The Lost Girl · Chapter 7 (4/5)

“Then let him be disappointed,” cried Alvina, as she forcibly tucked up Madame and made her lie still.

“You are hard! You are a hard Englishwoman. All alike. All alike!” Madame subsided fretfully and weakly. Alvina moved softly about. And in a few minutes Madame was sleeping again.

Alvina went downstairs. Mr. May was listening to Max, who was telling in German all about the White Prisoner scene. Mr. May had spent his boyhood in a German school. He cocked his head on one side, and, laying his hand on Max’s arm, entertained him in odd German. The others were silent. Ciccio made no pretence of listening, but smoked and stared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey half understood, so Louis nodded with a look of deep comprehension, whilst Geoffrey uttered short, snappy “Ja!⁠—Ja!⁠—Doch!⁠—Eben!” rather irrelevant.

“I’ll be the squaw,” cried Mr. May in English, breaking off and turning round to the company. He perked up his head in an odd, parrot-like fashion. “I’ll be the squaw! What’s her name? Kishwégin? I’ll be Kishwégin.” And he bridled and beamed self-consciously.

The two tall Swiss looked down on him, faintly smiling. Ciccio, sitting with his arms on his knees on the sofa, screwed round his head and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, expressionless attention.

“Let us go,” said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance. “Let us go and rehearse this morning, and let us do the procession this afternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. There! What? Isn’t that exactly the idea? Well! Will you be ready at once, now?”

He looked excitedly at the young men. They nodded with slow gravity, as if they were already braves. And they turned to put on their boots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lumley, Mr. May prancing like a little circus-pony beside Alvina, the four young men rolling ahead.

“What do you think of it?” cried Mr. May. “We’ve saved the situation⁠—what? Don’t you think so? Don’t you think we can congratulate ourselves.”

They found Mr. Houghton fussing about in the theatre. He was on tenterhooks of agitation, knowing Madame was ill.

Max gave a brilliant display of yodelling.

“But I must explain to them,” cried Mr. May. “I must explain to them what yodel means.”

And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth his hand.

“In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciers reign over luscious meadows full of flowers, if you should chance to awaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm amid the mountain pastures, you⁠—er⁠—you⁠—let me see⁠—if you⁠—no⁠—if you should chance to spend the night in some lonely wooden farm, amid the upland pastures, dawn will awake you with a wild, inhuman song, you will open your eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams, your ears will be ringing with weird singing, that has no words and no meaning, but sounds as if some wild and icy god were warbling to himself as he wandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth across the flowers to the blue snow, and you see, far off, a small figure of a man moving among the grass. It is a peasant singing his mountain song, warbling like some creature that lifted up its voice on the edge of the eternal snows, before the human race began⁠—”

During this oration James Houghton sat with his chin in his hand, devoured with bitter jealousy, measuring Mr. May’s eloquence. And then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume, white shirt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois leather stitched with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked ankles and heavy shoes, warbled his native Yodel strains, a piercing and disturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen tempered and fierce and mountainous. There was a fierce, icy passion in the man. Alvina began to understand Madame’s subjection to him.

Louis and Geoffrey did a farce dialogue, two foreigners at the same moment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other and protesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Ciccio, who stood solid and ridiculous. Mr. Houghton nodded slowly and gravely, as if to give his measured approval.

Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practised the music Madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, she welcomed the accompaniment: if not, she dispensed with it.

“Am I all right?” said a smirking voice.

And there was Kishwégin, dusky, coy, with long black hair and a short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: so coy, and so smirking. Alvina burst out laughing.

“But shan’t I do?” protested Mr. May, hurt.

“Yes, you’re wonderful,” said Alvina, choking. “But I must laugh.”

“But why? Tell me why?” asked Mr. May anxiously. “Is it my appearance you laugh at, or is it only me? If it’s me I don’t mind. But if it’s my appearance, tell me so.”

Here an appalling figure of Ciccio in war-paint strolled on to the stage. He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, was dusky-red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle’s feathers⁠—only two feathers⁠—and a face wonderfully and terribly painted with white, red, yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with himself. His curious soft slouch, and curious way of lifting his lip from his white teeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing.

