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THE LOST GIRL
“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 fi nality.
“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 NatchaKee-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 fi nd
you something else.”
“Please don’t,” said Alvina. “Please don’t fi nd 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? 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.
251
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“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? Hé?”
“Thank you so much,” said Alvina, holding out her hand.
“Goodbye. 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 fl ushed 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.
252
THE LOST GIRL
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 fi nished?”
“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
fi t – ” 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.”
253
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
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 fl owered
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 fi xed on his face.
He nodded slightly.
“We have to do it. I like it.”
254
THE LOST GIRL
What he said meant nothing to him. He now watched her
fi xedly, 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 fl ush grew on her cheek. She
heard Miss Pinnegar’s scarcely audible step approaching.
He nodded at her slightly, watching her fi xedly, 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 fi re,” 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 justifi ed, 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 fl uttered. “I have written about
a new machine, and the supply of fi lms from Chanticlers.”
256
THE LOST GIRL
“Really!” said Mr. May. “Oh well then, in that case – ” But
he was fi lled 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 fi nality.
“Why?” cried Alvina.
“Oh – why!” He was rather ironic. “Well, it’s not my line at
all. I’m not a fi lm-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.”
257
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
“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
fi rst. It was wrong from the fi rst. 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
258
THE LOST GIRL
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
refl ected. 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 fi lm-shop? The strange fi gures 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 man-
aged 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
259
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
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-offi ce 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-offi ce, and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the fi lm.
When the interval arrived, Mr. May hurried to the boxoffi ce, 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 fl aring. “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.
260
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