A few minutes later, Pa was hustling his herd before him:
"Quicker, my Woolly-legs! No time to lose!"
He thought of the tricks which he had jotted down the evening before in
his note-book. Lily would learn them quick enough: she was as clever as
the Pawnees, when all was said, only less graceful. She had the balancing
power all right; but grace, grace, damn it, to do a thing like that as
though it were child's play: that's what she hadn't got! You saw the
effort. And the apprentices had no precision in their groupings. Now the
fat freaks had. To combine German discipline with English gracefulness,
that was the question; to have the troupe of troupes; to have a Lily who
would be worth more by herself than Polly, Edith and Lillian put together.
But that meant work and going through the mill! This last made Pa think of
the old sheep and their bleatings. He gave a nervous little laugh and his
hand had a convulsive movement, as though to strangle those pests.
Pa had recovered his good humor and was grinning by the time they reached
the theater. Merely by his way of taking the key of his dressing-room from
the stage-doorkeeper one recognized the owner of a troupe, the man with a
"permanent address," the manager, the boss, the prof, the Pa. On entering
the lobby, he, with his six girls, took possession of the theater. He
nodded to the staff; growled a "Lazybones!" as the Roofers passed out two
by two, always two by two: a fair one with made-up eyes, a dark one with
kiss-me-quick lips; sniffed their cheap perfumes amid the tarry smell of
the packages marked Sidney, New York, Paris....
[Illustration: "QUICKER, MY WOOLLY-LEGS!"]
On reaching the stage, Pa first gave a glance to make sure that there were
no elephants, or ponies, or Merry Wives, that they could practise at their
ease, without having to burrow in a corner, like rats. The stage was
almost empty. After the live street, it was a pallid light, in which
ghosts moved. The New Zealanders, it need not be said, no longer fancied
themselves in the cavern of Bluebeard or Puss-in-Boots; they had seen too
many stages during the past two years. The slant of the floor, the
roughness or smoothness of the boards was what interested them, for fear
of falls and barked shins. Pa hurried them to their dressing-room to get
into their knickers, while he took off his jacket and turned up his
trousers, so as to run better. No more time to lose, with his Lily! He was
still in a fever from seeing those Pawnees last night. As for the stage
and the boards, a lot he cared, slanting or straight, rough or smooth! To
work! to work! And he got ready the bikes, which Tom had brought down,
without a glance around him.
To a poet, to a painter, that glance would have been worth the taking. The
iron curtain was raised, the house loomed vaguely; the balconies, covered
with cloth, stood out like cliffs; the pit, with its seats under a gray
drugget, because of the dust, lifted toward the stage its rows of
motionless waves. The stage itself was strange: a sort of huge cave, with
strips of scenery hanging like stalactites; near the wall, a metal
pedestal, with a red velvet platform, looked like a blood-stained
scaffold; one suspected the presence of properties: wheels, iron
implements, tangled ropes, like so many instruments of torture. At the New
Zealanders' feet, half-naked bodies, suggesting the souls of the damned,
were tumbling, practising falls; a woman in a white wrap hovered round;
and, near the proscenium, a pack of trained seals, lying in their moist
boxes, raised their frightened heads, as who should say corpses cast up on
the shores of hell by the silent waves of the pit.
But three slender forms, spinning on their trapeze almost above Pa's head,
sprang lightly to the stage, near an old fellow in spectacles.
"Why, Mr. Fuchs and the Three Graces! Here's a surprise!" said Pa, who had
not seen them since the New York Olympians. "When did you get here?
Yesterday?"
There was a general shaking of hands. Fuchs congratulated Pa on his
success, said he had followed his progress in the papers. Pa owned a
troupe now and had a name.
"So this is your Lily," said Fuchs, tapping her on the cheek as she joined
the group. "A real lady! And good, eh?"
The Three Graces also congratulated Pa ... kissed Lily:
"How sweet you've grown! Why, Lily, how pretty you are!"
Lily was so surprised, so pleased; and her Pa was very proud. He thanked
Mr. Fuchs, complimented the Three Graces in his turn, to their delight:
"What arms! What muscles!" Then, "Excuse us, eh? Lily must get ready. We
shall meet again presently, after practice."
The Graces had gone back to it already. Pa tested the bikes; took a
hurried turn at the pumps; and, when the apprentices and Lily returned:
"Yoop, up with you!"
The round began. Tom looked to the girls, constantly; ran after them; kept
an eye on their falls. Pa, constantly, hung on to Lily. Nothing else
existed when he was handling his star. His wish to do well, his love of
art for art's sake worked him up, stimulated him, made him hit out but not
in anger: it was the spark of enthusiasm, of which the apprentices caught
the reflection.
