The Lost Girl

the rotting port of home. All very well to have wild, reckless moods of irony

ndays, she attended the various chapel events, she went out to visit friends, and laughed and talked and played games. But all the time, what was there actually in her life? Not much. She was withering towards old-maiddom. Already in her twenty-eighth year, she spent her days grubbing in the hous

he cash-desk of some shop. Some work of some sort would be found for her. And she would sink into the routine of her job, as did so many women, and grow old and die, chattering

to take to his strange and dishuman element, who knows? Anyway it would be some sort of an adventure: better than a job. She rebelled with all her backbone against the word job. Even the substitutes, employment or work, were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not want to work for a wage. It was too humiliating. Could anything be more infra dig than the perfor

an. But after all, it would have been an experience. In a way, she liked him. There was something odd and integral about him, which she liked. He was not a liar. In his own line, he was honest and direct. Then he would take her to South Africa: a whole new milieu. And perhaps she would have children. She shivered a little. No, not

's quiet harping on the

at you disliked Mr. Wi

neg

said Alvina. "I can't understand why I

nt," said Miss

asy to understa

eed to understand it,

need to unders

nothing wrong with him

ssal. He was at Oxford again-would not return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the

. She would slip across and smile to him. She would take the plunge, once and for all-and kiss him and marr

the world, at heaven knows what-just as fishes stare-then his dishumanness came over her again like an arrest, and arrested all her

ll to think forward to. And it was then she se

to Mr. Witham?" M

ke to me," re

ed his h

ar," said Alvina. "He would have been right

make provision for me

lly friendly again. Perhaps she would never have forgiven her if she had n

ork. It is the ordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with an ordinary girl we should have to carry on mi

people, extraordinary fates. Or else no fate at all. The all-to-one-pattern modern system is to

ve been drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual floods of ordinariness, that tap-water tends to become a really hateful fluid to us. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. We detest ordinary people. We are in peril of our lives from them: and in peril of

on in Manchester House, hiding herself as much as possible from public view. Men can suck the heady juice of exalted self-importance from the bitter weed of failure-failures are usually the most conceited of men: e

rangling noose. Alvina had passed her twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and even he

chon z

chon z

durch's Leb

der will

eben zu v

chon d

chon d

en, M?dchen

f schon gr

nell vergehn

chon v

chon v

mer Keiner

schon gra

ss im Spieg

chon f

chon f

mer Keiner

ich mit B?

inen Schle

's, die Alt

fzig, sie i

g. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of as a girl. And the slow-foote

bly, the ordinary old-maid heroine nowadays is destined to die in her fifties, she

kating Rink, like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he had escaped, and for almost three years had

is way back to England, where he had left his wife and daughter. But he did not resume his family life. Wherever he was, his wife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or less stranded in Woodhouse. He had nearly fixed himself up with a music-hall in the Potteries-a

s younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody. And now he had a motor car, and looked at the tottering James with sardonic

uttering. "I missed a rare chance there.

could hold his tongue, but whose pink, fat face and light-blue eyes had a loud look, for all that, put the speech in his pipe an

ays packed with colliers and work-lasses. But unfortunately there was no chance of Mr. May's getting a finger in the Cattle Market pie. Wright's was a family affair. Mr. and Mrs. Wright and a son and two daughters with their husbands: a tight old lock-up family concern. Yet it was the kind of show that appealed to

ocence, coupled with complacent and natural unscrupulousness in "matters of business." A man of some odd sensitiveness in material things, he liked to have his clothes neat and spick, his linen immaculate, his face clean-shaved like a cherub. But alas, his clothes were now old-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartne

who wanted to do his best and was given no opportunity? Mr. May had travelled in his Pullman car and gone straight to the best hotel in the town, like any other American with money-in America. He had done it smart, too. And now, in this grubby penny-picking England, he saw his boots being worn-down at the heel, and was afraid of being st

pottery, and big chimneys bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond that, more

l to have a small whiskey. And of c

, in his odd, refined-showman's voice. "Have

o Woodhouse, else

pport some place of

's Var

if somebody

Lumley. To the women he said not a word. But on the very first morning that Mr. May broached the

e. You pledge yourself to nothing-you don't compro

ousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bent forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if pursued by fate. His face was thin and still handsome.

