old. Her +life was utterly barren now Miss Frost had gone. She was shabby and +penniless, a mere household drudge: for James begrudged even a girl +to help in the kitchen. She was looking faded and worn. Panic, the +terrible and deadly panic which overcomes so many unmarried women at +about the age of thirty, was beginning to overcome her. She would +not care about marriage, if even she had a lover. But some sort of +_terror_ hunted her to the search of a lover. She would become +loose, she would become a prostitute, she said to herself, rather +than die off like Cassie Allsop and the rest, wither slowly and +ignominiously and hideously on the tree. She would rather kill +herself. + +But it needs a certain natural gift to become a loose woman or a +prostitute. If you haven't got the qualities which attract loose +men, what are you to do? Supposing it isn't in your nature to +attract loose and promiscuous men! Why, then you can't be a +prostitute, if you try your head off: nor even a loose woman. Since +_willing_ won't do it. It requires a second party to come to an +agreement. + +Therefore all Alvina's desperate and profligate schemes and ideas +fell to nought before the inexorable in her nature. And the +inexorable in her nature was highly exclusive and selective, an +inevitable negation of looseness or prostitution. Hence men were +afraid of her--of her power, once they had committed themselves. She +would involve and lead a man on, she would destroy him rather than +not get of him what she wanted. And what she wanted was something +serious and risky. Not mere marriage--oh dear no! But a profound and +dangerous inter-relationship. As well ask the paddlers in the small +surf of passion to plunge themselves into the heaving gulf of +mid-ocean. Bah, with their trousers turned up to their knees it was +enough for them to wet their toes in the dangerous sea. They were +having nothing to do with such desperate nereids as Alvina. + +She had cast her mind on Arthur. Truly ridiculous. But there was +something compact and energetic and wilful about him that she +magnified ten-fold and so obtained, imaginatively, an attractive +lover. She brooded her days shabbily away in Manchester House, busy +with housework drudgery. Since the collapse of Throttle-Ha'penny, +James Houghton had become so stingy that it was like an inflammation +in him. A silver sixpence had a pale and celestial radiance which he +could not forego, a nebulous whiteness which made him feel he had +heaven in his hold. How then could he let it go. Even a brown penny +seemed alive and pulsing with mysterious blood, potent, magical. He +loved the flock of his busy pennies, in the shop, as if they had +been divine bees bringing him sustenance from the infinite. But the +pennies he saw dribbling away in household expenses troubled him +acutely, as if they were live things leaving his fold. It was a +constant struggle to get from him enough money for necessities. + +And so the household diet became meagre in the extreme, the coal was +eked out inch by inch, and when Alvina must have her boots mended +she must draw on her own little stock of money. For James Houghton +had the impudence to make her an allowance of two shillings a week. +She was very angry. Yet her anger was of that dangerous, +half-ironical sort which wears away its subject and has no outward +effect. A feeling of half-bitter mockery kept her going. In the +ponderous, rather sordid nullity of Manchester House she became +shadowy and absorbed, absorbed in nothing in particular, yet +absorbed. She was always more or less busy: and certainly there was +always something to be done, whether she did it or not. + +The shop was opened once a week, on Friday evenings. James Houghton +prowled round the warehouses in Knarborough and picked up job lots +of stuff, with which he replenished his shabby window. But his heart +was not in the business. Mere tenacity made him hover on with it. + +In midsummer Albert Witham came to Woodhouse, and Alvina was invited +to tea. She was very much excited. All the time imagining Albert a +taller, finer Arthur, she had abstained from actually fixing her +mind upon this latter little man. Picture her disappointment when +she found Albert quite unattractive. He was tall and thin and +brittle, with a pale, rather dry, flattish face, and with curious +pale eyes. His impression was one of uncanny flatness, something +like a lemon sole. Curiously flat and fish-like he was, one might +have imagined his backbone to be spread like the backbone of a sole +or a plaice. His teeth were sound, but rather large and yellowish +and flat. A most curious person. + +He spoke in a slightly mouthing way, not well bred in spite of +Oxford. There was a distinct Woodhouse twang. He would never be a +gentleman if he lived for ever. Yet he was not ordinary. Really an +odd fish: quite interesting, if one could get over the feeling that +one was looking at him through the glass wall of an aquarium: that +most horrifying of all boundaries between two worlds. In an aquarium +fish seem to come smiling broadly to the doorway, and there to stand +talking to one, in a mouthing fashion, awful to behold. For one +hears no sound from all their mouthing and staring conversation. Now +although Albert Witham had a good strong voice, which rang like +water among rocks in her ear, still she seemed never to hear a word +he was saying. He smiled down at her and fixed her and swayed his +head, and said quite original things, really. For he was a genuine +odd fish. And yet she seemed to hear no sound, no word from him: +nothing came to her. Perhaps as a matter of fact fish do actually +pronounce streams of watery words, to which we, with our +aerial-resonant ears, are deaf for ever. + +The odd thing was that this odd fish seemed from the very first to +imagine she had accepted him as a follower. And he was quite +prepared to follow. Nay, from the very first moment he was smiling +on her with a sort of complacent delight--compassionate, one might +almost say--as if there was a full understanding between them. If +only she could have got into the right state of mind, she would +really rather have liked him. He smiled at her, and said really +interesting things between his big teeth. There was something rather +nice about him. But, we must repeat, it was as if the glass wall of +an aquarium divided them. + +Alvina looked at Arthur. Arthur was short and dark-haired and nicely +coloured. But, now his brother was there, he too seemed to have a +dumb, aqueous silence, fish-like and aloof, about him. He seemed to +swim like a fish in his own little element. Strange it all was, +like Alice in Wonderland. Alvina understood now Lottie's strained +sort of thinness, a haggard, sinewy, sea-weedy look. The poor thing +was all the time swimming for her life. + +For Alvina it was a most curious tea-party. She listened and smiled +and made vague answers to Albert, who leaned his broad, thin, +brittle shoulders towards her. Lottie seemed rather shadowily to +preside. But it was Arthur who came out into communication. And now, +uttering his rather broad-mouthed speeches, she seemed to hear in +him a quieter, subtler edition of his father. His father had been a +little, terrifically loud-voiced, hard-skinned man, amazingly +uneducated and amazingly bullying, who had tyrannized for many years +over the Sunday School children during morning service. He had been +an odd-looking creature with round grey whiskers: to Alvina, always +a creature, never a man: an atrocious leprechaun from under the +Chapel floor. And how he used to dig the children in the back with +his horrible iron thumb, if the poor things happened to whisper or +nod in chapel! + +These were his children--most curious chips of the old block. Who +ever would have believed she would have been taking tea with them. + +"Why don't you have a bicycle, and go out on it?" Arthur was saying. + +"But I can't ride," said Alvina. + +"You'd learn in a couple of lessons. There's nothing in riding a +bicycle." + +"I don't believe I ever should," laughed Alvina. + +"You don't mean to say you're nervous?" said Arthur rudely and +sneeringly. + +"I _am_," she persisted. + +"You needn't be nervous with me," smiled Albert broadly, with his +odd, genuine gallantry. "I'll hold you on." + +"But I haven't got a bicycle," said Alvina, feeling she was slowly +colouring to a deep, uneasy blush. + +"You can have mine to learn on," said Lottie. "Albert will look +after it." + +"There's your chance," said Arthur rudely. "Take it while you've got +it." + +Now Alvina did not want to learn to ride a bicycle. The two Miss +Carlins, two more old maids, had made themselves ridiculous for +ever by becoming twin cycle fiends. And the horrible energetic +strain of peddling a bicycle over miles and miles of high-way did +not attract Alvina at all. She was completely indifferent to +sight-seeing and scouring about. She liked taking a walk, in her +lingering indifferent fashion. But rushing about in any way was +hateful to her. And then, to be taught to ride a bicycle by Albert +Witham! Her very soul stood still. + +"Yes," said Albert, beaming down at her from his strange pale eyes. +"Come on. When will you have your first lesson?" + +"Oh," cried Alvina in confusion. "I can't promise. I haven't time, +really." + +"Time!" exclaimed Arthur rudely. "But what do you do wi' yourself +all day?" + +"I have to keep house," she said, looking at him archly. + +"House! You can put a chain round its neck, and tie it up," he +retorted. + +Albert laughed, showing all his teeth. + +"I'm sure you find plenty to do, with everything on your hands," +said Lottie to Alvina. + +"I do!" said Alvina. "By evening I'm quite tired--though you mayn't +believe it, since you say I do nothing," she added, laughing +confusedly to Arthur. + +But he, hard-headed little fortune-maker, replied: + +"You have a girl to help you, don't you!" + +Albert, however, was beaming at her sympathetically. + +"You have too much to do indoors," he said. "It would do you good to +get a bit of exercise out of doors. Come down to the Coach Road +tomorrow afternoon, and let me give you a lesson. Go on--" + +Now the coach-road was a level drive between beautiful park-like +grass-stretches, down in the valley. It was a delightful place for +learning to ride a bicycle, but open in full view of all the world. +Alvina would have died of shame. She began to laugh nervously and +hurriedly at the very thought. + +"No, I can't. I really can't. Thanks, awfully," she said. + +"Can't you really!" said Albert. "Oh well, we'll say another day, +shall we?" + +"When I feel I can," she said. + +"Yes, when you feel like it," replied Albert. + +"That's more it," said Arthur. "It's not the time. It's the +nervousness." Again Albert beamed at her sympathetically, and said: + +"Oh, I'll hold you. You needn't be afraid." + +"But I'm not afraid," she said. + +"You won't _say_ you are," interposed Arthur. "Women's faults +mustn't be owned up to." + +Alvina was beginning to feel quite dazed. Their mechanical, +overbearing way was something she was unaccustomed to. It was like +the jaws of a pair of insentient iron pincers. She rose, saying she +must go. + +Albert rose also, and reached for his straw hat, with its coloured +band. + +"I'll stroll up with you, if you don't mind," he said. And he took +his place at her side along the Knarborough Road, where everybody +turned to look. For, of course, he had a sort of fame in Woodhouse. +She went with him laughing and chatting. But she did not feel at all +comfortable. He seemed so pleased. Only he was not pleased with +_her_. He was pleased with himself on her account: inordinately +pleased with himself. In his world, as in a fish's, there was but +his own swimming self: and if he chanced to have something swimming +alongside and doing him credit, why, so much the more complacently +he smiled. + +He walked stiff and erect, with his head pressed rather back, so +that he always seemed to be advancing from the head and shoulders, +in a flat kind of advance, horizontal. He did not seem to be walking +with his whole body. His manner was oddly gallant, with a gallantry +that completely missed the individual in the woman, circled round +her and flew home gratified to his own hive. The way he raised his +hat, the way he inclined and smiled flatly, even rather excitedly, +as he talked, was all a little discomforting and comical. + +He left her at the shop door, saying: + +"I shall see you again, I hope." + +"Oh, yes," she replied, rattling the door anxiously, for it was +locked. She heard her father's step at last tripping down the shop. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Houghton," said Albert suavely and with a certain +confidence, as James peered out. + +"Oh, good-evening!" said James, letting Alvina pass, and shutting +the door in Albert's face. + +"Who was that?" he asked her sharply. + +"Albert Witham," she replied. + +"What has _he_ got to do with you?" said James shrewishly. + +"Nothing, I hope." + +She fled into the obscurity of Manchester House, out of the grey +summer evening. The Withams threw her off her pivot, and made her +feel she was not herself. She felt she didn't know, she couldn't +feel, she was just scattered and decentralized. And she was rather +afraid of the Witham brothers. She might be their victim. She +intended to avoid them. + +The following days she saw Albert, in his Norfolk jacket and flannel +trousers and his straw hat, strolling past several times and looking +in through the shop door and up at the upper windows. But she hid +herself thoroughly. When she went out, it was by the back way. So +she avoided him. + +But on Sunday evening, there he sat, rather stiff and brittle in the +old Withams' pew, his head pressed a little back, so that his face +and neck seemed slightly flattened. He wore very low, turn-down +starched collars that showed all his neck. And he kept looking up at +her during the service--she sat in the choir-loft--gazing up at her +with apparently love-lorn eyes and a faint, intimate smile--the sort +of _je-sais-tout_ look of a private swain. Arthur also occasionally +cast a judicious eye on her, as if she were a chimney that needed +repairing, and he must estimate the cost, and whether it was worth +it. + +Sure enough, as she came out through the narrow choir gate into +Knarborough Road, there was Albert stepping forward like a +policeman, and saluting her and smiling down on her. + +"I don't know if I'm presuming--" he said, in a mock deferential +way that showed he didn't imagine he _could_ presume. + +"Oh, not at all," said Alvina airily. He smiled with assurance. + +"You haven't got any engagement, then, for this evening?" he said. + +"No," she replied simply. + +"We might take a walk. What do you think?" he said, glancing down +the road in either direction. + +What, after all, was she to think? All the girls were pairing off +with the boys for the after-chapel stroll and spoon. + +"I don't mind," she said. "But I can't go far. I've got to be in at +nine." + +"Which way shall we go?" he said. + +He steered off, turned downhill through the common gardens, and +proposed to take her the not-very-original walk up Flint's Lane, and +along the railway line--the colliery railway, that is--then back up +the Marlpool Road: a sort of circle. She agreed. + +They did not find a great deal to talk about. She questioned him +about his plans, and about the Cape. But save for bare outlines, +which he gave readily enough, he was rather close. + +"What do you do on Sunday nights as a rule?" he asked her. + +"Oh, I have a walk with Lucy Grainger--or I go down to Hallam's--or +go home," she answered. + +"You don't go walks with the fellows, then?" + +"Father would never have it," she replied. + +"What will he say now?" he asked, with self-satisfaction. + +"Goodness knows!" she laughed. + +"Goodness usually does," he answered archly. + +When they came to the rather stumbly railway, he said: + +"Won't you take my arm?"--offering her the said member. + +"Oh, I'm all right," she said. "Thanks." + +"Go on," he said, pressing a little nearer to her, and offering his +arm. "There's nothing against it, is there?" + +"Oh, it's not that," she said. + +And feeling in a false position, she took his arm, rather +unwillingly. He drew a little nearer to her, and walked with a +slight prance. + +"We get on better, don't we?" he said, giving her hand the tiniest +squeeze with his arm against his side. + +"Much!" she replied, with a laugh. + +Then he lowered his voice oddly. + +"It's many a day since I was on this railroad," he said. + +"Is this one of your old walks?" she asked, malicious. + +"Yes, I've been it once or twice--with girls that are all married +now." + +"Didn't you want to marry?" she asked. + +"Oh, I don't know. I may have done. But it never came off, somehow. +I've sometimes thought it never would come off." + +"Why?" + +"I don't know, exactly. It didn't seem to, you know. Perhaps neither +of us was properly inclined." + +"I should think so," she said. + +"And yet," he admitted slyly, "I should _like_ to marry--" To this +she did not answer. + +"Shouldn't you?" he continued. + +"When I meet the right man," she laughed. + +"That's it," he said. "There, that's just it! And you _haven't_ met +him?" His voice seemed smiling with a sort of triumph, as if he had +caught her out. + +"Well--once I thought I had--when I was engaged to Alexander." + +"But you found you were mistaken?" he insisted. + +"No. Mother was so ill at the time--" + +"There's always something to consider," he said. + +She kept on wondering what she should do if he wanted to kiss her. +The mere incongruity of such a desire on his part formed a problem. +Luckily, for this evening he formulated no desire, but left her in +the shop-door soon after nine, with the request: + +"I shall see you in the week, shan't I?" + +"I'm not sure. I can't promise now," she said hurriedly. +"Good-night." + +What she felt chiefly about him was a decentralized perplexity, very +much akin to no feeling at all. + +"Who do you think took me for a walk, Miss Pinnegar?" she said, +laughing, to her confidante. + +"I can't imagine," replied Miss Pinnegar, eyeing her. + +"You never would imagine," said Alvina. "Albert Witham." + +"Albert Witham!" exclaimed Miss Pinnegar, standing quite motionless. + +"It may well take your breath away," said Alvina. + +"No, it's not that!" hurriedly expostulated Miss Pinnegar. "Well--! +Well, I declare!--" and then, on a new note: "Well, he's very +eligible, I think." + +"Most eligible!" replied Alvina. + +"Yes, he is," insisted Miss Pinnegar. "I think it's very good." + +"What's very good?" asked Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar hesitated. She looked at Alvina. She reconsidered. + +"Of course he's not the man I should have imagined for you, but--" + +"You think he'll do?" said Alvina. + +"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Why shouldn't he do--if you like +him." + +"Ah--!" cried Alvina, sinking on the sofa with a laugh. "That's it." + +"Of course you couldn't have anything to do with him if you don't +care for him," pronounced Miss Pinnegar. + +Albert continued to hang around. He did not make any direct attack +for a few days. Suddenly one evening he appeared at the back door +with a bunch of white stocks in his hand. His face lit up with a +sudden, odd smile when she opened the door--a broad, pale-gleaming, +remarkable smile. + +"Lottie wanted to know if you'd come to tea tomorrow," he said +straight out, looking at her with the pale light in his eyes, that +smiled palely right into her eyes, but did not see her at all. He +was waiting on the doorstep to come in. + +"Will you come in?" said Alvina. "Father is in." + +"Yes, I don't mind," he said, pleased. He mounted the steps, still +holding his bunch of white stocks. + +James Houghton screwed round in his chair and peered over his +spectacles to see who was coming. + +"Father," said Alvina, "you know Mr. Witham, don't you?" + +James Houghton half rose. He still peered over his glasses at the +intruder. + +"Well--I do by sight. How do you do?" + +He held out his frail hand. + +Albert held back, with the flowers in his own hand, and giving his +broad, pleased, pale-gleaming smile from father to daughter, he +said: + +"What am I to do with these? Will you accept them, Miss Houghton?" +He stared at her with shining, pallid smiling eyes. + +"Are they for me?" she said, with false brightness. "Thank you." + +James Houghton looked over the top of his spectacles, searchingly, +at the flowers, as if they had been a bunch of white and +sharp-toothed ferrets. Then he looked as suspiciously at the hand +which Albert at last extended to him. He shook it slightly, and +said: + +"Take a seat." + +"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you in your reading," said Albert, still +having the drawn, excited smile on his face. + +"Well--" said James Houghton. "The light is fading." + +Alvina came in with the flowers in a jar. She set them on the table. + +"Haven't they a lovely scent?" she said. + +"Do you think so?" he replied, again with the excited smile. There +was a pause. Albert, rather embarrassed, reached forward, saying: + +"May I see what you're reading!" And he turned over the book. +"'Tommy and Grizel!' Oh yes! What do you think of it?" + +"Well," said James, "I am only in the beginning." + +"I think it's interesting, myself," said Albert, "as a study of a +man who can't get away from himself. You meet a lot of people like +that. What I wonder is why they find it such a drawback." + +"Find what a drawback?" asked James. + +"Not being able to get away from themselves. That +self-consciousness. It hampers them, and interferes with their power +of action. Now I wonder why self-consciousness should hinder a man +in his action? Why does it cause misgiving? I think I'm +self-conscious, but I don't think I have so many misgivings. I don't +see that they're necessary." + +"Certainly I think Tommy is a weak character. I believe he's a +despicable character," said James. + +"No, I don't know so much about that," said Albert. "I shouldn't say +weak, exactly. He's only weak in one direction. No, what I wonder is +why he feels guilty. If you feel self-conscious, there's no need to +feel guilty about it, is there?" + +He stared with his strange, smiling stare at James. + +"I shouldn't say so," replied James. "But if a man never knows his +own mind, he certainly can't be much of a man." + +"I don't see it," replied Albert. "What's the matter is that he +feels guilty for not knowing his own mind. That's the unnecessary +part. The guilty feeling--" + +Albert seemed insistent on this point, which had no particular +interest for James. + +"Where we've got to make a change," said Albert, "is in the feeling +that other people have a right to tell us what we ought to feel and +do. Nobody knows what another man ought to feel. Every man has his +own special feelings, and his own right to them. That's where it is +with education. You ought not to want all your children to feel +alike. Their natures are all different, and so they should all feel +different, about practically everything." + +"There would be no end to the confusion," said James. + +"There needn't be any confusion to speak of. You agree to a number +of rules and conventions and laws, for social purposes. But in +private you feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to +feel something else." + +"I don't know," said James. "There are certain feelings common to +humanity, such as love, and honour, and truth." + +"Would you call them feelings?" said Albert. "I should say what is +common is the idea. The idea is common to humanity, once you've put +it into words. But the feeling varies with every man. The same idea +represents a different kind of feeling in every different +individual. It seems to me that's what we've got to recognize if +we're going to do anything with education. We don't want to produce +mass feelings. Don't you agree?" + +Poor James was too bewildered to know whether to agree or not to +agree. + +"Shall we have a light, Alvina?" he said to his daughter. + +Alvina lit the incandescent gas-jet that hung in the middle of the +room. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard-looking as +she reached up to it. But Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly. +It seemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all. +He did not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what +he was thinking about. And therefore she hardly heard what he said. +Yet she believed he was clever. + +It was evident Albert was quite blissfully happy, in his own way, +sitting there at the end of the sofa not far from the fire, and +talking animatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he +talked in the direction of his interlocutor, he did not speak _to_ +him: merely said his words towards him. James, however, was such an +airy feather himself he did not remark this, but only felt a little +self-important at sustaining such a subtle conversation with a man +from Oxford. Alvina, who never expected to be interested in clever +conversations, after a long experience of her father, found her +expectation justified again. She was not interested. + +The man was quite nicely dressed, in the regulation tweed jacket and +flannel trousers and brown shoes. He was even rather smart, judging +from his yellow socks and yellow-and-brown tie. Miss Pinnegar eyed +him with approval when she came in. + +"Good-evening!" she said, just a trifle condescendingly, as she +shook hands. "How do you find Woodhouse, after being away so long?" +Her way of speaking was so quiet, as if she hardly spoke aloud. + +"Well," he answered. "I find it the same in many ways." + +"You wouldn't like to settle here again?" + +"I don't think I should. It feels a little cramped, you know, after +a new country. But it has its attractions." Here he smiled +meaningful. + +"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar. "I suppose the old connections count for +something." + +"They do. Oh decidedly they do. There's no associations like the old +ones." He smiled flatly as he looked towards Alvina. + +"You find it so, do you!" returned Miss Pinnegar. "You don't find +that the new connections make up for the old?" + +"Not altogether, they don't. There's something missing--" Again he +looked towards Alvina. But she did not answer his look. + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar. "I'm glad we still count for something, +in spite of the greater attractions. How long have you in England?" + +"Another year. Just a year. This time next year I expect I shall be +sailing back to the Cape." He smiled as if in anticipation. Yet it +was hard to believe that it mattered to him--or that anything +mattered. + +"And is Oxford agreeable to you?" she asked. + +"Oh, yes. I keep myself busy." + +"What are your subjects?" asked James. + +"English and History. But I do mental science for my own interest." + +Alvina had taken up a piece of sewing. She sat under the light, +brooding a little. What _had_ all this to do with her. The man +talked on, and beamed in her direction. And she felt a little +important. But moved or touched?--not the least in the world. + +She wondered if any one would ask him to supper--bread and cheese +and currant-loaf, and water, was all that offered. No one asked him, +and at last he rose. + +"Show Mr. Witham out through the shop, Alvina," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Alvina piloted the man through the long, dark, encumbered way of the +shop. At the door he said: + +"You've never said whether you're coming to tea on Thursday." + +"I don't think I can," said Alvina. + +He seemed rather taken aback. + +"Why?" he said. "What stops you?" + +"I've so much to do." + +He smiled slowly and satirically. + +"Won't it keep?" he said. + +"No, really. I can't come on Thursday--thank you so much. +Good-night!" She gave him her hand and turned quickly into the shop, +closing the door. He remained standing in the porch, staring at the +closed door. Then, lifting his lip, he turned away. + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar decidedly, as Alvina re-entered. "You can +say what you like--but I think he's _very pleasant_, _very_ +pleasant." + +"Extremely intelligent," said James Houghton, shifting in his chair. + +"I was awfully bored," said Alvina. + +They both looked at her, irritated. + +After this she really did what she could to avoid him. When she saw +him sauntering down the street in all his leisure, a sort of anger +possessed her. On Sunday, she slipped down from the choir into the +Chapel, and out through the main entrance, whilst he awaited her at +the small exit. And by good luck, when he called one evening in the +week, she was out. She returned down the yard. And there, through +the uncurtained window, she saw him sitting awaiting her. Without a +thought, she turned on her heel and fled away. She did not come in +till he had gone. + +"How late you are!" said Miss Pinnegar. "Mr. Witham was here till +ten minutes ago." + +"Yes," laughed Alvina. "I came down the yard and saw him. So I went +back till he'd gone." + +Miss Pinnegar looked at her in displeasure: + +"I suppose you know your own mind," she said. + +"How do you explain such behaviour?" said her father pettishly. + +"I didn't want to meet him," she said. + +The next evening was Saturday. Alvina had inherited Miss Frost's +task of attending to the Chapel flowers once a quarter. She had been +round the gardens of her friends, and gathered the scarlet and hot +yellow and purple flowers of August, asters, red stocks, tall +Japanese sunflowers, coreopsis, geraniums. With these in her basket +she slipped out towards evening, to the Chapel. She knew Mr. +Calladine, the caretaker would not lock up till she had been. + +The moment she got inside the Chapel--it was a big, airy, pleasant +building--she heard hammering from the organ-loft, and saw the +flicker of a candle. Some workman busy before Sunday. She shut the +baize door behind her, and hurried across to the vestry, for vases, +then out to the tap, for water. All was warm and still. + +It was full early evening. The yellow light streamed through the +side windows, the big stained-glass window at the end was deep and +full of glowing colour, in which the yellows and reds were richest. +Above in the organ-loft the hammering continued. She arranged her +flowers in many vases, till the communion table was like the window, +a tangle of strong yellow, and crimson, and purple, and +bronze-green. She tried to keep the effect light and kaleidoscopic, +an interplay of tossed pieces of strong, hot colour, vibrating and +lightly intermingled. It was very gorgeous, for a communion table. +But the day of white lilies was over. + +Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble, up in the +organ-loft, followed by a cursing. + +"Are you hurt?" called Alvina, looking up into space. The candle had +disappeared. + +But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the Chapel +to the stairs in the side porch, and ran up to the organ. She went +round the side--and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves sitting +crouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the +wall of the back, while a collapsed pair of steps lay between her +and him. It was too dark to see who it was. + +"That rotten pair of steps came down with me," said the infuriated +voice of Arthur Witham, "and about broke my leg." + +Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was +sitting nursing his leg. + +"Is it bad?" she asked, stooping towards him. + +In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes were +savage with anger. Her face was near his. + +"It is bad," he said furious because of the shock. The shock had +thrown him off his balance. + +"Let me see," she said. + +He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the +ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel +if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with +blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed +her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, +as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat pressing her +hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are +when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of +consciousness only, and for the rest unconscious. + +Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could +not bear the sudden acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his +sensitive, unbearable parts. + +"The bone isn't broken," she said professionally. "But you'd better +get the stocking out of it." + +Without a thought, he pulled his trouser-leg higher and rolled down +his stocking, extremely gingerly, and sick with pain. + +"Can you show a light?" he said. + +She found the candle. And she knew where matches always rested, on a +little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light, whilst he +examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It +was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He sat +looking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the candle-light. + +"It's not so very bad, when the pain goes off," she said, noticing +the black hairs of his shin. "We'd better tie it up. Have you got a +handkerchief?" + +"It's in my jacket," he said. + +She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little, by being +completely oblivious of her. She got his handkerchief and wiped her +fingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for the +wound. + +"Shall I tie it up, then?" she said. + +But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his leg, looking at his +hurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards his +ankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him. + +"Shall I tie it up, then?" she repeated at length, a little +impatient. So he put his leg a little forward. + +She looked at the wound, and wiped it a little. Then she folded the +pad of her own handkerchief, and laid it over the hurt. And again he +did the same thing, he took her hand as if it were a plaster, and +applied it to his wound, pressing it cautiously but firmly down. She +was rather angry. He took no notice of her at all. And she, waiting, +seemed to go into a dream, a sleep, her arm trembled a little, +stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lose count, under the firm +compression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her hand +pressed her into oblivion. + +"Tie it up," he said briskly. + +And she, obedient, began to tie the bandage with numb fingers. He +seemed to have taken the use out of her. + +When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organ +which he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pair of steps. + +"A rotten pair of things to have, to put a man's life in danger," he +said, towards the steps. Then stubbornly, he rigged them up again, +and stared again at his interrupted job. + +"You won't go on, will you?" she asked. + +"It's got to be done, Sunday tomorrow," he said. "If you'd hold them +steps a minute! There isn't more than a minute's fixing to do. It's +all done, but fixing." + +"Hadn't you better leave it," she said. + +"Would you mind holding the steps, so that they don't let me down +again," he said. Then he took the candle, and hobbled stubbornly and +angrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he +worked, tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the ricketty steps +and stared at him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers. +Strange the difference--she could not help thinking it--between the +vulnerable hairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the +shapeless form of these workmen's trousers. The kernel, the man +himself--seemed so tender--the covering so stiff and insentient. + +And was he not going to speak to her--not one human word of +recognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After +all he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently +but firmly down, down over his bruise, how he had taken the virtue +out of her, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he +going to relapse into his tough and ugly workman's hide, and treat +her as if _she_ were a pair of steps, which might let him down or +hold him up, as might be. + +As she stood clinging to the steps she felt weak and a little +hysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own back +from him. After all he had taken the virtue from her, he might have +the grace to say thank you, and treat her as if she were a human +being. + +At last he left off tinkering, and looked round. + +"Have you finished?" she said. + +"Yes," he answered crossly. + +And taking the candle he began to clamber down. When he got to the +bottom he crouched over his leg and felt the bandage. + +"That gives you what for," he said, as if it were her fault. + +"Is the bandage holding?" she said. + +"I think so," he answered churlishly. + +"Aren't you going to make sure?" she said. + +"Oh, it's all right," he said, turning aside and taking up his +tools. "I'll make my way home." + +"So will I," she answered. + +She took the candle and went a little in front. He hurried into his +coat and gathered his tools, anxious to get away. She faced him, +holding the candle. + +"Look at my hand," she said, holding it out. It was smeared with +blood, as was the cuff of her dress--a black-and-white striped +cotton dress. + +"Is it hurt?" he said. + +"No, but look at it. Look here!" She showed the bloodstains on her +dress. + +"It'll wash out," he said, frightened of her. + +"Yes, so it will. But for the present it's there. Don't you think +you ought to thank me?" + +He recoiled a little. + +"Yes," he said. "I'm very much obliged." + +"You ought to be more than that," she said. + +He did not answer, but looked her up and down. + +"We'll be going down," he said. "We s'll have folks talking." + +Suddenly she began to laugh. It seemed so comical. What a position! +The candle shook as she laughed. What a man, answering her like a +little automaton! Seriously, quite seriously he said it to her--"We +s'll have folks talking!" She laughed in a breathless, hurried way, +as they tramped downstairs. + +At the bottom of the stairs Calladine, the caretaker, met them. He +was a tall thin man with a black moustache--about fifty years old. + +"Have you done for tonight, all of you?" he said, grinning in echo +to Alvina's still fluttering laughter. + +"That's a nice rotten pair of steps you've got up there for a +death-trap," said Arthur angrily. "Come down on top of me, and I'm +lucky I haven't got my leg broken. It _is_ near enough." + +"Come down with you, did they?" said Calladine good-humouredly. "I +never knowed 'em come down wi' me." + +"You ought to, then. My leg's as near broke as it can be." + +"What, have you hurt yourself?" + +"I should think I have. Look here--" And he began to pull up his +trouser leg. But Alvina had given the candle to Calladine, and fled. +She had a last view of Arthur stooping over his precious leg, while +Calladine stooped his length and held down the candle. + +When she got home she took off her dress and washed herself hard and +washed the stained sleeve, thoroughly, thoroughly, and threw away +the wash water and rinsed the wash-bowls with fresh water, +scrupulously. Then she dressed herself in her black dress once +more, did her hair, and went downstairs. + +But she could not sew--and she could not settle down. It was +Saturday evening, and her father had opened the shop, Miss Pinnegar +had gone to Knarborough. She would be back at nine o'clock. Alvina +set about to make a mock woodcock, or a mock something or other, +with cheese and an egg and bits of toast. Her eyes were dilated and +as if amused, mocking, her face quivered a little with irony that +was not all enjoyable. + +"I'm glad you've come," said Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar entered. "The +supper's just done. I'll ask father if he'll close the shop." + +Of course James would not close the shop, though he was merely +wasting light. He nipped in to eat his supper, and started out again +with a mouthful the moment he heard the ping of the bell. He kept +his customers chatting as long as he could. His love for +conversation had degenerated into a spasmodic passion for chatter. + +Alvina looked across at Miss Pinnegar, as the two sat at the meagre +supper-table. Her eyes were dilated and arched with a mocking, +almost satanic look. + +"I've made up my mind about Albert Witham," said Alvina. Miss +Pinnegar looked at her. + +"Which way?" she asked, demurely, but a little sharp. + +"It's all off," said Alvina, breaking into a nervous laugh. + +"Why? What has happened?" + +"Nothing has happened. I can't stand him." + +"Why?--suddenly--" said Miss Pinnegar. + +"It's not sudden," laughed Alvina. "Not at all. I can't stand him. I +never could. And I won't try. There! Isn't that plain?" And she went +off into her hurried laugh, partly at herself, partly at Arthur, +partly at Albert, partly at Miss Pinnegar. + +"Oh, well, if you're so sure--" said Miss Pinnegar rather bitingly. + +"I _am_ quite sure--" said Alvina. "I'm quite certain." + +"Cock-sure people are often most mistaken," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I'd rather have my own mistakes than somebody else's rights," said +Alvina. + +"Then don't expect anybody to pay for your mistakes," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"It would be all the same if I did," said Alvina. + +When she lay in bed, she stared at the light of the street-lamp on +the wall. She was thinking busily: but heaven knows what she was +thinking. She had sharpened the edge of her temper. She was waiting +till tomorrow. She was waiting till she saw Albert Witham. She +wanted to finish off with him. She was keen to cut clean through any +correspondence with him. She stared for many hours at the light of +the street-lamp, and there was a narrowed look in her eyes. + +The next day she did not go to Morning Service, but stayed at home +to cook the dinner. In the evening she sat in her place in the +choir. In the Withams' pew sat Lottie and Albert--no Arthur. Albert +kept glancing up. Alvina could not bear the sight of him--she simply +could not bear the sight of him. Yet in her low, sweet voice she +sang the alto to the hymns, right to the vesper: + + "Lord keep us safe this night + Secure from all our fears, + May angels guard us while we sleep + Till morning light appears--" + +As she sang her alto, and as the soft and emotional harmony of the +vesper swelled luxuriously through the chapel, she was peeping over +her folded hands at Lottie's hat. She could not bear Lottie's hats. +There was something aggressive and vulgar about them. And she simply +detested the look of the back of Albert's head, as he too stooped to +the vesper prayer. It looked mean and rather common. She remembered +Arthur had the same look, bending to prayer. There!--why had she not +seen it before! That petty, vulgar little look! How could she have +thought twice of Arthur. She had made a fool of herself, as usual. +Him and his little leg. She grimaced round the chapel, waiting for +people to bob up their heads and take their departure. + +At the gate Albert was waiting for her. He came forward lifting his +hat with a smiling and familiar "Good evening!" + +"Good evening," she murmured. + +"It's ages since I've seen you," he said. "And I've looked out for +you everywhere." + +It was raining a little. She put up her umbrella. + +"You'll take a little stroll. The rain isn't much," he said. + +"No, thank you," she said. "I must go home." + +"Why, what's your hurry! Walk as far as Beeby Bridge. Go on." + +"No, thank you." + +"How's that? What makes you refuse?" + +"I don't want to." + +He paused and looked down at her. The cold and supercilious look of +anger, a little spiteful, came into his face. + +"Do you mean because of the rain?" he said. + +"No. I hope you don't mind. But I don't want to take any more walks. +I don't mean anything by them." + +"Oh, as for that," he said, taking the words out of her mouth. "Why +should you mean anything by them!" He smiled down on her. + +She looked him straight in the face. + +"But I'd rather not take any more walks, thank you--none at all," +she said, looking him full in the eyes. + +"You wouldn't!" he replied, stiffening. + +"Yes. I'm quite sure," she said. + +"As sure as all that, are you!" he said, with a sneering grimace. He +stood eyeing her insolently up and down. + +"Good-night," she said. His sneering made her furious. Putting her +umbrella between him and her, she walked off. + +"Good-night then," he replied, unseen by her. But his voice was +sneering and impotent. + +She went home quivering. But her soul was burning with satisfaction. +She had shaken them off. + +Later she wondered if she had been unkind to him. But it was +done--and done for ever. _Vogue la galere._ + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOUGHTON'S LAST ENDEAVOUR + + +The trouble with her ship was that it would _not_ sail. It rode +water-logged in the rotting port of home. All very well to have +wild, reckless moods of irony and independence, if you have to pay +for them by withering dustily on the shelf. + +Alvina fell again into humility and fear: she began to show symptoms +of her mother's heart trouble. For day followed day, month followed +month, season after season went by, and she grubbed away like a +housemaid in Manchester House, she hurried round doing the shopping, +she sang in the choir on Sundays, she attended the various chapel +events, she went out to visit friends, and laughed and talked and +played games. But all the time, what was there actually in her life? +Not much. She was withering towards old-maiddom. Already in her +twenty-eighth year, she spent her days grubbing in the house, whilst +her father became an elderly, frail man still too lively in mind and +spirit. Miss Pinnegar began to grow grey and elderly too, money +became scarcer and scarcer, there was a black day ahead when her +father would die and the home be broken up, and she would have to +tackle life as a worker. + +There lay the only alternative: in work. She might slave her days +away teaching the piano, as Miss Frost had done: she might find a +subordinate post as nurse: she might sit in the cash-desk of some +shop. Some work of some sort would be found for her. And she would +sink into the routine of her job, as did so many women, and grow old +and die, chattering and fluttering. She would have what is called +her independence. But, seriously faced with that treasure, and +without the option of refusing it, strange how hideous she found it. + +Work!--a job! More even than she rebelled against the Withams did +she rebel against a job. Albert Witham was distasteful to her--or +rather, he was not exactly distasteful, he was chiefly incongruous. +She could never get over the feeling that he was mouthing and +smiling at her through the glass wall of an aquarium, he being on +the watery side. Whether she would ever be able to take to his +strange and dishuman element, who knows? Anyway it would be some +sort of an adventure: better than a job. She rebelled with all her +backbone against the word _job_. Even the substitutes, _employment_ +or _work_, were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not +want to work for a wage. It was too humiliating. Could anything be +more _infra dig_ than the performing of a set of special actions day +in day out, for a life-time, in order to receive some shillings +every seventh day. Shameful! A condition of shame. The most vulgar, +sordid and humiliating of all forms of slavery: so mechanical. Far +better be a slave outright, in contact with all the whims and +impulses of a human being, than serve some mechanical routine of +modern work. + +She trembled with anger, impotence, and fear. For months, the +thought of Albert was a torment to her. She might have married him. +He would have been strange, a strange fish. But were it not better +to take the strange leap, over into his element, than to condemn +oneself to the routine of a job? He would have been curious and +dishuman. But after all, it would have been an experience. In a way, +she liked him. There was something odd and integral about him, which +she liked. He was not a liar. In his own line, he was honest and +direct. Then he would take her to South Africa: a whole new +_milieu_. And perhaps she would have children. She shivered a +little. No, not his children! He seemed so curiously cold-blooded. +And yet, why not? Why not his curious, pale, half cold-blooded +children, like little fishes of her own? Why not? Everything was +possible: and even desirable, once one could see the strangeness of +it. Once she could plunge through the wall of the aquarium! Once she +could kiss him! + +Therefore Miss Pinnegar's quiet harping on the string was +unbearable. + +"I can't understand that you disliked Mr. Witham so much?" said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"We never can understand those things," said Alvina. "I can't +understand why I dislike tapioca and arrowroot--but I do." + +"That's different," said Miss Pinnegar shortly. + +"It's no more easy to understand," said Alvina. + +"Because there's no need to understand it," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"And is there need to understand the other?" + +"Certainly. I can see nothing wrong with him," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Alvina went away in silence. This was in the first months after she +had given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again--would not +return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the Woodhouse +Withams there was a decided coldness. They never looked at her +now--nor she at them. + +None the less, as Christmas drew near Alvina worked up her feelings. +Perhaps she would be reconciled to him. She would slip across and +smile to him. She would take the plunge, once and for all--and kiss +him and marry him and bear the little half-fishes, his children. She +worked herself into quite a fever of anticipation. + +But when she saw him, the first evening, sitting stiff and staring +flatly in front of him in Chapel, staring away from everything in +the world, at heaven knows what--just as fishes stare--then his +dishumanness came over her again like an arrest, and arrested all +her flights of fancy. He stared flatly in front of him, and flatly +set a wall of oblivion between him and her. She trembled and let be. + +After Christmas, however, she had nothing at all to think forward +to. And it was then she seemed to shrink: she seemed positively to +shrink. + +"You never spoke to Mr. Witham?" Miss Pinnegar asked. + +"He never spoke to me," replied Alvina. + +"He raised his hat to me." + +"_You_ ought to have married him, Miss Pinnegar," said Alvina. "He +would have been right for you." And she laughed rather mockingly. + +"There is no need to make provision for me," said Miss Pinnegar. + +And after this, she was a long time before she forgave Alvina, and +was really friendly again. Perhaps she would never have forgiven her +if she had not found her weeping rather bitterly in her mother's +abandoned sitting-room. + +Now so far, the story of Alvina is commonplace enough. It is more or +less the story of thousands of girls. They all find work. It is the +ordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with an +ordinary girl we should have to carry on mildly and dully down the +long years of employment; or, at the best, marriage with some dull +school-teacher or office-clerk. + +But we protest that Alvina is not ordinary. Ordinary people, +ordinary fates. But extraordinary people, extraordinary fates. Or +else no fate at all. The all-to-one-pattern modern system is too +much for most extraordinary individuals. It just kills them off or +throws them disused aside. + +There have been enough stories about ordinary people. I should think +the Duke of Clarence must even have found malmsey nauseating, when +he choked and went purple and was really asphyxiated in a butt of +it. And ordinary people are no malmsey. Just ordinary tap-water. And +we have been drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual +floods of ordinariness, that tap-water tends to become a really +hateful fluid to us. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. We +detest ordinary people. We are in peril of our lives from them: and +in peril of our souls too, for they would damn us one and all to the +ordinary. Every individual should, by nature, have his extraordinary +points. But nowadays you may look for them with a microscope, they +are so worn-down by the regular machine-friction of our average and +mechanical days. + +There was no hope for Alvina in the ordinary. If help came, it would +have to come from the extraordinary. Hence the extreme peril of her +case. Hence the bitter fear and humiliation she felt as she drudged +shabbily on in Manchester House, hiding herself as much as possible +from public view. Men can suck the heady juice of exalted +self-importance from the bitter weed of failure--failures are +usually the most conceited of men: even as was James Houghton. But +to a woman, failure is another matter. For her it means failure to +live, failure to establish her own life on the face of the earth. +And this is humiliating, the ultimate humiliation. + +And so the slow years crept round, and the completed coil of each +one was a further heavy, strangling noose. Alvina had passed her +twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and even her +twenty-ninth year. She was in her thirtieth. It ought to be a +laughing matter. But it isn't. + + Ach, schon zwanzig + Ach, schon zwanzig + Immer noch durch's Leben tanz' ich + + Jeder, Jeder will mich kuessen + Mir das Leben zu versuessen. + + Ach, schon dreissig + Ach, schon dreissig + Immer Maedchen, Maedchen heiss' ich. + In dem Zopf schon graue Haerchen + Ach, wie schnell vergehn die Jaehrchen. + + 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 fuenfzig + Ach, schon fuenfzig + Und noch immer Keiner will 'mich; + Soll ich mich mit Baenden zieren + Soll ich einen Schleier fuehren? + Dann heisst's, die Alte putzt sich, + Sie ist fu'fzig, sie ist fu'fzig. + +True enough, in Alvina's pig-tail of soft brown the grey hairs were +already showing. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of +as a girl. And the slow-footed years, so heavy in passing, were so +imperceptibly numerous in their accumulation. + +But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and dreary +conclusion. Presumably, the _ordinary_ old-maid heroine nowadays is +destined to die in her fifties, she is not allowed to be the +long-liver of the by-gone novels. Let the song suffice her. + +James Houghton had still another kick in him. He had one last scheme +up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular +novelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink, +like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he +pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he had +escaped, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like +a frail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs, +and making little splashes in warehouse-oddments. Miss Pinnegar +thought he had really gone quiet. + +But alas, at that degenerated and shabby, down-at-heel club he met +another tempter: a plump man who had been in the music-hall line as +a sort of agent. This man had catered for the little shows of +little towns. He had been in America, out West, doing shows there. +He had trailed his way back to England, where he had left his wife +and daughter. But he did not resume his family life. Wherever he +was, his wife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or +less stranded in Woodhouse. He had _nearly_ fixed himself up with a +music-hall in the Potteries--as manager: he had all-but got such +another place at Ickley, in Derbyshire: he had forced his way +through the industrial and mining townlets, prospecting for any sort +of music-hall or show from which he could get a picking. And now, in +very low water, he found himself at Woodhouse. + +Woodhouse had a cinema already: a famous Empire run-up by Jordan, +the sly builder and decorator who had got on so surprisingly. In +James's younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody. +And now he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with +sardonic contempt, from under his heavy, heavy-lidded dark eyes. He +was rather stout, frail in health, but silent and insuperable, was +A. W. Jordan. + +"I missed a chance there," said James, fluttering. "I missed a rare +chance there. I ought to have been first with a cinema." + +He admitted as much to Mr. May, the stranger who was looking for +some sort of "managing" job. Mr. May, who also was plump and who +could hold his tongue, but whose pink, fat face and light-blue eyes +had a loud look, for all that, put the speech in his pipe and smoked +it. Not that he smoked a pipe: always cigarettes. But he seized on +James's admission, as something to be made the most of. + +Now Mr. May's mind, though quick, was pedestrian, not winged. He had +come to Woodhouse not to look at Jordan's "Empire," but at the +temporary wooden structure that stood in the old Cattle +Market--"Wright's Cinematograph and Variety Theatre." Wright's was +not a superior show, like the Woodhouse Empire. Yet it was always +packed with colliers and work-lasses. But unfortunately there was no +chance of Mr. May's getting a finger in the Cattle Market pie. +Wright's was a family affair. Mr. and Mrs. Wright and a son and two +daughters with their husbands: a tight old lock-up family concern. +Yet it was the kind of show that appealed to Mr. May: pictures +between the turns. The cinematograph was but an item in the program, +amidst the more thrilling incidents--to Mr. May--of conjurors, +popular songs, five-minute farces, performing birds, and comics. Mr. +May was too human to believe that a show should consist entirely of +the dithering eye-ache of a film. + +He was becoming really depressed by his failure to find any opening. +He had his family to keep--and though his honesty was of the variety +sort, he had a heavy conscience in the direction of his wife and +daughter. Having been so long in America, he had acquired American +qualities, one of which was this heavy sort of private innocence, +coupled with complacent and natural unscrupulousness in "matters of +business." A man of some odd sensitiveness in material things, he +liked to have his clothes neat and spick, his linen immaculate, his +face clean-shaved like a cherub. But alas, his clothes were now +old-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartness was +detrimental to his chances, in spite of their scrupulous look of +having come almost new out of the bandbox that morning. His rather +small felt hats still curved jauntily over his full pink face. But +his eyes looked lugubrious, as if he felt he had not deserved so +much bad luck, and there were bilious lines beneath them. + +So Mr. May, in his room in the Moon and Stars, which was the best inn +in Woodhouse--he must have a good hotel--lugubriously considered his +position. Woodhouse offered little or nothing. He must go to Alfreton. +And would he find anything there? Ah, where, where in this hateful +world was there refuge for a man saddled with responsibilities, who +wanted to do his best and was given no opportunity? Mr. May had +travelled in his Pullman car and gone straight to the best hotel in the +town, like any other American with money--in America. He had done it +smart, too. And now, in this grubby penny-picking England, he saw his +boots being worn-down at the heel, and was afraid of being stranded +without cash even for a railway ticket. If he had to clear out without +paying his hotel bill--well, that was the world's fault. He had to +live. But he must perforce keep enough in hand for a ticket to +Birmingham. He always said his wife was in London. And he always walked +down to Lumley to post his letters. He was full of evasions. + +So again he walked down to Lumley to post his letters. And he looked +at Lumley. And he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It +was a long straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a +pale-grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys +bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short +cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty +place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond +that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking +factories were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church +could be seen sticking up proudly and vulgarly on an eminence, above +trees and meadow-slopes, was an idyllic heaven. + +Mr. May turned in to the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey. And of +course he entered into conversation. + +"You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley," he said, in his odd, +refined-showman's voice. "Have you _nothing at all_ in the way of +amusement?" + +"They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathersedge." + +"But couldn't you support some place of your own--some _rival_ to +Wright's Variety?" + +"Ay--'appen--if somebody started it." + +And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting a +cinema on the virgin soil of Lumley. To the women he said not a +word. But on the very first morning that Mr. May broached the +subject, he became a new man. He fluttered like a boy, he fluttered +as if he had just grown wings. + +"Let us go down," said Mr. May, "and look at a site. You pledge +yourself to nothing--you don't compromise yourself. You merely have +a site in your mind." + +And so it came to pass that, next morning, this oddly assorted +couple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby, in his +black coat and dark grey trousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bent +forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if +pursued by fate. His face was thin and still handsome. Odd that his +cheap cap, by incongruity, made him look more a gentleman. But it +did. As he walked he glanced alertly hither and thither, and saluted +everybody. + +By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and his +head back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a +consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suit +fitted exactly--save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket +and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade +as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe +like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suede uppers: but a +_little_ down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he +looked very spruce, though a _little_ behind the fashions: very pink +faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath: very much on the +spot, although the spot was the wrong one. + +They discoursed amiably as they went, James bending forward, Mr. May +bending back. Mr. May took the refined man-of-the-world tone. + +"Of course," he said--he used the two words very often, and +pronounced the second, rather mincingly, to rhyme with _sauce_: "Of +course," said Mr. May, "it's a disgusting place--_disgusting_! I +never was in a worse, in all the _cauce_ of my travels. But +_then_--that isn't the point--" + +He spread his plump hands from his immaculate shirt-cuffs. + +"No, it isn't. Decidedly it isn't. That's beside the point +altogether. What we want--" began James. + +"Is an audience--of _cauce_--! And we have it--! Virgin soil--! + +"Yes, decidedly. Untouched! An unspoiled market." + +"An unspoiled market!" reiterated Mr. May, in full confirmation, +though with a faint flicker of a smile. "How very _fortunate_ for +us." + +"Properly handled," said James. "Properly handled." + +"Why yes--of _cauce_! Why _shouldn't_ we handle it properly!" + +"Oh, we shall manage that, we shall manage that," came the quick, +slightly husky voice of James. + +"Of _cauce_ we shall! Why bless my life, if we can't manage an +audience in Lumley, what _can_ we do." + +"We have a guide in the matter of their taste," said James. "We can +see what Wright's are doing--and Jordan's--and we can go to +Hathersedge and Knarborough and Alfreton--beforehand, that is--" + +"Why certainly--if you think it's _necessary_. I'll do all that for +you. _And_ I'll interview the managers and the performers +themselves--as if I were a journalist, don't you see. I've done a +fair amount of journalism, and nothing easier than to get cards from +various newspapers." + +"Yes, that's a good suggestion," said James. "As if you were going +to write an account in the newspapers--excellent." + +"And so simple! You pick up just _all_ the information you require." + +"Decidedly--decidedly!" said James. + +And so behold our two heroes sniffing round the sordid backs and +wasted meadows and marshy places of Lumley. They found one barren +patch where two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling +potatoes, sitting on the bottom step of her caravan. A half-caste +girl came up with a large pale-blue enamelled jug of water. In the +background were two booths covered up with coloured canvas. +Hammering was heard inside. + +"Good-morning!" said Mr. May, stopping before the woman. "'Tisn't +fair time, is it?" + +"No, it's no fair," said the woman. + +"I see. You're just on your own. Getting on all right?" + +"Fair," said the woman. + +"Only fair! Sorry. Good-morning." + +Mr. May's quick eye, roving round, had seen a negro stoop from under +the canvas that covered one booth. The negro was thin, and looked +young but rather frail, and limped. His face was very like that of +the young negro in Watteau's drawing--pathetic, wistful, +north-bitten. In an instant Mr. May had taken all in: the man was +the woman's husband--they were acclimatized in these regions: the +booth where he had been hammering was a Hoop-La. The other would be +a cocoanut-shy. Feeling the instant American dislike for the +presence of a negro, Mr. May moved off with James. + +They found out that the woman was a Lumley woman, that she had two +children, that the negro was a most quiet and respectable chap, but +that the family kept to itself, and didn't mix up with Lumley. + +"I should think so," said Mr. May, a little disgusted even at the +suggestion. + +Then he proceeded to find out how long they had stood on this +ground--three months--how long they would remain--only another week, +then they were moving off to Alfreton fair--who was the owner of the +pitch--Mr. Bows, the butcher. Ah! And what was the ground used for? +Oh, it was building land. But the foundation wasn't very good. + +"The very thing! Aren't we _fortunate_!" cried Mr. May, perking up +the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and brisk +perkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o'clock +whiskey terribly--terribly--his pick-me-up! And he daren't confess +it to James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and +hollow way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous +exhaustion in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his +short nose. The smell of the place was distasteful to him. The +_disgusting_ beer that the colliers drank. Oh!--he _was_ so tired. +He sank back with his whiskey and stared blankly, dismally in front +of him. Beneath his eyes he looked more bilious still. He felt +thoroughly out of luck, and petulant. + +None the less he sallied out with all his old bright perkiness, the +next time he had to meet James. He hadn't yet broached the question +of costs. When would he be able to get an advance from James? He +_must_ hurry the matter forward. He brushed his crisp, curly brown +hair carefully before the mirror. How grey he was at the temples! No +wonder, dear me, with such a life! He was in his shirt-sleeves. His +waistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had +filled out--but he hadn't developed a corporation. Not at all. He +looked at himself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinner. He +was one of those men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so +that their tail sticks out a little behind, jauntily. How +wonderfully the satin of his waistcoat had worn! He looked at his +shirt-cuffs. They were going. Luckily, when he had had the shirts +made he had secured enough material for the renewing of cuffs and +neckbands. He put on his coat, from which he had flicked the +faintest suspicion of dust, and again settled himself to go out and +meet James on the question of an advance. He simply must have an +advance. + +He didn't get it that day, none the less. The next morning he was +ringing for his tea at six o'clock. And before ten he had already +flitted to Lumley and back, he had already had a word with Mr. Bows, +about that pitch, and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with +the quiet, frail, sad negro, about Alfreton fair, and the chance of +buying some sort of collapsible building, for his cinematograph. + +With all this news he met James--not at the shabby club, but in the +deserted reading-room of the so-called Artizans Hall--where never an +artizan entered, but only men of James's class. Here they took the +chessboard and pretended to start a game. But their conversation +was rapid and secretive. + +Mr. May disclosed all his discoveries. And then he said, +tentatively: + +"Hadn't we better think about the financial part now? If we're going +to look round for an erection"--curious that he always called it an +erection--"we shall have to know what we are going to spend." + +"Yes--yes. Well--" said James vaguely, nervously, giving a glance at +Mr. May. Whilst Mr. May abstractedly fingered his black knight. + +"You see at the moment," said Mr. May, "I have no funds that I can +represent in cash. I have no doubt a little _later_--if we need +it--I can find a few hundreds. Many things are _due_--numbers of +things. But it is so difficult to _collect_ one's dues, particularly +from America." He lifted his blue eyes to James Houghton. "Of course +we can _delay_ for some time, until I get my supplies. Or I can act +just as your manager--you can _employ_ me--" + +He watched James's face. James looked down at the chessboard. He was +fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partner. He wanted to +be in this all by himself. He hated partners. + +"You will agree to be manager, at a fixed salary?" said James +hurriedly and huskily, his fine fingers slowly rubbing each other, +along the sides. + +"Why yes, willingly, if you'll give me the option of becoming your +partner upon terms of mutual agreement, later on." + +James did not quite like this. + +"What terms are you thinking of?" he asked. + +"Well, it doesn't matter for the moment. Suppose for the moment I +enter an engagement as your manager, at a salary, let us say, of--of +what, do you think?" + +"So much a week?" said James pointedly. + +"Hadn't we better make it monthly?" + +The two men looked at one another. + +"With a month's notice on either hand?" continued Mr. May. + +"How much?" said James, avaricious. + +Mr. May studied his own nicely kept hands. + +"Well, I don't see how I can do it under twenty pounds a month. Of +course it's ridiculously low. In America I _never_ accepted less +than three hundred dollars a month, and that was my poorest and +lowest. But of _cauce_, England's not America--more's the pity." + +But James was shaking his head in a vibrating movement. + +"Impossible!" he replied shrewdly. "Impossible! Twenty pounds a +month? Impossible. I couldn't do it. I couldn't think of it." + +"Then name a figure. Say what you _can_ think of," retorted Mr. May, +rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a doddering +provincial, and by his own sudden collapse into mean subordination. + +"I can't make it more than ten pounds a month," said James sharply. + +"What!" screamed Mr. May. "What am I to live on? What is my wife to +live on?" + +"I've got to make it pay," said James. "If I've got to make it pay, +I must keep down expenses at the beginning." + +"No,--on the contrary. You must be prepared to spend something at +the beginning. If you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashion in the +beginning, you will get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month! Why it's +impossible! Ten pounds a month! But how am I to _live_?" + +James's head still vibrated in a negative fashion. And the two men +came to no agreement _that_ morning. Mr. May went home more sick and +weary than ever, and took his whiskey more biliously. But James was +lit with the light of battle. + +Poor Mr. May had to gather together his wits and his sprightliness +for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in +other ways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten +pounds--but really, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous in +your life, _ten pounds!_--dirty old screw, dirty, screwing old +woman! He would accept the ten pounds; but he would get his own +back. + +He flitted down once more to the negro, to ask him of a certain +wooden show-house, with section sides and roof, an old travelling +theatre which stood closed on Selverhay Common, and might probably +be sold. He pressed across once more to Mr. Bows. He wrote various +letters and drew up certain notes. And the next morning, by eight +o'clock, he was on his way to Selverhay: walking, poor man, the long +and uninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod +feet, through country that had been once beautiful but was now +scrubbled all over with mining villages, on and on up heavy hills +and down others, asking his way from uncouth clowns, till at last he +came to the Common, which wasn't a Common at all, but a sort of +village more depressing than usual: naked, high, exposed to heaven +and to full barren view. + +There he saw the theatre-booth. It was old and sordid-looking, painted +dark-red and dishevelled with narrow, tattered announcements. The +grass was growing high up the wooden sides. If only it wasn't rotten? +He crouched and probed and pierced with his pen-knife, till a +country-policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got off his +bicycle and came stealthily across the grass wheeling the same bicycle, +and startled poor Mr. May almost into apoplexy by demanding behind him, +in a loud voice: + +"What're you after?" + +Mr. May rose up with flushed face and swollen neck-veins, holding +his pen-knife in his hand. + +"Oh," he said, "good-morning." He settled his waistcoat and glanced +over the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "I was +taking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. I'm +afraid it's going rotten from the bottom." + +"Shouldn't wonder," said the policeman suspiciously, watching Mr. +May shut the pocket knife. + +"I'm afraid that makes it useless for my purpose," said Mr. May. + +The policeman did not deign to answer. + +"Could you tell me where I can find out about it, anyway?" Mr. May +used his most affable, man of the world manner. But the policeman +continued to stare him up and down, as if he were some marvellous +specimen unknown on the normal, honest earth. + +"What, find out?" said the constable. + +"About being able to buy it," said Mr. May, a little testily. It was +with great difficulty he preserved his man-to-man openness and +brightness. + +"They aren't here," said the constable. + +"Oh indeed! Where _are_ they? And _who_ are they?" + +The policeman eyed him more suspiciously than ever. + +"Cowlard's their name. An' they live in Offerton when they aren't +travelling." + +"Cowlard--thank you." Mr. May took out his pocket-book. +"C-o-w-l-a-r-d--is that right? And the address, please?" + +"I dunno th' street. But you can find out from the Three Bells. +That's Missis' sister." + +"The Three Bells--thank you. Offerton did you say?" + +"Yes." + +"Offerton!--where's that?" + +"About eight mile." + +"Really--and how do you get there?" + +"You can walk--or go by train." + +"Oh, there is a station?" + +"Station!" The policeman looked at him as if he were either a +criminal or a fool. + +"Yes. There _is_ a station there?" + +"Ay--biggest next to Chesterfield--" + +Suddenly it dawned on Mr. May. + +"Oh-h!" he said. "You mean _Alfreton_--" + +"Alfreton, yes." The policeman was now convinced the man was a +wrong-'un. But fortunately he was not a pushing constable, he did +not want to rise in the police-scale: thought himself safest at the +bottom. + +"And which is the way to the station here?" asked Mr. May. + +"Do yer want Pinxon or Bull'ill?" + +"Pinxon or Bull'ill?" + +"There's two," said the policeman. + +"For Selverhay?" asked Mr. May. + +"Yes, them's the two." + +"And which is the best?" + +"Depends what trains is runnin'. Sometimes yer have to wait an hour +or two--" + +"You don't know the trains, do you--?" + +"There's one in th' afternoon--but I don't know if it'd be gone by +the time you get down." + +"To where?" + +"Bull'ill." + +"Oh Bull'ill! Well, perhaps I'll try. Could you tell me the way?" + +When, after an hour's painful walk, Mr. May came to Bullwell Station +and found there was no train till six in the evening, he felt he +was earning every penny he would ever get from Mr. Houghton. + +The first intelligence which Miss Pinnegar and Alvina gathered of +the coming adventure was given them when James announced that he had +let the shop to Marsden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed to +take over James's premises at the same rent as that of the premises +he already occupied, and moreover to do all alterations and put in +all fixtures himself. This was a grand scoop for James: not a penny +was it going to cost him, and the rent was clear profit. + +"But when?" cried Miss Pinnegar. + +"He takes possession on the first of October." + +"Well--it's a good idea. The shop isn't worth while," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"Certainly it isn't," said James, rubbing his hands: a sign that he +was rarely excited and pleased. + +"And you'll just retire, and live quietly," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I shall see," said James. And with those fatal words he wafted away +to find Mr. May. + +James was now nearly seventy years old. Yet he nipped about like a +leaf in the wind. Only, it was a frail leaf. + +"Father's got something going," said Alvina, in a warning voice. + +"I believe he has," said Miss Pinnegar pensively. "I wonder what it +is, now." + +"I can't imagine," laughed Alvina. "But I'll bet it's something +awful--else he'd have told us." + +"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar slowly. "Most likely he would. I wonder +what it can be." + +"I haven't an idea," said Alvina. + +Both women were so retired, they had heard nothing of James's little +trips down to Lumley. So they watched like cats for their man's +return, at dinner-time. + +Miss Pinnegar saw him coming along talking excitedly to Mr. May, +who, all in grey, with his chest perkily stuck out like a robin, was +looking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreement, he +had ventured on whiskey and soda in honour, and James had actually +taken a glass of port. + +"Alvina!" Miss Pinnegar called discreetly down the shop. "Alvina! +Quick!" + +Alvina flew down to peep round the corner of the shop window. There +stood the two men, Mr. May like a perky, pink-faced grey bird +standing cocking his head in attention to James Houghton, and +occasionally catching James by the lapel of his coat, in a vain +desire to get a word in, whilst James's head nodded and his face +simply wagged with excited speech, as he skipped from foot to foot, +and shifted round his listener. + +"Who _ever_ can that common-looking man be?" said Miss Pinnegar, her +heart going down to her boots. + +"I can't imagine," said Alvina, laughing at the comic sight. + +"Don't you think he's dreadful?" said the poor elderly woman. + +"Perfectly impossible. Did ever you see such a pink face?" + +"_And_ the braid binding!" said Miss Pinnegar in indignation. + +"Father might almost have sold him the suit," said Alvina. + +"Let us hope he hasn't sold your father, that's all," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +The two men had moved a few steps further towards home, and the +women prepared to flee indoors. Of course it was frightfully wrong +to be standing peeping in the high street at all. But who could +consider the proprieties now? + +"They've stopped again," said Miss Pinnegar, recalling Alvina. + +The two men were having a few more excited words, their voices just +audible. + +"I do wonder who he can be," murmured Miss Pinnegar miserably. + +"In the theatrical line, I'm sure," declared Alvina. + +"Do you think so?