"Hi, you there, Mary! I'll pull your ear! Birdie, if I take my belt to
you!"
But his Lily above all; his Lily! his seven stone of flesh and bones! Pa
was an artiste; he had thought of a thousand things since his trip to
Brighton. New and astounding tricks; and easy at that ... if Lily only
would! Oh, he'd soon make her graceful! But, for that, she would have to
obey, to let go the handle-bar at a sign, instead of endlessly seeking her
balance. For instance, Pa held her rein to prevent falls--there was
nothing spiteful about Pa, he never let you fall on purpose--and
Lily--"One! Two!--Count together, Lily!"--put one foot on the saddle, the
other on the handle-bar: "Three!" That's where she had to let go her
hands, smartly, and stand erect as she rode. The machine slipped under
her. Lily, shaking with fear, stooped to seize the handle-bar.
"Stand up, Lily! Show pluck, Lily!" said Pa.
Lily, accustomed to obeying blindly, drew herself up again. But,
sometimes, crash! The whole came tumbling down. Notwithstanding the rein,
Lily fell to the ground; and the bike, in addition, caught her a kick in
passing.
"Nothing broken? A tiny scratch; it's nothing. Tom, the white stuff!"
Tom left his Woolley-legs, brought a bottle of embrocation; a few drops of
that on the skin, a bit of sticking-plaster; there, that was all right.
"You see, Lily, you're not dead yet! Nothing to be frightened about. Come,
try again!"
The great thing was to hustle. Pa displayed so much enthusiasm--"Those
Pawnees, damn it!"--that Lily, for all her fears, was smitten in her turn,
ended by becoming exasperated against those Pawnees, felt a longing to
wring their necks!
She obeyed her Pa like an automaton, in her anxiety to do well.
"More graceful! That's it! Not so stiff!" said Pa.
"But, Pa, I can't!" protested Lily, soaked in perspiration.
"But you've got to, my little lady!"
They passed from one practice to another, almost without resting. Lily was
worn out, Pa seemed indefatigable.
Sometimes, practising was marked by interruptions. Maud's gouged eye
remained the typical accident. Another time, a girl lay fainting for ten
minutes after falling on her head; or else the stage was invaded by a
ballet. There was no end to it. On this particular day, they had a visit
from Harrasford himself, Harrasford the chief and master, who came along
with Jimmy; a visit which was the more sensational for being quite rare.
Pa, now that he was the owner of a troupe and sure of his position, would
not have been sorry to be noticed by Harrasford, just to impress Mr. Fuchs
and show him what they thought of Lily in London.
"Do your best, my Lily," said Pa. "He's watching us."
But bill-toppers, New Zealanders though they might be, were nobodies to
"him;" Lily--one of a thousand, among all those of both sexes who
performed in his theaters. There might have been ten cycling rhinoceroses
on the boards; he might have seen Lily swallow her bike, and change into a
butterfly: he would have paid no attention. Those were details that
concerned the stage-manager. He hurried across the stage to the
fly-ladder, made Jimmy explain things, took notes as he went, wanted to
see for himself, pointed to the first batten, to the electric switches.
"How much for so many lamps? And that? What does that come to, roughly?"
And he stopped for a second in his course, his ear stretched toward Jimmy
to catch his answer flying; then both of them went on again, quickly.
Jimmy was now following Harrasford along the bridges, with the whole stage
below him, in the ruddy semi-darkness; at one side, the half-naked bodies
fell with a heavy thud after their somersaults; or else it was the sharp
sound of a bike skidding; and distant voices rose up to him:
"But, Pa, I can't!"
"But you've got to, my little lady!"
"Poor little thing!" thought Jimmy, disappearing in the flies, toward the
side-rails, at Harrasford's heels. And Lily went on riding and Pa running
after her, round and round and round. She seemed to be fleeing madly,
pursued by a devil. Suddenly, Pa stopped, having exhausted his strength,
and Lily fell rather than sat upon a hamper by the wall.
"Here, Lily, put this over your shoulders," said Pa, giving her his
jacket. "You'll catch cold, darling. Oof, let's take breath a bit!"
But a glad voice burst through the silence: it came from the Three Graces,
who always worked on stubbornly, even during the absence of Nunkie, who
had been out for a smoke. Thea greeted his return with a cry of triumph:
"Ten pullings-up with one arm, Nunkie! Ten without stopping!"
"Well done! I'm very pleased with you," said Mr. Fuchs; and he crowned
their excitement by declaring that, as a reward, he would that very day
buy Thea the sleeve-links which he had promised her ever since last year.
