Jubilee Trail (7 page)

So these were the quadroons. Though Oliver had warned her, Garnet watched them in amazement. Some of them were beautiful indeed. They had skin like coffee with lots of cream, large dark eyes, black hair piled up with flowers and jewels. Many of them had such clear Caucasian features that they looked like white beauties who had darkened their skins for theatricals.

Garnet felt suddenly shy. She wondered if anybody who looked at her couldn’t tell right away that she didn’t belong in this array of expensive sin. Just then a handsome young fellow caught sight of her, and paused. He smiled at her, asking,

“Alone this evening?”

She started, and froze him with her eyes. Oliver turned from the ticket-window.

“She’s not alone,” he said sternly.

“Oh, sorry, my error,” said the young stranger. He went on inside. Garnet drew closer to Oliver.

Oliver took her arm, smiling. “You did that very well,” he said.

“Did I?” She laughed delightedly. Oliver gave her arm a squeeze as he looked over the lobby.

“What do you bet,” he whispered, “that the star of this show is a dazzling blond?”

“Why?”

“Rarity,” said Oliver. “Come on in. I’ve taken a table right under the stage.”

Garnet did not understand what he meant by a table. In the theaters she had visited, the audience had sat in rows of seats. But when they went in she saw that the main floor of this theater was provided with rows of tables, each with its own group of chairs. Girls were walking among them selling drinks. The men already seated fondled the girls’ arms and slapped at their skirts, and the girls didn’t mind. Sometimes they laughed and sometimes they paid no attention. Above the main floor was a balcony, but evidently the more expensive seats were around the tables, for it was here that the best-dressed spectators were taking their places.

A young man, who looked bored with the whole business, took their tickets. He led them to a table for two, just in front of the stage as Oliver had promised. Garnet sat down, holding the printed program he had given her.

She looked up at the scarlet curtains hiding the stage. The footlights flickered behind metal reflectors, throwing lights and shadows over the curtains. The orchestra began a lively tune. Garnet spread out her program on the table before her. By the light from the stage she read that the first performers would be the Barotti Brothers, Jugglers of International Renown. After this would come An Array of Famous Beauties Never Equaled on This Continent. Below these words, in a line of fancy capitals reaching across the page, was the single name
JULIETTE LA TOUR
.

Garnet wondered if Juliette La Tour was the dazzling blond Oliver had prophesied. Before she could read any farther, Oliver’s voice interrupted,

“She wants to know what we’re drinking.”

Garnet looked up. A waitress was standing by their table. On one arm she carried a basket of bottles, and with the other arm she held a tray of glasses balanced against her hip. She was not as young or as pretty as Garnet thought she should be: she had a hard face with a line between the eyebrows, and her voice was raspy as she announced,

“Sauterne, burgundy, claret, champagne, cognac, whiskey, ice two dollars extra, or est-ce que vous parlez français, monsieur?”

“No, English,” said Oliver. “Shall it be champagne, Garnet?”

Garnet nodded happily. The girl whisked two hollow-stemmed glasses from her tray and set them on the table. “I’ll be right back,” she promised.

A couple of other corks popped behind them. A moment later their waitress returned with the bottle in its bucket of ice. She released the cork, while Garnet watched, wondering if she could ever learn to do it so expertly. The cork popped, and shot up toward the ceiling. Garnet caught it as it fell.

“I’m going to keep this,” she exclaimed.

The cynical lips of the waitress parted in a smile. “First time here, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Why yes. And it’s lovely.”

The girl poured the champagne. Her eyes gave Garnet a humorous challenge. “Haven’t seen Juliette, then?”

“Juliette? Oh, the one whose name is in big letters on the program? No, I’ve never seen her.”

“Nor you either, mister?” she asked. Oliver shook his head, and the waitress glanced back at Garnet. “Look out, dearie,” she warned.

Oliver handed her a bill and told her to keep the change. “Thanks,” said the girl, and she smiled at Garnet. “Bon soir, mademoiselle,” she said as she went off.

