She found Mrs. Tuke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets, and crying: “No, Tommy dear. I’m awfully fond of you, you know I am. But go away. Oh God, go away. And put a space between us. Put a space between us!” she almost shrieked.
He pushed up his hair. He had been working on a big choral work which he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented.
“Can’t you stand my presence!” he shouted, and dashed downstairs.
“Nurse!” cried Effie. “It’s no use trying to get a grip on life. You’re just at the mercy of Forces,” she shrieked angrily.
“Why not?” said Alvina. “There are good life-forces. Even the will of God is a life-force.”
“You don’t understand! I want to be myself. And I’m not myself. I’m just torn to pieces by Forces. It’s horrible—”
“Well, it’s not my fault. I didn’t make the universe,” said Alvina. “If you have to be torn to pieces by forces, well, you have. Other forces will put you together again.”
“I don’t want them to. I want to be myself. I don’t want to be nailed together like a chair, with a hammer. I want to be myself.”
“You won’t be nailed together like a chair. You should have faith in life.”
“But I hate life. It’s nothing but a mass of forces. I am intelligent. Life isn’t intelligent. Look at it at this moment. Do you call this intelligent? Oh—Oh! It’s horrible! Oh—!” She was wild and sweating with her pains. Tommy flounced out downstairs, beside himself. He was heard talking to someone in the moonlight outside. To Ciccio. He had already telephoned wildly for the doctor. But the doctor had replied that Nurse would ring him up.
The moment Mrs. Tuke recovered her breath she began again.
“I hate life, and faith, and such things. Faith is only fear. And life is a mass of unintelligent forces to which intelligent beings are submitted. Prostituted. Oh—oh!!—prostituted—”
“Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence,” said Alvina.
“Bigger than intelligence!” shrieked Effie. “Nothing is bigger than intelligence. Your man is a hefty brute. His yellow eyes aren’t intelligent. They’re animal—”
“No,” said Alvina. “Something else. I wish he didn’t attract me—”
“There! Because you’re not content to be at the mercy of Forces!” cried Effie. “I’m not. I’m not. I want to be myself. And so forces tear me to pieces! Tear me to pie—eee—Oh‑h‑h! No!—”
Downstairs Tommy had walked Ciccio back into the house again, and the two men were drinking port in the study, discussing Italy, for which Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated all Italian music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all through the night, Tommy being strictly forbidden to interfere upstairs, or even to fetch the doctor. They drank three and a half bottles of port, and were discovered in the morning by Alvina fast asleep in the study, with the electric light still burning. Tommy slept with his fair and ruffled head hanging over the edge of the couch like some great loose fruit, Ciccio was on the floor, face downwards, his face in his folded arms.
Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the inert Ciccio. In the end, she had to leave him and rouse Tommy first: who in rousing fell off the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably. So that he turned on Alvina in a fury, and asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. In answer to which Alvina held up a finger warningly, and Tommy, suddenly remembering, fell back as if he had been struck.
“She is sleeping now,” said Alvina.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” he cried.
“It isn’t born yet,” she said.
“Oh God, it’s an accursed fugue!” cried the bemused Tommy. After which they proceeded to wake Ciccio, who was like the dead doll in Petrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he smiled at Alvina, and said: “Allaye!”
The dark, waking smile upset her badly.
XIII
The Wedded Wife
The upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough without telling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for a weekend, to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage was presumably with Dr. Mitchell—though she had given him no definite word. However, her month’s notice was up, so she was legally free. And therefore she packed a rather large bag with all her ordinary things, and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the nursing paraphernalia behind.
She knew Scarborough quite well: and quite quickly found rooms which she had occupied before, in a boardinghouse where she had stayed with Miss Frost long ago. Having recovered from her journey, she went out on to the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the sea was before her. What was she to do?
She had run away from both men—from Ciccio as well as from Mitchell. She had spent the last fortnight more or less avoiding the pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free from Mrs. Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men. Mrs. Tuke had a baby daughter, and was getting well. Ciccio was living with the Tukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him, and had half engaged him as a sort of personal attendant: the sort of thing Tommy would do, not having paid his butcher’s bills.
So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sick of being badgered about. She didn’t really want to marry anybody. Why should she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself. How sick she was of other people and their importunities! What was she to do? She decided to offer herself again, in a little while, for war service—in a new town this time. Meanwhile she wanted to be by herself.
She made excursions, she walked on the moors, in the brief but lovely days of early October. For three days
