Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among themselves where Ciccio might be.
Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly.
“Ah!” said Madame. “And now how to find him, in that great town. I am afraid he will leave us without pity.”
“Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes,” said Louis. “They were always good friends.”
They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Always good friends,” he said. “Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at his cousin’s in Battersea. In Knarborough, I don’t know.”
“How much money had he?” asked Mr. May.
Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.
“Who knows?” she said.
“These Italians,” said Louis, turning to Mr. May. “They have always money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can help. They are like this—” And he made the Neapolitan gesture drawing in the air with his fingers.
“But would he abandon you all without a word?” cried Mr. May.
“Yes! Yes!” said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. “He would. He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it.”
“And what point would he make for?”
“What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to his cousin—and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough money to buy land, or whatever it is.”
“And so goodbye to him,” said Mr. May bitterly.
“Geoffrey ought to know,” said Madame, looking at Geoffrey.
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade away.
“No,” he said. “I don’t know. He will leave a message at Battersea, I know. But I don’t know if he will go to Italy.”
“And you don’t know where to find him in Knarborough?” asked Mr. May, sharply, very much on the spot.
“No—I don’t. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London.” It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May.
“Alors!” said Madame, cutting through this futility. “Go thou to Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see—and be back at the theatre for work. Go now. And if thou can’st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him to come out of kindness to me. Tell him.”
And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride through the rain to Knarborough.
“They know,” said Madame. “They know each other’s places. It is a little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will remember.”
Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it.
He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them. They gave him a welcome and a whiskey—but none of them had seen Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he went to the Italians down in the Marsh—he knew these people always ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose.
Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross the new tramlines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tramcars which threaded their way across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new tram-track.
As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead—another cyclist. He moved to his side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on the low racing machine.
“Hi Cic’—! Ciccio!” he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle.
“Ha‑er‑er!” he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way down the darkness.
He turned—saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round, and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey.
“Toi!” said Ciccio.
“Hé! Où vas-tu?”
“Hé!” ejaculated Ciccio.
Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously ejaculated.
“Coming back?” asked Geoffrey.
“Where’ve you been?” retorted Ciccio.
“Knarborough—looking for thee. Where have you—?”
“Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses.”
“Come off?”
“Hé!”
“Hurt?”
“Nothing.”
“Max is all right.”
“Merde!”
“Come on, come back with me.”
“Nay.” Ciccio shook his head.
“Madame’s crying. Wants thee to come back.”
Ciccio shook his head.
“Come on, Cic’—” said Geoffrey.
Ciccio shook his head.
“Never?” said Geoffrey.
“Basta—had enough,” said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace.
“Come for a bit, and we’ll clear together.”
Ciccio again shook his head.
“What, is it adieu?”
Ciccio did not speak.
“Don’t go, comrade,” said Geoffrey.
“Faut,” said Ciccio, slightly derisive.
“Eh alors! I’d like to come with thee. What?”
“Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. Thou’rt going to Italy?”
“Who knows!—seems so.”
“I’d like to go back.”
“Eh alors!” Ciccio half veered round.
“Wait for me a few days,” said Geoffrey.
“Where?”
“See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym’s, 6 Hampden Street. Gittiventi
