The Lost Girl - D. H. Lawrence (great books to read .txt) 📗

with me?
        How'd you like to spoon with me?
                                       (Why ra-ther!)

        Underneath the oak-tree nice and shady
        Calling me your tootsey-wootsey lady?
        How'd you like to hug and squeeze,
                                       (Just try me!)

        Dandle me upon your knee,
        Calling me your little lovey-dovey—
        How'd you like to spoon with me?
                                       (Oh-h—Go on!)"

Alvina worked herself into quite a fever, with her imaginings.

In the morning she told Miss Pinnegar.

"Yes," said Miss Pinnegar, "you see me issuing tickets, don't you? Yes—well. I'm afraid he will have to do that part himself. And you're going to play the piano. It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead. He's lost every bit of shame—every bit—if he ever had any—which I doubt very much. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I am not concerned. And I'm sorry for you, for being his daughter. I'm heart sorry for you, I am. Well, well—no sense of shame—no sense of shame—"

And Miss Pinnegar padded out of the room.

Alvina walked down to Lumley and was shown the site and was introduced to Mr. May. He bowed to her in his best American fashion, and treated her with admirable American deference.

"Don't you think," he said to her, "it's an admirable scheme?"

"Wonderful," she replied.

"Of cauce," he said, "the erection will be a merely temporary one. Of cauce it won't be anything to look at: just an old wooden travelling theatre. But then—all we need is to make a start."

"And you are going to work the film?" she asked.

"Yes," he said with pride, "I spend every evening with the operator at Marsh's in Knarborough. Very interesting I find it—very interesting indeed. And you are going to play the piano?" he said, perking his head on one side and looking at her archly.

"So father says," she answered.

"But what do you say?" queried Mr. May.

"I suppose I don't have any say."

"Oh but surely. Surely you won't do it if you don't wish to. That would never do. Can't we hire some young fellow—?" And he turned to Mr. Houghton with a note of query.

"Alvina can play as well as anybody in Woodhouse," said James. "We mustn't add to our expenses. And wages in particular—"

"But surely Miss Houghton will have her wage. The labourer is worthy of his hire. Surely! Even of her hire, to put it in the feminine. And for the same wage you could get some unimportant fellow with strong wrists. I'm afraid it will tire Miss Houghton to death—"

"I don't think so," said James. "I don't think so. Many of the turns she will not need to accompany—"

"Well, if it comes to that," said Mr. May, "I can accompany some of them myself, when I'm not operating the film. I'm not an expert pianist—but I can play a little, you know—" And he trilled his fingers up and down an imaginary keyboard in front of Alvina, cocking his eye at her smiling a little archly.

"I'm sure," he continued, "I can accompany anything except a man juggling dinner-plates—and then I'd be afraid of making him drop the plates. But songs—oh, songs! Con molto espressione!"

And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, and smiled his rather fat cheeks at Alvina.

She began to like him. There was something a little dainty about him, when you knew him better—really rather fastidious. A showman, true enough! Blatant too. But fastidiously so.

He came fairly frequently to Manchester House after this. Miss Pinnegar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her. But he was very happy sitting chatting tête-à-tête with Alvina.

"Where is your wife?" said Alvina to him.

"My wife! Oh, don't speak of her," he said comically. "She's in
London."

"Why not speak of her?" asked Alvina.

"Oh, every reason for not speaking of her. We don't get on at all well, she and I."

"What a pity," said Alvina.

"Dreadful pity! But what are you to do?" He laughed comically. Then he became grave. "No," he said. "She's an impossible person."

"I see," said Alvina.

"I'm sure you don't see," said Mr. May. "Don't—" and here he laid his hand on Alvina's arm—"don't run away with the idea that she's immoral! You'd never make a greater mistake. Oh dear me, no. Morality's her strongest point. Live on three lettuce leaves, and give the rest to the char. That's her. Oh, dreadful times we had in those first years. We only lived together for three years. But dear me! how awful it was!"

"Why?"

"There was no pleasing the woman. She wouldn't eat. If I said to her 'What shall we have for supper, Grace?' as sure as anything she'd answer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to bed—that will be my supper.' She was one of these advanced vegetarian women, don't you know."

"How extraordinary!" said Alvina.

"Extraordinary! I should think so. Extraordinary hard lines on me. And she wouldn't let me eat either. She followed me to the kitchen in a fury while I cooked for myself. Why imagine! I prepared a dish of champignons: oh, most beautiful champignons, beautiful—and I put them on the stove to fry in butter: beautiful young champignons. I'm hanged if she didn't go into the kitchen while my back was turned, and pour a pint of old carrot-water into the pan. I was furious. Imagine!—beautiful fresh young champignons—"

"Fresh mushrooms," said Alvina.

"Mushrooms—most beautiful things in the world. Oh! don't you think so?" And he rolled his eyes oddly to heaven.

"They are good," said Alvina.

"I should say so. And swamped—swamped with her dirty old carrot water. Oh I was so angry. And all she could say was, 'Well, I didn't want to waste it!' Didn't want to waste her old carrot water, and so ruined my champignons. Can you imagine such a person?"

"It must have been trying."

"I should think it was. I lost weight. I lost I don't know how many pounds, the first year I was married to that woman. She hated me to eat. Why, one of her great accusations against me, at the last, was when she said: 'I've looked round the larder,' she said to me, 'and seen it was quite empty, and I thought to myself: Now he can't cook a supper! And then you did!' There! What do you think of that? The spite of it! 'And then you did!'"

