PANCHA
A week later, at eleven at night, a large audience was crowding out of
the Albion Opera House. If you know San Francisco--the San Francisco of
before the fire--you will remember the Albion. It stood on one of those
thoroughfares that slant from the main stem of Market Street near Lotta's
Fountain. That part of the city is of dubious repute; questionable back
walls look down on the alley that leads to the stage door, and after
midnight there is much light of electricity and gas and much unholy noise
round its darkened bulk.
But that is not the Albion's fault. It did not plant itself in the
Tenderloin; it was the Tenderloin that grew. Since it first opened its
doors as a temple of light opera--fifty cents a seat and a constant
change of bill--its patrons have been, if not fashionable, always
respectable. Smoking was permitted, also the serving of drinks--the seat
in front had a convenient shelf for the ladies' lemonade and the
gentleman's beer--but even so, no one could say that a strict decorum did
not prevail in the Albion's audiences even as it did in the Albion's
productions.
A young man with a cheerful, ugly face stood in a side aisle, watching
the crowd file out. He had a kindly blue eye, a merry thick-lipped mouth,
and blonde hair sleeked back across his crown, one lock, detached from
the rest, falling over his forehead. He had a way of smoothing back this
lock with his palm but it always fell down again and he never seemed to
resent it. Of all that pertained to his outward appearance, he was
indifferent. Not only his patience with the recalcitrant lock, but his
clothes showed it--dusty, carelessly fitting, his collar too large for
his neck, his cravat squeezed up into a tight sailor's knot and shifted
to one side. He was Charlie Crowder, not long graduated from Stanford and
now a reporter on the _Despatch_, where he was regarded with interest as
a promising young man.
His eye, exploring the crowd, was the journalist's, picking salient
points. It noted fur collars and velvet wraps, the white gloss of shirt
bosoms, women's hair, ridged with artificial ripples--more of that kind
in the audience than he'd seen yet. "The Zingara" had made a hit; he'd
just heard at the box office that they would extend the run through the
autumn. It pleased him for it verified his prophecy on the first night
and it was a bully good thing for Pancha.
He stepped out of a side entrance, edged through the throngs on the
pavement, dove up an alley and reached the stage door. A single round
lamp burned over it and already dark shapes were issuing forth, mostly
women, Cinderellas returned to their dingy habiliments. There was a great
chatter of feminine voices as they skirmished off, some in groups, some
alone, some on the arms of men who emerged from the darkness with
muttered greetings.
Crowder crossed the back of the large stage where supers were pulling
scenery about; weights and ropes, forest edges, bits of sky and parlor
ceilings, hanging in layers from the flies. The brick wall at the back
was whitewashed and against it a line of men and girls passed scurrying
to the exit, throwing remarks back and forth, laughing, pulling on their
coats. Some of them hailed him and got a cheery word in reply. Then,
skirting the wings, he turned down a passage and brought up at a door on
which a small star was drawn in chalk. He knocked, and a woman's voice
called from inside:
"Who is it?"
"Your faithful press agent."
The woman's voice answered:
"Enter Charlie, rear, smiling."
He opened the door, went in. The place was the Albion's best dressing
room. It was small, with white-washed walls, and lighted by a gas jet
inclosed in a wire shield. A mirror, its frame dotted with artificial
flowers, bits of ribbon, notes and favors, surmounted the dressing table.
This was a litter of paint pots, hair pins, toilet articles, powder rags,
across which, like a pair of strayed snakes, lay two long braids of black
hair. A powerful scent of cosmetics and stale perfumery mingled with the
faint, thrilling breath of roses.
Seated in front of the glass in a soiled red satin kimono embroidered in
storks, was Pancha Lopez, leading woman of the Albion. She was wiping off
her make-up, a large jar of cold cream on the table before her, a grease
rag in her hand. The kimono, falling richly, outlined a thin, lithe body,
flat-backed, muscular and supple. The make-up still on her face turned
her brown skin to a meerschaum pallor and the dusky brick-red of her
cheeks to an unnatural rose. A long neck upheld a small, finely shaped
head, the hair now drawn back and twisted in a tight knot to which the
two long braids had been pinned. The Indian strain in her revealed itself
in the flattened cheek-bones, the wide-cut, delicate nostrils and the
small, high-set eyes as clearly black and white as if made of enamel.
