However, by dint of selection, he ended by having only good ones left; and then he made a contract in due form with the parents for three years, or even five, such was his faith in the future. A few pence a week to the family, a few pence to the baggage herself: he to dress, lodge and board her and engage to make an artiste of her. Everything was provided for: during the training, just the board and the rest; when she began to work, a shilling a day in addition. Over and above, she would be looked after by a lady, Mrs. Clifton. Was that all right? Both parties signed; the girl was an artiste, became a New Zealander.
They brought their little wardrobe: one spare chemise, on the average, one pair of stockings; their only protection against the weather was the dress they had on, a factory-girl’s ulster and a tam-o’-shanter. Later on, when performing, they would be entitled to a celluloid collar, satinette knickers and pumps.
Pa, though at first he took one extra room and then two in the same house and though he also made his apprentices sleep three in a bed, Pa soon found himself cramped. It would have been nice to have a little house somewhere in good air, next door to the country. But there was one thing which made Pa decide to remain in the West Central district. Jimmy, the young electrician with whom Lily used to chat on shipboard, had given up traveling. Harrasford and his architect had noticed him on board and the great man had engaged him to manage the electric installation of his theaters. Jimmy had taken possession of a lodging in Gresse Street, Tottenham Court Road. He slept over the shop, which, for the rest, served him rather as a place in which to keep the tools for his outside work. Pa often ran upon him in the neighborhood and had a nodding acquaintance with him which turned out to be useful, as Jimmy, being in Harrasford’s employment, was more or less at home in the variety-theaters and nothing was easier than for him to obtain leave for Clifton to practise on the stage. This it was that persuaded Clifton to settle in the west end. In any case, it would be cheaper than dragging the six girls and himself daily from one end of London to the other. The house in which he took up his quarters, in Rathbone Place, quite close to Jimmy, was small and dark, but not dear. The upper story was occupied by people who were out all day and the basement served as a lumber room. They would feel quite at home here ... with no old sheep to listen at the keyholes.
TOM, THE SHOEBLACK
And then he would have slept in the parks, if necessary, anywhere, rather than waste more precious time! His Lily, his troupe, before everything. What he had to do was to get a move on. He went so far as to engage a boy, a shoeblack at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road for the rest of the time, to attend to the bikes and the girls at practice.
Pa gave his mind to the gear, the expenses, the general business. Ma saw to good order, to domestic discipline. It was no longer the quiet life of a Pa and Ma trotting round the world in the company of their one and only bread-winning star. As for Lily, the daughter of the boss and manager, she owed a good example to one and all. In the morning, with Maud, she went down to the kitchen, lit the stove, made the coffee. Next, she carried up the breakfast to Pa and Ma in bed, then distributed their rations to the famished girls. And off they went, all six of them, with Pa following at their heels.
The stage-door gave the apprentices a thrill the first day they entered. The passage, gently sloping, tall and wide, because of the scenery, smelt of elephants and cheap scent. It was blocked with properties, with queer-shaped cases, flat as a slab or round as a ball. There were long, narrow boxes, for the horizontal bars; sometimes a row of wicker coffins, with a ventriloquist’s figures inside. And labels from everywhere—Melbourne, Chicago, Berlin, Lisbon—and “Rlys.” and “S. S.” that made you feel in the hold of a liner, off to foreign ports.
At the end, beyond an iron door, was the stage, very dark, pricked here and there with electric lamps. There were things that glittered with spangles. To the girls it seemed like the Kingdom of Puss-in-Boots or Blue-Beard; but to Lily it was an old story. She was a little like the school-girl in the good days long past, for whom the master was always waiting, cane in hand. The rest she didn’t care about.
Nevertheless, huge as the stage was, there was not always room to practise: ponies or elephants would monopolize it for hours at a time. Or else, when Roofer was supplying a ballet, he took up the whole stage, all day long: Lily, secretly delighted, sat down modestly in a corner, so as to be in no one’s way. Roofer made his collection of calves and ankles flutter about, followed the new dances with an expert eye, throwing his hat back on his head, mopping his forehead, grumbling, finding fault: