carnation. Ravenal would sniff the spicy bloom, snap the brittle stem,
thrust it through the buttonhole of his lapel.
A fine figure of a man from his boots to his hat. Young, handsome,
well-dressed, leisurely. Joe, the Greek florist, pocketing his quarter,
would reflect gloomily on luck—his own and that of others.
Ravenal might drop in a moment at Weeping Willy Mangler’s, thence to
Reilly’s pool room near Madison, for a look at the racing odds. But no
matter how low his finances, he scorned the cheaper gambling rooms that
catered to the clerks and the working men. There was a great difference
between Jeff Hankins’ place and that of his brother, George. At George’s
place, and others of that class, barkers stood outside. “Game upstairs,
gentlemen! Game upstairs! Come in and try your luck! Ten cents can make
you a millionaire.”
At George Hankins’ the faro checks actually were ten cents. You saw
there labouring men with their tin dinner pails, their boots
lime-spattered, their garments reeking of cheap pipe tobacco. There,
too, you found stud poker, roulette, hazard—percentage games. None of
these for Ravenal. He played a gentleman’s game, broke or flush.
This game he found at Mike McDonald’s “The Store.” Here he was at home.
Here were excitement, luxury, companionship. Here he was Gaylord
Ravenal. Fortune lurked just around the corner. At McDonald’s his credit
always was good for enough to start the play. On the first floor was the
saloon, with its rich walnut panelling, its great mirrors, its tables of
teakwood and ivory inlay, its paintings of lolling ladies. Chicago’s
saloons and gambling resorts vied with each other in rich and massive
decoration. None of your soap-scrawled mirrors and fancy bottle
structures for these. “Prince” Varnell’s place had, for years, been
famous for its magnificent built-in mantel of Mexican onyx, its great
marble statue of the death of Cleopatra, its enormous Sèvres vases.
The second floor was Ravenal’s goal. He did not even glance at the
whirling of the elaborately inlaid roulette wheels. He nodded to the
dealers and his greeting was deferentially returned. It was said that
most of these men had come of fine old Southern families. They dressed
the part. But McDonald himself looked like a farmer. His black clothes,
though well made, never seemed to fit him. His black string tie never
varied. Thin, short, gray-haired, Mike McDonald the Boss of the gamblers
would have passed anywhere for a kindly rustic.
“Playing to-day, Mr. Ravenal?”
“Why, yes. Yes, I thought I’d play a while.”
“Anything we can do to make you comfortable?”
“Well—uh—yes——”
McDonald would raise a benevolent though authoritative hand. His finger
would summon a menial. “Dave, take care of Mr. Ravenal.”
Ravenal joined the others then, a gentleman gambler among gentleman
gamblers. A group smartly dressed like himself, well groomed, quiet,
almost elegant. Most of them wore jewellery—a diamond scarf pin, a
diamond ring, sometimes even a diamond stud, though this was frowned on
by players of Ravenal’s class. A dead cigar in the mouth of each. Little
fine lines etched about their eyes. They addressed each other as “sir.”
Thank you, sir. . . . Yours I believe, sir. . . . They were quiet,
quiet. Yet there was an electric vibration in the air above and about
the faro table. Only the dealer seemed remote, detached, unmoved. An
hour passed; two, three, four, five. The Negro waiters in very white
starched aprons moved deferentially from group to group. One would have
said that no favouritism was being shown, but they knew the piker from
the plunger. Soft-voiced, coaxing: “Something to drink, suh? A little
whisky, suh? Cigar? Might be you’d relish a little chicken white meat
and a bottle of wine?”
Ravenal would glance up abstractedly. “Time is it?”
“Pushin’ six o’clock, suh.”
Ravenal might interrupt his game to eat something, but this was not his
rule. He ate usually after he had finished his play for the day. It was
understood that he and others of his stamp were the guests of McDonald
or of Hankins. Twenty-five-cent cigars were to be had for the taking.
Drinks of every description. Hot food of the choicest sort and of almost
any variety could be ordered and eaten as though this were one’s own
house, and the servants at one’s command. Hot soups and broths. Steaks.
