The Lost Girl Part 51

"Pacohuila!" cried Madame, with an imperious gesture. "Allaye!

Come--"

Ciccio laid down his mandoline and went to kiss the fingers of Kishwegin. Alvina also went forward. Madame held out her hand.

Alvina kissed it. Madame laid her hand on the head of Alvina.

"This is the squaw Allaye, this is the daughter of Kishwegin," she said, in her Tawara manner.

"And where is the _brave_ of Allaye, where is the arm that upholds the daughter of Kishwegin, which of the Swallows spreads his wings over the gentle head of the new one!"

"Pacohuila!" said Louis.

"Pacohuila! Pacohuila! Pacohuila!" said the others.

"Spread soft wings, spread dark-roofed wings, Pacohuila," said Kishwegin, and Ciccio, in his shirt-sleeves solemnly spread his arms.

"Stoop, stoop, Allaye, beneath the wings of Pacohuila," said Kishwegin, faintly pressing Alvina on the shoulder.

Alvina stooped and crouched under the right arm of Pacohuila.

"Has the bird flown home?" chanted Kishwegin, to one of the strains of their music.

"The bird is home--" chanted the men.

"Is the nest warm?" chanted Kishwegin.

"The nest is warm."

"Does the he-bird stoop--?"

"He stoops."

"Who takes Allaye?"

"Pacohuila."

Ciccio gently stooped and raised Alvina to her feet.

"C'est ca!" said Madame, kissing her. "And now, children, unless the Sheffield policeman will knock at our door, we must retire to our wigwams all--"

Ciccio was watching Alvina. Madame made him a secret, imperative gesture that he should accompany the young woman.

"You have your key, Allaye?" she said.

"Did I have a key?" said Alvina.

Madame smiled subtly as she produced a latch-key.

"Kishwegin must open your doors for you all," she said. Then, with a slight flourish, she presented the key to Ciccio. "I give it to him?

Yes?" she added, with her subtle, malicious smile.

Ciccio, smiling slightly, and keeping his head ducked, took the key.

Alvina looked brightly, as if bewildered, from one to another.

"Also the light!" said Madame, producing a pocket flash-light, which she triumphantly handed to Ciccio. Alvina watched him. She noticed how he dropped his head forward from his straight, strong shoulders, how beautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape and back of the head. It produced a kind of dazed submission in her, the drugged sense of unknown beauty.

"And so good-night, Allaye--bonne nuit, fille des Tawara." Madame kissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks at her.

Each _brave_ also kissed her hand, with a profound salute. Then the men shook hands warmly with Ciccio, murmuring to him.

He did not put on his hat nor his coat, but ran round as he was to the neighbouring house with her, and opened the door. She entered, and he followed, flashing on the light. So she climbed weakly up the dusty, drab stairs, he following. When she came to her door, she turned and looked at him. His face was scarcely visible, it seemed, and yet so strange and beautiful. It was the unknown beauty which almost killed her.

"You aren't coming?" she quavered.

He gave an odd, half-gay, half-mocking twitch of his thick dark brows, and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing at her boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark Southerner he was. Her instinct was to defend herself. When suddenly she found herself in the dark.

She gasped. And as she gasped, he quite gently put her inside her room, and closed the door, keeping one arm round her all the time.

She felt his heavy muscular predominance. So he took her in both arms, powerful, mysterious, horrible in the pitch dark. Yet the sense of the unknown beauty of him weighed her down like some force.

If for one moment she could have escaped from that black spell of his beauty, she would have been free. But she could not. He was awful to her, shameless so that she died under his shamelessness, his smiling, progressive shamelessness. Yet she could not see him ugly. If only she could, for one second, have seen him ugly, he would not have killed her and made her his slave as he did. But the spell was on her, of his darkness and unfathomed handsomeness. And he killed her. He simply took her and a.s.sa.s.sinated her. How she suffered no one can tell. Yet all the time, his l.u.s.trous dark beauty, unbearable.

When later she pressed her face on his chest and cried, he held her gently as if she was a child, but took no notice, and she felt in the darkness that he smiled. It was utterly dark, and she knew he smiled, and she began to get hysterical. But he only kissed her, his smiling deepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but sensible, as he carried her away once more. He intended her to be his slave, she knew. And he seemed to throw her down and suffocate her like a wave. And she could have fought, if only the sense of his dark, rich handsomeness had not numbed her like a venom. So she was suffocated in his pa.s.sion.

In the morning when it was light he turned and looked at her from under his long black lashes, a long, steady, cruel, faintly-smiling look from his tawny eyes, searching her as if to see whether she were still alive. And she looked back at him, heavy-eyed and half subjected. He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her. And she turned her face to the wall, feeling beaten. Yet not quite beaten to death. Save for the fatal numbness of her love for him, she could still have escaped him. But she lay inert, as if envenomed. He wanted to make her his slave.

When she went down to the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras for breakfast she found them waiting for her. She was rather frail and tender-looking, with wondering eyes that showed she had been crying.

"Come, daughter of the Tawaras," said Madame brightly to her. "We have been waiting for you. Good-morning, and all happiness, eh?

Look, it is a gift-day for you--"

Madame smilingly led Alvina to her place. Beside her plate was a bunch of violets, a bunch of carnations, a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, and a pair of fine doeskin gloves delicately decorated with feather-work on the cuffs. The slippers were from Kishwegin, the gloves from Mondagua, the carnations from Atonquois, the violets from Walgatchka--all _To the Daughter of the Tawaras, Allaye_, as it said on the little cards.

"The gift of Pacohuila you know," said Madame, smiling. "The brothers of Pacohuila are your brothers."

One by one they went to her and each one laid the back of her fingers against his forehead, saying in turn:

"I am your brother Mondagua, Allaye!"

"I am your brother Atonquois, Allaye!"

"I am your brother Walgatchka, Allaye, best brother, you know--" So spoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, almost solemn eyes of affection. Alvina smiled a little wanly, wondering where she was. It was all so solemn. Was it all mockery, play-acting? She felt bitterly inclined to cry.

Meanwhile Madame came in with the coffee, which she always made herself, and the party sat down to breakfast. Ciccio sat on Alvina's right, but he seemed to avoid looking at her or speaking to her. All the time he looked across the table, with the half-a.s.serted, knowing look in his eyes, at Gigi: and all the time he addressed himself to Gigi, with the throaty, rich, plangent quality in his voice, that Alvina could not bear, it seemed terrible to her: and he spoke in French: and the two men seemed to be exchanging unspeakable communications. So that Alvina, for all her wistfulness and subjectedness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon as possible from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and public recognition from Ciccio--none of which she got. She returned to her own house, to her own room, anxious to tidy everything, not wishing to have her landlady in the room. And she half expected Ciccio to come to speak to her.

As she was busy washing a garment in the bowl, her landlady knocked and entered. She was a rough and rather beery-looking Yorkshire woman, not attractive.

"Oh, yo'n made yer bed then, han' yer!"

"Yes," said Alvina. "I've done everything."