Jubilee Trail (13 page)

“Yes. I understand.” Florinda curled up a corner of the tissue paper between her thumb and forefinger. “Garnet,” she said gently, “aren’t you going to give me a chance to tell you how I feel? I don’t know just how to say it, but all this—it makes me so warm and lovely inside.”

For a moment Garnet did not answer. Then she said, “You don’t need to thank me.”

“Why not, baby?”

“Because I’ve had such a wonderful time doing it. I guess you wouldn’t have thought of that,” Garnet said shyly. “You’ve had such a sparkling sort of life. Theaters, and the way you look, and everybody cheering.”

Florinda tucked the fur into the carpetbag, and paused to reflect on what Garnet had said. She looked around. “What are you used to doing, Garnet?” she asked.

“Why, the usual things girls do. You know.”

“But I don’t know. Sometimes I’ve wondered.”

“Wondered? What do you mean?”

“About girls like you. Girls who live on Bleecker Street and Union Square. I’ve seen them shopping in Stewart’s, and walking on the street with their mothers. I wondered what they did all day.”

Garnet heard her with astonishment. She had not dreamed that Florinda might be as curious about her as she was about Florinda. “Haven’t you ever known anybody from my part of town?” she asked.

Florinda was folding her supply of clean towels. “Gents,” she answered. “Lots of gents. But not ladies. You’re the first one I ever talked to. Tell me about you.”

So Garnet told her about day school and dancing school, and Miss Wayne’s Select Academy, and then how she had met Oliver when he came to New York to buy merchandise for the California trade. Florinda put her head down on her hand, laughing.

“Oh dear, it does sound so sweet. And you’re really going to take a trip to that strange country?”

Garnet nodded.

“Gee, it sounds like a long way. You’re awfully brave.”

“I’m not as brave as you are,” said Garnet.

“Me? I’m not going out to the last end of nothing.”

“No,” said Garnet, “but you don’t even know where you’re going. And you’re all alone.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Florinda said as she folded up Garnet’s nightgown. “I’ll be in a civilized country, at least. And I won’t be alone long. I’ll get settled somewhere, and I’ll make friends.”

She put in the nightgown and began folding the extra chemises. Garnet clasped her hands around her knees and watched.

In spite of that casual answer, she thought Florinda was very brave indeed. Only yesterday she had been the star of a brilliant show. And today she was leaving all that, and leaving everything she owned except what she had happened to have with her when she started for rehearsal this morning. But she was doing it so cheerfully, as though it were no more difficult than memorizing a new song. Garnet looked over Florinda’s gaudy dress and her emerald earrings and her jeweled watch, and wondered where she had learned such courage.

“How were you brought up, Florinda?” she asked abruptly.

Florinda put the chemises into the bag. She replied good-humoredly.

“Well, dear, I can’t say I
was
brought up, not if that means select academies and medals for politeness. I guess I just raised myself.”

“But—” Garnet began, and hesitated. She did not want to be prying. But she did want very much to know what Florinda meant.

“I don’t mean my mother wasn’t good to me,” Florinda amended, as though she thought she had sounded disloyal. “But she had to work, you see, and then she was sick a long time. She fell off a scaffolding backstage, and she couldn’t work after that. She died when I was thirteen.”

“You mean she had to work all the time you were a little girl? What a shame. Didn’t she have any people to help her?”

“No, she’d been raised by an uncle, but he was dead. She sang in theaters. She had a nice voice, and she was quite pretty. We got along all right when I was a child. I could work too, you see.”

“You could work? But not when you were a little girl!”

“Oh yes I could, dearie. They used me in some baby scenes before I could talk. And when I was eight years old I got a part with lines. I never had any trouble getting parts in those days, I was a beautiful child.” Florinda began to laugh. “Really, Garnet, you needn’t sit there with your mouth open like it was something awful! I never minded.”

“Then you’ve been working all your life, literally.”

“Why yes, dear. If you’re too polite to ask how long that’s been, I’m twenty-three.”

“I’ve seen plays with child actors in them,” Garnet said slowly. “But I never thought the children were supporting their parents.”

“Most of ’em are, dearie,” Florinda said dryly. She began putting away the extra pairs of black cotton stockings.

