The Lost Girl · Chapter 11 (3/5)

“Am I?” smiled Alvina, thinking the rose would smell as sweet. It seemed to please the doctor to find that Alvina was a pessimist with regard to human nature. It seemed to give her an air of distinction. In his eyes, she seemed distinguished. He was in a fair way to dote on her.

She, of course, when he began to admire her, liked him much better, and even saw graceful, boyish attractions in him. There was really something childish about him. And this something childish, since it looked up to her as if she were the saving grace, naturally flattered her and made her feel gentler towards him.

He got in the habit of picking her up in his car, when he could. And he would tap at the matron’s door, smiling and showing all his beautiful teeth, just about teatime.

“May I come in?” His voice sounded almost flirty.

“Certainly.”

“I see you’re having tea! Very nice, a cup of tea at this hour!”

“Have one too, doctor.”

“I will with pleasure.” And he sat down wreathed with smiles. Alvina rose to get a cup. “I didn’t intend to disturb you, nurse,” he said. “Men are always intruders,” he smiled to the matron.

“Sometimes,” said the matron, “women are charmed to be intruded upon.”

“Oh really!” his eyes sparkled. “Perhaps you wouldn’t say so, nurse?” he said, turning to Alvina. Alvina was just reaching at the cupboard. Very charming she looked, in her fresh dress and cap and soft brown hair, very attractive her figure, with its full, soft loins. She turned round to him.

“Oh yes,” she said. “I quite agree with the matron.”

“Oh, you do!” He did not quite know how to take it. “But you mind being disturbed at your tea, I am sure.”

“No,” said Alvina. “We are so used to being disturbed.”

“Rather weak, doctor?” said the matron, pouring the tea.

“Very weak, please.”

The doctor was a little laboured in his gallantry, but unmistakably gallant. When he was gone, the matron looked demure, and Alvina confused. Each waited for the other to speak.

“Don’t you think Dr. Mitchell is quite coming out?” said Alvina.

“Quite! Quite the ladies’ man! I wonder who it is can be bringing him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure.” She looked wickedly at Alvina.

“No, don’t look at me,” laughed Alvina, “I know nothing about it.”

“Do you think it may be me!” said the matron, mischievous.

“I’m sure of it, matron! He begins to show some taste at last.”

“There now!” said the matron. “I shall put my cap straight.” And she went to the mirror, fluffing her hair and settling her cap.

“There!” she said, bobbing a little curtsey to Alvina.

They both laughed, and went off to work.

But there was no mistake, Dr. Mitchell was beginning to expand. With Alvina he quite unbent, and seemed even to sun himself when she was near, to attract her attention. He smiled and smirked and became oddly self-conscious: rather uncomfortable. He liked to hang over her chair, and he made a great event of offering her a cigarette whenever they met, although he himself never smoked. He had a gold cigarette case.

One day he asked her in to see his garden. He had a pleasant old square house with a big walled garden. He showed her his flowers and his wall-fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade her admire his asparagus. And then he gave her tea in the drawing-room, with strawberries and cream and cakes, of all of which he ate nothing. But he smiled expansively all the time. He was a made man: and now he was really letting himself go, luxuriating in everything; above all, in Alvina, who poured tea gracefully from the old Georgian teapot, and smiled so pleasantly above the Queen Anne teacups.

And she, wicked that she was, admired every detail of his drawing-room. It was a pleasant room indeed, with roses outside the French door, and a lawn in sunshine beyond, with bright red flowers in beds. But indoors, it was insistently antique. Alvina admired the Jacobean sideboard and the Jacobean armchairs and the Hepplewhite wall-chairs and the Sheraton settee and the Chippendale stands and the Axminster carpet and the bronze clock with Shakespeare and Ariosto reclining on it⁠—yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the clock⁠—and the ormolu cabinet and the bead-work footstools and the dreadful Sèvres dish with a cherub in it and⁠—but why enumerate. She admired everything! And Dr. Mitchell’s heart expanded in his bosom till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at her feet or did something extraordinary. He had never even imagined what it was to be so expanded: what a delicious feeling. He could have kissed her feet in an ecstasy of wild expansion. But habit, so far, prevented his doing more than beam.

Another day he said to her, when they were talking of age:

“You are as young as you feel. Why, when I was twenty I felt I had all the cares and responsibility of the world on my shoulders. And now I am middle-aged more or less, I feel as light as if I were just beginning life.” He beamed down at her.

“Perhaps you are only just beginning your own life,” she said. “You have lived for your work till now.”

“It may be that,” he said. “It may be that up till now I have lived for others, for my patients. And now perhaps I may be allowed to live a little more for myself.” He beamed with real luxury, saw the real luxury of life begin.

“Why shouldn’t you?” said Alvina.

“Oh yes, I intend to,” he said, with confidence.

He really, by degrees, made up his mind to marry now, and to retire in part from his work. That is, he would hire another assistant, and give himself a fair amount of leisure. He was inordinately proud of his house. And now he looked forward to the treat of his life: hanging round the woman he had made his wife, following her about, feeling proud of her and his house, talking to her from morning till night, really finding himself in her. When he had to go his rounds she would go with him in the car: he made up his mind she would be willing to accompany him. He would teach her to drive, and they would sit side by side, she driving him and waiting for him. And he would run out of the houses of his patients, and find her sitting there, and he would get in beside her and feel so snug and so sure and so happy as she drove him off to the next case, he informing her about his work.

And if ever she did not go out with him, she would be there on the doorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car. And they would have long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they would be snug for hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to bed. And in the morning he need not rush off. He would loiter about with her, they would loiter down the garden looking at every new flower and every new fruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and no cap on her hair, he would never be able to tear himself away from her. Every morning it would be unbearable to have to tear himself away from her, and every hour he would be rushing back to her. They would be simply everything to one another. And how he would enjoy it! Ah!

He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would take her away from him. That was his first thought. But then⁠—! Ah well, he would have to leave it till the time. Love’s young dream is never so delicious as at the virgin age of fifty-three.

But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he had put a plain question. It was August Bank Holiday, that forever black day of the declaration of war, when his question was put. For this year of our story is the fatal year 1914.

There was quite a stir in the town over the declaration of war. But most people felt that the news was only intended to give an extra thrill to the all-important event of Bank Holiday. Half the world had gone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the Lakes or into the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fête, notwithstanding. And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a real holiday mood.

So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at the Hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three, for tea.

“What do you think of this new war?” said Alvina.

“Oh, it will be over in six weeks,” said the doctor easily. And there they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered if it would affect the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She had never heard any more of them.

“Where would you have liked to go today?” said the doctor, turning to smile at her as he drove the car.

“I think to Windermere⁠—into the Lakes,” she said.

“We might make a tour of the Lakes before long,” he said. She was not thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech.

“How nice!” she said vaguely.

“We could go in the car, and take them as we chose,” said the doctor.

“Yes,” she said, wondering at him now.

When they had had tea, quietly and gallantly tête-à-tête in his drawing-room, he asked her if she would like to see the other rooms of the house. She thanked him, and he showed her the substantial oak dining-room, and the little room with medical works and a revolving chair, which he called his study: then the kitchen and the pantry, the housekeeper looking askance; then upstairs to his bedroom, which was very fine with old mahogany tallboys and silver candlesticks on the dressing-table, and brushes with green ivory backs, and a hygienic white bed and straw mats: then the visitors’ bedroom corresponding, with its old satinwood furniture and cream-coloured chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a pale carpet with reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that, isn’t that beautiful, I’ve never seen anything like that! came the gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina. And he smiled and gloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and how dark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had impressed Ciccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel themselves masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She smiled to herself rather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling unaccountably uneasy and wistful, yearning into the distance again: a trick she thought she had happily lost.

The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a big man, and he always wore navy blue suits, well-tailored and immaculate. Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue suits, especially if they had reddish faces and rather big feet and if their hair was wearing thin, were a special type all to themselves, solid and rather namby-pamby and tiresome.

