There had been a terrible scene at home that day. Ma had searched Lily's
trunk and had not, it is true, discovered the love letters which she
believed to be hidden there, but she had found a ring! It was Trampy's
ring, which Lily, who usually concealed it about her person, had left by
accident in the trunk among her things. Ma's face was a sight, when she
came down to the dining-room. She was so upset that Pa asked her:
"Are you ill, dear?"
Ma, without answering the question, pushed the ring under his nose and
screamed that she had told him so:
"An engagement ring, dear; an engagement ring! Perhaps you'll believe me
now!"
Pa and Ma, when they had recovered from their surprise, had time to lay
their heads together and replace the ring, pretending to know nothing, to
be watching more closely than ever ... and then Pa had gone out; for, if
Lily, who was walking with the apprentices, had come home just then, he
could not have resisted the temptation to smack her face. It was better to
go out and postpone the explanation until later. He had, indeed, resolved
never to beat his daughter again ... but still! And he clenched his fists
and ground his teeth when he reached the theater.
On the stage, he looked round for Tom, who should have been there to mend
a tire. He saw nothing at first: only a few electric lamps studding the
darkness; a faint glimmer lighting up a number of properties; farther on,
the dull gleam of stacked-up bikes; and, lastly, Tom, with his cap cocked
back and trousers turned up, trying--brrr!--to do a clog-dance!
"Bravo, Tom!" shouted Clifton, the moment he saw him. "Just you wait a
bit. I'll teach you to dance: with the clogs on your hands and your head
downwards, damn it! Here, take this to go on with!" continued Pa, fetching
him a clout on the shoulder. "And get to the bikes and hurry up, or I'll
smash your jaw in!"
Meanwhile, Jimmy had also come, unseen by Pa. And the great batten lit up:
the stage came to life again. Right up above, in the galleries from which
the ropes were worked, mysterious forms moved to and fro. The iron curtain
rose ... there was a clash of orchestra ... Jimmy, with his back against
the drop-scene and his face to the stage, gave sharp orders....
Pa watched the scene vaguely from the wings. He gnawed his mustache: the
apprentices would be there soon, with his Lily. And he had something to
say to the stage-manager; something of a delicate character.
But Clifton was surprised to see Jimmy instead of the usual
stage-manager:
"Hullo! So it's you now," he couldn't help saying.
"Why, yes, Mr. Clifton; since this morning. The other chap's ill, you
know. Harrasford asked me to take his place ... for a few days, I suppose
... or perhaps longer. Do you want to speak to me, Mr. Clifton?" added
Jimmy, observing Pa's look of embarrassment. "Just a minute and I am
yours."
Two tall footmen, caparisoned in velvet and gold, disappeared behind the
curtain with the number of the next turn. They came back in a few seconds.
Jimmy pressed a button. The stage filled with light and noise, the turn
marked on the program entered and, suddenly, under the dazzling light, it
was a series of somersaults, of flights from shoulder to shoulder, and the
muffled fall of feet on the thick carpet.
"There will be eight minutes of this," said Jimmy, taking out his watch.
"What have you to say to me, Mr. Clifton?"
Oh, what he had to say was very simple; he wouldn't have mentioned it
himself, but Mrs. Clifton had asked him to. To cut a long story short,
wasn't it a shame that gentlemen should throw bouquets on the stage when
Lily was giving her show? Like last night, for instance: why, it was
making game of a child, putting ideas into her head! Lily, of course, paid
no attention to it. However, was it or was it not allowed to throw or send
bouquets on the stage?
"Why, you know it is!" said Jimmy. "How would you have me prevent it?"
If he could have prevented it, he would. To begin with, Jimmy realized the
bothers which it brought down upon Lily. Moreover, Jimmy, who was vaguely
uneasy himself, wondered who that ardent admirer could be. Some of
Roofer's girls thought they had recognized Trampy, from the stage, in the
front seats. What Jimmy had heard of Trampy did not inspire him with
confidence. And Trampy, it appeared, was making love to Lily. Mr. Fuchs
had met them at the corner of Oxford Street and Newman Street. The story
was quite definite.
