“Lily!”

Ma’s voice woke her with a start in the morning. Lily dressed quickly and quickly ran down-stairs to the kitchen, where Maud had gone before her; and it was the same thing every day, except on tour, when discipline was less strict. It had gone on for months and months, for two years, ever since they came to London. Pa, with his iron will, had overcome everything. He felt at home in the old country, at last. After his engagements in the London suburbs, he had obtained a triumph at the Castle, a Bill and Boom tour of forty weeks, a season at Blackpool, the Harrasford tour now, successes everywhere. Before his boyish little girls, before his own particular troupe, the fat freaks trembled in their knickers! For Clifton, the new-comer, but yesterday unknown, it was an unhoped-for success and fame and fortune.

Ma nearly always remained in London with Maud. Lily was not big enough yet to need the supervision of a Ma. Therefore, on tour,—when she was not practising with her Pa,—Lily did the catering, saw to the porridge and the Irish stew; Pa was not hard to please. Provided Lily was “great” on the stage, he asked for nothing more. Dishes burned for want of butter, salad mixed in the wash-hand basin: he swallowed everything with an appetite, ate standing, with his plate on the trunk, or else seated with the girls round a little table hardly large enough for three. This Bohemian life pleased him. He loved youth, gaiety and good fellowship. He was fond of a laugh, took Lily on his knee after dinner, played with her, praised her home-made cakes, her tough chops, and then began talking bike to Lily ... who hated bikes, and who got something different from a hat flung at her, when she missed a trick.

No matter, hard as it was, she preferred touring to staying in London. The work was the same, but, at least, it was a change. She was spoiled by every one, down to that landlady who cried when she left.... After all there were many worse off than she, everlastingly set about by “profs,” confined to their rooms all day to practise their balancing; she had had a taste of it in New York; no, thank you! She preferred having good times with the girls, practical jokes, boxing-matches even, scrimmages, pillow-fights. In the boarding-houses, they flirted with the boys; they kept pet pigeons, white mice, a lizard; they exchanged secrets, stories of every country, professionals all! Sometimes, they consoled one another; promised to send kisses—x x x—on post-cards. And then there were new faces, always; a week in each town, no longer; a real life of adventure from one end of England to the other. Now it wasn’t like that in London; she felt less free there. Ma was particular and hard to please; there were no pillow-fights, no romps; Ma hated those ways. The stage, yes, she put up with that because it was Lily’s profession; but one came in contact with all sorts there; and that little devil of a Lily was wicked enough already! It took all the home influence to thwart the bad examples which she received outside; and it was Ma’s business to see to it.

The house in Rathbone Place had been smartened up. There was a dining-room which was used only for meals and which never had a bed put into it at night. There were things on what-nots: little photograph-frames, loose photographs, lucky charms, china cups; all shining and bright, thanks to the adjunction of a lady’s maid, as Pa called Maud, in his funny way. At first, after the accident, it was terrible. Her natural awkwardness was made worse by a glass eye; she could not tell one side from the other, spilt the tea on the cloth, broke the crockery. Maud did the heavy work, washed and scrubbed all day long. When the girls were in London, she went with them to the theater, as dresser. Maud stood in the wings and admired the New Zealanders whirling about in the light. She stretched out her face in ecstasy toward Lily: that Lily who had traveled everywhere, who was born so far away, in a land full of monkeys and parrots. She followed Lily to her dressing-room, trotted after her like a dog, worshiped her open-mouthed.

Lily had ripened out, was becoming more beautiful, more of a woman daily, despite the fact that her Pa still treated her like a kid. She no longer looked at things from the point of view of the child-girl who had been delighted with a satin hair-ribbon in India; now her pride was not appeased with such trifles. Ma, according to Lily, seemed ashamed of her, dressed her badly: an odd skirt here, an odd frock there, of a cheap make. That was not what Lily wanted. She was an artiste: she wanted a hat with big feathers and a gown with gold braid to it; but, when she showed Ma a dress which she liked in the shop windows, Ma would exclaim:

“What do you want with that? My poor Lily, you must be mad! That’s for rich little girls, girls who have time to be pretty; it wouldn’t suit you at all. Why, if we listened to you, we’d soon be in the workhouse!”

Ma always said no, pretending that she had no money; whereas Lily knew to the contrary. She knew that the troupe earned a great deal and that the troupe was herself. The other day, at the theater, she had heard her aunt, who felt bitter that Mr. Clifton had not accepted her daughter Daisy—who could have learned the business and later on have starred by herself!—she had heard that “old sheep” say, speaking of her:

“What a shame to dress her like that! A girl who brings them in capital to invest!”

So Pa was investing capital. She didn’t exactly know what investing capital meant; no doubt it meant making a lot of money. She asked for none of it! Children belong to their parents! But she would have liked to be treated with more consideration, to be spoiled; to get presents, nice things. She had plenty from her Pa, true enough: presents, my! But they were cheap gifts, for all that.... She was always having promises made her of more important things; and the promises were never kept: that big gold watch, for instance. She had a thirsting for luxury. It seemed to her that she was being treated like a performing dog, not a bit better. Ma, without exactly knowing, but with an infallible instinct, saw all this budding under that obstinate brow. Mr. Clifton might see nothing in it; but it was not so easy to take in a mother! Was there a love affair beneath it all, Ma asked herself. No, not yet; it might come later on, as with that apprentice who had run away, or that other one whom she had had to send packing for being too free with men. But Lily would not leave them like that.

She did not let her go out. “Glass-eye Maud” ran the errands and Lily stayed at home, like a good little girl of whom her mother wished to make a lady. When she did happen to go out, she must not be long, or else it was, “Where have you been? Tell me at once!” At the theater, when Pa lost his temper, she could reckon on a mighty fillip, and then it was over: Pa was sorry, rather than otherwise. Ma, on the contrary, would nag for hours; muttered inarticulate phrases about “devil,” “wild bull,” and “taming her;” there was no end to it. Lily champed the bit! A star, indeed! Was that being a star? She thought differently! She had seen others drive up to the theater in their motors, accompanied by gentlemen carrying flowers, like that famous “M’dlle” at the Palace. Yes, those were stars: they dined at the Horse Shoe and did not spend their time in useless housework. Oh, she was quite sick and tired of that life! She’d had enough of it. Meanwhile, the days passed and the weeks and it was always the same thing: housework and stage-work; work, work, work....

It was late that morning; they were not practising. Pa had run down on the previous day to see a troupe of cyclists, the famous Pawnees, who were back from the Continent, on their way to New York, and performing that week at the Brighton Hippodrome. Lily was in her room later than usual, as Ma was not awake. Maud had gone down to the kitchen. The apprentices were getting up, joking with one another, like tom-boys used to sharing the same bed at home, the same room at the theater, to dressing, undressing, splashing about naked in the same bath-tub.

“Get up, Lily,” said one of them, laughing and raising her sturdy little hand. “Get up, or....”

“No,” said Lily, “let me alone, I’m dead.”

As it happened, on the day before there had been a general tumble, six in a row, on the back-wheel; one of them, losing her balance, had dragged the others with her and the lot had fallen flat in a tangle of steel and flesh. Bucking Horse, Old Jigger, Street Donkey—the nicknames they gave their bikes—had kicked them to the raw. They showed one another the bruises on their limbs: “Oh, don’t it hurt, just!” “What about mine?” “Look here!” like young recruits bragging of their wounds after the skirmish.

“Lily!”

“Yes, Ma!”

And Lily washed quickly, put on her frock and ran down-stairs to prepare the coffee, but her Ma stopped her on her way.

“Lily, you light the fire.”

“What about Maud?” said Lily. “Why can’t Maud do it?”

“You young impudence,” ... said Ma; “Maud has gone to Jimmy’s to take the bike which Tom couldn’t get to him yesterday; he was shut. It’s the bike you spoiled, you little bedlamite!”

Lily had to laugh at the thought of Maud struggling with Old Jigger: Maud, who couldn’t lead the machine by the handle-bar, or even walk beside it, without barking her shins.

“Why!” cried Lily. “She’ll explain everything wrong to Jimmy, and the bike will be no use!”

“Well, then, go yourself,” said Ma, after a pause. “And mind you, come back quickly; don’t go loitering in the street; and don’t stay long with that drunkard.”

“Yes, Ma.”

Gresse Street, where Jimmy lived, was quite as dreary as Rathbone Place: here and there, a few posters on the walls; some low-fronted shops, displaying sweets and candies, or else a dazzling case of oranges on the muddy pavement; alleys, stables, cab-yards....

It was here that Jimmy had his workshop, or rather his tool-store, for he did not do much work there. The time which his occupation at the theater left him he devoted to improving himself. Electricity and its manifold uses held his interest. There was no doubt that, had he given all his time to it, he would have become very clever, for he had an inventor’s brain and, moreover, possessed an astonishing manual skill for altering and perfecting things. He worked in copper and steel, was glad to make and repair bikes for a few customers, the New Zealanders, among others. While working, he brewed all manner of plans in his brain. They all revealed a practical intelligence. Saddle-supports which reduced the shaking on a bike, improved carriage-springs and so on; and, on the stage, inventions to dispense with men in the flies and wings; to work everything—scenery, curtain, lime-light—by means of the switchboard; and ever so many other things....

Since joining the theater, Jimmy had naturally undergone the influence of the stage. It had affected his ideas, with all its new-fangled “turns,” which owed their success to a maximum of daring—or bluff—coupled with a minimum of scientific knowledge: illusionists basing their effects upon the reflections of invisible mirrors and the cunning use of combined lights; “looping the loop,” “circles of death,” in which sheer weight did the cyclist’s work for him, his arrival at a given point depending upon his accelerated and calculated speed. From seeing so many of this sort scouring the world—erstwhile acrobats, former laboratory-students, who now, venturing all and risking all, topped the bills at the music-halls—Jimmy, greatly interested in this scientific side, had himself made researches in that direction. Engineering and other journals had printed some of his schemes, including that of an apparatus based upon the notion of exterior ballistics: the resistance of the air proportional to the square of the velocity and, according to this velocity, the exact proportion of the angle of incidence to the angle of projection. Theoretically, it was perfect; in reality there might be some unexpected hitch. It was a question for the venturesome performer, who allowed himself to be projected by a series of powerful springs, to fall accurately from pedestal to pedestal, preserving a faultless balance; in a word, to risk his life six times in as many seconds. The daring of a Laurence and the agility of a Lily combined would not have been enough for the task; and so Jimmy had prudently contented himself with pinning his diagrams on the walls of the workshop and dismissing the idea from his mind. Not that he was afraid, rather not; but simply because it appeared impossible to him.

Other plans had interested him, besides; flying machines, for instance, etc. He was a real enthusiast about flying machines! One day, perhaps, when he knew more ... to say nothing of the theater, which did not leave him much leisure; yet he managed, somehow, for he took but little sleep and the rest of the time he devoted to study.

This was the Jimmy of whom Ma made a bugbear to Lily—in Lily’s interest—for he was one of the few men whom she saw often; and you can never tell ... with those devils of the stage....

Meanwhile, Lily, as soon as she had turned the corner of the street, drew herself up and, with a light step, went down Percy Street and Tottenham Court Road, instead of keeping straight on. It took her only five minutes longer and it suggested luxury, fine shops, handsome furniture, patent-leather shoes. She adored shopping, even if it was only with the eyes, through the plate-glass windows.

She loved to pass in front of the Horse Shoe, where stars lived, real ones, not performing dogs. And then, round a piece of waste land, there was a hoarding covered with advertisements that interested her: the Hippodrome, the Kingdom, the Castle were displayed between extract of beef and mustard; and there were always new programs; always new names; and elephants, horses, lions; and tights....

Lily looked at this for a few seconds. And, suddenly, she felt a thrill; on a scarlet poster, dazzling as the sun, she read:

“Great success! Trampy Wheel-Pad!! At the Kingdom!!!” Trampy in London!

