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
week-end, 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 boarding-house 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 it was all so sweet and
lovely—perfect liberty, pure, almost paradisal.
The fourth day it rained: simply rained all day long, and was cold,
dismal, disheartening beyond words. There she sat, stranded in the
dismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o’clock,
having decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in the
war-hospitals at once: not to leave off until she had found it.
But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fiancé, was with
her on the quay of some harbour, and was reproaching her bitterly, even
reviling her, for having come too late, so that they had missed their
ship. They were there to catch the boat—and she, for dilatoriness, was
an hour late, and she could see the broad stern of the steamer not far
off. Just an hour late. She showed Alexander her watch—exactly ten
o’clock, instead of nine. And he was more angry than ever, because her
watch was slow. He pointed to the harbour clock—it was ten minutes past
ten.
When she woke up she was thinking of Alexander. It was such a long time
since she had thought of him. She wondered if he had a right to be
angry with her.
The day was still grey, with sweepy rain-clouds on the sea—gruesome,
objectionable. It was a prolongation of yesterday. Well, despair was no
good, and being miserable was no good either. She got no satisfaction
out of either mood. The only thing to do was to act: seize hold of life
and wring its neck.
She took the time-table that hung in the hall: the time-table, that
magic carpet of today. When in doubt, _move_. This was the maxim. Move.
Where to?
Another click of a resolution. She would wire to Ciccio and meet
him—where? York—Leeds—Halifax—? She looked up the places in the
time-table, and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram, that she
would be at Leeds that evening. Would he get it in time? Chance it.
She hurried off and sent the telegram. Then she took a little luggage,
told the people of her house she would be back next day, and set off.
She did not like whirling in the direction of Lancaster. But no matter.
She waited a long time for the train from the north to come in. The
first person she saw was Tommy. He waved to her and jumped from the
moving train.
“I say!” he said. “So glad to see you! Ciccio is with me. Effie
insisted on my coming to see you.”
There was Ciccio climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant! This
was too much for her.
“So you came with your valet?” she said, as Ciccio stood with the bag.
“Not a bit,” said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man’s shoulder.
“We’re the best of friends. I don’t carry bags because my heart is
rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you better in
uniform. Black doesn’t suit you. You don’t _mind_—”
“Yes, I do. But I’ve only got black clothes, except uniforms.”
“Well look here now—! You’re not going on anywhere tonight, are you?”
“It is too late.”
“Well now, let’s turn into the hotel and have a talk. I’m acting under
Effie’s orders, as you may gather—”
At the hotel Tommy gave her a letter from his wife: to the tune
of—don’t marry this Italian, you’ll put yourself in a wretched hole,
and one wants to avoid getting into holes. _I know_—concluded Effie, on
a sinister note.
Tommy sang another tune. Ciccio was a lovely chap, a rare chap, a
treat. He, Tommy, could quite understand any woman’s wanting to marry
him—didn’t agree a bit with Effie. But marriage, you know, was so
final. And then with this war on: you never knew how things might turn
out: a foreigner and all that. And then—you won’t mind what I say—? We
won’t talk about class and that rot. If the man’s good enough, he’s
good enough by himself. But is he your intellectual equal, nurse? After
all, it’s a big point. You don’t want to marry a man you can’t talk to.
Ciccio’s a treat to be with, because he’s so natural. But it isn’t a
_mental_ treat—
Alvina thought of Mrs. Tuke, who complained that Tommy talked music and
pseudo-philosophy _by the hour_ when he was wound up. She saw Effie’s
long, outstretched arm of repudiation and weariness.
“Of course!”—another of Mrs. Tuke’s exclamations. “Why not _be_
atavistic if you _can_ be, and follow at a man’s heel just because he’s
a man. Be like barbarous women, a slave.”
During all this, Ciccio stayed out of the room, as bidden. It was not
till Alvina sat before her mirror that he opened her door softly, and
entered.
“I come in,” he said, and he closed the door.
