The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence (top 10 novels to read txt) 📖

the sash. It was a lovely moonlight night of September. Below lay the little front garden, with its short drive and its iron gates that closed on the high-road. From the shadow of the high-road came the noise of the mandoline.

"Hello, Tommy!" called Mrs. Tuke to her husband, whom she saw on the drive below her. "How's your musical ear—?"

"All right. Doesn't it disturb you?" came the man's voice from the moonlight below.

"Not a bit. I like it. I'm waiting for the voice. 'O Richard, O mon roi!'—"

But the music had stopped.

"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke. "You've frightened him off! And we're dying to be serenaded, aren't we, nurse?" She turned to Alvina. "Do give me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won't you open the other window and look out there—?"

Alvina went to the second window. She stood looking out.

"Do play again!" Mrs. Tuke called into the night. "Do sing something." And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose that hung in the moonlight from the wall, and with a flash of her white arm she flung it toward the garden wall—ineffectually, of course.

"Won't you play again?" she called into the night, to the unseen.
"Tommy, go indoors, the bird won't sing when you're about."

"It's an Italian by the sound of him. Nothing I hate more than emotional Italian music. Perfectly nauseating."

"Never mind, dear. I know it sounds as if all their insides were coming out of their mouth. But we want to be serenaded, don't we, nurse?—"

Alvina stood at her window, but did not answer.

"Ah-h?" came the odd query from Mrs. Tuke. "Don't you like it?"

"Yes," said Alvina. "Very much."

"And aren't you dying for the song?"

"Quite."

"There!" cried Mrs. Tuke, into the moonlight. "Una canzone bella-bella—molto bella—"

She pronounced her syllables one by one, calling into the night. It sounded comical. There came a rude laugh from the drive below.

"Go indoors, Tommy! He won't sing if you're there. Nothing will sing if you're there," called the young woman.

They heard a footstep on the gravel, and then the slam of the hall door.

"Now!" cried Mrs. Tuke.

They waited. And sure enough, came the fine tinkle of the mandoline, and after a few moments, the song. It was one of the well-known Neapolitan songs, and Ciccio sang it as it should be sung.

Mrs. Tuke went across to Alvina.

"Doesn't he put his bowels into it—?" she said, laying her hand on her own full figure, and rolling her eyes mockingly. "I'm sure it's more effective than senna-pods."

Then she returned to her own window, huddled her furs over her breast, and rested her white elbows in the moonlight.

       "Torn' a Surrientu
        Fammi campar—"

The song suddenly ended, in a clamorous, animal sort of yearning. Mrs. Tuke was quite still, resting her chin on her fingers. Alvina also was still. Then Mrs. Tuke slowly reached for the rose-buds on the old wall.

"Molto bella!" she cried, half ironically. "Molto bella! Je vous envoie une rose—" And she threw the roses out on to the drive. A man's figure was seen hovering outside the gate, on the high-road. "Entrez!" called Mrs. Tuke. "Entrez! Prenez votre rose. Come in and take your rose."

The man's voice called something from the distance.

"What?" cried Mrs. Tuke.

"Je ne peux pas entrer."

"Vous ne pouvez pas entrer? Pourquoi alors! La porte n'est pas fermée à clef. Entrez donc!"

"Non. On n'entre pas—" called the well-known voice of Ciccio.

"Quoi faire, alors! Alvina, take him the rose to the gate, will you?
Yes do! Their singing is horrible, I think. I can't go down to him.
But do take him the roses, and see what he looks like. Yes do!" Mrs.
Tuke's eyes were arched and excited. Alvina looked at her slowly.
Alvina also was smiling to herself.

She went slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. From a bush at the side she pulled two sweet-smelling roses. Then in the drive she picked up Effie's flowers. Ciccio was standing outside the gate.

"Allaye!" he said, in a soft, yearning voice.

"Mrs. Tuke sent you these roses," said Alvina, putting the flowers through the bars of the gate.

"Allaye!" he said, caressing her hand, kissing it with a soft, passionate, yearning mouth. Alvina shivered. Quickly he opened the gate and drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wall, and put his arms round her, lifting her from her feet with passionate yearning.

"Allaye!" he said. "I love you, Allaye, my beautiful, Allaye. I love you, Allaye!" He held her fast to his breast and began to walk away with her. His throbbing, muscular power seemed completely to envelop her. He was just walking away with her down the road, clinging fast to her, enveloping her.

"Nurse! Nurse! I can't see you! Nurse!—" came the long call of Mrs.
Tuke through the night. Dogs began to bark.

"Put me down," murmured Alvina. "Put me down, Ciccio."

"Come with me to Italy. Come with me to Italy, Allaye. I can't go to
Italy by myself, Allaye. Come with me, be married to me—Allaye,
Allaye—"

His voice was a strange, hoarse whisper just above her face, he still held her in his throbbing, heavy embrace.

"Yes—yes!" she whispered. "Yes—yes! But put me down, Ciccio. Put me down."

"Come to Italy with me, Allaye. Come with me," he still reiterated, in a voice hoarse with pain and yearning.

"Nurse! Nurse! Wherever are you? Nurse! I want you," sang the uneasy, querulous voice of Mrs. Tuke.

"Do put me down!" murmured Alvina, stirring in his arms.

He slowly relaxed his clasp, and she slid down like rain to earth.
But still he clung to her.

"Come with me, Allaye! Come with me to Italy!" he said.

She saw his face, beautiful, non-human in the moonlight, and she shuddered slightly.

"Yes!" she said. "I will come. But let me go now. Where is your mandoline?"

He turned round and looked up the road.

"Nurse! You absolutely must come. I can't bear it," cried the strange voice of Mrs. Tuke.

Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, and through the gate into the drive.

"You must come!" came the voice in pain from the upper window.

Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tuke crouched in a chair, with a drawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly gripped her, she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists hard on her face.

"The pains have begun," said Alvina, hurrying to her.

"Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it!" cried the woman in travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she could. And from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night.

       "E tu dic' Io part', addio!
        T'alluntare di sta core,
        Nel paese del amore
        Tien' o cor' di non turnar'
        —Ma nun me lasciar'—"

It was almost unendurable. But suddenly Mrs. Tuke became quite still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two jet-black plaits dropping on either side of her ivory face, her big eyes fixed staring into space. At the line—

Ma nun me lasciar'—

she began to murmur softly to herself—"Yes, it's dreadful! It's horrible! I can't understand it. What does it mean, that noise? It's as bad as these pains. What does it mean? What does he say? I can understand a little Italian—" She paused. And again came the sudden complaint:

Ma nun me lasciar'—

"Ma nun me lasciar'—!" she murmured, repeating the music. "That means—Don't leave me! Don't leave me! But why? Why shouldn't one human being go away from another? What does it mean? That awful noise! Isn't love the most horrible thing! I think it's horrible. It just does one in, and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm howling with one sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two hellish animals howling through the night! I'm not myself, he's not himself. Oh, I think it's horrible. What does he look like, Nurse? Is he beautiful? Is he a great hefty brute?"

She looked with big, slow, enigmatic eyes at Alvina.

"He's a man I knew before," said Alvina.

Mrs. Tuke's face woke from its half-trance.

"Really! Oh! A man you knew before! Where?"

"It's a long story," said Alvina. "In a travelling music-hall troupe."

"In a travelling music-hall troupe! How extraordinary! Why, how did you come across such an individual—?"

Alvina explained as briefly as possible. Mrs. Tuke watched her.

"Really!" she said. "You've done all those things!" And she scrutinized Alvina's face. "You've had some effect on him, that's evident," she said. Then she shuddered, and dabbed her nose with her handkerchief. "Oh, the flesh is a beastly thing!" she cried. "To make a man howl outside there like that, because you're here. And to make me howl because I've got a child inside me. It's unbearable! What does he look like, really?"

"I don't know," said Alvina. "Not extraordinary. Rather a hefty brute—"

Mrs. Tuke glanced at her, to detect the irony.

"I should like to see him," she said. "Do you think I might?"

"I don't know," said Alvina, non-committal.

"Do you think he might come up? Ask him. Do let me see him."

"Do you really want to?" said Alvina.

"Of course—" Mrs. Tuke watched Alvina with big, dark, slow eyes.
Then she dragged herself to her feet. Alvina helped her into bed.

"Do ask him to come up for a minute," Effie said. "We'll give him a glass of Tommy's famous port. Do let me see him. Yes do!" She stretched out her long white arm to Alvina, with sudden imploring.

Alvina laughed, and turned doubtfully away.

The night was silent outside. But she found Ciccio leaning against a gate-pillar. He started up.

"Allaye!" he said.

"Will you come in for a moment? I can't leave Mrs. Tuke."

Ciccio obediently followed Alvina into the house and up the stairs, without a word. He was ushered into the bedroom. He drew back when he saw Effie in the bed, sitting with her long plaits and her dark eyes, and the subtle-seeming smile at the corners of her mouth.

"Do come in!" she said. "I want to thank you for the music. Nurse says it was for her, but I enjoyed it also. Would you tell me the words? I think it's a wonderful song."

Ciccio hung back against the door, his head dropped, and the shy, suspicious, faintly malicious smile on his face.

"Have a glass of port, do!" said Effie. "Nurse, give us all one. I should like one too. And a biscuit." Again she stretched out her long white arm from the sudden blue lining of her wrap, suddenly, as if taken with the desire. Ciccio shifted on his feet, watching Alvina pour out the port.

He swallowed his in one swallow, and put aside his glass.

"Have some more!" said Effie, watching over the top of her glass.

He smiled faintly, stupidly, and shook his head.

"Won't you? Now tell me the words of the song—"

He looked at her from out of the dusky hollows of his brow, and did not answer. The faint, stupid half-smile, half-sneer was on his lips.

"Won't you tell them me? I understood one line—"

Ciccio smiled more pronouncedly as he watched her, but did not speak.

"I understood one line," said Effie, making big eyes at him. "Ma non me lasciare—Don't leave me! There, isn't that it?"

He smiled, stirred on his feet, and nodded.

"Don't leave me! There, I knew it was that. Why don't you want Nurse to leave you? Do you want her to be with you every minute?"

He smiled a little contemptuously, awkwardly, and turned aside his face, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance. It was swift, and full of the terrible yearning which so horrified her.

At the same moment a spasm crossed her face, her expression went blank.

"Shall we go down?" said Alvina to Ciccio.

He turned immediately, with his cap in his hand, and followed. In the hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline from the chest. He could hear the stifled cries and exclamations from Mrs. Tuke. At the same moment the door of the study opened, and the musician, a burly fellow with troubled hair, came out.

"Is that Mrs. Tuke?" he snapped anxiously.

"Yes. The