Chapter X: The Fall of Manchester House (2)

Luxuriously, she resented having to get up and tackle her heap of broken garments. But she did it. She took other clothes, adjusted her hair, tied on her apron, and went downstairs once more. She could not find Ciccio: he had gone out. A stray cat darted from the scullery, and broke a plate in her leap. Alvina found her washing-up water cold. She put on more, and began to dry her dishes.

Ciccio returned shortly, and stood in the doorway looking at her. She turned to him, unexpectedly laughing.

“What do you think of yourself?” she laughed.

“Well,” he said, with a little nod, and a furtive look of triumph about him, evasive. He went past her and into the room. Her inside burned with love for him: so elusive, so beautiful, in his silent passing out of her sight. She wiped her dishes happily. Why was she so absurdly happy, she asked herself? And why did she still fight so hard against the sense of his dark, unseizable beauty? Unseizable, for ever unseizable! That made her almost his slave. She fought against her own desire to fall at his feet. Ridiculous to be so happy.

She sang to herself as she went about her work downstairs. Then she went upstairs, to do the bedrooms and pack her bag. At ten o’clock she was to go to the family lawyer.

She lingered over her possessions: what to take, and what not to take. And so doing she wasted her time. It was already ten o’clock when she hurried downstairs. He was sitting quite still, waiting. He looked up at her.

“Now I must hurry,” she said. “I don’t think I shall be more than an hour.”

He put on his hat and went out with her.

“I shall tell the lawyer I am engaged to you. Shall I?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Tell him what you like.” He was indifferent.

“Because,” said Alvina gaily, “we can please ourselves what we do, whatever we say. I shall say we think of getting married in the summer, when we know each other better, and going to Italy.”

“Why shall you say all that?” said Ciccio.

“Because I shall _have_ to give some account of myself, or they’ll make me do something I don’t want to do. You might come to the lawyer’s with me, will you? He’s an awfully nice old man. Then he’d believe in you.”

But Ciccio shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I shan’t go. He doesn’t want to see _me_.”

“Well, if you don’t want to. But I remember your name, Francesco Marasca, and I remember Pescocalascio.”

Ciccio heard in silence, as they walked the half-empty, Monday-morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina. Some hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at Ciccio. Ciccio however stood aside and turned his back.

“Oh yes,” Alvina said. “I am staying with friends, here and there, for a few weeks. No, I don’t know when I shall be back. Good-bye!”

“You’re looking well, Alvina,” people said to her. “I think you’re looking wonderful. A change does you good.”

“It does, doesn’t it,” said Alvina brightly. And she was pleased she was looking well.

“Well, good-bye for a minute,” she said, glancing smiling into his eyes and nodding to him, as she left him at the gate of the lawyer’s house, by the ivy-covered wall.

The lawyer was a little man, all grey. Alvina had known him since she was a child: but rather as an official than an individual. She arrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinized her sharply, officially, before beginning.

“Well, Miss Houghton, and what news have you?”

“I don’t think I’ve any, Mr. Beeby. I came to you for news.”

“Ah!” said the lawyer, and he fingered a paper-weight that covered a pile of papers. “I’m afraid there is nothing very pleasant, unfortunately. And nothing very unpleasant either, for that matter.”

He gave her a shrewd little smile.

“Is the will proved?”

“Not yet. But I expect it will be through in a few days’ time.”

“And are all the claims in?”

“Yes. I _think_ so. I think so!” And again he laid his hand on the pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran through the edges with the tips of his fingers.

“All those?” said Alvina.

“Yes,” he said quietly. It sounded ominous.

“Many!” said Alvina.

“A fair amount! A fair amount! Let me show you a statement.”

He rose and brought her a paper. She made out, with the lawyer’s help, that the claims against her father’s property exceeded the gross estimate of his property by some seven hundred pounds.

“Does it mean we owe seven hundred pounds?” she asked.