Not that Lily was astonished: it seemed to her quite simple that he should be there, as simple as for her to be in Chicago, Bombay or Capetown; people do sometimes meet on tour, it all depends: you can be separated for years and then perform at the same theater for months. No, she was not in the least astonished: a little excited, that was all, without exactly knowing why....

“But, if I should meet him,” she thought, “what shall I say to him? What will he say to me? Will he think me grown prettier or uglier?”

Lily came to herself again and continued on her errand; crossed Tottenham Court Road, plunged into a labyrinth of blocked alleys, of dark courts, and, suddenly, was at Jimmy’s.

Lily did not like him much; she considered him good-looking, for a man, but too shy. He never paid her a compliment. He seemed to think her ugly, whereas many others admired her and made no bones about telling her so, especially since the last few months; but he was ashamed of himself, no doubt: a drunkard, as Ma said.

Poor Lily had no luck. She would have been so happy to be courted, to relieve her boredom. But nothing disgusted her so much as drink. And yet it didn’t show in Jimmy. He always walked straight, never fell, like that head-balancer who, the other night, had come tumbling down from his perch. Besides, that one had an excuse; he drank because he was crossed in love; to forget, they said. Lily forgave everything the moment there was love in it; but an icicle like Jimmy, who loved nobody and who drank for the sake of drinking ... ugh!

Jimmy was at work when Lily entered. The small, dark shop, crammed with things in steel, with loose wheels, queer-shaped objects, reminded Lily of a property store, only it was dirtier. There were tools everywhere; designs for machinery pinned on the walls; it was all very ugly.

And Jimmy’s greeting was none too engaging either. A curt smile—“Glad to see you, Miss Lily”—and, as for the bike, he hadn’t understood a word of what the one-eyed creature who had just left had tried to say.

“I thought as much,” said Lily, laughing. “That’s why I came.”

And, in a few words, she explained what she wanted. First, repair the twisted frame; next, a slight alteration for a new trick; a step here, another there.

“Always fresh tricks, Lily?”

“Always, Jimmy. No end of bruises, I tell you!”

“It’s part of the game,” said Jimmy.

“I should like to see you try it,” retorted Lily contemptuously, “squeezing through the frame while it’s going, with that pedal barking your back,” and she rubbed herself as she spoke. “Only yesterday I got a kick; gee! It’s like those new tricks in which I don’t feel safe: riding with one foot on the saddle and the other on the bar and playing a banjo; it makes me shiver as I go past the footlights; and Pa watching me, you know; and, if I lose my balance, I get black and blue somewhere.”

“Pooh!” said Jimmy. “One can’t expect a white skin at the game.”

Lily didn’t care for this. If she couldn’t be courted, at least she liked to be pitied: that flattered her pride.... It was all very well for Pa to say, “It’s part of the game, my little lady.” But that josser of a Jimmy, talking like that at his ease!

“I’m glad I’m not your daughter!” she said. “My! You’d be harder than Pa.”

“Your Pa is hard, sometimes; but he’s very fond of you, for all that.”

“Of course,” said Lily, “he wouldn’t like me to break my neck; I bring him in too much for that, eh?”

“Come,” interrupted Jimmy, “don’t talk nonsense. It’s not right to speak as you’re doing. You’ll be sorry for it, I’m sure. Tell me, rather: you were saying you wanted a step here, another there; do you mean like this?”

And he rummaged among his tools, looked for loose pieces, showed them to Lily, while thinking of other things:

“Look here,” he went on, “do you think you’re the only one that’s got to work? Suppose you were shut up all day in a factory? Have you ever been to a factory? Do you know the life of a metal-buffer girl at Sheffield, standing in front of her wheel, from morning till night, and work, work, work?”

“But I’m not a work-girl, you great silly! You know I’m an artiste! And, now, shall I tell you what I think of you, Jimmy?” said Lily, pouting. “You’re a bad man, that’s what you are!”

And thereupon she put out her tongue, turned her back on him and began to look at the walls, the diagrams, the drawings, an illustration out of Engineering.

There was a pause.