Jimmy was astonished at the audacity of a Trampy: what could he say to
her? he asked himself, what could he propose to her? Marriage? He was
married, they said, in America. To run away with him? His scandalous life,
his habit of easy conquest made this very likely. Jimmy had seen plenty of
others, big ones who topped the bill and who did not despise a girl's
companionship--on the contrary--and six months later, a year, two years
later, left the girl in a hole, stranded, undone; mustard and game for Jim
Crow. And he grew more and more anxious on Lily's behalf: not that Lily
would come to that! Yet he had seen plenty of them, since he had
frequented the stage, plenty of Lilies who had taken to flight for
injuries often less serious than hers. He could have mentioned names: his
head was full of those who let their anger, or their folly, get the better
of them and escaped at random, and who went back to every-day
life--through the door of scandal--sometimes to meet with worse: martyrdom
of the heart, base exploitation in the name of love. Oh, he pitied them
from the bottom of his soul! No, Lily shouldn't run away: it was
impossible! But what a pity, all the same, that he could think of it! And
what chance, what meeting would settle her fate and make her--who could
say?--the companion of a loving heart, or a prey to some footy rotter? Oh,
how he would have liked to go for Trampy, to break his jaw for him, to
teach him to mind his business and leave Lily alone! And what Jimmy wanted
to do he was never far from doing! And, then, oh, if he could procure a
good position for Clifton, as an equivalent for his star and make Lily
love him, marry him: that would be better still!
This idea, perhaps, without his knowing it, dominated his present life,
doubled his power of work: to invent something! To get himself talked
about! To make money, plenty of money, become somebody! Others before him
had risen from nothing. Harrasford, to go no farther ... a chap who had
climbed every rung of the ladder: a small music-hall first; then two; then
a big one; then two; then ten. And a whole army now toiling and moiling
for him every night, for him the chief and master.
"Oh!" thought Jimmy. "If I could only climb the ladder too!"
First of all, he must choose his line, for his efforts to tell. And, since
chance had given him a start at the theater, why not go on? Here his
scientific luggage would be of use to him. It was only a question of
adding pluck to it. He was the man to do so and now more than ever. Things
which used to seem impossible to him, such as his invention published in
_Engineering_, appeared quite feasible, now that he had watched Lily do
her wonderful feats of balancing on the stage. It was only a question of
courage and hard practice. Another line suggested itself: to find capital
and start a theater. As regards the stage itself, by this time he
understood the management of it from grid to cellar. He seemed to take in
at a glance that huge entirety, from the flies with their windlasses,
their bridges, the labyrinth of stairs, the maze of passages, down to the
dressing-rooms and the painted faces that filled them: here, a Lily;
there, a buck nigger; farther on, a living-picture girl. He felt all this
rustle round him, carried it all in his head: he knew it all, from the
porter's box at the stage-door to the glittering front of the house, with
its palm-trees and its liveried chuckers-out. Jimmy knew what to think of
the enchantments of the stage, those luminous visions which the audience
admired to the tune of the orchestra: jealousies, vanities, hatreds to
knock up against and calm down; recruits to put through their paces; and
the whole day of it--and the whole night, too--for a few pounds a week,
including the tips received from the artistes, twenty-five to forty
shillings a month.
But Jimmy had his idea: he was determined to obtain a thorough grasp of
the business; he had already taken possession of the stage-manager's room
and of his desk with the many compartments: photographs, programs,
contracts, electric light, staff, scenery. A whole small people depended
upon him, and asked his advice, bragged of its successes or told him of
its misfortunes. And here again was Clifton continuing his jeremiads: they
would drive his daughter silly by making game of her, pretending to be in
love with her, at her age! Jimmy listened attentively, with one eye on the
stage and the other on his watch:
"Tut!" he said, trying to arrange things. "There's no great harm in
receiving bouquets on the stage. However, as you object, if any more of
them come, they shall be handed to you, to dispose of as you please.
That's all that I can do."
