And she laughed, and “Ugh! Ugh!” a cough or so, a matter of lifting her embroidered handkerchief to her mouth, a favorite gesture. And there were stories from all parts, the cackle of the profession. The Paras were living together now, as they explained to her. The parrots? No go; given them up; one had its neck wrung by a monkey in Chicago; another died of consumption at Stockholm; the rest of the troupe sold to the stage-doorkeepers of the different variety-theaters. His sight was beginning to fail. She wanted smartness; wasn’t—how should he put it? The husband looked for a word—wasn’t “Tottie” enough. However, they managed somehow, as “eccentric duetists.” Lily thought that very nice, those two talents combined, very original; but could they give her any news of Ave Maria ... a great artiste ... on the wire?...
If ever Lily might have hoped to receive news of Ave Maria, it was during this illness, from the artistes who visited her, on their way from anywhere to God knows where. Lily had news of everybody: of Mirzah, the white elephant, who had to be pole-axed for killing his keeper; of Captain North’s seals; of the Three Graces, who were doing triumphantly in England; of Poland, the Parisienne, now starring at Bill and Boom’s. Tom was talked about: biceps like thighs, now: a hornpipe danced on the hands. She had news of the Pawnees, of the Hauptmanns. Roofer was sending out four new troupes, to Canada, Australia, India, Cape Colony: the Greater-England Girls. She had news of the New Zealanders and of her cousin Daisy, who seemed to find the star business jolly hard work:
“The wind-bag!” said Lily.
They talked of Jimmy, of dogs, cats and monkeys and of Tom Grave and Butt Snyders, those great breakneck acrobats: they talked of one and all, but not a word of Ave Maria. They knew her by reputation, as one who had been through the mill, more than Lily had, as Lily modestly admitted.
“Darling,” said the impersonator affectionately, “don’t bother about that Ave Maria of yours. I’m jealous. Be mine, darling! How well we two should get on together, eh, Lily?”
“Hands off!” said Lily. “Be good ... there ... like that ... down by your sides ... or you’ll get a smacking!”
Concerts were got up for Lily’s amusement. Sketch-comedians pulled their faces: a musician twanged his banjo. At other times, by closing her eyes, Lily could have imagined herself in an aviary: the Whistling Wonder imitated the nightingale, the thrush, the lark. Another, an equilibrist, showed her how, when he was obliged to stay in bed with a broken leg and had nobody to wait on him, he used to wait on himself by going round the room on his hands ... like that. Lily was given, for nothing, a performance which was worth a whole music-hall program. To put everybody at their ease, Lily told them to smoke, took a puff or two at a cigarette herself—“Ugh! Ugh!”—almost choked....
They amused themselves, among themselves, free from any constraint due to the presence of jossers. Lily joked with them as she used to do with the apprentices in the mornings, when they showed one another their bruises of the day before. She made them look at her pigeon’s egg, on the side of her foot, the little ball-shaped muscle special to her profession, like the triceps of the pugilist or the dancing-girls’ calves. She was vain enough to put on a silk stocking, poked out her foot from under the bedclothes, let them feel “her egg,” made it jump under their fingers by a sudden contraction.
“Is that all you’ve got to show us, darling?” asked the impersonator.
“You don’t want much, I don’t think!” said Lily, pulling back her foot under the quilt.