Alvina! said every member of the Woodhouse “middle class”: Poor Alvina Houghton, said every collier’s wife. Poor thing, left alone—and hardly a penny to bless herself with. Lucky if she’s not left with a pile of debts. James Houghton ran through some money in his day. Ay, if she had her rights she’d be a rich woman. Why, her mother brought three or four thousands with her. Ay, but James sank it all in Throttle-Ha’penny and Klondyke and the Endeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He paid his way. I’m not so sure about that. Look how he served his wife, and now Alvina. I’m not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he’ll spend no more money, anyhow. No, he went sudden, didn’t he? But he was getting very frail, if you noticed. Oh yes, why he fair seemed to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon as that place pays its way? What, the Endeavour?—they say it does. They say it makes a nice bit. Well, it’s mostly pretty full. Ay, it is. Perhaps it won’t be now
Mr. Houghton’s gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he
will leave much. I’m sure he won’t. Everything he’s got’s mortgaged up to the hilt. He’ll leave debts, you see if he doesn’t. What is she going to do then? She’ll have to go out of Manchester House—her and Miss Pinnegar. Wonder what she’ll do. Perhaps she’ll take up that nursing. She never made much of that, did she—and spent a sight of money on her training, they say. She’s a bit like her father in the business line—all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn’t turn up and marry her. I don’t know, she doesn’t seem to hook on, does she? Why she’s never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged once. Ay, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was on. Can you remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she? No, I never knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, you know, learning for his head master’s place. Why didn’t she marry him then? Perhaps he never asked her. Ay, there’s that to it. She’d have looked down her nose at him, times gone by. Ay, but that’s all over, my boy. She’d snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that manager. Why,
that’s something awful. Haven’t you ever watched her in the Cinema? She never lets him alone. And it’s anybody alike. Oh, she doesn’t respect herself. I don’t consider. No girl who respected herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller’s head. Does she, though? Ay, any performer or anybody. She’s a tidy age, though. She’s not much chance of getting off. How old do you reckon she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she
looks it. She does beguy—a dragged old maid. Oh but she sprightles up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she’s hooked on to somebody. I wonder why she never did take? It’s funny. Oh, she was too high and mighty before, and now it’s too late. Nobody wants her. And she’s got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that’s her father’s cousin who she’s walking with. Look, they’re coming. He’s a fine-looking man, isn’t he? You’d have thought they’d have buried Miss Frost beside
Mrs. Houghton. You would, wouldn’t you? I should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her than her own mother. She
was good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvina thought the world of her. That’s her stone—look, down there. Not a very grand one, considering. No, it isn’t. Look, there’s room for Alvina’s name underneath. Sh!—
Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the many faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her—how she disliked his presence.
In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and her father. She felt so desolate—it all seemed so empty. Bitterly she cried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying started Miss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather horrible. The afterwards—the horrible afterwards.
There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the open grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black sealskin furs were not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother—and for Miss Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would have to part. Miss Pinnegar had been so fond of her father, in a quaint, reserved way. Poor Miss Pinnegar, that was all life had offered her. Well, after all, it had been a home and a home life. To which home and home life Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning, knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was gone. Strange, that he was gone. But he was weary, worn very thin and weary. He had lived his day. How different it all was, now, at his death, from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and learn and lose.
For one moment she looked at Madame, who was shuddering with cold, her face hidden behind her black spotted veil. But Madame seemed immensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio—what was his name?
