The Lost Girl Part 35

She heard a hurried explanation from Louis.

"Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn't worth all my pains!" cried poor Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. "Why, Max, why didst thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but one tribe, the tribe of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirty Italian, or a dog of an Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an animal, too little _esprit_. But thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy temper is a devil's, which maybe is worse than an animal's. Ah, this Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Would we were away from it.

Will the week never pa.s.s? We shall have to find Ciccio. Without him the company is ruined--until I get a subst.i.tute. I must get a subst.i.tute.

And how?--and where?--in this country?--tell me that. I am tired of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe of Kishwe--no, never. I have had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us break up, let us part, _mes braves_, let us say adieu here in this _funeste_ Woodhouse."

"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Louis, "let us hope. Let us swear a closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwegin. Let us never part.

Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost not want to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou--"

Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside his face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May.

In a while Madame came out to them.

"Oh," she said. "You have not gone away! We are wondering which way Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey will go on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough or to Marchay?"

"Ask the policeman in the market-place," said Alvina. "He's sure to have noticed him, because Ciccio's yellow bicycle is so uncommon."

Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among themselves where Ciccio might be.

Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly.

"Ah!" said Madame. "And now how to find him, in that great town. I am afraid he will leave us without pity."

"Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes," said Louis. "They were always good friends."

They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders.

"Always good friends," he said. "Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at his cousin's in Battersea. In Knarborough, I don't know."

"How much money had he?" asked Mr. May.

Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.

"Who knows?" she said.

"These Italians," said Louis, turning to Mr. May. "They have always money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can help. They are like this--" And he made the Neapolitan gesture drawing in the air with his fingers.

"But would he abandon you all without a word?" cried Mr. May.

"Yes! Yes!" said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. "_He_ would.

He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it."

"And what point would he make for?"

"What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to his cousin--and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough money to buy land, or whatever it is."

"And so good-bye to him," said Mr. May bitterly.

"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madame, looking at Geoffrey.

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade away.

"No," he said. "I don't know. He will leave a message at Battersea, I know. But I don't know if he will go to Italy."

"And you don't know where to find him in Knarborough?" asked Mr.

May, sharply, very much on the spot.

"No--I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London."

It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May.

"Alors!" said Madame, cutting through this futility. "Go thou to Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see--and be back at the theatre for work.

Go now. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him to come out of kindness to me. Tell him."

And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride through the rain to Knarborough.

"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is a little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will remember."

Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling him away from the troupe, with which he had been a.s.sociated now for three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it.

He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them.

They gave him a welcome and a whiskey--but none of them had seen Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses.

He went the round of a.s.sociates known and unknown, of lodgings strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he went to the Italians down in the Marsh--he knew these people always ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose.

Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their way across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new tram-track.

As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead--another cyclist. He moved to his side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on the low racing machine.

"Hi Cic'--! Ciccio!" he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle.

"Ha-er-er!" he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way down the darkness.

He turned--saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round, and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey.

"Toi!" said Ciccio.

"He! Ou vas-tu?"

"He!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ciccio.

Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Coming back?" asked Geoffrey.

"Where've you been?" retorted Ciccio.

"Knarborough--looking for thee. Where have you--?"

"Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses."