“Oh God, it’s an accursed fugue!” cried the bemused Tommy. After which they proceeded to wake Ciccio, who was like the dead doll in Petrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he smiled at Alvina, and said: “Allaye!”
The dark, waking smile upset her badly.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WEDDED WIFE
The upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough without telling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for a week-end, to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage was presumably with Dr. Mitchell—though she had given him no definite word. However, her month’s notice was up, so she was legally free. And therefore she packed a rather large bag with all her ordinary things, and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the nursing paraphernalia behind.
She knew Scarborough quite well: and quite quickly found rooms which she had occupied before, in a boarding-house where she had stayed with Miss Frost long ago. Having recovered from her journey, she went out on to the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the sea was before her. What was she to do?
She had run away from both men—from Ciccio as well as from Mitchell. She had spent the last fortnight more or less avoiding the pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free from Mrs. Tuke, who in her own way was more exacting than the men. Mrs. Tuke had a baby daughter, and was getting well. Ciccio was living with the Tukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him, and had half engaged him as a sort of personal attendant: the sort of thing Tommy would do, not having paid his butcher’s bills.
So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sick of being badgered about. She didn’t really want to marry anybody. Why should she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself. How sick she was of other people and their importunities! What was she to do? She decided to offer herself again, in a little while, for war service—in a new town this time. Meanwhile she wanted to be by herself.
She made excursions, she walked on the moors, in the brief but lovely days of early October. For three days it was all so sweet and lovely—perfect liberty, pure, almost paradisal.
The fourth day it rained: simply rained all day long, and was cold, dismal, disheartening beyond words. There she sat, stranded in the dismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o’clock, having decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in the war-hospitals at once: not to leave off until she had found it.
But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fiancé, was with her on the quay of some harbour, and was reproaching her bitterly, even reviling her, for having come too late, so that they had missed their ship. They were there to catch the boat—and she, for dilatoriness, was an hour late, and she could see the broad stern of the steamer not far off. Just an hour late. She showed Alexander her watch—exactly ten o’clock, instead of nine. And he was more angry than ever, because her watch was slow. He pointed to the harbour clock—it was ten minutes past ten.