It was gradually filling up behind Clifton and Jimmy; the iron door was
constantly slamming upon the passage; knowing-looking Roofer girls passed,
two by two, always two by two, joked for a moment with the scene shifters,
shook hands here and there, disappeared up the dressing-room staircase.
There was life, swarming life, everywhere, in the corners, behind the
back-cloth. The New Zealanders arrived, with Lily and her Ma, for Ma never
left her now, for fear of the gentlemen who prowled around like famished
hyenas: villains who did not hesitate to throw bouquets on the stage to
make ugly girls think they were pretty!
Lily seemed sad. She stopped for a moment. A haunting serenade droned
across the stage, a Spanish melody sung by soft tremolo voices, with
tapping of tambourines. It reminded her of Mexico: everything reminded her
of that time now. She compared herself with Ave Maria. Oh, she would have
liked to tell the whole world how she was treated, just the plain
truth!--in her own little way. But no one cared, not even that rotten
josser of a journalist, with his article published in _The Piccadilly
Magazine_. It made her out a spoiled child, who had learned to ride in the
country-lanes, with her French governess, and who had surprised her father
and mother by coming home one day with her head on the saddle of her
bicycle and her feet in the air, thereby causing an unparalleled scandal
in that old Yorkshire family. Since then, they had been obliged to yield
to her fancies and allow her to go on the stage with her little troupe of
friends. Her salary? Ten pounds a night. Her recreation? The banjo....
"Rotten josser of a journalist!" thought Lily.
Nevertheless, she was flattered at heart because of the ten pounds a night
and the governess.
But things happened to distract her thoughts: the Three Graces entered in
their turn, followed by Nunkie; they stood talking for a few moments,
while the apprentices went and dressed; and Lily soon followed them, after
a last glance at a little woman and her "partner," who were getting things
ready for their performance---some little hoops, two cardboard bottles,
gilt balls--and then waited humbly in the shadow.
Lily recognized Para, who used to exhibit a troupe of parrots; somebody
had put her "in his show," no doubt, the Para-Paras, a new turn.
"How poor she looks!" Lily could not help whispering to Ma.
"You'll be worse off yourself, some day," said Ma, "if you go on as you're
doing! Don't laugh at other people."
Lily had dressed quickly and had come down to the stage with the Three
Graces and they had ten minutes of joking behind the scenes, while Ma was
still up-stairs, busy with the girls. Thea walked on tip-toe to restore
the circulation to her legs; Kala practised back-bendings: Lily applauded
with the tip of her thumbnail, flung back her head and laughed and, from
time to time, looked round over her shoulder to see if Ma was coming
down.
She amused herself also by feeling Thea's arms, all those little muscles
which stood out, man's arms: she would have liked to nestle in them, to
feel herself squeezed till she cried out. And everything around them
savored of love: there were lots of Roofers; little intrigues were
embarked upon; there were stifled fits of laughter and cries of "Hands
off!" and "Stop!" Amorous speeches and stories of romantic adventures were
exchanged in whispers; the flight of the Gilson girl, the other day, at
Liverpool, was told in full detail; a Roofer, it seemed, giving a high
kick the day before, had sent her slipper flying into the audience; it was
returned to her filled with chocolate creams; and to-day there was a
boquet with a letter in it.
Ting! The curtain, the light; and, on the stage, the Roofers were
glittering with gold and silver and their boyish voices came in gusts,
punctuated by the jerky flights of their short skirts.
"Your old sweetheart, eh, Lily?" said Thea, pointing to the boy-violinist,
who had just arrived.
Lily had only a careless glance for the boy-violinist, who was wiping his
eye-glasses and pulling at his cuffs, while a call-boy was adjusting the
false seat into which two bulldogs would presently dig their teeth. All
the fascination was gone for Lily: it was no longer the child prodigy; a
grotesque Orpheus, in a laurel and parsley crown, he now introduced his
music-hating dogs, who interrupted his performance with plaintive and
angry howls and ended by leaping at the seat of his trousers in a mad rush
across the stage.