“You haven’t got the girdle,” he said, touching Mr. May’s plump waist⁠—“and some flowers in your hair.”

Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. A bear on its hind legs, slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretching a paw towards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a laugh came from its muzzle.

“You won’t have to dance,” said Geoffrey out of the bear.

“Come and put in the flowers,” said Mr. May anxiously, to Alvina.

In the dressing-room, the dividing-curtain was drawn. Max, in deerskin trousers but with unpainted torso looked very white and strange as he put the last touches of war-paint on Louis’ face. He glanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a sort of nobility about his erect white form and stiffly-carried head, the semi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior.

Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis arose, a brave like Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tattered hunting-shirt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. He was the white prisoner.

They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watched. It was soon done. A back cloth of tree-trunks and dark forest: a wigwam, a fire, and a cradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain to dissociate the two braves from their war-paint. The lines were drawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and horrible, so that even in the quiet work of scene-shifting Louis’ stiffish, female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst Ciccio’s more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him for one single moment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel, underneath their civilization.

The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwégin alone at the door of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional push to the hanging cradle, and, if only Madame were taking the part, crooning an Indian cradlesong. Enter the Brave Louis with his white prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side. Kishwégin gravely salutes her husband⁠—the bound prisoner is seated by the fire⁠—Kishwégin serves food, and asks permission to feed the prisoner. The Brave Louis, hearing a sound, starts up with his bow and arrow. There is a dumb scene of sympathy between Kishwégin and the prisoner⁠—the prisoner wants his bonds cut. Reenter the Brave Louis⁠—he is angry with Kishwégin⁠—enter the Brave Ciccio hauling a bear, apparently dead. Kishwégin examines the bear, Ciccio examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwégin swings the cradle. The prisoner is tripped up⁠—falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the fallen bear. Kishwégin carries food to Ciccio. The two braves converse in dumb show, Kishwégin swings the cradle and croons. The men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and at the same moment the bear strikes him down. Ciccio springs forward and stabs the bear, then closes with it. Kishwégin runs and cuts the prisoner’s bonds. He rises, and stands trying to lift his numbed and powerless arms, while the bear slowly crushes Ciccio, and Kishwégin kneels over her husband. The bear drops Ciccio lifeless, and turns to Kishwégin. At that moment Max manages to kill the bear⁠—he takes Kishwégin by the hand and kneels with her beside the dead Louis.

It was wonderful how well the men played their different parts. But Mr. May was a little too frisky as Kishwégin. However, it would do.

Ciccio got dressed as soon as possible, to go and look at the horses hired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him, Mr. May and the others were busy.

“You know I think it’s quite wonderful, your scene,” she said to Ciccio.

He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky-set eyes rested on her good-naturedly, without seeing her, his lip curled in a self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile.

“Not without Madame,” he said, with the slow, half-sneering, stupid smile. “Without Madame⁠—” he lifted his shoulders and spread his hands and tilted his brows⁠—“fool’s play, you know.”

“No,” said Alvina. “I think Mr. May is good, considering. What does Madame do?” she asked a little jealously.

“Do?” He looked down at her with the same long, half-sardonic look of his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casually at a bird which flutters past. And again he made his shrugging motion. “She does it all, really. The others⁠—they are nothing⁠—what they are Madame has made them. And now they think they’ve done it all, you see. You see, that’s it.”

“But how has Madame made it all? Thought it out, you mean?”

“Thought it out, yes. And then done it. You should see her dance⁠—ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand⁠—” And Ciccio stood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance, and all the time his lips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little assertive shake of his head, finishing, there came a great yell of laughter from the opposite pavement, where a gang of pottery lasses, in aprons all spattered with grey clay, and hair and boots and skin spattered with pallid spots, had stood to watch. The girls opposite shrieked again, for all the world like a gang of grey baboons. Ciccio turned round and looked at them with a sneer along his nose. They yelled the louder. And he was horribly uncomfortable, walking there beside Alvina with his rather small and effeminately-shod feet.

