The Lost Girl Part 30

"Let us go," said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance. "Let us go and rehea.r.s.e _this morning_, and let us do the procession this afternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. There! What?

Isn't that exactly the idea? Well! Will you be ready at once, _now_?"

He looked excitedly at the young men. They nodded with slow gravity, as if they were already _braves_. And they turned to put on their boots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lumley, Mr. May prancing like a little circus-pony beside Alvina, the four young men rolling ahead.

"What do you think of it?" cried Mr. May. "We've saved the situation--what? Don't you think so? Don't you think we can congratulate ourselves."

They found Mr. Houghton fussing about in the theatre. He was on tenterhooks of agitation, knowing Madame was ill.

Max gave a brilliant display of yodelling.

"But I must _explain_ to them," cried Mr. May. "I must _explain_ to them what yodel means."

And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth his hand.

"In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciers reign over luscious meadows full of flowers, if you should chance to awaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm amid the mountain pastures, you--er--you--let me see--if you--no--if you should chance to _spend the night_ in some lonely wooden farm, amid the upland pastures, dawn will awake you with a wild, inhuman song, you will open your eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams, your ears will be ringing with weird singing, that has no words and no meaning, but sounds as if some wild and icy G.o.d were warbling to himself as he wandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth across the flowers to the blue snow, and you see, far off, a small figure of a man moving among the gra.s.s. It is a peasant singing his mountain song, warbling like some creature that lifted up its voice on the edge of the eternal snows, before the human race began--"

During this oration James Houghton sat with his chin in his hand, devoured with bitter jealousy, measuring Mr. May's eloquence. And then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now in Tyrolese costume, white s.h.i.+rt and green, square braces, short trousers of chamois leather st.i.tched with green and red, firm-planted naked knees, naked ankles and heavy shoes, warbled his native Yodel strains, a piercing and disturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen tempered and fierce and mountainous. There was a fierce, icy pa.s.sion in the man.

Alvina began to understand Madame's subjection to him.

Louis and Geoffrey did a farce dialogue, two foreigners at the same moment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other and protesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Ciccio, who stood solid and ridiculous. Mr. Houghton nodded slowly and gravely, as if to give his measured approval.

Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practised the music Madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, she welcomed the accompaniment: if not, she dispensed with it.

"Am I all right?" said a smirking voice.

And there was Kishwegin, dusky, coy, with long black hair and a short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: _so_ coy, and _so_ smirking. Alvina burst out laughing.

"But shan't I do?" protested Mr. May, hurt.

"Yes, you're wonderful," said Alvina, choking. "But I _must_ laugh."

"But why? Tell me why?" asked Mr. May anxiously. "Is it my _appearance_ you laugh at, or is it only _me_? If it's me I don't mind. But if it's my appearance, tell me so."

Here an appalling figure of Ciccio in war-paint strolled on to the stage. He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, was dusky-red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle's feathers--only two feathers--and a face wonderfully and terribly painted with white, red, yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with himself. His curious soft slouch, and curious way of lifting his lip from his white teeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing.

"You haven't got the girdle," he said, touching Mr. May's plump waist--"and some flowers in your hair."

Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. A bear on its hind legs, slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretching a paw towards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a laugh came from its muzzle.

"You won't have to dance," said Geoffrey out of the bear.

"Come and put in the flowers," said Mr. May anxiously, to Alvina.

In the dressing-room, the dividing-curtain was drawn. Max, in deerskin trousers but with unpainted torso looked very white and strange as he put the last touches of war-paint on Louis' face. He glanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a sort of n.o.bility about his erect white form and stiffly-carried head, the semi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior.

Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr. May. Louis arose, a _brave_ like Ciccio, in war-paint even more hideous. Max slipped on a tattered hunting-s.h.i.+rt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened. He was the white prisoner.

They arranged the scenery, while Alvina watched. It was soon done. A back cloth of tree-trunks and dark forest: a wigwam, a fire, and a cradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain to dissociate the two _braves_ from their war-paint. The lines were drawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and horrible, so that even in the quiet work of scene-s.h.i.+fting Louis'

stiffish, female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst Ciccio's more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him for one single moment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel, underneath their civilization.

