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 t
hought 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-to-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 come 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 mudguard. 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 door-step, neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to see him. He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes, until 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 exp
ressionless. 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.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 246