The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence (best books for students to read txt) 📕

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,