Lily, who had "gone through the mill," looked upon him as a mere josser,
had for him the instinctive contempt entertained by the real artiste for
those fiddlers, those singers, those dancers and other drones brought up
with blows of the hat.
"Pooh! I have some one better than that," exclaimed Lily, excited by the
proximity of the Roofers.
"If you have any one better than that and he loves you," said Thea, in a
dreamy voice, "love him, Lily, keep him; as for me, I no longer risk
having to do with men."
"I do!" Lily whispered, with a frightened glance around her. "As much as I
can! I love talking to men! Why, Thea, and don't you like love letters and
p.-c.'s?"
Ting! Ting! Orpheus left the stage, with his bulldogs hanging to him.
Ting! It was dark again; ropes, plated rings were let down from the flies;
the Three Graces, like quivering marble statues, took one another by the
hand to make their entrance.
Ting! From their perches on either side, two electricians sent the
lime-light beating down on an involved group of ropes, bars and hardened
limbs.
Ting! A crescendo in the orchestra and, bowing to the audience across the
footlights, the Three Graces made their exit, their smiles suddenly
hollowed out into tired wrinkles, but cheerful nevertheless. And Nunkie
wiped their foreheads with his checked handkerchief, helped them on with
their big cloaks; and the three goddesses were now just a wrapped-up
group, limping off to the staircase, like gouty patients at a spa.
Ting! A forest scene is let down, the wings are shifted. A click of
chains, a flash of steel. The bikes in the shadow, the apprentices
mounted, Lily leading.
"And try to do your best, my Lily."
"Yes, Pa."
"And try to behave."
"Yes, Ma."
Ting!
Lily gave a nervous smile. She always felt a little thrill before going
on. Then, quick, in Indian file, two and two, three and three, the New
Zealanders whirled round in the light, to the roar of a triumphal air.
Pa ground his teeth and clenched his fists the moment he heard his music:
at the mere sight of his Lily, his seven stone of flesh and bones adapted
to the machine, unerring and exact, an immense intoxication exalted his
pride, gladness dilated his heart. At last! He was there now: German
discipline! English gracefulness! Everything! He, too, would have his
London home, with a lawn behind the house and a plot of rose-trees. He
would learn the meaning of family joys, as Nunkie understood them, with
texts along the staircase: "Welcome!" and "God bless our home!" And, more
and more excited, he built up his dream; his imagination gave itself scope
amid the unreal scenery, the forest depths, the green and gold sky and his
Lily, his faultless Lily, haloed in light! Every hope was permissible when
he looked at his Lily, his joy, his handiwork! His New Zealander on
Wheels! That india-rubber suppleness, those little nerves of iron, his
Lily, his glory, his star, his own star! He romanced about her, dreamed of
an imperial tour, a steamer of his own, a floating Barnum's show, with
Roofers, elephants, rhinoceroses, Ave Marias, dogs, monkeys, the whole
boiling; and Lily starring on her bike, stopping in every port, from
Liverpool to Suez, from Suez to Yokohama: down to the desert, damn it, to
show the whole world what an artiste he, Clifton, he, the father, had made
of his Lily! And he looked at her with loving eyes, applauded her with a
smile, restored her self-possession with a twitch of the eyebrow and
counted her twirls on the back-wheel--O pride unspeakable!--a dozen!
[Illustration: SHE NEVER LOST SIGHT OF LILY]
Ma, standing by him, interested herself less in the show and, neglecting
the artiste, watched the daughter and the faces she made at the gentlemen:
the brazen flapper, whose sole attraction lay in the wickedness in her
blood! She never lost sight of Lily and watched her closely, for Ma seemed
always to catch her throwing an appealing glance to the seducers in the
front boxes, to some St. George in full dress who would dart across the
footlights to carry off her daughter.