a little tight. The jacket and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suède uppers: but a litt

bending forward, Mr. May bending back. Mr.

incingly, to rhyme with sauce: "Of course," said Mr. May, "it's a disgusting place-disgust

hands from his imm

t. That's beside the point altog

cauce-! And we have

Untouched! An u

n full confirmation, though with a faint fli

," said James. "P

Why shouldn't we

all manage that," came the quick

life, if we can't manage an aud

e can see what Wright's are doing-and Jordan's-and we can go t

e managers and the performers themselves-as if I were a journalist, don't you see. I've don

James. "As if you were going to write

ck up just all the inf

decidedly!"

where two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling potatoes, sitting on the bottom step of her caravan. A half-caste girl came up with

, stopping before the woman.

o fair," sa

t on your own. Get

said t

Sorry. Goo

like that of the young negro in Watteau's drawing-pathetic, wistful, north-bitten. In an instant Mr. May had taken all in: the man was the woman's husband-they were acclimatized in these re

o children, that the negro was a most quiet and respectable chap,

Mr. May, a little disgus

-only another week, then they were moving off to Alfreton fair-who was the owner of the pitch-Mr. Bows, the

n't confess it to James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and hollow way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous exhaustion in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his short nose. The smell of the place was di

as in his shirt-sleeves. His waistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had filled out-but he hadn't developed a corporation. Not at all. He looked at himself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinner. He was one of those men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so that their tail sticks out a little behind, jauntily. How wonderfully the satin of

litted to Lumley and back, he had already had a word with Mr. Bows, about that pitch, and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with

o-called Artizans Hall-where never an artizan entered, but only men of James's class. Here they t

is discoveries. And the

ing to look round for an erection"-curious that he always called

James vaguely, nervous

ay abstractedly finge

few hundreds. Many things are due-numbers of things. But it is so difficult to collect one's dues, particularly from America." He lifted his b

. He was fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partn

?" said James hurriedly and huskily, his fine fi

the option of becoming your partner upo

not quite

e you thinking

r the moment I enter an engagement as your manager,

ek?" said Jam

better make

looked at

ice on either hand?

said James

d his own nice

lously low. In America I never accepted less than three hundred dollars a month, and

ing his head in a

sible! Twenty pounds a month? Impossible.

y, rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a doddering pr

than ten pounds a mont

"What am I to live on? W

ay," said James. "If I

wn expenses at

you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashion in the beginning, you will get nowhere at all.

agreement that morning. Mr. May went home more sick and weary than ever, and

n other ways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten pounds-but really, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous

and drew up certain notes. And the next morning, by eight o'clock, he was on his way to Selverhay: walking, poor man, the long and uninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod feet, through country that had been once beautiful but was now scrubbled all ove

e wooden sides. If only it wasn't rotten? He crouched and probed and pierced with his pen-knife, till a country-policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got of

re you

ace and swollen neck-veins, ho

l, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "I was taking a look at this old

aid the policeman sus

the poc

s it useless for my p

n did not de

affable, man of the world manner. But the policeman continued to stare him up and

out?" said t

ittle testily. It was with great difficulty he

here," said t

re are they? An

d him more suspic

they live in Offerton whe

." Mr. May took ou

that right? And th

But you can find out

Missis'

-thank you. Offe

es

n!-where

eight

how do you

alk-or go

re is a

oked at him as if he were e

e is a sta

next to Ch

t dawned o

aid. "You me

-'un. But fortunately he was not a pushing constable, he did not wan

ay to the station h

t Pinxon or

or Bul

o," said th

rhay?" ask

hem's t

ch is th

unnin'. Sometimes yer hav

now the trai

-but I don't know if it'd be

wh

ll'

erhaps I'll try. Coul

tion and found there was no train till six in the evening, he fe

sden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed to take over James's premises at the same rent as that of the premises he already occupied, and moreover to