Chops. Hot birds. You could eat this at a little white-spread table
alone, or with your companions, or you could have it brought to you as
you played. On long tables in the adjoining room were spread the cold
viands—roast chickens, tongue, sausages, cheese, joints of roast beef,
salads. Everything about the place gave to its habitués the illusion of
plenty, of ease, of luxury. Soft red carpets; great prism-hung
chandeliers; the clink of ice; the scent of sappy cigars and rich food;
the soft slap-slap of the cards; the low voices of the dealers. It was
all friendly, relaxed, soothing. Yet when the dealer opened the little
drawer that was so cleverly concealed under his side of the table—the
money drawer with its orderly stacks of yellow-backs, and green-backs
and gold and silver—you saw, if your glance was quick and sharp enough,
the gleam of still another metal: the glittering, sinister blue-gray of
steel.
A hundred superstitions swayed their play. Luck was a creature to be
wooed, flattered, coaxed, feared. No jungle voodoo worshipper ever lent
himself to simpler or more childish practices and beliefs than did these
hard-faced men.
Sometimes Ravenal left the faro table penniless or even deeper in Mike
McDonald’s debt. His face at such times was not more impassive than the
bucolic host’s own. “Better luck next time, Mr. Ravenal.”
“She’s due to turn to-morrow, Mike. Watch out for me to-morrow. I’ll
probably clean you.”
And if not to-morrow, to-morrow. Luck must turn, sooner or later. There!
Five hundred! A thousand! Five thousand! Did you hear about Ravenal?
Yes, he had a wonderful run. It happened in an hour. He walked out with
ten thousand. More, some say.
On these nights Ravenal would stroll coolly home as on losing nights. Up
Clark Street, the money in neat rolls in his pocket. There were almost
no street robberies in those simpler Chicago days. If you were, like
Ravenal, a well-dressed sporting looking man, strolling up Clark Street
at midnight or thereabouts, you were likely to be stopped for the price
of a meal. You gave it as a matter of course, unwrapping a bill,
perhaps, from the roll you carried in your pocket.
They might be living in modest comfort at the Revere House on Clark and
Austin. They might be living in decent discomfort at the little
theatrical boarding house on Ontario. They might be huddled in actual
discomfort in the sordid room of the Ohio Street rooming house. Be that
as it may, Ravenal would take high-handed possession, but in a way so
blithe, so gay, so charming that no one could have withstood him, least
of all his wife who, though she knew him and understood him as well as
any one could understand this secretive and baffling nature, frequently
despised him, often hated him, still was in love with him and always
would be.
The child would be asleep in her corner, but Magnolia would be wide
awake, reading or sewing or simply sitting there waiting. She never
reproached him for the hours he kept. Though they quarrelled frequently
it was never about this. Sometimes, as she sat there, half dozing, her
mind would go back to the rivers and gently float there. An hour—two
hours—would slip by. Now the curtain would be going down on the last
act. Now the crowd staying for the after-piece and concert would be
moving down to occupy the seats nearer the stage. A song number by the
ingénue, finishing with a clog or a soft-shoe dance. The comic tramp.
The character team in a patter act, with a song. The after-piece now;
probably Red Hot Coffee, or some similar stand-by. Now the crowd was
leaving. The band struck up its last number. Up the river bank scrambled
the last straggler. You never threw me my line at all. There I was like
a stuck pig. Well, how did I know you was going to leave out that
business with the door. Why’n’t you tell me? Say, Ed, will you go over
my song with me a minute? You know, that place where it goes TUM-ty-ty
TUM-ty-ty TUM-TUM-TUM and then I vamp. It kind of went sour to-night,
seemed to me. A bit of supper. Coffee cooked over a spirit lamp. Lumps
of yellow cheese, a bite of ham. Relaxation after strain. A daubing with
cold cream. A sloshing of water. Quieter. More quiet. Quiet. Darkness.
Security. No sound but that of the river flowing by. Sometimes if she
dozed she was wakened by the familiar hoot of a steamer whistle—some
big lake boat, perhaps, bound for Michigan or Minnesota; or a river
barge or tug on the Chicago River near by. She would start up,
bewildered, scarcely knowing whether she had heard this hoarse blast or
whether it was only, after all, part of her dream about the river and
the _Cotton Blossom_.
Ravenal coming swiftly up the stairs. Ravenal’s quick light tread in the
hall.
“Come on, Nola! We’re leaving this rat’s nest.”
“Gay, dear! Not now. You don’t mean to-night.”
“Now! It’ll only take a minute. I’ll wake up the slavey. She’ll help.”
“No! No! I’d rather do it myself. Oh, Gay, Kim’s asleep. Can’t we wait
until morning?”