Thus caught between Pa and Ma, Lily's situation was hard indeed. As for
the audience, she never troubled about it, from custom, like a true
professional, who gives her performance mechanically, without minding
about the rest. The audience, to Lily, was, behind a streak of flame, in
the semi-darkness, a confused mass of black and gray. All this had no
existence for Lily or the apprentices. The audience didn't pay them! The
audience wouldn't give her a whacking if the show went badly! Pa, in the
wings, frightened her much more than all the audiences in the world; and
Ma was worse still, when a gentleman smiled at her from a box. Then Lily
would stare at her Ma with the terrified eye of a parrot contemplating
Para's whip. She even exaggerated, pinched her lips, like a school-girl
applying herself to her book for fear of the ferule. Ma did not ask so
much as that. Sometimes, when Lily, after a successful trick, threw out
her chest to draw breath more easily and rode round the stage with a
pretty smile on her lips, Ma saw no harm in it, even rejoiced within
herself at her daughter's beauty. Ma knew how to be just and not to be
angry for nothing. But what she could not forgive, what exasperated her
was, just that very evening, with her own eyes, to see Lily smile at some
person unknown and shoot fiery glances at the front boxes, the little
devil, who would bring them to the grave with shame!
For Lily, it must be confessed, flung prudence to the winds that night.
Her head was turned with all those love stories. They sang in her ears,
they distended her nostrils. Oppressed on every side, she escaped in
imagination toward that spacious house, toward the confused mass in which
her lover sat hidden. And, in spite of Pa and in spite of Ma, who stood
watching her in the wings, Lily searched the audience with her eyes. Was
it really Trampy? Had he come back? She had not met him for some time. She
wanted to know and he would surely reveal himself. Ma might say what she
pleased. Even in the final pyramid, she looked, while, with one apprentice
on her shoulders, another forked before her, another standing behind, two
others on either side, she twice went round the stage, with flags waving,
to the hurricane of the orchestra. And then ting! And darkness anew, the
stage suddenly invaded by scene-shifters dragging heavy sets along; and
Lily, passing out, was seized by her Ma, who said:
"Who were you laughing at?"
"I wasn't laughing, Ma!"
"I'll teach you to make eyes at gentlemen, you baggage you! I saw you this
time! I saw you!" grumbled Ma, who had the engagement ring still upon her
mind. "You shall pay for this, Lily; we'll see if I can drive the devil
out of you or not!"
And Ma squeezed Lily's arm as if she meant to break it, but all this
noiselessly, in the shadow, behind the scenery, for fear of the stage
manager. Besides, it was nobody's business what a mother thought fit to
say to her daughter, and Lily, when people passed, pluckily tried to
smile, so as to put them off, not to let them know that she was being
beaten, a big girl like her; but, as soon as they were gone, she resumed
her rebellious face.
"I wasn't laughing, I wasn't laughing, Ma!"
"That's to teach you to lie!" said Ma, catching her a blow in the back of
the neck.
The door of the staircase had swung to behind them; and, in the empty
passage, the thumps continued all the way to the dressing-room, which the
apprentices had not yet reached. Then, once inside, Ma pushed the bolt and
made a rush at Lily. And Lily raised her elbow in vain: accompanied by a
furious series of grunts--"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"--Ma's diligent fist "signed a
contract on her back":
"And don't you dare to cry out, or I'll give it you twice as hard!"
Lily, bruised all over, felt inclined to scratch her mother, like a
wildcat; but the apprentices were coming. So she cooled her head in a
basin of cold water and dressed with all speed, assisted by Ma, who
perhaps regretted having been so hasty; but you had to be, with devils
like that! And Ma's anger returned when, on reaching the stage again, she
was herself, in accordance with Jimmy's orders, handed a bouquet intended
for Miss Lily. What, another! Lily, following her down the stairs with the
New Zealanders, saw Ma take the bouquet and toss it through the open
door.
"Come along," said Ma. "Give me your arm, Lily."
And the New Zealanders walked away from the brightly lit-up music-hall,
plunged through the drifting crowd, crossed the eddy of cabs, motors,
'buses and, on the pavements, through the windows, had visions of elegant
couples at sumptuous tables. Then they all went through the dark streets;
and Lily, escorted by Pa and Ma, followed the herd of girls. Her face was
hard and, from an angry brow, she shot glances askance at flight.