Alvina remained with her hair-brush suspended, watching him. He came to
her, smiling softly, to take her in his arms. But she put the chair
between them.
“Why did you bring Mr. Tuke?” she said.
He lifted his shoulders.
“I haven’t brought him,” he said, watching her.
“Why did you show him the telegram?”
“It was Mrs. Tuke took it.”
“Why did you give it her?”
“It was she who gave it me, in her room. She kept it in her room till I
came and took it.”
“All right,” said Alvina. “Go back to the Tukes.” And she began again
to brush her hair.
Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes.
“What you mean?” he said. “I shan’t go, Allaye. You come with me.”
“Ha!” she sniffed scornfully. “I shall go where I like.”
But slowly he shook his head.
“You’ll come, Allaye,” he said. “You come with me, with Ciccio.”
She shuddered at the soft, plaintive entreaty.
“How can I go with you? How can I depend on you at all?”
Again he shook his head. His eyes had a curious yellow fire,
beseeching, plaintive, with a demon quality of yearning compulsion.
“Yes, you come with me, Allaye. You come with me, to Italy. You don’t
go to that other man. He is too old, not healthy. You come with me to
Italy. Why do you send a telegram?”
Alvina sat down and covered her face, trembling.
“I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!” she moaned. “I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you come with me. I have money. You come with me, to my place in
the mountains, to my uncle’s house. Fine house, you like it. Come with
me, Allaye.”
She could not look at him.
“Why do you want me?” she said.
“Why I want you?” He gave a curious laugh, almost of ridicule. “I don’t
know that. You ask me another, eh?”
She was silent, sitting looking downwards.
“I can’t, I think,” she said abstractedly, looking up at him.
He smiled, a fine, subtle smile, like a demon’s, but inexpressibly
gentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he was
reaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could she recoil.
“You come, Allaye,” he said softly, with his foreign intonation. “You
come. You come to Italy with me. Yes?” He put his hand on her, and she
started as if she had been struck. But his hands, with the soft,
powerful clasp, only closed her faster.
“Yes?” he said. “Yes? All right, eh? All right!”—he had a strange
mesmeric power over her, as if he possessed the sensual secrets, and
she was to be subjected.
“I can’t,” she moaned, trying to struggle. But she was powerless.
Dark and insidious he was: he had no regard for her. How could a man’s
movements be so soft and gentle, and yet so inhumanly regardless! He
had no regard for her. Why didn’t she revolt? Why couldn’t she? She was
as if bewitched. She couldn’t fight against her bewitchment. Why?
Because he seemed to her beautiful, so beautiful. And this left her
numb, submissive. Why must she see him beautiful? Why was she
will-less? She felt herself like one of the old sacred prostitutes: a
sacred prostitute.
In the morning, very early, they left for Scarborough, leaving a letter
for the sleeping Tommy. In Scarborough they went to the registrar’s
office: they could be married in a fortnight’s time. And so the
fortnight passed, and she was under his spell. Only she knew it. She
felt extinguished. Ciccio talked to her: but only ordinary things.
There was no wonderful intimacy of speech, such as she had always
imagined, and always craved for. No. He loved her—but it was in a dark,
mesmeric way, which did not let her be herself. His love did not
stimulate her or excite her. It extinguished her. She had to be the
quiescent, obscure woman: she felt as if she were veiled. Her thoughts
were dim, in the dim back regions of consciousness—yet, somewhere, she
almost exulted. Atavism! Mrs. Tuke’s word would play in her mind. Was
it atavism, this sinking into extinction under the spell of Ciccio? Was
it atavism, this strange, sleep-like submission to his being? Perhaps
it was. Perhaps it was. But it was also heavy and sweet and rich.
Somewhere, she was content. Somewhere even she was vastly proud of the
dark veiled eternal loneliness she felt, under his shadow.
And so it had to be. She shuddered when she touched him, because he was
so beautiful, and she was so submitted. She quivered when he moved as
if she were his shadow. Yet her mind remained distantly clear. She
would criticize him, find fault with him, the things he did. But
_ultimately_ she could find no fault with him. She had lost the power.
