“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 wit
h 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 yo
u 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.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 260