They were now outlined and elongated with lamp black which still clung to
her lashes in flakes. She was twenty-two years old, and had been on the
stage for six years.
After a glance over her shoulder and a flashing smile she returned to her
work, pushing her hair still further off her forehead with one hand, and
sweeping the greasy cloth over her face with the other.
"Well," said Crowder, standing beside her and looking at her reflection,
"how's the baby-grand Patti tonight?"
"Fine!" She drew down her upper lip and slowly rubbed round her mouth,
Crowder, as if fascinated, watching the process in the mirror. "Just sit
down on something. Hang up my costume and take that chair if there isn't
any other. I got to get this thing off before I can talk comfortably."
Her costume, a glittering heap of red and orange, lay across a chair,
the pile surmounted by an open cardboard box whence the heads of roses
protruded from tissue paper. He feared to touch that, and finding
another chair against the wall, drew it to the side of the dressing
table and sat down.
"Have you been in front?" she asked, rubbing along her jaw.
"Yes, it's packed. But I only came in just before the curtain. How was
the house?"
She threw a radiant look at him.
"Ate it up, dearie. Couldn't get enough. Six encores for my Castanet
song. Oh, Charlie," she dropped the hand with its rag to the edge of the
table and looked at him, solemnly earnest, "you don't know how I
feel--you don't know. It's hard to believe and yet it's true. I can see
the future stretching up like a ladder, and me mounting, step by step, on
rungs made of gold."
Pancha Lopez, unlettered, almost illiterate, child of the mountains and
the ditches, wandering vagabond of the stage, would sometimes indulge in
unexpected felicities of phrase. Her admirers said it was another
expression of that "temperament" with which she was endowed. Crowder, who
knew her better than most, set it down to the Indian blood. From that
wild blend had come all that lifted her above her fellows, her flashes of
deep intelligence, her instinct for beauty, her high-mettled, invincible
spirit. He even maintained to his friend Mark Burrage--Mark was the only
person he ever talked her over with--that it was the squaw in her which
had kept her pure, made her something more than "a good girl," a proud
virgin, self-sufficing, untamable, jealous of her honor as a vestal.
"That's what you ought to see," he said in answer to her serious eyes.
"Haven't I always said it? Didn't I tell you so up there in Portland when
we first met and you were doing a turn between six saxaphone players and
a bunch of trained cockatoos?"
She nodded, laughing, and returned to her rubbing.
"You surely did, and fanned up the flame that was just a tiny spark
then. Dear old press agent, I guess I'll have to change your name to
the Bellows."
"A. 1. Have you read the last blast I've given out?" She shook her head
and he thrust his hand into his overcoat pocket. "I've brought it along,
though I thought your father might have sent it to you."
"Pa's in the mountains." Drawing down her upper lip she pressed on her
cheeks with painted finger tips, scrutinizing her face in the mirror. "I
haven't heard from him for weeks. He's off on the lode somewhere."
"Then he hasn't seen it. It's the best I've done yet, and it's true,
every word."
He had drawn from his pocket a paper which he now opened. As he folded it
back, Pancha took out her hairpins and shook down her hair. It extended
to her shoulders, a thick, curly bush, through which she pulled the comb
with short, quick sweeps.
"Read that," said the young man and handed her the paper. "_Sacramento
Courier_--'C. C's San Francisco Letter.'"
She took it and read while he watched her with twinkling eyes. They were
great pals, these two; had been since they met in Portland, five years
ago. He was on his way to Stanford, and had seen her doing a singing and
dancing act in a wretched vaudeville company. That vision of a girlhood,
beset and embattled, the pitifulness of its acquired hardness, had called
to his western chivalry and made him her champion. Ever since he had
helped and encouraged, his belief and friendship a spur to the ruthless
energy, the driving ambition, that had landed her in the Albion six
months before.