She didn’t care. She had lost the power to care about his faults.
Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference! She was drugged. And she knew
it. Would she ever wake out of her dark, warm coma? She shuddered, and
hoped not. Mrs. Tuke would say atavism. Atavism! The word recurred
curiously.
But under all her questionings she felt well; a nonchalance deep as
sleep, a passivity and indifference so dark and sweet she felt it must
be evil. Evil! She was evil. And yet she had no power to be otherwise.
They were legally married. And she was glad. She was relieved by
knowing she could not escape. She was Mrs. Marasca. What was the good
of trying to be Miss Houghton any longer? Marasca, the bitter cherry.
Some dark poison fruit she had eaten. How glad she was she had eaten
it! How beautiful he was! And no one saw it but herself. For her it was
so potent it made her tremble when she noticed him. His beauty, his
dark shadow. Ciccio really was much handsomer since his marriage. He
seemed to emerge. Before, he had seemed to make himself invisible in
the streets, in England, altogether. But now something unfolded in him,
he was a potent, glamorous presence, people turned to watch him. There
was a certain dark, leopard-like pride in the air about him, something
that the English people watched.
He wanted to go to Italy. And now it was _his_ will which counted.
Alvina, as his wife, must submit. He took her to London the day after
the marriage. He wanted to get away to Italy. He did not like being in
England, a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spy craze.
In London they stayed at his cousin’s house. His cousin kept a
restaurant in Battersea, and was a flourishing London Italian, a real
London product with all the good English virtues of cleanliness and
honesty added to an Italian shrewdness. His name was Giuseppe Califano,
and he was pale, and he had four children of whom he was very proud. He
received Alvina with an affable respect, as if she were an asset in the
family, but as if he were a little uneasy and disapproving. She had
_come down_, in marrying Ciccio. She had lost caste. He rather seemed
to exult over her degradation. For he was a northernized Italian, he
had accepted English standards. His children were English brats. He
almost patronized Alvina.
But then a long, slow look from her remote blue eyes brought him up
sharp, and he envied Ciccio suddenly, he was almost in love with her
himself. She disturbed him. She disturbed him in his new English aplomb
of a London _restaurateur_, and she disturbed in him the old Italian
dark soul, to which he was renegade. He tried treating her as an
English lady. But the slow, remote look in her eyes made this fall
flat. He had to be Italian.
And he was jealous of Ciccio. In Ciccio’s face was a lurking smile, and
round his fine nose there seemed a subtle, semi-defiant triumph. After
all, he had triumphed over his well-to-do, Anglicized cousin. With a
stealthy, leopard-like pride Ciccio went through the streets of London
in those wild early days of war. He was the one victor, arching
stealthily over the vanquished north.
Alvina saw nothing of all these complexities. For the time being, she
was all dark and potent. Things were curious to her. It was curious to
be in Battersea, in this English-Italian household, where the children
spoke English more readily than Italian. It was strange to be high over
the restaurant, to see the trees of the park, to hear the clang of
trams. It was strange to walk out and come to the river. It was strange
to feel the seethe of war and dread in the air. But she did not
question. She seemed steeped in the passional influence of the man, as
in some narcotic. She even forgot Mrs. Tuke’s atavism. Vague and
unquestioning she went through the days, she accompanied Ciccio into
town, she went with him to make purchases, or she sat by his side in
the music hall, or she stayed in her room and sewed, or she sat at
meals with the Califanos, a vague brightness on her face. And Mrs.
Califano was very nice to her, very gentle, though with a suspicion of
malicious triumph, mockery, beneath her gentleness. Still, she was nice
and womanly, hovering as she was between her English emancipation and
her Italian subordination. She half pitied Alvina, and was more than
half jealous of her.
Alvina was aware of nothing—only of the presence of Ciccio. It was his
physical presence which cast a spell over her. She lived within his
aura. And she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark nature
over her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly within his
presence, quivering within his influence, as if his blood beat in her.
She _knew_ she was subjected. One tiny corner of her knew, and watched.
He was very happy, and his face had a real beauty. His eyes glowed with
lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, happy wild creature
seen remote under a bush. And he was very good to her. His tenderness
made her quiver into a swoon of complete self-forgetfulness, as if the
flood-gates of her depths opened. The depth of his warm, mindless,
enveloping love was immeasurable. She felt she could sink forever into
his warm, pulsating embrace.
Afterwards, later on, when she was inclined to criticize him, she would
remember the moment when she saw his face at the Italian Consulate in
London. There were many people at the Consulate, clamouring for
passports—a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They had waited their turn
and got inside—Ciccio was not good at pushing his way. And inside a
courteous tall old man with a white beard had lifted the flap for
Alvina to go inside the office and sit down to fill in the form. She
thanked the old man, who bowed as if he had a reputation to keep up.
Ciccio followed, and it was he who had to sit down and fill up the
form, because she did not understand the Italian questions. She stood
at his side, watching the excited, laughing, noisy, east-end Italians
at the desk. The whole place had a certain free-and-easy confusion, a
human, unofficial, muddling liveliness which was not quite like
England, even though it was in the middle of London.
“What was your mother’s name?” Ciccio was asking her. She turned to
him. He sat with the pen perched flourishingly at the end of his
fingers, suspended in the serious and artistic business of filling in a
form. And his face had a dark luminousness, like a dark transparence
which was shut and has now expanded. She quivered, as if it was more
than she could bear. For his face was open like a flower right to the
depths of his soul, a dark, lovely translucency, vulnerable to the deep
quick of his soul. The lovely, rich darkness of his southern nature, so
different from her own, exposing itself now in its passional
vulnerability, made her go white with a kind of fear. For an instant,
her face seemed drawn and old as she looked down at him, answering his
questions. Then her eyes became sightless with tears, she stooped as if
to look at his writing, and quickly kissed his fingers that held the
pen, there in the midst of the crowded, vulgar Consulate.
He stayed suspended, again looking up at her with the bright, unfolded
eyes of a wild creature which plays and is not seen. A faint smile,
very beautiful to her, was on his face. What did he see when he looked
at her? She did not know, she did not know. And she would never know.
For an instant, she swore inside herself that God Himself should not
take her away from this man. She would commit herself to him through
every eternity. And then the vagueness came over her again, she turned
aside, photographically seeing the crowd in the Consulate, but really
unconscious. His movement as he rose seemed to move her in her sleep,
she turned to him at once.
It was early in November before they could leave for Italy, and her
dim, lustrous state lasted all the time. She found herself at Charing
Cross in the early morning, in all the bustle of catching the
Continental train. Giuseppe was there, and Gemma his wife, and two of
the children, besides three other Italian friends of Ciccio. They all
crowded up the platform. Giuseppe had insisted that Ciccio should take
second-class tickets. They were very early. Alvina and Ciccio were
installed in a second-class compartment, with all their packages,
Ciccio was pale, yellowish under his tawny skin, and nervous. He stood
excitedly on the platform talking in Italian—or rather, in his own
dialect—whilst Alvina sat quite still in her corner. Sometimes one of
the women or one of the children came to say a few words to her, or
Giuseppe hurried to her with illustrated papers. They treated her as if
she were some sort of invalid or angel, now she was leaving. But most
of their attention they gave to Ciccio, talking at him rapidly all at
once, whilst he answered, and glanced in this way and that, under his
fine lashes, and smiled his old, nervous, meaningless smile. He was
curiously upset.
Time came to shut the doors. The women and children kissed Alvina,
saying:
“You’ll be all right, eh? Going to Italy—!” And then profound and
meaningful nods, which she could not interpret, but which were fraught
surely with good-fellowship.
Then they all kissed Ciccio. The men took him in their arms and kissed
him on either cheek, the children lifted their faces in eager
anticipation of the double kiss. Strange, how eager they were for this
embrace—how they all kept taking Ciccio’s hand, one after the other,
whilst he smiled constrainedly and nervously.