“That is only on the _estimate_ of the property. It might, of course, realize much more, when sold—or it might realize less.”

“How awful!” said Alvina, her courage sinking.

“Unfortunate! Unfortunate! However, I don’t think the realization of the property would amount to less than the estimate. I don’t think so.”

“But even then,” said Alvina. “There is sure to be something owing—”

She saw herself saddled with her father’s debts.

“I’m afraid so,” said the lawyer.

“And then what?” said Alvina.

“Oh—the creditors will have to be satisfied with a little less than they claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you see. I don’t expect they will complain a great deal. In fact, some of them will be less badly off than they feared. No, on that score we need not trouble further. Useless if we do, anyhow. But now, about yourself. Would you like me to try to compound with the creditors, so that you could have some sort of provision? They are mostly people who know you, know your condition: and I might try—”

“Try what?” said Alvina.

“To make some sort of compound. Perhaps you might retain a lease of Miss Pinnegar’s work-rooms. Perhaps even something might be done about the cinematograph. What would you like—?”

Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivy sprays, and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not, she could not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had confidently expected a few hundred pounds: even a thousand or more. And that would make her _something_ of a catch, to people who had nothing. But now!—nothing!—nothing at the back of her but her hundred pounds. When that was gone—!

In her dilemma she looked at the lawyer.

“You didn’t expect it would be quite so bad?” he said.

“I think I didn’t,” she said.

“No. Well—it might have been worse.”

Again he waited. And again she looked at him vacantly.

“What do you think?” he said.

For answer, she only looked at him with wide eyes.

“Perhaps you would rather decide later.”

“No,” she said. “No. It’s no use deciding later.”

The lawyer watched her with curious eyes, his hand beat a little impatiently.

“I will do my best,” he said, “to get what I can for you.”

“Oh well!” she said. “Better let everything go. I don’t _want_ to hang on. Don’t bother about me at all. I shall go away, anyhow.”

“You will go away?” said the lawyer, and he studied his finger-nails.

“Yes. I shan’t stay here.”

“Oh! And may I ask if you have any definite idea, where you will go?”

“I’ve got an engagement as pianist, with a travelling theatrical company.”

“Oh indeed!” said the lawyer, scrutinizing her sharply. She stared away vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of his finger-nails once more. “And at a sufficient salary?”

“Quite sufficient, thank you,” said Alvina.

“Oh! Well! Well now!—” He fidgetted a little. “You see, we are all old neighbours and connected with your father for many years. We—that is the persons interested, and myself—would not like to think that you were driven out of Woodhouse—er—er—destitute. If—er—we could come to some composition—make some arrangement that would be agreeable to you, and would, in some measure, secure you a means of livelihood—”

He watched Alvina with sharp blue eyes. Alvina looked back at him, still vacantly.

“No—thanks awfully!” she said. “But don’t bother. I’m going away.”

“With the travelling theatrical company?”

“Yes.”

The lawyer studied his finger-nails intensely.

“Well,” he said, feeling with a finger-tip an imaginary roughness of one nail-edge. “Well, in that case—In that case—Supposing you have made an irrevocable decision—”

He looked up at her sharply. She nodded slowly, like a porcelain mandarin.

“In that case,” he said, “we must proceed with the valuation and the preparation for the sale.”

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“You realize,” he said, “that everything in Manchester House, except your private personal property, and that of Miss Pinnegar, belongs to the claimants, your father’s creditors, and may not be removed from the house.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And it will be necessary to make an account of everything in the house. So if you and Miss Pinnegar will put your possessions strictly apart—But I shall see Miss Pinnegar during the course of the day. Would you ask her to call about seven—I think she is free then—”

Alvina sat trembling.

“I shall pack my things today,” she said.

“Of course,” said the lawyer, “any little things to which you may be attached the claimants would no doubt wish you to regard as your own. For anything of greater value—your piano, for example—I should have to make a personal request—”

“Oh, I don’t want anything—” said Alvina.