The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwegin alone at the door of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional push to the hanging cradle, and, if only Madame were taking the part, crooning an Indian cradle-song. Enter the _brave_ Louis with his white prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side. Kishwegin gravely salutes her husband--the bound prisoner is seated by the fire--Kishwegin serves food, and asks permission to feed the prisoner. The _brave_ Louis, hearing a sound, starts up with his bow and arrow. There is a dumb scene of sympathy between Kishwegin and the prisoner--the prisoner wants his bonds cut. Re-enter the _brave_ Louis--he is angry with Kishwegin--enter the _brave_ Ciccio hauling a bear, apparently dead. Kishwegin examines the bear, Ciccio examines the prisoner. Ciccio tortures the prisoner, makes him stand, makes him caper unwillingly. Kishwegin swings the cradle. The prisoner is tripped up--falls, and cannot rise. He lies near the fallen bear. Kishwegin carries food to Ciccio. The two _braves_ converse in dumb show, Kishwegin swings the cradle and croons. The men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there is a m.u.f.fled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and at the same moment the bear strikes him down. Ciccio springs forward and stabs the bear, then closes with it. Kishwegin runs and cuts the prisoner's bonds. He rises, and stands trying to lift his numbed and powerless arms, while the bear slowly crushes Ciccio, and Kishwegin kneels over her husband. The bear drops Ciccio lifeless, and turns to Kishwegin. At that moment Max manages to kill the bear--he takes Kishwegin by the hand and kneels with her beside the dead Louis.

It was wonderful how well the men played their different parts. But Mr. May was a little too frisky as Kishwegin. However, it would do.

Ciccio got dressed as soon as possible, to go and look at the horses hired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him, Mr. May and the others were busy.

"You know I think it's quite wonderful, your scene," she said to Ciccio.

He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky-set eyes rested on her good-naturedly, without seeing her, his lip curled in a self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile.

"Not without Madame," he said, with the slow, half-sneering, stupid smile. "Without Madame--" he lifted his shoulders and spread his hands and tilted his brows--"fool's play, you know."

"No," said Alvina. "I think Mr. May is good, considering. What does Madame _do_?" she asked a little jealously.

"Do?" He looked down at her with the same long, half-sardonic look of his yellow eyes, like a cat looking casually at a bird which flutters past. And again he made his shrugging motion. "She does it all, really. The others--they are nothing--what they are Madame has made them. And now they think they've done it all, you see. You see, that's it."

"But how has Madame made it all? Thought it out, you mean?"

"Thought it out, yes. And then _done_ it. You should see her dance--ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand--" And Ciccio stood still in the street, with his hat c.o.c.ked a little on one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance, and all the time his lips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little a.s.sertive shake of his head, finis.h.i.+ng, there came a great yell of laughter from the opposite pavement, where a gang of pottery la.s.ses, in ap.r.o.ns all spattered with grey clay, and hair and boots and skin spattered with pallid spots, had stood to watch. The girls opposite shrieked again, for all the world like a gang of grey baboons.

Ciccio turned round and looked at them with a sneer along his nose.

They yelled the louder. And he was horribly uncomfortable, walking there beside Alvina with his rather small and effeminately-shod feet.

"How stupid they are," said Alvina. "I've got used to them."

"They should be--" he lifted his hand with a sharp, vicious movement--"_smacked_," he concluded, lowering his hand again.

"Who is going to do it?" said Alvina.

He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand outspread in the air, as if to say: "There you are! You've got to thank the fools who've failed to do it."

"Why do you all love Madame so much?" Alvina asked.

"How, love?" he said, making a little grimace. "We like her--we love her--as if she were a mother. You say _love_--" He raised his shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways, and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a great instinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture.

For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech.

Gesture and grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things, if you would but accept them.

But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She could hear Mr. May's verdict of him: "Like a child, you know, just as charming and just as tiresome and just as stupid."

"Where is your home?" she asked him.

"In Italy." She felt a fool.

"Which part?" she insisted.

"Naples," he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly.

"It must be lovely," she said.