But somehow the fantastic procedure appealed tremendously to her love of
the unexpected. Packing up and moving on. The irresponsible gaiety of
it. The gas turned high. Out tumbled the contents of bureau drawers and
boxes and trunks. Finery saved from just such another lucky day. Froth
and foam of lace and silk strewn incongruously about this murky little
chamber with its frayed carpet and stained walls and crazy chairs. They
spoke in half whispers so as not to wake the child. They were themselves
like two children, eager, excited, laughing.
“Where are we going, Gay?”
“Sherman. Or how would you like to try the Auditorium for a change?
Rooms looking out over the lake.”
“Gay!” Her hands clasped as she knelt in front of a trunk.
“Next week we’ll run down to West Baden. Do us good. During the day we
can walk and drive or ride. You ought to learn to ride, Nola. In the
evening we can take a whirl at Sam Maddock’s layout.”
“Oh, don’t play there—not much, I mean. Let’s try to keep what we have
for a little while.”
“After all, we may as well give Sam a chance to pay our expenses.
Remember the last time we were down I won a thousand at roulette
alone—and roulette isn’t my game.”
He awoke the landlady and paid his bill in the middle of the night. She
did not resent being thus disturbed. Women rarely resented Gaylord
Ravenal’s lack of consideration. They were off in a hack fetched by
Ravenal from the near-by cab stand. It was no novelty for Kim to fall
asleep in the dingy discomfort of a north side rooming house and to wake
up amidst the bright luxuriousness of a hotel suite, without ever having
been conscious of the events which had wrought this change. Instead of
milk out of the bottle and an egg cooked over the gas jet, there was a
shining breakfast tray bearing mysterious round-domed dishes whose
covers you whipped off to disclose what not of savoury delights! Crisp
curls of bacon, parsley-decked; eggs baked and actually bubbling in a
brown crockery container; hot golden buttered toast. And her mother
calling gaily in from the next room, “Drink your milk with your
breakfast, Kim darling! Don’t gulp it all down in one swallow at the
end.”
It was easy enough for Kim to believe in those fairy tales that had to
do with kindly sprites who worked miracles overnight. A whole staff of
such good creatures seemed pretty regularly occupied with the Ravenal
affairs.
Once a month there came a letter from Mrs. Hawks. No more and no less.
That indomitable woman was making a great success of her business. Her
letters bristled with complaint, but between the lines Magnolia could
read satisfaction and even a certain grim happiness. She was boss of her
world, such as it was. Her word was final. The modern business woman had
not yet begun her almost universal battle against the male in his own
field. She was considered unique. Tales of her prowess became river
lore. Parthy Ann Hawks, owner and manager of the Cotton Blossom Floating
Palace Theatre, strong, erect, massive, her eyebrows black above her
keen cold eyes, her abundant hair scarcely touched with gray, was now a
well-known and important figure on the rivers. She ran her boat like a
pirate captain. He who displeased her walked the plank. It was said that
the more religious rivermen who hailed from the Louisiana parishes
always crossed themselves fearfully at her approach and considered a
meeting with the _Cotton Blossom_ a bad omen. The towering black-garbed
form standing like a ship’s figurehead, grim and portentous, as the boat
swept downstream, had been known to give a really devout Catholic
captain a severe and instantaneous case of chills and fever.
Her letters to Magnolia were characteristic:
Well, Maggie, I hope you and the child are in good health. Often
and often I think land knows what kind of a bringing up she is
getting with the life you are leading. I can imagine. Well, you
made your own bed and now you can lie in it. I have no doubt
that he has run through every penny of your money that your poor
father worked so hard to get as I predicted he would. I suppose
you heard all about French’s _New Sensation_. French has the
worst luck it does seem. She sank six weeks ago at Medley’s just
above New Madrid. The fault of the pilot it was. Carelessness if
ever I heard it. He got caught in the down draft of a gravel bar
and snagged her they say. I think of your poor pa and how he met
his end. It took two weeks to raise her though she was only in
six feet of water. On top of that his other boat the _Golden
Rod_ you remember went down about four weeks ago in the Illinois
near Hardin. A total loss. Did you ever hear of such luck.
Business is pretty good. I can’t complain. But I have to be
right on hand every minute or they would steal me blind and
that’s the truth. I have got a new heavy. No great shakes as an
actor but handy enough and a pretty good black face in the
concert and they seem to like him. We had a pretty rough
audience all through the coal country but whenever it looked
like a fight starting I’d come out in front and stand there a
minute and say if anybody started anything I would have the boat
run out into the middle of the river and sink her. That I’d
never had a fight on my boat and wasn’t going to begin any such
low life shenanigans now.