"Dear Nunkie!"
A spasm of vanity made them rush back to their work; and soon the three of
them formed, in mid-air, an involved group of ropes, bars and hardened
limbs.
Lily, in spite of her fatigue, was amused at those mad girls. To take all
that trouble for the sake of a pair of sleeve-links! Her shoulders shook
with nervous laughter, in spite of Pa's presence. He quieted her with a
gesture, scolded her under his breath, kindly:
"Shut up, Lily!... Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Lily?"
And he looked at Nunkie with an air of saying:
"You old rogue!"
As for the Three Graces, it was a pleasure to watch them: their pluck was
infectious.
"To work!" said Pa. "Let's have a somersault, eh?"
And, at a sign from him, two of the apprentices, assisted by Tom, fixed a
little steel-legged table in the middle of the stage, bore down upon it
with all their weight. The bike, set at full speed, stopped short as it
struck the table; and Lily, carried on by the impulse, continued her
whirl, full on her back, and, carrying the machine with her, came to the
ground on the other side of the table and went on riding. But that shook
her, in her stomach, her heart, everywhere. Each time, she was nearly
succeeding, but it wasn't quite right.
"I can see," said Pa, "you want to make me lose my temper!"
"But, Pa, it hurts!"
"Oh, those blasted little brats!" shouted Pa angrily. "Rickety machines,
every one of them: no more energy than a sparrow and lazy into the
bargain!"
Then, suddenly, Lily succeeded magnificently.
"You see you can do it when you like, you obstinate little wretch!" said
Pa. "Now try not to miss it again, next time! That will do for to-day," he
added, seeing Lily out of breath. "Go and get dressed, my Lily."
The Three Graces were finishing also. Good old Nunkie wiped the
perspiration from their foreheads with his big checked handkerchief,
invited Clifton to come with Lily and choose the sleeve-links and
suggested that they could have a chat at the restaurant.
"Would you like to, Lily?" asked Pa.
"Yes, Pa."
"Very well, then."
The girls would go back alone. Tom, having carried up the bikes, was told
to run home and fetch Miss Lily's new dress and boots, Mrs. Clifton's
brooch and big hat. And, half an hour later, Lily, who had crawled up to
her dressing-room stiff-legged, exhausted, feeling sixty, came tripping
down the stairs all freshly dressed, wearing the great hat of her mother,
and a pair of creaking boots. She soon recovered when she was dressed out.
She drew up her dainty figure, so as to be level with the imposing group
of Pa, Nunkie and the Three Graces.
Lily, very proud of herself, spun out the pleasure of drawing on her
gloves to go shopping with those big girls, who had had love stories. Then
they discussed what restaurant.... Nunkie, long ago--"Zaeo's year at the
Aquarium:--that doesn't make me any younger, eh?"--had discovered a little
German place....
Lily would have liked to propose the Horse Shoe, to walk in there with her
big hat and creaking boots as though the place belonged to her. But they
decided upon a "Lyons" in Wardour Street. At the table, it was touching to
watch the attentions which the Three Graces lavished upon their Nunkie,
the respect they showed him. Pa was not sorry that Lily should see that,
but Lily took no notice at all: she just removed her gloves, held her
knife and fork with the tips of her fingers, let Pa help her, thanked him
with a pretty "'K you." From the corner of her eye, she watched other
groups, to pick up good manners. She seemed to have frequented smart
restaurants all her life: beside her, Nunkie and the Three Graces, who cut
their bread with their knives and made a noise when eating, looked like a
family of small farmers on a visit to London town. Pa was greatly amused,
enjoyed his daughter's aristocratic ways, admired her refined air. When
they went out, in obedience to a look from Lily, he bought her a bunch of
violets, which he pinned to her bodice himself:
"Well, Lily, are you happy? Do you love your Pa? Tell me you love your
Pa," and he looked at her gently as if in regret at having been so harsh
at practice.
"It's for your good, my Lily, you'll thank me one of these days. I'll give
you lovely dresses, I'll cover you with diamonds!"
"Why not to-day?" asked Lily, with a comic pout.
Then both of them laughed and Lily forgot everything, even the blow with
the fist, at being treated so like a lady.
"If I was married," she said to the Three Graces, "I should like to go
shopping all day long and have fine dresses, a gold watch and no bike!"
The Three Graces, with their heroic strength, had no thought of such
luxuries. Thea told Lily of her successes in America:
"Five pullings-up with one arm at Boston. Six at 'Frisco. Eight when we
got back to New York! Eight, Lily! And to-day...."
"And your lover in America, tell me about your lover ..." interrupted
Lily, pressing Thea's arm.