“No? Well! You will see. You will be here a few days?”

“No,” said Alvina. “I’m going away today.”

“Today! Is that also irrevocable?”

“Yes. I must go this afternoon.”

“On account of your engagement? May I ask where your company is performing this week? Far away?”

“Mansfield!”

“Oh! Well then, in case I particularly wished to see you, you could come over?”

“If necessary,” said Alvina. “But I don’t want to come to Woodhouse unless it _is_ necessary. Can’t we write?”

“Yes—certainly! Certainly!—most things! Certainly! And now—”

He went into certain technical matters, and Alvina signed some documents. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an hour in the room.

“Well, good-morning, Miss Houghton. You will hear from me, and I from you. I wish you a pleasant experience in your new occupation. You are not leaving Woodhouse for ever.”

“Good-bye!” she said. And she hurried to the road.

Try as she might, she felt as if she had had a blow which knocked her down. She felt she had had a blow.

At the lawyer’s gate she stood a minute. There, across a little hollow, rose the cemetery hill. There were her graves: her mother’s, Miss Frost’s, her father’s. Looking, she made out the white cross at Miss Frost’s grave, the grey stone at her parents’. Then she turned slowly, under the church wall, back to Manchester House.

She felt humiliated. She felt she did not want to see anybody at all. She did not want to see Miss Pinnegar, nor the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras: and least of all, Ciccio. She felt strange in Woodhouse, almost as if the ground had risen from under her feet and hit her over the mouth. The fact that Manchester House and its very furniture was under seal to be sold on behalf of her father’s creditors made her feel as if all her Woodhouse life had suddenly gone smash. She loathed the thought of Manchester House. She loathed staying another minute in it.

And yet she did not want to go to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras either. The church clock above her clanged eleven. She ought to take the twelve-forty train to Mansfield. Yet instead of going home she turned off down the alley towards the fields and the brook.

How many times had she gone that road! How many times had she seen Miss Frost bravely striding home that way, from her music-pupils. How many years had she noticed a particular wild cherry-tree come into blossom, a particular bit of black-thorn scatter its whiteness in among the pleached twigs of a hawthorn hedge. How often, how many springs had Miss Frost come home with a bit of this black-thorn in her hand!

Alvina did _not_ want to go to Mansfield that afternoon. She felt insulted. She knew she would be much cheaper in Madame’s eyes. She knew her own position with the troupe would be humiliating. It would be openly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeningly humiliating to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour of Woodhouse’s calculated benevolence. She hardly knew which was worse: the cool look of insolent half-contempt, half-satisfaction with which Madame would receive the news of her financial downfall, or the officious patronage which she would meet from the Woodhouse magnates. She knew exactly how Madame’s black eyes would shine, how her mouth would curl with a sneering, slightly triumphant smile, as she heard the news. And she could hear the bullying tone in which Henry Wagstaff would dictate the Woodhouse benevolence to her. She wanted to go away from them all—from them all—for ever.

Even from Ciccio. For she felt he insulted her too. Subtly, they all did it. They had regard for her possibilities as an heiress. Five hundred, even two hundred pounds would have made all the difference. Useless to deny it. Even to Ciccio. Ciccio would have had a lifelong respect for her, if she had come with even so paltry a sum as two hundred pounds. Now she had nothing, he would coolly withhold this respect. She felt he might jeer at her. And she could not get away from this feeling.

Mercifully she had the bit of ready money. And she had a few trinkets which might be sold. Nothing else. Mercifully, for the mere moment, she was independent.

Whatever else she did, she must go back and pack. She must pack her two boxes, and leave them ready. For she felt that once she had left, she could never come back to Woodhouse again. If England had cliffs all round—why, when there was nowhere else to go and no getting beyond, she could walk over one of the cliffs. Meanwhile, she had her short run before her. She banked hard on her independence.