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Can't be! Can't be!" + +"He couldn't be anything else, don't you think?" + +"Oh I _can't_ believe it, I can't." + +But now Mr. May had laid his detaining hand on James's arm. And now +he was shaking his employer by the hand. And now James, in his cheap +little cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a +graceful wave of his grey-suede-gloved hand, was turning back to the +Moon and Stars, strutting, whilst James was running home on +tip-toe, in his natural hurry. + +Alvina hastily retreated, but Miss Pinnegar stood it out. James +started as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her +confronting him. + +"Oh--Miss Pinnegar!" he said, and made to slip by her. + +"Who was that man?" she asked sharply, as if James were a child whom +she could endure no more. + +"Eh? I beg your pardon?" said James, starting back. + +"Who was that man?" + +"Eh? Which man?" + +James was a little deaf, and a little husky. + +"The man--" Miss Pinnegar turned to the door. "There! That man!" + +James also came to the door, and peered out as if he expected to see +a sight. The sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty +little hat and the grey suede hands retreating quite surprised him. +He was angry at being introduced to the sight. + +"Oh," he said. "That's my manager." And he turned hastily down the +shop, asking for his dinner. + +Miss Pinnegar stood for some moments in pure oblivion in the shop +entrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recovered, she felt +she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened +herself once more, though the effort cost her a year of her life. +She had never collapsed, she had never fallen into hysteria. + +She gathered herself together, though bent a little as from a blow, +and, closing the shop door, followed James to the living room, like +the inevitable. He was eating his dinner, and seemed oblivious of +her entry. There was a smell of Irish stew. + +"What manager?" said Miss Pinnegar, short, silent, and inevitable in +the doorway. + +But James was in one of his abstractions, his trances. + +"What manager?" persisted Miss Pinnegar. + +But he still bent unknowing over his plate and gobbled his Irish +stew. + +"Mr. Houghton!" said Miss Pinnegar, in a sudden changed voice. She +had gone a livid yellow colour. And she gave a queer, sharp little +rap on the table with her hand. + +James started. He looked up bewildered, as one startled out of +sleep. + +"Eh?" he said, gaping. "Eh?" + +"Answer me," said Miss Pinnegar. "What manager?" + +"Manager? Eh? Manager? What manager?" + +She advanced a little nearer, menacing in her black dress. James +shrank. + +"What manager?" he re-echoed. "My manager. The manager of my +cinema." + +Miss Pinnegar looked at him, and looked at him, and did not speak. +In that moment all the anger which was due to him from all womanhood +was silently discharged at him, like a black bolt of silent +electricity. But Miss Pinnegar, the engine of wrath, felt she would +burst. + +"Cinema! Cinema! Do you mean to tell me--" but she was really +suffocated, the vessels of her heart and breast were bursting. She +had to lean her hand on the table. + +It was a terrible moment. She looked ghastly and terrible, with her +mask-like face and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. Some fearful +thunderbolt seemed to fall. James withered, and was still. There was +silence for minutes, a suspension. + +And in those minutes, she finished with him. She finished with him +for ever. When she had sufficiently recovered, she went to her +chair, and sat down before her plate. And in a while she began to +eat, as if she were alone. + +Poor Alvina, for whom this had been a dreadful and uncalled-for +moment, had looked from one to another, and had also dropped her +head to her plate. James too, with bent head, had forgotten to eat. +Miss Pinnegar ate very slowly, alone. + +"Don't you want your dinner, Alvina?" she said at length. + +"Not as much as I did," said Alvina. + +"Why not?" said Miss Pinnegar. She sounded short, almost like Miss +Frost. Oddly like Miss Frost. + +Alvina took up her fork and began to eat automatically. + +"I always think," said Miss Pinnegar, "Irish stew is more tasty with +a bit of Swede in it." + +"So do I, really," said Alvina. "But Swedes aren't come yet." + +"Oh! Didn't we have some on Tuesday?" + +"No, they were yellow turnips--but they weren't Swedes." + +"Well then, yellow turnip. I like a little yellow turnip," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"I might have put some in, if I'd known," said Alvina. + +"Yes. We will another time," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Not another word about the cinema: not another breath. As soon as +James had eaten his plum tart, he ran away. + +"What can he have been doing?" said Alvina when he had gone. + +"Buying a cinema show--and that man we saw is his manager. It's +quite simple." + +"But what are we going to do with a cinema show?" said Alvina. + +"It's what is _he_ going to do. It doesn't concern me. It's no +concern of mine. I shall not lend him anything, I shall not think +about it, it will be the same to me as if there _were_ no cinema. +Which is all I have to say," announced Miss Pinnegar. + +"But he's gone and done it," said Alvina. + +"Then let him go through with it. It's no affair of mine. After all, +your father's affairs don't concern me. It would be impertinent of +me to introduce myself into them." + +"They don't concern _me_ very much," said Alvina. + +"You're different. You're his daughter. He's no connection of mine, +I'm glad to say. I pity your mother." + +"Oh, but he was always alike," said Alvina. + +"That's where it is," said Miss Pinnegar. + +There was something fatal about her feelings. Once they had gone +cold, they would never warm up again. As well try to warm up a +frozen mouse. It only putrifies. + +But poor Miss Pinnegar after this looked older, and seemed to get a +little round-backed. And the things she said reminded Alvina so +often of Miss Frost. + +James fluttered into conversation with his daughter the next +evening, after Miss Pinnegar had retired. + +"I told you I had bought a cinematograph building," said James. "We +are negotiating for the machinery now: the dynamo and so on." + +"But where is it to be?" asked Alvina. + +"Down at Lumley. I'll take you and show you the site tomorrow. The +building--it is a frame-section travelling theatre--will arrive on +Thursday--next Thursday." + +"But who is in with you, father?" + +"I am quite alone--quite alone," said James Houghton. "I have found +an excellent manager, who knows the whole business thoroughly--a Mr. +May. Very nice man. Very nice man." + +"Rather short and dressed in grey?" + +"Yes. And I have been thinking--if Miss Pinnegar will take the cash +and issue tickets: if she will take over the ticket-office: and you +will play the piano: and if Mr. May learns the control of the +machine--he is having lessons now--: and if I am the indoors +attendant, we shan't need any more staff." + +"Miss Pinnegar won't take the cash, father." + +"Why not? Why not?" + +"I can't say why not. But she won't do anything--and if I were you I +wouldn't ask her." + +There was a pause. + +"Oh, well," said James, huffy. "She isn't indispensable." + +And Alvina was to play the piano! Here was a blow for her! She +hurried off to her bedroom to laugh and cry at once. She just saw +herself at that piano, banging off the _Merry Widow Waltz_, and, in +tender moments, _The Rosary_. Time after time, _The Rosary_. While +the pictures flickered and the audience gave shouts and some grubby +boy called "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, +penny a bar!" away she banged at another tune. + +What a sight for the gods! She burst out laughing. And at the same +time, she thought of her mother and Miss Frost, and she cried as if +her heart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous +tunes came into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with most +priceless variations. _Linger Longer Lucy_, for example. She began +to spin imaginary harmonies and variations in her head, upon the +theme of _Linger Longer Lucy_. + + "Linger longer Lucy, linger longer Loo. + How I love to linger longer linger long o' you. + Listen while I sing, love, promise you'll be true, + And linger longer longer linger linger longer Loo." + +All the tunes that used to make Miss Frost so angry. All the Dream +Waltzes and Maiden's Prayers, and the awful songs. + + "For in Spooney-ooney Island + Is there any one cares for me? + In Spooney-ooney Island + Why surely there ought to be--" + +Poor Miss Frost! Alvina imagined herself leading a chorus of +collier louts, in a bad atmosphere of "Woodbines" and oranges, +during the intervals when the pictures had collapsed. + + "How'd you like to spoon with me? + How'd you like to spoon with me? + (_Why ra-ther!_) + + Underneath the oak-tree nice and shady + Calling me your tootsey-wootsey lady? + How'd you like to hug and squeeze, + (_Just try me!_) + + Dandle me upon your knee, + Calling me your little lovey-dovey-- + How'd you like to spoon with me? + (_Oh-h--Go on!_)" + +Alvina worked herself into quite a fever, with her imaginings. + +In the morning she told Miss Pinnegar. + +"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar, "you see me issuing tickets, don't you? +Yes--well. I'm afraid he will have to do that part himself. And +you're going to play the piano. It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! +It's a disgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead. +He's lost every bit of shame--every bit--if he ever had any--which I +doubt very much. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I am not concerned. +And I'm sorry for you, for being his daughter. I'm heart sorry for +you, I am. Well, well--no sense of shame--no sense of shame--" + +And Miss Pinnegar padded out of the room. + +Alvina walked down to Lumley and was shown the site and was +introduced to Mr. May. He bowed to her in his best American fashion, +and treated her with admirable American deference. + +"Don't you think," he said to her, "it's an admirable scheme?" + +"Wonderful," she replied. + +"Of cauce," he said, "the erection will be a merely temporary one. +Of cauce it won't be anything to _look_ at: just an old wooden +travelling theatre. But _then_--all we need is to make a start." + +"And you are going to work the film?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said with pride, "I spend every evening with the operator +at Marsh's in Knarborough. Very interesting I find it--very +interesting indeed. And _you_ are going to play the piano?" he said, +perking his head on one side and looking at her archly. + +"So father says," she answered. + +"But what do _you_ say?" queried Mr. May. + +"I suppose I don't have any say." + +"Oh but _surely_. Surely you won't do it if you don't wish to. That +would never do. Can't we hire some young fellow--?" And he turned to +Mr. Houghton with a note of query. + +"Alvina can play as well as anybody in Woodhouse," said James. "We +mustn't add to our expenses. And wages in particular--" + +"But surely Miss Houghton will have her wage. The labourer is worthy +of his hire. Surely! Even of _her_ hire, to put it in the feminine. +And for the same wage you could get some unimportant fellow with +strong wrists. I'm afraid it will tire Miss Houghton to death--" + +"I don't think so," said James. "I don't think so. Many of the turns +she will not need to accompany--" + +"Well, if it comes to that," said Mr. May, "I can accompany some of +them myself, when I'm not operating the film. I'm not an expert +pianist--but I can play a little, you know--" And he trilled his +fingers up and down an imaginary keyboard in front of Alvina, +cocking his eye at her smiling a little archly. + +"I'm sure," he continued, "I can accompany anything except a man +juggling dinner-plates--and then I'd be afraid of making him drop +the plates. But songs--oh, songs! _Con molto espressione!_" + +And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, and smiled his rather +fat cheeks at Alvina. + +She began to like him. There was something a little dainty about +him, when you knew him better--really rather fastidious. A showman, +true enough! Blatant too. But fastidiously so. + +He came fairly frequently to Manchester House after this. Miss +Pinnegar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her. But he +was very happy sitting chatting tete-a-tete with Alvina. + +"Where is your wife?" said Alvina to him. + +"My wife! Oh, don't speak of _her_," he said comically. "She's in +London." + +"Why not speak of her?" asked Alvina. + +"Oh, every reason for not speaking of her. We don't get on at _all_ +well, she and I." + +"What a pity," said Alvina. + +"Dreadful pity! But what are you to do?" He laughed comically. Then +he became grave. "No," he said. "She's an impossible person." + +"I see," said Alvina. + +"I'm sure you _don't_ see," said Mr. May. "Don't--" and here he laid +his hand on Alvina's arm--"don't run away with the idea that she's +_immoral_! You'd never make a greater mistake. Oh dear me, no. +Morality's her strongest point. Live on three lettuce leaves, and +give the rest to the char. That's her. Oh, dreadful times we had in +those first years. We only lived together for three years. But dear +_me_! how awful it was!" + +"Why?" + +"There was no pleasing the woman. She wouldn't eat. If I said to her +'What shall we have for supper, Grace?' as sure as anything she'd +answer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to bed--that will be my +supper.' She was one of these advanced vegetarian women, don't you +know." + +"How extraordinary!" said Alvina. + +"Extraordinary! I should think so. Extraordinary hard lines on _me_. +And she wouldn't let _me_ eat either. She followed me to the kitchen in +a _fury_ while I cooked for myself. Why imagine! I prepared a dish of +champignons: oh, most _beautiful_ champignons, beautiful--and I put +them on the stove to fry in butter: beautiful young champignons. I'm +hanged if she didn't go into the kitchen while my back was turned, and +pour a pint of old carrot-water into the pan. I was _furious_. +Imagine!--beautiful fresh young champignons--" + +"Fresh mushrooms," said Alvina. + +"Mushrooms--most beautiful things in the world. Oh! don't you think +so?" And he rolled his eyes oddly to heaven. + +"They _are_ good," said Alvina. + +"I should say so. And swamped--_swamped_ with her dirty old carrot +water. Oh I was so angry. And all she could say was, 'Well, I +didn't want to waste it!' Didn't want to waste her old carrot water, +and so _ruined_ my champignons. _Can_ you imagine such a person?" + +"It must have been trying." + +"I should think it was. I lost weight. I lost I don't know how many +pounds, the first year I was married to that woman. She hated me to +eat. Why, one of her great accusations against me, at the last, was +when she said: 'I've looked round the larder,' she said to me, 'and +seen it was quite empty, and I thought to myself: _Now_ he _can't_ +cook a supper! And _then_ you did!' There! What do you think of +that? The spite of it! 'And _then_ you did!'" + +"What did she expect you to live on?" asked Alvina. + +"Nibble a lettuce leaf with her, and drink water from the tap--and +then elevate myself with a Bernard Shaw pamphlet. That was the sort +of woman she was. All it gave _me_ was gas in the stomach." + +"So overbearing!" said Alvina. + +"Oh!" he turned his eyes to heaven, and spread his hands. "I didn't +believe my senses. I didn't know such people existed. And her +friends! Oh the dreadful friends she had--these Fabians! Oh, their +eugenics. They wanted to examine my private morals, for eugenic +reasons. Oh, you can't imagine such a state. Worse than the Spanish +Inquisition. And I stood it for three years. _How_ I stood it, I +don't know--" + +"Now don't you see her?" + +"Never! I never let her know where I am! But I _support_ her, of +cauce." + +"And your daughter?" + +"Oh, she's the dearest child in the world. I saw her at a friend's +when I came back from America. Dearest little thing in the world. +But of _cauce_ suspicious of me. Treats me as if she didn't _know_ +me--" + +"What a pity!" + +"Oh--unbearable!" He spread his plump, manicured hands, on one +finger of which was a green intaglio ring. + +"How old is your daughter?" + +"Fourteen." + +"What is her name?" + +"Gemma. She was born in Rome, where I was managing for Miss Maud +Callum, the _danseuse_." + +Curious the intimacy Mr. May established with Alvina at once. But +it was all purely verbal, descriptive. He made no physical advances. +On the contrary, he was like a dove-grey, disconsolate bird pecking +the crumbs of Alvina's sympathy, and cocking his eye all the time to +watch that she did not advance one step towards him. If he had seen +the least sign of coming-on-ness in her, he would have fluttered off +in a great dither. Nothing _horrified_ him more than a woman who was +coming-on towards him. It horrified him, it exasperated him, it made +him hate the whole tribe of women: horrific two-legged cats without +whiskers. If he had been a bird, his innate horror of a cat would +have been such. He liked the _angel_, and particularly the +angel-mother in woman. Oh!--that he worshipped. But coming-on-ness! + +So he never wanted to be seen out-of-doors with Alvina; if he met +her in the street he bowed and passed on: bowed very deep and +reverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back a little +more strutty and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back +on her in public. + +But Miss Pinnegar, a regular old, grey, dangerous she-puss, eyed him +from the corner of her pale eye, as he turned tail. + +"So unmanly!" she murmured. "In his dress, in his way, in +everything--so unmanly." + +"If I was you, Alvina," she said, "I shouldn't see so much of Mr. +May, in the drawing-room. People will talk." + +"I should almost feel flattered," laughed Alvina. + +"What do you mean?" snapped Miss Pinnegar. + +None the less, Mr. May was dependable in matters of business. He was +up at half-past five in the morning, and by seven was well on his +way. He sailed like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze, +hither and thither, out of Woodhouse and back again, and across from +side to side. Sharp and snappy, he was, on the spot. He trussed +himself up, when he was angry or displeased, and sharp, snip-snap +came his words, rather like scissors. + +"But how is it--" he attacked Arthur Witham--"that the gas isn't +connected with the main yet? It was to be ready yesterday." + +"We've had to wait for the fixings for them brackets," said Arthur. + +"_Had_ to _wait_ for _fixings_! But didn't you know a fortnight ago +that you'd want the fixings?" + +"I thought we should have some as would do." + +"Oh! you thought so! Really! Kind of you to think so. And have you +just thought about those that are coming, or have you made sure?" + +Arthur looked at him sullenly. He hated him. But Mr. May's sharp +touch was not to be foiled. + +"I hope you'll go further than _thinking_," said Mr. May. "Thinking +seems such a slow process. And when do you expect the fittings--?" + +"Tomorrow." + +"What! Another day! Another day _still!_ But you're strangely +indifferent to time, in your line of business. Oh! _Tomorrow!_ +Imagine it! Two days late already, and then _tomorrow!_ Well I hope +by tomorrow you mean _Wednesday_, and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or +some other absurd and fanciful date that you've just _thought +about_. But now, _do_ have the thing finished by tomorrow--" here he +laid his hand cajoling on Arthur's arm. "You promise me it will all +be ready by tomorrow, don't you?" + +"Yes, I'll do it if anybody could do it." + +"Don't say 'if anybody could do it.' Say it shall be done." + +"It shall if I can possibly manage it--" + +"Oh--very well then. Mind you manage it--and thank you _very_ much. +I shall be _most_ obliged, if it _is_ done." + +Arthur was annoyed, but he was kept to the scratch. And so, early in +October the place was ready, and Woodhouse was plastered with +placards announcing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could +not but see an irony in the Palace part of the phrase. "We can +guarantee the _pleasure_," he said. "But personally, I feel I can't +take the responsibility for the palace." + +But James, to use the vulgar expression, was in his eye-holes. + +"Oh, father's in his eye-holes," said Alvina to Mr. May. + +"Oh!" said Mr. May, puzzled and concerned. + +But it merely meant that James was having the time of his life. He +was drawing out announcements. First was a batch of vermilion +strips, with the mystic script, in big black letters: Houghton's +Picture Palace, underneath which, quite small: Opens at Lumley on +October 7th, at 6:30 P.M. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and +black bars sprang from the wall at you. Then there were other +notices, in delicate pale-blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre +notice, giving full programs. And beneath these a broad-letter +notice announced, in green letters on a yellow ground: "Final and +Ultimate Clearance Sale at Houghton's, Knarborough Road, on Friday, +September 30th. Come and Buy Without Price." + +James was in his eye-holes. He collected all his odds and ends from +every corner of Manchester House. He sorted them in heaps, and +marked the heaps in his own mind. And then he let go. He pasted up +notices all over the window and all over the shop: "Take what you +want and Pay what you Like." + +He and Miss Pinnegar kept shop. The women flocked in. They turned +things over. It nearly killed James to take the prices they offered. +But take them he did. But he exacted that they should buy one +article at a time. "One piece at a time, if you don't mind," he +said, when they came up with their three-a-penny handfuls. It was +not till later in the evening that he relaxed this rule. + +Well, by eleven o'clock he had cleared out a good deal--really, a +very great deal--and many women had bought what they didn't want, at +their own figure. Feverish but content, James shut the shop for the +last time. Next day, by eleven, he had removed all his belongings, +the door that connected the house with the shop was screwed up fast, +the grocer strolled in and looked round his bare extension, took the +key from James, and immediately set his boy to paste a new notice in +the window, tearing down all James's announcements. Poor James had +to run round, down Knarborough Road, and down Wellington Street as +far as the Livery Stable, then down long narrow passages, before he +could get into his own house, from his own shop. + +But he did not mind. Every hour brought the first performance of his +Pleasure Palace nearer. He was satisfied with Mr. May: he had to +admit that he was satisfied with Mr. May. The Palace stood firm at +last--oh, it was so ricketty when it arrived!--and it glowed with a +new coat, all over, of dark-red paint, like ox-blood. It was +tittivated up with a touch of lavender and yellow round the door and +round the decorated wooden eaving. It had a new wooden slope up to +the doors--and inside, a new wooden floor, with red-velvet seats in +front, before the curtain, and old chapel-pews behind. The collier +youths recognized the pews. + +"Hey! These 'ere's the pews out of the old Primitive Chapel." + +"Sorry ah! We'n come ter hear t' parson." + +Theme for endless jokes. And the Pleasure Palace was christened, in +some lucky stroke, Houghton's Endeavour, a reference to that +particular Chapel effort called the Christian Endeavour, where +Alvina and Miss Pinnegar both figured. + +"Wheer art off, Sorry?" + +"Lumley." + +"Houghton's Endeavour?" + +"Ah." + +"Rotten." + +So, when one laconic young collier accosted another. But we +anticipate. + +Mr. May had worked hard to get a program for the first week. His +pictures were: "The Human Bird," which turned out to be a ski-ing +film from Norway, purely descriptive; "The Pancake," a humorous +film: and then his grand serial: "The Silent Grip." And then, for +Turns, his first item was Miss Poppy Traherne, a lady in innumerable +petticoats, who could whirl herself into anything you like, from an +arum lily in green stockings to a rainbow and a Catherine wheel and +a cup-and-saucer: marvellous, was Miss Poppy Traherne. The next turn +was The Baxter Brothers, who ran up and down each other's backs and +up and down each other's front, and stood on each other's heads and +on their own heads, and perched for a moment on each other's +shoulders, as if each of them was a flight of stairs with a landing, +and the three of them were three flights, three storeys up, the top +flight continually running down and becoming the bottom flight, +while the middle flight collapsed and became a horizontal corridor. + +Alvina had to open the performance by playing an overture called +"Welcome All": a ridiculous piece. She was excited and unhappy. On +the Monday morning there was a rehearsal, Mr. May conducting. She +played "Welcome All," and then took the thumbed sheets which Miss +Poppy Traherne carried with her. Miss Poppy was rather exacting. As +she whirled her skirts she kept saying: "A little faster, +please"--"A little slower"--in a rather haughty, official voice that +was somewhat muffled by the swim of her drapery. "Can you give it +_expression_?" she cried, as she got the arum lily in full blow, and +there was a sound of real ecstasy in her tones. But why she should +have called "Stronger! Stronger!" as she came into being as a cup +and saucer, Alvina could not imagine: unless Miss Poppy was fancying +herself a strong cup of tea. + +However, she subsided into her mere self, panted frantically, and +then, in a hoarse voice, demanded if she was in the bare front of +the show. She scorned to count "Welcome All." Mr. May said Yes. She +was the first item. Whereupon she began to raise a dust. Mr. +Houghton said, hurriedly interposing, that he meant to make a little +opening speech. Miss Poppy eyed him as if he were a cuckoo-clock, +and she had to wait till he'd finished cuckooing. Then she said: + +"That's not every night. There's six nights to a week." James was +properly snubbed. It ended by Mr. May metamorphizing himself into a +pug dog: he said he had got the "costoom" in his bag: and doing a +lump-of-sugar scene with one of the Baxter Brothers, as a brief +first item. Miss Poppy's professional virginity was thus saved from +outrage. + +At the back of the stage there was half-a-yard of curtain screening +the two dressing-rooms, ladies and gents. In her spare time Alvina +sat in the ladies' dressing room, or in its lower doorway, for there +was not room right inside. She watched the ladies making up--she +gave some slight assistance. She saw the men's feet, in their shabby +pumps, on the other side of the curtain, and she heard the men's +gruff voices. Often a slangy conversation was carried on through the +curtain--for most of the turns were acquainted with each other: very +affable before each other's faces, very sniffy behind each other's +backs. + +Poor Alvina was in a state of bewilderment. She was extremely +nice--oh, much too nice with the female turns. They treated her with +a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her +and were a little spiteful with her because Mr. May treated her with +attention and deference. She felt bewildered, a little excited, and +as if she was not herself. + +The first evening actually came. Her father had produced a pink +crepe de Chine blouse and a back-comb massed with brilliants--both +of which she refused to wear. She stuck to her black blouse and +black shirt, and her simple hair-dressing. Mr. May said "Of cauce! +She wasn't intended to attract attention to herself." Miss Pinnegar +actually walked down the hill with her, and began to cry when she +saw the ox-blood red erection, with its gas-flares in front. It was +the first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the +little stage door at the back, and up the steps into the scrap of +dressing-room. But she fled out again from the sight of Miss Poppy +in her yellow hair and green knickers with green-lace frills. Poor +Miss Pinnegar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the +Band of Hope, and really cried. Luckily she had put a veil on. + +She went valiantly round to the front entrance, and climbed the +steps. The crowd was just coming. There was James's face peeping +inside the little ticket-window. + +"One!" he said officially, pushing out the ticket. And then he +recognized her. "Oh," he said, "_You're_ not going to pay." + +"Yes I am," she said, and she left her fourpence, and James's +coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss +Pinnegar shoved her forward. + +"Arf way down, fourpenny," said the man at the door, poking her in +the direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet. +But she marched down one of the pews, and took her seat. + +The place was crowded with a whooping, whistling, excited audience. +The curtain was down. James had let it out to his fellow tradesmen, +and it represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat +porker and a fat pork-pie, and the pig was saying: "You all know +where to find me. Inside the crust at Frank Churchill's, Knarborough +Road, Woodhouse." Round about the name of W. H. Johnson floated a +bowler hat, a collar-and-necktie, a pair of braces and an umbrella. +And so on and so on. It all made you feel very homely. But Miss +Pinnegar was sadly hot and squeezed in her pew. + +Time came, and the colliers began to drum their feet. It was exactly +the excited, crowded audience Mr. May wanted. He darted out to drive +James round in front of the curtain. But James, fascinated by raking +in the money so fast, could not be shifted from the pay-box, and the +two men nearly had a fight. At last Mr. May was seen shooing James, +like a scuffled chicken, down the side gangway and on to the stage. + +James before the illuminated curtain of local adverts, bowing and +beginning and not making a single word audible! The crowd quieted +itself, the eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James, and +began to shuffle. "Come down, come down!" hissed Mr. May frantically +from in front. But James did not move. He would flow on all night. +Mr. May waved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at the piano, +and darted on to the stage. He raised his voice and drowned James. +James ceased to wave his penny-blackened hands, Alvina struck up +"Welcome All" as loudly and emphatically as she could. + +And all the time Miss Pinnegar sat like a sphinx--like a sphinx. +What she thought she did not know herself. But stolidly she stared +at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina. +She knew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr. May +was fitted in his pug-dog "Costoom." + +A twitch of the curtain. Alvina wound up her final flourish, the +curtain rose, and: + +"Well really!" said Miss Pinnegar, out loud. + +There was Mr. May as a pug dog begging, too lifelike and too +impossible. The audience shouted. Alvina sat with her hands in her +lap. The Pug was a great success. + +Curtain! A few bars of Toreador--and then Miss Poppy's sheets of +music. Soft music. Miss Poppy was on the ground under a green scarf. +And so the accumulating dilation, on to the whirling climax of the +perfect arum lily. Sudden curtain, and a yell of ecstasy from the +colliers. Of all blossoms, the arum, the arum lily is most mystical +and portentous. + +Now a crash and rumble from Alvina's piano. This is the storm from +whence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain--Miss Poppy twirling +till her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow +above her now darkened legs. The footlights are all but +extinguished. Miss Poppy is all but extinguished also. + +The rainbow is not so moving as the arum lily. But the Catherine +wheel, done at the last moment on one leg and then an amazing leap +into the air backwards, again brings down the house. + +Miss Poppy herself sets all store on her cup and saucer. But the +audience, vulgar as ever, cannot quite see it. + +And so, Alvina slips away with Miss Poppy's music-sheets, while Mr. +May sits down like a professional at the piano and makes things fly +for the up-and-down-stairs Baxter Bros. Meanwhile, Alvina's pale +face hovering like a ghost in the side darkness, as it were under +the stage. + +The lamps go out: gurglings and kissings--and then the dither on the +screen: "The Human Bird," in awful shivery letters. It's not a very +good machine, and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audience +distinctly critical. Lights up--an "Chot-let, penny a bar! Chot-let, +penny a bar!" even as in Alvina's dream--and then "The Pancake"--so +the first half over. Lights up for the interval. + +Miss Pinnegar sighed and folded her hands. She looked neither to +right nor to left. In spite of herself, in spite of outraged shame +and decency, she was excited. But she felt such excitement was not +wholesome. In vain the boy most pertinently yelled "Chot-let" at +her. She looked neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina +nodding to her with a quick smile from the side gangway under the +stage, she almost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at +once. And Alvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped +across in front of the audience, to the piano, to play the seductive +"Dream Waltz!" she looked almost fussy, like her father. James, +needless to say, flittered and hurried hither and thither around the +audience and the stage, like a wagtail on the brink of a pool. + +The second half consisted of a comic drama acted by two Baxter +Bros., disguised as women, and Miss Poppy disguised as a man--with a +couple of locals thrown in to do the guardsman and the Count. This +went very well. The winding up was the first instalment of "The +Silent Grip." + +When lights went up and Alvina solemnly struck "God Save Our +Gracious King," the audience was on its feet and not very quiet, +evidently hissing with excitement like doughnuts in the pan even +when the pan is taken off the fire. Mr. Houghton thanked them for +their courtesy and attention, and hoped--And nobody took the +slightest notice. + +Miss Pinnegar stayed last, waiting for Alvina. And Alvina, in her +excitement, waited for Mr. May and her father. + +Mr. May fairly pranced into the empty hall. + +"Well!" he said, shutting both his fists and flourishing them in +Miss Pinnegar's face. "How did it go?" + +"I think it went very well," she said. + +"Very well! I should think so, indeed. It went like a house on fire. +What? Didn't it?" And he laughed a high, excited little laugh. + +James was counting pennies for his life, in the cash-place, and +dropping them into a Gladstone bag. The others had to wait for him. +At last he locked his bag. + +"Well," said Mr. May, "done well?" + +"Fairly well," said James, huskily excited. "Fairly well." + +"Only fairly? Oh-h!" And Mr. May suddenly picked up the bag. James +turned as if he would snatch it from him. "Well! Feel that, for +fairly well!" said Mr. May, handing the bag to Alvina. + +"Goodness!" she cried, handing it to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Would you believe it?" said Miss Pinnegar, relinquishing it to +James. But she spoke coldly, aloof. + +Mr. May turned off the gas at the meter, came talking through the +darkness of the empty theatre, picking his way with a flash-light. + +"C'est le premier pas qui coute," he said, in a sort of American +French, as he locked the doors and put the key in his pocket. James +tripped silently alongside, bowed under the weight of his Gladstone +bag of pennies. + +"How much have we taken, father?" asked Alvina gaily. + +"I haven't counted," he snapped. + +When he got home he hurried upstairs to his bare chamber. He swept +his table clear, and then, in an expert fashion, he seized handfuls +of coin and piled them in little columns on his board. There was an +army of fat pennies, a dozen to a column, along the back, rows and +rows of fat brown rank-and-file. In front of these, rows of slim +halfpence, like an advance-guard. And commanding all, a stout column +of half-crowns, a few stoutish and important florin-figures, like +general and colonels, then quite a file of shillings, like so many +captains, and a little cloud of silvery lieutenant sixpences. Right +at the end, like a frail drummer boy, a thin stick of threepenny +pieces. + +There they all were: burly dragoons of stout pennies, heavy and +holding their ground, with a screen of halfpenny light infantry, +officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn was +flanked by all his staff of florin colonels and shilling captains, +from whom lightly moved the nimble sixpenny lieutenants all +ignoring the wan, frail Joey of the threepenny-bits. + +Time after time James ran his almighty eye over his army. He loved +them. He loved to feel that his table was pressed down, that it +groaned under their weight. He loved to see the pence, like +innumerable pillars of cloud, standing waiting to lead on into +wildernesses of unopened resource, while the silver, as pillars of +light, should guide the way down the long night of fortune. Their +weight sank sensually into his muscle, and gave him gratification. +The dark redness of bronze, like full-blooded fleas, seemed alive +and pulsing, the silver was magic as if winged. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NATCHA-KEE-TAWARA + + +Mr. May and Alvina became almost inseparable, and Woodhouse buzzed +with scandal. Woodhouse could not believe that Mr. May was +absolutely final in his horror of any sort of coming-on-ness in a +woman. It could not believe that he was only _so_ fond of Alvina +because she was like a sister to him, poor, lonely, harassed soul +that he was: a pure sister who really hadn't any body. For although +Mr. May was rather fond, in an epicurean way, of his own body, yet +other people's bodies rather made him shudder. So that his grand +utterance on Alvina was: "She's not physical, she's mental." + +He even explained to her one day how it was, in his naive fashion. + +"There are two kinds of friendships," he said, "physical and mental. +The physical is a thing of the moment. Of cauce you quite _like_ the +individual, you remain quite nice with them, and so on,--to keep the +thing as decent as possible. It _is_ quite decent, so long as you +keep it so. But it is a thing of the moment. Which you know. It may +last a week or two, or a month or two. But you know from the +beginning it is going to end--quite finally--quite soon. You take it +for what it is. But it's so different with the mental friendships. +_They_ are lasting. They are eternal--if anything human (he said +yuman) ever is eternal, ever _can_ be eternal." He pressed his hands +together in an odd cherubic manner. He was quite sincere: if man +ever _can_ be quite sincere. + +Alvina was quite content to be one of his mental and eternal +friends, or rather _friendships_--since she existed _in abstractu_ +as far as he was concerned. For she did not find him at all +physically moving. Physically he was not there: he was oddly an +absentee. But his naivete roused the serpent's tooth of her bitter +irony. + +"And your wife?" she said to him. + +"Oh, my wife! Dreadful thought! _There_ I made the great mistake of +trying to find the two in one person! And _didn't_ I fall between +two stools! Oh dear, _didn't_ I? Oh, I fell between the two stools +beautifully, beautifully! And _then_--she nearly set the stools on +top of me. I thought I should never get up again. When I was +physical, she was mental--Bernard Shaw and cold baths for +supper!--and when I was mental she was physical, and threw her arms +round my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning, when +I was on the alert for business. Yes, invariably. What do you think +of it? Could the devil himself have invented anything more trying? +Oh dear me, don't mention it. Oh, what a time I had! Wonder I'm +alive. Yes, really! Although you smile." + +Alvina did more than smile. She laughed outright. And yet she +remained good friends with the odd little man. + +He bought himself a new, smart overcoat, that fitted his figure, and +a new velour hat. And she even noticed, one day when he was curling +himself up cosily on the sofa, that he had pale blue silk underwear, +and purple silk suspenders. She wondered where he got them, and how +he afforded them. But there they were. + +James seemed for the time being wrapt in his +undertaking--particularly in the takings part of it. He seemed for +the time being contented--or nearly so, nearly so. Certainly there +was money coming in. But then he had to pay off all he had borrowed +to buy his erection and its furnishings, and a bulk of pennies +sublimated into a very small L.s.d. account, at the bank. + +The Endeavour was successful--yes, it was successful. But not +overwhelmingly so. On wet nights Woodhouse did not care to trail +down to Lumley. And then Lumley was one of those depressed, negative +spots on the face of the earth which have no pull at all. In that +region of sharp hills with fine hill-brows, and shallow, rather +dreary canal-valleys, it was the places on the hill-brows, like +Woodhouse and Hathersedge and Rapton which flourished, while the +dreary places down along the canals existed only for work-places, +not for life and pleasure. It was just like James to have planted +his endeavour down in the stagnant dust and rust of potteries and +foundries, where no illusion could bloom. + +He had dreamed of crowded houses every night, and of raised prices. +But there was no probability of his being able to raise his prices. +He had to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rate +from the start. His hope now lay in the tramway which was being +built from Knarborough away through the country--a black country +indeed--through Woodhouse and Lumley and Hathersedge, to Rapton. +When once this tramway-system was working, he would have a supply of +youths and lasses always on tap, as it were. So he spread his +rainbow wings towards the future, and began to say: + +"When we've got the trams, I shall buy a new machine and finer +lenses, and I shall extend my premises." + +Mr. May did not talk business to Alvina. He was terribly secretive +with respect to business. But he said to her once, in the early year +following their opening: + +"Well, how do you think we're doing, Miss Houghton?" + +"We're not doing any better than we did at first, I think," she +said. + +"No," he answered. "No! That's true. That's perfectly true. But why? +They seem to like the programs." + +"I think they do," said Alvina. "I think they like them when they're +there. But isn't it funny, they don't seem to want to come to them. +I know they always talk as if we were second-rate. And they only +come because they can't get to the Empire, or up to Hathersedge. +We're a stop-gap. I know we are." + +Mr. May looked down in the mouth. He cocked his blue eyes at her, +miserable and frightened. Failure began to frighten him abjectly. + +"Why do you think that is?" he said. + +"I don't believe they like the turns," she said. + +"But _look_ how they applaud them! _Look_ how pleased they are!" + +"I know. I know they like them once they're there, and they see +them. But they don't come again. They crowd the Empire--and the +Empire is only pictures now; and it's much cheaper to run." + +He watched her dismally. + +"I can't believe they want nothing but pictures. I can't believe +they want everything in the flat," he said, coaxing and miserable. +He himself was not interested in the film. His interest was still +the human interest in living performers and their living feats. +"Why," he continued, "they are ever so much more excited after a +good turn, than after any film." + +"I know they are," said Alvina. "But I don't believe they want to be +excited in that way." + +"In what way?" asked Mr. May plaintively. + +"By the things which the artistes do. I believe they're jealous." + +"Oh nonsense!" exploded Mr. May, starting as if he had been shot. +Then he laid his hand on her arm. "But forgive my rudeness! I don't +mean it, of _cauce_! But do you mean to say that these collier louts +and factory girls are jealous of the things the artistes do, because +they could never do them themselves?" + +"I'm sure they are," said Alvina. + +"But I _can't_ believe it," said Mr. May, pouting up his mouth and +smiling at her as if she were a whimsical child. "What a low opinion +you have of human nature!" + +"Have I?" laughed Alvina. "I've never reckoned it up. But I'm sure +that these common people here are jealous if anybody does anything +or has anything they can't have themselves." + +"I can't believe it," protested Mr. May. "Could they be so _silly_! +And then why aren't they jealous of the extraordinary things which +are done on the film?" + +"Because they don't see the flesh-and-blood people. I'm sure that's +it. The film is only pictures, like pictures in the _Daily Mirror_. +And pictures don't have any feelings apart from their own feelings. +I mean the feelings of the people who watch them. Pictures don't +have any life except in the people who watch them. And that's why +they like them. Because they make them feel that they are +everything." + +"The pictures make the colliers and lasses feel that they themselves +are everything? But how? They identify themselves with the heroes +and heroines on the screen?" + +"Yes--they take it all to themselves--and there isn't anything +except themselves. I know it's like that. It's because they can +spread themselves over a film, and they _can't_ over a living +performer. They're up against the performer himself. And they hate +it." + +Mr. May watched her long and dismally. + +"I _can't_ believe people are like that!--sane people!" he said. +"Why, to me the whole joy is in the living personality, the curious +_personality_ of the artiste. That's what I enjoy so much." + +"I know. But that's where you're different from them." + +"But _am_ I?" + +"Yes. You're not as up to the mark as they are." + +"Not up to the mark? What do you mean? Do you mean they are more +intelligent?" + +"No, but they're more modern. You like things which aren't yourself. +But they don't. They hate to admire anything that they can't take to +themselves. They hate anything that isn't themselves. And that's why +they like pictures. It's all themselves to them, all the time." + +He still puzzled. + +"You know I don't follow you," he said, a little mocking, as if she +were making a fool of herself. + +"Because you don't know them. You don't know the common people. You +don't know how conceited they are." + +He watched her a long time. + +"And you think we ought to cut out the variety, and give nothing but +pictures, like the Empire?" he said. + +"I believe it takes best," she said. + +"And costs less," he answered. "But _then_! It's so dull. Oh my +_word_, it's so dull. I don't think I could bear it." + +"And our pictures aren't good enough," she said. "We should have to +get a new machine, and pay for the expensive films. Our pictures do +shake, and our films are rather ragged." + +"But then, _surely_ they're good enough!" he said. + +That was how matters stood. The Endeavour paid its way, and made +just a margin of profit--no more. Spring went on to summer, and then +there was a very shadowy margin of profit. But James was not at all +daunted. He was waiting now for the trams, and building up hopes +since he could not build in bricks and mortar. + +The navvies were busy in troops along the Knarborough Road, and down +Lumley Hill. Alvina became quite used to them. As she went down the +hill soon after six o'clock in the evening, she met them trooping +home. And some of them she liked. There was an outlawed look about +them as they swung along the pavement--some of them; and there was a +certain lurking set of the head which rather frightened her because +it fascinated her. There was one tall young fellow with a red face +and fair hair, who looked as if he had fronted the seas and the +arctic sun. He looked at her. They knew each other quite well, in +passing. And he would glance at perky Mr. May. Alvina tried to +fathom what the young fellow's look meant. She wondered what he +thought of Mr. May. + +She was surprised to hear Mr. May's opinion of the navvy. + +"_He's_ a handsome young man, now!" exclaimed her companion one +evening as the navvies passed. And all three turned round, to find +all three turning round. Alvina laughed, and made eyes. At that +moment she would cheerfully have gone along with the navvy. She was +getting so tired of Mr. May's quiet prance. + +On the whole, Alvina enjoyed the cinema and the life it brought her. +She accepted it. And she became somewhat vulgarized in her bearing. +She was _declassee_: she had lost her class altogether. The other +daughters of respectable tradesmen avoided her now, or spoke to her +only from a distance. She was supposed to be "carrying on" with Mr. +May. + +Alvina did not care. She rather liked it. She liked being +_declassee_. She liked feeling an outsider. At last she seemed to +stand on her own ground. She laughed to herself as she went back and +forth from Woodhouse to Lumley, between Manchester House and the +Pleasure Palace. She laughed when she saw her father's theatre-notices +plastered about. She laughed when she saw his thrilling announcements +in the _Woodhouse Weekly_. She laughed when she knew that all the +Woodhouse youths recognized her, and looked on her as one of their + inferior entertainers. She was off the map: and she liked it. + +For after all, she got a good deal of fun out of it. There was not +only the continual activity. There were the artistes. Every week she +met a new set of stars--three or four as a rule. She rehearsed with +them on Monday afternoons, and she saw them every evening, and twice +a week at matinees. James now gave two performances each +evening--and he always had _some_ audience. So that Alvina had +opportunity to come into contact with all the odd people of the +inferior stage. She found they were very much of a type: a little +frowsy, a little flea-bitten as a rule, indifferent to ordinary +morality, and philosophical even if irritable. They were often very +irritable. And they had always a certain fund of callous +philosophy. Alvina did not _like_ them--you were not supposed, +really, to get deeply emotional over them. But she found it amusing +to see them all and know them all. It was so different from +Woodhouse, where everything was priced and ticketed. These people +were nomads. They didn't care a straw who you were or who you +weren't. They had a most irritable professional vanity, and that was +all. It was most odd to watch them. They weren't very squeamish. If +the young gentlemen liked to peep round the curtain when the young +lady was in her knickers: oh, well, she rather roundly told them +off, perhaps, but nobody minded. The fact that ladies wore knickers +and black silk stockings thrilled nobody, any more than grease-paint +or false moustaches thrilled. It was all part of the stock-in-trade. +As for immorality--well, what did it amount to? Not a great deal. +Most of the men cared far more about a drop of whiskey than about +any more carnal vice, and most of the girls were good pals with each +other, men were only there to act with: even if the act was a +private love-farce of an improper description. What's the odds? You +couldn't get excited about it: not as a rule. + +Mr. May usually took rooms for the artistes in a house down in +Lumley. When any one particular was coming, he would go to a rather +better-class widow in Woodhouse. He never let Alvina take any part +in the making of these arrangements, except with the widow in +Woodhouse, who had long ago been a servant at Manchester House, and +even now came in to do cleaning. + +Odd, eccentric people they were, these entertainers. Most of them +had a streak of imagination, and most of them drank. Most of them +were middle-aged. Most of them had an abstracted manner; in ordinary +life, they seemed left aside, somehow. Odd, extraneous creatures, +often a little depressed, feeling life slip away from them. The +cinema was killing them. + +Alvina had quite a serious flirtation with a man who played a flute +and piccolo. He was about fifty years old, still handsome, and +growing stout. When sober, he was completely reserved. When rather +drunk, he talked charmingly and amusingly--oh, most charmingly. +Alvina quite loved him. But alas, _how_ he drank! But what a charm +he had! He went, and she saw him no more. + +The usual rather American-looking, clean-shaven, slightly pasty +young man left Alvina quite cold, though he had an amiable and truly +chivalrous _galanterie_. He was quite likeable. But so unattractive. +Alvina was more fascinated by the odd fish: like the lady who did +marvellous things with six ferrets, or the Jap who was tattooed all +over, and had the most amazing strong wrists, so that he could throw +down any collier, with one turn of the hand. Queer cuts these!--but +just a little bit beyond her. She watched them rather from a +distance. She wished she could jump across the distance. +Particularly with the Jap, who was almost quite naked, but clothed +with the most exquisite tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle +that flew with terrible spread wings between his shoulders, or the +strange mazy pattern that netted the roundness of his buttocks. He +was not very large, but nicely shaped, and with no hair on his +smooth, tattooed body. He was almost blue in colour--that is, his +tattooing was blue, with pickings of brilliant vermilion: as for +instance round the nipples, and in a strange red serpent's-jaws over +the navel. A serpent went round his loins and haunches. He told her +how many times he had had blood-poisoning, during the process of his +tattooing. He was a queer, black-eyed creature, with a look of +silence and toad-like lewdness. He frightened her. But when he was +dressed in common clothes, and was just a cheap, shoddy-looking +European Jap, he was more frightening still. For his face--he was +not tattooed above a certain ring low on his neck--was yellow and +flat and basking with one eye open, like some age-old serpent. She +felt he was smiling horribly all the time: lewd, unthinkable. A +strange sight he was in Woodhouse, on a sunny morning; a +shabby-looking bit of riff-raff of the East, rather down at the +heel. Who could have imagined the terrible eagle of his shoulders, +the serpent of his loins, his supple, magic skin? + +The summer passed again, and autumn. Winter was a better time for +James Houghton. The trams, moreover, would begin to run in January. + +He wanted to arrange a good program for the week when the trams +started. A long time ahead, Mr. May prepared it. The one item was +the Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe. The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe consisted +of five persons, Madame Rochard and four young men. They were a +strictly Red Indian troupe. But one of the young men, the German +Swiss, was a famous yodeller, and another, the French Swiss, was a +good comic with a French accent, whilst Madame and the German did a +screaming two-person farce. Their great turn, of course, was the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara Red Indian scene. + +The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were due in the third week in January, +arriving from the Potteries on the Sunday evening. When Alvina came +in from Chapel that Sunday evening, she found her widow, Mrs. +Rollings, seated in the living room talking with James, who had an +anxious look. Since opening the Pleasure Palace James was less +regular at Chapel. And moreover, he was getting old and shaky, and +Sunday was the one evening he might spend in peace. Add that on this +particular black Sunday night it was sleeting dismally outside, and +James had already a bit of a cough, and we shall see that he did +right to stay at home. + +Mrs. Rollings sat nursing a bottle. She was to go to the chemist for +some cough-cure, because Madame had got a bad cold. The chemist was +gone to Chapel--he wouldn't open till eight. + +Madame and the four young men had arrived at about six. Madame, said +Mrs. Rollings, was a little fat woman, and she was complaining all +the time that she had got a cold on her chest, laying her hand on +her chest and trying her breathing and going "He-e-e-er! Herr!" to +see if she could breathe properly. She, Mrs. Rollings, had suggested +that Madame should put her feet in hot mustard and water, but Madame +said she must have something to clear her chest. The four young men +were four nice civil young fellows. They evidently liked Madame. +Madame had insisted on cooking the chops for the young men. She +herself had eaten one, but she laid her hand on her chest when she +swallowed. One of the young men had gone out to get her some brandy, +and he had come back with half-a-dozen large bottles of Bass as +well. + +Mr. Houghton was very much concerned over Madame's cold. He asked +the same questions again and again, to try and make sure how bad it +was. But Mrs. Rollings didn't seem quite to know. James wrinkled his +brow. Supposing Madame could not take her part! He was most anxious. + +"Do you think you might go across with Mrs. Rollings and see how +this woman is, Alvina?" he said to his daughter. + +"I should think you'll never turn Alvina out on such a night," said +Miss Pinnegar. "And besides, it isn't right. Where is Mr. May? It's +his business to go." + +"Oh!" returned Alvina. "_I_ don't mind going. Wait a minute, I'll +see if we haven't got some of those pastilles for burning. If it's +very bad, I can make one of those plasters mother used." + +And she ran upstairs. She was curious to see what Madame and her +four young men were like. + +With Mrs. Rollings she called at the chemist's back door, and then +they hurried through the sleet to the widow's dwelling. It was not +far. As they went up the entry they heard the sound of voices. But +in the kitchen all was quiet. The voices came from the front room. + +Mrs. Rollings tapped. + +"Come in!" said a rather sharp voice. Alvina entered on the widow's +heels. + +"I've brought you the cough stuff," said the widow. "And Miss +Huff'n's come as well, to see how you was." + +Four young men were sitting round the table in their shirt-sleeves, +with bottles of Bass. There was much cigarette smoke. By the fire, +which was burning brightly, sat a plump, pale woman with dark bright +eyes and finely-drawn eyebrows: she might be any age between forty +and fifty. There were grey threads in her tidy black hair. She was +neatly dressed in a well-made black dress with a small lace collar. +There was a slight look of self-commiseration on her face. She had a +cigarette between her drooped fingers. + +She rose as if with difficulty, and held out her plump hand, on +which four or five rings showed. She had dropped the cigarette +unnoticed into the hearth. + +"How do you do," she said. "I didn't catch your name." Madame's +voice was a little plaintive and plangent now, like a bronze reed +mournfully vibrating. + +"Alvina Houghton," said Alvina. + +"Daughter of him as owns the thee-etter where you're goin' to act," +interposed the widow. + +"Oh yes! Yes! I see. Miss Houghton. I didn't know how it was said. +Huff-ton--yes? Miss Houghton. I've got a bad cold on my chest--" +laying her plump hand with the rings on her plump bosom. "But let me +introduce you to my young men--" A wave of the plump hand, whose +forefinger was very slightly cigarette-stained, towards the table. + +The four young men had risen, and stood looking at Alvina and +Madame. The room was small, rather bare, with horse-hair and +white-crochet antimacassars and a linoleum floor. The table also was +covered with a brightly-patterned American oil-cloth, shiny but +clean. A naked gas-jet hung over it. For furniture, there were just +chairs, arm-chairs, table, and a horse-hair antimacassar-ed sofa. +Yet the little room seemed very full--full of people, young men with +smart waistcoats and ties, but without coats. + +"That is Max," said Madame. "I shall tell you only their names, and +not their family names, because that is easier for you--" + +In the meantime Max had bowed. He was a tall Swiss with almond eyes +and a flattish face and a rather stiff, ramrod figure. + +"And that is Louis--" Louis bowed gracefully. He was a Swiss +Frenchman, moderately tall, with prominent cheekbones and a wing +of glossy black hair falling on his temple. + +"And that is Geoffroi--Geoffrey--" Geoffrey made his bow--a +broad-shouldered, watchful, taciturn man from Alpine France. + +"And that is Francesco--Frank--" Francesco gave a faint curl of his +lip, half smile, as he saluted her involuntarily in a military +fashion. He was dark, rather tall and loose, with yellow-tawny eyes. +He was an Italian from the south. Madame gave another look at him. +"He doesn't like his English name of Frank. You will see, he pulls a +face. No, he doesn't like it. We call him Ciccio also--" But Ciccio +was dropping his head sheepishly, with the same faint smile on his +face, half grimace, and stooping to his chair, wanting to sit down. + +"These are my family of young men," said Madame. "We are drawn from +three races, though only Ciccio is not of our mountains. Will you +please to sit down." + +They all took their chairs. There was a pause. + +"My young men drink a little beer, after their horrible journey. As +a rule, I do not like them to drink. But tonight they have a little +beer. I do not take any myself, because I am afraid of inflaming +myself." She laid her hand on her breast, and took long, uneasy +breaths. "I feel it. I feel it _here_." She patted her breast. "It +makes me afraid for tomorrow. Will you perhaps take a glass of beer? +Ciccio, ask for another glass--" Ciccio, at the end of the table, +did not rise, but looked round at Alvina as if he presumed there +would be no need for him to move. The odd, supercilious curl of the +lip persisted. Madame glared at him. But he turned the handsome side +of his cheek towards her, with the faintest flicker of a sneer. + +"No, thank you. I never take beer," said Alvina hurriedly. + +"No? Never? Oh!" Madame folded her hands, but her black eyes still +darted venom at Ciccio. The rest of the young men fingered their +glasses and put their cigarettes to their lips and blew the smoke +down their noses, uncomfortably. + +Madame closed her eyes and leaned back a moment. Then her face +looked transparent and pallid, there were dark rings under her eyes, +the beautifully-brushed hair shone dark like black glass above her +ears. She was obviously unwell. The young men looked at her, and +muttered to one another. + +"I'm afraid your cold is rather bad," said Alvina. "Will you let me +take your temperature?" + +Madame started and looked frightened. + +"Oh, I don't think you should trouble to do that," she said. + +Max, the tall, highly-coloured Swiss, turned to her, saying: + +"Yes, you must have your temperature taken, and then we s'll know, +shan't we. I had a hundred and five when we were in Redruth." + +Alvina had taken the thermometer from her pocket. Ciccio meanwhile +muttered something in French--evidently something rude--meant for +Max. + +"What shall I do if I can't work tomorrow!" moaned Madame, seeing +Alvina hold up the thermometer towards the light. "Max, what shall +we do?" + +"You will stay in bed, and we must do the White Prisoner scene," +said Max, rather staccato and official. + +Ciccio curled his lip and put his head aside. Alvina went across to +Madame with the thermometer. Madame lifted her plump hand and fended +off Alvina, while she made her last declaration: + +"Never--never have I missed my work, for a single day, for ten +years. Never. If I am going to lie abandoned, I had better die at +once." + +"Lie abandoned!" said Max. "You know you won't do no such thing. +What are you talking about?" + +"Take the thermometer," said Geoffrey roughly, but with feeling. + +"Tomorrow, see, you will be well. Quite certain!" said Louis. Madame +mournfully shook her head, opened her mouth, and sat back with +closed eyes and the stump of the thermometer comically protruding +from a corner of her lips. Meanwhile Alvina took her plump white +wrist and felt her pulse. + +"We can practise--" began Geoffrey. + +"Sh!" said Max, holding up his finger and looking anxiously at +Alvina and Madame, who still leaned back with the stump of the +thermometer jauntily perking up from her pursed mouth, while her +face was rather ghastly. + +Max and Louis watched anxiously. Geoffrey sat blowing the smoke down +his nose, while Ciccio callously lit another cigarette, striking a +match on his boot-heel and puffing from under the tip of his rather +long nose. Then he took the cigarette from his mouth, turned his +head, slowly spat on the floor, and rubbed his foot on his spit. Max +flapped his eyelids and looked all disdain, murmuring something +about "ein schmutziges italienisches Volk," whilst Louis, refusing +either to see or to hear, framed the word "chien" on his lips. + +Then quick as lightning both turned their attention again to Madame. + +Her temperature was a hundred and two. + +"You'd better go to bed," said Alvina. "Have you eaten anything?" + +"One little mouthful," said Madame plaintively. + +Max sat looking pale and stricken, Louis had hurried forward to take +Madame's hand. He kissed it quickly, then turned aside his head +because of the tears in his eyes. Geoffrey gulped beer in large +throatfuls, and Ciccio, with his head bent, was watching from under +his eyebrows. + +"I'll run round for the doctor--" said Alvina. + +"Don't! Don't do that, my dear! Don't you go and do that! I'm likely +to a temperature--" + +"Liable to a temperature," murmured Louis pathetically. + +"I'll go to bed," said Madame, obediently rising. + +"Wait a bit. I'll see if there's a fire in the bedroom," said +Alvina. + +"Oh, my dear, you are too good. Open the door for her, Ciccio--" + +Ciccio reached across at the door, but was too late. Max had +hastened to usher Alvina out. Madame sank back in her chair. + +"Never for ten years," she was wailing. "Quoi faire, ah, quoi +faire! Que ferez-vous, mes pauvres, sans votre Kishwegin. Que +vais-je faire, mourir dans un tel pays! La bonne demoiselle--la +bonne demoiselle--elle a du coeur. Elle pourrait aussi etre belle, +s'il y avait un peu plus de chair. Max, liebster, schau ich sehr +elend aus? Ach, oh jeh, oh jeh!" + +"Ach nein, Madame, ach nein. Nicht so furchtbar elend," said Max. + +"Manca il cuore solamente al Ciccio," moaned Madame. "Che natura +povera, senza sentimento--niente di bello. Ahime, che amico, che +ragazzo duro, aspero--" + +"Trova?" said Ciccio, with a curl of the lip. He looked, as he +dropped his long, beautiful lashes, as if he might weep for all +that, if he were not bound to be misbehaving just now. + +So Madame moaned in four languages as she posed pallid in her +arm-chair. Usually she spoke in French only, with her young men. But +this was an extra occasion. + +"La pauvre Kishwegin!" murmured Madame. "Elle va finir au monde. +Elle passe--la pauvre Kishwegin." + +Kishwegin was Madame's Red Indian name, the name under which she +danced her Squaw's fire-dance. + +Now that she knew she was ill, Madame seemed to become more ill. Her +breath came in little pants. She had a pain in her side. A feverish +flush seemed to mount her cheek. The young men were all extremely +uncomfortable. Louis did not conceal his tears. Only Ciccio kept the +thin smile on his lips, and added to Madame's annoyance and pain. + +Alvina came down to take her to bed. The young men all rose, and +kissed Madame's hand as she went out: her poor jewelled hand, that +was faintly perfumed with eau de Cologne. She spoke an appropriate +good-night, to each of them. + +"Good-night, my faithful Max, I trust myself to you. Good-night, +Louis, the tender heart. Good-night valiant Geoffrey. Ah Ciccio, do +not add to the weight of my heart. Be good _braves_, all, be +brothers in one accord. One little prayer for poor Kishwegin. +Good-night!" + +After which valediction she slowly climbed the stairs, putting her +hand on her knee at each step, with the effort. + +"No--no," she said to Max, who would have followed to her +assistance. "Do not come up. No--no!" + +Her bedroom was tidy and proper. + +"Tonight," she moaned, "I shan't be able to see that the boys' +rooms are well in order. They are not to be trusted, no. They need +an overseeing eye: especially Ciccio; especially Ciccio!" + +She sank down by the fire and began to undo her dress. + +"You must let me help you," said Alvina. "You know I have been a +nurse." + +"Ah, you are too kind, too kind, dear young lady. I am a lonely old +woman. I am not used to attentions. Best leave me." + +"Let me help you," said Alvina. + +"Alas, ahime! Who would have thought Kishwegin would need help. I +danced last night with the boys in the theatre in Leek: and tonight +I am put to bed in--what is the name of this place, dear?--It seems +I don't remember it." + +"Woodhouse," said Alvina. + +"Woodhouse! Woodhouse! Is there not something called Woodlouse? I +believe. Ugh, horrible! Why is it horrible?" + +Alvina quickly undressed the plump, trim little woman. She seemed so +soft. Alvina could not imagine how she could be a dancer on the +stage, strenuous. But Madame's softness could flash into wild +energy, sudden convulsive power, like a cuttle-fish. Alvina brushed +out the long black hair, and plaited it lightly. Then she got Madame +into bed. + +"Ah," sighed Madame, "the good bed! The good bed! But cold--it is so +cold. Would you hang up my dress, dear, and fold my stockings?" + +Alvina quickly folded and put aside the dainty underclothing. Queer, +dainty woman, was Madame, even to her wonderful threaded +black-and-gold garters. + +"My poor boys--no Kishwegin tomorrow! You don't think I need see a +priest, dear? A priest!" said Madame, her teeth chattering. + +"Priest! Oh no! You'll be better when we can get you warm. I think +it's only a chill. Mrs. Rollings is warming a blanket--" + +Alvina ran downstairs. Max opened the sitting-room door and stood +watching at the sound of footsteps. His rather bony fists were +clenched beneath his loose shirt-cuffs, his eyebrows tragically +lifted. + +"Is she much ill?" he asked. + +"I don't know. But I don't think so. Do you mind heating the +blanket while Mrs. Rollings makes thin gruel?" + +Max and Louis stood heating blankets. Louis' trousers were cut +rather tight at the waist, and gave him a female look. Max was +straight and stiff. Mrs. Rollings asked Geoffrey to fill the +coal-scuttles and carry one upstairs. Geoffrey obediently went out +with a lantern to the coal-shed. Afterwards he was to carry up the +horse-hair arm-chair. + +"I must go home for some things," said Alvina to Ciccio. "Will you +come and carry them for me?" + +He started up, and with one movement threw away his cigarette. He +did not look at Alvina. His beautiful lashes seemed to screen his +eyes. He was fairly tall, but loosely built for an Italian, with +slightly sloping shoulders. Alvina noticed the brown, slender +Mediterranean hand, as he put his fingers to his lips. It was a hand +such as she did not know, prehensile and tender and dusky. With an +odd graceful slouch he went into the passage and reached for his +coat. + +He did not say a word, but held aloof as he walked with Alvina. + +"I'm sorry for Madame," said Alvina, as she hurried rather +breathless through the night. "She does think for you men." + +But Ciccio vouchsafed no answer, and walked with his hands in the +pockets of his water-proof, wincing from the weather. + +"I'm afraid she will never be able to dance tomorrow," said Alvina. + +"You think she won't be able?" he said. + +"I'm almost sure she won't." + +After which he said nothing, and Alvina also kept silence till they +came to the black dark passage and encumbered yard at the back of +the house. + +"I don't think you can see at all," she said. "It's this way." She +groped for him in the dark, and met his groping hand. + +"This way," she said. + +It was curious how light his fingers were in their clasp--almost +like a child's touch. So they came under the light from the window +of the sitting-room. + +Alvina hurried indoors, and the young man followed. + +"I shall have to stay with Madame tonight," she explained hurriedly. +"She's feverish, but she may throw it off if we can get her into a +sweat." And Alvina ran upstairs collecting things necessary. Ciccio +stood back near the door, and answered all Miss Pinnegar's +entreaties to come to the fire with a shake of the head and a slight +smile of the lips, bashful and stupid. + +"But do come and warm yourself before you go out again," said Miss +Pinnegar, looking at the man as he drooped his head in the distance. +He still shook dissent, but opened his mouth at last. + +"It makes it colder after," he said, showing his teeth in a slight, +stupid smile. + +"Oh well, if you think so," said Miss Pinnegar, nettled. She +couldn't make heads or tails of him, and didn't try. + +When they got back, Madame was light-headed, and talking excitedly +of her dance, her young men. The three young men were terrified. +They had got the blankets scorching hot. Alvina smeared the plasters +and applied them to Madame's side, where the pain was. What a +white-skinned, soft, plump child she seemed! Her pain meant a touch +of pleurisy, for sure. The men hovered outside the door. Alvina +wrapped the poor patient in the hot blankets, got a few spoonfuls of +hot gruel and whiskey down her throat, fastened her down in bed, +lowered the light and banished the men from the stairs. Then she sat +down to watch. Madame chafed, moaned, murmured feverishly. Alvina +soothed her, and put her hands in bed. And at last the poor dear +became quiet. Her brow was faintly moist. She fell into a quiet +sleep, perspiring freely. Alvina watched her still, soothed her when +she suddenly started and began to break out of the bedclothes, +quieted her, pressed her gently, firmly down, folded her tight and +made her submit to the perspiration against which, in convulsive +starts, she fought and strove, crying that she was suffocating, she +was too hot, too hot. + +"Lie still, lie still," said Alvina. "You must keep warm." + +Poor Madame moaned. How she hated seething in the bath of her own +perspiration. Her wilful nature rebelled strongly. She would have +thrown aside her coverings and gasped into the cold air, if Alvina +had not pressed her down with that soft, inevitable pressure. + +So the hours passed, till about one o'clock, when the perspiration +became less profuse, and the patient was really better, really +quieter. Then Alvina went downstairs for a moment. She saw the light +still burning in the front room. Tapping, she entered. There sat Max +by the fire, a picture of misery, with Louis opposite him, nodding +asleep after his tears. On the sofa Geoffrey snored lightly, while +Ciccio sat with his head on the table, his arms spread out, dead +asleep. Again she noticed the tender, dusky Mediterranean hands, the +slender wrists, slender for a man naturally loose and muscular. + +"Haven't you gone to bed?" whispered Alvina. "Why?" + +Louis started awake. Max, the only stubborn watcher, shook his head +lugubriously. + +"But she's better," whispered Alvina. "She's perspired. She's +better. She's sleeping naturally." + +Max stared with round, sleep-whitened, owlish eyes, pessimistic and +sceptical: + +"Yes," persisted Alvina. "Come and look at her. But don't wake her, +whatever you do." + +Max took off his slippers and rose to his tall height. Louis, like a +scared chicken, followed. Each man held his slippers in his hand. +They noiselessly entered and peeped stealthily over the heaped +bedclothes. Madame was lying, looking a little flushed and very +girlish, sleeping lightly, with a strand of black hair stuck to her +cheek, and her lips lightly parted. + +Max watched her for some moments. Then suddenly he straightened +himself, pushed back his brown hair that was brushed up in the +German fashion, and crossed himself, dropping his knee as before an +altar; crossed himself and dropped his knee once more; and then a +third time crossed himself and inclined before the altar. Then he +straightened himself again, and turned aside. + +Louis also crossed himself. His tears burst out. He bowed and took +the edge of a blanket to his lips, kissing it reverently. Then he +covered his face with his hand. + +Meanwhile Madame slept lightly and innocently on. + +Alvina turned to go. Max silently followed, leading Louis by the +arm. When they got downstairs, Max and Louis threw themselves in +each other's arms, and kissed each other on either cheek, gravely, +in Continental fashion. + +"She is better," said Max gravely, in French. + +"Thanks to God," replied Louis. + +Alvina witnessed all this with some amazement. The men did not heed +her. Max went over and shook Geoffrey, Louis put his hand on +Ciccio's shoulder. The sleepers were difficult to wake. The wakers +shook the sleeping, but in vain. At last Geoffrey began to stir. +But in vain Louis lifted Ciccio's shoulders from the table. The head +and the hands dropped inert. The long black lashes lay motionless, +the rather long, fine Greek nose drew the same light breaths, the +mouth remained shut. Strange fine black hair, he had, close as fur, +animal, and naked, frail-seeming, tawny hands. There was a silver +ring on one hand. + +Alvina suddenly seized one of the inert hands that slid on the +table-cloth as Louis shook the young man's shoulders. Tight she +pressed the hand. Ciccio opened his tawny-yellowish eyes, that +seemed to have been put in with a dirty finger, as the saying goes, +owing to the sootiness of the lashes and brows. He was quite drunk +with his first sleep, and saw nothing. + +"Wake up," said Alvina, laughing, pressing his hand again. + +He lifted his head once more, suddenly clasped her hand, his eyes +came to consciousness, his hand relaxed, he recognized her, and he +sat back in his chair, turning his face aside and lowering his +lashes. + +"Get up, great beast," Louis was saying softly in French, pushing +him as ox-drivers sometimes push their oxen. Ciccio staggered to his +feet. + +"She is better," they told him. "We are going to bed." + +They took their candles and trooped off upstairs, each one bowing to +Alvina as he passed. Max solemnly, Louis gallant, the other two dumb +and sleepy. They occupied the two attic chambers. + +Alvina carried up the loose bed from the sofa, and slept on the +floor before the fire in Madame's room. + +Madame slept well and long, rousing and stirring and settling off +again. It was eight o'clock before she asked her first question. +Alvina was already up. + +"Oh--alors--Then I am better, I am quite well. I can dance today." + +"I don't think today," said Alvina. "But perhaps tomorrow." + +"No, today," said Madame. "I can dance today, because I am quite +well. I am Kishwegin." + +"You are better. But you must lie still today. Yes, really--you will +find you are weak when you try to stand." + +Madame watched Alvina's thin face with sullen eyes. + +"You are an Englishwoman, severe and materialist," she said. + +Alvina started and looked round at her with wide blue eyes. + +"Why?" she said. There was a wan, pathetic look about her, a sort of +heroism which Madame detested, but which now she found touching. + +"Come!" said Madame, stretching out her plump jewelled hand. "Come, +I am an ungrateful woman. Come, they are not good for you, the +people, I see it. Come to me." + +Alvina went slowly to Madame, and took the outstretched hand. Madame +kissed her hand, then drew her down and kissed her on either cheek, +gravely, as the young men had kissed each other. + +"You have been good to Kishwegin, and Kishwegin has a heart that +remembers. There, Miss Houghton, I shall do what you tell me. +Kishwegin obeys you." And Madame patted Alvina's hand and nodded her +head sagely. + +"Shall I take your temperature?" said Alvina. + +"Yes, my dear, you shall. You shall bid me, and I shall obey." + +So Madame lay back on her pillow, submissively pursing the +thermometer between her lips and watching Alvina with black eyes. + +"It's all right," said Alvina, as she looked at the thermometer. +"Normal." + +"Normal!" re-echoed Madame's rather guttural voice. "Good! Well, +then when shall I dance?" + +Alvina turned and looked at her. + +"I think, truly," said Alvina, "it shouldn't be before Thursday or +Friday." + +"Thursday!" repeated Madame. "You say Thursday?" There was a note of +strong rebellion in her voice. + +"You'll be so weak. You've only just escaped pleurisy. I can only +say what I truly think, can't I?" + +"Ah, you Englishwomen," said Madame, watching with black eyes. "I +think you like to have your own way. In all things, to have your own +way. And over all people. You are so good, to have your own way. +Yes, you good Englishwomen. Thursday. Very well, it shall be +Thursday. Till Thursday, then, Kishwegin does not exist." + +And she subsided, already rather weak, upon her pillow again. When +she had taken her tea and was washed and her room was tidied, she +summoned the young men. Alvina had warned Max that she wanted +Madame to be kept as quiet as possible this day. + +As soon as the first of the four appeared, in his shirt-sleeves and +his slippers, in the doorway, Madame said: + +"Ah, there you are, my young men! Come in! Come in! It is not +Kishwegin addresses you. Kishwegin does not exist till Thursday, as +the English demoiselle makes it." She held out her hand, faintly +perfumed with eau de Cologne--the whole room smelled of eau de +Cologne--and Max stooped his brittle spine and kissed it. She +touched his cheek gently with her other hand. + +"My faithful Max, my support." + +Louis came smiling with a bunch of violets and pinky anemones. He +laid them down on the bed before her, and took her hand, bowing and +kissing it reverently. + +"You are better, dear Madame?" he said, smiling long at her. + +"Better, yes, gentle Louis. And better for thy flowers, chivalric +heart." She put the violets and anemones to her face with both +hands, and then gently laid them aside to extend her hand to +Geoffrey. + +"The good Geoffrey will do his best, while there is no Kishwegin?" +she said as he stooped to her salute. + +"Bien sur, Madame." + +"Ciccio, a button off thy shirt-cuff. Where is my needle?" She +looked round the room as Ciccio kissed her hand. + +"Did you want anything?" said Alvina, who had not followed the +French. + +"My needle, to sew on this button. It is there, in the silk bag." + +"I will do it," said Alvina. + +"Thank you." + +While Alvina sewed on the button, Madame spoke to her young men, +principally to Max. They were to obey Max, she said, for he was +their eldest brother. This afternoon they would practise well the +scene of the White Prisoner. Very carefully they must practise, and +they must find some one who would play the young squaw--for in this +scene she had practically nothing to do, the young squaw, but just +sit and stand. Miss Houghton--but ah, Miss Houghton must play the +piano, she could not take the part of the young squaw. Some other +then. + +While the interview was going on, Mr. May arrived, full of concern. + +"Shan't we have the procession!" he cried. + +"Ah, the procession!" cried Madame. + +The Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe upon request would signalize its entry +into any town by a procession. The young men were dressed as Indian +_braves_, and headed by Kishwegin they rode on horseback through the +main streets. Ciccio, who was the crack horseman, having served a +very well-known horsey Marchese in an Italian cavalry regiment, did +a bit of show riding. + +Mr. May was very keen on the procession. He had the horses in +readiness. The morning was faintly sunny, after the sleet and bad +weather. And now he arrived to find Madame in bed and the young men +holding council with her. + +"How _very_ unfortunate!" cried Mr. May. "How _very_ unfortunate!" + +"Dreadful! Dreadful!" wailed Madame from the bed. + +"But can't we do _anything_?" + +"Yes--you can do the White Prisoner scene--the young men can do +that, if you find a dummy squaw. Ah, I think I must get up after +all." + +Alvina saw the look of fret and exhaustion in Madame's face. + +"Won't you all go downstairs now?" said Alvina. "Mr. Max knows what +you must do." + +And she shooed the five men out of the bedroom. + +"I _must_ get up. I won't dance. I will be a dummy. But I must be +there. It is too dre-eadful, too dre-eadful!" wailed Madame. + +"Don't take any notice of them. They can manage by themselves. Men +are such babies. Let them carry it through by themselves." + +"Children--they are all children!" wailed Madame. "All children! And +so, what will they do without their old _gouvernante_? My poor +_braves_, what will they do without Kishwegin? It is too dreadful, +too dre-eadful, yes. The poor Mr. May--so _disappointed_." + +"Then let him _be_ disappointed," cried Alvina, as she forcibly +tucked up Madame and made her lie still. + +"You are hard! You are a hard Englishwoman. All alike. All alike!" +Madame subsided fretfully and weakly. Alvina moved softly about. +And in a few minutes Madame was sleeping again. + +Alvina went downstairs. Mr. May was listening to Max, who was +telling in German all about the White Prisoner scene. Mr. May had +spent his boyhood in a German school. He cocked his head on one +side, and, laying his hand on Max's arm, entertained him in odd +German. The others were silent. Ciccio made no pretence of +listening, but smoked and stared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey +half understood, so Louis nodded with a look of deep comprehension, +whilst Geoffrey uttered short, snappy "Ja!