"Talk low," said Thea, looking back at Nunkie, who was walking behind with
Pa. "Nunkie is furious with him. If he ever meets him! He says it's
disgraceful, not writing to me, after asking leave to. It's an insult that
ought to disgust me with men for good and all, Nunkie says."
She told Lily everything, her unhappiness at first, for she loved him.
Lily, with her little nose in the air, sniffed those love stories, gulped
them down, so to speak, with an instinctive movement of the lips.
"And did you write to him?"
"I wrote to him, but he never answered. Oh, if Nunkie knew! He forbids us
to write, because writing, you know, Lily, puts out the muscles of the
arms, interferes with the pullings-up, Nunkie says...."
[Illustration: NUNKIE]
But they turned into Regent Street: to Lily it was the entrance to the
paradise of shops. The huge curve displayed its window fronts; and ladies
and gentlemen and little girls: not dressed in their Ma's leavings, these
last, but a superior branch of mankind, similar to that in the front
boxes.
Nunkie blinked his eyes behind his spectacles: all this luxury terrified
him; he had almost forgotten the sleeve-links, talking with Clifton of
people they had known:
"The boy-violinist? Not up to much. Ave Maria? A disgrace: married,
deserted, I don't know what. Poland, the Parisienne? A scandal!" As for
him, he had but one wish, after getting his girls married: to retire to
his home, grow his roses, look after his pigeons; simple joys, the only
ones....
"Look, Thea!" Lily broke in, pointing through the plate-glass to a heap of
imitation jewelry, lying, among watches, on red and black velvet.
"Come on!" said Mr. Fuchs.
But, when Thea saw the prices--ten shillings, twelve shilling's--she
refused to go in, saying she could have it just as pretty in Wardour
Street and ever so much cheaper.
"Just as you please, my darling. I'll do whatever you like. I don't know
anything about it!"
Clifton felt something rise in revolt within him, he was unable to resist
it; a case of showing that old curmudgeon what a Pa was and that his
little girl, too, did pullings-up in her way and that he knew how to treat
her as a Pa should:
"Your watch, Lily," he said, opening the door and pushing her in. "Now's
the chance to get it. Come, choose for yourself!"
"Oh, Pa! Do you really mean it, Pa?" she said incredulously.
"Now look here, I'll smack you, Lily! When your Pa tells you a thing!"
Lily seemed a princess, with her way of saying, "'K you," of touching the
ornaments, the watches, like a little creature thirsting for luxury and
yielding to her inclination at the first opportunity. There was so great a
look of happiness in her eyes; and Clifton was so proud of his Lily, that
he offered her a chain as well, to go with the watch. Lily refused at
first, for form's sake, and then took courage--like a poor little martyr
who did not like to disoblige her Pa--and chose a very pretty watch-chain,
to the great wonderment of the Three Graces and of Nunkie, who thought, as
they left the shop, that the children of to-day ... upon his word ... the
parents of to-day ... it was all very different in his time....
Clifton laughed to himself at that old curmudgeon as he left him to go
home, with his star. Lily hung heavily on her father's arm, passed the
draper's shops with a serious air.
"No, another time!" said Pa, who felt what she was after.
And he hurried his daughter off, for he might have yielded, she was so
nice.
Lily set her watch in Piccadilly, as they passed; then at the Cafe de
l'Europe, by the big clock at the back; and again, twenty steps farther,
at the bar of the Crown. Lily looked at the time and Pa showed his Lily
off. He was proud to be seen with her in the neighborhood of Lisle Street,
where everybody knew him. True, he seemed to have the name of being hard
with Lily. But, come, was he hard? Did she look like a martyr? It was
preposterous, all those stories. And he redoubled his attentions to his
daughter, who talked a heap of nonsense, asked funny questions:
"Why should writing a letter interfere with the trapeze, when a girl has
arms harder than a horse's hocks?"
"What? What?" asked Pa, taken aback, and when he understood, he would have
held his sides for laughing, if he had been at home:
"Oh, the old rogue!" he said admiringly. "He loves his dear girls, does
Nunkie!"
He was still laughing when they reached Tottenham Court Road; and, as they
passed the Horse Shoe, a voice, which Lily seemed to remember, called to
them from behind:
"Hullo, Clifton!"
Pa turned his head in surprise:
"Hullo, Trampy!"
For he recognized him at once, though he was much changed. Besides, he
knew him to be in London. But it was a prosperous and gorgeous Trampy,
quite unlike the old days; and forthwith Trampy explained: a champagne
supper last night, just come from the bar; glass of Vichy water, you know.