“But your father!” Garnet exclaimed. “Why didn’t he make a living for you? Or did he die early?”

Florinda was wrapping up her looking-glass so it would not be broken in travel. “I never laid eyes on my father,” she answered without raising her head. “He went off before I was born.”

Garnet clapped her hand to her mouth. “Please forgive me! It’s none of my business. I’m so sorry I asked.”

“Oh for pity’s sake,” Florinda said. “You’re such a nice girl.” She laughed shortly, and explained. “My father was a Norwegian sailor. One night when he had shore leave he came to the theater where my mother was singing. He liked her, and not long afterward they were married. She was madly in love with him. But he turned out to be a gilt-edged weasel. He went to sea again, and she never saw him any more.”

Garnet heard her with dismay. “But Florinda,” she protested, “maybe he didn’t mean to desert her. Maybe the ship was lost. Didn’t she try to find out if the ship was lost?”

Florinda smiled ironically over her shoulder. “You’d have found out, Garnet, and I would. But she didn’t. She was one of those trusting helpless people who wouldn’t know how to go about it.” Florinda tucked the looking-glass into place, and after a moment she added, “To tell you the truth, she didn’t want to find out. She kept trying to believe he was going to come back.”

“Then—she never knew?”

“Oh yes, she knew at last. An old actor in a show she was working in got sorry for her. I suppose he thought it would be easier on her to hear the truth, whatever it was. So he went down to the shipping company and inquired. The ship wasn’t lost. Nice safe voyage to Brazil, and then back to the home port in Norway. Town called Trondheim, or some such name.”

“But—” Garnet was thinking hard. She had just been married herself, and she wanted to dissent. “Maybe something happened to him in Trondheim. Maybe he wanted to come back to her, and couldn’t.”

“No, dear, he didn’t want to come back,” Florinda said coolly. “His ship had touched at New York on the way home from Brazil. He was in port for two weeks. But he didn’t come near my mother. She didn’t know he’d been in New York again until that actor found out about the voyage.”

“Oh Florinda, how could he!”

“I don’t know, dearie. I don’t know how any man could leave anybody sweet and helpless like her with a baby coming. But he did.”

She picked up a pile of black-bordered handkerchiefs, laid aside one to be carried this evening, and put the others into the bag. Garnet asked,

“What did she do, when she really couldn’t doubt the truth any longer?”

Florinda picked up a box of toilet soap. Her answer was simple.

“She fell off the scaffolding.”

“She—you mean she did it on purpose?”

Florinda paused, holding the box of soap. “No, I don’t think she did it on purpose,” she answered slowly. “I think, when she found out what sort of man she’d been loving all those years, she just didn’t care what became of her. She wasn’t interested enough to be careful.”

Garnet felt a pain all over. “And you were only thirteen?”

“I was twelve. It took her a year to die.” Florinda was looking down. Her eyes followed the design printed on the box.

“And you went on working in theaters, all the time she was dying?” Garnet asked.

Florinda was still examining the box. But she did not seem to be looking at it; she seemed to be looking through it, toward something a long way off.

“Not all the time. I couldn’t get parts. I’d always had parts when I was a little girl, because I was so pretty, and I knew how to act. But when my mother had her fall, I was getting too big for child parts and not grown up enough to play ladies. The gawky age, you know, when your hands and feet get too big and you’re out of balance all over and nobody wants to look at you. I worked, of course, I had to work. I got a job sweeping out a saloon. I served drinks too, and sang for the customers, but I couldn’t earn very much. It wouldn’t have been too bad, though, except for seeing my mother. She suffered so much pain.”

Florinda was briefly silent, remembering. Without lifting her eyes, she went on.

“Sometimes I thought I couldn’t stand watching her. I can take what happens to me, but I can’t stand seeing other people suffer. I used to hope, every time I went out to work, that she’d be dead when I got back.”

Garnet saw her give a strange little smile, sideways.

“There was a horrible old man who peddled dope around the saloon. He had the jerks and I was scared of him. But he was very kind to me. He gave me some stuff to give her sometimes. It looked like a white powder. I don’t know what it was. But it put her to sleep. He never charged me anything for it, he just gave it to me. Sometimes the strangest people are so good. Later on, when I was working at the Jewel Box and had lots of money, I went back down there and found him. I thought maybe he’d want to go to an old folks’ home and be comfortable, but he didn’t want to. So I gave him three hundred dollars so he could get as coked up as he pleased.”