Garnet stared after her. “Oliver! She called me mademoiselle!”

“Naturally,” said Oliver, with a grin.

Garnet’s wedding ring was hidden by her glove, but she demanded, “Do I look like a girl who—who’d be in a place like this with a man she wasn’t married to?”

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“Of course not!”

“Then shut up,” Oliver said merrily.

Garnet felt a delicious naughty excitement. They raised their glasses. The champagne tingled against the excited quivers in her throat. “Suppose I get tipsy?” she asked.

“I’ll take care of you. Go ahead.”

“Imagine,” said Garnet, “just imagine, me being married to a man who’ll say that.”

The orchestra changed to a louder tune and the curtains began to part. Garnet turned toward the stage. She saw a flowered backdrop, before which the renowned Barotti Brothers, in tights of red and yellow, were bowing to the audience.

The Barotti Brothers tossed plates around and caught them on sticks, and balanced sticks and plates on their noses. They did it with great skill, but few of the spectators paid them much attention. People were still coming in, and the buzz of voices was loud in spite of the music. The Barottis were just here to get the show started. Garnet liked them, but as she had seen acts like this before she was not greatly impressed. The audience was not impressed either, but it was a good-humored gathering, and the jugglers got a good round of applause when they were done.

By this time most of the chairs were occupied. The customers were settling down to sip their drinks and enjoy the show. The next number was the Array of Famous Beauties, a dozen chorus girls all dressed alike in green. They whirled up their skirts to show a greater display of legs than Garnet had ever seen before in a public place, while they sang a song about being in love with several men at once and finding it very confusing. A man in the balcony shouted, “Pick ’em up, sisters!” Everybody thought this was very funny, and a lot of others began to chant with the music, “Pick ’em up, sisters, pick ’em up, sisters!” Garnet thought the dance was quite revealing enough without any extra picking up of skirts.

They got a good deal more applause than the jugglers, and came back, this time to do a dance with male partners. Somebody called, “Redhead, third from the end, you’re losing your underwear!” She wasn’t, but she gave a start, and for an instant interrupted her dancing before she caught herself. Everybody shouted with glee. They applauded more loudly than before when the girls and their partners danced off.

Garnet felt her cheeks burning. Leaning over, Oliver asked in an undertone, “Are you shocked?”

“I—I guess I am,” she confessed. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Want to go?” he asked mischievously.

“Oh no!” Garnet exclaimed. She sternly gave herself orders not to blush any more.

The stage was empty now. Two men came out from the sides, carrying more lights. As they went off, the music changed. It became slower, and the drums began to roll as though to herald an event of importance. Though the stage was still empty, a stirring of applause began in the audience.

This, evidently, was what they had come for. The earlier part had been merely a preface, entertaining enough but not worth any further attention. Garnet glanced down at her program, at the name
JULIETTE LA TOUR
in big letters across the page.

The roll of drums rose to a thunder. The musicians accompanied it with all they had. As the music increased the applause increased with it. The whole audience sat forward.

The curtains at the center back parted slightly. In the opening they saw a tall, laughing young woman with hair like ivory and blue eyes that were nearly as big as dimes. She was wearing a wickedly-cut dress of black velvet shot with silver.

The applause crashed a welcome. Garnet leaned nearer, looking. She had never, never seen anybody like this.

The girl on the stage was beautiful, but she was more than merely beautiful; she had a radiant vitality that made you want to stand up and cheer. Her figure was superb, and the black and silver dress left no doubt about it. Her hair was so pale that it had a white sheen, like moonbeams. Everything about her was shining: her hair, and her healthy skin, and the long silver gloves that beckoned your eyes upward to her white shoulders. At her throat she wore a diamond pendant. There were more diamonds in her hair, and bracelets outside her gloves. The stones were so small that they had to be real. She looked humorous, and tempting; and with it all she had a certain teasing innocence, as though she knew she had been born to give pleasure and she simply loved doing what she was born for.