--Ja!--Doch!--Eben!" +rather irrelevant. + +"I'll be the squaw," cried Mr. May in English, breaking off and +turning round to the company. He perked up his head in an odd, +parrot-like fashion. "_I'll_ be the squaw! What's her name? +Kishwegin? I'll be Kishwegin." And he bridled and beamed +self-consciously. + +The two tall Swiss looked down on him, faintly smiling. Ciccio, +sitting with his arms on his knees on the sofa, screwed round his +head and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, +expressionless attention. + +"Let us go," said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance. "Let us go +and rehearse _this morning_, and let us do the procession this +afternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. There! What? +Isn't that exactly the idea? Well! Will you be ready at once, +_now_?" + +He looked excitedly at the young men. They nodded with slow gravity, +as if they were already _braves_. And they turned to put on their +boots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lumley, Mr. May prancing +like a little circus-pony beside Alvina, the four young men rolling +ahead. + +"What do you think of it?" cried Mr. May. "We've saved the +situation--what? Don't you think so? Don't you think we can +congratulate ourselves." + +They found Mr. Houghton fussing about in the theatre. He was on +tenterhooks of agitation, knowing Madame was ill. + +Max gave a brilliant display of yodelling. + +"But I must _explain_ to them," cried Mr. May. "I must _explain_ to +them what yodel means." + +And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth his +hand. + +"In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciers +reign over luscious meadows full of flowers, if you should chance to +awaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm amid the mountain +pastures, you--er--you--let me see--if you--no--if you should chance +to _spend the night_ in some lonely wooden farm, amid the upland +pastures, dawn will awake you with a wild, inhuman song, you will +open your eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams, your +ears will be ringing with weird singing, that has no words and no +meaning, but sounds as if some wild and icy god were warbling to +himself as he wandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth +across the flowers to the blue snow, and you see, far off, a small +figure of a man moving among the grass. It is a peasant singing his +mountain song, warbling like some creature that lifted up its voice +on the edge of the eternal snows, before the human race began--" + +During this oration James Houghton sat with his chin in his hand, +devoured with bitter jealousy, measuring Mr. May's eloquence. And +then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume, +white shirt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois +leather stitched with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked +ankles and heavy shoes, warbled his native Yodel strains, a piercing +and disturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen tempered and +fierce and mountainous. There was a fierce, icy passion in the man. +Alvina began to understand Madame's subjection to him. + +Louis and Geoffrey did a farce dialogue, two foreigners at the same +moment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other and +protesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Ciccio, who +stood solid and ridiculous. Mr. Houghton nodded slowly and gravely, +as if to give his measured approval. + +Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practised the +music Madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, she +welcomed the accompaniment: if not, she dispensed with it. + +"Am I all right?" said a smirking voice. + +And there was Kishwegin, dusky, coy, with long black hair and a +short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: _so_ coy, +and _so_ smirking. Alvina burst out laughing. + +"But shan't I do?" protested Mr. May, hurt. + +"Yes, you're wonderful," said Alvina, choking. "But I _must_ laugh." + +"But why? Tell me why?" asked Mr. May anxiously. "Is it my +_appearance_ you laugh at, or is it only _me_? If it's me I don't +mind. But if it's my appearance, tell me so." + +Here an appalling figure of Ciccio in war-paint strolled on to the +stage. He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, was +dusky-red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle's feathers--only +two feathers--and a face wonderfully and terribly painted with +white, red, yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with +himself. His curious soft slouch, and curious way of lifting his lip +from his white teeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing. + +"You haven't got the girdle," he said, touching Mr. May's plump +waist--"and some flowers in your hair." + +Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. A bear on its hind legs, +slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretching a paw +towards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a +laugh came from its muzzle. + +"You won't have to dance," said Geoffrey out of the bear. + +"Come and put in the flowers," said Mr. May anxiously, to Alvina. + +In the dressing-room, the dividing-curtain was drawn. Max, in +deerskin trousers but with unpainted torso looked very white and +strange as he put the last touches of war-paint on Louis' face. He +glanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a +sort of nobility about his erect white form and stiffly-carried +head, the semi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior. + +Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis arose, a _brave_ like +Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tattered +hunting-shirt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. He +was the white prisoner. + +They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watched. It was soon done. A +back cloth of tree-trunks and dark forest: a wigwam, a fire, and a +cradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain to +dissociate the two _braves_ from their war-paint. The lines were +drawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and +horrible, so that even in the quiet work of scene-shifting Louis' +stiffish, female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst +Ciccio's more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him +for one single moment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel, +underneath their civilization. + +The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwegin alone at the door +of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional push to the +hanging cradle, and, if only Madame were taking the part, crooning +an Indian cradle-song. Enter the _brave_ Louis with his white +prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side. Kishwegin +gravely salutes her husband--the bound prisoner is seated by the +fire--Kishwegin 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 Kishwegin and +the prisoner--the prisoner wants his bonds cut. Re-enter the _brave_ +Louis--he is angry with Kishwegin--enter the _brave_ Ciccio hauling +a bear, apparently dead. Kishwegin examines the bear, Ciccio +examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him +stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwegin swings the cradle. The +prisoner is tripped up--falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the +fallen bear. Kishwegin carries food to Ciccio. The two _braves_ +converse in dumb show, Kishwegin swings the cradle and croons. The +men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there +is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and +at the same moment the bear strikes him down. Ciccio springs forward +and stabs the bear, then closes with it. Kishwegin 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 Kishwegin +kneels over her husband. The bear drops Ciccio lifeless, and turns +to Kishwegin. At that moment Max manages to kill the bear--he takes +Kishwegin 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 Kishwegin. However, it would do. + +Ciccio got dressed as soon as possible, to go and look at the horses +hired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him, Mr. May +and the others were busy. + +"You know I think it's quite wonderful, your scene," she said to +Ciccio. + +He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky-set eyes rested +on her good-naturedly, without seeing her, his lip curled in a +self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile. + +"Not without Madame," he said, with the slow, half-sneering, stupid +smile. "Without Madame--" he lifted his shoulders and spread his +hands and tilted his brows--"fool's play, you know." + +"No," said Alvina. "I think Mr. May is good, considering. What does +Madame _do_?" she asked a little jealously. + +"Do?" He looked down at her with the same long, half-sardonic look +of his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casually at a bird which +flutters past. And again he made his shrugging motion. "She does it +all, really. The others--they are nothing--what they are Madame has +made them. And now they think they've done it all, you see. You see, +that's it." + +"But how has Madame made it all? Thought it out, you mean?" + +"Thought it out, yes. And then _done_ it. You should see her +dance--ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him +in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand--" And +Ciccio stood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on +one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose +at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his +eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance, +and all the time his lips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little +assertive shake of his head, finishing, there came a great yell of +laughter from the opposite pavement, where a gang of pottery lasses, +in aprons all spattered with grey clay, and hair and boots and skin +spattered with pallid spots, had stood to watch. The girls opposite +shrieked again, for all the world like a gang of grey baboons. +Ciccio turned round and looked at them with a sneer along his nose. +They yelled the louder. And he was horribly uncomfortable, walking +there beside Alvina with his rather small and effeminately-shod +feet. + +"How stupid they are," said Alvina. "I've got used to them." + +"They should be--" he lifted his hand with a sharp, vicious +movement--"_smacked_," he concluded, lowering his hand again. + +"Who is going to do it?" said Alvina. + +He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand +outspread in the air, as if to say: "There you are! You've got to +thank the fools who've failed to do it." + +"Why do you all love Madame so much?" Alvina asked. + +"How, love?" he said, making a little grimace. "We like her--we love +her--as if she were a mother. You say _love_--" He raised his +shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at +Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways, +and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering +smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a great +instinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious +and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture. +For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech. +Gesture and grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things, +if you would but accept them. + +But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She could +hear Mr. May's verdict of him: "Like a child, you know, just as +charming and just as tiresome and just as stupid." + +"Where is your home?" she asked him. + +"In Italy." She felt a fool. + +"Which part?" she insisted. + +"Naples," he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly. + +"It must be lovely," she said. + +"Ha--!" He threw his head on one side and spread out his hands, as +if to say--"What do you want, if you don't find Naples lovely." + +"I should like to see it. But I shouldn't like to die," she said. + +"What?" + +"They say 'See Naples and die,'" she laughed. + +He opened his mouth, and understood. Then he smiled at her directly. + +"You know what that means?" he said cutely. "It means see Naples and +die afterwards. Don't die _before_ you've seen it." He smiled with a +knowing smile. + +"I see! I see!" she cried. "I never thought of that." + +He was pleased with her surprise and amusement. + +"Ah Naples!" he said. "She is lovely--" He spread his hand across +the air in front of him--"The sea--and Posilippo--and Sorrento--and +Capri--Ah-h! You've never been out of England?" + +"No," she said. "I should love to go." + +He looked down into her eyes. It was his instinct to say at once he +would take her. + +"You've seen nothing--nothing," he said to her. + +"But if Naples is so lovely, how could you leave it?" she asked. + +"What?" + +She repeated her question. For answer, he looked at her, held out +his hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tips of his +fingers, said, with a fine, handsome smile: + +"Pennies! Money! You can't earn money in Naples. Ah, Naples is +beautiful, but she is poor. You live in the sun, and you earn +fourteen, fifteen pence a day--" + +"Not enough," she said. + +He put his head on one side and tilted his brows, as if to say "What +are you to do?" And the smile on his mouth was sad, fine, and +charming. There was an indefinable air of sadness or wistfulness +about him, something so robust and fragile at the same time, that +she was drawn in a strange way. + +"But you'll go back?" she said. + +"Where?" + +"To Italy. To Naples." + +"Yes, I shall go back to Italy," he said, as if unwilling to commit +himself. "But perhaps I shan't go back to Naples." + +"Never?" + +"Ah, never! I don't say never. I shall go to Naples, to see my +mother's sister. But I shan't go to live--" + +"Have you a mother and father?" + +"I? No! I have a brother and two sisters--in America. Parents, none. +They are dead." + +"And you wander about the world--" she said. + +He looked at her, and made a slight, sad gesture, indifferent also. + +"But you have Madame for a mother," she said. + +He made another gesture this time: pressed down the corners of his +mouth as if he didn't like it. Then he turned with the slow, fine +smile. + +"Does a man want two mothers? Eh?" he said, as if he posed a +conundrum. + +"I shouldn't think so," laughed Alvina. + +He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood. + +"My mother is dead, see!" he said. "Frenchwomen--Frenchwomen--they +have their babies till they are a hundred--" + +"What do you mean?" said Alvina, laughing. + +"A Frenchman is a little man when he's seven years old--and if his +mother comes, he is a little baby boy when he's seventy. Do you know +that?" + +"I _didn't_ know it," said Alvina. + +"But now--you do," he said, lurching round a corner with her. + +They had come to the stables. Three of the horses were there, +including the thoroughbred Ciccio was going to ride. He stood and +examined the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strange +sounds, patted them, stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand +down them, over them, under them, and felt their legs. + +Then, he looked up from stooping there under the horses, with a +long, slow look of his yellow eyes, at Alvina. She felt +unconsciously flattered. His long, yellow look lingered, holding her +eyes. She wondered what he was thinking. Yet he never spoke. He +turned again to the horses. They seemed to understand him, to prick +up alert. + +"This is mine," he said, with his hand on the neck of the old +thoroughbred. It was a bay with a white blaze. + +"I think he's nice," she said. "He seems so sensitive." + +"In England," he answered suddenly, "horses live a long time, +because they _don't_ live--never alive--see? In England +railway-engines are alive, and horses go on wheels." He smiled into +her eyes as if she understood. She was a trifle nervous as he smiled +at her from out of the stable, so yellow-eyed and half-mysterious, +derisive. Her impulse was to turn and go away from the stable. But a +deeper impulse made her smile into his face, as she said to him: + +"They like you to touch them." + +"Who?" His eyes kept hers. Curious how _dark_ they seemed, with only +a yellow ring of pupil. He was looking right into her, beyond her +usual self, impersonal. + +"The horses," she said. She was afraid of his long, cat-like look. +Yet she felt convinced of his ultimate good-nature. He seemed to her +to be the only passionately good-natured man she had ever seen. She +watched him vaguely, with strange vague trust, implicit belief in +him. In him--in what? + +That afternoon the colliers trooping home in the winter afternoon +were rejoiced with a spectacle: Kishwegin, in her deerskin, fringed +gaiters and fringed frock of deerskin, her long hair down her back, +and with marvellous cloths and trappings on her steed, riding +astride on a tall white horse, followed by Max in chieftain's robes +and chieftain's long head-dress of dyed feathers, then by the others +in war-paint and feathers and brilliant Navajo blankets. They +carried bows and spears. Ciccio was without his blanket, naked to +the waist, in war-paint, and brandishing a long spear. He dashed up +from the rear, saluted the chieftain with his arm and his spear on +high as he swept past, suddenly drew up his rearing steed, and +trotted slowly back again, making his horse perform its paces. He +was extraordinarily velvety and alive on horseback. + +Crowds of excited, shouting children ran chattering along the +pavements. The colliers, as they tramped grey and heavy, in an +intermittent stream uphill from the low grey west, stood on the +pavement in wonder as the cavalcade approached and passed, jingling +the silver bells of its trappings, vibrating the wonderful colours +of the barred blankets and saddle cloths, the scarlet wool of the +accoutrements, the bright tips of feathers. Women shrieked as +Ciccio, in his war-paint, wheeled near the pavement. Children +screamed and ran. The colliers shouted. Ciccio smiled in his +terrifying war-paint, brandished his spear and trotted softly, like +a flower on its stem, round to the procession. + +Miss Pinnegar and Alvina and James Houghton had come round into +Knarborough Road to watch. It was a great moment. Looking along the +road they saw all the shopkeepers at their doors, the pavements +eager. And then, in the distance, the white horse jingling its +trappings of scarlet hair and bells, with the dusky Kishwegin +sitting on the saddle-blanket of brilliant, lurid stripes, sitting +impassive and all dusky above that intermittent flashing of colour: +then the chieftain, dark-faced, erect, easy, swathed in a white +blanket, with scarlet and black stripes, and all his strange crest +of white, tip-dyed feathers swaying down his back: as he came nearer +one saw the wolfskin and the brilliant moccasins against the black +sides of his horse; Louis and Goeffrey followed, lurid, horrid in +the face, wearing blankets with stroke after stroke of blazing +colour upon their duskiness, and sitting stern, holding their +spears: lastly, Ciccio, on his bay horse with a green seat, +flickering hither and thither in the rear, his feathers swaying, his +horse sweating, his face ghastlily smiling in its war-paint. So they +advanced down the grey pallor of Knarborough Road, in the late +wintry afternoon. Somewhere the sun was setting, and far overhead +was a flush of orange. + +"Well I never!" murmured Miss Pinnegar. "Well I never!" + +The strange savageness of the striped Navajo blankets seemed to her +unsettling, advancing down Knarborough Road: she examined Kishwegin +curiously. + +"Can you _believe_ that that's Mr. May--he's exactly like a girl. +Well, well--it makes you wonder what is and what isn't. But _aren't_ +they good? What? Most striking. Exactly like Indians. You can't +believe your eyes. My word what a terrifying race they--" Here she +uttered a scream and ran back clutching the wall as Ciccio swept +past, brushing her with his horse's tail, and actually swinging his +spear so as to touch Alvina and James Houghton lightly with the butt +of it. James too started with a cry, the mob at the corner screamed. +But Alvina caught the slow, mischievous smile as the painted horror +showed his teeth in passing; she was able to flash back an excited +laugh. She felt his yellow-tawny eyes linger on her, in that one +second, as if negligently. + +"I call that too much!" Miss Pinnegar was crying, thoroughly upset. +"Now that was unnecessary! Why it was enough to scare one to death. +Besides, it's dangerous. It ought to be put a stop to. I don't +believe in letting these show-people have liberties." + +The cavalcade was slowly passing, with its uneasy horses and its +flare of striped colour and its silent riders. Ciccio was trotting +softly back, on his green saddle-cloth, suave as velvet, his dusky, +naked torso beautiful. + +"Eh, you'd think he'd get his death," the women in the crowd were +saying. + +"A proper savage one, that. Makes your blood run cold--" + +"Ay, an' a man for all that, take's painted face for what's worth. A +tidy man, _I_ say." + +He did not look at Alvina. The faint, mischievous smile uncovered +his teeth. He fell in suddenly behind Geoffrey, with a jerk of his +steed, calling out to Geoffrey in Italian. + +It was becoming cold. The cavalcade fell into a trot, Mr. May +shaking rather badly. Ciccio halted, rested his lance against a +lamp-post, switched his green blanket from beneath him, flung it +round him as he sat, and darted off. They had all disappeared over +the brow of Lumley Hill, descending. He was gone too. In the wintry +twilight the crowd began, lingeringly, to turn away. And in some +strange way, it manifested its disapproval of the spectacle: as +grown-up men and women, they were a little bit insulted by such a +show. It was an anachronism. They wanted a direct appeal to the +mind. Miss Pinnegar expressed it. + +"Well," she said, when she was safely back in Manchester House, with +the gas lighted, and as she was pouring the boiling water into the +tea-pot, "You may say what you like. It's interesting in a way, just +to show what savage Red-Indians were like. But it's childish. It's +only childishness. I can't understand, myself, how people can go on +liking shows. Nothing happens. It's not like the cinema, where you +see it all and take it all in at once; you _know_ everything at a +glance. You don't know anything by looking at these people. You know +they're only men dressed up, for money. I can't see why you should +encourage it. I don't hold with idle show-people, parading round, I +don't, myself. I like to go to the cinema once a week. It's +instruction, you take it all in at a glance, all you need to know, +and it lasts you for a week. You can get to know everything about +people's actual lives from the cinema. I don't see why you want +people dressing up and showing off." + +They sat down to their tea and toast and marmalade, during this +harangue. Miss Pinnegar was always like a douche of cold water to +Alvina, bringing her back to consciousness after a delicious +excitement. In a minute Madame and Ciccio and all seemed to become +unreal--the actual unrealities: while the ragged dithering pictures +of the film were actual, real as the day. And Alvina was always put +out when this happened. She really hated Miss Pinnegar. Yet she had +nothing to answer. They _were_ unreal, Madame and Ciccio and the +rest. Ciccio was just a fantasy blown in on the wind, to blow away +again. The real, permanent thing was Woodhouse, the _semper idem_ +Knarborough Road, and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester +House, with the stuffy, padding Miss Pinnegar, and her father, whose +fingers, whose very soul seemed dirty with pennies. These were the +solid, permanent fact. These were life itself. And Ciccio, splashing +up on his bay horse and green cloth, he was a mountebank and an +extraneous nonentity, a coloured old rag blown down the Knarborough +Road into Limbo. Into Limbo. Whilst Miss Pinnegar and her father sat +frowsily on for ever, eating their toast and cutting off the crust, +and sipping their third cup of tea. They would never blow +away--never, never. Woodhouse was there to eternity. And the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe was blowing like a rag of old paper into +Limbo. Nothingness! Poor Madame! Poor gallant histrionic Madame! The +frowsy Miss Pinnegar could crumple her up and throw her down the +utilitarian drain, and have done with her. Whilst Miss Pinnegar +lived on for ever. + +This put Alvina into a sharp temper. + +"Miss Pinnegar," she said. "I do think you go on in the most +unattractive way sometimes. You're a regular spoil-sport." + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. "I don't approve of your way of +sport, I'm afraid." + +"You can't disapprove of it as much as I hate your spoil-sport +existence," said Alvina in a flare. + +"Alvina, are you mad!" said her father. + +"Wonder I'm not," said Alvina, "considering what my life is." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CICCIO + + +Madame did not pick up her spirits, after her cold. For two days she +lay in bed, attended by Mrs. Rollings and Alvina and the young men. +But she was most careful never to give any room for scandal. The +young men might not approach her save in the presence of some third +party. And then it was strictly a visit of ceremony or business. + +"Oh, your Woodhouse, how glad I shall be when I have left it," she +said to Alvina. "I feel it is unlucky for me." + +"Do you?" said Alvina. "But if you'd had this bad cold in some +places, you might have been much worse, don't you think." + +"Oh my dear!" cried Madame. "Do you think I could confuse you in my +dislike of this Woodhouse? Oh no! You are not Woodhouse. On the +contrary, I think it is unkind for you also, this place. You +look--also--what shall I say--thin, not very happy." + +It was a note of interrogation. + +"I'm sure I dislike Woodhouse much more than you can," replied +Alvina. + +"I am sure. Yes! I am sure. I see it. Why don't you go away? Why +don't you marry?" + +"Nobody wants to marry me," said Alvina. + +Madame looked at her searchingly, with shrewd black eyes under her +arched eyebrows. + +"How!" she exclaimed. "How don't they? You are not bad looking, only +a little too thin--too haggard--" + +She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortably. + +"Is there _nobody_?" persisted Madame. + +"Not now," said Alvina. "Absolutely nobody." She looked with a +confused laugh into Madame's strict black eyes. "You see I didn't +care for the Woodhouse young men, either. I _couldn't_." + +Madame nodded slowly up and down. A secret satisfaction came over +her pallid, waxy countenance, in which her black eyes were like twin +swift extraneous creatures: oddly like two bright little dark +animals in the snow. + +"Sure!" she said, sapient. "Sure! How could you? But there are other +men besides these here--" She waved her hand to the window. + +"I don't meet them, do I?" said Alvina. + +"No, not often. But sometimes! sometimes!" + +There was a silence between the two women, very pregnant. + +"Englishwomen," said Madame, "are so practical. Why are they?" + +"I suppose they can't help it," said Alvina. "But they're not half +so practical and clever as _you_, Madame." + +"Oh la--la! I am practical differently. I am practical +impractically--" she stumbled over the words. "But your Sue now, in +Jude the Obscure--is it not an interesting book? And is she not +always too practically practical. If she had been impractically +practical she could have been quite happy. Do you know what I +mean?--no. But she is ridiculous. Sue: so Anna Karenine. Ridiculous +both. Don't you think?" + +"Why?" said Alvina. + +"Why did they both make everybody unhappy, when they had the man +they wanted, and enough money? I think they are both so silly. If +they had been beaten, they would have lost all their practical ideas +and troubles, merely forgot them, and been happy enough. I am a +woman who says it. Such ideas they have are not tragical. No, not at +all. They are nonsense, you see, nonsense. That is all. Nonsense. +Sue and Anna, they are--non-sensical. That is all. No tragedy +whatsoever. Nonsense. I am a woman. I know men also. And I know +nonsense when I see it. Englishwomen are all nonsense: the worst +women in the world for nonsense." + +"Well, I am English," said Alvina. + +"Yes, my dear, you are English. But you are not necessarily so +non-sensical. Why are you at all?" + +"Nonsensical?" laughed Alvina. "But I don't know what you call my +nonsense." + +"Ah," said Madame wearily. "They never understand. But I like you, +my dear. I am an old woman--" + +"Younger than I," said Alvina. + +"Younger than you, because I am practical from the heart, and not +only from the head. You are not practical from the heart. And yet +you have a heart." + +"But all Englishwomen have good hearts," protested Alvina. + +"No! No!" objected Madame. "They are all ve-ry kind, and ve-ry +practical with their kindness. But they have no heart in all their +kindness. It is all head, all head: the kindness of the head." + +"I can't agree with you," said Alvina. + +"No. No. I don't expect it. But I don't mind. You are very kind to +me, and I thank you. But it is from the head, you see. And so I +thank you from the head. From the heart--no." + +Madame plucked her white fingers together and laid them on her +breast with a gesture of repudiation. Her black eyes stared +spitefully. + +"But Madame," said Alvina, nettled, "I should never be half such a +good business woman as you. Isn't that from the head?" + +"Ha! of course! Of course you wouldn't be a good business woman. +Because you are kind from the head. I--" she tapped her forehead and +shook her head--"I am not kind from the head. From the head I am +business-woman, good business-woman. Of course I am a good +business-woman--of course! But--" here she changed her expression, +widened her eyes, and laid her hand on her breast--"when the heart +speaks--then I listen with the heart. I do not listen with the head. +The heart hears the heart. The head--that is another thing. But you +have blue eyes, you cannot understand. Only dark eyes--" She paused +and mused. + +"And what about yellow eyes?" asked Alvina, laughing. + +Madame darted a look at her, her lips curling with a very faint, +fine smile of derision. Yet for the first time her black eyes +dilated and became warm. + +"Yellow eyes like Ciccio's?" she said, with her great watchful eyes +and her smiling, subtle mouth. "They are the darkest of all." And +she shook her head roguishly. + +"Are they!" said Alvina confusedly, feeling a blush burning up her +throat into her face. + +"Ha--ha!" laughed Madame. "Ha-ha! I am an old woman, you see. My +heart is old enough to be kind, and my head is old enough to be +clever. My heart is kind to few people--very few--especially in this +England. My young men know that. But perhaps to you it is kind." + +"Thank you," said Alvina. + +"There! From the head _Thank you_. It is not well done, you see. You +see!" + +But Alvina ran away in confusion. She felt Madame was having her on +a string. + +Mr. May enjoyed himself hugely playing Kishwegin. When Madame came +downstairs Louis, who was a good satirical mimic, imitated him. +Alvina happened to come into their sitting-room in the midst of +their bursts of laughter. They all stopped and looked at her +cautiously. + +"Continuez! Continuez!" said Madame to Louis. And to Alvina: "Sit +down, my dear, and see what a good actor we have in our Louis." + +Louis glanced round, laid his head a little on one side and drew in +his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail +slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishwegin. He sidled and +bridled and ejaculated with raised hands, and in the dumb show the +tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Houghton's +manager that Madame wept again with laughter, whilst Max leaned back +against the wall and giggled continuously like some pot +involuntarily boiling. Geoffrey spread his shut fists across the +table and shouted with laughter, Ciccio threw back his head and +showed all his teeth in a loud laugh of delighted derision. Alvina +laughed also. But she flushed. There was a certain biting, +annihilating quality in Louis' derision of the absentee. And the +others enjoyed it so much. At moments Alvina caught her lip between +her teeth, it was so screamingly funny, and so annihilating. She +laughed in spite of herself. In spite of herself she was shaken into +a convulsion of laughter. Louis was masterful--he mastered her +psyche. She laughed till her head lay helpless on the chair, she +could not move. Helpless, inert she lay, in her orgasm of laughter. +The end of Mr. May. Yet she was hurt. + +And then Madame wiped her own shrewd black eyes, and nodded slow +approval. Suddenly Louis started and held up a warning finger. They +all at once covered their smiles and pulled themselves together. +Only Alvina lay silently laughing. + +"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Rollings!" they heard Mr. May's voice. "Your +company is lively. Is Miss Houghton here? May I go through?" + +They heard his quick little step and his quick little tap. + +"Come in," called Madame. + +The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras all sat with straight faces. Only poor Alvina +lay back in her chair in a new weak convulsion. Mr. May glanced +quickly round, and advanced to Madame. + +"Oh, good-morning, Madame, so glad to see you downstairs," he said, +taking her hand and bowing ceremoniously. "Excuse my intruding on +your mirth!" He looked archly round. Alvina was still incompetent. +She lay leaning sideways in her chair, and could not even speak to +him. + +"It was evidently a good joke," he said. "May I hear it too?" + +"Oh," said Madame, drawling. "It was no joke. It was only Louis +making a fool of himself, doing a turn." + +"Must have been a good one," said Mr. May. "Can't we put it on?" + +"No," drawled Madame, "it was nothing--just a non-sensical mood of +the moment. Won't you sit down? You would like a little +whiskey?--yes?" + +Max poured out whiskey and water for Mr. May. + +Alvina sat with her face averted, quiet, but unable to speak to Mr. +May. Max and Louis had become polite. Geoffrey stared with his big, +dark-blue eyes stolidly at the newcomer. Ciccio leaned with his arms +on his knees, looking sideways under his long lashes at the inert +Alvina. + +"Well," said Madame, "and are you satisfied with your houses?" + +"Oh yes," said Mr. May. "Quite! The two nights have been excellent. +Excellent!" + +"Ah--I am glad. And Miss Houghton tells me I should not dance +tomorrow, it is too soon." + +"Miss Houghton _knows_," said Mr. May archly. + +"Of course!" said Madame. "I must do as she tells me." + +"Why yes, since it is for your good, and not hers." + +"Of course! Of course! It is very kind of her." + +"Miss Houghton is _most_ kind--to _every one_," said Mr. May. + +"I am sure," said Madame. "And I am very glad you have been such a +good Kishwegin. That is very nice also." + +"Yes," replied Mr. May. "I begin to wonder if I have mistaken my +vocation. I should have been _on_ the boards, instead of behind +them." + +"No doubt," said Madame. "But it is a little late--" + +The eyes of the foreigners, watching him, flattered Mr. May. + +"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Yes. Popular taste is a mysterious +thing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work +as much as they did?" + +Madame watched him with her black eyes. + +"No," she replied. "They don't. The pictures are driving us away. +Perhaps we shall last for ten years more. And after that, we are +finished." + +"You think so," said Mr. May, looking serious. + +"I am sure," she said, nodding sagely. + +"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry and petulant. + +"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. The pictures are cheap, and +they are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of the +heart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these. +And so they like them, and they don't like us, because they must +_feel_ the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them from +the spirit. There!" + +"And they don't want to appreciate and to feel?" said Mr. May. + +"No. They don't want. They want it all through the eye, and +finished--so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In +all countries, the same. And so--in ten years' time--no more +Kishwegin at all." + +"No. Then what future have you?" said Mr. May gloomily. + +"I may be dead--who knows. If not, I shall have my little apartment +in Lausanne, or in Bellizona, and I shall be a bourgeoise once more, +and the good Catholic which I am." + +"Which I am also," said Mr. May. + +"So! Are you? An American Catholic?" + +"Well--English--Irish--American." + +"So!" + +Mr. May never felt more gloomy in his life than he did that day. +Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head? + +There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara group either. For +Thursday, there was to be a change of program--"Kishwegin's +Wedding--" (with the white prisoner, be if said)--was to take the +place of the previous scene. Max of course was the director of the +rehearsal. Madame would not come near the theatre when she herself +was not to be acting. + +Though very quiet and unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly +assume an air of _hauteur_ and overbearing which was really very +annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put into +unholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal his +contempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the Cockney +word. + +"Bah! quelle tete de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuous and +angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the things +said to him, had once more failed to understand. + +"Comment?" queried Ciccio, in his slow, derisive way. + +"_Comment_!" sneered Max, in echo. "_What?_ _What?_ Why what _did_ I +say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if that seems more suitable to +you." + +"To whom? To me or to you?" said Ciccio, sidling up. + +"To you, lout of an Italian." + +Max's colour was up, he held himself erect, his brown hair seemed to +rise erect from his forehead, his blue eyes glared fierce. + +"That is to say, to me, from an uncivilized German pig, ah? ah?" + +All this in French. Alvina, as she sat at the piano, saw Max tall +and blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious +and convulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in +ordinary dress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves. +Ciccio was clutching a property knife. + +"Now! None of that! None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. But +Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite +unconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife. + +"A dirty Eyetalian," said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. "They +understand nothing." + +But the last word was smothered in Ciccio's spring and stab. Max +half started on to his guard, received the blow on his collar-bone, +near the pommel of the shoulder, reeled round on top of Mr. May, +whilst Ciccio sprang like a cat down from the stage and bounded +across the theatre and out of the door, leaving the knife rattling +on the boards behind him. Max recovered and sprang like a demon, +white with rage, straight out into the theatre after him. + +"Stop--stop--!" cried Mr. May. + +"Halte, Max! Max, Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis +sprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with the +spring of a man. + +Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the piano below, started up +and overturned her chair as Ciccio rushed past her. Now Max, white, +with set blue eyes, was upon her. + +"Don't--!" she cried, lifting her hand to stop his progress. He saw +her, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap over the seats and avoid +her, when Louis caught him and flung his arms round him. + +"Max--attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, tu sais que je t'aime. Tu +le sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le partir." + +Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking down +with hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled +as fiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was +panting and beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by +the arm. + +"Let him go, brother, he isn't worth it. What does he understand, +Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from the +south, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what +they are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It +was a dummy knife, but it was a heavy blow--the dog of an Italian. +Let us see." + +So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge of +his waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining the +shirt. + +"Are you cut, brother, brother?" said Louis. "Let us see." + +Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat and +pushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin +broken. + +"If the bone isn't broken!" said Louis anxiously. "If the bone isn't +broken! Lift thy arm, frere--lift. It hurts you--so--. No--no--it is +not broken--no--the bone is not broken." + +"There is no bone broken, I know," said Max. + +"The animal. He hasn't done _that_, at least." + +"Where do you imagine he's gone?" asked Mr. May. + +The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There was +no more rehearsal. + +"We had best go home and speak to Madame," said Mr. May, who was +very frightened for his evening performance. + +They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He was +gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from the +dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, +which she had on her arm. + +Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one come +in at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings had +told her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves +and gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, +without saying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her +shoes, she had her hat on, when the others arrived. + +"What is it?" she cried. + +She heard a hurried explanation from Louis. + +"Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn't worth all my pains!" cried poor +Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. "Why, Max, why didst +thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of +thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara +there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but one tribe, the tribe +of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirty Italian, or a dog of an +Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an +animal, too little _esprit_. But thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy +temper is a devil's, which maybe is worse than an animal's. Ah, this +Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Would we were away from it. +Will the week never pass? We shall have to find Ciccio. Without him the +company is ruined--until I get a substitute. I must get a substitute. +And how?--and where?--in this country?--tell me that. I am tired of +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe of Kishwe--no, never. I have +had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us break up, let us part, _mes +braves_, let us say adieu here in this _funeste_ Woodhouse." + +"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Louis, "let us hope. Let us swear a +closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwegin. Let us never part. +Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost not +want to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou--" + +Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside his +face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May. + +In a while Madame came out to them. + +"Oh," she said. "You have not gone away! We are wondering which way +Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey +will go on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough +or to Marchay?" + +"Ask the policeman in the market-place," said Alvina. "He's sure to +have noticed him, because Ciccio's yellow bicycle is so uncommon." + +Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among +themselves where Ciccio might be. + +Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the +Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly. + +"Ah!" said Madame. "And now how to find him, in that great town. I +am afraid he will leave us without pity." + +"Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes," said +Louis. "They were always good friends." + +They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders. + +"Always good friends," he said. "Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at +his cousin's in Battersea. In Knarborough, I don't know." + +"How much money had he?" asked Mr. May. + +Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders. + +"Who knows?" she said. + +"These Italians," said Louis, turning to Mr. May. "They have always +money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can +help. They are like this--" And he made the Neapolitan gesture +drawing in the air with his fingers. + +"But would he abandon you all without a word?" cried Mr. May. + +"Yes! Yes!" said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. "_He_ would. +He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it." + +"And what point would he make for?" + +"What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to +his cousin--and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough +money to buy land, or whatever it is." + +"And so good-bye to him," said Mr. May bitterly. + +"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madame, looking at Geoffrey. + +Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade +away. + +"No," he said. "I don't know. He will leave a message at Battersea, +I know. But I don't know if he will go to Italy." + +"And you don't know where to find him in Knarborough?" asked Mr. +May, sharply, very much on the spot. + +"No--I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London." +It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May. + +"Alors!" said Madame, cutting through this futility. "Go thou to +Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see--and be back at the theatre for work. +Go now. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him +to come out of kindness to me. Tell him." + +And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride +through the rain to Knarborough. + +"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is a +little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will +remember." + +Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care +very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, +but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was +dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling +him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for +three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the +Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to +Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it. + +He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the +music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them. +They gave him a welcome and a whiskey--but none of them had seen +Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. +He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings +strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he +went to the Italians down in the Marsh--he knew these people always +ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland +Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters +on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man +with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose. + +Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to +Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He +pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into +the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross +the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to +dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their way +across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and +his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new +tram-track. + +As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and +Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead--another cyclist. He moved to his +side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong +acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the +humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on +the low racing machine. + +"Hi Cic'--! Ciccio!" he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle. + +"Ha-er-er!" he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way +down the darkness. + +He turned--saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round, +and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey. + +"Toi!" said Ciccio. + +"He! Ou vas-tu?" + +"He!" ejaculated Ciccio. + +Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously +ejaculated. + +"Coming back?" asked Geoffrey. + +"Where've you been?" retorted Ciccio. + +"Knarborough--looking for thee. Where have you--?" + +"Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses." + +"Come off?" + +"He!" + +"Hurt?" + +"Nothing." + +"Max is all right." + +"Merde!" + +"Come on, come back with me." + +"Nay." Ciccio shook his head. + +"Madame's crying. Wants thee to come back." + +Ciccio shook his head. + +"Come on, Cic'--" said Geoffrey. + +Ciccio shook his head. + +"Never?" said Geoffrey. + +"Basta--had enough," said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace. + +"Come for a bit, and we'll clear together." + +Ciccio again shook his head. + +"What, is it adieu?" + +Ciccio did not speak. + +"Don't go, comrade," said Geoffrey. + +"Faut," said Ciccio, slightly derisive. + +"Eh alors! I'd like to come with thee. What?" + +"Where?" + +"Doesn't matter. Thou'rt going to Italy?" + +"Who knows!--seems so." + +"I'd like to go back." + +"Eh alors!" Ciccio half veered round. + +"Wait for me a few days," said Geoffrey. + +"Where?" + +"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym's, 6 Hampden +Street. Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?" + +"I'll think about it." + +"Eleven o'clock, eh?" + +"I'll think about it." + +"Friends ever--Ciccio--eh?" Geoffrey held out his hand. + +Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissed +farewell, on either cheek. + +"Tomorrow, Cic'--" + +"Au revoir, Gigi." + +Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey +waited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him +in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He +went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on +tenterhooks till ten o'clock. + +She heard the news, and said: + +"Tomorrow I go to fetch him." And with this she went to bed. + +In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvina +appeared at nine o'clock. + +"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go to +Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because +I haven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell +the young men, and we will go now, on the tram-car." + +"But I am not properly dressed," said Alvina. + +"Who will see?" said Madame. "Come, let us go." + +They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of Hampden +Street at five minutes to eleven. + +"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these young +men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have +caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him--who knows? Perhaps +he will go off to Italy all the same." + +They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And +then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing +town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode +up muddily on his bicycle. + +"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at +the Geisha Restaurant--or tea or something," said Madame. + +Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last +Geoffrey returned, shaking his head. + +"He won't come?" cried Madame. + +"No." + +"He says he is going back to Italy?" + +"To London." + +"It is the same. You can never trust them. Is he quite obstinate?" + +Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings of +defection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited. + +"We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all," she +said fretfully. + +Geoffrey watched her stolidly, impassively. + +"Dost thou want to go with him?" she asked suddenly. + +Geoffrey smiled sheepishly, and his colour deepened. But he did not +speak. + +"Go then--" she said. "Go then! Go with him! But for the sake of my +honour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Houghton's +father lose these two nights? Where is your shame? Finish this week +and then go, go--But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have +finished with him. But let him finish this engagement. Don't put me +to shame, don't destroy my honour, and the honour of the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Tell him that." + +Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic little +black hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat-and-skirt, stood +there at the street-corner staring before her, shivering a little +with cold, but saying no word of any sort. + +Again Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. His face was impassive. + +"He says he doesn't want," he said. + +"Ah!" she cried suddenly in French, "the ungrateful, the animal! He +shall suffer. See if he shall not suffer. The low canaille, without +faith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, such canaille should +be beaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Will no one +beat him for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves +England he shall feel the hand of Kishwegin, and it shall be heavier +than the Black Hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a +woman's word to be broken against her will. Ah, canaille, canaille! +Neither faith nor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Trust them +not, dogs of the south." She took a few agitated steps down the +pavement. Then she raised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger +and bitter disappointment. + +"Wait a bit," said Alvina. "I'll go." She was touched. + +"No. Don't you!" cried Madame. + +"Yes I will," she said. The light of battle was in her eyes. "You'll +come with me to the door," she said to Geoffrey. + +Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way up a long narrow stair, +covered with yellow-and-brown oil-cloth, rather worn, on to the top +of the house. + +"Ciccio," he said, outside the door. + +"Oui!" came the curly voice of Ciccio. + +Geoffrey opened the door. Ciccio was sitting on a narrow bed, in a +rather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof. + +"Don't come in," said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulder +at him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and +stood with her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the +bed, a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare +boards between his feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood +watching him with wide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly, and +saying nothing. He looked up at her steadily, on his guard, from +under his long black lashes. + +"Won't you come?" she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. He +flicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger. She +wondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long, so very +long. Still she smiled at him, and still he gave no sign. + +"Do come!" she urged, never taking her eyes from him. + +He made not the slightest movement, but sat with his hands dropped +between his knees, watching her, the cigarette wavering up its blue +thread of smoke. + +"Won't you?" she said, as she stood with her back to the door. +"Won't you come?" She smiled strangely and vividly. + +Suddenly she took a pace forward, stooped, watching his face as if +timidly, caught his brown hand in her own and lifted it towards +herself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was not +withdrawn. + +"You will come, won't you?" she said, smiling gently into his +strange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the +dark pupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his +softening round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of +its silent, gentler moments. And suddenly she kissed his hand, +kissed it twice, quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a +silver ring. Even as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the +silver ring seemed to her a symbol of his subjection, inferiority. +She drew his hand slightly. And he rose to his feet. + +She turned round and took the door-handle, still holding his fingers +in her left hand. + +"You are coming, aren't you?" she said, looking over her shoulder +into his eyes. And taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let +go his hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, and +taking his coat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders and drew it +on. Then he picked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked +cigarette, which lay smoking still. He followed her out of the room, +walking with his head rather forward, in the half loutish, +sensual-subjected way of the Italians. + +As they entered the street, they saw the trim, French figure of +Madame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very white +under her spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Ciccio +following behind Alvina in his dark, hangdog fashion, and she did +not move a muscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She +was watching his face. + +"Te voila donc!" she said, without expression. "Allons boire un +cafe, he? Let us go and drink some coffee." She had now put an +inflection of tenderness into her voice. But her eyes were black +with anger. Ciccio smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, and +turned to walk alongside. + +Madame said nothing as they went. Geoffrey passed on his bicycle, +calling out that he would go straight to Woodhouse. + +When the three sat with their cups of coffee, Madame pushed up her +veil just above her eyes, so that it was a black band above her +brows. Her face was pale and full like a child's, but almost stonily +expressionless, her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched +both Ciccio and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks. + +"Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you?" she +said, with an amiable intonation which her strange black looks +belied. + +"Yes," said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, while +Ciccio sat sheepishly, turning aside his ducked head, the slow, +stupid, yet fine smile on his lips. + +"And no more trouble with Max, hein?--you Ciccio?" said Madame, +still with the amiable intonation and the same black, watching eyes. +"No more of these stupid scenes, hein? What? Do you answer me." + +"No more from me," he said, looking up at her with a narrow, +cat-like look in his derisive eyes. + +"Ho? No? No more? Good then! It is good! We are glad, aren't we, +Miss Houghton, that Ciccio has come back and there are to be no +more rows?--hein?--aren't we?" + +"_I'm_ awfully glad," said Alvina. + +"Awfully glad--yes--awfully glad! You hear, you Ciccio. And you +remember another time. What? Don't you? He?" + +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? He? What you think? +What you say?" + +"Yes," said Ciccio, again looking up at her with his yellow, +glinting eyes. + +"All right! All right then! It is all right--forgotten--" Madame +sounded quite frank and restored. But the sullen watchfulness in her +eyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio's, as he glanced at her, +showed another state behind the obviousness of the words. "And Miss +Houghton is one of us! Yes? She has united us once more, and so she +has become one of us." Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round +white face. + +"I should love to be one of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras," said Alvina. + +"Yes--well--why not? Why not become one? Why not? What you say, +Ciccio? You can play the piano, perhaps do other things. Perhaps +better than Kishwegin. What you say, Ciccio, should she not join us? +Is she not one of us?" + +He smiled and showed his teeth but did not answer. + +"Well, what is it? Say then? Shall she not?" + +"Yes," said Ciccio, unwilling to commit himself. + +"Yes, so I say! So I say. Quite a good idea! We will think of it, +and speak perhaps to your father, and you shall come! Yes." + +So the two women returned to Woodhouse by the tram-car, while Ciccio +rode home on his bicycle. It was surprising how little Madame and +Alvina found to say to one another. + +Madame effected the reunion of her troupe, and all seemed pretty +much as before. She had decided to dance the next night, the +Saturday night. On Sunday the party would leave for Warsall, about +thirty miles away, to fulfil their next engagement. + +That evening Ciccio, whenever he had a moment to spare, watched +Alvina. She knew it. But she could not make out what his watching +meant. In the same way he might have watched a serpent, had he found +one gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively, +but persistently. And yet he did not want to meet her glance. He +avoided her, and watched her. As she saw him standing, in his +negligent, muscular, slouching fashion, with his head dropped +forward, and his eyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. But +there was a sort of _finesse_ about his face. His skin was +delicately tawny, and slightly lustrous. The eyes were set in so +dark, that one expected them to be black and flashing. And then one +met the yellow pupils, sulphureous and remote. It was like meeting a +lion. His long, fine nose, his rather long, rounded chin and curling +lips seemed refined through ages of forgotten culture. He was +waiting: silent there, with something muscular and remote about his +very droop, he was waiting. What for? Alvina could not guess. She +wanted to meet his eye, to have an open understanding with him. But +he would not. When she went up to talk to him, he answered in his +stupid fashion, with a smile of the mouth and no change of the eyes, +saying nothing at all. Obstinately he held away from her. When he +was in his war-paint, for one moment she hated his muscular, +handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid and full. The fine +sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly. +Ciccio's velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so +full and softly powerful, sickened her. + +She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing +Kishwegin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had +avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina--elusive and yet +conscious, a distance, and yet a connection. + +Madame danced beautifully. No denying it, she was an artist. She +became something quite different: fresh, virginal, pristine, a magic +creature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and +attractive. Her _braves_ became glamorous and heroic at once, and +magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for +Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow +which surrounded Kishwegin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now: +without war-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time +suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and +remote. A stranger--and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano, +almost in tears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had +nothing to do with it. + +Madame, with her long dark hair hanging in finely-brushed tresses, +her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How +soft she was on her feet. How humble and remote she seemed, as +across a chasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an +eternity of inaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the +dead bear was exquisite: her dark, secretive curiosity, her +admiration of the massive, male strength of the creature, her +quivers of triumph over the dead beast, her cruel exultation, and +her fear that he was not really dead. It was a lovely sight, +suggesting the world's morning, before Eve had bitten any +white-fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky, dark-eyed, and +still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the white prisoner! Now +indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Her fascination +was ruthless. She kneeled by the dead _brave_, her husband, as she +had knelt by the bear: in fear and admiration and doubt and +exultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot. Dead +meat like the bear! And a flash of delight went over her, that +changed into a sob of mortal anguish. And then, flickering, wicked, +doubtful, she watched Ciccio wrestling with the bear. + +She was the clue to all the action, was Kishwegin. And her dark +_braves_ seemed to become darker, more secret, malevolent, burning +with a cruel fire, and at the same time wistful, knowing their end. +Ciccio laughed in a strange way, as he wrestled with the bear, as he +had never laughed on the previous evenings. The sound went out into +the audience, a soft, malevolent, derisive sound. And when the bear +was supposed to have crushed him, and he was to have fallen, he +reeled out of the bear's arms and said to Madame, in his derisive +voice: + +"Vivo sempre, Madame." And then he fell. + +Madame stopped as if shot, hearing his words: "I am still alive, +Madame." She remained suspended motionless, suddenly wilted. Then +all at once her hand went to her mouth with a scream: + +"The Bear!" + +So the scene concluded itself. But instead of the tender, +half-wistful triumph of Kishwegin, a triumph electric as it should +have been when she took the white man's hand and kissed it, there +was a doubt, a hesitancy, a nullity, and Max did not quite know what +to do. + +After the performance, neither Madame nor Max dared say anything to +Ciccio about his innovation into the play. Louis felt he had to +speak--it was left to him. + +"I say, Cic'--" he said, "why did you change the scene? It might +have spoiled everything if Madame wasn't such a genius. Why did you +say that?" + +"Why," said Ciccio, answering Louis' French in Italian, "I am tired +of being dead, you see." + +Madame and Max heard in silence. + +When Alvina had played _God Save the King_ she went round behind the +stage. But Ciccio and Geoffrey had already packed up the property, +and left. Madame was talking to James Houghton. Louis and Max were +busy together. Mr. May came to Alvina. + +"Well," he said. "That closes another week. I think we've done very +well, in face of difficulties, don't you?" + +"Wonderfully," she said. + +But poor Mr. May spoke and looked pathetically. He seemed to feel +forlorn. Alvina was not attending to him. Her eye was roving. She +took no notice of him. + +Madame came up. + +"Well, Miss Houghton," she said, "time to say good-bye, I suppose." + +"How do you feel after dancing?" asked Alvina. + +"Well--not so strong as usual--but not so bad, you know. I shall be +all right--thanks to you. I think your father is more ill than I. To +me he looks very ill." + +"Father wears himself away," said Alvina. + +"Yes, and when we are no longer young, there is not so much to wear. +Well, I must thank you once more--" + +"What time do you leave in the morning?" + +"By the train at half-past ten. If it doesn't rain, the young men +will cycle--perhaps all of them. Then they will go when they like--" + +"I will come round to say good-bye--" said Alvina. + +"Oh no--don't disturb yourself--" + +"Yes, I want to take home the things--the kettle for the bronchitis, +and those things--" + +"Oh thank you very much--but don't trouble yourself. I will send +Ciccio with them--or one of the others--" + +"I should like to say good-bye to you all," persisted Alvina. + +Madame glanced round at Max and Louis. + +"Are we not all here? No. The two have gone. No! Well! Well what +time will you come?" + +"About nine?" + +"Very well, and I leave at ten. Very well. Then _au revoir_ till the +morning. Good-night." + +"Good-night," said Alvina. Her colour was rather flushed. + +She walked up with Mr. May, and hardly noticed he was there. After +supper, when James Houghton had gone up to count his pennies, Alvina +said to Miss Pinnegar: + +"Don't you think father looks rather seedy, Miss Pinnegar?" + +"I've been thinking so a long time," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. + +"What do you think he ought to do?" + +"He's killing himself down there, in all weathers and freezing in +that box-office, and then the bad atmosphere. He's killing himself, +that's all." + +"What can we do?" + +"Nothing so long as there's that place down there. Nothing at all." + +Alvina thought so too. So she went to bed. + +She was up in time, and watching the clock. It was a grey morning, +but not raining. At five minutes to nine, she hurried off to Mrs. +Rollings. In the back yard the bicycles were out, glittering and +muddy according to their owners. Ciccio was crouching mending a +tire, crouching balanced on his toes, near the earth. He turned like +a quick-eared animal glancing up as she approached, but did not +rise. + +"Are you getting ready to go?" she said, looking down at him. He +screwed his head round to her unwillingly, upside down, his chin +tilted up at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes +rested on his face, puzzled. His chin seemed so large, aggressive. +He was a little bit repellent and brutal, inverted. Yet she +continued: + +"Would you help me to carry back the things we brought for Madame?" + +He rose to his feet, but did not look at her. He was wearing broken +cycling shoes. He stood looking at his bicycle tube. + +"Not just yet," she said. "I want to say good-bye to Madame. Will +you come in half an hour?" + +"Yes, I will come," he said, still watching his bicycle tube, which +sprawled nakedly on the floor. The forward drop of his head was +curiously beautiful to her, the straight, powerful nape of the neck, +the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The way +the neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. +There was something mindless but _intent_ about the forward reach of +his head. His face seemed colourless, neutral-tinted and +expressionless. + +She went indoors. The young men were moving about making +preparations. + +"Come upstairs, Miss Houghton!" called Madame's voice from above. +Alvina mounted, to find Madame packing. + +"It is an uneasy moment, when we are busy to move," said Madame, +looking up at Alvina as if she were a stranger. + +"I'm afraid I'm in the way. But I won't stay a minute." + +"Oh, it is all right. Here are the things you brought--" Madame +indicated a little pile--"and thank you _very_ much, _very_ much. I +feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one little token of +my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionaires in the +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Just a little remembrance of our troublesome +visit to Woodhouse." + +She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, woven +in a weird, lovely pattern, with soft deerskin soles and sides. + +"They belong to Kishwegin, so it is Kishwegin who gives them to you, +because she is grateful to you for saving her life, or at least from +a long illness." + +"Oh--but I don't want to take them--" said Alvina. + +"You don't like them? Why?" + +"I think they're lovely, lovely! But I don't want to take them from +you--" + +"If I give them, you do not take them from me. You receive them. +He?" And Madame pressed back the slippers, opening her plump +jewelled hands in a gesture of finality. + +"But I don't like to take _these_," said Alvina. "I feel they belong +to Natcha-Kee-Tawara. And I don't want to rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara, do +I? Do take them back." + +"No, I have given them. You cannot rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara in taking a +pair of shoes--impossible!" + +"And I'm sure they are much too small for me." + +"Ha!" exclaimed Madame. "It is that! Try." + +"I know they are," said Alvina, laughing confusedly. + +She sat down and took off her own shoe. The moccasin was a little +too short--just a little. But it was charming on the foot, charming. + +"Yes," said Madame. "It is too short. Very well. I must find you +something else." + +"Please don't," said Alvina. "Please don't find me anything. I don't +want anything. Please!" + +"What?" said Madame, eyeing her closely. "You don't want? Why? You +don't want anything from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, or from Kishwegin? He? +From which?" + +"Don't give me anything, please," said Alvina. + +"All right! All right then. I won't. I won't give you anything. I +can't give you anything you want from Natcha-Kee-Tawara." + +And Madame busied herself again with the packing. + +"I'm awfully sorry you are going," said Alvina. + +"Sorry? Why? Yes, so am I sorry we shan't see you any more. Yes, so +I am. But perhaps we shall see you another time--he? I shall send +you a post-card. Perhaps I shall send one of the young men on his +bicycle, to bring you something which I shall buy for you. Yes? +Shall I?" + +"Oh! I should be awfully glad--but don't buy--" Alvina checked +herself in time. "Don't buy anything. Send me a little thing from +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. I _love_ the slippers--" + +"But they are too small," said Madame, who had been watching her +with black eyes that read every motive. Madame too had her +avaricious side, and was glad to get back the slippers. "Very +well--very well, I will do that. I will send you some small thing +from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, and one of the young men shall bring it. +Perhaps Ciccio? He?" + +"Thank you _so_ much," said Alvina, holding out her hand. "Good-bye. +I'm so sorry you're going." + +"Well--well! We are not going so very far. Not so very far. Perhaps +we shall see each other another day. It may be. Good-bye!" + +Madame took Alvina's hand, and smiled at her winsomely all at once, +kindly, from her inscrutable black eyes. A sudden unusual kindness. +Alvina flushed with surprise and a desire to cry. + +"Yes. I am sorry you are not with Natcha-Kee-Tawara. But we shall +see. Good-bye. I shall do my packing." + +Alvina carried down the things she had to remove. Then she went to +say good-bye to the young men, who were in various stages of their +toilet. Max alone was quite presentable. + +Ciccio was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire. She +watched his brown thumbs press it into place. He was quick and sure, +much more capable, and even masterful, than you would have supposed, +seeing his tawny Mediterranean hands. He spun the wheel round, +patting it lightly. + +"Is it finished?" + +"Yes, I think." He reached his pump and blew up the tire. She +watched his softly-applied force. What physical, muscular force +there was in him. Then he swung round the bicycle, and stood it +again on its wheels. After which he quickly folded his tools. + +"Will you come now?" she said. + +He turned, rubbing his hands together, and drying them on an old +cloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his cap, and +picked up the things from the table. + +"Where are you going?" Max asked. + +Ciccio jerked his head towards Alvina. + +"Oh, allow me to carry them, Miss Houghton. He is not fit--" said +Max. + +True, Ciccio had no collar on, and his shoes were burst. + +"I don't mind," said Alvina hastily. "He knows where they go. He +brought them before." + +"But I will carry them. I am dressed. Allow me--" and he began to +take the things. "You get dressed, Ciccio." + +Ciccio looked at Alvina. + +"Do you want?" he said, as if waiting for orders. + +"Do let Ciccio take them," said Alvina to Max. "Thank you _ever_ so +much. But let him take them." + +So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morning streets, with the +Italian, who was down at heel and encumbered with an armful of +sick-room apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he said +nothing. + +"We will go in this way," she said, suddenly opening the hall door. +She had unlocked it before she went out, for that entrance was +hardly ever used. So she showed the Italian into the sombre +drawing-room, with its high black bookshelves with rows and rows of +calf-bound volumes, its old red and flowered carpet, its grand piano +littered with music. Ciccio put down the things as she directed, and +stood with his cap in his hands, looking aside. + +"Thank you so much," she said, lingering. + +He curled his lips in a faint deprecatory smile. + +"Nothing," he murmured. + +His eye had wandered uncomfortably up to a portrait on the wall. + +"That was my mother," said Alvina. + +He glanced down at her, but did not answer. + +"I am so sorry you're going away," she said nervously. She stood +looking up at him with wide blue eyes. + +The faint smile grew on the lower part of his face, which he kept +averted. Then he looked at her. + +"We have to move," he said, with his eyes watching her reservedly, +his mouth twisting with a half-bashful smile. + +"Do you like continually going away?" she said, her wide blue eyes +fixed on his face. + +He nodded slightly. + +"We have to do it. I like it." + +What he said meant nothing to him. He now watched her fixedly, with +a slightly mocking look, and a reserve he would not relinquish. + +"Do you think I shall ever see you again?" she said. + +"Should you like--?" he answered, with a sly smile and a faint +shrug. + +"I should like awfully--" a flush grew on her cheek. She heard Miss +Pinnegar's scarcely audible step approaching. + +He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up the +corners of his eyes slyly, his nose seeming slyly to sharpen. + +"All right. Next week, eh? In the morning?" + +"Do!" cried Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar came through the door. He +glanced quickly over his shoulder. + +"Oh!" cried Miss Pinnegar. "I couldn't imagine who it was." She eyed +the young fellow sharply. + +"Couldn't you?" said Alvina. "We brought back these things." + +"Oh yes. Well--you'd better come into the other room, to the fire," +said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I shall go along. Good-bye!" said Ciccio, and with a slight bow to +Alvina, and a still slighter to Miss Pinnegar, he was out of the +room and out of the front door, as if turning tail. + +"I suppose they're going this morning," said Miss Pinnegar. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE + + +Alvina wept when the Natchas had gone. She loved them so much, she +wanted to be with them. Even Ciccio she regarded as only one of the +Natchas. She looked forward to his coming as to a visit from the +troupe. + +How dull the theatre was without them! She was tired of the +Endeavour. She wished it did not exist. The rehearsal on the Monday +morning bored her terribly. Her father was nervous and irritable. +The previous week had tried him sorely. He had worked himself into a +state of nervous apprehension such as nothing would have justified, +unless perhaps, if the wooden walls of the Endeavour had burnt to +the ground, with James inside victimized like another Samson. He had +developed a nervous horror of all artistes. He did not feel safe for +one single moment whilst he depended on a single one of them. + +"We shall have to convert into all pictures," he said in a nervous +fever to Mr. May. "Don't make any more engagements after the end of +next month." + +"Really!" said Mr. May. "Really! Have you quite decided?" + +"Yes quite! Yes quite!" James fluttered. "I have written about a new +machine, and the supply of films from Chanticlers." + +"Really!" said Mr. May. "Oh well then, in that case--" But he was +filled with dismay and chagrin. + +"Of cauce," he said later to Alvina, "I can't _possibly_ stop on if +we are nothing but a picture show!" And he arched his blanched and +dismal eyelids with ghastly finality. + +"Why?" cried Alvina. + +"Oh--why!" He was rather ironic. "Well, it's not my line at _all_. +I'm not a _film-operator_!" And he put his head on one side with a +grimace of contempt and superiority. + +"But you are, as well," said Alvina. + +"Yes, _as well_. But not _only_! You _may_ wash the dishes in the +scullery. But you're not only the _char_, are you?" + +"But is it the same?" cried Alvina. + +"Of cauce!" cried Mr. May. "Of _cauce_ it's the same." + +Alvina laughed, a little heartlessly, into his pallid, stricken +eyes. + +"But what will you do?" she asked. + +"I shall have to look for something else," said the injured but +dauntless little man. "There's nothing _else_, is there?" + +"Wouldn't you stay on?" she asked. + +"I wouldn't think of it. I wouldn't think of it." He turtled like an +injured pigeon. + +"Well," she said, looking laconically into his face: "It's between +you and father--" + +"Of _cauce_!" he said. "Naturally! Where else--!" But his tone was a +little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes on Alvina. + +Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, judicious but aloof, "it's a move in the +right direction. But I doubt if it'll do any good." + +"Do you?" said Alvina. "Why?" + +"I don't believe in the place, and I never did," declared Miss +Pinnegar. "I don't believe any good will come of it." + +"But why?" persisted Alvina. "What makes you feel so sure about it?" + +"I don't know. But that's how I feel. And I have from the first. It +was wrong from the first. It was wrong to begin it." + +"But why?" insisted Alvina, laughing. + +"Your father had no business to be led into it. He'd no business to +touch this show business. It isn't like him. It doesn't belong to +him. He's gone against his own nature and his own life." + +"Oh but," said Alvina, "father was a showman even in the shop. He +always was. Mother said he was like a showman in a booth." + +Miss Pinnegar was taken aback. + +"Well!" she said sharply. "If _that's_ what you've seen in +him!"--there was a pause. "And in that case," she continued tartly, +"I think some of the showman has come out in his daughter! or +show-woman!--which doesn't improve it, to my idea." + +"Why is it any worse?" said Alvina. "I enjoy it--and so does +father." + +"No," cried Miss Pinnegar. "There you're wrong! There you make a +mistake. It's all against his better nature." + +"Really!" said Alvina, in surprise. "What a new idea! But which is +father's better nature?" + +"You may not know it," said Miss Pinnegar coldly, "and if so, I can +never tell you. But that doesn't alter it." She lapsed into dead +silence for a moment. Then suddenly she broke out, vicious and cold: +"He'll go on till he's killed himself, and _then_ he'll know." + +The little adverb _then_ came whistling across the space like a +bullet. It made Alvina pause. Was her father going to die? She +reflected. Well, all men must die. + +She forgot the question in others that occupied her. First, could +she bear it, when the Endeavour was turned into another cheap and +nasty film-shop? The strange figures of the artistes passing under +her observation had really entertained her, week by week. Some weeks +they had bored her, some weeks she had detested them, but there was +always a chance in the coming week. Think of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras! + +She thought too much of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She knew it. And she +tried to force her mind to the contemplation of the new state of +things, when she banged at the piano to a set of dithering and +boring pictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr. May--or +a new operator, a new manager. The new manager!--she thought of him +for a moment--and thought of the mechanical factory-faced persons +who _managed_ Wright's and the Woodhouse Empire. + +But her mind fell away from this barren study. She was obsessed by +the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. They seemed to have fascinated her. Which of +them it was, or what it was that had cast the spell over her, she +did not know. But she was as if hypnotized. She longed to be with +them. Her soul gravitated towards them all the time. + +Monday passed, and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: and +Wednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping their +promise--either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their +promise? She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her soul was +stubborn within her. + +On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the Endeavour. Mr. +May found James Houghton fainting in the box-office after the +performance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina, +nor the performance. He sent the chocolate-and-orange boy across to +the Pear Tree for brandy. + +James revived. "I'm all right," he said, in a brittle fashion. "I'm +all right. Don't bother." So he sat with his head on his hand in the +box-office, and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the film. + +When the interval arrived, Mr. May hurried to the box-office, a +narrow hole that James could just sit in, and there he found the +invalid in the same posture, semi-conscious. He gave him more +brandy. + +"I'm all right, I tell you," said James, his eyes flaring. "Leave me +alone." But he looked anything but all right. + +Mr. May hurried for Alvina. When the daughter entered the ticket +place, her father was again in a state of torpor. + +"Father," she said, shaking his shoulder gently. "What's the +matter." + +He murmured something, but was incoherent. She looked at his face. +It was grey and blank. + +"We shall have to get him home," she said. "We shall have to get a +cab." + +"Give him a little brandy," said Mr. May. + +The boy was sent for the cab, James swallowed a spoonful of brandy. +He came to himself irritably. + +"What? What," he said. "I won't have all this fuss. Go on with the +performance, there's no need to bother about me." His eye was wild. + +"You must go home, father," said Alvina. + +"Leave me alone! Will you leave me alone! Hectored by women all my +life--hectored by women--first one, then another. I won't stand +it--I won't stand it--" He looked at Alvina with a look of frenzy as +he lapsed again, fell with his head on his hands on his +ticket-board. Alvina looked at Mr. May. + +"We must get him home," she said. She covered him up with a coat, +and sat by him. The performance went on without music. At last the +cab came. James, unconscious, was driven up to Woodhouse. He had to +be carried indoors. Alvina hurried ahead to make a light in the dark +passage. + +"Father's ill!" she announced to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Didn't I say so!" said Miss Pinnegar, starting from her chair. + +The two women went out to meet the cab-man, who had James in his +arms. + +"Can you manage?" cried Alvina, showing a light. + +"He doesn't weigh much," said the man. + +"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!" went Miss Pinnegar's tongue, in a rapid +tut-tut of distress. "What have I said, now," she exclaimed. "What +have I said all along?" + +James was laid on the sofa. His eyes were half-shut. They made him +drink brandy, the boy was sent for the doctor, Alvina's bed was +warmed. The sick man was got to bed. And then started another vigil. +Alvina sat up in the sick room. James started and muttered, but did +not regain consciousness. Dawn came, and he was the same. Pneumonia +and pleurisy and a touch of meningitis. Alvina drank her tea, took a +little breakfast, and went to bed at about nine o'clock in the +morning, leaving James in charge of Miss Pinnegar. Time was all +deranged. + +Miss Pinnegar was a nervous nurse. She sat in horror and +apprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James in +terror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what she +could. But one would have said she was repulsed, she found her task +unconsciously repugnant. + +During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings came up and said that +the Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to Miss +Houghton. + +"Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Houghton is seriously ill," said +Miss Pinnegar sharply. + +When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon she found +a package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame: "To +Miss Houghton, with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks from +Kishwegin." + +The comb with its carved, beast-faced serpent was her portion. +Alvina asked if there had been any other message. None. + +Mr. May came in, and stayed for a dismal half-hour. Then Alvina went +back to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious. +Miss Pinnegar came down, red eyed and sullen looking. The condition +of James gave little room for hope. + +In the early morning he died. Alvina called Mrs. Rollings, and they +composed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and not light. +Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly +chamber at the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could +not. At half-past seven she arose, and started the business of the +new day. The doctor came--she went to the registrar--and so on. + +Mr. May came. It was decided to keep open the theatre. He would find +some one else for the piano, some one else to issue the tickets. + +In the afternoon arrived Frederick Houghton, James's cousin and +nearest relative. He was a middle-aged, blond, florid, church-going +draper from Knarborough, well-to-do and very _bourgeois_. He tried +to talk to Alvina in a fatherly fashion, or a friendly, or a helpful +fashion. But Alvina could not listen to him. He got on her nerves. + +Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She was +in the drawing-room with her cousin, to give the interview its +proper air of solemnity. She saw Ciccio rearing his yellow bicycle +against the wall, and going with his head forward along the narrow, +dark way of the back yard, to the scullery door. + +"Excuse me a minute," she said to her cousin, who looked up +irritably as she left the room. + +She was just in time to open the door as Ciccio tapped. She stood on +the doorstep above him. He looked up, with a faint smile, from under +his black lashes. + +"How nice of you to come," she said. But her face was blanched and +tired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in their +tiredness, as she glanced down at Ciccio. He seemed to her far away. + +"Madame asks how is Mr. Houghton," he said. + +"Father! He died this morning," she said quietly. + +"He died!" exclaimed the Italian, a flash of fear and dismay going +over his face. + +"Yes--this morning." She had neither tears nor emotion, but just +looked down on him abstractedly, from her height on the kitchen +step. He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his +eyes again, and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from +across a distance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a +wide, abstract distance. + +He turned and looked down the dark yard, towards the gate where he +could just see the pale grey tire of his bicycle, and the yellow +mud-guard. He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went for +ever. Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina, +as if studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep, +neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to +see him. He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes, +until she met his look. And then he gave the faintest gesture with his +head, as of summons towards him. Her soul started, and died in her. And +again he gave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head, +backwards and sideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too +was closed and expressionless. But in his eyes, which kept hers, there +was a dark flicker of ascendancy. He was going to triumph over her. She +knew it. And her soul sank as if it sank out of her body. It sank away +out of her body, left her there powerless, soulless. + +And yet as he turned, with his head stretched forward, to move away: +as he glanced slightly over his shoulder: she stepped down from the +step, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the +dark yard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was +a corner made by a shed. Here he turned, lingeringly, to her, and +she lingered in front of him. + +Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awful +submission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him, +like a victim. There was a faint smile in his eyes. He stretched +forward over her. + +"You love me? Yes?--Yes?" he said, in a voice that seemed like a +palpable contact on her. + +"Yes," she whispered involuntarily, soulless, like a victim. He put +his arm round her, subtly, and lifted her. + +"Yes," he re-echoed, almost mocking in his triumph. "Yes. Yes!" And +smiling, he kissed her, delicately, with a certain finesse of +knowledge. She moaned in spirit, in his arms, felt herself dead, +dead. And he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse which +seemed like coals of fire on her head. + +They heard footsteps. Miss Pinnegar was coming to look for her. +Ciccio set her down, looked long into her eyes, inscrutably, +smiling, and said: + +"I come tomorrow." + +With which he ducked and ran out of the yard, picking up his bicycle +like a feather, and, taking no notice of Miss Pinnegar, letting the +yard-door bang to behind him. + +"Alvina!" said Miss Pinnegar. + +But Alvina did not answer. She turned, slipped past, ran indoors and +upstairs to the little bare bedroom she had made her own. She locked +the door and kneeled down on the floor, bowing down her head to her +knees in a paroxysm on the floor. In a paroxysm--because she loved +him. She doubled herself up in a paroxysm on her knees on the +floor--because she loved him. It was far more like pain, like agony, +than like joy. She swayed herself to and fro in a paroxysm of +unbearable sensation, because she loved him. + +Miss Pinnegar came and knocked at the door. + +"Alvina! Alvina! Oh, you are there! Whatever are you doing? Aren't +you coming down to speak to your cousin?" + +"Soon," said Alvina. + +And taking a pillow from the bed, she crushed it against herself and +swayed herself unconsciously, in her orgasm of unbearable feeling. +Right in her bowels she felt it--the terrible, unbearable feeling. +How could she bear it. + +She crouched over until she became still. A moment of stillness +seemed to cover her like sleep: an eternity of sleep in that one +second. Then she roused and got up. She went to the mirror, still, +evanescent, and tidied her hair, smoothed her face. She was so +still, so remote, she felt that nothing, nothing could ever touch +her. + +And so she went downstairs, to that horrible cousin of her father's. +She seemed so intangible, remote and virginal, that her cousin and +Miss Pinnegar both failed to make anything of her. She answered +their questions simply, but did not talk. They talked to each other. +And at last the cousin went away, with a profound dislike of Miss +Alvina. + +She did not notice. She was only glad he was gone. And she went +about for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept deeply +that night, without dreams. + +The next day was Saturday. It came with a great storm of wind and +rain and hail: a fury. Alvina looked out in dismay. She knew Ciccio +would not be able to come--he could not cycle, and it was impossible +to get by train and return the same day. She was almost relieved. +She was relieved by the intermission of fate, she was thankful for +the day of neutrality. + +In the early afternoon came a telegram: Coming both tomorrow morning +deepest sympathy Madame. Tomorrow was Sunday: and the funeral was in +the afternoon. Alvina felt a burning inside her, thinking of Ciccio. +She winced--and yet she wanted him to come. Terribly she wanted him +to come. + +She showed the telegram to Miss Pinnegar. + +"Good gracious!" said the weary Miss Pinnegar. "Fancy those people. +And I warrant they'll want to be at the funeral. As if he was +anything to _them_--" + +"I think it's very nice of her," said Alvina. + +"Oh well," said Miss Pinnegar. "If you think so. I don't fancy he +would have wanted such people following, myself. And what does she +mean by _both_. Who's the other?" Miss Pinnegar looked sharply at +Alvina. + +"Ciccio," said Alvina. + +"The Italian! Why goodness me! What's _he_ coming for? I can't make +you out, Alvina. Is that his name, Chicho? I never heard such a +name. Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. There won't be room +for them in the cabs." + +"We'll order another." + +"More expense. I never knew such impertinent people--" + +But Alvina did not hear her. On the next morning she dressed herself +carefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Carefully she did +her hair. Ciccio and Madame were coming. The thought of Ciccio made +her shudder. She hung about, waiting. Luckily none of the funeral +guests would arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless, +musing, by the fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to +Miss Pinnegar and Mrs. Rollings. Miss Pinnegar, red-eyed and +yellow-skinned, was irritable beyond words. + +It was nearly mid-day when Alvina heard the gate. She hurried to +open the front door. Madame was in her little black hat and her +black spotted veil, Ciccio in a black overcoat was closing the yard +door behind her. + +"Oh, my dear girl!" Madame cried, trotting forward with outstretched +black-kid hands, one of which held an umbrella: "I am so shocked--I +am so shocked to hear of your poor father. Am I to believe it?--am I +really? No, I can't." + +She lifted her veil, kissed Alvina, and dabbed her eyes. Ciccio came +up the steps. He took off his hat to Alvina, smiled slightly as he +passed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door +and ushered them into the drawing-room. + +Madame looked round like a bird, examining the room and the +furniture. She was evidently a little impressed. But all the time +she was uttering her condolences. + +"Tell me, poor girl, how it happened?" + +"There isn't much to tell," said Alvina, and she gave the brief +account of James's illness and death. + +"Worn out! Worn out!" Madame said, nodding slowly up and down. Her +black veil, pushed up, sagged over her brows like a mourning band. +"You cannot afford to waste the stamina. And will you keep on the +theatre--with Mr. May--?" + +Ciccio was sitting looking towards the fire. His presence made +Alvina tremble. She noticed how the fine black hair of his head +showed no parting at all--it just grew like a close cap, and was +pushed aside at the forehead. Sometimes he looked at her, as Madame +talked, and again looked at her, and looked away. + +At last Madame came to a halt. There was a long pause. + +"You will stay to the funeral?" said Alvina. + +"Oh my dear, we shall be too much--" + +"No," said Alvina. "I have arranged for you--" + +"There! You think of everything. But I will come, not Ciccio. He +will not trouble you." + +Ciccio looked up at Alvina. + +"I should like him to come," said Alvina simply. But a deep flush +began to mount her face. She did not know where it came from, she +felt so cold. And she wanted to cry. + +Madame watched her closely. + +"Siamo di accordo," came the voice of Ciccio. + +Alvina and Madame both looked at him. He sat constrained, with his +face averted, his eyes dropped, but smiling. + +Madame looked closely at Alvina. + +"Is it true what he says?" she asked. + +"I don't understand him," said Alvina. "I don't understand what he +said." + +"That you have agreed with him--" + +Madame and Ciccio both watched Alvina as she sat in her new black +dress. Her eyes involuntarily turned to his. + +"I don't know," she said vaguely. "Have I--?" and she looked at him. + +Madame kept silence for some moments. Then she said gravely: + +"Well!--yes!--well!" She looked from one to another. "Well, there is +a lot to consider. But if you have decided--" + +Neither of them answered. Madame suddenly rose and went to Alvina. +She kissed her on either cheek. + +"I shall protect you," she said. + +Then she returned to her seat. + +"What have you said to Miss Houghton?" she said suddenly to Ciccio, +tackling him direct, and speaking coldly. + +He looked at Madame with a faint derisive smile. Then he turned to +Alvina. She bent her head and blushed. + +"Speak then," said Madame, "you have a reason." She seemed +mistrustful of him. + +But he turned aside his face, and refused to speak, sitting as if he +were unaware of Madame's presence. + +"Oh well," said Madame. "I shall be there, Signorino." + +She spoke with a half-playful threat. Ciccio curled his lip. + +"You do not know him yet," she said, turning to Alvina. + +"I know that," said Alvina, offended. Then she added: "Wouldn't you +like to take off your hat?" + +"If you truly wish me to stay," said Madame. + +"Yes, please do. And will you hang your coat in the hall?" she said +to Ciccio. + +"Oh!" said Madame roughly. "He will not stay to eat. He will go out +to somewhere." + +Alvina looked at him. + +"Would you rather?" she said. + +He looked at her with sardonic yellow eyes. + +"If you want," he said, the awkward, derisive smile curling his lips +and showing his teeth. + +She had a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The +thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her +sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world +face that decided her--for it sent the deep spasm across her. + +"I'd like you to stay," she said. + +A smile of triumph went over his face. Madame watched him stonily as +she stood beside her chair, one hand lightly balanced on her hip. +Alvina was reminded of Kishwegin. But even in Madame's stony +mistrust there was an element of attraction towards him. He had +taken his cigarette case from his pocket. + +"On ne fume pas dans le salon," said Madame brutally. + +"Will you put your coat in the passage?--and do smoke if you wish," +said Alvina. + +He rose to his feet and took off his overcoat. His face was +obstinate and mocking. He was rather floridly dressed, though in +black, and wore boots of black patent leather with tan uppers. +Handsome he was--but undeniably in bad taste. The silver ring was +still on his finger--and his close, fine, unparted hair went badly +with smart English clothes. He looked common--Alvina confessed it. +And her heart sank. But what was she to do? He evidently was not +happy. Obstinacy made him stick out the situation. + +Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the dead +James. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face, and crossed +herself as she wept. + +"Un bel homme, cependant," she whispered. "Mort en un jour. C'est +trop fort, voyez!" And she sniggered with fear and sobs. + +They went down to Alvina's bare room. Madame glanced round, as she +did in every room she entered. + +"This was father's bedroom," said Alvina. "The other was mine. He +wouldn't have it anything but like this--bare." + +"Nature of a monk, a hermit," whispered Madame. "Who would have +thought it! Ah, the men, the men!" + +And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the small +mirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stood +waiting. + +"And now--" whispered Madame, suddenly turning: "What about this +Ciccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voice +above a whisper, upstairs there. But so it was. + +She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvina +looked back at her, but did not know what to say. + +"What about him, hein? Will you marry him? Why will you?" + +"I suppose because I like him," said Alvina, flushing. + +Madame made a little grimace. + +"Oh yes!" she whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. "Oh +yes!--because you like him! But you know nothing _of_ him--nothing. +How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a real bad +character. How would you like him then?" + +"He isn't, is he?" said Alvina. + +"I don't know. I don't know. He may be. Even I, I don't know +him--no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He +is a man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist's model. He +sticks to nothing--" + +"How old is he?" asked Alvina. + +"He is twenty-five--a boy only. And you? You are older." + +"Thirty," confessed Alvina. + +"Thirty! Well now--so much difference! How can you trust him? How +can you? Why does he want to marry you--why?" + +"I don't know--" said Alvina. + +"No, and I don't know. But I know something of these Italian men, +who are labourers in every country, just labourers and under-men +always, always down, down, down--" And Madame pressed her spread +palms downwards. "And so--when they have a chance to come up--" she +raised her hand with a spring--"they are very conceited, and they +take their chance. He will want to rise, by you, and you will go +down, with him. That is how it is. I have seen it before--yes--more +than one time--" + +"But," said Alvina, laughing ruefully. "He can't rise much because +of me, can he?" + +"How not? How not? In the first place, you are English, and he +thinks to rise by that. Then you are not of the lower class, you are +of the higher class, the class of the masters, such as employ Ciccio +and men like him. How will he not rise in the world by you? Yes, he +will rise very much. Or he will draw you down, down--Yes, one or +another. And then he thinks that now you have money--now your father +is dead--" here Madame glanced apprehensively at the closed +door--"and they all like money, yes, very much, all Italians--" + +"Do they?" said Alvina, scared. "I'm sure there won't _be_ any +money. I'm sure father is in debt." + +"What? You think? Do you? Really? Oh poor Miss Houghton! Well--and +will you tell Ciccio that? Eh? Hein?" + +"Yes--certainly--if it matters," said poor Alvina. + +"Of course it matters. Of course it matters very much. It matters to +him. Because he will not have much. He saves, saves, saves, as they +all do, to go back to Italy and buy a piece of land. And if he has +you, it will cost him much more, he cannot continue with +Natcha-Kee-Tawara. All will be much more difficult--" + +"Oh, I will tell him in time," said Alvina, pale at the lips. + +"You will tell him! Yes. That is better. And then you will see. But +he is obstinate--as a mule. And if he will still have you, then you +must think. Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man, +a dirty Eyetalian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not +pleasant for you, who have not known it. I also have not known it. +But I have seen--" Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while +Madame darted looks, as from bright, deep black glass. + +"Yes," said Alvina. "I should hate being a labourer's wife in a +nasty little house in a street--" + +"In a house?" cried Madame. "It would not be in a house. They live +many together in one house. It would be two rooms, or even one room, +in another house with many people not quite clean, you see--" + +Alvina shook her head. + +"I couldn't stand that," she said finally. + +"No!" Madame nodded approval. "No! you could not. They live in a bad +way, the Italians. They do not know the English home--never. They +don't like it. Nor do they know the Swiss clean and proper house. +No. They don't understand. They run into their holes to sleep or to +shelter, and that is all." + +"The same in Italy?" said Alvina. + +"Even more--because there it is sunny very often--" + +"And you don't need a house," said Alvina. "I should like that." + +"Yes, it is nice--but you don't know the life. And you would be +alone with people like animals. And if you go to Italy he will beat +you--he will beat you--" + +"If I let him," said Alvina. + +"But you can't help it, away there from everybody. Nobody will help +you. If you are a wife in Italy, nobody will help you. You are his +property, when you marry by Italian law. It is not like England. +There is no divorce in Italy. And if he beats you, you are +helpless--" + +"But why should he beat me?" said Alvina. "Why should he want to?" + +"They do. They are so jealous. And then they go into their +ungovernable tempers, horrible tempers--" + +"Only when they are provoked," said Alvina, thinking of Max. + +"Yes, but you will not know what provokes him. Who can _say_ when he +will be provoked? And then he beats you--" + +There seemed to be a gathering triumph in Madame's bright black +eyes. Alvina looked at her, and turned to the door. + +"At any rate I know now," she said, in rather a flat voice. + +"And it is _true_. It is all of it true," whispered Madame +vindictively. Alvina wanted to run from her. + +"I _must_ go to the kitchen," she said. "Shall we go down?" + +Alvina did not go into the drawing-room with Madame. She was too +much upset, and she had almost a horror of seeing Ciccio at that +moment. + +Miss Pinnegar, her face stained carmine by the fire, was helping +Mrs. Rollings with the dinner. + +"Are they both staying, or only one?" she said tartly. + +"Both," said Alvina, busying herself with the gravy, to hide her +distress and confusion. + +"The man as well," said Miss Pinnegar. "What does the woman want to +bring _him_ for? I'm sure I don't know what your father would say--a +common show-fellow, _looks_ what he is--and staying to dinner." + +Miss Pinnegar was thoroughly out of temper as she tried the +potatoes. Alvina set the table. Then she went to the drawing-room. + +"Will you come to dinner?" she said to her two guests. + +Ciccio rose, threw his cigarette into the fire, and looked round. +Outside was a faint, watery sunshine: but at least it was out of +doors. He felt himself imprisoned and out of his element. He had an +irresistible impulse to go. + +When he got into the hall he laid his hand on his hat. The stupid, +constrained smile was on his face. + +"I'll go now," he said. + +"We have set the table for you," said Alvina. + +"Stop now, since you have stopped for so long," said Madame, darting +her black looks at him. + +But he hurried on his coat, looking stupid. Madame lifted her +eyebrows disdainfully. + +"This is polite behaviour!" she said sarcastically. + +Alvina stood at a loss. + +"You return to the funeral?" said Madame coldly. + +He shook his head. + +"When you are ready to go," he said. + +"At four o'clock," said Madame, "when the funeral has come home. +Then we shall be in time for the train." + +He nodded, smiled stupidly, opened the door, and went. + +"This is just like him, to be so--so--" Madame could not express +herself as she walked down to the kitchen. + +"Miss Pinnegar, this is Madame," said Alvina. + +"How do you do?" said Miss Pinnegar, a little distant and +condescending. Madame eyed her keenly. + +"Where is the man? I don't know his name," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"He wouldn't stay," said Alvina. "What _is_ his name, Madame?" + +"Marasca--Francesco. Francesco Marasca--Neapolitan." + +"Marasca!" echoed Alvina. + +"It has a bad sound--a sound of a bad augury, bad sign," said +Madame. "Ma-ra-sca!" She shook her head at the taste of the +syllables. + +"Why do you think so?" said Alvina. "Do you think there is a meaning +in sounds? goodness and badness?" + +"Yes," said Madame. "Certainly. Some sounds are good, they are for +life, for creating, and some sounds are bad, they are for +destroying. Ma-ra-sca!--that is bad, like swearing." + +"But what sort of badness? What does it do?" said Alvina. + +"What does it do? It sends life down--down--instead of lifting it +up." + +"Why should things always go up? Why should life always go up?" said +Alvina. + +"I don't know," said Madame, cutting her meat quickly. There was a +pause. + +"And what about other names," interrupted Miss Pinnegar, a little +lofty. "What about Houghton, for example?" + +Madame put down her fork, but kept her knife in her hand. She looked +across the room, not at Miss Pinnegar. + +"Houghton--! Huff-ton!" she said. "When it is said, it has a sound +_against_: that is, against the neighbour, against humanity. But +when it is written _Hough-ton!_ then it is different, it is _for_." + +"It is always pronounced _Huff-ton_," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"By us," said Alvina. + +"We ought to know," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Madame turned to look at the unhappy, elderly woman. + +"You are a relative of the family?" she said. + +"No, not a relative. But I've been here many years," said Miss +Pinnegar. + +"Oh, yes!" said Madame. Miss Pinnegar was frightfully affronted. The +meal, with the three women at table, passed painfully. + +Miss Pinnegar rose to go upstairs and weep. She felt very forlorn. +Alvina rose to wipe the dishes, hastily, because the funeral guests +would all be coming. Madame went into the drawing-room to smoke her +sly cigarette. + +Mr. May was the first to turn up for the lugubrious affair: very +tight and tailored, but a little extinguished, all in black. He +never wore black, and was very unhappy in it, being almost morbidly +sensitive to the impression the colour made on him. He was set to +entertain Madame. + +She did not pretend distress, but sat black-eyed and watchful, very +much her business self. + +"What about the theatre?--will it go on?" she asked. + +"Well I don't know. I don't know Miss Houghton's intentions," said +Mr. May. He was a little stilted today. + +"It's hers?" said Madame. + +"Why, as far as I understand--" + +"And if she wants to sell out--?" + +Mr. May spread his hands, and looked dismal, but distant. + +"You should form a company, and carry on--" said Madame. + +Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing himself up in an odd +fashion, so that he looked as if he were trussed. But Madame's +shrewd black eyes and busy mind did not let him off. + +"Buy Miss Houghton out--" said Madame shrewdly. + +"Of cauce," said Mr. May. "Miss Houghton herself must decide." + +"Oh sure--! You--are you married?" + +"Yes." + +"Your wife here?" + +"My wife is in London." + +"And children--?" + +"A daughter." + +Madame slowly nodded her head up and down, as if she put thousands +of two-and-two's together. + +"You think there will be much to come to Miss Houghton?" she said. + +"Do you mean property? I really can't say. I haven't enquired." + +"No, but you have a good idea, eh?" + +"I'm afraid I haven't. + +"No! Well! It won't be much, then?" + +"Really, I don't know. I should say, not a _large_ fortune--!" + +"No--eh?" Madame kept him fixed with her black eyes. "Do you think +the other one will get anything?" + +"The _other one_--?" queried Mr. May, with an uprising cadence. +Madame nodded slightly towards the kitchen. + +"The old one--the Miss--Miss Pin--Pinny--what you call her." + +"Miss Pinnegar! The manageress of the work-girls? Really, I don't +know at all--" Mr. May was most freezing. + +"Ha--ha! Ha--ha!" mused Madame quietly. Then she asked: "Which +work-girls do you say?" + +And she listened astutely to Mr. May's forced account of the +work-room upstairs, extorting all the details she desired to gather. +Then there was a pause. Madame glanced round the room. + +"Nice house!" she said. "Is it their own?" + +"So I _believe_--" + +Again Madame nodded sagely. "Debts perhaps--eh? Mortgage--" and she +looked slyly sardonic. + +"Really!" said Mr. May, bouncing to his feet. "Do you mind if I go +to speak to Mrs. Rollings--" + +"Oh no--go along," said Madame, and Mr. May skipped out in a temper. + + + +Madame was left alone in her comfortable chair, studying details of +the room and making accounts in her own mind, until the actual +funeral guests began to arrive. And then she had the satisfaction of +sizing them up. Several arrived with wreaths. The coffin had been +carried down and laid in the small sitting-room--Mrs. Houghton's +sitting-room. It was covered with white wreaths and streamers of +purple ribbon. There was a crush and a confusion. + +And then at last the hearse and the cabs had arrived--the coffin was +carried out--Alvina followed, on the arm of her father's cousin, +whom she disliked. Miss Pinnegar marshalled the other mourners. It +was a wretched business. + +But it was a great funeral. There were nine cabs, besides the +hearse--Woodhouse had revived its ancient respect for the house of +Houghton. A posse of minor tradesmen followed the cabs--all in black +and with black gloves. The richer tradesmen sat in the cabs. + +Poor Alvina, this was the only day in all her life when she was the +centre of public attention. For once, every eye was upon her, every +mind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina! said every member of the +Woodhouse "middle class": Poor Alvina Houghton, said every collier's +wife. Poor thing, left alone--and hardly a penny to bless herself +with. Lucky if she's not left with a pile of debts. James Houghton +ran through some money in his day. Ay, if she had her rights she'd +be a rich woman. Why, her mother brought three or four thousands +with her. Ay, but James sank it all in Throttle-Ha'penny and +Klondyke and the Endeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He +paid his way. I'm not so sure about that. Look how he served his +wife, and now Alvina. I'm not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He +was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll +spend no more money, anyhow. No, he went sudden, didn't he? But he +was getting very frail, if you noticed. Oh yes, why he fair seemed +to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon as that place pays its way? +What, the Endeavour?--they say it does. They say it makes a nice +bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ay, it is. Perhaps it won't be +now Mr. Houghton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he _will_ leave +much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got's mortgaged up to the +hilt. He'll leave debts, you see if he doesn't. What is she going to +do then? She'll have to go out of Manchester House--her and Miss +Pinnegar. Wonder what she'll do. Perhaps she'll take up that +nursing. She never made much of that, did she--and spent a sight of +money on her training, they say. She's a bit like her father in the +business line--all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turn up +and marry her. I don't know, she doesn't seem to hook on, does she? +Why she's never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged +once. Ay, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was +on. Can you remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she? +No, I never knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, you +know, learning for his head master's place. Why didn't she marry him +then? Perhaps he never asked her. Ay, there's that to it. She'd have +looked down her nose at him, times gone by. Ay, but that's all over, +my boy. She'd snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that +manager. Why, _that's_ something awful. Haven't you ever watched her +in the Cinema? She never lets him alone. And it's anybody alike. Oh, +she doesn't respect herself. I don't consider. No girl who respected +herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller's +head. Does she, though? Ay, any performer or anybody. She's a tidy +age, though. She's not much chance of getting off. How old do you +reckon she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she +_looks_ it. She does beguy--a dragged old maid. Oh but she +sprightles up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on +to somebody. I wonder why she never did take? It's funny. Oh, she +was too high and mighty before, and now it's too late. Nobody wants +her. And she's got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that's +her father's cousin who she's walking with. Look, they're coming. +He's a fine-looking man, isn't he? You'd have thought they'd have +buried Miss Frost beside Mrs. Houghton. You would, wouldn't you? I +should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was +made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her +than her own mother. She _was_ good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvina +thought the world of her. That's her stone--look, down there. Not a +very grand one, considering. No, it isn't. Look, there's room for +Alvina's name underneath. Sh!-- + +Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the +many faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her +own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out +of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her--how she disliked +his presence. + +In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and her +father. She felt so desolate--it all seemed so empty. Bitterly she +cried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying started +Miss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather +horrible. The afterwards--the horrible afterwards. + +There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold +day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the open +grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black seal-skin +furs were not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by +the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in +the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother--and for Miss +Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would +have to part. Miss Pinnegar had been so fond of her father, in a +quaint, reserved way. Poor Miss Pinnegar, that was all life had +offered her. Well, after all, it had been a home and a home life. To +which home and home life Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning, +knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was +gone. Strange, that he was gone. But he was weary, worn very thin +and weary. He had lived his day. How different it all was, now, at +his death, from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and +thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and learn and lose. + +For one moment she looked at Madame, who was shuddering with cold, +her face hidden behind her black spotted veil. But Madame seemed +immensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio--what was his name? She +could not think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's +slow enunciation. Marasca--maraschino. Marasca! Maraschino! What was +maraschino? Where had she heard it. Cudgelling her brains, she +remembered the doctors, and the suppers after the theatre. And +maraschino--why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the +innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to +smack his lips, saying the word _maraschino_. Yet she didn't think +much of it. Hot, bitterish stuff--nothing: not like green +Chartreuse, which Dr. James gave her. Maraschino! Yes, that was it. +Made from cherries. Well, Ciccio's name was nearly the same. +Ridiculous! But she supposed Italian words were a good deal alike. + +Ciccio, the marasca, the bitter cherry, was standing on the edge of +the crowd, looking on. He had no connection whatever with the +proceedings--stood outside, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bitten by +the wind, and hating the people who stared at him. He saw the trim, +plump figure of Madame, like some trim plump partridge among a flock +of barn-yard fowls. And he depended on her presence. Without her, he +would have felt too horribly uncomfortable on that raw hillside. She +and he were in some way allied. But these others, how alien and +uncouth he felt them. Impressed by their fine clothes, the English +working-classes were none the less barbarians to him, uncivilized: +just as he was to them an uncivilized animal. Uncouth, they seemed +to him, all raw angles and harshness, like their own weather. Not +that he thought about them. But he felt it in his flesh, the +harshness and discomfort of them. And Alvina was one of them. As she +stood there by the grave, pale and pinched and reserved looking, she +was of a piece with the hideous cold grey discomfort of the whole +scene. Never had anything been more uncongenial to him. He was dying +to get away--to clear out. That was all he wanted. Only some +southern obstinacy made him watch, from the duskiness of his face, +the pale, reserved girl at the grave. Perhaps he even disliked her, +at that time. But he watched in his dislike. + +When the ceremony was over, and the mourners turned away to go back +to the cabs, Madame pressed forward to Alvina. + +"I shall say good-bye now, Miss Houghton. We must go to the station +for the train. And thank you, thank you. Good-bye." + +"But--" Alvina looked round. + +"Ciccio is there. I see him. We must catch the train." + +"Oh but--won't you drive? Won't you ask Ciccio to drive with you in +the cab? Where is he?" + +Madame pointed him out as he hung back among the graves, his black +hat cocked a little on one side. He was watching. Alvina broke away +from her cousin, and went to him. + +"Madame is going to drive to the station," she said. "She wants you +to get in with her." + +He looked round at the cabs. + +"All right," he said, and he picked his way across the graves to +Madame, following Alvina. + +"So, we go together in the cab," said Madame to him. Then: +"Good-bye, my dear Miss Houghton. Perhaps we shall meet once more. +Who knows? My heart is with you, my dear." She put her arms round +Alvina and kissed her, a little theatrically. The cousin looked on, +very much aloof. Ciccio stood by. + +"Come then, Ciccio," said Madame. + +"Good-bye," said Alvina to him. "You'll come again, won't you?" She +looked at him from her strained, pale face. + +"All right," he said, shaking her hand loosely. It sounded +hopelessly indefinite. + +"You will come, won't you?" she repeated, staring at him with +strained, unseeing blue eyes. + +"All right," he said, ducking and turning away. + +She stood quite still for a moment, quite lost. Then she went on +with her cousin to her cab, home to the funeral tea. + +"Good-bye!" Madame fluttered a black-edged handkerchief. But Ciccio, +most uncomfortable in his four-wheeler, kept hidden. + +The funeral tea, with its baked meats and sweets, was a terrible +affair. But it came to an end, as everything comes to an end, and +Miss Pinnegar and Alvina were left alone in the emptiness of +Manchester House. + +"If you weren't here, Miss Pinnegar, I should be quite by myself," +said Alvina, blanched and strained. + +"Yes. And so should I without you," said Miss Pinnegar doggedly. +They looked at each other. And that night both slept in Miss +Pinnegar's bed, out of sheer terror of the empty house. + +During the days following the funeral, no one could have been more +tiresome than Alvina. James had left everything to his daughter, +excepting some rights in the work-shop, which were Miss Pinnegar's. +But the question was, how much did "everything" amount to? There +was something less than a hundred pounds in the bank. There was a +mortgage on Manchester House. There were substantial bills owing on +account of the Endeavour. Alvina had about a hundred pounds left +from the insurance money, when all funeral expenses were paid. Of +that she was sure, and of nothing else. + +For the rest, she was almost driven mad by people coming to talk to +her. The lawyer came, the clergyman came, her cousin came, the old, +stout, prosperous tradesmen of Woodhouse came, Mr. May came, Miss +Pinnegar came. And they all had schemes, and they all had advice. +The chief plan was that the theatre should be sold up: and that +Manchester House should be sold, reserving a lease on the top floor, +where Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms were: that Miss Pinnegar and Alvina +should move into a small house, Miss Pinnegar keeping the work-room, +Alvina giving music-lessons: that the two women should be partners +in the work-shop. + +There were other plans, of course. There was a faction against the +chapel faction, which favoured the plan sketched out above. The +theatre faction, including Mr. May and some of the more florid +tradesmen, favoured the risking of everything in the Endeavour. +Alvina was to be the proprietress of the Endeavour, she was to run +it on some sort of successful lines, and abandon all other +enterprise. Minor plans included the election of Alvina to the post +of parish nurse, at six pounds a month: a small private school; a +small haberdashery shop; and a position in the office of her +cousin's Knarborough business. To one and all Alvina answered with a +tantalizing: "I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know. I +can't say yet. I shall see. I shall see." Till one and all became +angry with her. They were all so benevolent, and all so sure that +they were proposing the very best thing she could do. And they were +all nettled, even indignant that she did not jump at their +proposals. She listened to them all. She even invited their advice. +Continually she said: "Well, what do _you_ think of it?" And she +repeated the chapel plan to the theatre group, the theatre plan to +the chapel party, the nursing to the pianoforte proposers, the +haberdashery shop to the private school advocates. "Tell me what +_you_ think," she said repeatedly. And they all told her they +thought _their_ plan was best. And bit by bit she told every +advocate the proposal of every other advocate "Well, Lawyer Beeby +thinks--" and "Well now, Mr. Clay, the minister, advises--" and so +on and so on, till it was all buzzing through thirty benevolent and +officious heads. And thirty benevolently-officious wills were +striving to plant each one its own particular scheme of benevolence. +And Alvina, naive and pathetic, egged them all on in their strife, +without even knowing what she was doing. One thing only was certain. +Some obstinate will in her own self absolutely refused to have her +mind made up. She would _not_ have her mind made up for her, and she +would not make it up for herself. And so everybody began to say "I'm +getting tired of her. You talk to her, and you get no forrarder. She +slips off to something else. I'm not going to bother with her any +more." In truth, Woodhouse was in a fever, for three weeks or more, +arranging Alvina's unarrangeable future for her. Offers of charity +were innumerable--for three weeks. + +Meanwhile, the lawyer went on with the proving of the will and the +drawing up of a final account of James's property; Mr. May went on +with the Endeavour, though Alvina did not go down to play; Miss +Pinnegar went on with the work-girls: and Alvina went on unmaking +her mind. + +Ciccio did not come during the first week. Alvina had a post-card +from Madame, from Cheshire: rather far off. But such was the buzz +and excitement over her material future, such a fever was worked up +round about her that Alvina, the petty-propertied heroine of the +moment, was quite carried away in a storm of schemes and benevolent +suggestions. She answered Madame's post-card, but did not give much +thought to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. As a matter of fact, she was +enjoying a real moment of importance, there at the centre of +Woodhouse's rather domineering benevolence: a benevolence which she +unconsciously, but systematically frustrated. All this scheming for +selling out and making reservations and hanging on and fixing prices +and getting private bids for Manchester House and for the Endeavour, +the excitement of forming a Limited Company to run the Endeavour, of +seeing a lawyer about the sale of Manchester House and the +auctioneer about the sale of the furniture, of receiving men who +wanted to pick up the machines upstairs cheap, and of keeping +everything dangling, deciding nothing, putting everything off till +she had seen somebody else, this for the moment fascinated her, went +to her head. It was not until the second week had passed that her +excitement began to merge into irritation, and not until the third +week had gone by that she began to feel herself entangled in an +asphyxiating web of indecision, and her heart began to sing because +Ciccio had never turned up. Now she would have given anything to see +the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras again. But she did not know where they were. +Now she began to loathe the excitement of her property: doubtfully +hers, every stick of it. Now she would give anything to get away +from Woodhouse, from the horrible buzz and entanglement of her +sordid affairs. Now again her wild recklessness came over her. + +She suddenly said she was going away somewhere: she would not say +where. She cashed all the money she could: a hundred-and-twenty-five +pounds. She took the train to Cheshire, to the last address of the +Natcha-Kee-Tawaras: she followed them to Stockport: and back to +Chinley: and there she was stuck for the night. Next day she dashed +back almost to Woodhouse, and swerved round to Sheffield. There, in +that black town, thank heaven, she saw their announcement on the +wall. She took a taxi to their theatre, and then on to their +lodgings. The first thing she saw was Louis, in his shirt sleeves, +on the landing above. + +She laughed with excitement and pleasure. She seemed another woman. +Madame looked up, almost annoyed, when she entered. + +"I couldn't keep away from you, Madame," she cried. + +"Evidently," said Madame. + +Madame was darning socks for the young men. She was a wonderful +mother for them, sewed for them, cooked for them, looked after them +most carefully. Not many minutes was Madame idle. + +"Do you mind?" said Alvina. + +Madame darned for some moments without answering. + +"And how is everything at Woodhouse?" she asked. + +"I couldn't bear it any longer. I couldn't bear it. So I collected +all the money I could, and ran away. Nobody knows where I am." + +Madame looked up with bright, black, censorious eyes, at the flushed +girl opposite. Alvina had a certain strangeness and brightness, +which Madame did not know, and a frankness which the Frenchwoman +mistrusted, but found disarming. + +"And all the business, the will and all?" said Madame. + +"They're still fussing about it." + +"And there is some money?" + +"I have got a hundred pounds here," laughed Alvina. "What there will +be when everything is settled, I don't know. But not very much, I'm +sure of that." + +"How much do you think? A thousand pounds?" + +"Oh, it's just possible, you know. But it's just as likely there +won't be another penny--" + +Madame nodded slowly, as always when she did her calculations. + +"And if there is nothing, what do you intend?" said Madame. + +"I don't know," said Alvina brightly. + +"And if there is something?" + +"I don't know either. But I thought, if you would let me play for +you, I could keep myself for some time with my own money. You said +perhaps I might be with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. I wish you would let +me." + +Madame bent her head so that nothing showed but the bright black +folds of her hair. Then she looked up, with a slow, subtle, rather +jeering smile. + +"Ciccio didn't come to see you, hein?" + +"No," said Alvina. "Yet he promised." + +Again Madame smiled sardonically. + +"Do you call it a promise?" she said. "You are easy to be satisfied +with a word. A hundred pounds? No more?" + +"A hundred and twenty--" + +"Where is it?" + +"In my bag at the station--in notes. And I've got a little here--" +Alvina opened her purse, and took out some little gold and silver. + +"At the station!" exclaimed Madame, smiling grimly. "Then perhaps +you have nothing." + +"Oh, I think it's quite safe, don't you--?" + +"Yes--maybe--since it is England. And you think a hundred and twenty +pounds is enough?" + +"What for?" + +"To satisfy Ciccio." + +"I wasn't thinking of him," cried Alvina. + +"No?" said Madame ironically. "I can propose it to him. Wait one +moment." She went to the door and called Ciccio. + +He entered, looking not very good-tempered. + +"Be so good, my dear," said Madame to him, "to go to the station and +fetch Miss Houghton's little bag. You have got the ticket, have +you?" Alvina handed the luggage ticket to Madame. "Midland Railway," +said Madame. "And, Ciccio, you are listening--? Mind! There is a +hundred and twenty pounds of Miss Houghton's money in the bag. You +hear? Mind it is not lost." + +"It's all I have," said Alvina. + +"For the time, for the time--till the will is proved, it is all the +cash she has. So mind doubly. You hear?" + +"All right," said Ciccio. + +"Tell him what sort of a bag, Miss Houghton," said Madame. + +Alvina told him. He ducked and went. Madame listened for his final +departure. Then she nodded sagely at Alvina. + +"Take off your hat and coat, my dear. Soon we will have tea--when +Cic' returns. Let him think, let him think what he likes. So much +money is certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It will +make all the difference that there is so much cash--yes, so much--" + +"But would it _really_ make a difference to him?" cried Alvina. + +"Oh my dear!" exclaimed Madame. "Why should it not? We are on earth, +where we must eat. We are not in Paradise. If it were a thousand +pounds, then he would want very badly to marry you. But a hundred +and twenty is better than a blow to the eye, eh? Why sure!" + +"It's dreadful, though--!" said Alvina. + +"Oh la-la! Dreadful! If it was Max, who is sentimental, then no, the +money is nothing. But all the others--why, you see, they are men, +and they know which side to butter their bread. Men are like cats, +my dear, they don't like their bread without butter. Why should +they? Nor do I, nor do I." + +"Can I help with the darning?" said Alvina. + +"Hein? I shall give you Ciccio's socks, yes? He pushes holes in the +toes--you see?" Madame poked two fingers through the hole in the +toe of a red-and-black sock, and smiled a little maliciously at +Alvina. + +"I don't mind which sock I darn," she said. + +"No? You don't? Well then, I give you another. But if you like I +will speak to him--" + +"What to say?" asked Alvina. + +"To say that you have so much money, and hope to have more. And that +you like him--Yes? Am I right? You like him very much?--hein? Is it +so?" + +"And then what?" said Alvina. + +"That he should tell me if he should like to marry you also--quite +simply. What? Yes?" + +"No," said Alvina. "Don't say anything--not yet." + +"He? Not yet? Not yet. All right, not yet then. You will see--" + +Alvina sat darning the sock and smiling at her own shamelessness. +The point that amused her most of all was the fact that she was not +by any means sure she wanted to marry him. There was Madame spinning +her web like a plump prolific black spider. There was Ciccio, the +unrestful fly. And there was herself, who didn't know in the least +what she was doing. There sat two of them, Madame and herself, +darning socks in a stuffy little bedroom with a gas fire, as if they +had been born to it. And after all, Woodhouse wasn't fifty miles +away. + +Madame went downstairs to get tea ready. Wherever she was, she +superintended the cooking and the preparation of meals for her young +men, scrupulous and quick. She called Alvina downstairs. Ciccio came +in with the bag. + +"See, my dear, that your money is safe," said Madame. + +Alvina unfastened her bag and counted the crisp white notes. + +"And now," said Madame, "I shall lock it in my little bank, yes, +where it will be safe. And I shall give you a receipt, which the +young men will witness." + +The party sat down to tea, in the stuffy sitting-room. + +"Now, boys," said Madame, "what do you say? Shall Miss Houghton join +the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Shall she be our pianist?" + +The eyes of the four young men rested on Alvina. Max, as being the +responsible party, looked business-like. Louis was tender, Geoffrey +round-eyed and inquisitive, Ciccio furtive. + +"With great pleasure," said Max. "But can the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras +afford to pay a pianist for themselves?" + +"No," said Madame. "No. I think not. Miss Houghton will come for one +month, to prove, and in that time she shall pay for herself. Yes? So +she fancies it." + +"Can we pay her expenses?" said Max. + +"No," said Alvina. "Let me pay everything for myself, for a month. I +should like to be with you, awfully--" + +She looked across with a look half mischievous, half beseeching at +the erect Max. He bowed as he sat at table. + +"I think we shall all be honoured," he said. + +"Certainly," said Louis, bowing also over his tea-cup. + +Geoffrey inclined his head, and Ciccio lowered his eyelashes in +indication of agreement. + +"Now then," said Madame briskly, "we are all agreed. Tonight we will +have a bottle of wine on it. Yes, gentlemen? What d'you say? +Chianti--hein?" + +They all bowed above the table. + +"And Miss Houghton shall have her professional name, eh? Because we +cannot say Miss Houghton--what?" + +"Do call me Alvina," said Alvina. + +"Alvina--Al-vy-na! No, excuse me, my dear, I don't like it. I don't +like this 'vy' sound. Tonight we shall find a name." + +After tea they inquired for a room for Alvina. There was none in the +house. But two doors away was another decent lodging-house, where a +bedroom on the top floor was found for her. + +"I think you are very well here," said Madame. + +"Quite nice," said Alvina, looking round the hideous little room, +and remembering her other term of probation, as a maternity nurse. + +She dressed as attractively as possible, in her new dress of black +voile, and imitating Madame, she put four jewelled rings on her +fingers. As a rule she only wore the mourning-ring of black enamel +and diamond, which had been always on Miss Frost's finger. Now she +left off this, and took four diamond rings, and one good sapphire. +She looked at herself in her mirror as she had never done before, +really interested in the effect she made. And in her dress she +pinned a valuable old ruby brooch. + +Then she went down to Madame's house. Madame eyed her shrewdly, with +just a touch of jealousy: the eternal jealousy that must exist +between the plump, pale partridge of a Frenchwoman, whose black hair +is so glossy and tidy, whose black eyes are so acute, whose black +dress is so neat and _chic_, and the rather thin Englishwoman in +soft voile, with soft, rather loose brown hair and demure, blue-grey +eyes. + +"Oh--a difference--what a difference! When you have a little more +flesh--then--" Madame made a slight click with her tongue. "What a +good brooch, eh?" Madame fingered the brooch. "Old paste--old +paste--antique--" + +"No," said Alvina. "They are real rubies. It was my +great-grandmother's." + +"Do you mean it? Real? Are you sure--" + +"I think I'm quite sure." + +Madame scrutinized the jewels with a fine eye. + +"Hm!" she said. And Alvina did not know whether she was sceptical, +or jealous, or admiring, or really impressed. + +"And the diamonds are real?" said Madame, making Alvina hold up her +hands. + +"I've always understood so," said Alvina. + +Madame scrutinized, and slowly nodded her head. Then she looked into +Alvina's eyes, really a little jealous. + +"Another four thousand francs there," she said, nodding sagely. + +"Really!" said Alvina. + +"For sure. It's enough--it's enough--" + +And there was a silence between the two women. + +The young men had been out shopping for the supper. Louis, who knew +where to find French and German stuff, came in with bundles, Ciccio +returned with a couple of flasks, Geoffrey with sundry moist papers +of edibles. Alvina helped Madame to put the anchovies and sardines +and tunny and ham and salami on various plates, she broke off a bit +of fern from one of the flower-pots, to stick in the pork-pie, she +set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the +time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams, she laughed +and was gay, she was quick, and she flattered Madame by being very +deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, +common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging-house she did not know or +care. But she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were +watching her. Max gave his assistance wherever possible. Geoffrey +watched her rings, half spell-bound. But Alvina was concerned only +to flatter the plump, white, soft vanity of Madame. She carefully +chose for Madame the finest plate, the clearest glass, the +whitest-hafted knife, the most delicate fork. All of which Madame +saw, with acute eyes. + +At the theatre the same: Alvina played for Kishwegin, only for +Kishwegin. And Madame had the time of her life. + +"You know, my dear," she said afterward to Alvina, "I understand +sympathy in music. Music goes straight to the heart." And she kissed +Alvina on both cheeks, throwing her arms round her neck +dramatically. + +"I'm _so_ glad," said the wily Alvina. + +And the young men stirred uneasily, and smiled furtively. + +They hurried home to the famous supper. Madame sat at one end of the +table, Alvina at the other. Madame had Max and Louis by her side, +Alvina had Ciccio and Geoffrey. Ciccio was on Alvina's right hand: a +delicate hint. + +They began with hors d'oeuvres and tumblers three parts full of +Chianti. Alvina wanted to water her wine, but was not allowed to +insult the sacred liquid. There was a spirit of great liveliness and +conviviality. Madame became paler, her eyes blacker, with the wine +she drank, her voice became a little raucous. + +"Tonight," she said, "the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras make their feast of +affiliation. The white daughter has entered the tribe of the +Hirondelles, swallows that pass from land to land, and build their +nests between roof and wall. A new swallow, a new Huron from the +tents of the pale-face, from the lodges of the north, from the tribe +of the Yenghees." Madame's black eyes glared with a kind of wild +triumph down the table at Alvina. "Nameless, without having a name, +comes the maiden with the red jewels, dark-hearted, with the red +beams. Wine from the pale-face shadows, drunken wine for Kishwegin, +strange wine for the _braves_ in their nostrils, Vaali, _a vous_." + +Madame lifted her glass. + +"Vaali, drink to her--Boire a elle--" She thrust her glass forwards +in the air. The young men thrust their glasses up towards Alvina, in +a cluster. She could see their mouths all smiling, their teeth white +as they cried in their throats: "Vaali! Vaali! Boire a vous." + +Ciccio was near to her. Under the table he laid his hand on her +knee. Quickly she put forward her hand to protect herself. He took +her hand, and looked at her along the glass as he drank. She saw his +throat move as the wine went down it. He put down his glass, still +watching her. + +"Vaali!" he said, in his throat. Then across the table "He, +Gigi--Viale! Le Petit Chemin! Comment? Me prends-tu? L'allee--" + +There came a great burst of laughter from Louis. + +"It is good, it is good!" he cried. "Oh Madame! Viale, it is Italian +for the little way, the alley. That is too rich." + +Max went off into a high and ribald laugh. + +"L'allee italienne!" he said, and shouted with laughter. + +"Alley or avenue, what does it matter," cried Madame in French, "so +long as it is a good journey." + +Here Geoffrey at last saw the joke. With a strange determined +flourish he filled his glass, cocking up his elbow. + +"A toi, Cic'--et bon voyage!" he said, and then he tilted up his +chin and swallowed in great throatfuls. + +"Certainly! Certainly!" cried Madame. "To thy good journey, my +Ciccio, for thou art not a great traveller--" + +"Na, pour _ca_, y'a plus d'une voie," said Geoffrey. + +During this passage in French Alvina sat with very bright eyes +looking from one to another, and not understanding. But she knew it +was something improper, on her account. Her eyes had a bright, +slightly-bewildered look as she turned from one face to another. +Ciccio had let go her hand, and was wiping his lips with his +fingers. He too was a little self-conscious. + +"Assez de cette eternelle voix italienne," said Madame. "Courage, +courage au chemin d'Angleterre." + +"Assez de cette eternelle voix rauque," said Ciccio, looking round. +Madame suddenly pulled herself together. + +"They will not have my name. They will call you Allay!" she said to +Alvina. "Is it good? Will it do?" + +"Quite," said Alvina. + +And she could not understand why Gigi, and then the others after +him, went off into a shout of laughter. She kept looking round with +bright, puzzled eyes. Her face was slightly flushed and tender +looking, she looked naive, young. + +"Then you will become one of the tribe of Natcha-Kee-Tawara, of the +name Allaye? Yes?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. + +"And obey the strict rules of the tribe. Do you agree?" + +"Yes." + +"Then listen." Madame primmed and preened herself like a black +pigeon, and darted glances out of her black eyes. + +"We are one tribe, one nation--say it." + +"We are one tribe, one nation," repeated Alvina. + +"Say all," cried Madame. + +"We are one tribe, one nation--" they shouted, with varying accent. + +"Good!" said Madame. "And no nation do we know but the nation of the +Hirondelles--" + +"No nation do we know but the nation of the Hirondelles," came the +ragged chant of strong male voices, resonant and gay with mockery. + +"Hurons--Hirondelles, means _swallows_," said Madame. + +"Yes, I know," said Alvina. + +"So! you know! Well, then! We know no nation but the Hirondelles. WE +HAVE NO LAW BUT HURON LAW!" + +"We have no law but Huron law!" sang the response, in a deep, +sardonic chant. + +"WE HAVE NO LAWGIVER EXCEPT KISHWEGIN." + +"We have no lawgiver except Kishwegin," they sang sonorous. + +"WE HAVE NO HOME BUT THE TENT OF KISHWEGIN." + +"We have no home but the tent of Kishwegin." + +"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 KISHWEGIN." + +"We are Kishwegin." + +"WE ARE MONDAGUA." + +"We are Mondagua--" + +"WE ARE ATONQUOIS--" + +"We are Atonquois--" + +"WE ARE PACOHUILA--" + +"We are Pacohuila--" + +"WE ARE WALGATCHKA--" + +"We are Walgatchka--" + +"WE ARE ALLAYE--" + +"We are Allaye--" + +"La musica! Pacohuila, la musica!" cried Madame, starting to her +feet and sounding frenzied. + +Ciccio got up quickly and took his mandoline from its case. + +"A--A--Ai--Aii--eee--ya--" began Madame, with a long, faint wail. +And on the wailing mandoline the music started. She began to dance a +slight but intense dance. Then she waved for a partner, and set up a +tarantella wail. Louis threw off his coat and sprang to tarantella +attention, Ciccio rang out the peculiar tarantella, and Madame and +Louis danced in the tight space. + +"Brava--Brava!" cried the others, when Madame sank into her place. +And they crowded forward to kiss her hand. One after the other, they +kissed her fingers, whilst she laid her left hand languidly on the +head of one man after another, as she sat slightly panting. Ciccio +however did not come up, but sat faintly twanging the mandoline. Nor +did Alvina leave her place. + +"Pacohuila!" cried Madame, with an imperious gesture. "Allaye! +Come--" + +Ciccio laid down his mandoline and went to kiss the fingers of +Kishwegin. 