So she turned back to the town. She would not be able to take the twelve-forty train, for it was already mid-day. But she was glad. She wanted some time to herself. She would send Ciccio on. Slowly she climbed the familiar hill—slowly—and rather bitterly. She felt her native place insulted her: and she felt the Natchas insulted her. In the midst of the insult she remained isolated upon herself, and she wished to be alone.

She found Ciccio waiting at the end of the yard: eternally waiting, it seemed. He was impatient.

“You’ve been a long time,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered.

“We shall have to make haste to catch the train.”

“I can’t go by this train. I shall have to come on later. You can just eat a mouthful of lunch, and go now.”

They went indoors. Miss Pinnegar had not yet come down. Mrs. Rollings was busily peeling potatoes.

“Mr. Marasca is going by the train, he’ll have to have a little cold meat,” said Alvina. “Would you mind putting it ready while I go upstairs?”

“Sharpses and Fullbankses sent them bills,” said Mrs. Rollings. Alvina opened them, and turned pale. It was thirty pounds, the total funeral expenses. She had completely forgotten them.

“And Mr. Atterwell wants to know what you’d like put on th’ headstone for your father—if you’d write it down.”

“All right.”

Mrs. Rollings popped on the potatoes for Miss Pinnegar’s dinner, and spread the cloth for Ciccio. When he was eating, Miss Pinnegar came in. She inquired for Alvina—and went upstairs.

“Have you had your dinner?” she said. For there was Alvina sitting writing a letter.

“I’m going by a later train,” said Alvina.

“Both of you?”

“No. He’s going now.”

Miss Pinnegar came downstairs again, and went through to the scullery. When Alvina came down, she returned to the living room.

“Give this letter to Madame,” Alvina said to Ciccio. “I shall be at the hall by seven tonight. I shall go straight there.”

“Why can’t you come now?” said Ciccio.

“I can’t possibly,” said Alvina. “The lawyer has just told me father’s debts come to much more than everything is worth. Nothing is ours—not even the plate you’re eating from. Everything is under seal to be sold to pay off what is owing. So I’ve got to get my own clothes and boots together, or they’ll be sold with the rest. Mr. Beeby wants you to go round at seven this evening, Miss Pinnegar—before I forget.”

“Really!” gasped Miss Pinnegar. “Really! The house and the furniture and everything got to be sold up? Then we’re on the streets! I can’t believe it.”

“So he told me,” said Alvina.

“But how positively awful,” said Miss Pinnegar, sinking motionless into a chair.

“It’s not more than I expected,” said Alvina. “I’m putting my things into my two trunks, and I shall just ask Mrs. Slaney to store them for me. Then I’ve the bag I shall travel with.”

“Really!” gasped Miss Pinnegar. “I can’t believe it! And when have we got to get out?”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s a desperate hurry. They’ll take an inventory of all the things, and we can live on here till they’re actually ready for the sale.”

“And when will that be?”

“I don’t know. A week or two.”

“And is the cinematograph to be sold the same?”

“Yes—everything! The piano—even mother’s portrait—”

“It’s impossible to believe it,” said Miss Pinnegar. “It’s impossible. He can never have left things so bad.”

“Ciccio,” said Alvina. “You’ll really have to go if you are to catch the train. You’ll give Madame my letter, won’t you? I should hate you to miss the train. I know she can’t bear me already, for all the fuss and upset I cause.”

Ciccio rose slowly, wiping his mouth.

“You’ll be there at seven o’clock?” he said.

“At the theatre,” she replied.

And without more ado, he left.

Mrs. Rollings came in.

“You’ve heard?” said Miss Pinnegar dramatically.

“I heard somethink,” said Mrs. Rollings.

“Sold up! Everything to be sold up. Every stick and rag! I never thought I should live to see the day,” said Miss Pinnegar.

“You might almost have expected it,” said Mrs. Rollings. “But you’re all right, yourself, Miss Pinnegar. Your money isn’t with his, is it?”

