The Lost Girl · Chapter 5 (3/5)

“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, turndown 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 lovelorn 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 anyone would ask him to supper⁠—bread and cheese and currant-loaf, and water, was all that was 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 reentered. “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.