“What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roof makes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and the fascinating little window!” She crouched in the hollow of the small dormer window. “Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I know I should want this room for my own.”

“Then have it,” he said. “Have it for one of your own.”

She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He was leaning forward to her, smiling, self-conscious, tentative, and eager. She thought it best to laugh it off.

“I was only talking like a child, from the imagination,” she said.

“I quite understand that,” he replied deliberately. “But I am speaking what I mean⁠—”

She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smiling and smirking broadly at her.

“Won’t you marry me, and come and have this garret for your own?” He spoke as if he were offering her a chocolate. He smiled with curious uncertainty.

“I don’t know,” she said vaguely.

His smile broadened.

“Well now,” he said, “make up your mind. I’m not good at talking about love, you know. But I think I’m pretty good at feeling it, you know. I want you to come here and be happy: with me.” He added the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if to commit himself finally.

“But I’ve never thought about it,” she said, rapidly cogitating.

“I know you haven’t. But think about it now⁠—” He began to be hugely pleased with himself. “Think about it now. And tell me if you could put up with me, as well as the garret.” He beamed and put his head a little on one side⁠—rather like Mr. May, for one second. But he was much more dangerous than Mr. May. He was overbearing, and had the devil’s own temper if he was thwarted. This she knew. He was a big man in a navy blue suit, with very white teeth.

Again she thought she had better laugh it off.

“It’s you I am thinking about,” she laughed, flirting still. “It’s you I am wondering about.”

“Well,” he said, rather pleased with himself, “you wonder about me till you’ve made up your mind⁠—”

“I will⁠—” she said, seizing the opportunity. “I’ll wonder about you till I’ve made up my mind⁠—shall I?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s what I wish you to do. And the next time I ask you, you’ll let me know. That’s it, isn’t it?” He smiled indulgently down on her: thought her face young and charming, charming.

“Yes,” she said. “But don’t ask me too soon, will you?”

“How, too soon⁠—?” He smiled delightedly.

“You’ll give me time to wonder about you, won’t you? You won’t ask me again this month, will you?”

“This month?” His eyes beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the procrastination as much as she did. “But the month’s only just begun! However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won’t ask you again this month.”

“And I’ll promise to wonder about you all the month,” she laughed.

“That’s a bargain,” he said.

They went downstairs, and Alvina returned to her duties. She was very much excited, very much excited indeed. A big, well-to-do man in a navy blue suit, of handsome appearance, aged fifty-three, with white teeth and a delicate stomach: it was exciting. A sure position, a very nice home and lovely things in it, once they were dragged about a bit. And of course he’d adore her. That went without saying. She was as fussy as if someone had given her a lovely new pair of boots. She was really fussy and pleased with herself: and quite decided she’d take it all on. That was how it put itself to her: she would take it all on.

Of course there was the man himself to consider. But he was quite presentable. There was nothing at all against it: nothing at all. If he had pressed her during the first half of the month of August, he would almost certainly have got her. But he only beamed in anticipation.

Meanwhile the stir and restlessness of the war had begun, and was making itself felt even in Lancaster. And the excitement and the unease began to wear through Alvina’s rather glamorous fussiness. Some of her old fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had been as if asleep these months, now woke rather irritably, and chafed against its collar. Who was this elderly man, that she should marry him? Who was he, that she should be kissed by him. Actually kissed and fondled by him! Repulsive. She avoided him like the plague. Fancy reposing against his broad, navy blue waistcoat! She started as if she had been stung. Fancy seeing his red, smiling face just above hers, coming down to embrace her! She pushed it away with her open hand. And she ran away, to avoid the thought.

And yet! And yet! She would be so comfortable, she would be so well-off for the rest of her life. The hateful problem of material circumstance would be solved forever. And she knew well how hateful material circumstances can make life.

Therefore, she could not decide in a hurry. But she bore poor Dr. Mitchell a deep grudge, that he could not grant her all the advantages of his offer, and excuse her the acceptance of him himself. She dared not decide in a hurry. And this very fear, like a yoke on her, made her resent the man who drove her to decision.