" cried Mi

ssion on the fi

ea. The shop isn't w

neg

rubbing his hands: a sign that h

re, and live quietly,

nd with those fatal words he

d. Yet he nipped about like a leaf in

ng going," said Alvin

Miss Pinnegar pensively.

na. "But I'll bet it's somethin

lowly. "Most likely he woul

an idea," s

f James's little trips down to Lumley. So they watch

t perkily stuck out like a robin, was looking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreem

ar called discreetly

ic

ocking his head in attention to James Houghton, and occasionally catching James by the lapel of his coat, in a vain desire to get a word in,

g man be?" said Miss Pinnegar, h

aid Alvina, laughing

s dreadful?" said th

le. Did ever you se

ing!" said Miss Pin

t have sold him the

t sold your father, t

neg

ared to flee indoors. Of course it was frightfully wrong to be standing pe

in," said Miss Pinne

few more excited words,

can be," murmured Mi

l line, I'm sure,

aid Miss Pinnegar. "

anything else, d

believe it

mes, in his cheap little cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a graceful wave of his grey-suède-gloved

ood it out. James started as he nipped into th

!" he said, and m

harply, as if James were a chil

ardon?" said Jame

as tha

Which

ttle deaf, and

gar turned to the doo

sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty little hat and the grey suède

er." And he turned hastily down

n she recovered, she felt she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened herself once more

the shop door, followed James to the living room, like the inevitable. He was eat

innegar, short, silent, and

ne of his abstract

?" persisted

wing over his plate and

voice. She had gone a livid yellow colour. And she gav

d up bewildered, as one

said, gap

d Miss Pinnegar.

? Manager? W

arer, menacing in her bl

choed. "My manager. The

anger which was due to him from all womanhood was silently discharged at him, like a black

really suffocated, the vessels of her heart and breast

ace and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. Some fearful thunderbolt seemed to

r. When she had sufficiently recovered, she went to her chair, and sat dow

oked from one to another, and had also dropped her head to her plate. James to

r dinner, Alvina?"

as I did,"

innegar. She sounded s

dly like

fork and began to

nnegar, "Irish stew is more ta

aid Alvina. "But Swe

we have some

low turnips-but th

nip. I like a little y

neg

some in, if I'd kn

other time," sai

t the cinema: not ano

n his plum tar

en doing?" said Alvi

that man we saw is his m

ng to do with a cine

hall not lend him anything, I shall not think about it, it will be the same to me

e and done it

. After all, your father's affairs don't concern me. It

cern me very mu

're his daughter. He's

say. I pity

s always alike

it is," said

ey had gone cold, they would never warm up again. As

d seemed to get a little round-backed. And the thi

with his daughter the next evening

ilding," said James. "We are negotiating fo

s it to be?"

tomorrow. The building-it is a frame-section travel

in with yo

have found an excellent manager, who knows the whole bus

rt and dres

ake over the ticket-office: and you will play the piano: and if Mr. May learns the control of the m

won't take th

ot? Wh

e won't do anything-and if I

was a

mes, huffy. "She is

iano, banging off the Merry Widow Waltz, and, in tender moments, The Rosary. Time after time, The Rosary. While the pictures flickered and the aud

t would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous tunes came into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with most priceless varia

r Lucy, linge

inger longer li

ing, love, promi

longer linger li

d to make Miss Frost s

en's Prayers, an

pooney-oo

ny one car

ney-oon

there oug

f collier louts, in a bad atmosphere of "Woodbines" and ora

like to spo

like to sp

ra-

he oak-tree

our tootsey-

ike to hug

t tr

e upon y

your little

like to sp

h-Go

f into quite a fever

ng she told

ace! It's a disgrace! It's a disgrace! It's a mercy Miss Frost and your mother are dead. He's lost every bit of shame-every bit-if he ever had any-which I doubt very much. We

egar padded o

introduced to Mr. May. He bowed to her in his best America

e said to her, "it's

ul," she

ne. Of cauce it won't be anything to look at: just an old woode

ng to work the f

narborough. Very interesting I find it-very interesting indeed. And you are going t

says," sh

you say?" que

I don't hav

to. That would never do. Can't we hire some young fello

oodhouse," said James. "We mustn't add t

y! Even of her hire, to put it in the feminine. And for the same wage you could get som

I don't think so. Many of the tur

ng the film. I'm not an expert pianist-but I can play a little, you know-" And he trilled his fingers

an juggling dinner-plates-and then I'd be afraid of making him

inary keyboard, and smiled hi

about him, when you knew him better-really rather fastidiou

Pinnegar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her. B

r wife?" said

peak of her," he said

nd

ak of her?"

peaking of her. We don't ge

ity," sai

laughed comically. Then he became grave. "

" said

! You'd never make a greater mistake. Oh dear me, no. Morality's her strongest point. Live on three lettuce leaves, and give the rest to th

hy

r supper, Grace?' as sure as anything she'd answer 'Oh, I shall take a bath when I go to be

rdinary!" s

Why imagine! I prepared a dish of champignons: oh, most beautiful champignons, beautiful-and I put them on the stove to fry in butter: beautiful young champignons. I'm han

hrooms," s

he world. Oh! don't you think so?" An

good," s

gry. And all she could say was, 'Well, I didn't want to waste it!' Didn't want to was

have been

one of her great accusations against me, at the last, was when she said: 'I've looked round the larder,' she said to me, 'and seen it was quite em

ect you to live o

nd then elevate myself with a Bernard Shaw pamphlet. That was t

aring!" sa

nds! Oh the dreadful friends she had-these Fabians! Oh, their eugenics. They wanted to examine my private morals, for eugenic reasons.

't you s

know where I am! But I

our da

when I came back from America. Dearest little thing in the world.

t a

mp, manicured hands, on one finger

is your d

urt

is her

in Rome, where I was

the da

e to watch that she did not advance one step towards him. If he had seen the least sign of coming-on-ness in her, he would have fluttered off in a great dither. Nothing horrified him more than a woman who was coming-on towards him. It horrified him, it exasperated hi

and passed on: bowed very deep and reverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back

dangerous she-puss, eyed him from the co

"In his dress, in his way,

," she said, "I shoul

awing-room. Pe

feel flattered,

ean?" snapped

iled like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze, hither and thither, out of Woodhouse and back again, and across from side to side. Sharp an

am-"that the gas isn't connected with th

the fixings for them

didn't you know a fortnight ag

should have so

think so. And have you just thought about th

He hated him. But Mr. May's s

aid Mr. May. "Thinking seems such a slow pr

mor

then tomorrow! Well I hope by tomorrow you mean Wednesday, and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or some other absurd and fanciful date that you've just thought about.

it if anybod

ody could do it.' S

I can possibl

ind you manage it-and

st obliged, i

ed with placards announcing "Houghton's Pleasure Palace." Poor Mr. May could not but see an irony in the Palace part of the

e vulgar expression,

is eye-holes," sai

May, puzzled

e small: Opens at Lumley on October 7th, at 6:30 P.M. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and black bars sprang from the wall at you. Then there were other notices, in delicate pale-blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre notice,

use. He sorted them in heaps, and marked the heaps in his own mind. And then he let go. He pasted

ffered. But take them he did. But he exacted that they should buy one article at a time. "One piece at a time, if you don't min

emoved all his belongings, the door that connected the house with the shop was screwed up fast, the grocer strolled in and looked round his bare extension, took the key from James, and immediately set his boy to paste a new notice in the win

, it was so ricketty when it arrived!-and it glowed with a new coat, all over, of dark-red paint, like ox-blood. It was tittivated up with a touch of lavender and yellow round the door and round the decorated

he pews out of the o

'n come ter h

ky stroke, Houghton's Endeavour, a reference to that particular Chapel effor

art off

mle

on's En

A

tte

ung collier accosted an

ticoats, who could whirl herself into anything you like, from an arum lily in green stockings to a rainbow and a Catherine wheel and a cup-and-saucer: marvellous, was Miss Poppy Traherne. The next turn was The Baxter Brothers, who ran up and down each other's backs and up and down each other's front, and stood on each other's heads

herne carried with her. Miss Poppy was rather exacting. As she whirled her skirts she kept saying: "A little faster, please"-"A little slower"-in a rather haughty, official voice that was somewhat muffled by the swim of her drapery. "Can you give it expression?" she cried,

to count "Welcome All." Mr. May said Yes. She was the first item. Whereupon she began to raise a dust. Mr. Houghton said, hurriedly interposing, that he

izing himself into a pug dog: he said he had got the "costoom" in his bag: and doing a lump-of-sugar scene with o

was not room right inside. She watched the ladies making up-she gave some slight assistance. She saw the men's feet, in their shabby pumps, on the other side of the curtain, and she heard the men's gruff

her with a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her and were a little spiteful with her becau

attract attention to herself." Miss Pinnegar actually walked down the hill with her, and began to cry when she saw the ox-blood red erection, with its gas-flares in front. It was the first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the little stage door at the back, and up the

limbed the steps. The crowd was just coming. There wa

he ticket. And then he recognized her. "

nd James's coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as

in the direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red

s a fat porker and a fat pork-pie, and the pig was saying: "You all know where to find me. Inside the crust at Frank Churchill's, Knarborough Road, Woodhouse." Round about the name of W. H. Joh

James round in front of the curtain. But James, fascinated by raking in the money so fast, could not be shifted from the pay-box, and th

nd began to shuffle. "Come down, come down!" hissed Mr. May frantically from in front. But James did not move. He would flow on all night. Mr. May waved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at

self. But stolidly she stared at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina. Sh

vina wound up her final flo

said Miss Pin

and too impossible. The audience shouted. Alvina sat

r a green scarf. And so the accumulating dilation, on to the whirling climax of the perfect arum lily. Sudden curtai

the curtain-Miss Poppy twirling till her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow above

ine wheel, done at the last moment on one leg and then an ama

her cup and saucer. But the audience,

fessional at the piano and makes things fly for the up-and-down-stairs Baxter Bros. Meanwhil

t a very good machine, and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audience distinctly critical. Lights up-an "Chot-let, penny a b

er. She looked neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina nodding to her with a quick smile from the side gangway under the stage, she almost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at once. And Alvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped

nd Miss Poppy disguised as a man-with a couple of locals thrown in to do the guardsman and

ot very quiet, evidently hissing with excitement like doughnuts in the pan even when the pan is taken off the f

r Alvina. And Alvina, in her exciteme

pranced into

ting both his fists a

r's face. "H

went very we

hink so, indeed. It we

d he laughed a high,

-place, and dropping them into a Gladstone bag. The

d Mr. May,

James, huskily exc

James turned as if he would snatch it from him. "Well! Feel t

ried, handing it

?" said Miss Pinnegar

she spoke c

e talking through the darkness of the empty

as he locked the doors and put the key in his pocket. James tripped sil

taken, father?"

counted,"

dozen to a column, along the back, rows and rows of fat brown rank-and-file. In front of these, rows of slim halfpence, like an advance-guard. And commanding all, a stout column of half-crowns, a few stoutish and important f

ry, officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn was flanked by all his staff of florin colonels and shilli

e innumerable pillars of cloud, standing waiting to lead on into wildernesses of unopened resource, while the silver, as pillars of light, should guide the way down the long night of fortun