Jimmy, while handling the bike, gazed at Lily. There was no sentimentality about Jimmy, but his lively imagination made him see things through and through; and, whatever he might be, Jimmy was not bad. That little Lily: to think that, among all the girls of her own age, she was the only one to do that trick! He pitied her and all child prodigies. To his mind, there was something unsportsmanlike about it; something like a race won by a one-year-old, with jockey, whip and spurs. He did not believe all he heard, of course. He knew, he lived with them, he was one of them. He knew the peculiar mania of the music-hall, the instinctive lie, uttered as if to discourage competition by giving it a fright at the start. To listen to them, it meant the horsewhip, the belt, all day long; going “through the mill,” all the time. Among the people with the painted faces, it was a shot at martyrdom, a chance for professional boasting. The most commonplace, the most coddled lives were made more interesting by means of imaginary wounds and scars, like those explorers, in the books, who cross Africa without food or drink, barefooted, with a crocodile snapping at their heels.

He took good care not to exaggerate. Life in the halls was no worse than anywhere else, thank God! It had its good side and its bad side and its professional risks. The “pros,” taking them all round, were as good as the “jossers.” He wanted to be just. He had seen many who were very happy; one could get anything done by firm kindness. He could also understand, in the terrible struggle for bread, that a man went on toiling hard in the trade in which he was born. A pro could not make a blue-stocking of his daughter; some were born duchesses, on satin; others artistes on the boards. One trade was as good as another; but dangerous practicings, bruised flesh, seamed skins: no, he didn’t approve of that. He had seen the Laurences, mad with ambition, beginning all over again, in spite of falls calculated to stave in the stage; had seen girls who “do knots” lying in the dressing-rooms, gasping, exhausted. Even when professional vanity alone prompted such excesses, Jimmy protested within himself; and then there were so many abuses.... Besides, the stage so often spoiled a woman: every branch of the stage, from the highest to the lowest. All that coaxing familiarity! What he said was, if Lily had been his daughter, she should not be on the stage; but there she was and he couldn’t help it; and, as it was her natural place to be there, he would not be guilty of the meanness of disgusting a poor girl with the profession which she had been at pains to learn. He preferred to let her call him “a bad man.” And that required a certain courage; for it was no longer a child talking to him, but an exquisitely pretty girl. Jimmy could not believe his eyes. What a change! Was it possible? Having been away from London, on Harrasford’s service, he had not seen her for many months, except the day before, just in time to shake hands behind the scenes, in the dusk; but here, in his shop, he hardly recognized her, he could not exactly say why. One thing was certain: he had left her a child and he now found her a beautiful girl.

“Tush!” he said to himself. “She’s a child for all that. Only, if she keeps on like this, what a handsome woman she will be!”

That familiarity on the stage: he reproached himself for thinking of it; it seemed to him an insult to Lily. And he began to talk to her of different things, kindly and pleasantly, changing from subject to subject. He explained his drawings on the wall, his ideas: exterior ballistics; the resistance of the air; risking his life six times in as many seconds....

“He’s drunk,” thought Lily.

And, to stop this flow of words, as though talking to herself, Lily said she did not complain; no, she would quite like the bike, if she hadn’t got to practise so hard; she only complained that they didn’t treat her “fair” at home:

“And look how I’m dressed! I’ve had the same toque two years. And what do you think of this frock? The material cost four-three a yard. I look like a tenter in it.”

Jimmy did not share Lily’s indignation. He thought her neatly and nicely dressed, in spite of her performing-dog’s toque, as she said. It all suited her so well. But, on examining that clear-cut little face, lifted toward him with a rebellious air, he felt that the fatigue, even the blows didn’t count; that the hardest thing, for Lily, was to be “badly dressed;” that she would never swallow that.

“But, look here,” said Jimmy, “all this isn’t worth making a fuss for; you get cross about nothing at all; when you came, you were all smiles; and now ...”

“That’s because,” Lily began, with a sly laugh—oh, she was exasperated with Jimmy’s coldness! She’d show him, the icicle, and have a bit of fun with him—“on my way here, Jimmy, I met ... now you won’t give me away, Jimmy? ... I met my ... sweetheart.”