As she read she began to smile, then squeals of delight broke from her.
"You old press agent!" she cried, hitting at him with the comb and still
reading, and then: "You pet, you precious pet!"
She finished on a little cry and cast the paper to the floor.
"Oh, Charlie, oh, my good, _dear_ Charlie!" Her face was suddenly stirred
with an upswelling of emotion. No other man in her hard and sordid
experience had been to her what Charlie Crowder had, never a lover,
always a friend.
"Now, Pancha," he said pleadingly, "don't look at me like that or I'll
burst into sobs."
She rose and, putting her hands on his shoulders, kissed him on the
forehead with a sexless tenderness. Her eyes were wet and to hide it she
turned to where her costume lay on the chair. Crowder had nothing to
say; these bursts of gratitude from his friend made him embarrassed.
"Look," she cried suddenly and snatched up the box of roses, "even a
Johnny at the stage door. That's going some," and thrusting her hand
into the box, she plucked up by their heads a handful of blossoms. Their
pure sweet breath flowed out on the coarse scents with which the small
place reeked.
Crowder affected a shocked surprise.
"What's this? A lover at last and I kept in ignorance."
"This is his first appearance, not a yap till tonight. And look at the
yap." She dropped the box and took out from under the paper a card which
she held toward him, "Some style about _that_ yap."
It was the square of pasteboard furnished by the florist. On it was
written in a small, upright hand, "Let me offer you these roses, sweet as
your voice, delicate as your art, and lovely as yourself. An admirer."
Crowder raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in exaggerated
amazement.
"Well, well, well! I must look into this. Who _is_ the gentleman ?"
"I haven't a guess." She took the card and dwelt on it delightedly.
"Ain't it stylish writing--scratchy and yet you can read it? And the
words, they're almost poetry. I never got flowers before with a sentiment
as swell as that."
"Don't you honest know who it is?" said Crowder, impressed by the flowery
profusion of "the sentiment."
"Not me. Jake brought 'em in after the second curtain. They were left by
a messenger boy. Whoever he is he certainly does things in a classy way.
Maybe he's a newspaper man to write like that."
Crowder opined he was not. He could hardly imagine one of his
fellows--even secure in his anonymity--permitting his pen such
florid license.
"When you break through the dark secret let me know. Then I'll come round
and cast my searchlight eye over him and see if he's a proper companion
for little Panchita."
"No fear," she cried, throwing the card back in the box. "Little
Panchita's got a searchlight eye of her own. Believe _me_, it's a good,
trained, old eye. Now skiddoo. I've got to slip into my togs and then me
for home and a glass of milk. If he comes to the surface with another
gasp I'll tell you."
When he had gone she dropped the kimono and put on a blouse and skirt,
both old and shabby. Her actions were quick and harmonious, no
unnecessary moves made, the actions of one trained to an economy of time
and labor. On a wall hook behind a curtain she hung her gypsy dress,
touching it lightly, flicking off dust, settling the folds. Poverty had
taught her this care, as ambition was teaching her a thrift that made her
associates call her mean.
What they thought was a matter of indifference to her. Before she had
reached the Albion she knew herself superior and had plans that stretched
far. About these she was secret. Not one, not even her father, knew the
amount of money she had saved, or that, when she had accumulated enough,
she intended going East and to Europe. She felt her powers and dreamed of
a future on stages far finer than the Albion's. Once she had thought her
father could help her. Two years ago he _had_ sold a prospect for four
thousand dollars, but he had lost the money in an unlucky mining venture
in Oregon. That ended all hopes of his assistance. Even if he did make
another strike he needed what he got for himself; he was getting on, he
wanted to buy a ranch and settle down. If she was to reach the summit of
her desire--and she would reach it or die--she must do it herself. So she
worked doggedly, nursed her voice, hoarded her earnings and said nothing.