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 Kishwegin," she +said, in her Tawara manner. + +"And where is the _brave_ of Allaye, where is the arm that upholds +the daughter of Kishwegin, which of the Swallows spreads his wings +over the gentle head of the new one!" + +"Pacohuila!" said Louis. + +"Pacohuila! Pacohuila! Pacohuila!" said the others. + +"Spread soft wings, spread dark-roofed wings, Pacohuila," said +Kishwegin, and Ciccio, in his shirt-sleeves solemnly spread his +arms. + +"Stoop, stoop, Allaye, beneath the wings of Pacohuila," said +Kishwegin, faintly pressing Alvina on the shoulder. + +Alvina stooped and crouched under the right arm of Pacohuila. + +"Has the bird flown home?" chanted Kishwegin, to one of the strains +of their music. + +"The bird is home--" chanted the men. + +"Is the nest warm?" chanted Kishwegin. + +"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 ca!" said Madame, kissing her. "And now, children, unless the +Sheffield policeman will knock at our door, we must retire to our +wigwams all--" + +Ciccio was watching Alvina. Madame made him a secret, imperative +gesture that he should accompany the young woman. + +"You have your key, Allaye?" she said. + +"Did I have a key?" said Alvina. + +Madame smiled subtly as she produced a latch-key. + +"Kishwegin must open your doors for you all," she said. Then, with a +slight flourish, she presented the key to Ciccio. "I give it to him? +Yes?" she added, with her subtle, malicious smile. + +Ciccio, smiling slightly, and keeping his head ducked, took the key. +Alvina looked brightly, as if bewildered, from one to another. + +"Also the light!" said Madame, producing a pocket flash-light, which +she triumphantly handed to Ciccio. Alvina watched him. She noticed +how he dropped his head forward from his straight, strong shoulders, +how beautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape and back +of the head. It produced a kind of dazed submission in her, the +drugged sense of unknown beauty. + +"And so good-night, Allaye--bonne nuit, fille des Tawara." Madame +kissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks at her. + +Each _brave_ also kissed her hand, with a profound salute. Then the +men shook hands warmly with Ciccio, murmuring to him. + +He did not put on his hat nor his coat, but ran round as he was to +the neighbouring house with her, and opened the door. She entered, +and he followed, flashing on the light. So she climbed weakly up the +dusty, drab stairs, he following. When she came to her door, she +turned and looked at him. His face was scarcely visible, it seemed, +and yet so strange and beautiful. It was the unknown beauty which +almost killed her. + +"You aren't coming?" she quavered. + +He gave an odd, half-gay, half-mocking twitch of his thick dark +brows, and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing +at her boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark Southerner he +was. Her instinct was to defend herself. When suddenly she found +herself in the dark. + +She gasped. And as she gasped, he quite gently put her inside her +room, and closed the door, keeping one arm round her all the time. +She felt his heavy muscular predominance. So he took her in both +arms, powerful, mysterious, horrible in the pitch dark. Yet the +sense of the unknown beauty of him weighed her down like some force. +If for one moment she could have escaped from that black spell of +his beauty, she would have been free. But she could not. He was +awful to her, shameless so that she died under his shamelessness, +his smiling, progressive shamelessness. Yet she could not see him +ugly. If only she could, for one second, have seen him ugly, he +would not have killed her and made her his slave as he did. But the +spell was on her, of his darkness and unfathomed handsomeness. And +he killed her. He simply took her and assassinated her. How she +suffered no one can tell. Yet all the time, his lustrous dark +beauty, unbearable. + +When later she pressed her face on his chest and cried, he held her +gently as if she was a child, but took no notice, and she felt in +the darkness that he smiled. It was utterly dark, and she knew he +smiled, and she began to get hysterical. But he only kissed her, his +smiling deepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but +sensible, as he carried her away once more. He intended her to be +his slave, she knew. And he seemed to throw her down and suffocate +her like a wave. And she could have fought, if only the sense of his +dark, rich handsomeness had not numbed her like a venom. So she was +suffocated in his passion. + +In the morning when it was light he turned and looked at her from +under his long black lashes, a long, steady, cruel, faintly-smiling +look from his tawny eyes, searching her as if to see whether she +were still alive. And she looked back at him, heavy-eyed and half +subjected. He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her. And she +turned her face to the wall, feeling beaten. Yet not quite beaten +to death. Save for the fatal numbness of her love for him, she could +still have escaped him. But she lay inert, as if envenomed. He +wanted to make her his slave. + +When she went down to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras for breakfast she found +them waiting for her. She was rather frail and tender-looking, with +wondering eyes that showed she had been crying. + +"Come, daughter of the Tawaras," said Madame brightly to her. "We +have been waiting for you. Good-morning, and all happiness, eh? +Look, it is a gift-day for you--" + +Madame smilingly led Alvina to her place. Beside her plate was a +bunch of violets, a bunch of carnations, a pair of exquisite bead +moccasins, and a pair of fine doeskin gloves delicately decorated +with feather-work on the cuffs. The slippers were from Kishwegin, +the gloves from Mondagua, the carnations from Atonquois, the violets +from Walgatchka--all _To the Daughter of the Tawaras, Allaye_, as it +said on the little cards. + +"The gift of Pacohuila you know," said Madame, smiling. "The +brothers of Pacohuila are your brothers." + +One by one they went to her and each one laid the back of her +fingers against his forehead, saying in turn: + +"I am your brother Mondagua, Allaye!" + +"I am your brother Atonquois, Allaye!" + +"I am your brother Walgatchka, Allaye, best brother, you know--" So +spoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, almost solemn eyes of +affection. Alvina smiled a little wanly, wondering where she was. It +was all so solemn. Was it all mockery, play-acting? She felt +bitterly inclined to cry. + +Meanwhile Madame came in with the coffee, which she always made +herself, and the party sat down to breakfast. Ciccio sat on Alvina's +right, but he seemed to avoid looking at her or speaking to her. All +the time he looked across the table, with the half-asserted, knowing +look in his eyes, at Gigi: and all the time he addressed himself to +Gigi, with the throaty, rich, plangent quality in his voice, that +Alvina could not bear, it seemed terrible to her: and he spoke in +French: and the two men seemed to be exchanging unspeakable +communications. So that Alvina, for all her wistfulness and +subjectedness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon as +possible from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and +public recognition from Ciccio--none of which she got. She returned +to her own house, to her own room, anxious to tidy everything, not +wishing to have her landlady in the room. And she half expected +Ciccio to come to speak to her. + +As she was busy washing a garment in the bowl, her landlady knocked +and entered. She was a rough and rather beery-looking Yorkshire +woman, not attractive. + +"Oh, yo'n made yer bed then, han' yer!" + +"Yes," said Alvina. "I've done everything." + +"I see yer han. Yo'n bin sharp." + +Alvina did not answer. + +"Seems yer doin' yersen a bit o' weshin'." + +Still Alvina didn't answer. + +"Yo' can 'ing it i' th' back yard." + +"I think it'll dry here," said Alvina. + +"Isna much dryin' up here. Send us howd when 't's ready. Yo'll +'appen be wantin' it. I can dry it off for yer i' t' kitchen. You +don't take a drop o' nothink, do yer?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I don't like it." + +"Summat a bit stronger 'n 't bottle, my sakes alive! Well, yo mun +ha'e yer fling, like t' rest. But coom na, which on 'em is it? I +catched sight on 'im goin' out, but I didna ma'e out then which on +'em it wor. He--eh, it's a pity you don't take a drop of nothink, +it's a world's pity. Is it the fairest on 'em, the tallest." + +"No," said Alvina. "The darkest one." + +"Oh ay! Well, 's a strappin' anuff feller, for them as goes that +road. I thought Madame was partikler. I s'll charge yer a bit more, +yer know. I s'll 'ave to make a bit out of it. _I'm_ partikler as a +rule. I don't like 'em comin' in an' goin' out, you know. Things get +said. You look so quiet, you do. Come now, it's worth a hextra quart +to me, else I shan't have it, I shan't. You can't make as free as +all that with the house, you know, be it what it may--" + +She stood red-faced and dour in the doorway. Alvina quietly gave her +half-a-sovereign. + +"Nay, lass," said the woman, "if you share niver a drop o' th' +lashins, you mun split it. Five shillin's is oceans, ma wench. I'm +not down on you--not me. On'y we've got to keep up appearances a +bit, you know. Dash my rags, it's a caution!" + +"I haven't got five shillings--" said Alvina. + +"Yer've not? All right, gi'e 's ha 'efcrown today, an' t'other +termorrer. It'll keep, it'll keep. God bless you for a good wench. +A' open 'eart 's worth all your bum-righteousness. It is for me. An' +a sight more. You're all right, ma wench, you're all right--" + +And the rather bleary woman went nodding away. + +Alvina ought to have minded. But she didn't. She even laughed into +her ricketty mirror. At the back of her thoughts, all she minded was +that Ciccio did not pay her some attention. She really expected him +now to come to speak to her. If she could have imagined how far he +was from any such intention. + +So she loitered unwillingly at her window high over the grey, hard, +cobbled street, and saw her landlady hastening along the black +asphalt pavement, her dirty apron thrown discreetly over what was +most obviously a quart jug. She followed the squat, intent figure +with her eye, to the public-house at the corner. And then she saw +Ciccio humped over his yellow bicycle, going for a steep and +perilous ride with Gigi. + +Still she lingered in her sordid room. She could feel Madame was +expecting her. But she felt inert, weak, incommunicative. Only a +real fear of offending Madame drove her down at last. + +Max opened the door to let her in. + +"Ah!" he said. "You've come. We were wondering about you." + +"Thank you," she said, as she passed into the dirty hall where still +two bicycles stood. + +"Madame is in the kitchen," he said. + +Alvina found Madame trussed in a large white apron, busy rubbing a +yellow-fleshed hen with lemon, previous to boiling. + +"Ah!" said Madame. "So there you are! I have been out and done my +shopping, and already begun to prepare the dinner. Yes, you may help +me. Can you wash leeks? Yes? Every grain of sand? Shall I trust you +then--?" + +Madame usually had a kitchen to herself, in the morning. She either +ousted her landlady, or used her as second cook. For Madame was a +gourmet, if not gourmand. If she inclined towards self-indulgence in +any direction, it was in the direction of food. She _loved_ a good +table. And hence the Tawaras saved less money than they might. She +was an exacting, tormenting, bullying cook. Alvina, who knew well +enough how to prepare a simple dinner, was offended by Madame's +exactions. Madame turning back the green leaves of a leek, and +hunting a speck of earth down into the white, like a flea in a bed, +was too much for Alvina. + +"I'm afraid I shall never be particular enough," she said. "Can't I +do anything else for you?" + +"For me? I need nothing to be done for me. But for the young +men--yes, I will show you in one minute--" + +And she took Alvina upstairs to her room, and gave her a pair of the +thin leather trousers fringed with hair, belonging to one of the +_braves_. A seam had ripped. Madame gave Alvina a fine awl and some +waxed thread. + +"The leather is not good in these things of Gigi's," she said. "It +is badly prepared. See, like this." And she showed Alvina another +place where the garment was repaired. "Keep on your apron. At the +week-end you must fetch more clothes, not spoil this beautiful gown +of voile. Where have you left your diamonds? What? In your room? Are +they locked? Oh my dear--!" Madame turned pale and darted looks of +fire at Alvina. "If they are stolen--!" she cried. "Oh! I have +become quite weak, hearing you!" She panted and shook her head. "If +they are not stolen, you have the Holy Saints alone to be thankful +for keeping them. But run, run!" + +And Madame really stamped her foot. + +"Bring me everything you've got--every _thing_ that is valuable. I +shall lock it up. How _can_ you--" + +Alvina was hustled off to her lodging. Fortunately nothing was gone. +She brought all to Madame, and Madame fingered the treasures +lovingly. + +"Now what you want you must ask me for," she said. + +With what close curiosity Madame examined the ruby brooch. + +"You can have that if you like, Madame," said Alvina. + +"You mean--what?" + +"I will give you that brooch if you like to take it--" + +"Give me this--!" cried Madame, and a flash went over her face. Then +she changed into a sort of wheedling. "No--no. I shan't take it! I +shan't take it. You don't want to give away such a thing." + +"I don't mind," said Alvina. "Do take it if you like it." + +"Oh no! Oh no! I can't take it. A beautiful thing it is, really. It +would be worth over a thousand francs, because I believe it is quite +genuine." + +"I'm sure it's genuine," said Alvina. "Do have it since you like +it." + +"Oh, I can't! I can't!--" + +"Yes do--" + +"The beautiful red stones!--antique gems, antique gems--! And do you +really give it to me?" + +"Yes, I should like to." + +"You are a girl with a noble heart--" Madame threw her arms round +Alvina's neck, and kissed her. Alvina felt very cool about it. +Madame locked up the jewels quickly, after one last look. + +"My fowl," she said, "which must not boil too fast." + +At length Alvina was called down to dinner. The young men were at +table, talking as young men do, not very interestingly. After the +meal, Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise +vibrate through the house. + +"I shall go and look at the town," said Alvina. + +"And who shall go with you?" asked Madame. + +"I will go alone," said Alvina, "unless you will come, Madame." + +"Alas no, I can't. I can't come. Will you really go alone?" + +"Yes, I want to go to the women's shops," said Alvina. + +"You want to! All right then! And you will come home at tea-time, +yes?" + +As soon as Alvina had gone out Ciccio put away his mandoline and lit +a cigarette. Then after a while he hailed Geoffrey, and the two +young men sallied forth. Alvina, emerging from a draper's shop in +Rotherhampton Broadway, found them loitering on the pavement +outside. And they strolled along with her. So she went into a shop +that sold ladies' underwear, leaving them on the pavement. She +stayed as long as she could. But there they were when she came out. +They had endless lounging patience. + +"I thought you would be gone on," she said. + +"No hurry," said Ciccio, and he took away her parcels from her, as +if he had a right. She wished he wouldn't tilt the flap of his black +hat over one eye, and she wished there wasn't quite so much +waist-line in the cut of his coat, and that he didn't smoke +cigarettes against the end of his nose in the street. But wishing +wouldn't alter him. He strayed alongside as if he half belonged, and +half didn't--most irritating. + +She wasted as much time as possible in the shops, then they took the +tram home again. Ciccio paid the three fares, laying his hand +restrainingly on Gigi's hand, when Gigi's hand sought pence in his +trouser pocket, and throwing his arm over his friend's shoulder, in +affectionate but vulgar triumph, when the fares were paid. Alvina +was on her high horse. + +They tried to talk to her, they tried to ingratiate themselves--but +she wasn't having any. She talked with icy pleasantness. And so the +tea-time passed, and the time after tea. The performance went rather +mechanically, at the theatre, and the supper at home, with bottled +beer and boiled ham, was a conventionally cheerful affair. Even +Madame was a little afraid of Alvina this evening. + +"I am tired, I shall go early to my room," said Alvina. + +"Yes, I think we are all tired," said Madame. + +"Why is it?" said Max metaphysically--"why is it that two merry +evenings never follow one behind the other." + +"Max, beer makes thee a _farceur_ of a fine quality," said Madame. +Alvina rose. + +"Please don't get up," she said to the others. "I have my key and +can see quite well," she said. "Good-night all." + +They rose and bowed their good-nights. But Ciccio, with an obstinate +and ugly little smile on his face, followed her. + +"Please don't come," she said, turning at the street door. But +obstinately he lounged into the street with her. He followed her to +her door. + +"Did you bring the flash-light?" she said. "The stair is so dark." + +He looked at her, and turned as if to get the light. Quickly she +opened the house-door and slipped inside, shutting it sharply in his +face. He stood for some moments looking at the door, and an ugly +little look mounted his straight nose. He too turned indoors. + +Alvina hurried to bed and slept well. And the next day the same, she +was all icy pleasantness. The Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were a little bit +put out by her. She was a spoke in their wheel, a scotch to their +facility. She made them irritable. And that evening--it was +Friday--Ciccio did not rise to accompany her to her house. And she +knew they were relieved that she had gone. + +That did not please her. The next day, which was Saturday, the last +and greatest day of the week, she found herself again somewhat of an +outsider in the troupe. The tribe had assembled in its old unison. +She was the intruder, the interloper. And Ciccio never looked at +her, only showed her the half-averted side of his cheek, on which +was a slightly jeering, ugly look. + +"Will you go to Woodhouse tomorrow?" Madame asked her, rather +coolly. They none of them called her Allaye any more. + +"I'd better fetch some things, hadn't I?" said Alvina. + +"Certainly, if you think you will stay with us." + +This was a nasty slap in the face for her. But: + +"I want to," she said. + +"Yes! Then you will go to Woodhouse tomorrow, and come to Mansfield +on Monday morning? Like that shall it be? You will stay one night at +Woodhouse?" + +Through Alvina's mind flitted the rapid thought--"They want an +evening without me." Her pride mounted obstinately. She very nearly +said--"I may stay in Woodhouse altogether." But she held her tongue. + +After all, they were very common people. They ought to be glad to +have her. Look how Madame snapped up that brooch! And look what an +uncouth lout Ciccio was! After all, she was demeaning herself +shamefully staying with them in common, sordid lodgings. After all, +she had been bred up differently from that. They had horribly low +standards--such low standards--not only of morality, but of life +altogether. Really, she had come down in the world, conforming to +such standards of life. She evoked the images of her mother and Miss +Frost: ladies, and noble women both. Whatever could she be thinking +of herself! + +However, there was time for her to retrace her steps. She had not +given herself away. Except to Ciccio. And her heart burned when she +thought of him, partly with anger and mortification, partly, alas, +with undeniable and unsatisfied love. Let her bridle as she might, +her heart burned, and she wanted to look at him, she wanted him to +notice her. And instinct told her that he might ignore her for ever. +She went to her room an unhappy woman, and wept and fretted till +morning, chafing between humiliation and yearning. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE FALL OF MANCHESTER HOUSE + + +Alvina rose chastened and wistful. As she was doing her hair, she +heard the plaintive nasal sound of Ciccio's mandoline. She looked +down the mixed vista of back-yards and little gardens, and was able +to catch sight of a portion of Ciccio, who was sitting on a box in +the blue-brick yard of his house, bare-headed and in his +shirt-sleeves, twitching away at the wailing mandoline. It was not a +warm morning, but there was a streak of sunshine. Alvina had noticed +that Ciccio did not seem to feel the cold, unless it were a wind or +a driving rain. He was playing the wildly-yearning Neapolitan songs, +of which Alvina knew nothing. But, although she only saw a section +of him, the glimpse of his head was enough to rouse in her that +overwhelming fascination, which came and went in spells. His +remoteness, his southernness, something velvety and dark. So easily +she might miss him altogether! Within a hair's-breadth she had let +him disappear. + +She hurried down. Geoffrey opened the door to her. She smiled at him +in a quick, luminous smile, a magic change in her. + +"I could hear Ciccio playing," she said. + +Geoffrey spread his rather thick lips in a smile, and jerked his +head in the direction of the back door, with a deep, intimate look +into Alvina's eyes, as if to say his friend was lovesick. + +"Shall I go through?" said Alvina. + +Geoffrey laid his large hand on her shoulder for a moment, looked +into her eyes, and nodded. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a +rather flat, handsome face, well-coloured, and with the look of the +Alpine ox about him, slow, eternal, even a little mysterious. Alvina +was startled by the deep, mysterious look in his dark-fringed +ox-eyes. The odd arch of his eyebrows made him suddenly seem not +quite human to her. She smiled to him again, startled. But he only +inclined his head, and with his heavy hand on her shoulder gently +impelled her towards Ciccio. + +When she came out at the back she smiled straight into Ciccio's +face, with her sudden, luminous smile. His hand on the mandoline +trembled into silence. He sat looking at her with an instant +re-establishment of knowledge. And yet she shrank from the long, +inscrutable gaze of his black-set, tawny eyes. She resented him a +little. And yet she went forward to him and stood so that her dress +touched him. And still he gazed up at her, with the heavy, +unspeaking look, that seemed to bear her down: he seemed like some +creature that was watching her for his purposes. She looked aside at +the black garden, which had a wiry goose-berry bush. + +"You will come with me to Woodhouse?" she said. + +He did not answer till she turned to him again. Then, as she met his +eyes, + +"To Woodhouse?" he said, watching her, to fix her. + +"Yes," she said, a little pale at the lips. + +And she saw his eternal smile of triumph slowly growing round his +mouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred +his tawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched +her as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of +ferocity. In his eyes was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something +fathomless, deepening black and abysmal, but somehow sweet to her. + +"Will you?" she repeated. + +But his eyes had already begun to glimmer their consent. He turned +aside his face, as if unwilling to give a straight answer. + +"Yes," he said. + +"Play something to me," she cried. + +He lifted his face to her, and shook his head slightly. + +"Yes do," she said, looking down on him. + +And he bent his head to the mandoline, and suddenly began to sing a +Neapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at +her again as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a +curious mocking caress as the muted _voix blanche_ came through his +lips at her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The sound +penetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the +high thread of his voice. She could see the Adam's apple move in his +throat, his brows tilted as he looked along his lashes at her all the +time. Here was the strange sphinx singing again, and herself between +its paws! She seemed almost to melt into his power. + +Madame intervened to save her. + +"What, serenade before breakfast! You have strong stomachs, I say. +Eggs and ham are more the question, hein? Come, you smell them, +don't you?" + +A flicker of contempt and derision went over Ciccio's face as he +broke off and looked aside. + +"I prefer the serenade," said Alvina. "I've had ham and eggs +before." + +"You do, hein? Well--always, you won't. And now you must eat the ham +and eggs, however. Yes? Isn't it so?" + +Ciccio rose to his feet, and looked at Alvina: as he would have +looked at Gigi, had Gigi been there. His eyes said unspeakable +things about Madame. Alvina flashed a laugh, suddenly. And a +good-humoured, half-mocking smile came over his face too. + +They turned to follow Madame into the house. And as Alvina went +before him, she felt his fingers stroke the nape of her neck, and +pass in a soft touch right down her back. She started as if some +unseen creature had stroked her with its paw, and she glanced +swiftly round, to see the face of Ciccio mischievous behind her +shoulder. + +"Now I think," said Madame, "that today we all take the same train. +We go by the Great Central as far as the junction, together. Then +you, Allaye, go on to Knarborough, and we leave you until tomorrow. +And now there is not much time." + +"I am going to Woodhouse," said Ciccio in French. + +"You also! By the train, or the bicycle?" + +"Train," said Ciccio. + +"Waste so much money?" + +Ciccio raised his shoulders slightly. + +When breakfast was over, and Alvina had gone to her room, Geoffrey +went out into the back yard, where the bicycles stood. + +"Cic'," he said. "I should like to go with thee to Woodhouse. Come +on bicycle with me." + +Ciccio shook his head. + +"I'm going in train with _her_," he said. + +Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger. + +"I would like to see how it is, there, _chez elle_," he said. + +"Ask _her_," said Ciccio. + +Geoffrey watched him suddenly. + +"Thou forsakest me," he said. "I would like to see it, there." + +"Ask _her_," repeated Ciccio. "Then come on bicycle." + +"You're content to leave me," muttered Geoffrey. + +Ciccio touched his friend on his broad cheek, and smiled at him with +affection. + +"I don't leave thee, Gigi. I asked thy advice. You said, Go. But +come. Go and ask her, and then come. Come on bicycle, eh? Ask her! +Go on! Go and ask her." + +Alvina was surprised to hear a tap at her door, and Gigi's voice, in +his strong foreign accent: + +"Mees Houghton, I carry your bag." + +She opened her door in surprise. She was all ready. + +"There it is," she said, smiling at him. + +But he confronted her like a powerful ox, full of dangerous force. +Her smile had reassured him. + +"Na, Allaye," he said, "tell me something." + +"What?" laughed Alvina. + +"Can I come to Woodhouse?" + +"When?" + +"Today. Can I come on bicycle, to tea, eh? At your house with you +and Ciccio? Eh?" + +He was smiling with a thick, doubtful, half sullen smile. + +"Do!" said Alvina. + +He looked at her with his large, dark-blue eyes. + +"Really, eh?" he said, holding out his large hand. + +She shook hands with him warmly. + +"Yes, really!" she said. "I wish you would." + +"Good," he said, a broad smile on his thick mouth. And all the time +he watched her curiously, from his large eyes. + +"Ciccio--a good chap, eh?" he said. + +"Is he?" laughed Alvina. + +"Ha-a--!" Gigi shook his head solemnly. "The best!" He made such +solemn eyes, Alvina laughed. He laughed too, and picked up her bag +as if it were a bubble. + +"Na Cic'--" he said, as he saw Ciccio in the street. "Sommes +d'accord." + +"Ben!" said Ciccio, holding out his hand for the bag. "Donne." + +"Ne-ne," said Gigi, shrugging. + +Alvina found herself on the new and busy station that Sunday morning, +one of the little theatrical company. It was an odd experience. They +were so obviously a theatrical company--people apart from the world. +Madame was darting her black eyes here and there, behind her spotted +veil, and standing with the ostensible self-possession of her +profession. Max was circling round with large strides, round a big +black box on which the red words Natcha-Kee-Tawara showed mystic, and +round the small bunch of stage fittings at the end of the platform. +Louis was waiting to get the tickets, Gigi and Ciccio were bringing up +the bicycles. They were a whole train of departure in themselves, busy, +bustling, cheerful--and curiously apart, vagrants. + +Alvina strolled away towards the half-open bookstall. Geoffrey was +standing monumental between her and the company. She returned to +him. + +"What time shall we expect you?" she said. + +He smiled at her in his broad, friendly fashion. + +"Expect me to be there? Why--" he rolled his eyes and proceeded to +calculate. "At four o'clock." + +"Just about the time when we get there," she said. + +He looked at her sagely, and nodded. + +They were a good-humoured company in the railway carriage. The men +smoked cigarettes and tapped off the ash on the heels of their +boots, Madame watched every traveller with professional curiosity. +Max scrutinized the newspaper, Lloyds, and pointed out items to +Louis, who read them over Max's shoulder, Ciccio suddenly smacked +Geoffrey on the thigh, and looked laughing into his face. So till +they arrived at the junction. And then there was a kissing and a +taking of farewells, as if the company were separating for ever. +Louis darted into the refreshment bar and returned with little pies +and oranges, which he deposited in the carriage, Madame presented +Alvina with a packet of chocolate. And it was "Good-bye, good-bye, +Allaye! Good-bye, Ciccio! Bon voyage. Have a good time, both." + +So Alvina sped on in the fast train to Knarborough with Ciccio. + +"I _do_ like them all," she said. + +He opened his mouth slightly and lifted his head up and down. She +saw in the movement how affectionate he was, and in his own way, how +emotional. He loved them all. She put her hand to his. He gave her +hand one sudden squeeze, of physical understanding, then left it as +if nothing had happened. There were other people in the carriage +with them. She could not help feeling how sudden and lovely that +moment's grasp of his hand was: so warm, so whole. + +And thus they watched the Sunday morning landscape slip by, as they +ran into Knarborough. They went out to a little restaurant to eat. +It was one o'clock. + +"Isn't it strange, that we are travelling together like this?" she +said, as she sat opposite him. + +He smiled, looking into her eyes. + +"You think it's strange?" he said, showing his teeth slightly. + +"Don't you?" she cried. + +He gave a slight, laconic laugh. + +"And I can hardly bear it that I love you so much," she said, +quavering, across the potatoes. + +He glanced furtively round, to see if any one was listening, if any +one might hear. He would have hated it. But no one was near. Beneath +the tiny table, he took her two knees between his knees, and pressed +them with a slow, immensely powerful pressure. Helplessly she put +her hand across the table to him. He covered it for one moment with +his hand, then ignored it. But her knees were still between the +powerful, living vice of his knees. + +"Eat!" he said to her, smiling, motioning to her plate. And he +relaxed her. + +They decided to go out to Woodhouse on the tram-car, a long hour's +ride. Sitting on the top of the covered car, in the atmosphere of +strong tobacco smoke, he seemed self-conscious, withdrawn into his +own cover, so obviously a dark-skinned foreigner. And Alvina, as she +sat beside him, was reminded of the woman with the negro husband, +down in Lumley. She understood the woman's reserve. She herself +felt, in the same way, something of an outcast, because of the man +at her side. An outcast! And glad to be an outcast. She clung to +Ciccio's dark, despised foreign nature. She loved it, she +worshipped it, she defied all the other world. Dark, he sat beside +her, drawn in to himself, overcast by his presumed inferiority among +these northern industrial people. And she was with him, on his side, +outside the pale of her own people. + +There were already acquaintances on the tram. She nodded in answer +to their salutation, but so obviously from a distance, that they +kept turning round to eye her and Ciccio. But they left her alone. +The breach between her and them was established for ever--and it was +her will which established it. + +So up and down the weary hills of the hilly, industrial countryside, +till at last they drew near to Woodhouse. They passed the ruins of +Throttle-Ha'penny, and Alvina glanced at it indifferent. They ran +along the Knarborough Road. A fair number of Woodhouse young people +were strolling along the pavements in their Sunday clothes. She knew +them all. She knew Lizzie Bates's fox furs, and Fanny Clough's lilac +costume, and Mrs. Smitham's winged hat. She knew them all. And +almost inevitably the old Woodhouse feeling began to steal over her, +she was glad they could not see her, she was a little ashamed of +Ciccio. She wished, for the moment, Ciccio were not there. And as +the time came to get down, she looked anxiously back and forth to +see at which halt she had better descend--where fewer people would +notice her. But then she threw her scruples to the wind, and +descended into the staring, Sunday afternoon street, attended by +Ciccio, who carried her bag. She knew she was a marked figure. + +They slipped round to Manchester House. Miss Pinnegar expected +Alvina, but by the train, which came later. So she had to be knocked +up, for she was lying down. She opened the door looking a little +patched in her cheeks, because of her curious colouring, and a +little forlorn, and a little dumpy, and a little irritable. + +"I didn't know there'd be two of you," was her greeting. + +"Didn't you," said Alvina, kissing her. "Ciccio came to carry my +bag." + +"Oh," said Miss Pinnegar. "How do you do?" and she thrust out her +hand to him. He shook it loosely. + +"I had your wire," said Miss Pinnegar. "You said the train. Mrs. +Rollings is coming in at four again--" + +"Oh all right--" said Alvina. + +The house was silent and afternoon-like. Ciccio took off his coat +and sat down in Mr. Houghton's chair. Alvina told him to smoke. He +kept silent and reserved. Miss Pinnegar, a poor, patch-cheeked, +rather round-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she +did not quite know what to say or do. + +She followed Alvina upstairs to her room. + +"I can't think why you bring _him_ here," snapped Miss Pinnegar. "I +don't know what you're thinking about. The whole place is talking +already." + +"I don't care," said Alvina. "I like him." + +"Oh--for shame!" cried Miss Pinnegar, lifting her hand with Miss +Frost's helpless, involuntary movement. "What do you think of +yourself? And your father a month dead." + +"It doesn't matter. Father _is_ dead. And I'm sure the dead don't +mind." + +"I never _knew_ such things as you say." + +"Why? I mean them." + +Miss Pinnegar stood blank and helpless. + +"You're not asking him to stay the night," she blurted. + +"Yes. And I'm going back with him to Madame tomorrow. You know I'm +part of the company now, as pianist." + +"And are you going to marry him?" + +"I don't know." + +"How _can_ you say you don't know! Why, it's awful. You make me feel +I shall go out of my mind." + +"But I _don't_ know," said Alvina. + +"It's incredible! Simply incredible! I believe you're out of your +senses. I used to think sometimes there was something wrong with +your mother. And that's what it is with you. You're not quite right +in your mind. You need to be looked after." + +"Do I, Miss Pinnegar! Ah, well, don't you trouble to look after me, +will you?" + +"No one will if I don't." + +"I hope no one will." + +There was a pause. + +"I'm ashamed to live another day in Woodhouse," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"_I'm_ leaving it for ever," said Alvina. + +"I should think so," said Miss Pinnegar. + +Suddenly she sank into a chair, and burst into tears, wailing: + +"Your poor father! Your poor father!" + +"I'm sure the dead are all right. Why must you pity him?" + +"You're a lost girl!" cried Miss Pinnegar. + +"Am I really?" laughed Alvina. It sounded funny. + +"Yes, you're a lost girl," sobbed Miss Pinnegar, on a final note of +despair. + +"I like being lost," said Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled and +forlorn. Alvina went to her and laid her hand on her shoulder. + +"Don't fret, Miss Pinnegar," she said. "Don't be silly. I love to be +with Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the end I shall marry him. But if +I don't--" her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnegar's heavy arm till +it hurt--"I wouldn't lose a minute of him, no, not for anything +would I." + +Poor Miss Pinnegar dwindled, convinced. + +"You make it hard for _me_, in Woodhouse," she said, hopeless. + +"Never mind," said Alvina, kissing her. "Woodhouse isn't heaven and +earth." + +"It's been my home for forty years." + +"It's been mine for thirty. That's why I'm glad to leave it." There +was a pause. + +"I've been thinking," said Miss Pinnegar, "about opening a little +business in Tamworth. You know the Watsons are there." + +"I believe you'd be happy," said Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar pulled herself together. She had energy and courage +still. + +"I don't want to stay here, anyhow," she said. "Woodhouse has +nothing for me any more." + +"Of course it hasn't," said Alvina. "I think you'd be happier away +from it." + +"Yes--probably I should--now!" + +None the less, poor Miss Pinnegar was grey-haired, she was almost a +dumpy, odd old woman. + +They went downstairs. Miss Pinnegar put on the kettle. + +"Would you like to see the house?" said Alvina to Ciccio. + +He nodded. And she took him from room to room. His eyes looked +quickly and curiously over everything, noticing things, but without +criticism. + +"This was my mother's little sitting-room," she said. "She sat here +for years, in this chair." + +"Always here?" he said, looking into Alvina's face. + +"Yes. She was ill with her heart. This is another photograph of her. +I'm not like her." + +"Who is _that_?" he asked, pointing to a photograph of the handsome, +white-haired Miss Frost. + +"That was Miss Frost, my governess. She lived here till she died. I +loved her--she meant everything to me." + +"She also dead--?" + +"Yes, five years ago." + +They went to the drawing-room. He laid his hand on the keys of the +piano, sounding a chord. + +"Play," she said. + +He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wished her to play. She +sat and played one of Kishwegin's pieces. He listened, faintly +smiling. + +"Fine piano--eh?" he said, looking into her face. + +"I like the tone," she said. + +"Is it yours?" + +"The piano? Yes. I suppose everything is mine--in name at least. I +don't know how father's affairs are really." + +He looked at her, and again his eye wandered over the room. He saw a +little coloured portrait of a child with a fleece of brownish-gold +hair and surprised eyes, in a pale-blue stiff frock with a broad +dark-blue sash. + +"You?" he said. + +"Do you recognize me?" she said. "Aren't I comical?" + +She took him upstairs--first to the monumental bedroom. + +"This was mother's room," she said. "Now it is mine." + +He looked at her, then at the things in the room, then out of the +window, then at her again. She flushed, and hurried to show him his +room, and the bath-room. Then she went downstairs. + +He kept glancing up at the height of the ceilings, the size of the +rooms, taking in the size and proportion of the house, and the +quality of the fittings. + +"It is a big house," he said. "Yours?" + +"Mine in name," said Alvina. "Father left all to me--and his debts +as well, you see." + +"Much debts?" + +"Oh yes! I don't quite know how much. But perhaps more debts than +there is property. I shall go and see the lawyer in the morning. +Perhaps there will be nothing at all left for me, when everything is +paid." + +She had stopped on the stairs, telling him this, turning round to +him, who was on the steps above. He looked down on her, calculating. +Then he smiled sourly. + +"Bad job, eh, if it is all gone--!" he said. + +"I don't mind, really, if I can live," she said. + +He spread his hands, deprecating, not understanding. Then he glanced +up the stairs and along the corridor again, and downstairs into the +hall. + +"A fine big house. Grand if it was yours," he said. + +"I wish it were," she said rather pathetically, "if you like it so +much." + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"He!" he said. "How not like it!" + +"I don't like it," she said. "I think it's a gloomy miserable hole. +I hate it. I've lived here all my life and seen everything bad +happen here. I hate it." + +"Why?" he said, with a curious, sarcastic intonation. + +"It's a bad job it isn't yours, for certain," he said, as they +entered the living-room, where Miss Pinnegar sat cutting bread and +butter. + +"What?" said Miss Pinnegar sharply. + +"The house," said Alvina. + +"Oh well, we don't know. We'll hope for the best," replied Miss +Pinnegar, arranging the bread and butter on the plate. Then, rather +tart, she added: "It is a bad job. And a good many things are a bad +job, besides that. If Miss Houghton had what she _ought_ to have, +things would be very different, I assure you." + +"Oh yes," said Ciccio, to whom this address was directed. + +"Very different indeed. If all the money hadn't been--lost--in the +way it has, Miss Houghton wouldn't be playing the piano, for one +thing, in a cinematograph show." + +"No, perhaps not," said Ciccio. + +"Certainly not. It's not the right thing for her to be doing, _at +all_!" + +"You think not?" said Ciccio. + +"Do you imagine it is?" said Miss Pinnegar, turning point blank on +him as he sat by the fire. + +He looked curiously at Miss Pinnegar, grinning slightly. + +"He!" he said. "How do I know!" + +"I should have thought it was obvious," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"He!" he ejaculated, not fully understanding. + +"But of course those that are used to nothing better can't see +anything but what they're used to," she said, rising and shaking the +crumbs from her black silk apron, into the fire. He watched her. + +Miss Pinnegar went away into the scullery. Alvina was laying a fire +in the drawing-room. She came with a dustpan to take some coal from +the fire of the living-room. + +"What do you want?" said Ciccio, rising. And he took the shovel from +her hand. + +"Big, hot fires, aren't they?" he said, as he lifted the burning +coals from the glowing mass of the grate. + +"Enough," said Alvina. "Enough! We'll put it in the drawing-room." +He carried the shovel of flaming, smoking coals to the other room, +and threw them in the grate on the sticks, watching Alvina put on +more pieces of coal. + +"Fine, a fire! Quick work, eh? A beautiful thing, a fire! You know +what they say in my place: You can live without food, but you can't +live without fire." + +"But I thought it was always hot in Naples," said Alvina. + +"No, it isn't. And my village, you know, when I was small boy, that +was in the mountains, an hour quick train from Naples. Cold in the +winter, hot in the summer--" + +"As cold as England?" said Alvina. + +"He--and colder. The wolves come down. You could hear them crying in +the night, in the frost--" + +"How terrifying--!" said Alvina. + +"And they will kill the dogs! Always they kill the dogs. You know, +they hate dogs, wolves do." He made a queer noise, to show how +wolves hate dogs. Alvina understood, and laughed. + +"So should I, if I was a wolf," she said. + +"Yes--eh?" His eyes gleamed on her for a moment. + +"Ah but, the poor dogs! You find them bitten--carried away among the +trees or the stones, hard to find them, poor things, the next day." + +"How frightened they must be--!" said Alvina. + +"Frightened--hu!" he made sudden gesticulations and ejaculations, +which added volumes to his few words. + +"And did you like it, your village?" she said. + +He put his head on one side in deprecation. + +"No," he said, "because, you see--he, there is nothing to do--no +money--work--work--work--no life--you see nothing. When I was a +small boy my father, he died, and my mother comes with me to Naples. +Then I go with the little boats on the sea--fishing, carrying +people--" He flourished his hand as if to make her understand all +the things that must be wordless. He smiled at her--but there was a +faint, poignant sadness and remoteness in him, a beauty of old +fatality, and ultimate indifference to fate. + +"And were you very poor?" + +"Poor?--why yes! Nothing. Rags--no shoes--bread, little fish from +the sea--shell-fish--" + +His hands flickered, his eyes rested on her with a profound look of +knowledge. And it seemed, in spite of all, one state was very much +the same to him as another, poverty was as much life as affluence. +Only he had a sort of jealous idea that it was humiliating to be +poor, and so, for vanity's sake, he would have possessions. The +countless generations of civilization behind him had left him an +instinct of the world's meaninglessness. Only his little modern +education made money and independence an _idee fixe_. Old instinct +told him the world was nothing. But modern education, so shallow, +was much more efficacious than instinct. It drove him to make a show +of himself to the world. Alvina watching him, as if hypnotized, saw +his old beauty, formed through civilization after civilization; and +at the same time she saw his modern vulgarianism, and decadence. + +"And when you go back, you will go back to your old village?" she +said. + +He made a gesture with his head and shoulders, evasive, +non-committal. + +"I don't know, you see," he said. + +"What is the name of it?" + +"Pescocalascio." He said the word subduedly, unwillingly. + +"Tell me again," said Alvina. + +"Pescocalascio." + +She repeated it. + +"And tell me how you spell it," she said. + +He fumbled in his pocket for a pencil and a piece of paper. She rose +and brought him an old sketch-book. He wrote, slowly, but with the +beautiful Italian hand, the name of his village. + +"And write your name," she said. + +"Marasca Francesco," he wrote. + +"And write the name of your father and mother," she said. He looked +at her enquiringly. + +"I want to see them," she said. + +"Marasca Giovanni," he wrote, and under that "Califano Maria." + +She looked at the four names, in the graceful Italian script. And +one after the other she read them out. He corrected her, smiling +gravely. When she said them properly, he nodded. + +"Yes," he said. "That's it. You say it well." + +At that moment Miss Pinnegar came in to say Mrs. Rollings had seen +another of the young men riding down the street. + +"That's Gigi! He doesn't know how to come here," said Ciccio, +quickly taking his hat and going out to find his friend. + +Geoffrey arrived, his broad face hot and perspiring. + +"Couldn't you find it?" said Alvina. + +"I find the house, but I couldn't find no door," said Geoffrey. + +They all laughed, and sat down to tea. Geoffrey and Ciccio talked to +each other in French, and kept each other in countenance. +Fortunately for them, Madame had seen to their table-manners. But +still they were far too free and easy to suit Miss Pinnegar. + +"Do you know," said Ciccio in French to Geoffrey, "what a fine house +this is?" + +"No," said Geoffrey, rolling his large eyes round the room, and +speaking with his cheek stuffed out with food. "Is it?" + +"Ah--if it was _hers_, you know--" + +And so, after tea, Ciccio said to Alvina: + +"Shall you let Geoffrey see the house?" + +The tour commenced again. Geoffrey, with his thick legs planted +apart, gazed round the rooms, and made his comments in French to +Ciccio. When they climbed the stairs, he fingered the big, smooth +mahogany bannister-rail. In the bedroom he stared almost dismayed +at the colossal bed and cupboard. In the bath-room he turned on the +old-fashioned, silver taps. + +"Here is my room--" said Ciccio in French. + +"Assez eloigne!" replied Gigi. Ciccio also glanced along the +corridor. + +"Yes," he said. "But an open course--" + +"Look, my boy--if you could marry _this_--" meaning the house. + +"Ha, she doesn't know if it hers any more! Perhaps the debts cover +every bit of it." + +"Don't say so! Na, that's a pity, that's a pity! La pauvre +fille--pauvre demoiselle!" lamented Geoffrey. + +"Isn't it a pity! What dost say?" + +"A thousand pities! A thousand pities! Look, my boy, love needs no +havings, but marriage does. Love is for all, even the grasshoppers. +But marriage means a kitchen. That's how it is. La pauvre +demoiselle; c'est malheur pour elle." + +"That's true," said Ciccio. "Et aussi pour moi. For me as well." + +"For thee as well, cher! Perhaps--" said Geoffrey, laying his arm on +Ciccio's shoulder, and giving him a sudden hug. They smiled to each +other. + +"Who knows!" said Ciccio. + +"Who knows, truly, my Cic'." + +As they went downstairs to rejoin Alvina, whom they heard playing on +the piano in the drawing-room, Geoffrey peeped once more into the +big bedroom. + +"Tu n'es jamais monte si haut, mon beau. Pour moi, ca serait +difficile de m'elever. J'aurais bien peur, moi. Tu te trouves aussi +un peu ebahi, hein? n'est-ce pas?" + +"Y'a place pour trois," said Ciccio. + +"Non, je creverais, la haut. Pas pour moi!" + +And they went laughing downstairs. + +Miss Pinnegar was sitting with Alvina, determined not to go to +Chapel this evening. She sat, rather hulked, reading a novel. Alvina +flirted with the two men, played the piano to them, and suggested a +game of cards. + +"Oh, Alvina, you will never bring out the cards tonight!" +expostulated poor Miss Pinnegar. + +"But, Miss Pinnegar, it can't possibly hurt anybody." + +"You know what I think--and what your father thought--and your +mother and Miss Frost--" + +"You see I think it's only prejudice," said Alvina. + +"Oh very well!" said Miss Pinnegar angrily. + +And closing her book, she rose and went to the other room. + +Alvina brought out the cards, and a little box of pence which +remained from Endeavour harvests. At that moment there was a knock. +It was Mr. May. Miss Pinnegar brought him in, in triumph. + +"Oh!" he said. "Company! I heard you'd come, Miss Houghton, so I +_hastened_ to pay my compliments. I didn't know you had _company_. +How do you do, Francesco! How do you do, Geoffrey. Comment +allez-vous, alors?" + +"Bien!" said Geoffrey. "You are going to take a hand?" + +"Cards on Sunday evening! Dear me, what a revolution! Of course, I'm +not _bigoted_. If Miss Houghton asks me--" + +Miss Pinnegar looked solemnly at Alvina. + +"Yes, do take a hand, Mr. May," said Alvina. + +"Thank you, I will then, if I may. Especially as I see those +tempting piles of pennies and ha'pennies. Who is bank, may I ask? Is +Miss Pinnegar going to play too?" + +But Miss Pinnegar had turned her poor, bowed back, and departed. + +"I'm afraid she's offended," said Alvina. + +"But why? We don't put _her_ soul in danger, do we now? I'm a good +Catholic, you know, I _can't_ do with these provincial little +creeds. Who deals? Do you, Miss Houghton? But I'm afraid we shall +have a rather _dry_ game? What? Isn't that your opinion?" + +The other men laughed. + +"If Miss Houghton would just _allow_ me to run round and bring +something in. Yes? May I? That would be _so_ much more cheerful. +What is your choice, gentlemen?" + +"Beer," said Ciccio, and Geoffrey nodded. + +"Beer! Oh really! Extraor'nary! I always take a little whiskey +myself. What kind of beer? Ale?--or bitter? I'm afraid I'd better +bring bottles. Now how can I secrete them? You haven't a small +travelling case, Miss Houghton? Then I shall look as if I'd just +been taking a _journey_. Which I have--to the Sun and back: and if +_that_ isn't far enough, even for Miss Pinnegar and John Wesley, +why, I'm sorry." + +Alvina produced the travelling case. + +"Excellent!" he said. "Excellent! It will hold half-a-dozen +beautifully. Now--" he fell into a whisper--"hadn't I better sneak +out at the front door, and so escape the clutches of the watch-dog?" + +Out he went, on tip-toe, the other two men grinning at him. +Fortunately there were glasses, the best old glasses, in the side +cupboard in the drawing room. But unfortunately, when Mr. May +returned, a corkscrew was in request. So Alvina stole to the +kitchen. Miss Pinnegar sat dumped by the fire, with her spectacles +and her book. She watched like a lynx as Alvina returned. And she +saw the tell-tale corkscrew. So she dumped a little deeper in her +chair. + +"There was a sound of revelry by night!" For Mr. May, after a long +depression, was in high feather. They shouted, positively shouted +over their cards, they roared with excitement, expostulation, and +laughter. Miss Pinnegar sat through it all. But at one point she +could bear it no longer. + +The drawing-room door opened, and the dumpy, hulked, faded woman in +a black serge dress stood like a rather squat avenging angel in the +doorway. + +"What would your _father_ say to this?" she said sternly. + +The company suspended their laughter and their cards, and looked +around. Miss Pinnegar wilted and felt strange under so many eyes. + +"Father!" said Alvina. "But why father?" + +"You lost girl!" said Miss Pinnegar, backing out and closing the +door. + +Mr. May laughed so much that he knocked his whiskey over. + +"There," he cried, helpless, "look what she's cost me!" And he went +off into another paroxysm, swelling like a turkey. + +Ciccio opened his mouth, laughing silently. + +"Lost girl! Lost girl! How lost, when you are at home?" said +Geoffrey, making large eyes and looking hither and thither as if +_he_ had lost something. + +They all went off again in a muffled burst. + +"No but, really," said Mr. May, "drinking and card-playing with +strange men in the drawing-room on Sunday evening, of _cauce_ it's +scandalous. It's _terrible_! I don't know how ever you'll be saved, +after such a sin. And in Manchester House, too--!" He went off into +another silent, turkey-scarlet burst of mirth, wriggling in his +chair and squealing faintly: "Oh, I love it, I love it! _You lost +girl!_ Why of _cauce_ she's lost! And Miss Pinnegar has only just +found it out. Who _wouldn't_ be lost? Why even Miss Pinnegar would +be lost if she could. Of _cauce_ she would! Quite natch'ral!" + +Mr. May wiped his eyes, with his handkerchief which had +unfortunately mopped up his whiskey. + +So they played on, till Mr. May and Geoffrey had won all the +pennies, except twopence of Ciccio's. Alvina was in debt. + +"Well I think it's been a most agreeable game," said Mr. May. "Most +agreeable! Don't you all?" + +The two other men smiled and nodded. + +"I'm only sorry to think Miss Houghton has _lost_ so steadily all +evening. Really quite remarkable. But _then_--you see--I comfort +myself with the reflection 'Lucky in cards, unlucky in love.' I'm +certainly _hounded_ with misfortune in love. And I'm _sure_ Miss +Houghton would rather be unlucky in cards than in love. What, isn't +it so?" + +"Of course," said Alvina. + +"There, you see, _of cauce_! Well, all we can do after that is to +wish her success in love. Isn't that so, gentlemen? I'm sure _we_ +are all quite willing to do our best to contribute to it. Isn't it +so, gentlemen? Aren't we all ready to do our best to contribute to +Miss Houghton's happiness in love? Well then, let us drink to it." +He lifted his glass, and bowed to Alvina. "With _every_ wish for +your success in love, Miss Houghton, and your _devoted_ servant--" +He bowed and drank. + +Geoffrey made large eyes at her as he held up his glass. + +"_I_ know you'll come out all right in love, _I_ know," he said +heavily. + +"And you, Ciccio? Aren't you drinking?" said Mr. May. + +Ciccio held up his glass, looked at Alvina, made a little mouth at +her, comical, and drank his beer. + +"Well," said Mr. May, "_beer_ must confirm it, since words won't." + +"What time is it?" said Alvina. "We must have supper." + +It was past nine o'clock. Alvina rose and went to the kitchen, the +men trailing after her. Miss Pinnegar was not there. She was not +anywhere. + +"Has she gone to bed?" said Mr. May. And he crept stealthily +upstairs on tip-toe, a comical, flush-faced, tubby little man. He +was familiar with the house. He returned prancing. + +"I heard her cough," he said. "There's a light under her door. She's +gone to bed. Now haven't I always said she was a good soul? I shall +drink her health. Miss Pinnegar--" and he bowed stiffly in the +direction of the stairs--"your health, and a _good night's rest_." + +After which, giggling gaily, he seated himself at the head of the +table and began to carve the cold mutton. + +"And where are the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras this week?" he asked. They +told him. + +"Oh? And you two are cycling back to the camp of Kishwegin tonight? +We mustn't prolong our cheerfulness _too_ far." + +"Ciccio is staying to help me with my bag tomorrow," said Alvina. +"You know I've joined the Tawaras permanently--as pianist." + +"No, I didn't know that! Oh really! Really! Oh! Well! I see! +Permanently! Yes, I am surprised! Yes! As pianist? And if I might +ask, what is your share of the tribal income?" + +"That isn't settled yet," said Alvina. + +"No! Exactly! Exactly! It _wouldn't_ be settled yet. And you say it +is a permanent engagement? Of _cauce_, at such a figure." + +"Yes, it is a permanent engagement," said Alvina. + +"Really! What a blow you give me! You won't come back to the +Endeavour? What? Not at all?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I shall sell out of the Endeavour." + +"Really! You've decided, have you? Oh! This is news to me. And is +_this_ quite final, too?" + +"Quite," said Alvina. + +"I see! Putting two and two together, if I may say so--" and he +glanced from her to the young men--"I _see_. Most decidedly, most +one-sidedly, if I may use the vulgarism, I _see--e--e!_ Oh! but what +a blow you give me! What a blow you give me!" + +"Why?" said Alvina. + +"What's to become of the Endeavour? and consequently, of poor me?" + +"Can't you keep it going?--form a company?" + +"I'm afraid I can't. I've done my best. But I'm afraid, you know, +you've landed me." + +"I'm so sorry," said Alvina. "I hope not." + +"Thank you for the _hope_" said Mr. May sarcastically. "They say +hope is sweet. _I_ begin to find it a little _bitter_!" + +Poor man, he had already gone quite yellow in the face. Ciccio and +Geoffrey watched him with dark-seeing eyes. + +"And when are you going to let this fatal decision take effect?" +asked Mr. May. + +"I'm going to see the lawyer tomorrow, and I'm going to tell him to +sell everything and clear up as soon as possible," said Alvina. + +"Sell everything! This house, and all it contains?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. "Everything." + +"Really!" Mr. May seemed smitten quite dumb. "I feel as if the world +had suddenly come to an end," he said. + +"But hasn't your world often come to an end before?" said Alvina. + +"Well--I suppose, once or twice. But _never_ quite on top of me, you +see, before--" + +There was a silence. + +"And have you told Miss Pinnegar?" said Mr. May. + +"Not finally. But she has decided to open a little business in +Tamworth, where she has relations." + +"Has she! And are you _really_ going to _tour_ with these young +people--?" he indicated Ciccio and Gigi. "And at _no_ salary!" His +voice rose. "Why! It's almost _White Slave Traffic_, on Madame's +part. Upon my word!" + +"I don't think so," said Alvina. "Don't you see that's insulting." + +"_Insulting!_ Well, I don't know. I think it's the _truth_--" + +"Not to be said to me, for all that," said Alvina, quivering with +anger. + +"Oh!" perked Mr. May, yellow with strange rage. "Oh! I mustn't say +what I think! Oh!" + +"Not if you think those things--" said Alvina. + +"Oh really! The difficulty is, you see, I'm afraid I _do_ think +them--" Alvina watched him with big, heavy eyes. + +"Go away," she said. "Go away! I won't be insulted by you." + +"No _indeed!_" cried Mr. May, starting to his feet, his eyes almost +bolting from his head. "No _indeed!_ I wouldn't _think_ of insulting +you in the presence of these _two_ young gentlemen." + +Ciccio rose slowly, and with a slow, repeated motion of the head, +indicated the door. + +"Allez!" he said. + +"_Certainement!_" cried Mr. May, flying at Ciccio, verbally, like an +enraged hen yellow at the gills. "_Certainement!_ Je m'en vais. +Cette compagnie n'est pas de ma choix." + +"Allez!" said Ciccio, more loudly. + +And Mr. May strutted out of the room like a bird bursting with its +own rage. Ciccio stood with his hands on the table, listening. They +heard Mr. May slam the front door. + +"Gone!" said Geoffrey. + +Ciccio smiled sneeringly. + +"Voyez, un cochon de lait," said Gigi amply and calmly. + +Ciccio sat down in his chair. Geoffrey poured out some beer for him, +saying: + +"Drink, my Cic', the bubble has burst, prfff!" And Gigi knocked in +his own puffed cheek with his fist. "Allaye, my dear, your health! +We are the Tawaras. We are Allaye! We are Pacohuila! We are +Walgatchka! Allons! The milk-pig is stewed and eaten. Voila!" He +drank, smiling broadly. + +"One by one," said Geoffrey, who was a little drunk: "One by one we +put them out of the field, they are _hors de combat_. Who remains? +Pacohuila, Walgatchka, Allaye--" + +He smiled very broadly. Alvina was sitting sunk in thought and +torpor after her sudden anger. + +"Allaye, what do you think about? You are the bride of Tawara," said +Geoffrey. + +Alvina looked at him, smiling rather wanly. + +"And who is Tawara?" she asked. + +He raised his shoulders and spread his hands and swayed his head +from side to side, for all the world like a comic mandarin. + +"There!" he cried. "The question! Who is Tawara? Who? Tell me! +Ciccio is he--and I am he--and Max and Louis--" he spread his hand +to the distant members of the tribe. + +"I can't be the bride of all four of you," said Alvina, laughing. + +"No--no! No--no! Such a thing does not come into my mind. But you +are the Bride of Tawara. You dwell in the tent of Pacohuila. And +comes the day, should it ever be so, there is no room for you in the +tent of Pacohuila, then the lodge of Walgatchka the bear is open for +you. Open, yes, wide open--" He spread his arms from his ample +chest, at the end of the table. "Open, and when Allaye enters, it is +the lodge of Allaye, Walgatchka is the bear that serves Allaye. By +the law of the Pale Face, by the law of the Yenghees, by the law of +the Fransayes, Walgatchka shall be husband-bear to Allaye, that day +she lifts the door-curtain of his tent--" + +He rolled his eyes and looked around. Alvina watched him. + +"But I might be afraid of a husband-bear," she said. + +Geoffrey got on to his feet. + +"By the Manitou," he said, "the head of the bear Walgatchka is +humble--" here Geoffrey bowed his head--"his teeth are as soft as +lilies--" here he opened his mouth and put his finger on his small +close teeth--"his hands are as soft as bees that stroke a flower--" +here he spread his hands and went and suddenly flopped on his knees +beside Alvina, showing his hands and his teeth still, and rolling +his eyes. "Allaye can have no fear at all of the bear Walgatchka," +he said, looking up at her comically. + +Ciccio, who had been watching and slightly grinning, here rose to +his feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up. + +"Basta!" he said. "Tu es saoul. You are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. How +are you going to ride to Mansfield, hein?--great beast." + +"Ciccio," said Geoffrey solemnly. "I love thee, I love thee as a +brother, and also more. I love thee as a brother, my Ciccio, as thou +knowest. But--" and he puffed fiercely--"I am the slave of Allaye, I +am the tame bear of Allaye." + +"Get up," said Ciccio, "get up! Per bacco! She doesn't want a tame +bear." He smiled down on his friend. + +Geoffrey rose to his feet and flung his arms round Ciccio. + +"Cic'," he besought him. "Cic'--I love thee as a brother. But let me +be the tame bear of Allaye, let me be the gentle bear of Allaye." + +"All right," said Ciccio. "Thou art the tame bear of Allaye." + +Geoffrey strained Ciccio to his breast. + +"Thank you! Thank you! Salute me, my own friend." + +And Ciccio kissed him on either cheek. Whereupon Geoffrey +immediately flopped on his knees again before Alvina, and presented +her his broad, rich-coloured cheek. + +"Salute your bear, Allaye," he cried. "Salute your slave, the tame +bear Walgatchka, who is a wild bear for all except Allaye and his +brother Pacohuila the Puma." Geoffrey growled realistically as a +wild bear as he kneeled before Alvina, presenting his cheek. + +Alvina looked at Ciccio, who stood above, watching. Then she lightly +kissed him on the cheek, and said: + +"Won't you go to bed and sleep?" + +Geoffrey staggered to his feet, shaking his head. + +"No--no--" he said. "No--no! Walgatchka must travel to the tent of +Kishwegin, to the Camp of the Tawaras." + +"Not tonight, _mon brave_," said Ciccio. "Tonight we stay here, +hein. Why separate, hein?--frere?" + +Geoffrey again clasped Ciccio in his arms. + +"Pacohuila and Walgatchka are blood-brothers, two bodies, one blood. +One blood, in two bodies; one stream, in two valleys: one lake, +between two mountains." + +Here Geoffrey gazed with large, heavy eyes on Ciccio. Alvina brought +a candle and lighted it. + +"You will manage in the one room?" she said. "I will give you +another pillow." + +She led the way upstairs. Geoffrey followed, heavily. Then Ciccio. +On the landing Alvina gave them the pillow and the candle, smiled, +bade them good-night in a whisper, and went downstairs again. She +cleared away the supper and carried away all glasses and bottles +from the drawing-room. Then she washed up, removing all traces of +the feast. The cards she restored to their old mahogany box. +Manchester House looked itself again. + +She turned off the gas at the meter, and went upstairs to bed. From +the far room she could hear the gentle, but profound vibrations of +Geoffrey's snoring. She was tired after her day: too tired to +trouble about anything any more. + +But in the morning she was first downstairs. She heard Miss +Pinnegar, and hurried. Hastily she opened the windows and doors to +drive away the smell of beer and smoke. She heard the men rumbling +in the bath-room. And quickly she prepared breakfast and made a +fire. Mrs. Rollings would not appear till later in the day. At a +quarter to seven Miss Pinnegar came down, and went into the scullery +to make her tea. + +"Did both the men stay?" she asked. + +"Yes, they both slept in the end room," said Alvina. + +Miss Pinnegar said no more, but padded with her tea and her boiled +egg into the living room. In the morning she was wordless. + +Ciccio came down, in his shirt-sleeves as usual, but wearing a +collar. He greeted Miss Pinnegar politely. + +"Good-morning!" she said, and went on with her tea. + +Geoffrey appeared. Miss Pinnegar glanced once at him, sullenly, and +briefly answered his good-morning. Then she went on with her egg, +slow and persistent in her movements, mum. + +The men went out to attend to Geoffrey's bicycle. The morning was +slow and grey, obscure. As they pumped up the tires, they heard some +one padding behind. Miss Pinnegar came and unbolted the yard door, +but ignored their presence. Then they saw her return and slowly +mount the outer stair-ladder, which went up to the top floor. Two +minutes afterwards they were startled by the irruption of the +work-girls. As for the work-girls, they gave quite loud, startled +squeals, suddenly seeing the two men on their right hand, in the +obscure morning. And they lingered on the stair-way to gaze in rapt +curiosity, poking and whispering, until Miss Pinnegar appeared +overhead, and sharply rang a bell which hung beside the entrance +door of the work-rooms. + +After which excitements Geoffrey and Ciccio went in to breakfast, +which Alvina had prepared. + +"You have done it all, eh?" said Ciccio, glancing round. + +"Yes. I've made breakfast for years, now," said Alvina. + +"Not many more times here, eh?" he said, smiling significantly. + +"I hope not," said Alvina. + +Ciccio sat down almost like a husband--as if it were his right. + +Geoffrey was very quiet this morning. He ate his breakfast, and rose +to go. + +"I shall see you soon," he said, smiling sheepishly and bowing to +Alvina. Ciccio accompanied him to the street. + +When Ciccio returned, Alvina was once more washing dishes. + +"What time shall we go?" he said. + +"We'll catch the one train. I must see the lawyer this morning." + +"And what shall you say to him?" + +"I shall tell him to sell everything--" + +"And marry me?" + +She started, and looked at him. + +"You don't want to marry, do you?" she said. + +"Yes, I do." + +"Wouldn't you rather wait, and see--" + +"What?" he said. + +"See if there is any money." + +He watched her steadily, and his brow darkened. + +"Why?" he said. + +She began to tremble. + +"You'd like it better if there was money." + +A slow, sinister smile came on his mouth. His eyes never smiled, +except to Geoffrey, when a flood of warm, laughing light sometimes +suffused them. + +"You think I should!" + +"Yes. It's true, isn't it? You would!" + +He turned his eyes aside, and looked at her hands as she washed the +forks. They trembled slightly. Then he looked back at her eyes +again, that were watching him large and wistful and a little +accusing. + +His impudent laugh came on his face. + +"Yes," he said, "it is always better if there is money." He put his +hand on her, and she winced. "But I marry you for love, you know. +You know what love is--" And he put his arms round her, and laughed +down into her face. + +She strained away. + +"But you can have love without marriage," she said. "You know that." + +"All right! All right! Give me love, eh? I want that." + +She struggled against him. + +"But not now," she said. + +She saw the light in his eyes fix determinedly, and he nodded. + +"Now!" he said. "Now!" + +His yellow-tawny eyes looked down into hers, alien and overbearing. + +"I can't," she struggled. "I can't now." + +He laughed in a sinister way: yet with a certain warmheartedness. + +"Come to that big room--" he said. + +Her face flew fixed into opposition. + +"I can't now, really," she said grimly. + +His eyes looked down at hers. Her eyes looked back at him, hard and +cold and determined. They remained motionless for some seconds. +Then, a stray wisp of her hair catching his attention, desire filled +his heart, warm and full, obliterating his anger in the combat. For +a moment he softened. He saw her hardness becoming more assertive, +and he wavered in sudden dislike, and almost dropped her. Then again +the desire flushed his heart, his smile became reckless of her, and +he picked her right up. + +"Yes," he said. "Now." + +For a second, she struggled frenziedly. But almost instantly she +recognized how much stronger he was, and she was still, mute and +motionless with anger. White, and mute, and motionless, she was taken +to her room. And at the back of her mind all the time she wondered at +his deliberate recklessness of her. Recklessly, he had his will of +her--but deliberately, and thoroughly, not rushing to the issue, but +taking everything he wanted of her, progressively, and fully, leaving +her stark, with nothing, nothing of herself--nothing. + +When she could lie still she turned away from him, still mute. And +he lay with his arms over her, motionless. Noises went on, in the +street, overhead in the work-room. But theirs was complete silence. + +At last he rose and looked at her. + +"Love is a fine thing, Allaye," he said. + +She lay mute and unmoving. He approached, laid his hand on her +breast, and kissed her. + +"Love," he said, asserting, and laughing. + +But still she was completely mute and motionless. He threw +bedclothes over her and went downstairs, whistling softly. + +She knew she would have to break her own trance of obstinacy. So she +snuggled down into the bedclothes, shivering deliciously, for her +skin had become chilled. She didn't care a bit, really, about her +own downfall. She snuggled deliciously in the sheets, and admitted +to herself that she loved him. In truth, she loved him--and she was +laughing to herself. + +Luxuriously, she resented having to get up and tackle her heap of +broken garments. But she did it. She took other clothes, adjusted +her hair, tied on her apron, and went downstairs once more. She +could not find Ciccio: he had gone out. A stray cat darted from the +scullery, and broke a plate in her leap. Alvina found her washing-up +water cold. She put on more, and began to dry her dishes. + +Ciccio returned shortly, and stood in the doorway looking at her. +She turned to him, unexpectedly laughing. + +"What do you think of yourself?" she laughed. + +"Well," he said, with a little nod, and a furtive look of triumph +about him, evasive. He went past her and into the room. Her inside +burned with love for him: so elusive, so beautiful, in his silent +passing out of her sight. She wiped her dishes happily. Why was she +so absurdly happy, she asked herself? And why did she still fight so +hard against the sense of his dark, unseizable beauty? Unseizable, +for ever unseizable! That made her almost his slave. She fought +against her own desire to fall at his feet. Ridiculous to be so +happy. + +She sang to herself as she went about her work downstairs. Then she +went upstairs, to do the bedrooms and pack her bag. At ten o'clock +she was to go to the family lawyer. + +She lingered over her possessions: what to take, and what not to +take. And so doing she wasted her time. It was already ten o'clock +when she hurried downstairs. He was sitting quite still, waiting. He +looked up at her. + +"Now I must hurry," she said. "I don't think I shall be more than an +hour." + +He put on his hat and went out with her. + +"I shall tell the lawyer I am engaged to you. Shall I?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said. "Tell him what you like." He was indifferent. + +"Because," said Alvina gaily, "we can please ourselves what we do, +whatever we say. I shall say we think of getting married in the +summer, when we know each other better, and going to Italy." + +"Why shall you say all that?" said Ciccio. + +"Because I shall _have_ to give some account of myself, or they'll +make me do something I don't want to do. You might come to the +lawyer's with me, will you? He's an awfully nice old man. Then he'd +believe in you." + +But Ciccio shook his head. + +"No," he said. "I shan't go. He doesn't want to see _me_." + +"Well, if you don't want to. But I remember your name, Francesco +Marasca, and I remember Pescocalascio." + +Ciccio heard in silence, as they walked the half-empty, +Monday-morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina. +Some hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at +Ciccio. Ciccio however stood aside and turned his back. + +"Oh yes," Alvina said. "I am staying with friends, here and there, +for a few weeks. No, I don't know when I shall be back. Good-bye!" + +"You're looking well, Alvina," people said to her. "I think you're +looking wonderful. A change does you good." + +"It does, doesn't it," said Alvina brightly. And she was pleased she +was looking well. + +"Well, good-bye for a minute," she said, glancing smiling into his +eyes and nodding to him, as she left him at the gate of the lawyer's +house, by the ivy-covered wall. + +The lawyer was a little man, all grey. Alvina had known him since +she was a child: but rather as an official than an individual. She +arrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinized her +sharply, officially, before beginning. + +"Well, Miss Houghton, and what news have you?" + +"I don't think I've any, Mr. Beeby. I came to you for news." + +"Ah!" said the lawyer, and he fingered a paper-weight that covered a +pile of papers. "I'm afraid there is nothing very pleasant, +unfortunately. And nothing very unpleasant either, for that matter." + + + +He gave her a shrewd little smile. + +"Is the will proved?" + +"Not yet. But I expect it will be through in a few days' time." + +"And are all the claims in?" + +"Yes. I _think_ so. I think so!" And again he laid his hand on the +pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran through the edges +with the tips of his fingers. + +"All those?" said Alvina. + +"Yes," he said quietly. It sounded ominous. + +"Many!" said Alvina. + +"A fair amount! A fair amount! Let me show you a statement." + +He rose and brought her a paper. She made out, with the lawyer's +help, that the claims against her father's property exceeded the +gross estimate of his property by some seven hundred pounds. + +"Does it mean we owe seven hundred pounds?" she asked. + +"That is only on the _estimate_ of the property. It might, of +course, realize much more, when sold--or it might realize less." + +"How awful!" said Alvina, her courage sinking. + +"Unfortunate! Unfortunate! However, I don't think the realization of +the property would amount to less than the estimate. I don't think +so." + +"But even then," said Alvina. "There is sure to be something +owing--" + +She saw herself saddled with her father's debts. + +"I'm afraid so," said the lawyer. + +"And then what?" said Alvina. + +"Oh--the creditors will have to be satisfied with a little less than +they claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you see. I don't +expect they will complain a great deal. In fact, some of them will +be less badly off than they feared. No, on that score we need not +trouble further. Useless if we do, anyhow. But now, about yourself. +Would you like me to try to compound with the creditors, so that you +could have some sort of provision? They are mostly people who know +you, know your condition: and I might try--" + +"Try what?" said Alvina. + +"To make some sort of compound. Perhaps you might retain a lease of +Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms. Perhaps even something might be done +about the cinematograph. What would you like--?" + +Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivy +sprays, and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not, she +could not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had +confidently expected a few hundred pounds: even a thousand or more. +And that would make her _something_ of a catch, to people who had +nothing. But now!--nothing!--nothing at the back of her but her +hundred pounds. When that was gone--! + +In her dilemma she looked at the lawyer. + +"You didn't expect it would be quite so bad?" he said. + +"I think I didn't," she said. + +"No. Well--it might have been worse." + +Again he waited. And again she looked at him vacantly. + +"What do you think?" he said. + +For answer, she only looked at him with wide eyes. + +"Perhaps you would rather decide later." + +"No," she said. "No. It's no use deciding later." + +The lawyer watched her with curious eyes, his hand beat a little +impatiently. + +"I will do my best," he said, "to get what I can for you." + +"Oh well!" she said. "Better let everything go. I don't _want_ to +hang on. Don't bother about me at all. I shall go away, anyhow." + +"You will go away?" said the lawyer, and he studied his +finger-nails. + +"Yes. I shan't stay here." + +"Oh! And may I ask if you have any definite idea, where you will +go?" + +"I've got an engagement as pianist, with a travelling theatrical +company." + +"Oh indeed!" said the lawyer, scrutinizing her sharply. She stared +away vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of +his finger-nails once more. "And at a sufficient salary?" + +"Quite sufficient, thank you," said Alvina. + +"Oh! Well! Well now!