“How stupid they are,” said Alvina. “I’ve got used to them.”

“They should be⁠—” he lifted his hand with a sharp, vicious movement⁠—“smacked,” he concluded, lowering his hand again.

“Who is going to do it?” said Alvina.

He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand outspread in the air, as if to say: “There you are! You’ve got to thank the fools who’ve failed to do it.”

“Why do you all love Madame so much?” Alvina asked.

“How, love?” he said, making a little grimace. “We like her⁠—we love her⁠—as if she were a mother. You say love⁠—” He raised his shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways, and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a great instinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture. For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech. Gesture and grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things, if you would but accept them.

But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She could hear Mr. May’s verdict of him: “Like a child, you know, just as charming and just as tiresome and just as stupid.”

“Where is your home?” she asked him.

“In Italy.” She felt a fool.

“Which part?” she insisted.

“Naples,” he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly.

“It must be lovely,” she said.

“Ha⁠—!” He threw his head on one side and spread out his hands, as if to say⁠—“What do you want, if you don’t find Naples lovely.”

“I should like to see it. But I shouldn’t like to die,” she said.

“What?”

“They say ‘See Naples and die,’ ” she laughed.

He opened his mouth, and understood. Then he smiled at her directly.

“You know what that means?” he said cutely. “It means see Naples and die afterwards. Don’t die before you’ve seen it.” He smiled with a knowing smile.

“I see! I see!” she cried. “I never thought of that.”

He was pleased with her surprise and amusement.

“Ah Naples!” he said. “She is lovely⁠—” He spread his hand across the air in front of him⁠—“The sea⁠—and Posilippo⁠—and Sorrento⁠—and Capri⁠—Ah‑h! You’ve never been out of England?”

“No,” she said. “I should love to go.”

He looked down into her eyes. It was his instinct to say at once he would take her.

“You’ve seen nothing⁠—nothing,” he said to her.

“But if Naples is so lovely, how could you leave it?” she asked.

“What?”

She repeated her question. For answer, he looked at her, held out his hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tips of his fingers, said, with a fine, handsome smile:

“Pennies! Money! You can’t earn money in Naples. Ah, Naples is beautiful, but she is poor. You live in the sun, and you earn fourteen, fifteen pence a day⁠—”

“Not enough,” she said.

He put his head on one side and tilted his brows, as if to say “What are you to do?” And the smile on his mouth was sad, fine, and charming. There was an indefinable air of sadness or wistfulness about him, something so robust and fragile at the same time, that she was drawn in a strange way.

“But you’ll go back?” she said.

“Where?”

“To Italy. To Naples.”

“Yes, I shall go back to Italy,” he said, as if unwilling to commit himself. “But perhaps I shan’t go back to Naples.”

“Never?”

“Ah, never! I don’t say never. I shall go to Naples, to see my mother’s sister. But I shan’t go to live⁠—”

“Have you a mother and father?”

“I? No! I have a brother and two sisters⁠—in America. Parents, none. They are dead.”

“And you wander about the world⁠—” she said.

He looked at her, and made a slight, sad gesture, indifferent also.

“But you have Madame for a mother,” she said.

He made another gesture this time: pressed down the corners of his mouth as if he didn’t like it. Then he turned with the slow, fine smile.

“Does a man want two mothers? Eh?” he said, as if he posed a conundrum.

“I shouldn’t think so,” laughed Alvina.

He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood.

“My mother is dead, see!” he said. “Frenchwomen⁠—Frenchwomen⁠—they have their babies till they are a hundred⁠—”

“What do you mean?” said Alvina, laughing.

“A Frenchman is a little man when he’s seven years old⁠—and if his mother comes, he is a little baby boy when he’s seventy. Do you know that?”

“I didn’t know it,” said Alvina.

“But now⁠—you do,” he said, lurching round a corner with her.

They had come to the stables. Three of the horses were there, including the thoroughbred Ciccio was going to ride. He stood and examined the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strange sounds, patted them, stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand down them, over them, under them, and felt their legs.