“A sweetheart? You? Lily?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Lily, nodding her head and looking at him archly, for she could see, by Jimmy’s expression, that he was caught.

“And your father and mother know nothing about it?” insisted Jimmy, nonplussed.

“No, no; it doesn’t concern them: at my age, a girl earns a living for her Pa and Ma; I have as much right to a sweetheart as any one else, I suppose.”

And, greatly amused, she fixed Jimmy with her mocking eyes.

Jimmy stared at her in amazement.

Then she understood that it was not a thing to joke about and that what she had just said was terrible. And, suddenly:

“No, it’s not true, Jimmy! I was only laughing! Oh, Jimmy, you’re going to give me away!” cried Lily, squeezing Jimmy’s arm with a convulsive little hand. “Oh, Jimmy, don’t tell Ma, please, please, Jimmy!”

And there was something so sincere in her voice that Jimmy saw that she was speaking the truth, that it was only the jest of a flapper used to the manners of the stage.

“No,” he said briskly, “I shan’t tell; don’t be afraid, Lily; only ...”

“Ah, that’s nice of you,” said Lily, much relieved. “Marriage! If you only knew! And what would become of the troupe? I shall never marry. I think....”

“Still, some day, it’s bound to come,” said Jimmy, interrupting her. “You won’t spend all your life on a bike. You are sure to marry some day....”

“Don’t talk to me about marriage! No, not that. Gee!”

“But—”

“Love stories! With men! I! And you believed it,” said Lily, drawing back her shoulder and raising her hand. “I could smack you, you great silly!” And, all of a sudden, “I must go,” she cried, “I’ve stayed too long; Ma will be waiting for me with her broom!”

And Lily rushed outside, without giving Jimmy time to answer. He could just see her turn the corner of the street.

Jimmy went back to his work, silently, wrapped up in his thoughts. That nice little Lily! She could be easy in her mind. No, he would never be a cause of worry to her....

Meanwhile, Lily ran home as fast as she could and, on entering, saw that it was no use; her Ma was waiting for her, furious.

“Where have you been?”

“Why, I’ve come straight from Jimmy’s, Ma.”

“That’s a lie! The butcher’s boy, who has just left, saw you outside the Horse Shoe. Who were you waiting for?”

“I wasn’t waiting for any one!” cried Lily, her eyes blazing with anger.

“You devil!” said Ma, looking round for a stick, an umbrella....

And, when she saw nothing within reach, her anger increased. Then she stiffened her arm and made for Lily, who sprang behind the table....

But Ma, tripping on the carpet, fell at full length, dragging down with her the table-cloth and two cups that were on it.

“My two china cups! You viper!” she yelled.

At that moment, the door opened; Clifton entered. He seemed preoccupied; looked at his watch:

“Nine o’clock. We ought to be at the theater! Where are the girls? And what ... what’s all this?” he asked, on seeing the disorder, Mrs. Clifton scrambling up from the floor, Lily scowling in a corner.

Ma grunted an explanation. Two cups broken, Lily a gadabout who would bring them to the grave with shame!

“But, Pa, I was only looking at the posters.”

“Posters?” repeated Clifton. “Which posters? What’s all this nonsense?”

And, when Ma had told him, interrupted by despairing “But, Pas,” and “No, Pas,” from Lily, he very calmly asked, was he going to have peace in his own house, or was he not? All this fuss about two broken cups; beating Lily for nothing!

Never, in any circumstances, would Clifton have snubbed Mrs. Clifton like this before Lily. He would have waited until she had gone. But to come upon all this rot when there were so many serious things to discuss! The sisters Pawnee whom he had seen last night: Polly, Edith, Lillian. Yes, that Lillian, damn it, a winged rose! And the things they did on their bike without seeming to touch it!

“My poor Lily,” Pa went on, going up to his daughter and stroking her hair. “I’m not saying it to vex you; but you’re not in it with the Pawnees! Come on! Beg your Ma’s pardon; and let’s be off to the theater. I’m in form this morning. We shall have a great practice.”