At first she stood where she was, laughing, while she let them look at her. After a moment she came toward them, her arms held out to them and her whole being as joyful as if she were going to meet a lover she had been waiting for all day. They clapped and shouted and stamped their feet; they could not have heard her if she had tried to say anything, and she did not try to. She kissed her hands to them over and over, her silver gloves twinkling and her fair hair shimmering in the light, and it was as though she were exclaiming to them, “Oh, I love you, I love you, and we’re going to have such a grand time!”

The orchestra went into the opening bars of a quick tripping melody. The girl on the stage made a gesture of restraint toward her admirers. Ready now to hear her, they began to get quiet, and she broke into a song that seemed to bubble up spontaneously from her own merriment.

Oh I do love living and I have such fun!

And I’ll have a whole lot more before I’m through—

There was nothing remarkable about her voice except that she easily filled the theater with it. She had a decidedly medium range, and had sense enough not to try to go beyond it. But she sang with laughter under the notes, and so clearly that they could understand every word. They loved it.

For I never have been sorry for the things I’ve done,

I’m just sorry for the things I didn’t do.

Garnet reflected that she couldn’t have very much to be sorry for. But with twinkling self-reproach the girl explained,

The balls I never danced at,

The men I never glanced at,

The evenings I would sit at home and sew,

The drinks I never tasted,

And all the time I’ve wasted—

My God, the time I’ve wasted saying no!

Garnet began to laugh. She had been shocked by the chorus girls. But somehow this singer did not shock her at all. This girl was so full of mirth and joy; she looked like an embodiment of pleasure, doing what she wanted to do and having a wonderful time. The rhythm of the music changed again. The singer swished her skirts enough to let them see that she had legs, but not enough to take their minds off the song as she continued,

My mother used to say to me that men were most unpleasant,

And I believed her—yes I did, for that was long ago—

So this is why you find that I’m so busy just at present,

I’m making up for all the time I’ve wasted saying no.

She went on to tell them what a shy maiden she used to be. Then she told them about her adventures, gaily spinning her tuneful yarn. Some of her phrases were quite new to Garnet, but she used her eyes and hips so expertly that a Chinaman could have guessed what she was talking about. Her hearers shouted with laughter. Many of them had evidently heard her sing the song before, for when she came to the choruses they sang with her, tapping their feet and clinking their glasses until the newcomers shouted to them to be quiet. They verged on rowdiness, but this singer did not get rattled like the chorus girl. With no appearance of effort, she kept her audience under control. She was a radiant temptation, but she was also a highly finished artist who knew exactly what she was doing, and she did it so well that Garnet laughed and laughed. When at last the singer ended her audacious performance and tripped off the stage, Garnet clapped her hands until the palms felt scorched.

Oliver was laughing too. Leaning across the table again, he asked,

“Is that what you wanted?”

The singer had come back to take her bows. Turning her eyes from the stage, Garnet looked up at him in delight.

“Oh yes, yes, yes! Only I didn’t know—Oliver, I just didn’t know variety actresses were as good as that!”

“Most of them aren’t,” said Oliver.

The girl went off and came back several times, but at length it was obvious that the audience was not going to get quiet without another morsel. She paused, just beyond the wings. The orchestra repeated the tune, and she added,

So when the preachers scowl at me and say, “What are you doin’?”

I tell them they should really see the folks who watch my show—

She kissed her hands to them, merrily exclaiming,

You meet the nicest people when you’re on the road to ruin!

Turning, and waving goodby, she finished over her shoulder,

I’ll never, never waste another evening saying no!

Then at last she flashed off into the wings. Garnet turned to Oliver again. She beckoned him to bend his head nearer hers.

“Oliver,” she whispered, “that actress—is she a—is she a fallen woman?”

It was the only term she knew for what she was thinking of. Oliver replied with smothered laughter.

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she looks like it, for one thing. And she didn’t buy those jewels out of her salary. Besides, what would she be doing here if she wasn’t?”

Oliver was having the time of his life. Garnet knew he was having it because she amused him so much, but she did not mind that. She plucked at his sleeve and whispered again.