(Magnolia got a swift mental picture of this menacing, black-garbed
figure standing before the gay crude curtain, the footlights throwing
grim shadows on her stern face. That implacable woman was capable of
cowering even a tough coal-belt audience bent on a fight.)
Crops are pretty good so business is according. I put up grape
jelly last week. A terrible job but I can’t abide this store
stuff made of gelatine or something and no real grapes in it.
Well I suppose you are too stylish for the _Cotton Blossom_ by
now and Kim never hears of it. I got the picture you sent. I
think she looks kind of peaked. Up all hours of the night I
suppose and no proper food. What kind of an education is she
getting? You wrote about how you were going to send her to a
convent school. I never heard of such a thing. Well I will close
as goodness knows I have enough to do besides writing letters
where they are probably not wanted. Still I like to know how you
and the child are doing and all.
Your mother,
Parthenia Ann Hawks.
These epistles always filled Magnolia with an emotion that was a
poisonous mixture of rage and tenderness and nostalgia. She knew that
her mother, in her harsh way, loved her, loved her grandchild, often
longed to see both of them. Parthy’s perverse and inhibited nature would
not permit her to confess this. She would help them with money, Magnolia
knew, if they needed help. But first she must know the grisly
satisfaction of having them say so. This Magnolia would not do, though
there were many times when her need was great. There was Kim, no longer
a baby. This feverish and irregular life could not go on for her.
Magnolia’s letters to her mother, especially in lean times, were
triumphs of lying pride. Sentimental Tommy’s mother, writing boastfully
home about her black silks and her gold chain, was never more
stiff-necked than she.
Gay is more than good to me. . . . I have only to wish for a thing . . .
Everyone says Kim is unusually tall and bright for her age. . . . He
speaks of a trip to Europe next year . . . new fur coat . . . never an
unkind word . . . very happy . . .
Still, if Magnolia was clever at reading between the lines of her
mother’s bald letters, so, too, was Parthenia at hers. In fact, Parthy
took many a random shot that struck home, as when once she wrote,
tartly, “Fur coat one day and none the next I’ll be bound.”
XV
The problem of Kim’s education, of Kim’s future, was more and more
insistently borne in upon her. She wanted money—money of her own with
which to provide security for the child. Ravenal’s improvident method
was that of Paddy and the leaky roof. When luck was high and he was
showering her and Kim with luxuries, he would say, “But, good God,
haven’t you got everything you want? There’s no satisfying you any more,
Nola.”
When he had nothing he would throw out his hands, palms upward, in a
gesture of despair. “I haven’t got it, I tell you. I give you everything
I can think of when I am flush. And now, when I’m broke, you nag me.”
“But, Gay, that’s just it. Everything one day and nothing the next.
Couldn’t we live like other people, in between? Enough, and none of this
horrible worrying about to-morrow. I can’t bear it.”
“You should have married a plumber.”
She found herself casting about in her mind for ways in which she could
earn money of her own. She took stock of her talents: a slim array.
There was her experience on the show-boat stage. She could play the
piano a little. She could strum the banjo (relic of Jo’s and Queenie’s
days in the old _Cotton Blossom_ low-raftered kitchen). She had an
untrained, true, and rather moving voice of mediocre quality.
Timidly, with a little nervous spot of red showing in either cheek, she
broached this to Ravenal one fine afternoon when they were driving out
to the Sunnyside Hotel for dinner. Gaylord had had a run of luck the
week before. Two sleek handsome chestnuts seemed barely to flick the
road with their hoofs as they flew along. The smart high cart glittered
with yellow varnish. None of your cheap livery rigs for Ravenal.
Magnolia was exhilarated, happy. Above all else she loved to drive into
the country or the suburbs behind a swift pair of horses. Ravenal was
charming; pleased with himself; with his handsome, well-dressed young
wife; with the cart, the horses, the weather, the prospect of one of Old
Man Dowling’s excellent dinners. They sped through Lincoln Park. Their
destination was a two-hours’ drive north, outside the city limits: a
favourite rendezvous for Chicago’s sporting world. At Dowling’s one had
supper at a dollar a head—and such a supper! The beefsteak could be cut
with a fork. Old Man Dowling bred his own fine fat cattle. Old Lady
Dowling raised the plump broilers that followed the beefsteak. There was
green corn grown in the Dowling garden; fresh-plucked tomatoes, young
onions. There was homemade ice cream. There was a huge chocolate cake,
each slice a gigantic edifice alternating layers of black and white.
