“And I can hardly bear it that I love you so much,” she said, quavering, across the potatoes.
He glanced furtively round, to see if anyone was listening, if anyone might hear. He would have hated it. But no one was near. Beneath the tiny table, he took her two knees between his knees, and pressed them with a slow, immensely powerful pressure. Helplessly she put her hand across the table to him. He covered it for one moment with his hand, then ignored it. But her knees were still between the powerful, living vice of his knees.
“Eat!” he said to her, smiling, motioning to her plate. And he relaxed her.
They decided to go out to Woodhouse on the tramcar, a long hour’s ride. Sitting on the top of the covered car, in the atmosphere of strong tobacco smoke, he seemed self-conscious, withdrawn into his own cover, so obviously a dark-skinned foreigner. And Alvina, as she sat beside him, was reminded of the woman with the negro husband, down in Lumley. She understood the woman’s reserve. She herself felt, in the same way, something of an outcast, because of the man at her side. An outcast! And glad to be an outcast. She clung to Ciccio’s dark, despised foreign nature. She loved it, she worshipped it, she defied all the other world. Dark, he sat beside her, drawn in to himself, overcast by his presumed inferiority among these northern industrial people. And she was with him, on his side, outside the pale of her own people.
There were already acquaintances on the tram. She nodded in answer to their salutation, but so obviously from a distance, that they kept turning round to eye her and Ciccio. But they left her alone. The breach between her and them was established forever—and it was her will which established it.
So up and down the weary hills of the hilly, industrial countryside, till at last they drew near to Woodhouse. They passed the ruins of Throttle-Ha’penny, and Alvina glanced at it indifferent. They ran along the Knarborough Road. A fair number of Woodhouse young people were strolling along the pavements in their Sunday clothes. She knew them all. She knew Lizzie Bates’s fox furs, and Fanny Clough’s lilac costume, and Mrs. Smitham’s winged hat. She knew them all. And almost inevitably the old Woodhouse feeling began to steal over her, she was glad they could not see her, she was a little ashamed of Ciccio. She wished, for the moment, Ciccio were not there. And as the time came to get down, she looked anxiously back and forth to see at which halt she had better descend—where fewer people would notice her. But then she threw her scruples to the wind, and descended into the staring, Sunday afternoon street, attended by Ciccio, who carried her bag. She knew she was a marked figure.
They slipped round to Manchester House. Miss Pinnegar expected Alvina, but by the train, which came later. So she had to be knocked up, for she was lying down. She opened the door looking a little patched in her cheeks, because of her curious colouring, and a little forlorn, and a little dumpy, and a little irritable.
“I didn’t know there’d be two of you,” was her greeting.
“Didn’t you,” said Alvina, kissing her. “Ciccio came to carry my bag.”
“Oh,” said Miss Pinnegar. “How do you do?” and she thrust out her hand to him. He shook it loosely.
“I had your wire,” said Miss Pinnegar. “You said the train. Mrs. Rollings is coming in at four again—”
“Oh all right—” said Alvina.
The house was silent and afternoon-like. Ciccio took off his coat and sat down in Mr. Houghton’s chair. Alvina told him to smoke. He kept silent and reserved. Miss Pinnegar, a poor, patch-cheeked, rather round-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she did not quite know what to say or do.
She followed Alvina upstairs to her room.
“I can’t think why you bring him here,” snapped Miss Pinnegar. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about. The whole place is talking already.”
“I don’t care,” said Alvina. “I like him.”
“Oh—for shame!” cried Miss Pinnegar, lifting her hand with Miss Frost’s helpless, involuntary movement. “What do you think of yourself? And your father a month dead.”
“It doesn’t matter. Father is dead. And I’m sure the dead don’t mind.”
“I never knew such things as you say.”
“Why? I mean them.”
Miss Pinnegar stood blank and helpless.
“You’re not asking him to stay the night,” she blurted.
“Yes. And I’m going back with him to Madame tomorrow. You know I’m part of the company now, as pianist.”
“And are you going to marry him?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you say you don’t know! Why, it’s awful. You make me feel I shall go out of my mind.”
“But I don’t know,” said Alvina.
“It’s incredible! Simply incredible! I believe you’re out of your senses. I used to think sometimes there was something wrong with your mother. And that’s what it is with you. You’re not quite right in your mind. You need to be looked after.”
“Do I, Miss Pinnegar! Ah, well, don’t you trouble to look after me, will you?”
“No one will if I don’t.”
“I hope no one will.”
There was a pause.
“I’m ashamed to live another day in Woodhouse,” said Miss Pinnegar.
“I’m leaving it forever,” said Alvina.
“I should think so,” said Miss Pinnegar.
Suddenly she sank into a chair, and burst into tears, wailing:
“Your poor father! Your poor father!”
“I’m sure the dead are all right. Why must you pity him?”
“You’re a lost girl!” cried Miss Pinnegar.
“Am I really?” laughed Alvina. It sounded funny.
“Yes, you’re a lost girl,” sobbed Miss Pinnegar, on a final note of despair.
“I like being lost,” said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled and forlorn. Alvina went to her and laid her hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t fret, Miss Pinnegar,” she said. “Don’t be silly. I love to be with Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the end I shall marry him. But if I don’t—” her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnegar’s heavy arm