Huge success in London. Girls, by Jove! And then, pretending not to know
Lily:
"I congratulate you, Clifton; what a dear little wife!"
Pa, greatly amused, protested: not his wife, no, his Lily! Then Trampy
went into ecstasies: how pretty she had grown, one of the handsomest girls
in London, sure! And in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland!
And in all the British dominions beyond the seas, by Jove! And what a
change since Mexico! She was a woman now, a peach, a regular peach!
Lily seemed fascinated by Trampy, examined him, his shiny hat, his gold
rings, his patent-leather shoes. A swell, Trampy, a toff, a gentleman like
those in the front boxes.
"Yes, Lily," said Trampy, guessing her thoughts, "yes, that's the way it
is; one's not always hard up. I've struck oil since leaving America. Heaps
of money! Eh, what!" he continued, offering Clifton an expensive cigar.
"You wouldn't have thought it, would you, when you left me stranded in
Mexico? That was a nice dirty trick you played me! Come and have a drain,
old man, to drink Miss Lily's health and show there's no ill feeling!"
"No, another time," said Clifton, vexed at this recollection of Mexico,
now that he was the established owner of a troupe, a man whose word was as
good as gold. "I'm in a hurry to get home: a very nice home, Trampy, a
real good one. Come and see us some day. _Au revoir_."
But Trampy was so pleased at meeting them, he never stopped shaking them
by the hand. Lily had to accept a bag of cakes to share with the troupe
when they had their tea. Then, at last:
"_Au revoir_, old man; _au revoir_, my love, my little peach!"
Lily's head was quite turned by this jolly day: it made her forget six
months of worries. To think that, for some people, every day was like
that! However, she mustn't complain: a watch, a chain as well, the
somersault pulled off, compliments from Trampy....
Ma's reception of them, when they got home, was icy. Pa looked a little
like a school-boy caught at fault; and Lily, none too easy in her mind,
put the cakes on the sideboard, and hastened to take off her mother's big
hat. Ma grumbled, under her breath: it was nothing but going out, now. Old
Cinderella could stay at home, bareheaded, while my lady went shopping! A
fine thing, my word, for a great sensible girl to abuse her Pa's weakness!
There was nothing to do at home, of course! Well, if it pleased Mr.
Clifton, she had no more to say!... And, while she grumbled, Ma prepared
the tea and shot glances at Lily, a Lily with red cheeks and bright eyes
and looking so pretty that Ma, full of mixed pride and anxiety, felt
sudden longings to eat her up with kisses, "ugly" that she was!
Pa did his best to calm Mrs. Clifton, tried to amuse her with the story of
the sleeve-links, of the horse's hocks, and Pa laughed, my!
"He laughs best who laughs last," growled Ma.
"Just think, Ma," said Lily, taking courage from Pa's merriment. "That old
rogue forbids his daughter to write, he pretends that...."
"And quite right too!" said Ma. "What do girls want with writing? And who
do you mean? What old rogue? You don't mean Mr. Fuchs, I suppose?"
"Why, yes, Ma, old Fuchs."
"Old Fuchs! You chit, to talk like that of respectable people! Go to your
room, impudence! Dry bread for you!"
"But, Ma...!" said Lily rebelliously.
"That's what comes of it," said Mrs. Clifton, addressing her husband,
"when a mother no longer has the right to correct her daughter."
And she pointed to Lily, who persisted in remaining, who was even
beginning an explanation:
"But, Pa ... but...."
"Obey your mother first," said Clifton.
"Yes, Pa."
And Lily went out, very anxious at the turn which things had taken.
Clifton realized that he had perhaps been wrong that morning to blame Mrs.
Clifton in Lily's presence. He was wrong also to laugh at old Fuchs before
Lily. But, all the same, that old rogue ... and they had believed it,
those Graces! That wouldn't go down with Lily!
"It's an example you ought to follow, instead of laughing at it, Mr.
Clifton!"
"Upon my word, I'm very proud of my Lily; she works well, she really
does," said Pa, stretching himself in the easy-chair. "I'm pleased with
her; you know as well as I do, a girl is not a boy. She can do with a
little spoiling. And only just now I made Lily a present of a gold watch
and chain."
"Then I give up!" said Ma, in a voice of exasperation. "Then I give up!
Why should I take all this trouble bringing up your daughter? A little
spendthrift who will bring us all to the workhouse! And a good thing when
she does!"
But Pa wanted peace in his own house. That was enough of it! Peace was
what he wanted, damn it, and not a monkey-and-parrot life!
And, jumping up from his chair, he opened the door and shouted up the
staircase:
"Come down, my Lily! Your Ma says you may! The cakes are on the table."