Garnet swallowed hard. A sad story usually brought tears to her eyes. But this did not make her feel like tears; this was deeper than sadness. She asked,

“And you’ve never heard anything of your father?”

Florinda shook her head.

“Do you suppose he’s dead now?”

“I hope he is,” said Florinda. She spoke with a quiet rage. “I hope he died screaming, like my mother died. I hope he died in a tenement four flights up, with no water except what you could lug up in a bucket, and rags stuffed in the window to keep out the snow.”

She gave a low, bitter little laugh. “Funny, you making me remember all that. I don’t like to remember it. It makes me ashamed of myself.”

“Oh Florinda, not ashamed! You were just a child! You did the best you could.”

“Yes, I did the best I could. But I mean, I’m related to him. I hate to think I’m related to a man like that. And I look like him.”

She was sitting very still on the floor, among the bags and boxes and the litter of paper. There was a silence. Garnet looked at her beautiful profile and her great blue eyes and her silvery hair. She wondered how it would feel to see such a reflection in the glass, and to remember that what you were seeing was your legacy from such a father. She said suddenly,

“You’re not helpless like your mother.”

“No, dear, I’m not.” Florinda laughed tersely. She roused herself, and turned the carpetbag around to go on with her packing. “I always get along,” she added.

“Yes,” said Garnet, “and I think you always will.”

“Oh, I will. You’re mighty right. Nobody’s going to kill me the way that man killed my mother.”

She picked up the box of soap, and glanced over her shoulder at Garnet.

“I’ll die of something one of these days, no doubt,” she ended coolly, “but I’ll be damned if I die of a broken heart.”

She said it with a half-humorous energy. Garnet had no doubt that she was right.

F
LORINDA GAVE
A SHORT
little laugh. “Look, Garnet. Let’s stop talking about that cockroach I’m descended from. It’s no fun.”

“Why of course. We’ll stop right now,” Garnet agreed. She changed the subject. “You’ve just about finished packing, haven’t you?”

“You’re a sweetheart,” Florinda said gratefully. “Yes, I believe this is everything, except for the clothes I’ve got on. I’ll put them in later, when I’ve changed.”

Garnet looked at the black clothes on the bed, and then at Florinda again.

“What are you thinking about?” Florinda asked.

“Your disguise. You know, your hair is so unusual, it might be noticed. When you dress up, brush it tight under your bonnet.”

“That’s an idea. My hair’s a dead giveaway.” Florinda stood up, and glanced at herself in the mirror over the bureau. “But Garnet, won’t I look kind of suspicious with not a lock showing?”

“No, I’ve got an idea.” Garnet was taking out her own hairpins. “Bring me the sealing-wax, and light the candle.”

“Garnet, what are you doing? My dear child, you’re not cutting off your hair!”

“Just a little bit, I’ll never miss it. Give me the black bonnet. Now look.”

Using the sealing-wax, Garnet stuck two loops of her own black hair under the front edge of the bonnet, so it would look as if the wearer’s hair were parted in the middle and drooping over her forehead. Florinda whistled with reverence as she helped her.

“This is great. I wish I had your head, dearie. I could use it.”

“You can take out the black hair as soon as you get on the boat,” said Garnet, “unless you see somebody you’ve known before.” She shook her hair and put a comb into it to hold it back from her forehead.

Florinda was stroking her green-ribboned bonnet with affection. “I do hate to throw this away. It was very expensive. Could I put it into the bandbox the black bonnet came in? Would it be all right for a widow to carry an extra bonnet?”

“Why of course, that’s quite all right.” Garnet picked up a bandbox, labeled “Mme. Sidonie Drouet, Finest Widow’s Weeds, Bonnets, Veils,” and the same words repeated in French. “I had to have this wrapped in brown paper,” she said, “so the label wouldn’t show. You won’t need to wrap the outside, but your green bonnet should have lots of tissue around it so nobody could see the color if the box-top should slip. I’ll wrap it while you’re taking off your dress.”

She knelt on the floor and began to smooth out the bonnet-ribbons.