“No,” said Miss Pinnegar. “What little I have put by is safe. But it’s not enough to live on. It’s not enough to keep me, even supposing I only live another ten years. If I only spend a pound a week, it costs fifty-two pounds a year. And for ten years, look at it, it’s five hundred and twenty pounds. And you couldn’t say less. And I haven’t half that amount. I never had more than a wage, you know. Why, Miss Frost earned a good deal more than I do. And _she_ didn’t leave much more than fifty. Where’s the money to come from—?”

“But if you’ve enough to start a little business—” said Alvina.

“Yes, it’s what I shall _have_ to do. It’s what I shall have to do. And then what about you? What about you?”

“Oh, don’t bother about me,” said Alvina.

“Yes, it’s all very well, don’t bother. But when you come to my age, you know you’ve _got_ to bother, and bother a great deal, if you’re not going to find yourself in a position you’d be sorry for. You _have_ to bother. And _you’ll_ have to bother before you’ve done.”

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” said Alvina.

“Ha, sufficient for a good many days, it seems to me.”

Miss Pinnegar was in a real temper. To Alvina this seemed an odd way of taking it. The three women sat down to an uncomfortable dinner of cold meat and hot potatoes and warmed-up pudding.

“But whatever you do,” pronounced Miss Pinnegar; “whatever you do, and however you strive, in this life, you’re knocked down in the end. You’re always knocked down.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Alvina, “if it’s only in the end. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had your life.”

“You’ve never had your life, till you’re dead,” said Miss Pinnegar. “And if you work and strive, you’ve a right to the fruits of your work.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Alvina laconically, “so long as you’ve enjoyed working and striving.”

But Miss Pinnegar was too angry to be philosophic. Alvina knew it was useless to be either angry or otherwise emotional. None the less, she also felt as if she had been knocked down. And she almost envied poor Miss Pinnegar the prospect of a little, day-by-day haberdashery shop in Tamworth. Her own problem seemed so much more menacing. “Answer or die,” said the Sphinx of fate. Miss Pinnegar could answer her own fate according to its question. She could say “haberdashery shop,” and her sphinx would recognize this answer as true to nature, and would be satisfied. But every individual has his own, or her own fate, and her own sphinx. Alvina’s sphinx was an old, deep thoroughbred, she would take no mongrel answers. And her thoroughbred teeth were long and sharp. To Alvina, the last of the fantastic but pure-bred race of Houghton, the problem of her fate was terribly abstruse.

The only thing to do was not to solve it: to stray on, and answer fate with whatever came into one’s head. No good striving with fate. Trust to a lucky shot, or take the consequences.

“Miss Pinnegar,” said Alvina. “Have we any money in hand?”

“There is about twenty pounds in the bank. It’s all shown in my books,” said Miss Pinnegar.

“We couldn’t take it, could we?”

“Every penny shows in the books.”

Alvina pondered again.

“Are there more bills to come in?” she asked. “I mean my bills. Do I owe anything?”

“I don’t think you do,” said Miss Pinnegar.

“I’m going to keep the insurance money, any way. They can say what they like. I’ve got it, and I’m going to keep it.”

“Well,” said Miss Pinnegar, “it’s not my business. But there’s Sharps and Fullbanks to pay.”

“I’ll pay those,” said Alvina. “You tell Atterwell what to put on father’s stone. How much does it cost?”

“Five shillings a letter, you remember.”

“Well, we’ll just put the name and the date. How much will that be? James Houghton. Born 17th January—”

“You’ll have to put ‘Also of,’” said Miss Pinnegar.

“Also of—” said Alvina. “One—two—three—four—five—six—. Six letters—thirty shillings. Seems an awful lot for _Also of_—”

“But you can’t leave it out,” said Miss Pinnegar. “You can’t economize over that.”

“I begrudge it,” said Alvina.