"What did she expect you to live on?" asked Alvina.

"Nibble a lettuce leaf with her, and drink water from the tap—and then elevate myself with a Bernard Shaw pamphlet. That was the sort of woman she was. All it gave me was gas in the stomach."

"So overbearing!" said Alvina.

"Oh!" he turned his eyes to heaven, and spread his hands. "I didn't believe my senses. I didn't know such people existed. And her friends! Oh the dreadful friends she had—these Fabians! Oh, their eugenics. They wanted to examine my private morals, for eugenic reasons. Oh, you can't imagine such a state. Worse than the Spanish Inquisition. And I stood it for three years. How I stood it, I don't know—"

"Now don't you see her?"

"Never! I never let her know where I am! But I support her, of cauce."

"And your daughter?"

"Oh, she's the dearest child in the world. I saw her at a friend's when I came back from America. Dearest little thing in the world. But of cauce suspicious of me. Treats me as if she didn't know me—"

"What a pity!"

"Oh—unbearable!" He spread his plump, manicured hands, on one finger of which was a green intaglio ring.

"How old is your daughter?"

"Fourteen."

"What is her name?"

"Gemma. She was born in Rome, where I was managing for Miss Maud
Callum, the danseuse."

Curious the intimacy Mr. May established with Alvina at once. But it was all purely verbal, descriptive. He made no physical advances. On the contrary, he was like a dove-grey, disconsolate bird pecking the crumbs of Alvina's sympathy, and cocking his eye all the time to watch that she did not advance one step towards him. If he had seen the least sign of coming-on-ness in her, he would have fluttered off in a great dither. Nothing horrified him more than a woman who was coming-on towards him. It horrified him, it exasperated him, it made him hate the whole tribe of women: horrific two-legged cats without whiskers. If he had been a bird, his innate horror of a cat would have been such. He liked the angel, and particularly the angel-mother in woman. Oh!—that he worshipped. But coming-on-ness!

So he never wanted to be seen out-of-doors with Alvina; if he met her in the street he bowed and passed on: bowed very deep and reverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back a little more strutty and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back on her in public.

But Miss Pinnegar, a regular old, grey, dangerous she-puss, eyed him from the corner of her pale eye, as he turned tail.

"So unmanly!" she murmured. "In his dress, in his way, in everything—so unmanly."

"If I was you, Alvina," she said, "I shouldn't see so much of Mr.
May, in the drawing-room. People will talk."

"I should almost feel flattered," laughed Alvina.

"What do you mean?" snapped Miss Pinnegar.

None the less, Mr. May was dependable in matters of business. He was up at half-past five in the morning, and by seven was well on his way. He sailed like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze, hither and thither, out of Woodhouse and back again, and across from side to side. Sharp and snappy, he was, on the spot. He trussed himself up, when he was angry or displeased, and sharp, snip-snap came his words, rather like scissors.

"But how is it—" he attacked Arthur Witham—"that the gas isn't connected with the main yet? It was to be ready yesterday."

"We've had to wait for the fixings for them brackets," said Arthur.

"Had to wait for fixings! But didn't you know a fortnight ago that you'd want the fixings?"

"I thought we should have some as would do."

"Oh! you thought so! Really! Kind of you to think so. And have you just thought about those that are coming, or have you made sure?"

Arthur looked at him sullenly. He hated him. But Mr. May's sharp touch was not to be foiled.

"I hope you'll go further than thinking," said Mr. May. "Thinking seems such a slow process. And when do you expect the fittings—?"

"Tomorrow."

"What! Another day! Another day still! But you're strangely indifferent to time, in your line of business. Oh! Tomorrow! Imagine it! Two days late already, and then tomorrow! Well I hope by tomorrow you mean Wednesday, and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or some other absurd and fanciful date that you've just thought about. But now, do have the thing finished by tomorrow—" here he laid his hand cajoling on Arthur's arm. "You promise me it will all be ready by tomorrow, don't you?"

"Yes, I'll do it if anybody could do it."

"Don't say 'if anybody could do it.' Say it shall be done."

"It shall if I can possibly manage it—"

"Oh—very well then. Mind you manage it—and thank you very much.
I shall be most obliged, if it is done."

Arthur was annoyed, but he was kept to the scratch. And so, early in October the place was ready, and Woodhouse was plastered with placards announcing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could not but see an irony in the Palace part of the phrase. "We can guarantee the pleasure," he said. "But personally, I feel I can't take the responsibility for the palace."

But James, to use the vulgar expression, was in his eye-holes.

"Oh, father's in his eye-holes," said Alvina to Mr. May.

"Oh!" said Mr. May, puzzled and concerned.

But it merely meant that James was having the time of his life. He was drawing out announcements. First was a batch of vermilion strips, with the mystic script, in big black letters: Houghton's Picture Palace, underneath which, quite small: Opens at Lumley on October 7th, at 6:30 P.M. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and black bars sprang from the wall at you. Then there were other notices, in delicate pale-blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre notice, giving full programs. And beneath these a broad-letter notice announced, in green letters on a yellow ground: "Final and Ultimate Clearance Sale at Houghton's, Knarborough Road, on Friday, September 30th. Come and Buy Without Price."

James was in his eye-holes. He collected all his