“Can’t I drive a while, Gay dear?”
“They’re pretty frisky. You’d better wait till we get out a ways, where
there aren’t so many rigs.” The fine cool late summer day had brought
out all manner of vehicles. “By that time the nags’ll have some of the
skittishness worked out of them, too.”
“But I like to have them when they’re skittish. Papa always used to let
me take them.”
“Yes—well, these aren’t canal-boat mules, you know. Why can’t you be
content just to sit back and enjoy the drive? You’re getting to be like
one of those bloomer girls they joke about. You’ll be wanting to wear
the family pants next.”
“I am enjoying it, only——”
“Only don’t be like your mother, Nola.”
She lapsed into silence. During one of their many sojourns at the
Ontario Street hotel she had struck up a passing acquaintance with a
large, over-friendly blonde actress with green-gold hair and the
tightest of black bodices stretched over an imposing shelf of bosom.
This one had surveyed the Ravenal ménage with a shrewd and kindly though
slightly bleary eye, and had given Magnolia some sound advice.
“Why’n’t you go out more, dearie?” she had asked one evening when she
herself was arrayed for festivity in such a bewilderment of flounces,
bugles, jets, plumes, bracelets, and chains as to give the effect of a
lighted Christmas tree in the narrow dim hallway. She had encountered
Magnolia in the corridor and Nola had returned the woman’s gusty
greeting with a shy and faintly wistful smile. “Out more, evenin’s.
Young thing like you. I notice you’re home with the little girl most the
time. I guess you think that run, run is about all I do.”
Magnolia resented this somewhat. But she reflected instantly this was a
friendly and well-meaning creature. She reminded her faintly of Elly,
somehow; Elly as she might be now, perhaps; blowsy, over-blown,
middle-aged. “Oh, I go out a great deal,” she said, politely.
“Husband home?” demanded the woman, bluntly. She was engaged in the
apparently hopeless task of pulling a black kid glove over her massive
arm.
Magnolia’s fine eyebrows came up in a look of hauteur that she
unconsciously had borrowed from Ravenal. “Mr. Ravenal is out.” And
started on toward her room.
The woman caught her hand. “Now don’t get huffy, dear. I’m a older woman
than you and I’ve seen a good deal. You stay home with the kid and your
husband goes out, and will he like you any better for it? Nit! Now leave
me tell you when he asks you to go out somewheres with him you go, want
to or not, because if you don’t there’s those that will, and pretty soon
he’ll quit asking you.”
She had waddled stiffly down the hallway then, in her absurdly
high-heeled slippers, leaving a miasma of perfume in the passage.
Magnolia had been furious, then amused, then thoughtful, then grateful.
In the last few years she had met or seen the wives of professional
gamblers. It was strange: they were all quiet, rather sad-faced women,
home-loving and usually accompanied by a well-dressed and serious child.
Much like herself and Kim, she thought. Sometimes she met them on Ohio
Street. She thought she could recognize the wife of a gambler by the
look in her face.
Frequently she saw them coming hurriedly out of one of the many
pawnshops on North Clark, near the river. The windows of these shops
fascinated her. They held, often, such intimate, revealing, and mutely
appealing things—a doll, a wedding ring, a cornet, a meerschaum pipe, a
Masonic emblem, a Bible, a piece of lace, a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles.
She thought of these things now as she sat so straight and smartly
dressed beside Ravenal in the high-yellow cart. She stole a glance at
him. The colour was high in his cheeks. His box-cut covert coat with the
big pearl buttons was a dashingly becoming garment. In the buttonhole
bloomed a great pompon of a chrysanthemum. He looked very handsome.
Magnolia’s head came up spiritedly.
“I don’t want to wear the pants. But I would like to have some say-so
about things. There’s Kim. She isn’t getting the right kind of
schooling. Half the time she goes to private schools and half the time
to public and half the time to no school at all—oh, well, I know there
aren’t three halves, but anyway . . . and it isn’t fair. It’s because
half the time we’ve got money and half the time we haven’t any.”
“Oh, God, here we are, driving out for pleasure——”
“But, Gay dear, you’ve got to think of those things. And so I thought—I
wondered—Gay, I’d like to earn some money of my own.”
Ravenal cut the chestnuts sharply with his whip.
“Pooh!” thought Magnolia. “He can’t scare me that way. How like a
man—to take it out on the horses just because he’s angry.” She slipped
her hand through his arm.