--" He fidgetted a little. "You see, we are all +old neighbours and connected with your father for many years. +We--that is the persons interested, and myself--would not like to +think that you were driven out of Woodhouse--er--er--destitute. +If--er--we could come to some composition--make some arrangement +that would be agreeable to you, and would, in some measure, secure +you a means of livelihood--" + +He watched Alvina with sharp blue eyes. Alvina looked back at him, +still vacantly. + +"No--thanks awfully!" she said. "But don't bother. I'm going away." + +"With the travelling theatrical company?" + +"Yes." + +The lawyer studied his finger-nails intensely. + +"Well," he said, feeling with a finger-tip an imaginary roughness of +one nail-edge. "Well, in that case--In that case--Supposing you have +made an irrevocable decision--" + +He looked up at her sharply. She nodded slowly, like a porcelain +mandarin. + +"In that case," he said, "we must proceed with the valuation and the +preparation for the sale." + +"Yes," she said faintly. + +"You realize," he said, "that everything in Manchester House, except +your private personal property, and that of Miss Pinnegar, belongs +to the claimants, your father's creditors, and may not be removed +from the house." + +"Yes," she said. + +"And it will be necessary to make an account of everything in the +house. So if you and Miss Pinnegar will put your possessions +strictly apart--But I shall see Miss Pinnegar during the course of +the day. Would you ask her to call about seven--I think she is free +then--" + +Alvina sat trembling. + +"I shall pack my things today," she said. + +"Of course," said the lawyer, "any little things to which you may be +attached the claimants would no doubt wish you to regard as your +own. For anything of greater value--your piano, for example--I +should have to make a personal request--" + +"Oh, I don't want anything--" said Alvina. + +"No? Well! You will see. You will be here a few days?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I'm going away today." + +"Today! Is that also irrevocable?" + +"Yes. I must go this afternoon." + +"On account of your engagement? May I ask where your company is +performing this week? Far away?" + +"Mansfield!" + +"Oh! Well then, in case I particularly wished to see you, you could +come over?" + +"If necessary," said Alvina. "But I don't want to come to Woodhouse +unless it _is_ necessary. Can't we write?" + +"Yes--certainly! Certainly!--most things! Certainly! And now--" + +He went into certain technical matters, and Alvina signed some +documents. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an hour +in the room. + +"Well, good-morning, Miss Houghton. You will hear from me, and I +from you. I wish you a pleasant experience in your new occupation. +You are not leaving Woodhouse for ever." + +"Good-bye!" she said. And she hurried to the road. + +Try as she might, she felt as if she had had a blow which knocked +her down. She felt she had had a blow. + +At the lawyer's gate she stood a minute. There, across a little +hollow, rose the cemetery hill. There were her graves: her mother's, +Miss Frost's, her father's. Looking, she made out the white cross at +Miss Frost's grave, the grey stone at her parents'. Then she turned +slowly, under the church wall, back to Manchester House. + +She felt humiliated. She felt she did not want to see anybody at all. +She did not want to see Miss Pinnegar, nor the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras: and +least of all, Ciccio. She felt strange in Woodhouse, almost as if the +ground had risen from under her feet and hit her over the mouth. The +fact that Manchester House and its very furniture was under seal to be +sold on behalf of her father's creditors made her feel as if all her +Woodhouse life had suddenly gone smash. She loathed the thought of +Manchester House. She loathed staying another minute in it. + +And yet she did not want to go to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras either. The +church clock above her clanged eleven. She ought to take the +twelve-forty train to Mansfield. Yet instead of going home she +turned off down the alley towards the fields and the brook. + +How many times had she gone that road! How many times had she seen +Miss Frost bravely striding home that way, from her music-pupils. +How many years had she noticed a particular wild cherry-tree come +into blossom, a particular bit of black-thorn scatter its whiteness +in among the pleached twigs of a hawthorn hedge. How often, how many +springs had Miss Frost come home with a bit of this black-thorn in +her hand! + +Alvina did _not_ want to go to Mansfield that afternoon. She felt +insulted. She knew she would be much cheaper in Madame's eyes. She knew +her own position with the troupe would be humiliating. It would be +openly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeningly +humiliating to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour of +Woodhouse's calculated benevolence. She hardly knew which was worse: +the cool look of insolent half-contempt, half-satisfaction with which +Madame would receive the news of her financial downfall, or the +officious patronage which she would meet from the Woodhouse magnates. +She knew exactly how Madame's black eyes would shine, how her mouth +would curl with a sneering, slightly triumphant smile, as she heard the +news. And she could hear the bullying tone in which Henry Wagstaff +would dictate the Woodhouse benevolence to her. She wanted to go away +from them all--from them all--for ever. + +Even from Ciccio. For she felt he insulted her too. Subtly, they all +did it. They had regard for her possibilities as an heiress. Five +hundred, even two hundred pounds would have made all the difference. +Useless to deny it. Even to Ciccio. Ciccio would have had a lifelong +respect for her, if she had come with even so paltry a sum as two +hundred pounds. Now she had nothing, he would coolly withhold this +respect. She felt he might jeer at her. And she could not get away +from this feeling. + +Mercifully she had the bit of ready money. And she had a few +trinkets which might be sold. Nothing else. Mercifully, for the mere +moment, she was independent. + +Whatever else she did, she must go back and pack. She must pack her +two boxes, and leave them ready. For she felt that once she had +left, she could never come back to Woodhouse again. If England had +cliffs all round--why, when there was nowhere else to go and no +getting beyond, she could walk over one of the cliffs. Meanwhile, +she had her short run before her. She banked hard on her +independence. + +So she turned back to the town. She would not be able to take the +twelve-forty train, for it was already mid-day. But she was glad. +She wanted some time to herself. She would send Ciccio on. Slowly +she climbed the familiar hill--slowly--and rather bitterly. She felt +her native place insulted her: and she felt the Natchas insulted +her. In the midst of the insult she remained isolated upon herself, +and she wished to be alone. + +She found Ciccio waiting at the end of the yard: eternally waiting, +it seemed. He was impatient. + +"You've been a long time," he said. + +"Yes," she answered. + +"We shall have to make haste to catch the train." + +"I can't go by this train. I shall have to come on later. You can +just eat a mouthful of lunch, and go now." + +They went indoors. Miss Pinnegar had not yet come down. Mrs. +Rollings was busily peeling potatoes. + +"Mr. Marasca is going by the train, he'll have to have a little cold +meat," said Alvina. "Would you mind putting it ready while I go +upstairs?" + +"Sharpses and Fullbankses sent them bills," said Mrs. Rollings. +Alvina opened them, and turned pale. It was thirty pounds, the total +funeral expenses. She had completely forgotten them. + +"And Mr. Atterwell wants to know what you'd like put on th' +headstone for your father--if you'd write it down." + +"All right." + +Mrs. Rollings popped on the potatoes for Miss Pinnegar's dinner, and +spread the cloth for Ciccio. When he was eating, Miss Pinnegar came +in. She inquired for Alvina--and went upstairs. + +"Have you had your dinner?" she said. For there was Alvina sitting +writing a letter. + +"I'm going by a later train," said Alvina. + +"Both of you?" + +"No. He's going now." + +Miss Pinnegar came downstairs again, and went through to the +scullery. When Alvina came down, she returned to the living room. + +"Give this letter to Madame," Alvina said to Ciccio. "I shall be at +the hall by seven tonight. I shall go straight there." + +"Why can't you come now?" said Ciccio. + +"I can't possibly," said Alvina. "The lawyer has just told me +father's debts come to much more than everything is worth. Nothing +is ours--not even the plate you're eating from. Everything is under +seal to be sold to pay off what is owing. So I've got to get my own +clothes and boots together, or they'll be sold with the rest. Mr. +Beeby wants you to go round at seven this evening, Miss +Pinnegar--before I forget." + +"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "Really! The house and the furniture +and everything got to be sold up? Then we're on the streets! I can't +believe it." + +"So he told me," said Alvina. + +"But how positively awful," said Miss Pinnegar, sinking motionless +into a chair. + +"It's not more than I expected," said Alvina. "I'm putting my things +into my two trunks, and I shall just ask Mrs. Slaney to store them +for me. Then I've the bag I shall travel with." + +"Really!" gasped Miss Pinnegar. "I can't believe it! And when have +we got to get out?" + +"Oh, I don't think there's a desperate hurry. They'll take an +inventory of all the things, and we can live on here till they're +actually ready for the sale." + +"And when will that be?" + +"I don't know. A week or two." + +"And is the cinematograph to be sold the same?" + +"Yes--everything! The piano--even mother's portrait--" + +"It's impossible to believe it," said Miss Pinnegar. "It's +impossible. He can never have left things so bad." + +"Ciccio," said Alvina. "You'll really have to go if you are to catch +the train. You'll give Madame my letter, won't you? I should hate +you to miss the train. I know she can't bear me already, for all the +fuss and upset I cause." + +Ciccio rose slowly, wiping his mouth. + +"You'll be there at seven o'clock?" he said. + +"At the theatre," she replied. + +And without more ado, he left. + +Mrs. Rollings came in. + +"You've heard?" said Miss Pinnegar dramatically. + +"I heard somethink," said Mrs. Rollings. + +"Sold up! Everything to be sold up. Every stick and rag! I never +thought I should live to see the day," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"You might almost have expected it," said Mrs. Rollings. "But you're +all right, yourself, Miss Pinnegar. Your money isn't with his, is +it?" + +"No," said Miss Pinnegar. "What little I have put by is safe. But +it's not enough to live on. It's not enough to keep me, even +supposing I only live another ten years. If I only spend a pound a +week, it costs fifty-two pounds a year. And for ten years, look at +it, it's five hundred and twenty pounds. And you couldn't say less. +And I haven't half that amount. I never had more than a wage, you +know. Why, Miss Frost earned a good deal more than I do. And _she_ +didn't leave much more than fifty. Where's the money to come +from--?" + +"But if you've enough to start a little business--" said Alvina. + +"Yes, it's what I shall _have_ to do. It's what I shall have to do. +And then what about you? What about you?" + +"Oh, don't bother about me," said Alvina. + +"Yes, it's all very well, don't bother. But when you come to my age, +you know you've _got_ to bother, and bother a great deal, if you're +not going to find yourself in a position you'd be sorry for. You +_have_ to bother. And _you'll_ have to bother before you've done." + +"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," said Alvina. + +"Ha, sufficient for a good many days, it seems to me." + +Miss Pinnegar was in a real temper. To Alvina this seemed an odd way +of taking it. The three women sat down to an uncomfortable dinner of +cold meat and hot potatoes and warmed-up pudding. + +"But whatever you do," pronounced Miss Pinnegar; "whatever you do, +and however you strive, in this life, you're knocked down in the +end. You're always knocked down." + +"It doesn't matter," said Alvina, "if it's only in the end. It +doesn't matter if you've had your life." + +"You've never had your life, till you're dead," said Miss Pinnegar. +"And if you work and strive, you've a right to the fruits of your +work." + +"It doesn't matter," said Alvina laconically, "so long as you've +enjoyed working and striving." + +But Miss Pinnegar was too angry to be philosophic. Alvina knew it +was useless to be either angry or otherwise emotional. None the +less, she also felt as if she had been knocked down. And she almost +envied poor Miss Pinnegar the prospect of a little, day-by-day +haberdashery shop in Tamworth. Her own problem seemed so much more +menacing. "Answer or die," said the Sphinx of fate. Miss Pinnegar +could answer her own fate according to its question. She could say +"haberdashery shop," and her sphinx would recognize this answer as +true to nature, and would be satisfied. But every individual has his +own, or her own fate, and her own sphinx. Alvina's sphinx was an +old, deep thoroughbred, she would take no mongrel answers. And her +thoroughbred teeth were long and sharp. To Alvina, the last of the +fantastic but pure-bred race of Houghton, the problem of her fate +was terribly abstruse. + +The only thing to do was not to solve it: to stray on, and answer +fate with whatever came into one's head. No good striving with fate. +Trust to a lucky shot, or take the consequences. + +"Miss Pinnegar," said Alvina. "Have we any money in hand?" + +"There is about twenty pounds in the bank. It's all shown in my +books," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"We couldn't take it, could we?" + +"Every penny shows in the books." + +Alvina pondered again. + +"Are there more bills to come in?" she asked. "I mean my bills. Do I +owe anything?" + +"I don't think you do," said Miss Pinnegar. + +"I'm going to keep the insurance money, any way. They can say what +they like. I've got it, and I'm going to keep it." + +"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, "it's not my business. But there's +Sharps and Fullbanks to pay." + +"I'll pay those," said Alvina. "You tell Atterwell what to put on +father's stone. How much does it cost?" + +"Five shillings a letter, you remember." + +"Well, we'll just put the name and the date. How much will that be? +James Houghton. Born 17th January--" + +"You'll have to put 'Also of,'" said Miss Pinnegar. + +"Also of--" said Alvina. "One--two--three--four--five--six--. Six +letters--thirty shillings. Seems an awful lot for _Also of_--" + +"But you can't leave it out," said Miss Pinnegar. "You can't +economize over that." + +"I begrudge it," said Alvina. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HONOURABLE ENGAGEMENT + + +For days, after joining the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, Alvina was very +quiet, subdued, and rather remote, sensible of her humiliating +position as a hanger-on. They none of them took much notice of her. +They drifted on, rather disjointedly. The cordiality, the _joie de +vivre_ did not revive. Madame was a little irritable, and very +exacting, and inclined to be spiteful. Ciccio went his way with +Geoffrey. + +In the second week, Madame found out that a man had been +surreptitiously inquiring about them at their lodgings, from the +landlady and the landlady's blowsy daughter. It must have been a +detective--some shoddy detective. Madame waited. Then she sent Max +over to Mansfield, on some fictitious errand. Yes, the lousy-looking +dogs of detectives had been there too, making the most minute +enquiries as to the behaviour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, what they +did, how their sleeping was arranged, how Madame addressed the men, +what attitude the men took towards Alvina. + +Madame waited again. And again, when they moved to Doncaster, the +same two mongrel-looking fellows were lurking in the street, and +plying the inmates of their lodging-house with questions. All the +Natchas caught sight of the men. And Madame cleverly wormed out of +the righteous and respectable landlady what the men had asked. Once +more it was about the sleeping accommodation--whether the landlady +heard anything in the night--whether she noticed anything in the +bedrooms, in the beds. + +No doubt about it, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras were under suspicion. They +were being followed, and watched. What for? Madame made a shrewd +guess. "They want to say we are immoral foreigners," she said. + +"But what have our personal morals got to do with them?" said Max +angrily. + +"Yes--but the English! They are so pure," said Madame. + +"You know," said Louis, "somebody must have put them up to it--" + +"Perhaps," said Madame, "somebody on account of Allaye." + +Alvina went white. + +"Yes," said Geoffrey. "White Slave Traffic! Mr. May said it." + +Madame slowly nodded. + +"Mr. May!" she said. "Mr. May! It is he. He knows all about +morals--and immorals. Yes, I know. Yes--yes--yes! He suspects all +our immoral doings, _mes braves_." + +"But there aren't any, except mine," cried Alvina, pale to the lips. + +"You! You! There you are!" Madame smiled archly, and rather +mockingly. + +"What are we to do?" said Max, pale on the cheekbones. + +"Curse them! Curse them!" Louis was muttering, in his rolling +accent. + +"Wait," said Madame. "Wait. They will not do anything to us. You are +only dirty foreigners, _mes braves_. At the most they will ask us +only to leave their pure country." + +"We don't interfere with none of them," cried Max. + +"Curse them," muttered Louis. + +"Never mind, _mon cher_. You are in a pure country. Let us wait." + +"If you think it's me," said Alvina, "I can go away." + +"Oh, my dear, you are only the excuse," said Madame, smiling +indulgently at her. "Let us wait, and see." + +She took it smilingly. But her cheeks were white as paper, and her +eyes black as drops of ink, with anger. + +"Wait and see!" she chanted ironically. "Wait and see! If we must +leave the dear country--then _adieu!_" And she gravely bowed to an +imaginary England. + +"I feel it's my fault. I feel I ought to go away," cried Alvina, who +was terribly distressed, seeing Madame's glitter and pallor, and the +black brows of the men. Never had Ciccio's brow looked so ominously +black. And Alvina felt it was all her fault. Never had she +experienced such a horrible feeling: as if something repulsive were +creeping on her from behind. Every minute of these weeks was a +horror to her: the sense of the low-down dogs of detectives hanging +round, sliding behind them, trying to get hold of some clear proof +of immorality on their part. And then--the unknown vengeance of the +authorities. All the repulsive secrecy, and all the absolute power +of the police authorities. The sense of a great malevolent power +which had them all the time in its grip, and was watching, feeling, +waiting to strike the morbid blow: the sense of the utter +helplessness of individuals who were not even accused, only watched +and enmeshed! the feeling that they, the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, herself +included, must be monsters of hideous vice, to have provoked all +this: and yet the sane knowledge that they, none of them, _were_ +monsters of vice; this was quite killing. The sight of a policeman +would send up Alvina's heart in a flame of fear, agony; yet she knew +she had nothing legally to be afraid of. Every knock at the door was +horrible. + +She simply could not understand it. Yet there it was: they were +watched, followed. Of that there was no question. And all she could +imagine was that the troupe was secretly accused of White Slave +Traffic by somebody in Woodhouse. Probably Mr. May had gone the +round of the benevolent magnates of Woodhouse, concerning himself +with her virtue, and currying favour with his concern. Of this she +became convinced, that it was concern for her virtue which had +started the whole business: and that the first instigator was Mr. +May, who had got round some vulgar magistrate or County Councillor. + +Madame did not consider Alvina's view very seriously. She thought it +was some personal malevolence against the Tawaras themselves, +probably put up by some other professionals, with whom Madame was +not popular. + +Be that as it may, for some weeks they went about in the shadow of +this repulsive finger which was following after them, to touch them +and destroy them with the black smear of shame. The men were silent +and inclined to be sulky. They seemed to hold together. They seemed +to be united into a strong, four-square silence and tension. They +kept to themselves--and Alvina kept to herself--and Madame kept to +herself. So they went about. + +And slowly the cloud melted. It never broke. Alvina felt that the +very force of the sullen, silent fearlessness and fury in the +Tawaras had prevented its bursting. Once there had been a weakening, +a cringing, they would all have been lost. But their hearts hardened +with black, indomitable anger. And the cloud melted, it passed away. +There was no sign. + +Early summer was now at hand. Alvina no longer felt at home with the +Natchas. While the trouble was hanging over, they seemed to ignore +her altogether. The men hardly spoke to her. They hardly spoke to +Madame, for that matter. They kept within the four-square enclosure +of themselves. + +But Alvina felt herself particularly excluded, left out. And when +the trouble of the detectives began to pass off, and the men became +more cheerful again, wanted her to jest and be familiar with them, +she responded verbally, but in her heart there was no response. + +Madame had been quite generous with her. She allowed her to pay for +her room, and the expense of travelling. But she had her food with +the rest. Wherever she was, Madame bought the food for the party, +and cooked it herself. And Alvina came in with the rest: she paid no +board. + +She waited, however, for Madame to suggest a small salary--or at +least, that the troupe should pay her living expenses. But Madame +did not make such a suggestion. So Alvina knew that she was not very +badly wanted. And she guarded her money, and watched for some other +opportunity. + +It became her habit to go every morning to the public library of the +town in which she found herself, to look through the advertisements: +advertisements for maternity nurses, for nursery governesses, +pianists, travelling companions, even ladies' maids. For some weeks +she found nothing, though she wrote several letters. + +One morning Ciccio, who had begun to hang round her again, +accompanied her as she set out to the library. But her heart was +closed against him. + +"Why are you going to the library?" he asked her. It was in +Lancaster. + +"To look at the papers and magazines." + +"Ha-a! To find a job, eh?" + +His cuteness startled her for a moment. + +"If I found one I should take it," she said. + +"He! I know that," he said. + +It so happened that that very morning she saw on the notice-board of +the library an announcement that the Borough Council wished to +engage the services of an experienced maternity nurse, applications +to be made to the medical board. Alvina wrote down the directions. +Ciccio watched her. + +"What is a maternity nurse?" he said. + +"An _accoucheuse_!" she said. "The nurse who attends when babies are +born." + +"Do you know how to do that?" he said, incredulous, and jeering +slightly. + +"I was trained to do it," she said. + +He said no more, but walked by her side as she returned to the +lodgings. As they drew near the lodgings, he said: + +"You don't want to stop with us any more?" + +"I can't," she said. + +He made a slight, mocking gesture. + +"'I can't,'" he repeated. "Why do you always say you can't?" + +"Because I can't," she said. + +"Pff--!" he went, with a whistling sound of contempt. + +But she went indoors to her room. Fortunately, when she had finally +cleared her things from Manchester House, she had brought with her +her nurse's certificate, and recommendations from doctors. She wrote +out her application, took the tram to the Town Hall and dropped it +in the letterbox there. Then she wired home to her doctor for +another reference. After which she went to the library and got out a +book on her subject. If summoned, she would have to go before the +medical board on Monday. She had a week. She read and pondered hard, +recalling all her previous experience and knowledge. + +She wondered if she ought to appear before the board in uniform. Her +nurse's dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney's, in +Woodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse was +finished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to some +boot-and-shoe people: at least the boot-and-shoe people had the +house. They had given four thousand pounds for it--which was above +the lawyer's estimate. On the other hand, the theatre was sold for +almost nothing. It all worked out that some thirty-three pounds, +which the creditors made up to fifty pounds, remained for Alvina. +She insisted on Miss Pinnegar's having half of this. And so that was +all over. Miss Pinnegar was already in Tamworth, and her little shop +would be opened next week. She wrote happily and excitedly about it. + +Sometimes fate acts swiftly and without a hitch. On Thursday Alvina +received her notice that she was to appear before the Board on the +following Monday. And yet she could not bring herself to speak of it +to Madame till the Saturday evening. When they were all at supper, +she said: + +"Madame, I applied for a post of maternity nurse, to the Borough of +Lancaster." + +Madame raised her eyebrows. Ciccio had said nothing. + +"Oh really! You never told me." + +"I thought it would be no use if it all came to nothing. They want +me to go and see them on Monday, and then they will decide--" + +"Really! Do they! On Monday? And then if you get this work you will +stay here? Yes?" + +"Yes, of course." + +"Of course! Of course! Yes! H'm! And if not?" + +The two women looked at each other. + +"What?" said Alvina. + +"If you _don't_ get it--! You are not _sure_?" + +"No," said Alvina. "I am not a bit sure." + +"Well then--! Now! And if you don't get it--?" + +"What shall I do, you mean?" + +"Yes, what shall you do?" + +"I don't know." + +"How! you don't know! Shall you come back to us, then?" + +"I will if you like--" + +"If I like! If _I_ like! Come, it is not a question of if _I_ like. +It is what do you want to do yourself." + +"I feel you don't want me very badly," said Alvina. + +"Why? Why do you feel? Who makes you? Which of us makes you feel so? +Tell me." + +"Nobody in particular. But I feel it." + +"Oh we-ell! If nobody makes you, and yet you feel it, it must be in +yourself, don't you see? Eh? Isn't it so?" + +"Perhaps it is," admitted Alvina. + +"We-ell then! We-ell--" So Madame gave her her conge. "But if you +like to come back--if you _laike_--then--" Madame shrugged her +shoulders--"you must come, I suppose." + +"Thank you," said Alvina. + +The young men were watching. They seemed indifferent. Ciccio turned +aside, with his faint, stupid smile. + +In the morning Madame gave Alvina all her belongings, from the +little safe she called her bank. + +"There is the money--so--and so--and so--that is correct. Please +count it once more!--" Alvina counted it and kept it clutched in her +hand. "And there are your rings, and your chain, and your +locket--see--all--everything--! But not the brooch. Where is the +brooch? Here! Shall I give it back, hein?" + +"I gave it to you," said Alvina, offended. She looked into Madame's +black eyes. Madame dropped her eyes. + +"Yes, you gave it. But I thought, you see, as you have now not much +mo-oney, perhaps you would like to take it again--" + +"No, thank you," said Alvina, and she went away, leaving Madame with +the red brooch in her plump hand. + +"Thank goodness I've given her something valuable," thought Alvina +to herself, as she went trembling to her room. + +She had packed her bag. She had to find new rooms. She bade good-bye +to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. Her face was cold and distant, but she +smiled slightly as she bade them good-bye. + +"And perhaps," said Madame, "per-haps you will come to Wigan +tomorrow afternoon--or evening? Yes?" + +"Thank you," said Alvina. + +She went out and found a little hotel, where she took her room for +the night, explaining the cause of her visit to Lancaster. Her heart +was hard and burning. A deep, burning, silent anger against +everything possessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind. + +And therefore, the next day, everything went as if by magic. She had +decided that at the least sign of indifference from the medical +board people she would walk away, take her bag, and go to +Windermere. She had never been to the Lakes. And Windermere was not +far off. She would not endure one single hint of contumely from any +one else. She would go straight to Windermere, to see the big lake. +Why not do as she wished! She could be quite happy by herself among +the lakes. And she would be absolutely free, absolutely free. She +rather looked forward to leaving the Town Hall, hurrying to take her +bag and off to the station and freedom. Hadn't she still got about a +hundred pounds? Why bother for one moment? To be quite alone in the +whole world--and quite, quite free, with her hundred pounds--the +prospect attracted her sincerely. + +And therefore, everything went charmingly at the Town Hall. The +medical board were charming to her--charming. There was no +hesitation at all. From the first moment she was engaged. And she +was given a pleasant room in a hospital in a garden, and the matron +was charming to her, and the doctors most courteous. + +When could she undertake to commence her duties? When did they want +her? The very _moment_ she could come. She could begin tomorrow--but +she had no uniform. Oh, the matron would lend her uniform and +aprons, till her box arrived. + +So there she was--by afternoon installed in her pleasant little room +looking on the garden, and dressed in a nurse's uniform. It was all +sudden like magic. She had wired to Madame, she had wired for her +box. She was another person. + +Needless to say, she was glad. Needless to say that, in the morning, +when she had thoroughly bathed, and dressed in clean clothes, and +put on the white dress, the white apron, and the white cap, she felt +another person. So clean, she felt, so thankful! Her skin seemed +caressed and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt. +It was so different from being with the Natchas. + +In the garden the snowballs, guelder-roses, swayed softly among +green foliage, there was pink may-blossom, and single scarlet +may-blossom, and underneath the young green of the trees, irises +rearing purple and moth-white. A young gardener was working--and a +convalescent slowly trailed a few paces. + +Having ten minutes still, Alvina sat down and wrote to Ciccio: "I am +glad I have got this post as nurse here. Every one is most kind, and +I feel at home already. I feel quite happy here. I shall think of my +days with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, and of you, who were such a +stranger to me. Good-bye.--A. H." + +This she addressed and posted. No doubt Madame would find occasion +to read it. But let her. + +Alvina now settled down to her new work. There was of course a great +deal to do, for she had work both in the hospital and out in the +town, though chiefly out in the town. She went rapidly from case to +case, as she was summoned. And she was summoned at all hours. So +that it was tiring work, which left her no time to herself, except +just in snatches. + +She had no serious acquaintance with anybody, she was too busy. The +matron and sisters and doctors and patients were all part of her +day's work, and she regarded them as such. The men she chiefly +ignored: she felt much more friendly with the matron. She had many a +cup of tea and many a chat in the matron's room, in the quiet, sunny +afternoons when the work was not pressing. Alvina took her quiet +moments when she could: for she never knew when she would be rung up +by one or other of the doctors in the town. + +And so, from the matron, she learned to crochet. It was work she had +never taken to. But now she had her ball of cotton and her hook, and +she worked away as she chatted. She was in good health, and she was +getting fatter again. With the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras, she had improved +a good deal, her colour and her strength had returned. But +undoubtedly the nursing life, arduous as it was, suited her best. +She became a handsome, reposeful woman, jolly with the other nurses, +really happy with her friend the matron, who was well-bred and wise, +and never over-intimate. + +The doctor with whom Alvina had most to do was a Dr. Mitchell, a +Scotchman. He had a large practice among the poor, and was an +energetic man. He was about fifty-four years old, tall, +largely-built, with a good figure, but with extraordinarily large +feet and hands. His face was red and clean-shaven, his eyes blue, +his teeth very good. He laughed and talked rather mouthingly. +Alvina, who knew what the nurses told her, knew that he had come as +a poor boy and bottle-washer to Dr. Robertson, a fellow-Scotchman, +and that he had made his way up gradually till he became a doctor +himself, and had an independent practice. Now he was quite rich--and +a bachelor. But the nurses did not set their bonnets at him very +much, because he was rather mouthy and overbearing. + +In the houses of the poor he was a great autocrat. + +"What is that stuff you've got there!" he inquired largely, seeing a +bottle of somebody's Soothing Syrup by a poor woman's bedside. "Take +it and throw it down the sink, and the next time you want a soothing +syrup put a little boot-blacking in hot water. It'll do you just as +much good." + +Imagine the slow, pompous, large-mouthed way in which the red-faced, +handsomely-built man pronounced these words, and you realize why the +poor set such store by him. + +He was eagle-eyed. Wherever he went, there was a scuffle directly +his foot was heard on the stairs. And he knew they were hiding +something. He sniffed the air: he glanced round with a sharp eye: +and during the course of his visit picked up a blue mug which was +pushed behind the looking-glass. He peered inside--and smelled it. + +"Stout?" he said, in a tone of indignant inquiry: God-Almighty would +presumably take on just such a tone, finding the core of an apple +flung away among the dead-nettle of paradise: "Stout! Have you been +drinking stout?" This as he gazed down on the wan mother in the bed. + +"They gave me a drop, doctor. I felt that low." + +The doctor marched out of the room, still holding the mug in his +hand. The sick woman watched him with haunted eyes. The attendant +women threw up their hands and looked at one another. Was he going +for ever? There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue +mug downstairs. He returned with a solemn stride. + +"There!" he said. "And the next person that gives you stout will be +thrown down along with the mug." + +"Oh doctor, the bit o' comfort!" wailed the sick woman. "It ud never +do me no harm." + +"Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yours! Harm! Do you know +better than I do? What have I come here for? To be told by _you_ +what will do you harm and what won't? It appears to me you need no +doctor here, you know everything already--" + +"Oh no, doctor. It's not like that. But when you feel as if you'd +sink through the bed, an' you don't know what to do with yourself--" + +"Take a little beef-tea, or a little rice pudding. Take +_nourishment_, don't take that muck. Do you hear--" charging upon +the attendant women, who shrank against the wall--"she's to have +nothing alcoholic at all, and don't let me catch you giving it her." + +"They say there's nobbut fower per cent. i' stout," retorted the +daring female. + +"Fower per cent.," mimicked the doctor brutally. "Why, what does an +ignorant creature like _you_ know about fower per cent." + +The woman muttered a little under her breath. + +"What? Speak out. Let me hear what you've got to say, my woman. I've +no doubt it's something for my benefit--" + +But the affronted woman rushed out of the room, and burst into tears +on the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told +the patient how she was to behave, concluding: + +"Nourishment! Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don't tell me +you can't take it. Push it down if it won't go down by itself--" + +"Oh doctor--" + +"Don't say _oh doctor_ to me. Do as I tell you. That's _your_ +business." After which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor +car was shortly heard. + +Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the people +stood it. But soon she realized that they loved it--particularly the +women. + +"Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell's been. I'm scared to death of +him, for fear he's going to shout at me." + +"Why does everybody put up with him?" asked innocent Alvina. + +"Oh, he's good-hearted, nurse, he _does_ feel for you." + +And everywhere it was the same: "Oh, he's got a heart, you know. +He's rough, but he's got a heart. I'd rather have him than your +smarmy slormin sort. Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell, I don't +care what you say." + +But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart which +had all the women scurrying like chickens was not particularly +attractive. + +The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him if +possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had to +submit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer, +invariably, was: + +"And keep off the beer." + +"Oh ay!" + +"Keep off the beer, or I shan't set foot in this house again." + +"Tha's got a red enough face on thee, tha nedna shout." + +"My face is red with exposure to all weathers, attending ignorant +people like you. I never touch alcohol in any form." + +"No, an' I dunna. I drink a drop o' beer, if that's what you ca' +touchin' alcohol. An' I'm none th' wuss for it, tha sees." + +"You've heard what I've told you." + +"Ah, I have." + +"And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself. +_I_ shan't attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs. +Larrick"--this to the wife. + +"I do, doctor. And I know it's true what you say. An' I'm at him +night an' day about it--" + +"Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He +mustn't think _I'm_ going to be running after him, if he disobeys my +orders." And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to +complain. + +None the less the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell. +If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to +hear the housewife chuntering. + +"Oh my lawk, come in nurse! What a day! Doctor's not been yet. And +he's bound to come now I've just cleaned up, trapesin' wi' his gret +feet. He's got the biggest understandin's of any man i' Lancaster. +My husband says they're the best pair o' pasties i' th' kingdom. An' +he does make such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th' +mat, marches straight up your clean stairs--" + +"Why don't you tell him to wipe his feet?" said Alvina. + +"Oh my word! Fancy me telling him! He'd jump down my throat with +both feet afore I'd opened my mouth. He's not to be spoken to, he +isn't. He's my-lord, he is. You mustn't look, or you're done for." + +Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for browbeating them, +and having a heart over and above. + +Sometimes he was given a good hit--though nearly always by a man. It +happened he was in a workman's house when the man was at dinner. + +"Canna yer gi'e a man summat better nor this 'ere pap, Missis?" said +the hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding. + +"Oh go on," cried the wife. "I hadna time for owt else." Dr. +Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway. + +"Rice pudding!" he exclaimed largely. "You couldn't have anything +more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of my +life--every day of my life, I do." + +The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustache +copiously with it. He did not answer. + +"Do you doctor!" cried the woman. "And never no different." + +"Never," said the doctor. + +"Fancy that! You're that fond of them?" + +"I find they agree with me. They are light and digestible. And my +stomach is as weak as a baby's." + +The labourer wiped his big moustache on his sleeve. + +"Mine _isna_, tha sees," he said, "so pap's no use. 'S watter ter +me. I want ter feel as I've had summat: a bit o' suetty dumplin' an' +a pint o' hale, summat ter fill th' hole up. An' tha'd be th' same +if tha did my work." + +"If I did your work," sneered the doctor. "Why I do ten times the +work that any one of you does. It's just the work that has ruined my +digestion, the never getting a quiet meal, and never a whole night's +rest. When do you think _I_ can sit at table and digest my dinner? I +have to be off looking after people like you--" + +"Eh, tha can ta'e th' titty-bottle wi' thee," said the labourer. + +But Dr. Mitchell was furious for weeks over this. It put him in a +black rage to have his great manliness insulted. Alvina was quietly +amused. + +The doctor began by being rather lordly and condescending with her. +But luckily she felt she knew her work at least as well as he knew +it. She smiled and let him condescend. Certainly she neither feared +nor even admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him: +the great, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and +his stomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness and +his good heart which was as selfish as it could be. Nothing can be +more cocksuredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its own +beneficence. He was a little too much the teetotaller on the one +hand to be so largely manly on the other. Alvina preferred the +labourers with their awful long moustaches that got full of food. +And he was a little too loud-mouthedly lordly to be in human good +taste. + +As a matter of fact, he was conscious of the fact that he had risen +to be a gentleman. Now if a man is conscious of being a _gentleman_, +he is bound to be a little less than a _man_. But if he is gnawed +with anxiety lest he may _not_ be a gentleman, he is only pitiable. +There is a third case, however. If a man must loftily, by his +manner, assert that he is _now_ a gentleman, he shows himself a +clown. For Alvina, poor Dr. Mitchell fell into this third category, +of clowns. She tolerated him good-humouredly, as women so often +tolerate ninnies and _poseurs_. She smiled to herself when she saw +his large and important presence on the board. She smiled when she +saw him at a sale, buying the grandest pieces of antique furniture. +She smiled when he talked of going up to Scotland, for grouse +shooting, or of snatching an hour on Sunday morning, for golf. And +she talked him over, with quiet, delicate malice, with the matron. +He was no favourite at the hospital. + +Gradually Dr. Mitchell's manner changed towards her. From his +imperious condescension he took to a tone of uneasy equality. This +did not suit him. Dr. Mitchell had no equals: he had only the vast +stratum of inferiors, towards whom he exercised his quite profitable +beneficence--it brought him in about two thousand a year: and then +his superiors, people who had been born with money. It was the +tradesmen and professionals who had started at the bottom and +clambered to the motor-car footing, who distressed him. And +therefore, whilst he treated Alvina on this uneasy tradesman +footing, he felt himself in a false position. + +She kept her attitude of quiet amusement, and little by little he +sank. From being a lofty creature soaring over her head, he was now +like a big fish poking its nose above water and making eyes at her. +He treated her with rather presuming deference. + +"You look tired this morning," he barked at her one hot day. + +"I think it's thunder," she said. + +"Thunder! Work, you mean," and he gave a slight smile. "I'm going to +drive you back." + +"Oh no, thanks, don't trouble! I've got to call on the way." + +"Where have you got to call?" + +She told him. + +"Very well. That takes you no more than five minutes. I'll wait for +you. Now take your cloak." + +She was surprised. Yet, like other women, she submitted. + +As they drove he saw a man with a barrow of cucumbers. He stopped +the car and leaned towards the man. + +"Take that barrow-load of poison and _bury_ it!" he shouted, in his +strong voice. The busy street hesitated. + +"What's that, mister?" replied the mystified hawker. + +Dr. Mitchell pointed to the green pile of cucumbers. + +"Take that barrow-load of poison, and bury it," he called, "before +you do anybody any more harm with it." + +"What barrow-load of poison's that?" asked the hawker, approaching. +A crowd began to gather. + +"What barrow-load of poison is that!" repeated the doctor. "Why your +barrow-load of cucumbers." + +"Oh," said the man, scrutinizing his cucumbers carefully. To be +sure, some were a little yellow at the end. "How's that? Cumbers is +right enough: fresh from market this morning." + +"Fresh or not fresh," said the doctor, mouthing his words +distinctly, "you might as well put poison into your stomach, as +those things. Cucumbers are the worst thing you can eat." + +"Oh!" said the man, stuttering. "That's 'appen for them as doesn't +like them. I niver knowed a cumber do _me_ no harm, an' I eat 'em +like a happle." Whereupon the hawker took a "cumber" from his +barrow, bit off the end, and chewed it till the sap squirted. +"What's wrong with that?" he said, holding up the bitten cucumber. + +"I'm not talking about what's wrong with that," said the doctor. "My +business is what's wrong with the stomach it goes into. I'm a +doctor. And I know that those things cause me half my work. They +cause half the internal troubles people suffer from in summertime." + +"Oh ay! That's no loss to you, is it? Me an' you's partners. More +cumbers I sell, more graft for you, 'cordin' to that. What's wrong +then. _Cum-bers! Fine fresh Cum-berrrs! All fresh and juisty, all +cheap and tasty--!_" yelled the man. + +"I am a doctor not only to cure illness, but to prevent it where I +can. And cucumbers are poison to everybody." + +"_Cum-bers! Cum-bers! Fresh cumbers!_" yelled the man, + +Dr. Mitchell started his car. + +"When will they learn intelligence?" he said to Alvina, smiling and +showing his white, even teeth. + +"I don't care, you know, myself," she said. "I should always let +people do what they wanted--" + +"Even if you knew it would do them harm?" he queried, smiling with +amiable condescension. + +"Yes, why not! It's their own affair. And they'll do themselves harm +one way or another." + +"And you wouldn't try to prevent it?" + +"You might as well try to stop the sea with your fingers." + +"You think so?" smiled the doctor. "I see, you are a pessimist. You +are a pessimist with regard to human nature." + +"Am I?" smiled Alvina, thinking the rose would smell as sweet. It +seemed to please the doctor to find that Alvina was a pessimist with +regard to human nature. It seemed to give her an air of distinction. +In his eyes, she _seemed_ distinguished. He was in a fair way to +dote on her. + +She, of course, when he began to admire her, liked him much better, +and even saw graceful, boyish attractions in him. There was really +something childish about him. And this something childish, since it +looked up to her as if she were the saving grace, naturally +flattered her and made her feel gentler towards him. + +He got in the habit of picking her up in his car, when he could. And +he would tap at the matron's door, smiling and showing all his +beautiful teeth, just about tea-time. + +"May I come in?" His voice sounded almost flirty. + +"Certainly." + +"I see you're having tea! Very nice, a cup of tea at this hour!" + +"Have one too, doctor." + +"I will with pleasure." And he sat down wreathed with smiles. Alvina +rose to get a cup. "I didn't intend to disturb you, nurse," he said. +"Men are always intruders," he smiled to the matron. + +"Sometimes," said the matron, "women are charmed to be intruded +upon." + +"Oh really!" his eyes sparkled. "Perhaps _you_ wouldn't say so, +nurse?" he said, turning to Alvina. Alvina was just reaching at the +cupboard. Very charming she looked, in her fresh dress and cap and +soft brown hair, very attractive her figure, with its full, soft +loins. She turned round to him. + +"Oh yes," she said. "I quite agree with the matron." + +"Oh, you do!" He did not quite know how to take it. "But you mind +being disturbed at your tea, I am sure." + +"No," said Alvina. "We are so used to being disturbed." + +"Rather weak, doctor?" said the matron, pouring the tea. + +"Very weak, please." + +The doctor was a little laboured in his gallantry, but unmistakably +gallant. When he was gone, the matron looked demure, and Alvina +confused. Each waited for the other to speak. + +"Don't you think Dr. Mitchell is quite coming out?" said Alvina. + +"Quite! _Quite_ the ladies' man! I wonder who it is can be +_bringing_ him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure." She looked +wickedly at Alvina. + +"No, don't look at me," laughed Alvina, "_I_ know nothing about it." + +"Do you think it may be _me_!" said the matron, mischievous. + +"I'm sure of it, matron! He begins to show some taste at last." + +"There now!" said the matron. "I shall put my cap straight." And she +went to the mirror, fluffing her hair and settling her cap. + +"There!" she said, bobbing a little curtsey to Alvina. + +They both laughed, and went off to work. + +But there was no mistake, Dr. Mitchell was beginning to expand. With +Alvina he quite unbent, and seemed even to sun himself when she was +near, to attract her attention. He smiled and smirked and became +oddly self-conscious: rather uncomfortable. He liked to hang over +her chair, and he made a great event of offering her a cigarette +whenever they met, although he himself never smoked. He had a gold +cigarette case. + +One day he asked her in to see his garden. He had a pleasant old +square house with a big walled garden. He showed her his flowers and +his wall-fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade her +admire his asparagus. And then he gave her tea in the drawing-room, +with strawberries and cream and cakes, of all of which he ate +nothing. But he smiled expansively all the time. He was a made man: +and now he was really letting himself go, luxuriating in everything; +above all, in Alvina, who poured tea gracefully from the old +Georgian tea-pot, and smiled so pleasantly above the Queen Anne +tea-cups. + +And she, wicked that she was, admired every detail of his +drawing-room. It was a pleasant room indeed, with roses outside the +French door, and a lawn in sunshine beyond, with bright red flowers +in beds. But indoors, it was insistently antique. Alvina admired the +Jacobean sideboard and the Jacobean arm-chairs and the Hepplewhite +wall-chairs and the Sheraton settee and the Chippendale stands and +the Axminster carpet and the bronze clock with Shakespeare and +Ariosto reclining on it--yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the +clock--and the ormolu cabinet and the bead-work foot-stools and the +dreadful Sevres dish with a cherub in it and--but why enumerate. She +admired _everything_! And Dr. Mitchell's heart expanded in his bosom +till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at her feet or +did something extraordinary. He had never even imagined what it was +to be so expanded: what a delicious feeling. He could have kissed +her feet in an ecstasy of wild expansion. But habit, so far, +prevented his doing more than beam. + +Another day he said to her, when they were talking of age: + +"You are as young as you feel. Why, when I was twenty I felt I had +all the cares and responsibility of the world on my shoulders. And +now I am middle-aged more or less, I feel as light as if I were just +beginning life." He beamed down at her. + +"Perhaps you _are_ only just beginning your _own_ life," she said. +"You have lived for your work till now." + +"It may be that," he said. "It may be that up till now I have lived +for others, for my patients. And now perhaps I may be allowed to +live a little more for myself." He beamed with real luxury, saw the +real luxury of life begin. + +"Why shouldn't you?" said Alvina. + +"Oh yes, I intend to," he said, with confidence. + +He really, by degrees, made up his mind to marry now, and to retire +in part from his work. That is, he would hire another assistant, +and give himself a fair amount of leisure. He was inordinately proud +of his house. And now he looked forward to the treat of his life: +hanging round the woman he had made his wife, following her about, +feeling proud of her and his house, talking to her from morning till +night, really finding himself in her. When he had to go his rounds +she would go with him in the car: he made up his mind she would be +willing to accompany him. He would teach her to drive, and they +would sit side by side, she driving him and waiting for him. And he +would run out of the houses of his patients, and find her sitting +there, and he would get in beside her and feel so snug and so sure +and so happy as she drove him off to the next case, he informing her +about his work. + +And if ever she did not go out with him, she would be there on the +doorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car. And they +would have long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he +luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they +would be snug for hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to +bed. And in the morning he need not rush off. He would loiter about +with her, they would loiter down the garden looking at every new +flower and every new fruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and +no cap on her hair, he would never be able to tear himself away from +her. Every morning it would be unbearable to have to tear himself +away from her, and every hour he would be rushing back to her. They +would be simply everything to one another. And how he would enjoy +it! Ah! + +He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would take +her away from him. That was his first thought. But then--! Ah well, +he would have to leave it till the time. Love's young dream is never +so delicious as at the virgin age of fifty-three. + +But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he had +put a plain question. It was August Bank Holiday, that for ever +black day of the declaration of war, when his question was put. For +this year of our story is the fatal year 1914. + +There was quite a stir in the town over the declaration of war. But +most people felt that the news was only intended to give an extra +thrill to the all-important event of Bank Holiday. Half the world +had gone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the +Lakes or into the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fete, +notwithstanding. And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a +real holiday mood. + +So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at the +Hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three, +for tea. + +"What do you think of this new war?" said Alvina. + +"Oh, it will be over in six weeks," said the doctor easily. And +there they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered +if it would affect the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She had never heard any +more of them. + +"Where would you have liked to go today?" said the doctor, turning +to smile at her as he drove the car. + +"I think to Windermere--into the Lakes," she said. + +"We might make a tour of the Lakes before long," he said. She was +not thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech. + +"How nice!" she said vaguely. + +"We could go in the car, and take them as we chose," said the +doctor. + +"Yes," she said, wondering at him now. + +When they had had tea, quietly and gallantly tete-a-tete in his +drawing-room, he asked her if she would like to see the other rooms +of the house. She thanked him, and he showed her the substantial oak +dining-room, and the little room with medical works and a revolving +chair, which he called his study: then the kitchen and the pantry, +the housekeeper looking askance; then upstairs to his bedroom, which +was very fine with old mahogany tall-boys and silver candle-sticks +on the dressing-table, and brushes with green ivory backs, and a +hygienic white bed and straw mats: then the visitors' bedroom +corresponding, with its old satin-wood furniture and cream-coloured +chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a pale carpet with +reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that, +isn't that beautiful, I've never seen anything like that! came the +gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina. And he smiled and +gloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and +how dark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had +impressed Ciccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel +themselves masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She +smiled to herself rather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling +unaccountably uneasy and wistful, yearning into the distance again: +a trick she thought she had happily lost. + +The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a big +man, and he always wore navy blue suits, well-tailored and +immaculate. Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue +suits, especially if they had reddish faces and rather big feet and +if their hair was wearing thin, were a special type all to +themselves, solid and rather namby-pamby and tiresome. + +"What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roof +makes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and +the fascinating little window!" She crouched in the hollow of the +small dormer window. "Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I +know I should want this room for my own." + +"Then have it," he said. "Have it for _one_ of your own." + +She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He was +leaning forward to her, smiling, self-conscious, tentative, and +eager. She thought it best to laugh it off. + +"I was only talking like a child, from the imagination," she said. + +"I quite understand that," he replied deliberately. "But I am +speaking what I _mean_--" + +She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smiling +and smirking broadly at her. + +"Won't you marry me, and come and have this garret for your own?" He +spoke as if he were offering her a chocolate. He smiled with curious +uncertainty. + +"I don't know," she said vaguely. + +His smile broadened. + +"Well now," he said, "make up your mind. I'm not good at _talking_ +about love, you know. But I think I'm pretty good at _feeling_ it, +you know. I want you to come here and be happy: with me." He added +the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if to +commit himself finally. + +"But I've never thought about it," she said, rapidly cogitating. + +"I know you haven't. But think about it now--" He began to be hugely +pleased with himself. "Think about it now. And tell me if you could +put up with _me_, as well as the garret." He beamed and put his head +a little on one side--rather like Mr. May, for one second. But he +was much more dangerous than Mr. May. He was overbearing, and had +the devil's own temper if he was thwarted. This she knew. He was a +big man in a navy blue suit, with very white teeth. + +Again she thought she had better laugh it off. + +"It's you I _am_ thinking about," she laughed, flirting still. "It's +you I _am_ wondering about." + +"Well," he said, rather pleased with himself, "you wonder about me +till you've made up your mind--" + +"I will--" she said, seizing the opportunity. "I'll wonder about you +till I've made up my mind--shall I?" + +"Yes," he said. "That's what I wish you to do. And the next time I +ask you, you'll let me know. That's it, isn't it?" He smiled +indulgently down on her: thought her face young and charming, +charming. + +"Yes," she said. "But don't ask me too soon, will you?" + +"How, too soon--?" He smiled delightedly. + +"You'll give me time to wonder about you, won't you? You won't ask +me again this month, will you?" + +"This month?" His eyes beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the +procrastination as much as she did. "But the month's only just +begun! However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won't ask you again +this month." + +"And I'll promise to wonder about you all the month," she laughed. + +"That's a bargain," he said. + +They went downstairs, and Alvina returned to her duties. She was +very much excited, very much excited indeed. A big, well-to-do man +in a navy blue suit, of handsome appearance, aged fifty-three, with +white teeth and a delicate stomach: it _was_ exciting. A sure +position, a very nice home and lovely things in it, once they were +dragged about a bit. And of course he'd adore her. That went without +saying. She was as fussy as if some one had given her a lovely new +pair of boots. She was really fussy and pleased with herself: and +_quite_ decided she'd take it all on. That was how it put itself to +her: she would take it all on. + +Of course there was the man himself to consider. But he was quite +presentable. There was nothing at all against it: nothing at all. If +he had pressed her during the first half of the month of August, he +would almost certainly have got her. But he only beamed in +anticipation. + +Meanwhile the stir and restlessness of the war had begun, and was +making itself felt even in Lancaster. And the excitement and the +unease began to wear through Alvina's rather glamorous fussiness. +Some of her old fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had +been as if asleep these months, now woke rather irritably, and +chafed against its collar. Who was this elderly man, that she should +marry him? Who was he, that she should be kissed by him. Actually +kissed and fondled by him! Repulsive. She avoided him like the +plague. Fancy reposing against his broad, navy blue waistcoat! She +started as if she had been stung. Fancy seeing his red, smiling face +just above hers, coming down to embrace her! She pushed it away with +her open hand. And she ran away, to avoid the thought. + +And yet! And yet! She would be so comfortable, she would be so +well-off for the rest of her life. The hateful problem of material +circumstance would be solved for ever. And she knew well how hateful +material circumstances can make life. + +Therefore, she could not decide in a hurry. But she bore poor Dr. +Mitchell a deep grudge, that he could not grant her all the +advantages of his offer, and excuse her the acceptance of him +himself. She dared not decide in a hurry. And this very fear, like a +yoke on her, made her resent the man who drove her to decision. + +Sometimes she rebelled. Sometimes she laughed unpleasantly in the +man's face: though she dared not go _too_ far: for she was a little +afraid of him and his rabid temper, also. In her moments of sullen +rebellion she thought of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. She thought of them +deeply. She wondered where they were, what they were doing, how the +war had affected them. Poor Geoffrey was a Frenchman--he would have +to go to France to fight. Max and Louis were Swiss, it would not +affect them: nor Ciccio, who was Italian. She wondered if the troupe +was in England: if they would continue together when Geoffrey was +gone. She wondered if they thought of her. She felt they did. She +felt they did not forget her. She felt there was a connection. + +In fact, during the latter part of August she wondered a good deal +more about the Natchas than about Dr. Mitchell. But wondering about +the Natchas would not help her. She felt, if she knew where they +were, she would fly to them. But then she knew she wouldn't. + +When she was at the station she saw crowds and bustle. People were +seeing their young men off. Beer was flowing: sailors on the train +were tipsy: women were holding young men by the lapel of the coat. +And when the train drew away, the young men waving, the women cried +aloud and sobbed after them. + +A chill ran down Alvina's spine. This was another matter, apart from +her Dr. Mitchell. It made him feel very unreal, trivial. She did not +know what she was going to do. She realized she must do +something--take some part in the wild dislocation of life. She knew +that she would put off Dr. Mitchell again. + +She talked the matter over with the matron. The matron advised her +to procrastinate. Why not volunteer for war-service? True, she was a +maternity nurse, and this was hardly the qualification needed for +the nursing of soldiers. But still, she _was_ a nurse. + +Alvina felt this was the thing to do. Everywhere was a stir and a +seethe of excitement. Men were active, women were needed too. She +put down her name on the list of volunteers for active service. This +was on the last day of August. + +On the first of September Dr. Mitchell was round at the hospital +early, when Alvina was just beginning her morning duties there. He +went into the matron's room, and asked for Nurse Houghton. The +matron left them together. + +The doctor was excited. He smiled broadly, but with a tension of +nervous excitement. Alvina was troubled. Her heart beat fast. + +"Now!" said Dr. Mitchell. "What have you to say to me?" + +She looked up at him with confused eyes. He smiled excitedly and +meaningful at her, and came a little nearer. + +"Today is the day when you answer, isn't it?" he said. "Now then, +let me hear what you have to say." + +But she only watched him with large, troubled eyes, and did not +speak. He came still nearer to her. + +"Well then," he said, "I am to take it that silence gives consent." +And he laughed nervously, with nervous anticipation, as he tried to +put his arm round her. But she stepped suddenly back. + +"No, not yet," she said. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"I haven't given my answer," she said. + +"Give it then," he said, testily. + +"I've volunteered for active service," she stammered. "I felt I +ought to do something." + +"Why?" he asked. He could put a nasty intonation into that +monosyllable. "I should have thought you would answer _me_ first." + +She did not answer, but watched him. She did not like him. + +"I only signed yesterday," she said. + +"Why didn't you leave it till tomorrow? It would have looked +better." He was angry. But he saw a half-frightened, half-guilty +look on her face, and during the weeks of anticipation he had worked +himself up. + +"But put that aside," he smiled again, a little dangerously. "You +have still to answer my question. Having volunteered for war service +doesn't prevent your being engaged to me, does it?" + +Alvina watched him with large eyes. And again he came very near to +her, so that his blue-serge waistcoat seemed, to impinge on her, and +his purplish red face was above her. + +"I'd rather not be engaged, under the circumstances," she said. + +"Why?" came the nasty monosyllable. "What have the circumstances got +to do with it?" + +"Everything is so uncertain," she said. "I'd rather wait." + +"Wait! Haven't you waited long enough? There's nothing at all to +prevent your getting engaged to me now. Nothing whatsoever! Come +now. I'm old enough not to be played with. And I'm much too much in +love with you to let you go on indefinitely like this. Come now!" He +smiled imminent, and held out his large hand for her hand. "Let me +put the ring on your finger. It will be the proudest day of my life +when I make you my wife. Give me your hand--" + +Alvina was wavering. For one thing, mere curiosity made her want to +see the ring. She half lifted her hand. And but for the knowledge +that he would kiss her, she would have given it. But he would kiss +her--and against that she obstinately set her will. She put her hand +behind her back, and looked obstinately into his eyes. + +"Don't play a game with me," he said dangerously. + +But she only continued to look mockingly and obstinately into his +eyes. + +"Come," he said, beckoning for her to give her hand. + +With a barely perceptible shake of the head, she refused, staring at +him all the time. His ungovernable temper got the better of him. He +saw red, and without knowing, seized her by the shoulder, swung her +back, and thrust her, pressed her against the wall as if he would +push her through it. His face was blind with anger, like a hot, red +sun. Suddenly, almost instantaneously, he came to himself again and +drew back his hands, shaking his right hand as if some rat had +bitten it. + +"I'm sorry!" he shouted, beside himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean +it. I'm sorry." He dithered before her. + +She recovered her equilibrium, and, pale to the lips, looked at him +with sombre eyes. + +"I'm sorry!" he continued loudly, in his strange frenzy like a small +boy. "Don't remember! Don't remember! Don't think I did it." + +His face was a kind of blank, and unconsciously he wrung the hand +that had gripped her, as if it pained him. She watched him, and +wondered why on earth all this frenzy. She was left rather cold, she +did not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her. +There was nothing so very unnatural, after all, in being bumped up +suddenly against the wall. Certainly her shoulder hurt where he had +gripped it. But there were plenty of worse hurts in the world. She +watched him with wide, distant eyes. + +And he fell on his knees before her, as she backed against the +bookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress-bottom, +drawing it to him. Which made her rather abashed, and much more +uncomfortable. + +"Forgive me!" he said. "Don't remember! Forgive me! Love me! Love +me! Forgive me and love me! Forgive me and love me!" + +As Alvina was looking down dismayed on the great, red-faced, elderly +man, who in his crying-out showed his white teeth like a child, and +as she was gently trying to draw her skirt from his clutch, the +door opened, and there stood the matron, in her big frilled cap. +Alvina glanced at her, flushed crimson and looked down to the man. +She touched his face with her hand. + +"Never mind," she said. "It's nothing. Don't think about it." + +He caught her hand and clung to it. + +"Love me! Love me! Love me!" he cried. + +The matron softly closed the door again, withdrawing. + +"Love me! Love me!" + +Alvina was absolutely dumbfounded by this scene. She had no idea men +did such things. It did not touch her, it dumbfounded her. + +The doctor, clinging to her hand, struggled to his feet and flung +his arms round her, clasping her wildly to him. + +"You love me! You love me, don't you?" he said, vibrating and beside +himself as he pressed her to his breast and hid his face against her +hair. At such a moment, what was the good of saying she didn't? But +she didn't. Pity for his shame, however, kept her silent, motionless +and silent in his arms, smothered against the blue-serge waistcoat +of his broad breast. + +He was beginning to come to himself. He became silent. But he still +strained her fast, he had no idea of letting her go. + +"You will take my ring, won't you?" he said at last, still in the +strange, lamentable voice. "You will take my ring." + +"Yes," she said coldly. Anything for a quiet emergence from this +scene. + +He fumbled feverishly in his pocket with one hand, holding her still +fast by the other arm. And with one hand he managed to extract the +ring from its case, letting the case roll away on the floor. It was +a diamond solitaire. + +"Which finger? Which finger is it?" he asked, beginning to smile +rather weakly. She extricated her hand, and held out her engagement +finger. Upon it was the mourning-ring Miss Frost had always worn. +The doctor slipped the diamond solitaire above the mourning ring, +and folded Alvina to his breast again. + +"Now," he said, almost in his normal voice. "Now I know you love +me." The pleased self-satisfaction in his voice made her angry. She +managed to extricate herself. + +"You will come along with me now?" he said. + +"I can't," she answered. "I must get back to my work here." + +"Nurse Allen can do that." + +"I'd rather not." + +"Where are you going today?" + +She told him her cases. + +"Well, you will come and have tea with me. I shall expect you to +have tea with me every day." + +But Alvina was straightening her crushed cap before the mirror, and +did not answer. + +"We can see as much as we like of each other now we're engaged," he +said, smiling with satisfaction. + +"I wonder where the matron is," said Alvina, suddenly going into the +cool white corridor. He followed her. And they met the matron just +coming out of the ward. + +"Matron!" said Dr. Mitchell, with a return of his old mouthing +importance. "You may congratulate Nurse Houghton and me on our +engagement--" He smiled largely. + +"I may congratulate _you_, you mean," said the matron. + +"Yes, of course. And both of us, since we are now one," he replied. + +"Not quite, yet," said the matron gravely. + +And at length she managed to get rid of him. + +At once she went to look for Alvina, who had gone to her duties. + +"Well, I _suppose_ it is all right," said the matron gravely. + +"No it isn't," said Alvina. "I shall _never_ marry him." + +"Ah, never is a long while! Did he hear me come in?" + +"No, I'm sure he didn't." + +"Thank goodness for that." + +"Yes indeed! It was perfectly horrible. Following me round on his +knees and shouting for me to love him! Perfectly horrible!" + +"Well," said the matron. "You never know what men will do till +you've known them. And then you need be surprised at nothing, +_nothing_. I'm surprised at nothing they do--" + +"I must say," said Alvina, "I was surprised. Very unpleasantly." + +"But you accepted him--" + +"Anything to quieten him--like a hysterical child." + +"Yes, but I'm not sure you haven't taken a very risky way of +quietening him, giving him what he wanted--" + +"I think," said Alvina, "I can look after myself. I may be moved any +day now." + +"Well--!" said the matron. "He may prevent your getting moved, you +know. He's on the board. And if he says you are indispensable--" + +This was a new idea for Alvina to cogitate. She had counted on a +speedy escape. She put his ring in her apron pocket, and there she +forgot it until he pounced on her in the afternoon, in the house of +one of her patients. He waited for her, to take her off. + +"Where is your ring?" he said. + +And she realized that it lay in the pocket of a soiled, discarded +apron--perhaps lost for ever. + +"I shan't wear it on duty," she said. "You know that." + +She had to go to tea with him. She avoided his love-making, by +telling him any sort of spooniness revolted her. And he was too much +an old bachelor to take easily to a fondling habit--before marriage, +at least. So he mercifully left her alone: he was on the whole +devoutly thankful she wanted to be left alone. But he wanted her to +be there. That was his greatest craving. He wanted her to be always +there. And so he craved for marriage: to possess her entirely, and +to have her always there with him, so that he was never alone. Alone +and apart from all the world: but by her side, always by her side. + +"Now when shall we fix the marriage?" he said. "It is no good +putting it back. We both know what we are doing. And now the +engagement is announced--" + +He looked at her anxiously. She could see the hysterical little boy +under the great, authoritative man. + +"Oh, not till after Christmas!" she said. + +"After Christmas!" he started as if he had been bitten. "Nonsense! +It's nonsense to wait so long. Next month, at the latest." + +"Oh no," she said. "I don't think so soon." + +"Why not? The sooner the better. You had better send in your +resignation at once, so that you're free." + +"Oh but is there any need? I may be transferred for war service." + +"That's not likely. You're our only maternity nurse--" + +And so the days went by. She had tea with him practically every +afternoon, and she got used to him. They discussed the furnishing--she +could not help suggesting a few alterations, a few arrangements +according to _her_ idea. And he drew up a plan of a wedding tour in +Scotland. Yet she was quite certain she would not marry him. The matron +laughed at her certainty. "You will drift into it," she said. "He is +tying you down by too many little threads." + +"Ah, well, you'll see!" said Alvina. + +"Yes," said the matron. "I _shall_ see." + +And it was true that Alvina's will was indeterminate, at this time. +She was _resolved_ not to marry. But her will, like a spring that is +hitched somehow, did not fly direct against the doctor. She had sent +in her resignation, as he suggested. But not that she might be free +to marry him, but that she might be at liberty to flee him. So she +told herself. Yet she worked into his hands. + +One day she sat with the doctor in the car near the station--it was +towards the end of September--held up by a squad of soldiers in +khaki, who were marching off with their band wildly playing, to +embark on the special troop train that was coming down from the +north. The town was in great excitement. War-fever was spreading +everywhere. Men were rushing to enlist--and being constantly +rejected, for it was still the days of regular standards. + +As the crowds surged on the pavement, as the soldiers tramped to the +station, as the traffic waited, there came a certain flow in the +opposite direction. The 4:15 train had come in. People were +struggling along with luggage, children were running with spades and +buckets, cabs were crawling along with families: it was the seaside +people coming home. Alvina watched the two crowds mingle. + +And as she watched she saw two men, one carrying a mandoline case +and a suit-case which she knew. It was Ciccio. She did not know the +other man; some theatrical individual. The two men halted almost +near the car, to watch the band go by. Alvina saw Ciccio quite near +to her. She would have liked to squirt water down his brown, +handsome, oblivious neck. She felt she hated him. He stood there, +watching the music, his lips curling in his faintly-derisive Italian +manner, as he talked to the other man. His eyelashes were as long +and dark as ever, his eyes had still the attractive look of being +set in with a smutty finger. He had got the same brownish suit on, +which she disliked, the same black hat set slightly, jauntily over +one eye. He looked common: and yet with that peculiar southern +aloofness which gave him a certain beauty and distinction in her +eyes. She felt she hated him, rather. She felt she had been let down +by him. + +The band had passed. A child ran against the wheel of the standing +car. Alvina suddenly reached forward and made a loud, screeching +flourish on the hooter. Every one looked round, including the laden, +tramping soldiers. + +"We can't move yet," said Dr. Mitchell. + +But Alvina was looking at Ciccio at that moment. He had turned with +the rest, looking inquiringly at the car. And his quick eyes, the +whites of which showed so white against his duskiness, the yellow +pupils so non-human, met hers with a quick flash of recognition. His +mouth began to curl in a smile of greeting. But she stared at him +without moving a muscle, just blankly stared, abstracting every +scrap of feeling, even of animosity or coldness, out of her gaze. +She saw the smile die on his lips, his eyes glance sideways, and +again sideways, with that curious animal shyness which characterized +him. It was as if he did not want to see her looking at him, and ran +from side to side like a caged weasel, avoiding her blank, glaucous +look. + +She turned pleasantly to Dr. Mitchell. + +"What did you say?" she asked sweetly. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ALLAYE ALSO IS ENGAGED + + +Alvina found it pleasant to be respected as she was respected in +Lancaster. It is not only the prophet who hath honour _save_ in his +own country: it is every one with individuality. In this northern +town Alvina found that her individuality really told. Already she +belonged to the revered caste of medicine-men. And into the bargain +she was a personality, a person. + +Well and good. She was not going to cheapen herself. She felt that +even in the eyes of the natives--the well-to-do part, at least--she +lost a _little_ of her distinction when she was engaged to Dr. +Mitchell. The engagement had been announced in _The Times_, _The +Morning Post_, _The Manchester Guardian_, and the local _News_. No +fear about its being known. And it cast a slight slur of vulgar +familiarity over her. In Woodhouse, she knew, it elevated her in the +common esteem tremendously. But she was no longer in Woodhouse. She +was in Lancaster. And in Lancaster her engagement pigeonholed her. +Apart from Dr. Mitchell she had a magic potentiality. Connected with +him, she was a known and labelled quantity. + +This she gathered from her contact with the local gentry. The matron +was a woman of family, who somehow managed, in her big, white, +frilled cap, to be distinguished like an abbess of old. The really +toney women of the place came to take tea in her room, and these +little teas in the hospital were like a little elegant female +conspiracy. There was a slight flavour of art and literature about. +The matron had known Walter Pater, in the somewhat remote past. + +Alvina was admitted to these teas with the few women who formed the +toney intellectual elite of this northern town. There was a certain +freemasonry in the matron's room. The matron, a lady-doctor, a +clergyman's daughter, and the wives of two industrial magnates of +the place, these five, and then Alvina, formed the little group. +They did not meet a great deal outside the hospital. But they always +met with that curious female freemasonry which can form a law unto +itself even among most conventional women. They talked as they would +never talk before men, or before feminine outsiders. They threw +aside the whole vestment of convention. They discussed plainly the +things they thought about--even the most secret--and they were quite +calm about the things they did--even the most impossible. Alvina +felt that her transgression was a very mild affair, and that her +engagement was really _infra dig_. + +"And are you going to marry him?" asked Mrs. Tuke, with a long, cool +look. + +"I can't _imagine_ myself--" said Alvina. + +"Oh, but so many things happen outside one's imagination. That's +where your body has you. I can't _imagine_ that I'm going to have a +child--" She lowered her eyelids wearily and sardonically over her +large eyes. + +Mrs. Tuke was the wife of the son of a local manufacturer. She was +about twenty-eight years old, pale, with great dark-grey eyes and an +arched nose and black hair, very like a head on one of the lovely +Syracusan coins. The odd look of a smile which wasn't a smile, at +the corners of the mouth, the arched nose, and the slowness of the +big, full, classic eyes gave her the dangerous Greek look of the +Syracusan women of the past: the dangerous, heavily-civilized women +of old Sicily: those who laughed about the latomia. + +"But do you think you can have a child without wanting it _at all_?" +asked Alvina. + +"Oh, but there isn't _one bit_ of me wants it, not _one bit_. My +_flesh_ doesn't want it. And my mind doesn't--yet there it is!" She +spread her fine hands with a flicker of inevitability. + +"Something must want it," said Alvina. + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Tuke. "The universe is one big machine, and we're +just part of it." She flicked out her grey silk handkerchief, and +dabbed her nose, watching with big, black-grey eyes the fresh face +of Alvina. + +"There's not _one bit_ of me concerned in having this child," she +persisted to Alvina. "My flesh isn't concerned, and my mind isn't. +And _yet_!--_le voila!_--I'm just _plante_. I can't _imagine_ why I +married Tommy. And yet--I did--!" She shook her head as if it was +all just beyond her, and the pseudo-smile at the corners of her +ageless mouth deepened. + +Alvina was to nurse Mrs. Tuke. The baby was expected at the end of +August. But already the middle of September was here, and the baby +had not arrived. + +The Tukes were not very rich--the young ones, that is. Tommy wanted +to compose music, so he lived on what his father gave him. His +father gave him a little house outside the town, a house furnished +with expensive bits of old furniture, in a way that the townspeople +thought insane. But there you are--Effie would insist on dabbing a +rare bit of yellow brocade on the wall, instead of a picture, and in +painting apple-green shelves in the recesses of the whitewashed wall +of the dining-room. Then she enamelled the hall-furniture yellow, +and decorated it with curious green and lavender lines and flowers, +and had unearthly cushions and Sardinian pottery with unspeakable +peaked griffins. + +What were you to make of such a woman! Alvina slept in her house +these days, instead of at the hospital. For Effie was a very bad +sleeper. She would sit up in bed, the two glossy black plaits +hanging beside her white, arch face, wrapping loosely round her her +dressing-gown of a sort of plumbago-coloured, dark-grey silk lined +with fine silk of metallic blue, and there, ivory and jet-black and +grey like black-lead, she would sit in the white bedclothes +flicking her handkerchief and revealing a flicker of kingfisher-blue +silk and white silk night dress, complaining of her neuritis nerve +and her own impossible condition, and begging Alvina to stay with +her another half-hour, and suddenly studying the big, blood-red +stone on her finger as if she was reading something in it. + +"I believe I shall be like the woman in the _Cent Nouvelles_ and +carry my child for five years. Do you know that story? She said that +eating a parsley leaf on which bits of snow were sticking started +the child in her. It might just as well--" + +Alvina would laugh and get tired. There was about her a kind of half +bitter sanity and nonchalance which the nervous woman liked. + +One night as they were sitting thus in the bedroom, at nearly eleven +o'clock, they started and listened. Dogs in the distance had also +started to yelp. A mandoline was wailing its vibration in the night +outside, rapidly, delicately quivering. Alvina went pale. She knew +it was Ciccio. She had seen him lurking in the streets of the town, +but had never spoken to him. + +"What's this?" cried Mrs. Tuke, cocking her head on one side. +"Music! A mandoline! How extraordinary! Do you think it's a +serenade?--" And she lifted her brows archly. + +"I should think it is," said Alvina. + +"How extraordinary! What a moment to choose to serenade the lady! +_Isn't_ it like life--! I _must_ look at it--" + +She got out of bed with some difficulty, wrapped her dressing-gown +round her, pushed her feet into slippers, and went to the window. +She opened the sash. It was a lovely moonlight night of September. +Below lay the little front garden, with its short drive and its iron +gates that closed on the high-road. From the shadow of the high-road +came the noise of the mandoline. + +"Hello, Tommy!" called Mrs. Tuke to her husband, whom she saw on the +drive below her. "How's your musical ear--?" + +"All right. Doesn't it disturb you?" came the man's voice from the +moonlight below. + +"Not a bit. I like it. I'm waiting for the voice. '_O Richard, O mon +roi!_'--" + +But the music had stopped. + +"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke. "You've frightened him off! And we're +dying to be serenaded, aren't we, nurse?" She turned to Alvina. "Do +give me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won't you open the other +window and look out there--?" + +Alvina went to the second window. She stood looking out. + +"Do play again!" Mrs. Tuke called into the night. "Do sing +something." And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose that +hung in the moonlight from the wall, and with a flash of her white +arm she flung it toward the garden wall--ineffectually, of course. + +"Won't you play again?" she called into the night, to the unseen. +"Tommy, go indoors, the bird won't sing when you're about." + +"It's an Italian by the sound of him. Nothing I hate more than +emotional Italian music. Perfectly nauseating." + +"Never mind, dear. I know it sounds as if all their insides were +coming out of their mouth. But we want to be serenaded, don't we, +nurse?--" + +Alvina stood at her window, but did not answer. + +"Ah-h?" came the odd query from Mrs. Tuke. "Don't you like it?" + +"Yes," said Alvina. "Very much." + +"And aren't you dying for the song?" + +"Quite." + +"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke, into the moonlight. "Una canzone +bella-bella--molto bella--" + +She pronounced her syllables one by one, calling into the night. It +sounded comical. There came a rude laugh from the drive below. + +"Go indoors, Tommy! He won't sing if you're there. Nothing will sing +if you're there," called the young woman. + +They heard a footstep on the gravel, and then the slam of the hall +door. + +"Now!" cried Mrs. Tuke. + +They waited. And sure enough, came the fine tinkle of the mandoline, +and after a few moments, the song. It was one of the well-known +Neapolitan songs, and Ciccio sang it as it should be sung. + +Mrs. Tuke went across to Alvina. + +"Doesn't he put his _bowels_ into it--?" she said, laying her hand +on her own full figure, and rolling her eyes mockingly. "I'm _sure_ +it's more effective than senna-pods." + +Then she returned to her own window, huddled her furs over her +breast, and rested her white elbows in the moonlight. + + + "Torn' a Surrientu + Fammi campar--" + +The song suddenly ended, in a clamorous, animal sort of yearning. +Mrs. Tuke was quite still, resting her chin on her fingers. Alvina +also was still. Then Mrs. Tuke slowly reached for the rose-buds on +the old wall. + +"Molto bella!" she cried, half ironically. "Molto bella! Je vous +envoie une rose--" And she threw the roses out on to the drive. A +man's figure was seen hovering outside the gate, on the high-road. +"Entrez!" called Mrs. Tuke. "Entrez! Prenez votre rose. Come in and +take your rose." + +The man's voice called something from the distance. + +"What?" cried Mrs. Tuke. + +"Je ne peux pas entrer." + +"Vous ne pouvez pas entrer? Pourquoi alors! La porte n'est pas +fermee a clef. Entrez donc!" + +"Non. On n'entre pas--" called the well-known voice of Ciccio. + +"Quoi faire, alors! Alvina, take him the rose to the gate, will you? +Yes do! Their singing is horrible, I think. I can't go down to him. +But do take him the roses, and see what he looks like. Yes do!" Mrs. +Tuke's eyes were arched and excited. Alvina looked at her slowly. +Alvina also was smiling to herself. + +She went slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. From a +bush at the side she pulled two sweet-smelling roses. Then in the +drive she picked up Effie's flowers. Ciccio was standing outside the +gate. + +"Allaye!" he said, in a soft, yearning voice. + +"Mrs. Tuke sent you these roses," said Alvina, putting the flowers +through the bars of the gate. + +"Allaye!" he said, caressing her hand, kissing it with a soft, +passionate, yearning mouth. Alvina shivered. Quickly he opened the +gate and drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wall, +and put his arms round her, lifting her from her feet with +passionate yearning. + +"Allaye!" he said. "I love you, Allaye, my beautiful, Allaye. I love +you, Allaye!" He held her fast to his breast and began to walk away +with her. His throbbing, muscular power seemed completely to envelop +her. He was just walking away with her down the road, clinging fast +to her, enveloping her. + +"Nurse! Nurse! I can't see you! Nurse!--" came the long call of Mrs. +Tuke through the night. Dogs began to bark. + +"Put me down," murmured Alvina. "Put me down, Ciccio." + +"Come with me to Italy. Come with me to Italy, Allaye. I can't go to +Italy by myself, Allaye. Come with me, be married to me--Allaye, +Allaye--" + +His voice was a strange, hoarse whisper just above her face, he +still held her in his throbbing, heavy embrace. + +"Yes--yes!" she whispered. "Yes--yes! But put me down, Ciccio. Put +me down." + +"Come to Italy with me, Allaye. Come with me," he still reiterated, +in a voice hoarse with pain and yearning. + +"Nurse! Nurse! Wherever are you? Nurse! I want you," sang the +uneasy, querulous voice of Mrs. Tuke. + +"Do put me down!" murmured Alvina, stirring in his arms. + +He slowly relaxed his clasp, and she slid down like rain to earth. +But still he clung to her. + +"Come with me, Allaye! Come with me to Italy!" he said. + +She saw his face, beautiful, non-human in the moonlight, and she +shuddered slightly. + +"Yes!" she said. "I will come. But let me go now. Where is your +mandoline?" + +He turned round and looked up the road. + +"Nurse! You absolutely _must_ come. I can't bear it," cried the +strange voice of Mrs. Tuke. + +Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, and +through the gate into the drive. + +"You must come!" came the voice in pain from the upper window. + +Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tuke crouched in a chair, with a +drawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly gripped her, +she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists hard on +her face. + +"The pains have begun," said Alvina, hurrying to her. + +"Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it!" cried the woman +in travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she +could. And from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the +Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night. + + "E tu dic' Io part', addio! + T'alluntare di sta core, + Nel paese del amore + Tien' o cor' di non turnar' + --Ma nun me lasciar'--" + +It was almost unendurable. But suddenly Mrs. Tuke became quite +still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two +jet-black plaits dropping on either side of her ivory face, her big +eyes fixed staring into space. At the line-- + + Ma nun me lasciar'-- + +she began to murmur softly to herself--"Yes, it's dreadful! It's +horrible! I can't understand it. What does it mean, that noise? It's +as bad as these pains. What does it mean? What does he say? I can +understand a little Italian--" She paused. And again came the sudden +complaint: + + Ma nun me lasciar'-- + +"Ma nun me lasciar'--!" she murmured, repeating the music. "That +means--Don't leave me! Don't leave me! But why? Why shouldn't one +human being go away from another? What does it mean? That _awful_ +noise! Isn't love the most horrible thing! I think it's horrible. It +just does one in, and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm +howling with one sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two +hellish animals howling through the night! I'm not myself, he's not +himself. Oh, I think it's horrible. What does he look like, Nurse? +Is he beautiful? Is he a great hefty brute?" + +She looked with big, slow, enigmatic eyes at Alvina. + +"He's a man I knew before," said Alvina. + +Mrs. Tuke's face woke from its half-trance. + +"Really! Oh! A man you knew before! Where?" + +"It's a long story," said Alvina. "In a travelling music-hall +troupe." + +"In a travelling music-hall troupe! How extraordinary! Why, how did +you come across such an individual--?" + +Alvina explained as briefly as possible. Mrs. Tuke watched her. + +"Really!" she said. "You've done all those things!" And she +scrutinized Alvina's face. "You've had some effect on him, that's +evident," she said. Then she shuddered, and dabbed her nose with her +handkerchief. "Oh, the flesh is a _beastly_ thing!" she cried. "To +make a man howl outside there like that, because you're here. And to +make me howl because I've got a child inside me. It's unbearable! +What does he look like, really?" + +"I don't know," said Alvina. "Not extraordinary. Rather a hefty +brute--" + +Mrs. Tuke glanced at her, to detect the irony. + +"I should like to see him," she said. "Do you think I might?" + +"I don't know," said Alvina, non-committal. + +"Do you think he might come up? Ask him. Do let me see him." + +"Do you really want to?" said Alvina. + +"Of course--" Mrs. Tuke watched Alvina with big, dark, slow eyes. +Then she dragged herself to her feet. Alvina helped her into bed. + +"Do ask him to come up for a minute," Effie said. "We'll give him a +glass of Tommy's famous port. Do let me see him. Yes do!" She +stretched out her long white arm to Alvina, with sudden imploring. + +Alvina laughed, and turned doubtfully away. + +The night was silent outside. But she found Ciccio leaning against a +gate-pillar. He started up. + +"Allaye!" he said. + +"Will you come in for a moment? I can't leave Mrs. Tuke." + +Ciccio obediently followed Alvina into the house and up the stairs, +without a word. He was ushered into the bedroom. He drew back when +he saw Effie in the bed, sitting with her long plaits and her dark +eyes, and the subtle-seeming smile at the corners of her mouth. + +"Do come in!" she said. "I want to thank you for the music. Nurse +says it was for her, but I enjoyed it also. Would you tell me the +words? I think it's a wonderful song." + +Ciccio hung back against the door, his head dropped, and the shy, +suspicious, faintly malicious smile on his face. + +"Have a glass of port, do!" said Effie. "Nurse, give us all one. I +should like one too. And a biscuit." Again she stretched out her +long white arm from the sudden blue lining of her wrap, suddenly, as +if taken with the desire. Ciccio shifted on his feet, watching +Alvina pour out the port. + +He swallowed his in one swallow, and put aside his glass. + +"Have some more!" said Effie, watching over the top of her glass. + +He smiled faintly, stupidly, and shook his head. + +"Won't you? Now tell me the words of the song--" + +He looked at her from out of the dusky hollows of his brow, and did +not answer. The faint, stupid half-smile, half-sneer was on his +lips. + +"Won't you tell them me? I understood one line--" + +Ciccio smiled more pronouncedly as he watched her, but did not +speak. + +"I understood one line," said Effie, making big eyes at him. "_Ma +non me lasciare_--_Don't leave me!_ There, isn't that it?" + +He smiled, stirred on his feet, and nodded. + +"Don't leave me! There, I knew it was that. Why don't you want Nurse +to leave you? Do you want her to be with you _every minute_?" + +He smiled a little contemptuously, awkwardly, and turned aside his +face, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance. +It was swift, and full of the terrible yearning which so horrified +her. + +At the same moment a spasm crossed her face, her expression went +blank. + +"Shall we go down?" said Alvina to Ciccio. + +He turned immediately, with his cap in his hand, and followed. In +the hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline from the +chest. He could hear the stifled cries and exclamations from Mrs. +Tuke. At the same moment the door of the study opened, and the +musician, a burly fellow with troubled hair, came out. + +"Is that Mrs. Tuke?" he snapped anxiously. + +"Yes. The pains have begun," said Alvina. + +"Oh God! And have you left her!" He was quite irascible. + +"Only for a minute," said Alvina. + +But with a _Pf_! of angry indignation, he was climbing the stairs. + +"She is going to have a child," said Alvina to Ciccio. "I shall have +to go back to her." And she held out her hand. + +He did not take her hand, but looked down into her face with the +same slightly distorted look of overwhelming yearning, yearning +heavy and unbearable, in which he was carried towards her as on a +flood. + +"Allaye!" he said, with a faint lift of the lip that showed his +teeth, like a pained animal: a curious sort of smile. He could not +go away. + +"I shall have to go back to her," she said. + +"Shall you come with me to Italy, Allaye?" + +"Yes. Where is Madame?" + +"Gone! Gigi--all gone." + +"Gone where?" + +"Gone back to France--called up." + +"And Madame and Louis and Max?" + +"Switzerland." + +He stood helplessly looking at her. + +"Well, I must go," she said. + +He watched her with his yellow eyes, from under his long black +lashes, like some chained animal, haunted by doom. She turned and +left him standing. + +She found Mrs. Tuke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets, and +crying: "No, Tommy dear. I'm awfully fond of you, you know I am. But +go away. Oh God, go away. And put a space between us. Put a space +between us!" she almost shrieked. + +He pushed up his hair. He had been working on a big choral work +which he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented. + +"Can't you stand my presence!" he shouted, and dashed downstairs. + +"Nurse!" cried Effie. "It's _no use_ trying to get a grip on life. +You're just at the mercy of _Forces_," she shrieked angrily. + +"Why not?" said Alvina. "There are good life-forces. Even the will +of God is a life-force." + +"You don't understand! I want to be _myself_. And I'm _not_ myself. +I'm just torn to pieces by _Forces_. It's horrible--" + +"Well, it's not my fault. I didn't make the universe," said Alvina. +"If you have to be torn to pieces by forces, well, you have. Other +forces will put you together again." + +"I don't want them to. I want to be myself. I don't want to be +nailed together like a chair, with a hammer. I want to be myself." + +"You won't be nailed together like a chair. You should have faith in +life." + +"But I hate life. It's nothing but a mass of forces. _I_ am +intelligent. Life isn't intelligent. Look at it at this moment. Do +you call this intelligent? Oh--Oh! It's horrible! Oh--!" She was +wild and sweating with her pains. Tommy flounced out downstairs, +beside himself. He was heard talking to some one in the moonlight +outside. To Ciccio. He had already telephoned wildly for the doctor. +But the doctor had replied that Nurse would ring him up. + +The moment Mrs. Tuke recovered her breath she began again. + +"I hate life, and faith, and such things. Faith is only fear. And +life is a mass of unintelligent forces to which intelligent beings +are submitted. Prostituted. Oh--oh!!--prostituted--" + +"Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence," said +Alvina. + +"Bigger than intelligence!" shrieked Effie. "_Nothing_ is bigger +than intelligence. Your man is a hefty brute. His yellow eyes +_aren't_ intelligent. They're _animal_--" + +"No," said Alvina. "Something else. I wish he didn't attract me--" + +"There! Because you're not content to be at the mercy of _Forces_!" +cried Effie. "I'm not. I'm not. I want to be myself. And so forces +tear me to pieces! Tear me to pie--eee--Oh-h-h! No!--" + +Downstairs Tommy had walked Ciccio back into the house again, and +the two men were drinking port in the study, discussing Italy, for +which Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated all +Italian music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all +through the night, Tommy being strictly forbidden to interfere +upstairs, or even to fetch the doctor. They drank three and a half +bottles of port, and were discovered in the morning by Alvina fast +asleep in the study, with the electric light still burning. Tommy +slept with his fair and ruffled head hanging over the edge of the +couch like some great loose fruit, Ciccio was on the floor, face +downwards, his face in his folded arms. + +Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the inert Ciccio. In the +end, she had to leave him and rouse Tommy first: who in rousing fell +off the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably. So that he +turned on Alvina in a fury, and asked her what the hell she thought +she was doing. In answer to which Alvina held up a finger warningly, +and Tommy, suddenly remembering, fell back as if he had been struck. + +"She is sleeping now," said Alvina. + +"Is it a boy or a girl?" he cried. + +"It isn't born yet," she said. + +"Oh God, it's an accursed fugue!" cried the bemused Tommy. After +which they proceeded to wake Ciccio, who was like the dead doll in +Petrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he +smiled at Alvina, and said: "Allaye!" + +The dark, waking smile upset her badly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE WEDDED WIFE + + +The upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough without +telling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for +a week-end, to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage +was presumably with Dr. Mitchell--though she had given him no +definite word. However, her month's notice was up, so she was +legally free. And therefore she packed a rather large bag with all +her ordinary things, and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the +nursing paraphernalia behind. + +She knew Scarborough quite well: and quite quickly found rooms which +she had occupied before, in a boarding-house where she had stayed +with Miss Frost long ago. Having recovered from her journey, she +went out on to the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the +sea was before her. What was she to do? + +She had run away from both men--from Ciccio as well as from +Mitchell. She had spent the last fortnight more or less avoiding the +pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free +from Mrs. Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men. +Mrs. Tuke had a baby daughter, and was getting well. Ciccio was +living with the Tukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him, and had half +engaged him as a sort of personal attendant: the sort of thing Tommy +would do, not having paid his butcher's bills. + +So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sick +of being badgered about. She didn't really want to marry anybody. +Why should she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself. +How sick she was of other people and their importunities! What was +she to do? She decided to offer herself again, in a little while, +for war service--in a new town this time. Meanwhile she wanted to be +by herself. + +She made excursions, she walked on the moors, in the brief but +lovely days of early October. For three days it was all so sweet and +lovely--perfect liberty, pure, almost paradisal. + +The fourth day it rained: simply rained all day long, and was cold, +dismal, disheartening beyond words. There she sat, stranded in the +dismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o'clock, +having decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in the +war-hospitals at once: not to leave off until she had found it. + +But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fiance, was +with her on the quay of some harbour, and was reproaching her +bitterly, even reviling her, for having come too late, so that they +had missed their ship. They were there to catch the boat--and she, +for dilatoriness, was an hour late, and she could see the broad +stern of the steamer not far off. Just an hour late. She showed +Alexander her watch--exactly ten o'clock, instead of nine. And he +was more angry than ever, because her watch was slow. He pointed to +the harbour clock--it was ten minutes past ten. + +When she woke up she was thinking of Alexander. It was such a long +time since she had thought of him. She wondered if he had a right to +be angry with her. + +The day was still grey, with sweepy rain-clouds on the +sea--gruesome, objectionable. It was a prolongation of yesterday. +Well, despair was no good, and being miserable was no good either. +She got no satisfaction out of either mood. The only thing to do was +to act: seize hold of life and wring its neck. + +She took the time-table that hung in the hall: the time-table, that +magic carpet of today. When in doubt, _move_. This was the maxim. +Move. Where to? + +Another click of a resolution. She would wire to Ciccio and meet +him--where? York--Leeds--Halifax--? She looked up the places in the +time-table, and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram, that she +would be at Leeds that evening. Would he get it in time? Chance it. + +She hurried off and sent the telegram. Then she took a little +luggage, told the people of her house she would be back next day, +and set off. She did not like whirling in the direction of +Lancaster. But no matter. + +She waited a long time for the train from the north to come in. The +first person she saw was Tommy. He waved to her and jumped from the +moving train. + +"I say!" he said. "So glad to see you! Ciccio is with me. Effie +insisted on my coming to see you." + +There was Ciccio climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant! This +was too much for her. + +"So you came with your valet?" she said, as Ciccio stood with the +bag. + +"Not a bit," said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man's +shoulder. "We're the best of friends. I don't carry bags because my +heart is rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you +better in uniform. Black doesn't suit you. You don't _mind_--" + +"Yes, I do. But I've only got black clothes, except uniforms." + +"Well look here now--! You're not going on anywhere tonight, are +you?" + +"It is too late." + +"Well now, let's turn into the hotel and have a talk. I'm acting +under Effie's orders, as you may gather--" + +At the hotel Tommy gave her a letter from his wife: to the tune +of--don't marry this Italian, you'll put yourself in a wretched +hole, and one wants to avoid getting into holes. _I know_--concluded +Effie, on a sinister note. + +Tommy sang another tune. Ciccio was a lovely chap, a rare chap, a +treat. He, Tommy, could quite understand any woman's wanting to +marry him--didn't agree a bit with Effie. But marriage, you know, +was so final. And then with this war on: you never knew how things +might turn out: a foreigner and all that. And then--you won't mind +what I say--? We won't talk about class and that rot. If the man's +good enough, he's good enough by himself. But is he your +intellectual equal, nurse? After all, it's a big point. You don't +want to marry a man you can't talk to. Ciccio's a treat to be with, +because he's so natural. But it isn't a _mental_ treat-- + +Alvina thought of Mrs. Tuke, who complained that Tommy talked music +and pseudo-philosophy _by the hour_ when he was wound up. She saw +Effie's long, outstretched arm of repudiation and weariness. + +"Of course!"--another of Mrs. Tuke's exclamations. "Why not _be_ +atavistic if you _can_ be, and follow at a man's heel just because +he's a man. Be like barbarous women, a slave." + +During all this, Ciccio stayed out of the room, as bidden. It was +not till Alvina sat before her mirror that he opened her door +softly, and entered. + +"I come in," he said, and he closed the door. + +Alvina remained with her hair-brush suspended, watching him. He came +to her, smiling softly, to take her in his arms. But she put the +chair between them. + +"Why did you bring Mr. Tuke?" she said. + +He lifted his shoulders. + +"I haven't brought him," he said, watching her. + +"Why did you show him the telegram?" + +"It was Mrs. Tuke took it." + +"Why did you give it her?" + +"It was she who gave it me, in her room. She kept it in her room +till I came and took it." + +"All right," said Alvina. "Go back to the Tukes." And she began +again to brush her hair. + +Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes. + +"What you mean?" he said. "I shan't go, Allaye. You come with me." + +"Ha!" she sniffed scornfully. "I shall go where I like." + +But slowly he shook his head. + +"You'll come, Allaye," he said. "You come with me, with Ciccio." + +She shuddered at the soft, plaintive entreaty. + +"How can I go with you? How can I depend on you at all?" + +Again he shook his head. His eyes had a curious yellow fire, +beseeching, plaintive, with a demon quality of yearning compulsion. + +"Yes, you come with me, Allaye. You come with me, to Italy. You +don't go to that other man. He is too old, not healthy. You come +with me to Italy. Why do you send a telegram?" + +Alvina sat down and covered her face, trembling. + +"I can't! I can't! I can't!" she moaned. "I can't do it." + +"Yes, you come with me. I have money. You come with me, to my place +in the mountains, to my uncle's house. Fine house, you like it. Come +with me, Allaye." + +She could not look at him. + +"Why do you want me?" she said. + +"Why I want you?" He gave a curious laugh, almost of ridicule. "I +don't know that. You ask me another, eh?" + +She was silent, sitting looking downwards. + +"I can't, I think," she said abstractedly, looking up at him. + +He smiled, a fine, subtle smile, like a demon's, but inexpressibly +gentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he was +reaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could she recoil. + +"You come, Allaye," he said softly, with his foreign intonation. +"You come. You come to Italy with me. Yes?" He put his hand on her, +and she started as if she had been struck. But his hands, with the +soft, powerful clasp, only closed her faster. + +"Yes?" he said. "Yes? All right, eh? All right!"--he had a strange +mesmeric power over her, as if he possessed the sensual secrets, and +she was to be subjected. + +"I can't," she moaned, trying to struggle. But she was powerless. + +Dark and insidious he was: he had no regard for her. How could a +man's movements be so soft and gentle, and yet so inhumanly +regardless! He had no regard for her. Why didn't she revolt? Why +couldn't she? She was as if bewitched. She couldn't fight against +her bewitchment. Why? Because he seemed to her beautiful, so +beautiful. And this left her numb, submissive. Why must she see him +beautiful? Why was she will-less? She felt herself like one of the +old sacred prostitutes: a sacred prostitute. + +In the morning, very early, they left for Scarborough, leaving a +letter for the sleeping Tommy. In Scarborough they went to the +registrar's office: they could be married in a fortnight's time. And +so the fortnight passed, and she was under his spell. Only she knew +it. She felt extinguished. Ciccio talked to her: but only ordinary +things. There was no wonderful intimacy of speech, such as she had +always imagined, and always craved for. No. He loved her--but it was +in a dark, mesmeric way, which did not let her be herself. His love +did not stimulate her or excite her. It extinguished her. She had to +be the quiescent, obscure woman: she felt as if she were veiled. Her +thoughts were dim, in the dim back regions of consciousness--yet, +somewhere, she almost exulted. Atavism! Mrs. Tuke's word would play +in her mind. Was it atavism, this sinking into extinction under the +spell of Ciccio? Was it atavism, this strange, sleep-like submission +to his being? Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was. But it was also heavy +and sweet and rich. Somewhere, she was content. Somewhere even she +was vastly proud of the dark veiled eternal loneliness she felt, +under his shadow. + +And so it had to be. She shuddered when she touched him, because he +was so beautiful, and she was so submitted. She quivered when he +moved as if she were his shadow. Yet her mind remained distantly +clear. She would criticize him, find fault with him, the things he +did. But _ultimately_ she could find no fault with him. She had lost +the power. She didn't care. She had lost the power to care about his +faults. Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference! She was drugged. And +she knew it. Would she ever wake out of her dark, warm coma? She +shuddered, and hoped not. Mrs. Tuke would say atavism. Atavism! The +word recurred curiously. + +But under all her questionings she felt well; a nonchalance deep as +sleep, a passivity and indifference so dark and sweet she felt it +must be evil. Evil! She was evil. And yet she had no power to be +otherwise. They were legally married. And she was glad. She was +relieved by knowing she could not escape. She was Mrs. Marasca. What +was the good of trying to be Miss Houghton any longer? Marasca, the +bitter cherry. Some dark poison fruit she had eaten. How glad she +was she had eaten it! How beautiful he was! And no one saw it but +herself. For her it was so potent it made her tremble when she +noticed him. His beauty, his dark shadow. Ciccio really was much +handsomer since his marriage. He seemed to emerge. Before, he had +seemed to make himself invisible in the streets, in England, +altogether. But now something unfolded in him, he was a potent, +glamorous presence, people turned to watch him. There was a certain +dark, leopard-like pride in the air about him, something that the +English people watched. + +He wanted to go to Italy. And now it was _his_ will which counted. +Alvina, as his wife, must submit. He took her to London the day +after the marriage. He wanted to get away to Italy. He did not like +being in England, a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spy craze. + +In London they stayed at his cousin's house. His cousin kept a +restaurant in Battersea, and was a flourishing London Italian, a +real London product with all the good English virtues of cleanliness +and honesty added to an Italian shrewdness. His name was Giuseppe +Califano, and he was pale, and he had four children of whom he was +very proud. He received Alvina with an affable respect, as if she +were an asset in the family, but as if he were a little uneasy and +disapproving. She had _come down_, in marrying Ciccio. She had lost +caste. He rather seemed to exult over her degradation. For he was a +northernized Italian, he had accepted English standards. His +children were English brats. He almost patronized Alvina. + +But then a long, slow look from her remote blue eyes brought him up +sharp, and he envied Ciccio suddenly, he was almost in love with her +himself. She disturbed him. She disturbed him in his new English +aplomb of a London _restaurateur_, and she disturbed in him the old +Italian dark soul, to which he was renegade. He tried treating her +as an English lady. But the slow, remote look in her eyes made this +fall flat. He had to be Italian. + +And he was jealous of Ciccio. In Ciccio's face was a lurking smile, +and round his fine nose there seemed a subtle, semi-defiant triumph. +After all, he had triumphed over his well-to-do, Anglicized cousin. +With a stealthy, leopard-like pride Ciccio went through the streets +of London in those wild early days of war. He was the one victor, +arching stealthily over the vanquished north. + +Alvina saw nothing of all these complexities. For the time being, +she was all dark and potent. Things were curious to her. It was +curious to be in Battersea, in this English-Italian household, where +the children spoke English more readily than Italian. It was strange +to be high over the restaurant, to see the trees of the park, to +hear the clang of trams. It was strange to walk out and come to the +river. It was strange to feel the seethe of war and dread in the +air. But she did not question. She seemed steeped in the passional +influence of the man, as in some narcotic. She even forgot Mrs. +Tuke's atavism. Vague and unquestioning she went through the days, +she accompanied Ciccio into town, she went with him to make +purchases, or she sat by his side in the music hall, or she stayed +in her room and sewed, or she sat at meals with the Califanos, a +vague brightness on her face. And Mrs. Califano was very nice to +her, very gentle, though with a suspicion of malicious triumph, +mockery, beneath her gentleness. Still, she was nice and womanly, +hovering as she was between her English emancipation and her Italian +subordination. She half pitied Alvina, and was more than half +jealous of her. + +Alvina was aware of nothing--only of the presence of Ciccio. It was +his physical presence which cast a spell over her. She lived within +his aura. And she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark +nature over her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly +within his presence, quivering within his influence, as if his blood +beat in her. She _knew_ she was subjected. One tiny corner of her +knew, and watched. + +He was very happy, and his face had a real beauty. His eyes glowed with +lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, happy wild creature +seen remote under a bush. And he was very good to her. His tenderness +made her quiver into a swoon of complete self-forgetfulness, as if the +flood-gates of her depths opened. The depth of his warm, mindless, +enveloping love was immeasurable. She felt she could sink forever into +his warm, pulsating embrace. + +Afterwards, later on, when she was inclined to criticize him, she +would remember the moment when she saw his face at the Italian +Consulate in London. There were many people at the Consulate, +clamouring for passports--a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They had +waited their turn and got inside--Ciccio was not good at pushing his +way. And inside a courteous tall old man with a white beard had +lifted the flap for Alvina to go inside the office and sit down to +fill in the form. She thanked the old man, who bowed as if he had a +reputation to keep up. + +Ciccio followed, and it was he who had to sit down and fill up the +form, because she did not understand the Italian questions. She +stood at his side, watching the excited, laughing, noisy, east-end +Italians at the desk. The whole place had a certain free-and-easy +confusion, a human, unofficial, muddling liveliness which was not +quite like England, even though it was in the middle of London. + +"What was your mother's name?" Ciccio was asking her. She turned to +him. He sat with the pen perched flourishingly at the end of his +fingers, suspended in the serious and artistic business of filling in a +form. And his face had a dark luminousness, like a dark transparence +which was shut and has now expanded. She quivered, as if it was more +than she could bear. For his face was open like a flower right to +the depths of his soul, a dark, lovely translucency, vulnerable to +the deep quick of his soul. The lovely, rich darkness of his southern +nature, so different from her own, exposing itself now in its passional +vulnerability, made her go white with a kind of fear. For an instant, +her face seemed drawn and old as she looked down at him, answering his +questions. Then her eyes became sightless with tears, she stooped as if +to look at his writing, and quickly kissed his fingers that held the +pen, there in the midst of the crowded, vulgar Consulate. + +He stayed suspended, again looking up at her with the bright, +unfolded eyes of a wild creature which plays and is not seen. A +faint smile, very beautiful to her, was on his face. What did he see +when he looked at her? She did not know, she did not know. And she +would never know. For an instant, she swore inside herself that God +Himself should not take her away from this man. She would commit +herself to him through every eternity. And then the vagueness came +over her again, she turned aside, photographically seeing the crowd +in the Consulate, but really unconscious. His movement as he rose +seemed to move her in her sleep, she turned to him at once. + +It was early in November before they could leave for Italy, and her +dim, lustrous state lasted all the time. She found herself at +Charing Cross in the early morning, in all the bustle of catching +the Continental train. Giuseppe was there, and Gemma his wife, and +two of the children, besides three other Italian friends of Ciccio. +They all crowded up the platform. Giuseppe had insisted that Ciccio +should take second-class tickets. They were very early. Alvina and +Ciccio were installed in a second-class compartment, with all their +packages, Ciccio was pale, yellowish under his tawny skin, and +nervous. He stood excitedly on the platform talking in Italian--or +rather, in his own dialect--whilst Alvina sat quite still in her +corner. Sometimes one of the women or one of the children came to +say a few words to her, or Giuseppe hurried to her with illustrated +papers. They treated her as if she were some sort of invalid or +angel, now she was leaving. But most of their attention they gave to +Ciccio, talking at him rapidly all at once, whilst he answered, and +glanced in this way and that, under his fine lashes, and smiled his +old, nervous, meaningless smile. He was curiously upset. + +Time came to shut the doors. The women and children kissed Alvina, +saying: + +"You'll be all right, eh? Going to Italy--!" And then profound and +meaningful nods, which she could not interpret, but which were +fraught surely with good-fellowship. + +Then they all kissed Ciccio. The men took him in their arms and +kissed him on either cheek, the children lifted their faces in eager +anticipation of the double kiss. Strange, how eager they were for +this embrace--how they all kept taking Ciccio's hand, one after the +other, whilst he smiled constrainedly and nervously. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE JOURNEY ACROSS + + +The train began to move. Giuseppe ran alongside, holding Ciccio's +hand still; the women and children were crying and waving their +handkerchiefs, the other men were shouting messages, making strange, +eager gestures. And Alvina sat quite still, wonderingly. And so the +big, heavy train drew out, leaving the others small and dim on the +platform. It was foggy, the river was a sea of yellow beneath the +ponderous iron bridge. The morning was dim and dank. + +The train was very full. Next to Alvina sat a trim Frenchwoman +reading _L'Aiglon_. There was a terrible encumbrance of packages and +luggage everywhere. Opposite her sat Ciccio, his black overcoat open +over his pale-grey suit, his black hat a little over his left eye. +He glanced at her from time to time, smiling constrainedly. She +remained very still. They ran through Bromley and out into the open +country. It was grey, with shivers of grey sunshine. On the downs +there was thin snow. The air in the train was hot, heavy with the +crowd and tense with excitement and uneasiness. The train seemed to +rush ponderously, massively, across the Weald. + +And so, through Folkestone to the sea. There was sun in the sky now, +and white clouds, in the sort of hollow sky-dome above the grey +earth with its horizon walls of fog. The air was still. The sea +heaved with a sucking noise inside the dock. Alvina and Ciccio sat +aft on the second-class deck, their bags near them. He put a white +muffler round himself, Alvina hugged herself in her beaver scarf and +muff. She looked tender and beautiful in her still vagueness, and +Ciccio, hovering about her, was beautiful too, his estrangement gave +him a certain wistful nobility which for the moment put him beyond +all class inferiority. The passengers glanced at them across the +magic of estrangement. + +The sea was very still. The sun was fairly high in the open sky, +where white cloud-tops showed against the pale, wintry blue. Across +the sea came a silver sun-track. And Alvina and Ciccio looked at the +sun, which stood a little to the right of the ship's course. + +"The sun!" said Ciccio, nodding towards the orb and smiling to her. + +"I love it," she said. + +He smiled again, silently. He was strangely moved: she did not know +why. + +The wind was cold over the wintry sea, though the sun's beams were +warm. They rose, walked round the cabins. Other ships were at +sea--destroyers and battleships, grey, low, and sinister on the +water. Then a tall bright schooner glimmered far down the channel. +Some brown fishing smacks kept together. All was very still in the +wintry sunshine of the Channel. + +So they turned to walk to the stern of the boat. And Alvina's heart +suddenly contracted. She caught Ciccio's arm, as the boat rolled +gently. For there behind, behind all the sunshine, was England. +England, beyond the water, rising with ash-grey, corpse-grey cliffs, +and streaks of snow on the downs above. England, like a long, +ash-grey coffin slowly submerging. She watched it, fascinated and +terrified. It seemed to repudiate the sunshine, to remain +unilluminated, long and ash-grey and dead, with streaks of snow like +cerements. That was England! Her thoughts flew to Woodhouse, the +grey centre of it all. Home! + +Her heart died within her. Never had she felt so utterly strange and +far-off. Ciccio at her side was as nothing, as spell-bound she +watched, away off, behind all the sunshine and the sea, the grey, +snow-streaked substance of England slowly receding and sinking, +submerging. She felt she could not believe it. It was like looking +at something else. What? It was like a long, ash-grey coffin, +winter, slowly submerging in the sea. England? + +She turned again to the sun. But clouds and veils were already +weaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreover. She +sat very still for a long time, almost an eternity. And when she +looked round again there was only a bank of mist behind, beyond the +sea: a bank of mist, and a few grey, stalking ships. She must watch +for the coast of France. + +And there it was already, looming up grey and amorphous, patched +with snow. It had a grey, heaped, sordid look in the November light. +She had imagined Boulogne gay and brilliant. Whereas it was more +grey and dismal than England. But not that magical, mystic, phantom +look. + +The ship slowly put about, and backed into the harbour. She watched +the quay approach. Ciccio was gathering up the luggage. Then came +the first cry one ever hears: "_Porteur! Porteur!_ Want a +_porteur_?" A porter in a blouse strung the luggage on his strap, +and Ciccio and Alvina entered the crush for the exit and the +passport inspection. There was a tense, eager, frightened crowd, and +officials shouting directions in French and English. Alvina found +herself at last before a table where bearded men in uniforms were +splashing open the big pink sheets of the English passports: she +felt strange and uneasy, that her passport was unimpressive and +Italian. The official scrutinized her, and asked questions of +Ciccio. Nobody asked her anything--she might have been Ciccio's +shadow. So they went through to the vast, crowded cavern of a +Customs house, where they found their porter waving to them in the +mob. Ciccio fought in the mob while the porter whisked off Alvina to +get seats in the big train. And at last she was planted once more in +a seat, with Ciccio's place reserved beside her. And there she sat, +looking across the railway lines at the harbour, in the last burst +of grey sunshine. Men looked at her, officials stared at her, +soldiers made remarks about her. And at last, after an eternity, +Ciccio came along the platform, the porter trotting behind. + +They sat and ate the food they had brought, and drank wine and tea. +And after weary hours the train set off through snow-patched country +to Paris. Everywhere was crowded, the train was stuffy without being +warm. Next to Alvina sat a large, fat, youngish Frenchman who +overflowed over her in a hot fashion. Darkness began to fall. The +train was very late. There were strange and frightening delays. +Strange lights appeared in the sky, everybody seemed to be listening +for strange noises. It was all such a whirl and confusion that +Alvina lost count, relapsed into a sort of stupidity. Gleams, +flashes, noises and then at last the frenzy of Paris. + +It was night, a black city, and snow falling, and no train that +night across to the Gare de Lyon. In a state of semi-stupefaction +after all the questionings and examinings and blusterings, they +were finally allowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant +another wild tussle with a Paris taxi-driver, in the filtering snow. +So they were deposited in the Gare de Lyon. + +And the first person who rushed upon them was Geoffrey, in a rather +grimy private's uniform. He had already seen some hard service, and +had a wild, bewildered look. He kissed Ciccio and burst into tears +on his shoulder, there in the great turmoil of the entrance hall of +the Gare de Lyon. People looked, but nobody seemed surprised. +Geoffrey sobbed, and the tears came silently down Ciccio's cheeks. + +"I've waited for you since five o'clock, and I've got to go back +now. Ciccio! Ciccio! I wanted so badly to see you. I shall never see +thee again, brother, my brother!" cried Gigi, and a sob shook him. + +"Gigi! Mon Gigi. Tu as done regu ma lettre?" + +"Yesterday. O Ciccio, Ciccio, I shall die without thee!" + +"But no, Gigi, frere. You won't die." + +"Yes, Ciccio, I shall. I know I shall." + +"I say _no_, brother," said Ciccio. But a spasm suddenly took him, +he pulled off his hat and put it over his face and sobbed into it. + +"Adieu, ami! Adieu!" cried Gigi, clutching the other man's arm. +Ciccio took his hat from his tear-stained face and put it on his +head. Then the two men embraced. + +"_Toujours a toi!_" said Geoffrey, with a strange, solemn salute in +front of Ciccio and Alvina. Then he turned on his heel and marched +rapidly out of the station, his soiled soldier's overcoat flapping +in the wind at the door. Ciccio watched him go. Then he turned and +looked with haunted eyes into the eyes of Alvina. And then they +hurried down the desolate platform in the darkness. Many people, +Italians, largely, were camped waiting there, while bits of snow +wavered down. Ciccio bought food and hired cushions. The train +backed in. There was a horrible fight for seats, men scrambling +through windows. Alvina got a place--but Ciccio had to stay in the +corridor. + +Then the long night journey through France, slow and blind. The +train was now so hot that the iron plate on the floor burnt Alvina's +feet. Outside she saw glimpses of snow. A fat Italian hotel-keeper +put on a smoking cap, covered the light, and spread himself before +Alvina. In the next carriage a child was screaming. It screamed all +the night--all the way from Paris to Chambery it screamed. The train +came to sudden halts, and stood still in the snow. The hotel-keeper +snored. Alvina became almost comatose, in the burning heat of the +carriage. And again the train rumbled on. And again she saw glimpses +of stations, glimpses of snow, through the chinks in the curtained +windows. And again there was a jerk and a sudden halt, a drowsy +mutter from the sleepers, somebody uncovering the light, and +somebody covering it again, somebody looking out, somebody tramping +down the corridor, the child screaming. + +The child belonged to two poor Italians--Milanese--a shred of a thin +little man, and a rather loose woman. They had five tiny children, +all boys: and the four who could stand on their feet all wore +scarlet caps. The fifth was a baby. Alvina had seen a French +official yelling at the poor shred of a young father on the +platform. + +When morning came, and the bleary people pulled the curtains, it was +a clear dawn, and they were in the south of France. There was no +sign of snow. The landscape was half southern, half Alpine. White +houses with brownish tiles stood among almond trees and cactus. It +was beautiful, and Alvina felt she had known it all before, in a +happier life. The morning was graceful almost as spring. She went +out in the corridor to talk to Ciccio. + +He was on his feet with his back to the inner window, rolling +slightly to the motion of the train. His face was pale, he had that +sombre, haunted, unhappy look. Alvina, thrilled by the southern +country, was smiling excitedly. + +"This is my first morning abroad," she said. + +"Yes," he answered. + +"I love it here," she said. "Isn't this like Italy?" + +He looked darkly out of the window, and shook his head. + +But the sombre look remained on his face. She watched him. And her +heart sank as she had never known it sink before. + +"Are you thinking of Gigi?" she said. + +He looked at her, with a faint, unhappy, bitter smile, but he said +nothing. He seemed far off from her. A wild unhappiness beat inside +her breast. She went down the corridor, away from him, to avoid this +new agony, which after all was not her agony. She listened to the +chatter of French and Italian in the corridor. She felt the +excitement and terror of France, inside the railway carriage: and +outside she saw white oxen slowly ploughing, beneath the lingering +yellow poplars of the sub-Alps, she saw peasants looking up, she saw +a woman holding a baby to her breast, watching the train, she saw +the excited, yeasty crowds at the station. And they passed a river, +and a great lake. And it all seemed bigger, nobler than England. She +felt vaster influences spreading around, the Past was greater, more +magnificent in these regions. For the first time the nostalgia of +the vast Roman and classic world took possession of her. And she +found it splendid. For the first time she opened her eyes on a +continent, the Alpine core of a continent. And for the first time +she realized what it was to escape from the smallish perfection of +England, into the grander imperfection of a great continent. + +Near Chambery they went down for breakfast to the restaurant car. +And secretly, she was very happy. Ciccio's distress made her uneasy. +But underneath she was extraordinarily relieved and glad. Ciccio did +not trouble her very much. The sense of the bigness of the lands +about her, the excitement of travelling with Continental people, the +pleasantness of her coffee and rolls and honey, the feeling that +vast events were taking place--all this stimulated her. She had +brushed, as it were, the fringe of the terror of the war and the +invasion. Fear was seething around her. And yet she was excited and +glad. The vast world was in one of its convulsions, and she was +moving amongst it. Somewhere, she believed in the convulsion, the +event elated her. + +The train began to climb up to Modane. How wonderful the Alps +were!--what a bigness, an unbreakable power was in the mountains! Up +and up the train crept, and she looked at the rocky slopes, the +glistening peaks of snow in the blue heaven, the hollow valleys with +fir trees and low-roofed houses. There were quarries near the +railway, and men working. There was a strange mountain town, +dirty-looking. And still the train climbed up and up, in the hot +morning sunshine, creeping slowly round the mountain loops, so that +a little brown dog from one of the cottages ran alongside the train +for a long way, barking at Alvina, even running ahead of the +creeping, snorting train, and barking at the people ahead. Alvina, +looking out, saw the two unfamiliar engines snorting out their +smoke round the bend ahead. And the morning wore away to mid-day. + +Ciccio became excited as they neared Modane, the frontier station. +His eye lit up again, he pulled himself together for the entrance +into Italy. Slowly the train rolled in to the dismal station. And +then a confusion indescribable, of porters and masses of luggage, +the unspeakable crush and crowd at the customs barriers, the more +intense crowd through the passport office, all like a madness. + +They were out on the platform again, they had secured their places. +Ciccio wanted to have luncheon in the station restaurant. They went +through the passages. And there in the dirty station gang-ways and +big corridors dozens of Italians were lying on the ground, men, +women, children, camping with their bundles and packages in heaps. +They were either emigrants or refugees. Alvina had never seen people +herd about like cattle, dumb, brute cattle. It impressed her. She +could not grasp that an Italian labourer would lie down just where +he was tired, in the street, on a station, in any corner, like a +dog. + +In the afternoon they were slipping down the Alps towards Turin. And +everywhere was snow--deep, white, wonderful snow, beautiful and +fresh, glistening in the afternoon light all down the mountain +slopes, on the railway track, almost seeming to touch the train. And +twilight was falling. And at the stations people crowded in once +more. + +It had been dark a long time when they reached Turin. Many people +alighted from the train, many surged to get in. But Ciccio and +Alvina had seats side by side. They were becoming tired now. But +they were in Italy. Once more they went down for a meal. And then +the train set off again in the night for Alessandria and Genoa, Pisa +and Rome. + +It was night, the train ran better, there was a more easy sense in +Italy. Ciccio talked a little with other travelling companions. And +Alvina settled her cushion, and slept more or less till Genoa. After +the long wait at Genoa she dozed off again. She woke to see the sea +in the moonlight beneath her--a lovely silvery sea, coming right to +the carriage. The train seemed to be tripping on the edge of the +Mediterranean, round bays, and between dark rocks and under castles, +a night-time fairy-land, for hours. She watched spell-bound: +spell-bound by the magic of the world itself. And she thought to +herself: "Whatever life may be, and whatever horror men have made +of it, the world is a lovely place, a magic place, something to +marvel over. The world is an amazing place." + +This thought dozed her off again. Yet she had a consciousness of +tunnels and hills and of broad marshes pallid under a moon and a +coming dawn. And in the dawn there was Pisa. She watched the word +hanging in the station in the dimness: "Pisa." Ciccio told her +people were changing for Florence. It all seemed wonderful to +her--wonderful. She sat and watched the black station--then she +heard the sound of the child's trumpet. And it did not occur to her +to connect the train's moving on with the sound of the trumpet. + +But she saw the golden dawn, a golden sun coming out of level +country. She loved it. She loved being in Italy. She loved the +lounging carelessness of the train, she liked having Italian money, +hearing the Italians round her--though they were neither as +beautiful nor as melodious as she expected. She loved watching the +glowing antique landscape. She read and read again: "E pericoloso +sporgersi," and "E vietato fumare," and the other little magical +notices on the carriages. Ciccio told her what they meant, and how +to say them. And sympathetic Italians opposite at once asked him if +they were married and who and what his bride was, and they gazed at +her with bright, approving eyes, though she felt terribly bedraggled +and travel-worn. + +"You come from England? Yes! Nice contry!" said a man in a corner, +leaning forward to make this display of his linguistic capacity. + +"Not so nice as this," said Alvina. + +"Eh?" + +Alvina repeated herself. + +"Not so nice? Oh? No! Fog, eh!" The fat man whisked his fingers in +the air, to indicate fog in the atmosphere. "But nice contry! +Very--_convenient_." + +He sat up in triumph, having achieved this word. And the +conversation once more became a spatter of Italian. The women were +very interested. They looked at Alvina, at every atom of her. And +she divined that they were wondering if she was already with child. +Sure enough, they were asking Ciccio in Italian if she was "making +him a baby." But he shook his head and did not know, just a bit +constrained. So they ate slices of sausages and bread and fried +rice-balls, with wonderfully greasy fingers, and they drank red +wine in big throatfuls out of bottles, and they offered their fare +to Ciccio and Alvina, and were charmed when she said to Ciccio she +_would_ have some bread and sausage. He picked the strips off the +sausage for her with his fingers, and made her a sandwich with a +roll. The women watched her bite it, and bright-eyed and pleased +they said, nodding their heads-- + +"Buono? Buono?" + +And she, who knew this word, understood, and replied: + +"Yes, good! Buono!" nodding her head likewise. Which caused immense +satisfaction. The women showed the whole paper of sausage slices, +and nodded and beamed and said: + +"Se vuole ancora--!" + +And Alvina bit her wide sandwich, and smiled, and said: + +"Yes, awfully nice!" + +And the women looked at each other and said something, and Ciccio +interposed, shaking his head. But one woman ostentatiously wiped a +bottle mouth with a clean handkerchief, and offered the bottle to +Alvina, saying: + +"Vino buono. Vecchio! Vecchio!" nodding violently and indicating +that she should drink. She looked at Ciccio, and he looked back at +her, doubtingly. + +"Shall I drink some?" she said. + +"If you like," he replied, making an Italian gesture of +indifference. + +So she drank some of the wine, and it dribbled on to her chin. She +was not good at managing a bottle. But she liked the feeling of +warmth it gave her. She was very tired. + +"Si piace? Piace?" + +"Do you like it," interpreted Ciccio. + +"Yes, very much. What is very much?" she asked of Ciccio. + +"Molto." + +"Si, molto. Of course, I knew molto, from, music," she added. + +The women made noises, and smiled and nodded, and so the train +pulsed on till they came to Rome. There was again, the wild scramble +with luggage, a general leave taking, and then the masses of people +on the station at Rome. _Roma! Roma!_ What was it to Alvina but a +name, and a crowded, excited station, and Ciccio running after the +luggage, and the pair of them eating in a station restaurant? + +Almost immediately after eating, they were in the train once more, +with new fellow travellers, running south this time towards Naples. +In a daze of increasing weariness Alvina watched the dreary, to her +sordid-seeming Campagna that skirts the railway, the broken aqueduct +trailing in the near distance over the stricken plain. She saw a +tram-car, far out from everywhere, running up to cross the railway. +She saw it was going to Frascati. + +And slowly the hills approached--they passed the vines of the +foothills, the reeds, and were among the mountains. Wonderful little +towns perched fortified on rocks and peaks, mountains rose straight +up off the level plain, like old topographical prints, rivers +wandered in the wild, rocky places, it all seemed ancient and +shaggy, savage still, under all its remote civilization, this region +of the Alban Mountains south of Rome. So the train clambered up and +down, and went round corners. + +They had not far to go now. Alvina was almost too tired to care what +it would be like. They were going to Ciccio's native village. They +were to stay in the house of his uncle, his mother's brother. This +uncle had been a model in London. He had built a house on the land +left by Ciccio's grandfather. He lived alone now, for his wife was +dead and his children were abroad. Giuseppe was his son: Giuseppe of +Battersea, in whose house Alvina had stayed. + +This much Alvina knew. She knew that a portion of the land down at +Pescocalascio belonged to Ciccio: a bit of half-savage, ancient +earth that had been left to his mother by old Francesco Califano, +her hard-grinding peasant father. This land remained integral in the +property, and was worked by Ciccio's two uncles, Pancrazio and +Giovanni. Pancrazio was the well-to-do uncle, who had been a model +and had built a "villa." Giovanni was not much good. That was how +Ciccio put it. + +They expected Pancrazio to meet them at the station. Ciccio +collected his bundles and put his hat straight and peered out of the +window into the steep mountains of the afternoon. There was a town +in the opening between steep hills, a town on a flat plain that ran +into the mountains like a gulf. The train drew up. They had arrived. + +Alvina was so tired she could hardly climb down to the platform. It +was about four o'clock. Ciccio looked up and down for Pancrazio, but +could not see him. So he put his luggage into a pile on the +platform, told Alvina to stand by it, whilst he went off for the +registered boxes. A porter came and asked her questions, of which +she understood nothing. Then at last came Ciccio, shouldering one +small trunk, whilst a porter followed, shouldering another. Out they +trotted, leaving Alvina abandoned with the pile of hand luggage. She +waited. The train drew out. Ciccio and the porter came bustling +back. They took her out through the little gate, to where, in the +flat desert space behind the railway, stood two great drab +motor-omnibuses, and a rank of open carriages. Ciccio was handing up +the handbags to the roof of one of the big post-omnibuses. When it +was finished the man on the roof came down, and Ciccio gave him and +the station porter each sixpence. The station-porter immediately +threw his coin on the ground with a gesture of indignant contempt, +spread his arms wide and expostulated violently. Ciccio expostulated +back again, and they pecked at each other, verbally, like two birds. +It ended by the rolling up of the burly, black moustached driver of +the omnibus. Whereupon Ciccio quite amicably gave the porter two +nickel twopences in addition to the sixpence, whereupon the porter +quite lovingly wished him "buon' viaggio." + +So Alvina was stowed into the body of the omnibus, with Ciccio at +her side. They were no sooner seated than a voice was heard, in +beautifully-modulated English: + +"You are here! Why how have I missed you?" + +It was Pancrazio, a smallish, rather battered-looking, shabby +Italian of sixty or more, with a big moustache and reddish-rimmed +eyes and a deeply-lined face. He was presented to Alvina. + +"How have I missed you?" he said. "I was on the station when the +train came, and I did not see you." + +But it was evident he had taken wine. He had no further opportunity +to talk. The compartment was full of large, mountain-peasants with +black hats and big cloaks and overcoats. They found Pancrazio a seat +at the far end, and there he sat, with his deeply-lined, impassive +face and slightly glazed eyes. He had yellow-brown eyes like Ciccio. +But in the uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way, the +eyes looked dull like those of some old, rakish tom-cat, they were +slightly rimmed with red. A curious person! And his English, though +slow, was beautifully pronounced. He glanced at Alvina with slow, +impersonal glances, not at all a stare. And he sat for the most part +impassive and abstract as a Red Indian. + +At the last moment a large black priest was crammed in, and the door +shut behind him. Every available seat was let down and occupied. The +second great post-omnibus rolled away, and then the one for Mola +followed, rolling Alvina and Ciccio over the next stage of their +journey. + +The sun was already slanting to the mountain tops, shadows were +falling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged at a great +speed along a straight white road, which cut through the cultivated +level straight towards the core of the mountain. By the road-side, +peasant men in cloaks, peasant women in full-gathered dresses with +white bodices or blouses having great full sleeves, tramped in the +ridge of grass, driving cows or goats, or leading heavily-laden +asses. The women had coloured kerchiefs on their heads, like the +women Alvina remembered at the Sunday-School treats, who used to +tell fortunes with green little love-birds. And they all tramped +along towards the blue shadow of the closing-in mountains, leaving +the peaks of the town behind on the left. + +At a branch-road the 'bus suddenly stopped, and there it sat calmly +in the road beside an icy brook, in the falling twilight. Great +moth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood; the +peasants left behind began to come up again, in picturesque groups. +The icy brook tinkled, goats, pigs and cows wandered and shook their +bells along the grassy borders of the road and the flat, unbroken +fields, being driven slowly home. Peasants jumped out of the omnibus +on to the road, to chat--and a sharp air came in. High overhead, as +the sun went down, was the curious icy radiance of snow mountains, +and a pinkness, while shadow deepened in the valley. + +At last, after about half an hour, the youth who was conductor of +the omnibus came running down the wild side-road, everybody +clambered in, and away the vehicle charged, into the neck of the +plain. With a growl and a rush it swooped up the first loop of the +ascent. Great precipices rose on the right, the ruddiness of sunset +above them. The road wound and swirled, trying to get up the pass. +The omnibus pegged slowly up, then charged round a corner, swirled +into another loop, and pegged heavily once more. It seemed dark +between the closing-in mountains. The rocks rose very high, the +road looped and swerved from one side of the wide defile to the +other, the vehicle pulsed and persisted. Sometimes there was a +house, sometimes a wood of oak-trees, sometimes the glimpse of a +ravine, then the tall white glisten of snow above the earthly +blackness. And still they went on and on, up the darkness. + +Peering ahead, Alvina thought she saw the hollow between the peaks, +which was the top of the pass. And every time the omnibus took a new +turn, she thought it was coming out on the top of this hollow +between the heights. But no--the road coiled right away again. + +A wild little village came in sight. This was the destination. Again +no. Only the tall, handsome mountain youth who had sat across from +her, descended grumbling because the 'bus had brought him past his +road, the driver having refused to pull up. Everybody expostulated +with him, and he dropped into the shadow. The big priest squeezed +into his place. The 'bus wound on and on, and always towards that +hollow sky-line between the high peaks. + +At last they ran up between buildings nipped between high +rock-faces, and out into a little market-place, the crown of the +pass. The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended. +There she was, in a wild centre of an old, unfinished little +mountain town. The facade of a church rose from a small eminence. A +white road ran to the right, where a great open valley showed +faintly beyond and beneath. Low, squalid sort of buildings stood +around--with some high buildings. And there were bare little trees. +The stars were in the sky, the air was icy. People stood darkly, +excitedly about, women with an odd, shell-pattern head-dress of +gofered linen, something like a parlour-maid's cap, came and stared +hard. They were hard-faced mountain women. + +Pancrazio was talking to Ciccio in dialect. + +"I couldn't get a cart to come down," he said in English. "But I +shall find one here. Now what will you do? Put the luggage in +Grazia's place while you wait?--" + +They went across the open place to a sort of shop called the Post +Restaurant. It was a little hole with an earthen floor and a smell +of cats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier, in +which charcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Ciccio +ordered coffee with rum--and the hard-faced Grazia, in her unfresh +head-dress, dabbled the little dirty coffee-cups in dirty water, +took the coffee-pot out of the ashes, poured in the old black +boiling coffee three parts full, and slopped the cup over with rum. +Then she dashed in a spoonful of sugar, to add to the pool in the +saucer, and her customers were served. + +However, Ciccio drank up, so Alvina did likewise, burning her lips +smartly. Ciccio paid and ducked his way out. + +"Now what will you buy?" asked Pancrazio. + +"Buy?" said Ciccio. + +"Food," said Pancrazio. "Have you brought food?" + +"No," said Ciccio. + +So they trailed up stony dark ways to a butcher, and got a big red +slice of meat; to a baker, and got enormous flat loaves. Sugar and +coffee they bought. And Pancrazio lamented in his elegant English +that no butter was to be obtained. Everywhere the hard-faced women +came and stared into Alvina's face, asking questions. And both +Ciccio and Pancrazio answered rather coldly, with some _hauteur_. +There was evidently not too much intimacy between the people of +Pescocalascio and these semi-townfolk of Ossona. Alvina felt as if +she were in a strange, hostile country, in the darkness of the +savage little mountain town. + +At last they were ready. They mounted into a two-wheeled cart, +Alvina and Ciccio behind, Pancrazio and the driver in front, the +luggage promiscuous. The bigger things were left for the morrow. It +was icy cold, with a flashing darkness. The moon would not rise till +later. + +And so, without any light but that of the stars, the cart went +spanking and rattling downhill, down the pale road which wound down +the head of the valley to the gulf of darkness below. Down in the +darkness into the darkness they rattled, wildly, and without heed, +the young driver making strange noises to his dim horse, cracking a +whip and asking endless questions of Pancrazio. + +Alvina sat close to Ciccio. He remained almost impassive. The wind +was cold, the stars flashed. And they rattled down the rough, broad +road under the rocks, down and down in the darkness. Ciccio sat +crouching forwards, staring ahead. Alvina was aware of mountains, +rocks, and stars. + +"I didn't know it was so _wild_!" she said. + +"It is not much," he said. There was a sad, plangent note in his +voice. He put his hand upon her. + +"You don't like it?" he said. + +"I think it's lovely--wonderful," she said, dazed. + +He held her passionately. But she did not feel she needed +protecting. It was all wonderful and amazing to her. She could not +understand why he seemed upset and in a sort of despair. To her +there was magnificence in the lustrous stars and the steepnesses, +magic, rather terrible and grand. + +They came down to the level valley bed, and went rolling along. +There was a house, and a lurid red fire burning outside against the +wall, and dark figures about it. + +"What is that?" she said. "What are they doing?" + +"I don't know," said Ciccio. "Cosa fanno li--eh?" + +"Ka--? Fanno il buga'--" said the driver. + +"They are doing some washing," said Pancrazio, explanatory. + +"Washing!" said Alvina. + +"Boiling the clothes," said Ciccio. + +On the cart rattled and bumped, in the cold night, down the high-way +in the valley. Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes. +Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. She felt she was quite, +quite lost. She had gone out of the world, over the border, into +some place of mystery. She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to +England--all lost. + +They passed through a darkness of woods, with a swift sound of cold +water. And then suddenly the cart pulled up. Some one came out of a +lighted doorway in the darkness. + +"We must get down here--the cart doesn't go any further," said +Pancrazio. + +"Are we there?" said Alvina. + +"No, it is about a mile. But we must leave the cart." + +Ciccio asked questions in Italian. Alvina climbed down. + +"Good-evening! Are you cold?" came a loud, raucous, American-Italian +female voice. It was another relation of Ciccio's. Alvina stared and +looked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who +stood in the light of the doorway. + +"Rather cold," she said. + +"Come in, and warm yourself," said the young woman. + +"My sister's husband lives here," explained Pancrazio. + +Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of +inn. On the earthen floor glowed a great round pan of charcoal, +which looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at +a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was +pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave. + +"Warm yourself," said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of +fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down. +The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards. +Ciccio came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively, +watching Alvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature. +Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect. + +There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came and +said to her: + +"They want to know if we will stay the night here." + +"I would rather go on home," she said. + +He averted his face at the word home. + +"You see," said Pancrazio, "I think you might be more comfortable +here, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care for +it--" + +Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows in +their black hats. She was thinking how she would be "more +comfortable" here. + +"I would rather go on," she said. + +"Then we will get the donkey," said Pancrazio stoically. And Alvina +followed him out on to the high-road. + +From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a +lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes. +His legs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide +straps, and he was shod in silent skin sandals. + +"This is my brother Giovanni," said Pancrazio. "He is not quite +sensible." Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect. + +Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern to +Pancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the +ass. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the +lantern the things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather +precarious heap. Pancrazio tested the rope again. + +"There! Go on, and I shall come in a minute." + +"Ay-er-er!" cried Giovanni at the ass, striking the flank of the +beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark high-way, +stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading +the ass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the +quiet step of the ass. + +She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried the +lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were +trees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisy +water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountain +high-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead. + +"How strange it is!" said Alvina to Ciccio. "Are you glad you have +come home?" + +"It isn't my home," he replied, as if the word fretted him. "Yes, I +like to see it again. But it isn't the place for young people to +live in. You will see how you like it." + +She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. The +latter now came running to catch them up. + +"I think you will be tired," he said. "You ought to have stayed at +my relation's house down there." + +"No, I am not tired," said Alvina. "But I'm hungry." + +"Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house." + +They plodded in the darkness of the valley high-road. Pancrazio took +the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A +great flat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little +valise. Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing +him the lantern. Ciccio picked up the bread and put it under his +arm. + +"Break me a little piece," said Alvina. + +And in the darkness they both chewed bread. + +After a while, Pancrazio halted with the ass just ahead, and took +the lantern from Giovanni. + +"We must leave the road here," he said. + +And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small +track descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvina +ventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light. +In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all picked +their way down into the great white-bouldered bed of a mountain river. +It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars. +There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial-sounding. The place +seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes, +along the far shore. + +Pancrazio swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through the +uneven boulders till they came to the river itself--not very wide, +but rushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over. +Alvina crossed rather tremulous, followed by Pancrazio with the +light, and Ciccio with the bread and the valise. They could hear the +click of the ass and the ejaculations of Giovanni. + +Pancrazio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw the +dim ass come up, wander uneasily to the stream, plant his fore legs, +and sniff the water, his nose right down. + +"Er! Err!" cried Pancrazio, striking the beast on the flank. + +But it only lifted its nose and turned aside. It would not take the +stream. Pancrazio seized the leading rope angrily and turned +upstream. + +"Why were donkeys made! They are beasts without sense," his voice +floated angrily across the chill darkness. + +Ciccio laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony river-bed, in +the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the +men crawl upstream with the lantern. + +Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping +down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up +with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And +the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long +deliberation he drew back. Angry language sounded through the +crystal air. The group with the lantern moved again upstream, +becoming smaller. + +Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lantern looked small up the +distance. But there--a clocking, shouting, splashing sound. + +"He is going over," said Ciccio. + +Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern. + +"Oh the stupid beast! I could kill him!" cried he. + +"Isn't he used to the water?" said Alvina. + +"Yes, he is. But he won't go except where he thinks he will go. You +might kill him before he should go." + +They picked their way across the river bed, to the wild scrub and +bushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which +came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And +then they took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks. +Alvina felt the uneven scramble a great effort. But she got up. +Again they waited for the ass. And then again they struck off to +the right, under some trees. + +A house appeared dimly. + +"Is that it?" said Alvina. + +"No. It belongs to me. But that is not my house. A few steps +further. Now we are on my land." + +They were treading a rough sort of grass-land--and still climbing. +It ended in a sudden little scramble between big stones, and +suddenly they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking +house: but it was all dark. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Pancrazio, "they have done nothing that I told +them." He made queer noises of exasperation. + +"What?" said Alvina. + +"Neither made a fire nor anything. Wait a minute--" + +The ass came up. Ciccio, Alvina, Giovanni and the ass waited in the +frosty starlight under the wild house. Pancrazio disappeared round +the back. Ciccio talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy, as if he felt +depressed. + +Pancrazio returned with the lantern, and opened the big door. Alvina +followed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farm +implements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, and +whence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse of +lantern-light, as Pancrazio pulled the string and entered the +kitchen: a dim-walled room with a vaulted roof and a great dark, +open hearth, fireless: a bare room, with a little rough dark +furniture: an unswept stone floor: iron-barred windows, rather +small, in the deep-thickness of the wall, one-half shut with a drab +shutter. It was rather like a room on the stage, gloomy, not meant +to be lived in. + +"I will make a light," said Pancrazio, taking a lamp from the +mantel-piece, and proceeding to wind it up. + +Ciccio stood behind Alvina, silent. He had put down the bread and +valise on a wooden chest. She turned to him. + +"It's a beautiful room," she said. + +Which, with its high, vaulted roof, its dirty whitewash, its great +black chimney, it really was. But Ciccio did not understand. He +smiled gloomily. + +The lamp was lighted. Alvina looked round in wonder. + +"Now I will make a fire. You, Ciccio, will help Giovanni with the +donkey," said Pancrazio, scuttling with the lantern. + +Alvina looked at the room. There was a wooden settle in front of the +hearth, stretching its back to the room. There was a little table +under a square, recessed window, on whose sloping ledge were +newspapers, scattered letters, nails and a hammer. On the table were +dried beans and two maize cobs. In a corner were shelves, with two +chipped enamel plates, and a small table underneath, on which stood +a bucket of water with a dipper. Then there was a wooden chest, two +little chairs, and a litter of faggots, cane, vine-twigs, bare +maize-hubs, oak-twigs filling the corner by the hearth. + +Pancrazio came scrambling in with fresh faggots. + +"They have not done what I told them, the tiresome people!" he said. +"I told them to make a fire and prepare the house. You will be +uncomfortable in my poor home. I have no woman, nothing, everything +is wrong--" + +He broke the pieces of cane and kindled them in the hearth. Soon +there was a good blaze. Ciccio came in with the bags and the food. + +"I had better go upstairs and take my things off," said Alvina. "I +am so hungry." + +"You had better keep your coat on," said Pancrazio. "The room is +cold." Which it was, ice-cold. She shuddered a little. She took off +her hat and fur. + +"Shall we fry some meat?" said Pancrazio. + +He took a frying-pan, found lard in the wooden chest--it was the +food-chest--and proceeded to fry pieces of meat in a frying-pan over +the fire. Alvina wanted to lay the table. But there was no cloth. + +"We will sit here, as I do, to eat," said Pancrazio. He produced two +enamel plates and one soup-plate, three penny iron forks and two old +knives, and a little grey, coarse salt in a wooden bowl. These he +placed on the seat of the settle in front of the fire. Ciccio was +silent. + +The settle was dark and greasy. Alvina feared for her clothes. But +she sat with her enamel plate and her impossible fork, a piece of +meat and a chunk of bread, and ate. It was difficult--but the food +was good, and the fire blazed. Only there was a film of wood-smoke +in the room, rather smarting. Ciccio sat on the settle beside her, +and ate in large mouthfuls. + +"I think it's fun," said Alvina. + +He looked at her with dark, haunted, gloomy eyes. She wondered what +was the matter with him. + +"Don't you think it's fun?" she said, smiling. + +He smiled slowly. + +"You won't like it," he said. + +"Why not?" she cried, in panic lest he prophesied truly. + +Pancrazio scuttled in and out with the lantern. He brought wrinkled +pears, and green, round grapes, and walnuts, on a white cloth, and +presented them. + +"I think my pears are still good," he said. "You must eat them, and +excuse my uncomfortable house." + +Giovanni came in with a big bowl of soup and a bottle of milk. There +was room only for three on the settle before the hearth. He pushed +his chair among the litter of fire-kindling, and sat down. He had +bright, bluish eyes, and a fattish face--was a man of about fifty, +but had a simple, kindly, slightly imbecile face. All the men kept +their hats on. + +The soup was from Giovanni's cottage. It was for Pancrazio and him. +But there was only one spoon. So Pancrazio ate a dozen spoonfuls, +and handed the bowl to Giovanni--who protested and tried to +refuse--but accepted, and ate ten spoonfuls, then handed the bowl +back to his brother, with the spoon. So they finished the bowl +between them. Then Pancrazio found wine--a whitish wine, not very +good, for which he apologized. And he invited Alvina to coffee. +Which she accepted gladly. + +For though the fire was warm in front, behind was very cold. +Pancrazio stuck a long pointed stick down the handle of a saucepan, +and gave this utensil to Ciccio, to hold over the fire and scald the +milk, whilst he put the tin coffee-pot in the ashes. He took a long +iron tube or blow-pipe, which rested on two little feet at the far +end. This he gave to Giovanni to blow the fire. + +Giovanni was a fire-worshipper. His eyes sparkled as he took the +blowing tube. He put fresh faggots behind the fire--though Pancrazio +forbade him. He arranged the burning faggots. And then softly he +blew a red-hot fire for the coffee. + +"Basta! Basta!" said Ciccio. But Giovanni blew on, his eyes +sparkling, looking to Alvina. He was making the fire beautiful for +her. + +There was one cup, one enamelled mug, one little bowl. This was the +coffee-service. Pancrazio noisily ground the coffee. He seemed to do +everything, old, stooping as he was. + +At last Giovanni took his leave--the kettle which hung on the hook +over the fire was boiling over. Ciccio burnt his hand lifting it +off. And at last, at last Alvina could go to bed. + +Pancrazio went first with the candle--then Ciccio with the black +kettle--then Alvina. The men still had their hats on. Their boots +tramped noisily on the bare stairs. + +The bedroom was very cold. It was a fair-sized room with a concrete +floor and white walls, and window-door opening on a little balcony. +There were two high white beds on opposite sides of the room. The +wash-stand was a little tripod thing. + +The air was very cold, freezing, the stone floor was dead cold to +the feet. Ciccio sat down on a chair and began to take off his +boots. She went to the window. The moon had risen. There was a flood +of light on dazzling white snow tops, glimmering and marvellous in +the evanescent night. She went out for a moment on to the balcony. +It was a wonder-world: the moon over the snow heights, the pallid +valley-bed away below; the river hoarse, and round about her, +scrubby, blue-dark foothills with twiggy trees. Magical it all +was--but so cold. + +"You had better shut the door," said Ciccio. + +She came indoors. She was dead tired, and stunned with cold, and +hopelessly dirty after that journey. Ciccio had gone to bed without +washing. + +"Why does the bed rustle?" she asked him. + +It was stuffed with dry maize-leaves, the dry sheathes from the +cobs--stuffed enormously high. He rustled like a snake among dead +foliage. + +Alvina washed her hands. There was nothing to do with the water but +throw it out of the door. Then she washed her face, thoroughly, in +good hot water. What a blessed relief! She sighed as she dried +herself. + +"It does one good!" she sighed. + +Ciccio watched her as she quickly brushed her hair. She was almost +stupefied with weariness and the cold, bruising air. Blindly she +crept into the high, rustling bed. But it was made high in the +middle. And it was icy cold. It shocked her almost as if she had +fallen into water. She shuddered, and became semi-conscious with +fatigue. The blankets were heavy, heavy. She was dazed with +excitement and wonder. She felt vaguely that Ciccio was miserable, +and wondered why. + +She woke with a start an hour or so later. The moon was in the room. +She did not know where she was. And she was frightened. And she was +cold. A real terror took hold of her. Ciccio in his bed was quite +still. Everything seemed electric with horror. She felt she would +die instantly, everything was so terrible around her. She could not +move. She felt that everything around her was horrific, +extinguishing her, putting her out. Her very being was threatened. +In another instant she would be transfixed. + +Making a violent effort she sat up. The silence of Ciccio in his bed +was as horrible as the rest of the night. She had a horror of him +also. What would she do, where should she flee? She was +lost--lost--lost utterly. + +The knowledge sank into her like ice. Then deliberately she got out +of bed and went across to him. He was horrible and frightening, but +he was warm. She felt his power and his warmth invade her and +extinguish her. The mad and desperate passion that was in him sent +her completely unconscious again, completely unconscious. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE PLACE CALLED CALIFANO + + +There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut +off from everything she belonged to. Ovid isolated in Thrace might +well lament. The soul itself needs its own mysterious nourishment. +This nourishment lacking, nothing is well. + +At Pescocalascio it was the mysterious influence of the mountains +and valleys themselves which seemed always to be annihilating the +Englishwoman: nay, not only her, but the very natives themselves. +Ciccio and Pancrazio clung to her, essentially, as if she saved them +also from extinction. It needed all her courage. Truly, she had to +support the souls of the two men. + +At first she did not realize. She was only stunned with the +strangeness of it all: startled, half-enraptured with the terrific +beauty of the place, half-horrified by its savage annihilation of +her. But she was stunned. The days went by. + +It seems there are places which resist us, which have the power to +overthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country has its +potent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantly +refuse our living culture. And Alvina had struck one of them, here +on the edge of the Abruzzi. + +She was not in the village of Pescocalascio itself. That was a long +hour's walk away. Pancrazio's house was the chief of a tiny hamlet +of three houses, called Califano because the Califanos had made it. +There was the ancient, savage hole of a house, quite windowless, +where Pancrazio and Ciccio's mother had been born: the family home. +Then there was Pancrazio's villa. And then, a little below, another +newish, modern house in a sort of wild meadow, inhabited by the +peasants who worked the land. Ten minutes' walk away was another +cluster of seven or eight houses, where Giovanni lived. But there +was no shop, no post nearer than Pescocalascio, an hour's heavy +road up deep and rocky, wearying tracks. + +And yet, what could be more lovely than the sunny days: pure, hot, +blue days among the mountain foothills: irregular, steep little +hills half wild with twiggy brown oak-trees and marshes and broom +heaths, half cultivated, in a wild, scattered fashion. Lovely, in +the lost hollows beyond a marsh, to see Ciccio slowly ploughing with +two great white oxen: lovely to go with Pancrazio down to the wild +scrub that bordered the river-bed, then over the white-bouldered, +massive desert and across stream to the other scrubby savage shore, +and so up to the high-road. Pancrazio was very happy if Alvina would +accompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid. And her sense of +the beauty of the place was an infinite relief to him. + +Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight. +Sometimes Alvina and Pancrazio were late returning with the ass. And +then gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, already +beginning to freeze when the sun went down. And again and again he +would balk the stream, while a violet-blue dusk descended on the +white, wide stream-bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark, +and in heaven, oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the near +mountains was burning rose, against the dark-blue heavens. How +unspeakably lovely it was, no one could ever tell, the grand, pagan +twilight of the valleys, savage, cold, with a sense of ancient gods +who knew the right for human sacrifice. It stole away the soul of +Alvina. She felt transfigured in it, clairvoyant in another mystery +of life. A savage hardness came in her heart. The gods who had +demanded human sacrifice were quite right, immutably right. The +fierce, savage gods who dipped their lips in blood, these were the +true gods. + +The terror, the agony, the nostalgia of the heathen past was a +constant torture to her mediumistic soul. She did not know what it +was. But it was a kind of neuralgia in the very soul, never to be +located in the human body, and yet physical. Coming over the brow of +a heathy, rocky hillock, and seeing Ciccio beyond leaning deep over +the plough, in his white shirt-sleeves following the slow, waving, +moth-pale oxen across a small track of land turned up in the heathen +hollow, her soul would go all faint, she would almost swoon with +realization of the world that had gone before. And Ciccio was so +silent, there seemed so much dumb magic and anguish in him, as if he +were for ever afraid of himself and the thing he was. He seemed, in +his silence, to _concentrate_ upon her so terribly. She believed she +would not live. + +Sometimes she would go gathering acorns, large, fine acorns, a +precious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object of +veneration. Silently she would crouch filling the pannier. And far +off she would hear the sound of Giovanni chopping wood, of Ciccio +calling to the oxen or Pancrazio making noises to the ass, or the +sound of a peasant's mattock. Over all the constant speech of the +passing river, and the real breathing presence of the upper snows. +And a wild, terrible happiness would take hold of her, beyond +despair, but very like despair. No one would ever find her. She had +gone beyond the world into the pre-world, she had reopened on the +old eternity. + +And then Maria, the little elvish old wife of Giovanni, would come +up with the cows. One cow she held by a rope round its horns, and +she hauled it from the patches of young corn into the rough grass, +from the little plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria wore +the full-pleated white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a red +kerchief on her head. But her dress was dirty, and her face was +dirty, and the big gold rings of her ears hung from ears which +perhaps had never been washed. She was rather smoke-dried too, from +perpetual wood-smoke. + +Maria in her red kerchief hauling the white cow, and screaming at +it, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afraid of +cows. And then, screaming high in dialect, Maria would talk to her. +Alvina smiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was not +strictly a human speech. It was rather like the crying of +half-articulate animals. It certainly was not Italian. And yet +Alvina by dint of constant hearing began to pick up the coagulated +phrases. + +She liked Maria. She liked them all. They were all very kind to her, +as far as they knew. But they did not know. And they were kind with +each other. For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines, +and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They loved +her that she would strip maize-cobs or pick acorns. But they were +all anxious to serve her. And it seemed as if they needed some one +to serve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certain +magic glamour for them, and so long as she was happy, it was a +supreme joy and relief to them to have her there. But it seemed to +her she would not live. + +And when she was unhappy! Ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingled +with sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and the +house inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by +going about constantly working, dumb and elemental. But what was +Alvina to do? + +For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were the +kitchen and Alvina's bedroom: and the kitchen, with its little +grated windows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken pane +and must keep one-half of its shutters closed, was like a dark +cavern vaulted and bitter with wood-smoke. Seated on the settle +before the fire, the hard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keep +the fire going, with faggots of green oak. But the smoke hurt her +chest, she was not clean for one moment, and she could do nothing +else. The bedroom again was just impossibly cold. And there was no +other place. And from far away came the wild braying of an ass, +primeval and desperate in the snow. + +The house was quite large; but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on the +left of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of the +weather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, was +a big, long apartment where Pancrazio kept implements and tools and +potatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hopped +unexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, was +the cantina, a dark place with wine-barrels and more agricultural +stores. This was the whole of the downstairs. + +Going upstairs, half way up, at the turn of the stairs was the +opening of a sort of barn, a great wire-netting behind which showed +a glow of orange maize-cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were four +rooms. But Alvina's room alone was furnished. Pancrazio slept in the +unfurnished bedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was a +room with litter in it, a chest of drawers, and rubbish of old books +and photographs Pancrazio had brought from England. There was a +battered photograph of Lord Leighton, among others. The fourth room, +approached through the corn-chamber, was always locked. + +Outside was just as hopeless. There had been a little garden within +the stone enclosure. But fowls, geese, and the ass had made an end +of this. Fowl-droppings were everywhere, indoors and out, the ass +left his pile of droppings to steam in the winter air on the +threshold, while his heartrending bray rent the air. Roads there +were none: only deep tracks, like profound ruts with rocks in them, +in the hollows, and rocky, grooved tracks over the brows. The hollow +grooves were full of mud and water, and one struggled slipperily +from rock to rock, or along narrow grass-ledges. + +What was to be done, then, on mornings that were dark with sleet? +Pancrazio would bring a kettle of hot water at about half-past +eight. For had he not travelled Europe with English gentlemen, as a +sort of model-valet! Had he not _loved_ his English gentlemen? Even +now, he was infinitely happier performing these little attentions +for Alvina than attending to his wretched domains. + +Ciccio rose early, and went about in the hap-hazard, useless way of +Italians all day long, getting nothing done. Alvina came out of the +icy bedroom to the black kitchen. Pancrazio would be gallantly +heating milk for her, at the end of a long stick. So she would sit +on the settle and drink her coffee and milk, into which she dipped +her dry bread. Then the day was before her. + +She washed her cup and her enamelled plate, and she tried to clean +the kitchen. But Pancrazio had on the fire a great black pot, +dangling from the chain. He was boiling food for the eternal +pig--the only creature for which any cooking was done. Ciccio was +tramping in with faggots. Pancrazio went in and out, back and forth +from his pot. + +Alvina stroked her brow and decided on a method. Once she was rid of +Pancrazio, she would wash every cup and plate and utensil in boiling +water. Well, at last Pancrazio went off with his great black pan, +and she set to. But there were not six pieces of crockery in the +house, and not more than six cooking utensils. These were soon +scrubbed. Then she scrubbed the two little tables and the shelves. +She lined the food-chest with clean paper. She washed the high +window-ledges and the narrow mantel-piece, that had large mounds of +dusty candle-wax, in deposits. Then she tackled the settle. She +scrubbed it also. Then she looked at the floor. And even she, +English housewife as she was, realized the futility of trying to +wash it. As well try to wash the earth itself outside. It was just a +piece of stone-laid earth. She swept it as well as she could, and +made a little order in the faggot-heap in the corner. Then she +washed the little, high-up windows, to try and let in light. + +And what was the difference? A dank wet soapy smell, and not much +more. Maria had kept scuffling admiringly in and out, crying her +wonderment and approval. She had most ostentatiously chased out an +obtrusive hen, from this temple of cleanliness. And that was all. + +It was hopeless. The same black walls, the same floor, the same cold +from behind, the same green-oak wood-smoke, the same bucket of water +from the well--the same come-and-go of aimless busy men, the same +cackle of wet hens, the same hopeless nothingness. + +Alvina stood up against it for a time. And then she caught a bad +cold, and was wretched. Probably it was the wood-smoke. But her +chest was raw, she felt weak and miserable. She could not sit in her +bedroom, for it was too cold. If she sat in the darkness of the +kitchen she was hurt with smoke, and perpetually cold behind her +neck. And Pancrazio rather resented the amount of faggots consumed +for nothing. The only hope would have been in work. But there was +nothing in that house to be done. How could she even sew? + +She was to prepare the mid-day and evening meals. But with no pots, +and over a smoking wood fire, what could she prepare? Black and +greasy, she boiled potatoes and fried meat in lard, in a +long-handled frying pan. Then Pancrazio decreed that Maria should +prepare macaroni with the tomato sauce, and thick vegetable soup, +and sometimes polenta. This coarse, heavy food was wearying beyond +words. + +Alvina began to feel she would die, in the awful comfortless +meaninglessness of it all. True, sunny days returned and some magic. +But she was weak and feverish with her cold, which would not get +better. So that even in the sunshine the crude comfortlessness and +inferior savagery of the place only repelled her. + +The others were depressed when she was unhappy. + +"Do you wish you were back in England?" Ciccio asked her, with a +little sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looked at him without +answering. He ducked and went away. + +"We will make a fire-place in the other bedroom," said Pancrazio. + +No sooner said than done. Ciccio persuaded Alvina to stay in bed a +few days. She was thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rare +come-and-go. Pancrazio, Ciccio, Giovanni, Maria and a mason all set +about the fire-place. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carrying +stone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvina's doorway, with +her burden perched aloft, to shout a few unintelligible words. In +the intervals of lime-carrying she brought the invalid her soup or +her coffee or her hot milk. + +It turned out quite a good job--a pleasant room with two windows, +that would have all the sun in the afternoon, and would see the +mountains on one hand, the far-off village perched up on the other. +When she was well enough they set off one early Monday morning to +the market in Ossona. They left the house by starlight, but dawn +was coming by the time they reached the river. At the high-road, +Pancrazio harnessed the ass, and after endless delay they jogged off +to Ossona. The dawning mountains were wonderful, dim-green and mauve +and rose, the ground rang with frost. Along the roads many peasants +were trooping to market, women in their best dresses, some of thick +heavy silk with the white, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green, +lavender, dark-red, with gay kerchiefs on the head: men muffled in +cloaks, treading silently in their pointed skin sandals: asses with +loads, carts full of peasants, a belated cow. + +The market was lovely, there in the crown of the pass, in the old +town, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pigs, goats +stood and lay about under the bare little trees on the platform high +over the valley: some one had kindled a great fire of brush-wood, +and men crowded round, out of the blue frost. From laden asses +vegetables were unloaded, from little carts all kinds of things, +boots, pots, tin-ware, hats, sweet-things, and heaps of corn and +beans and seeds. By eight o'clock in the December morning the market +was in full swing: a great crowd of handsome mountain people, all +peasants, nearly all in costume, with different head-dresses. + +Ciccio and Pancrazio and Alvina went quietly about. They bought pots +and pans and vegetables and sweet-things and thick rush matting and +two wooden arm-chairs and one old soft arm-chair, going quietly and +bargaining modestly among the crowd, as Anglicized Italians do. + +The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock, and then, from +the terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderful +sight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the black +hats of the men, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the pale +lovely cattle, the many tethered asses--and she wondered if she +would die before she became one with it altogether. It was +impossible for her to become one with it altogether. Ciccio would +have to take her to England again, or to America. He was always +hinting at America. + +But then, Italy might enter the war. Even here it was the great +theme of conversation. She looked down on the seethe of the market. +The sun was warm on her. Ciccio and Pancrazio were bargaining for +two cowskin rugs: she saw Ciccio standing with his head rather +forward. Her husband! She felt her heart die away within her. + +All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did?--the same +sort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believed +they did. The same helpless passion for the man, the same remoteness +from the world's actuality? Probably, under all their tension of +money and money-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality and rather +horrible religion, probably they felt the same. She was one with +them. But she could never endure it for a life-time. It was only a +test on her. Ciccio must take her to America, or England--to America +preferably. + +And even as he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrilling +in her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous +to her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up +for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty +look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicate +light for him, there beyond all the women. He came straight towards +her, smiling his slow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if he +lost her. She knew how he loved her--almost inhumanly, elementally, +without communication. And she stood with her hand to her side, her +face frightened. She hardly noticed him. It seemed to her she was +with child. And yet in the whole market-place she was aware of +nothing but him. + +"We have bought the skins," he said. "Twenty-seven lire each." + +She looked at him, his dark skin, his golden eyes--so near to her, +so unified with her, yet so incommunicably remote. How far off was +his being from hers! + +"I believe I'm going to have a child," she said. + +"Eh?" he ejaculated quickly. But he had understood. His eyes shone +weirdly on her. She felt the strange terror and loveliness of his +passion. And she wished she could lie down there by that town gate, +in the sun, and swoon for ever unconscious. Living was almost too +great a demand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her and +enveloped her. There was nothing for her but to yield, yield, yield. +And yet she could not sink to earth. + +She saw Pancrazio carrying the skins to the little cart, which was +tilted up under a small, pale-stemmed tree on the platform above the +valley. Then she saw him making his way quickly back through the +crowd, to rejoin them. + +"Did you feel something?" said Ciccio. + +"Yes--here--!" she said, pressing her hand on her side as the +sensation trilled once more upon her consciousness. She looked at +him with remote, frightened eyes. + +"That's good--" he said, his eyes full of a triumphant, +incommunicable meaning. + +"Well!--And now," said Pancrazio, coming up, "shall we go and eat +something?" + +They jogged home in the little flat cart in the wintry afternoon. It +was almost night before they had got the ass untackled from the +shafts, at the wild lonely house where Pancrazio left the cart. +Giovanni was there with the lantern. Ciccio went on ahead with +Alvina, whilst the others stood to load up the ass by the high-way. + +Ciccio watched Alvina carefully. When they were over the river, and +among the dark scrub, he took her in his arms and kissed her with +long, terrible passion. She saw the snow-ridges flare with evening, +beyond his cheek. They had glowed dawn as she crossed the river +outwards, they were white-fiery now in the dusk sky as she returned. +What strange valley of shadow was she threading? What was the +terrible man's passion that haunted her like a dark angel? Why was +she so much beyond herself? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUSPENSE + + +Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs still +unstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them, in the +corn-place. + +"Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born?" he asked her. + +She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning gold +maize cob under his fingers, the long, ruddy cone of fruition. The +heap of maize on one side burned like hot sunshine, she felt it +really gave off warmth, it glowed, it burned. On the other side the +filmy, crackly, sere sheaths were also faintly sunny. Again and +again the long, red-gold, full ear of corn came clear in his hands, +and was put gently aside. He looked up at her, with his yellow eyes. + +"Yes, I think so," she said. "Will you?" + +"Yes, if they let me. I should like it to be born here." + +"Would you like to bring up a child here?" she asked. + +"You wouldn't be happy here, so long," he said, sadly. + +"Would you?" + +He slowly shook his head: indefinite. + +She was settling down. She had her room upstairs, her cups and +plates and spoons, her own things. Pancrazio had gone back to his +old habit, he went across and ate with Giovanni and Maria, Ciccio +and Alvina had their meals in their pleasant room upstairs. They +were happy alone. Only sometimes the terrible influence of the place +preyed on her. + +However, she had a clean room of her own, where she could sew and +read. She had written to the matron and Mrs. Tuke, and Mrs. Tuke had +sent books. Also she helped Ciccio when she could, and Maria was +teaching her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread. + +This morning Pancrazio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere, Alvina +and Ciccio were alone on the place, stripping the last maize. +Suddenly, in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out: the +drone of a bagpipe, and a man's high voice half singing, half +yelling a brief verse, at the end of which a wild flourish on some +other reedy wood instrument. Alvina sat still in surprise. It was a +strange, high, rapid, yelling music, the very voice of the +mountains. Beautiful, in our musical sense of the word, it was not. +But oh, the magic, the nostalgia of the untamed, heathen past which +it evoked. + +"It is for Christmas," said Ciccio. "They will come every day now." + +Alvina rose and went round to the little balcony. Two men stood +below, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the elder, +had a bagpipe whose bag was patched with shirting: the younger was +dressed in greenish clothes, he had his face lifted, and was yelling +the verses of the unintelligible Christmas ballad: short, rapid +verses, followed by a brilliant flourish on a short wooden pipe he +held ready in his hand. Alvina felt he was going to be out of +breath. But no, rapid and high came the next verse, verse after +verse, with the wild scream on the little new pipe in between, over +the roar of the bagpipe. And the crumbs of snow were like a speckled +veil, faintly drifting the atmosphere and powdering the littered +threshold where they stood--a threshold littered with faggots, +leaves, straw, fowls and geese and ass droppings, and rag thrown out +from the house, and pieces of paper. + +The carol suddenly ended, the young man snatched off his hat to +Alvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followed +by the bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly down the incline +between the twiggy wild oaks. + +"They will come every day now, till Christmas," said Ciccio. "They +go to every house." + +And sure enough, when Alvina went down, in the cold, silent house, +and out to the well in the still crumbling snow, she heard the sound +far off, strange, yelling, wonderful: and the same ache for she knew +not what overcame her, so that she felt one might go mad, there in +the veiled silence of these mountains, in the great hilly valley cut +off from the world. + +Ciccio worked all day on the land or round about. He was building a +little earth closet also: the obvious and unscreened place outside +was impossible. It was curious how little he went to Pescocalascio, +how little he mixed with the natives. He seemed always to withhold +something from them. Only with his relatives, of whom he had many, +he was more free, in a kind of family intimacy. + +Yet even here he was guarded. His uncle at the mill, an unwashed, +fat man with a wife who tinkled with gold and grime, and who shouted +a few lost words of American, insisted on giving Alvina wine and a +sort of cake made with cheese and rice. Ciccio too was feasted, in +the dark hole of a room. And the two natives seemed to press their +cheer on Alvina and Ciccio whole-heartedly. + +"How nice they are!" said Alvina when she had left. "They give so +freely." + +But Ciccio smiled a wry smile, silent. + +"Why do you make a face?" she said. + +"It's because you are a foreigner, and they think you will go away +again," he said. + +"But I should have thought that would make them less generous," she +said. + +"No. They like to give to foreigners. They don't like to give to the +people here. Giocomo puts water in the wine which he sells to the +people who go by. And if I leave the donkey in her shed, I give +Marta Maria something, or the next time she won't let me have it. +Ha, they are--they are sly ones, the people here." + +"They are like that everywhere," said Alvina. + +"Yes. But nowhere they say so many bad things about people as +here--nowhere where I have ever been." + +It was strange to Alvina to feel the deep-bed-rock distrust which +all the hill-peasants seemed to have of one another. They were +watchful, venomous, dangerous. + +"Ah," said Pancrazio, "I am glad there is a woman in my house once +more." + +"But did _nobody_ come in and do for you before?" asked Alvina. "Why +didn't you pay somebody?" + +"Nobody will come," said Pancrazio, in his slow, aristocratic +English. "Nobody will come, because I am a man, and if somebody +should see her at my house, they will all talk." + +"Talk!" Alvina looked at the deeply-lined man of sixty-six, "But +what will they say?" + +"Many bad things. Many bad things indeed. They are not good people +here. All saying bad things, and all jealous. They don't like me +because I have a house--they think I am too much a _signore_. They +say to me 'Why do you think you are a signore?' Oh, they are bad +people, envious, you cannot have anything to do with them." + +"They are nice to me," said Alvina. + +"They think you will go away. But if you stay, they will say bad +things. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people, evil against one +another, against everybody but strangers who don't know them--" + +Alvina felt the curious passion in Pancrazio's voice, the passion of a +man who has lived for many years in England and known the social +confidence of England, and who, coming back, is deeply injured by the +ancient malevolence of the remote, somewhat gloomy hill-peasantry. She +understood also why he was so glad to have her in his house, so proud, +why he loved serving her. She seemed to see a fairness, a luminousness +in the northern soul, something free, touched with divinity such as +"these people here" lacked entirely. + +When she went to Ossona with him, she knew everybody questioned him +about her and Ciccio. She began to get the drift of the +questions--which Pancrazio answered with reserve. + +"And how long are they staying?" + +This was an invariable, envious question. And invariably Pancrazio +answered with a reserved-- + +"Some months. As long as _they_ like." + +And Alvina could feel waves of black envy go out against Pancrazio, +because she was domiciled with him, and because she sat with him in +the flat cart, driving to Ossona. + +Yet Pancrazio himself was a study. He was thin, and very shabby, and +rather out of shape. Only in his yellow eyes lurked a strange +sardonic fire, and a leer which puzzled her. When Ciccio happened to +be out in the evening he would sit with her and tell her stories of +Lord Leighton and Millais and Alma Tadema and other academicians +dead and living. There would sometimes be a strange passivity on his +worn face, an impassive, almost Red Indian look. And then again he +would stir into a curious, arch, malevolent laugh, for all the world +like a debauched old tom-cat. His narration was like this: either +simple, bare, stoical, with a touch of nobility; or else satiric, +malicious, with a strange, rather repellent jeering. + +"Leighton--he wasn't Lord Leighton then--he wouldn't have me to sit +for him, because my figure was too poor, he didn't like it. He liked +fair young men, with plenty of flesh. But once, when he was doing a +picture--I don't know if you know it? It is a crucifixion, with a +man on a cross, and--" He described the picture. "No! Well, the +model had to be tied hanging on to a wooden cross. And it made you +suffer! Ah!" Here the odd, arch, diabolic yellow flare lit up +through the stoicism of Pancrazio's eyes. "Because Leighton, he was +cruel to his model. He wouldn't let you rest. 'Damn you, you've got +to keep still till I've finished with you, you devil,' so he said. +Well, for this man on the cross, he couldn't get a model who would +do it for him. They all tried it once, but they would not go again. +So they said to him, he must try Califano, because Califano was the +only man who would stand it. At last then he sent for me. 'I don't +like your damned figure, Califano,' he said to me, 'but nobody will +do this if you won't. Now will you do it? 'Yes!' I said, 'I will.' +So he tied me up on the cross. And he paid me well, so I stood it. +Well, he kept me tied up, hanging you know forwards naked on this +cross, for four hours. And then it was luncheon. And after luncheon +he would tie me again. Well, I suffered. I suffered so much, that I +must lean against the wall to support me to walk home. And in the +night I could not sleep, I could cry with the pains in my arms and +my ribs, I had no sleep. 'You've said you'd do it, so now you must,' +he said to me. 'And I will do it,' I said. And so he tied me up. +This cross, you know, was on a little raised place--I don't know +what you call it--" + +"A platform," suggested Alvina. + +"A platform. Now one day when he came to do something to me, when I +was tied up, he slipped back over this platform, and he pulled me, +who was tied on the cross, with him. So we all fell down, he with +the naked man on top of him, and the heavy cross on top of us both. +I could not move, because I was tied. And it was so, with me on top +of him, and the heavy cross, that he could not get out. So he had to +lie shouting underneath me until some one came to the studio to +untie me. No, we were not hurt, because the top of the cross fell so +that it did not crush us. 'Now you have had a taste of the cross,' I +said to him. 'Yes, you devil, but I shan't let you off,' he said to +me. + +"To make the time go he would ask me questions. Once he said, 'Now, +Califano, what time is it? I give you three guesses, and if you +guess right once I give you sixpence.' So I guessed three o'clock. +'That's one. Now then, what time is it? 'Again, three o'clock. +'That's two guesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time is +it? 'So now I was obstinate, and I said _Three o'clock_. He took out +his watch. 'Why damn you, how did you know? I give you a shilling--' +It was three o'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead of +sixpence as he had said--" + +It was strange, in the silent winter afternoon, downstairs in the +black kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancrazio and +hearing these stories of English painters. It was strange to look at +the battered figure of Pancrazio, and think how much he had been +crucified through the long years in London, for the sake of late +Victorian art. It was strangest of all to see through his yellow, +often dull, red-rimmed eyes these blithe and well-conditioned +painters. Pancrazio looked on them admiringly and contemptuously, as +an old, rakish tom-cat might look on such frivolous well-groomed +young gentlemen. + +As a matter of fact Pancrazio had never been rakish or debauched, +but mountain-moral, timid. So that the queer, half-sinister drop of +his eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare that +came into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a +sort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in his +battered body and give him an almost diabolic look. Alvina felt that +if she were left much alone with him she would need all her English +ascendancy not to be afraid of him. + +It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Ciccio +and Pancrazio set off for Pescocalascio for the first time. Snow had +fallen--not much round the house, but deep between the banks as they +climbed. And the sun was very bright. So that the mountains were +dazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound between +oak-trees and under the broom-scrub, climbing over the jumbled hills +that lay between the mountains, until the village came near. They +got on to a broader track, where the path from a distant village +joined theirs. They were all talking, in the bright clear air of the +morning. + +A little man came down an upper path. As he joined them near the +village he hailed them in English: + +"Good morning. Nice morning." + +"Does everybody speak English here?" asked Alvina. + +"I have been eighteen years in Glasgow. I am only here for a trip." + +He was a little Italian shop-keeper from Glasgow. He was most +friendly, insisted on paying for drinks, and coffee and almond +biscuits for Alvina. Evidently he also was grateful to Britain. + +The village was wonderful. It occupied the crown of an eminence in +the midst of the wide valley. From the terrace of the high-road the +valley spread below, with all its jumble of hills, and two rivers, +set in the walls of the mountains, a wide space, but imprisoned. It +glistened with snow under the blue sky. But the lowest hollows were +brown. In the distance, Ossona hung at the edge of a platform. Many +villages clung like pale swarms of birds to the far slopes, or +perched on the hills beneath. It was a world within a world, a +valley of many hills and townlets and streams shut in beyond access. + +Pescocalascio itself was crowded. The roads were sloppy with snow. +But none the less, peasants in full dress, their feet soaked in the +skin sandals, were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling, +bargaining for cloth, talking all the time. In the shop, which was +also a sort of inn, an ancient woman was making coffee over a +charcoal brazier, while a crowd of peasants sat at the tables at the +back, eating the food they had brought. + +Post was due at mid-day. Ciccio went to fetch it, whilst Pancrazio +took Alvina to the summit, to the castle. There, in the level +region, boys were snowballing and shouting. The ancient castle, +badly cracked by the last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on the +valley of many hills beneath, Califano a speck down the left, Ossona +a blot to the right, suspended, its towers and its castle clear in +the light. Behind the castle of Pescocalascio was a deep, steep +valley, almost a gorge, at the bottom of which a river ran, and +where Pancrazio pointed out the electricity works of the village, +deep in the gloom. Above this gorge, at the end, rose the long +slopes of the mountains, up to the vivid snow--and across again was +the wall of the Abruzzi. + +They went down, past the ruined houses broken by the earthquake. +Ciccio still had not come with the post. A crowd surged at the +post-office door, in a steep, black, wet side-street. Alvina's feet +were sodden. Pancrazio took her to the place where she could drink +coffee and a strega, to make her warm. On the platform of the +high-way, above the valley, people were parading in the hot sun. +Alvina noticed some ultra-smart young men. They came up to +Pancrazio, speaking English. Alvina hated their Cockney accent and +florid showy vulgar presence. They were more models. Pancrazio was +cool with them. + +Alvina sat apart from the crowd of peasants, on a chair the old +crone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancrazio ordered beer for +himself. Ciccio came with letters--long-delayed letters, that had +been censored. Alvina's heart went down. + +The first she opened was from Miss Pinnegar--all war and fear and +anxiety. The second was a letter, a real insulting letter from Dr. +Mitchell. "I little thought, at the time when I was hoping to make +you my wife, that you were carrying on with a dirty Italian +organ-grinder. So your fair-seeming face covered the schemes and +vice of your true nature. Well, I can only thank Providence which +spared me the disgust and shame of marrying you, and I hope that, +when I meet you on the streets of Leicester Square, I shall have +forgiven you sufficiently to be able to throw you a coin--" + +Here was a pretty little epistle! In spite of herself, she went pale +and trembled. She glanced at Ciccio. Fortunately he was turning +round talking to another man. She rose and went to the ruddy +brazier, as if to warm her hands. She threw on the screwed-up +letter. The old crone said something unintelligible to her. She +watched the letter catch fire--glanced at the peasants at the +table--and out at the wide, wild valley. The world beyond could not +help, but it still had the power to injure one here. She felt she +had received a bitter blow. A black hatred for the Mitchells of this +world filled her. + +She could hardly bear to open the third letter. It was from Mrs. +Tuke, and again, all war. Would Italy join the Allies? She ought to, +her every interest lay that way. Could Alvina bear to be so far off, +when such terrible events were happening near home? Could she +possibly be happy? Nurses were so valuable now. She, Mrs. Tuke, had +volunteered. She would do whatever she could. She had had to leave +off nursing Jenifer, who had an _excellent_ Scotch nurse, much +better than a mother. Well, Alvina and Mrs. Tuke might yet meet in +some hospital in France. So the letter ended. + +Alvina sat down, pale and trembling. Pancrazio was watching her +curiously. + +"Have you bad news?" he asked. + +"Only the war." + +"Ha!" and the Italian gesture of half-bitter "what can one do?" + +They were talking war--all talking war. The dandy young models had +left England because of the war, expecting Italy to come in. And +everybody talked, talked, talked. Alvina looked round her. It all +seemed alien to her, bruising upon the spirit. + +"Do you think I shall ever be able to come here alone and do my +shopping by myself?" she asked. + +"You must never come alone," said Pancrazio, in his curious, +benevolent courtesy. "Either Ciccio or I will come with you. You +must never come so far alone." + +"Why not?" she said. + +"You are a stranger here. You are not a contadina--" Alvina could +feel the oriental idea of women, which still leaves its mark on the +Mediterranean, threatening her with surveillance and subjection. She +sat in her chair, with cold wet feet, looking at the sunshine +outside, the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, the +men drinking at the counter, the cluster of peasant women bargaining +for dress-material. Ciccio was still turning talking in the rapid +way to his neighbour. She knew it was war. She noticed the movement +of his finely-modelled cheek, a little sallow this morning. + +And she rose hastily. + +"I want to go into the sun," she said. + +When she stood above the valley in the strong, tiring light, she +glanced round. Ciccio inside the shop had risen, but he was still +turning to his neighbour and was talking with all his hands and all +his body. He did not talk with his mind and lips alone. His whole +physique, his whole living body spoke and uttered and emphasized +itself. + +A certain weariness possessed her. She was beginning to realize +something about him: how he had no sense of home and domestic life, +as an Englishman has. Ciccio's home would never be his castle. His +castle was the piazza of Pescocalascio. His home was nothing to him +but a possession, and a hole to sleep in. He didn't _live_ in it. He +lived in the open air, and in the community. When the true Italian +came out in him, his veriest home was the piazza of Pescocalascio, +the little sort of market-place where the roads met in the village, +under the castle, and where the men stood in groups and talked, +talked, talked. This was where Ciccio belonged: his active, mindful +self. His active, mindful self was none of hers. She only had his +passive self, and his family passion. His masculine mind and +intelligence had its home in the little public square of his +village. She knew this as she watched him now, with all his body +talking politics. He could not break off till he had finished. And +then, with a swift, intimate handshake to the group with whom he had +been engaged, he came away, putting all his interest off from +himself. + +She tried to make him talk and discuss with her. But he wouldn't. An +obstinate spirit made him darkly refuse masculine conversation with +her. + +"If Italy goes to war, you will have to join up?" she asked him. + +"Yes," he said, with a smile at the futility of the question. + +"And I shall have to stay here?" + +He nodded, rather gloomily. + +"Do you want to go?" she persisted. + +"No, I don't want to go." + +"But you think Italy ought to join in?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"Then you _do_ want to go--" + +"I want to go if Italy goes in--and she ought to go in--" + +Curious, he was somewhat afraid of her, he half venerated her, and +half despised her. When she tried to make him discuss, in the +masculine way, he shut obstinately against her, something like a +child, and the slow, fine smile of dislike came on his face. +Instinctively he shut off all masculine communication from her, +particularly politics and religion. He would discuss both, +violently, with other men. In politics he was something of a +Socialist, in religion a freethinker. But all this had nothing to do +with Alvina. He would not enter on a discussion in English. + +Somewhere in her soul, she knew the finality of his refusal to hold +discussion with a woman. So, though at times her heart hardened with +indignant anger, she let herself remain outside. The more so, as +she felt that in matters intellectual he was rather stupid. Let him +go to the piazza or to the wine-shop, and talk. + +To do him justice, he went little. Pescocalascio was only half his +own village. The nostalgia, the campanilismo from which Italians +suffer, the craving to be in sight of the native church-tower, to +stand and talk in the native market place or piazza, this was only +half formed in Ciccio, taken away as he had been from Pescocalascio +when so small a boy. He spent most of his time working in the fields +and woods, most of his evenings at home, often weaving a special +kind of fishnet or net-basket from fine, frail strips of cane. It +was a work he had learned at Naples long ago. Alvina meanwhile would +sew for the child, or spin wool. She became quite clever at drawing +the strands of wool from her distaff, rolling them fine and even +between her fingers, and keeping her bobbin rapidly spinning away +below, dangling at the end of the thread. To tell the truth, she was +happy in the quietness with Ciccio, now they had their own pleasant +room. She loved his presence. She loved the quality of his silence, +so rich and physical. She felt he was never very far away: that he +was a good deal a stranger in Califano, as she was: that he clung to +her presence as she to his. Then Pancrazio also contrived to serve +her and shelter her, he too, loved her for being there. They both +revered her because she was with child. So that she lived more and +more in a little, isolate, illusory, wonderful world then, content, +moreover, because the living cost so little. She had sixty pounds of +her own money, always intact in the little case. And after all, the +high-way beyond the river led to Ossona, and Ossona gave access to +the railway, and the railway would take her anywhere. + +So the month of January passed, with its short days and its bits of +snow and bursts of sunshine. On sunny days Alvina walked down to the +desolate river-bed, which fascinated her. When Pancrazio was +carrying up stone or lime on the ass, she accompanied him. And +Pancrazio was always carrying up something, for he loved the +extraneous jobs like building a fire-place much more than the heavy +work of the land. Then she would find little tufts of wild narcissus +among the rocks, gold-centred pale little things, many on one stem. +And their scent was powerful and magical, like the sound of the men +who came all those days and sang before Christmas. She loved them. +There was green hellebore too, a fascinating plant--and one or two +little treasures, the last of the rose-coloured Alpine cyclamens, +near the earth, with snake-skin leaves, and so rose, so rose, like +violets for shadowiness. She sat and cried over the first she found: +heaven knows why. + +In February, as the days opened, the first almond trees flowered +among grey olives, in warm, level corners between the hills. But it +was March before the real flowering began. And then she had +continual bowl-fuls of white and blue violets, she had sprays of +almond blossom, silver-warm and lustrous, then sprays of peach and +apricot, pink and fluttering. It was a great joy to wander looking +for flowers. She came upon a bankside all wide with lavender +crocuses. The sun was on them for the moment, and they were opened +flat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars, with burning +centres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen some +metal burn lilac-flamed in the laboratory of the hospital at +Islington. All down the oak-dry bankside they burned their great +exposed stars. And she felt like going down on her knees and bending +her forehead to the earth in an oriental submission, they were so +royal, so lovely, so supreme. She came again to them in the morning, +when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs, +wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and old +grass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripes running +up their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear proud stripes on a +badger's face, or on some proud cat. She took a handful of the +sappy, shut, striped flames. In her room they opened into a grand +bowl of lilac fire. + +March was a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills. She +wandered, extending her range. Sometimes with a strange fear. But it +was a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she went +along the high-road with her letters, towards the village of Casa +Latina. The high-road was depressing, wherever there were houses. +For the houses had that sordid, ramshackle, slummy look almost +invariable on an Italian high-road. They were patched with a +hideous, greenish mould-colour, blotched, as if with leprosy. It +frightened her, till Pancrazio told her it was only the copper +sulphate that had sprayed the vines hitched on to the walls. But +none the less the houses were sordid, unkempt, slummy. One house by +itself could make a complete slum. + +Casa Latina was across the valley, in the shadow. Approaching it +were rows of low cabins--fairly new. They were the one-storey +dwellings commanded after the earthquake. And hideous they were. The +village itself was old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain. +Streams of cold water ran round it. The piazza was gloomy, forsaken. +But there was a great, twin-towered church, wonderful from outside. + +She went inside, and was almost sick with repulsion. The place was +large, whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and ex +voto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size and +tinselly, that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus on +the crucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on +their knees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded +fetish-worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from +the contamination of the dirty leather door-curtain. + +Enough of Casa Latina. She would never go _there_ again. She was +beginning to feel that, if she lived in this part of the world at +all, she must avoid the _inside_ of it. She must never, if she could +help it, enter into any interior but her own--neither into house nor +church nor even shop or post-office, if she could help it. The +moment she went through a door the sense of dark repulsiveness came +over her. If she was to save her sanity she must keep to the open +air, and avoid any contact with human interiors. When she thought of +the insides of the native people she shuddered with repulsion, as in +the great, degraded church of Casa Latina. They were horrible. + +Yet the outside world was so fair. Corn and maize were growing green +and silken, vines were in the small bud. Everywhere little grape +hyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her of +the many-breasted Artemis, a picture of whom, or of whose statue, +she had seen somewhere. Artemis with her clusters of breasts was +horrible to her, now she had come south: nauseating beyond words. +And the milky grape hyacinths reminded her. + +She turned with thankfulness to the magenta anemones that were so +gay. Some one told her that wherever Venus had shed a tear for +Adonis, one of these flowers had sprung. They were not tear-like. +And yet their red-purple silkiness had something pre-world about it, +at last. The more she wandered, the more the shadow of the by-gone +pagan world seemed to come over her. Sometimes she felt she would +shriek and go mad, so strong was the influence on her, something +pre-world and, it seemed to her now, vindictive. She seemed to feel +in the air strange Furies, Lemures, things that had haunted her with +their tomb-frenzied vindictiveness since she was a child and had +pored over the illustrated Classical Dictionary. Black and cruel +presences were in the under-air. They were furtive and slinking. +They bewitched you with loveliness, and lurked with fangs to hurt +you afterwards. There it was: the fangs sheathed in beauty: the +beauty first, and then, horribly, inevitably, the fangs. + +Being a great deal alone, in the strange place, fancies possessed +her, people took on strange shapes. Even Ciccio and Pancrazio. And +it came that she never wandered far from the house, from her room, +after the first months. She seemed to hide herself in her room. +There she sewed and spun wool and read, and learnt Italian. Her men +were not at all anxious to teach her Italian. Indeed her chief +teacher, at first, was a young fellow called Bussolo. He was a model +from London, and he came down to Califano sometimes, hanging about, +anxious to speak English. + +Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy with pale grey eyes and +a heavy figure. Yet he had a certain penetrating intelligence. + +"No, this country is a country for old men. It is only for old men," +he said, talking of Pescocalascio. "You won't stop here. Nobody +young can stop here." + +The odd plangent certitude in his voice penetrated her. And all the +young people said the same thing. They were all waiting to go away. +But for the moment the war held them up. + +Ciccio and Pancrazio were busy with the vines. As she watched them +hoeing, crouching, tying, tending, grafting, mindless and utterly +absorbed, hour after hour, day after day, thinking vines, living +vines, she wondered they didn't begin to sprout vine-buds and vine +stems from their own elbows and neck-joints. There was something to +her unnatural in the quality of the attention the men gave to the +wine. It was a sort of worship, almost a degradation again. And +heaven knows, Pancrazio's wine was poor enough, his grapes almost +invariably bruised with hail-stones, and half-rotten instead of +ripe. + +The loveliness of April came, with hot sunshine. Astonishing the +ferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to blaze. +Alvina was amazed. The burning day quite carried her away. She loved +it: it made her quite careless about everything, she was just swept +along in the powerful flood of the sunshine. In the end, she felt +that intense sunlight had on her the effect of night: a sort of +darkness, and a suspension of life. She had to hide in her room till +the cold wind blew again. + +Meanwhile the declaration of war drew nearer, and became inevitable. +She knew Ciccio would go. And with him went the chance of her +escape. She steeled herself to bear the agony of the knowledge that +he would go, and she would be left alone in this place, which +sometimes she hated with a hatred unspeakable. After a spell of hot, +intensely dry weather she felt she would die in this valley, wither +and go to powder as some exposed April roses withered and dried into +dust against a hot wall. Then the cool wind came in a storm, the +next day there was grey sky and soft air. The rose-coloured wild +gladioli among the young green corn were a dream of beauty, the +morning of the world. The lovely, pristine morning of the world, +before our epoch began. Rose-red gladioli among corn, in among the +rocks, and small irises, black-purple and yellow blotched with +brown, like a wasp, standing low in little desert places, that would +seem forlorn but for this weird, dark-lustrous magnificence. Then +there were the tiny irises, only one finger tall, growing in dry +places, frail as crocuses, and much tinier, and blue, blue as the +eye of the morning heaven, which was a morning earlier, more +pristine than ours. The lovely translucent pale irises, tiny and +morning-blue, they lasted only a few hours. But nothing could be +more exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that brought +back to Alvina the passionate nostalgia for the place. The human +influence was a bit horrible to her. But the flowers that came out +and uttered the earth in magical expression, they cast a spell on +her, bewitched her and stole her own soul away from her. + +She went down to Ciccio where he was weeding armfuls of rose-red +gladioli from the half-grown wheat, and cutting the lushness of the +first weedy herbage. He threw down his sheaves of gladioli, and with +his sickle began to cut the forest of bright yellow corn-marigolds. +He looked intent, he seemed to work feverishly. + +"Must they all be cut?" she said, as she went to him. + +He threw aside the great armful of yellow flowers, took off his cap, +and wiped the sweat from his brow. The sickle dangled loose in his +hand. + +"We have declared war," he said. + +In an instant she realized that she had seen the figure of the old +post-carrier dodging between the rocks. Rose-red and gold-yellow of +the flowers swam in her eyes. Ciccio's dusk-yellow eyes were +watching her. She sank on her knees on a sheaf of corn-marigolds. +Her eyes, watching him, were vulnerable as if stricken to death. +Indeed she felt she would die. + +"You will have to go?" she said. + +"Yes, we shall all have to go." There seemed a certain sound of +triumph in his voice. Cruel! + +She sank lower on the flowers, and her head dropped. But she would +not be beaten. She lifted her face. + +"If you are very long," she said, "I shall go to England. I can't +stay here very long without you." + +"You will have Pancrazio--and the child," he said. + +"Yes. But I shall still be myself. I can't stay here very long +without you. I shall go to England." + +He watched her narrowly. + +"I don't think they'll let you," he said. + +"Yes they will." + +At moments she hated him. He seemed to want to crush her altogether. +She was always making little plans in her mind--how she could get +out of that great cruel valley and escape to Rome, to English +people. She would find the English Consul and he would help her. She +would do anything rather than be really crushed. She knew how easy +it would be, once her spirit broke, for her to die and be buried in +the cemetery at Pescocalascio. + +And they would all be so sentimental about her--just as Pancrazio +was. She felt that in some way Pancrazio had killed his wife--not +consciously, but unconsciously, as Ciccio might kill _her_. +Pancrazio would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments. And he +seemed always anxious to prove that he had been so good to her. No +doubt he had been good to her, also. But there was something +underneath--malevolent in his spirit, some caged-in sort of cruelty, +malignant beyond his control. It crept out in his stories. And it +revealed itself in his fear of his dead wife. Alvina knew that in +the night the elderly man was afraid of his dead wife, and of her +ghost or her avenging spirit. He would huddle over the fire in fear. +In the same way the cemetery had a fascination of horror for +him--as, she noticed, for most of the natives. It was an ugly, +square place, all stone slabs and wall-cupboards, enclosed in +four-square stone walls, and lying away beneath Pescocalascio +village obvious as if it were on a plate. + +"That is our cemetery," Pancrazio said, pointing it out to her, +"where we shall all be carried some day." + +And there was fear, horror in his voice. He told her how the men had +carried his wife there--a long journey over the hill-tracks, almost +two hours. + +These were days of waiting--horrible days of waiting for Ciccio to +be called up. One batch of young men left the village--and there was +a lugubrious sort of saturnalia, men and women alike got rather +drunk, the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks of +distress. Crowds accompanied them to Ossona, whence they were +marched towards the railway. It was a horrible event. + +A shiver of horror and death went through the valley. In a +lugubrious way, they seemed to enjoy it. + +"You'll never be satisfied till you've gone," she said to Ciccio. +"Why don't they be quick and call you?" + +"It will be next week," he said, looking at her darkly. In the +twilight he came to her, when she could hardly see him. + +"Are you sorry you came here with me, Allaye?" he asked. There was +malice in the very question. + +She put down the spoon and looked up from the fire. He stood +shadowy, his head ducked forward, the firelight faint on his +enigmatic, timeless, half-smiling face. + +"I'm not sorry," she answered slowly, using all her courage. +"Because I love you--" + +She crouched quite still on the hearth. He turned aside his face. +After a moment or two he went out. She stirred her pot slowly and +sadly. She had to go downstairs for something. + +And there on the landing she saw him standing in the darkness with +his arm over his face, as if fending a blow. + +"What is it?" she said, laying her hand on him. He uncovered his +face. + +"I would take you away if I could," he said. + +"I can wait for you," she answered. + +He threw himself in a chair that stood at a table there on the broad +landing, and buried his head in his arms. + +"Don't wait for me! Don't wait for me!" he cried, his voice muffled. + +"Why not?" she said, filled with terror. He made no sign. "Why not?" +she insisted. And she laid her fingers on his head. + +He got up and turned to her. + +"I love you, even if it kills me," she said. + +But he only turned aside again, leaned his arm against the wall, and +hid his face, utterly noiseless. + +"What is it?" she said. "What is it? I don't understand." He wiped +his sleeve across his face, and turned to her. + +"I haven't any hope," he said, in a dull, dogged voice. + +She felt her heart and the child die within her. + +"Why?" she said. + +Was she to bear a hopeless child? + +"You _have_ hope. Don't make a scene," she snapped. And she went +downstairs, as she had intended. + +And when she got into the kitchen, she forgot what she had come for. +She sat in the darkness on the seat, with all life gone dark and +still, death and eternity settled down on her. Death and eternity +were settled down on her as she sat alone. And she seemed to hear +him moaning upstairs--"I can't come back. I can't come back." She +heard it. She heard it so distinctly, that she never knew whether it +had been an actual utterance, or whether it was her inner ear which +had heard the inner, unutterable sound. She wanted to answer, to +call to him. But she could not. Heavy, mute, powerless, there she +sat like a lump of darkness, in that doomed Italian kitchen. "I +can't come back." She heard it so fatally. + +She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancrazio. + +"Oh!" he cried, startled when, having come near the fire, he caught +sight of her. And he said something, frightened, in Italian. + +"Is it you? Why are you in the darkness?" he said. + +"I am just going upstairs again." + +"You frightened me." + +She went up to finish the preparing of the meal. Ciccio came down to +Pancrazio. The latter had brought a newspaper. The two men sat on +the settle, with the lamp between them, reading and talking the +news. + +Ciccio's group was called up for the following week, as he had said. +The departure hung over them like a doom. Those were perhaps the +worst days of all: the days of the impending departure. Neither of +them spoke about it. + +But the night before he left she could bear the silence no more. + +"You will come back, won't you?" she said, as he sat motionless in +his chair in the bedroom. It was a hot, luminous night. There was +still a late scent of orange blossom from the garden, the +nightingale was shaking the air with his sound. At times other, +honey scents wafted from the hills. + +"You will come back?" she insisted. + +"Who knows?" he replied. + +"If you make up your mind to come back, you will come back. We have +our fate in our hands," she said. + +He smiled slowly. + +"You think so?" he said. + +"I know it. If you don't come back it will be because you don't want +to--no other reason. It won't be because you can't. It will be +because you don't want to." + +"Who told you so?" he asked, with the same cruel smile. + +"I know it," she said. + +"All right," he answered. + +But he still sat with his hands abandoned between his knees. + +"So make up your mind," she said. + +He sat motionless for a long while: while she undressed and brushed +her hair and went to bed. And still he sat there unmoving, like a +corpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearable +presence in the room. She blew out the light, that she need not see +him. But in the darkness it was worse. + +At last he stirred--he rose. He came hesitating across to her. + +"I'll come back, Allaye," he said quietly. "Be damned to them all." +She heard unspeakable pain in his voice. + +"To whom?" she said, sitting up. + +He did not answer, but put his arms round her. + +"I'll come back, and we'll go to America," he said. + +"You'll come back to me," she whispered, in an ecstasy of pain and +relief. It was not her affair, where they should go, so long as he +really returned to her. + +"I'll come back," he said. + +"Sure?" she whispered, straining him to her. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST GIRL*** + + +******* This file should be named 23727.txt or 23727.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/7/2/23727 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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