She was ready to leave, her hat, a little black velvet toque, pulled down
over her hair, a long shaggy ulster clothing her to the ankles. As she
went to the dressing table to put out the light she saw her image in the
glass and paused, eyeing it. So far her appearance had had no value for
her save as a stage asset. Now she looked at herself with a new, critical
interest. Behind the footlights she was another person, blossomed into an
exotic brilliance, took on fire and beauty with the music and excitement.
Might not a man seeing her there be disappointed when he met her as she
really was? She studied her face intently, viewing it at different
angles, judging it by the standards of her world. By these she found it
wanting, and with a wistful sigh she stretched out her hand and turned
off the light.
It was nearly midnight when she walked down the side streets that led to
the car line which took her home. Overhead the fog hung, covering the
city with a luminous rack which here and there parted, showing segments
of dark, star-dotted sky. Passing men looked at her, some meeting a
defiant stare, others a face so chastely unresponsive that they averted
their eyes as if rebuked. On the car she took an outside seat, for she
loved the swift passage through the night with the chill air on her face.
The grip man knew her and smiled a greeting, and as she mounted the step
she answered cheerily. Now and then as the car stopped he spoke to her,
leaning over his lever, and she twisted round to reply, friendly, frank,
intimate. Until she came to San Francisco his class was the best she had
ever known.
It was part of her economy to live in the Mission. She had two rooms
there in the old Vallejo Hotel, a hostelry once fashionable, now fallen
on dreary days. It fronted on a wide street where new business buildings
rose beside gabled houses, detached and disconsolate in the midst of
withered lawns. The Vallejo was a connecting link between these samples
of the new and the old. It belonged to the ornate bay-windowed period of
the seventies. Each of its "front suites" had the same proud bulge, and
its entrance steps were flanked by two pillars holding aloft ground glass
globes upon which its name was painted in black. Tall buildings were
unknown in those days; the Vallejo boasted only three stories and its
architect had never dreamed of such an effete luxury as an elevator.
Built on the filled-in ground of Mission Creek, it had developed a
tendency to sag in the back, and when you walked down the oil-clothed
hall to the baths, you were conscious of a list to starboard.
The Vallejo patrons did not mind these drawbacks, or if they did, thought
of the low rates and were uncomplaining. All things considered, you got a
good deal for your money. The place was quiet and respectable; even in
its downfall it clung desperately to its traditions. It took no
transients, required a certain standard of conduct in its lodgers, and
still maintained a night clerk in the office of its musty front hall.
Pancha thought it quite regal. If it was a proud elevation for her to
reign at the Albion, it was a corresponding one for her to have two rooms
to herself in a real hotel. As she ascended the stairs--her apartment was
on the second floor--she looked about her, taking in satisfactory
details, the worn moquette carpet, the artificial palm on a pedestal in
the corner, the high, gilt-topped mirror at the turn on the stairs. It
all seemed to her what she would have called "refined"; she need never be
ashamed to have a visitor come there.
In her parlor she lit the light and surveyed her surroundings with an
increasing satisfaction. It was a startlingly ugly room, but she thought
it a bower of elegance. What gave her authority on the stage, what had
already lifted her above the mass, seemed to fall from her with her
costume. That unwavering sense of beauty and grace, that instinctive
taste which lent her performance poetry and distinction, left her at the
wings. Now her eye dwelt, complacent, on the red plush chairs, the
coarse lace curtains, the sofa pillows of etched leather and dissonant
colors, the long mirror between the windows, and each and all received
her approval. As she had thought on the stairs, she thought again--no
one would be ashamed to receive a visitor, no matter how stylish, in
such a room.
She put her roses in a vase and then fetched a bottle of milk from the
window sill and a box of crackers from the bureau drawer. Setting these
on the marble-topped table beside the droplight she sat and ate. It was
too cold to take off her coat and from its pocket she drew the card that
had come with the flowers. As she sipped and munched, the shadows of the
room hovering on the light's circular edge, she read over the words,
murmuring them low, her voice lingering on them caressingly.
It was the first knock at the door of her dreams, the first prismatic ray
of romance that had penetrated the penumbra of brutal realities in which
she had lived.