Show Boat

by Edna Ferber

  Together, Andy, Parthy, and Doc went into consultation. They must keep Ravenal. But Ravenal obviously was not of the stuff of show-boat actors. He had made it plain, when first he came aboard, that he was the most impermanent of troupers; that his connection with the Cotton Blossom would continue, at the latest, only until Schultzy’s return. He meant to leave them, not at New Orleans, as they had at first feared, but at Natchez, on the up trip.

  “Don’t tell him Schultzy ain’t coming back,” Doc offered, brilliantly.

  “Have to know it some time,” was Andy’s obvious reply.

  “Person’d think,” said Parthy, “he was the only juvenile lead left in the world. Matter of fact, I can’t see where he’s such great shakes of an actor. Rolls those eyes of his a good deal, and talks deep-voiced, but he’s got hands white’s a woman’s and fusses with his nails. I’ll wager if you ask around in New Orleans you’ll find something queer, for all he talks so high about being a Ravenal of Tennessee and his folks governors in the old days, and slabs about ’em in the church, and what not. Shifty, that’s what he is. Mark my words.”

  “Best juvenile lead ever played the rivers. And I never heard that having clean finger nails hurt an actor any.”

  “Oh, it isn’t just clean finger nails,” snapped Parthy. “It’s everything.”

  “Wouldn’t hold that against him, either,” roared Doc. The two men then infuriated the humourless Mrs. Hawks by indulging in a great deal of guffawing and knee-slapping.

  “That’s right, Hawks. Laugh at your own wife. And you, too, Doc.”

  “You ain’t my wife,” retorted Doc, with the privilege of sixty-odd. And roared again.

  The gossamer thread that leashed Parthy’s temper dissolved now. “I can’t bear the sight of him. Palavering and soft-soaping. Thinks he can get round a woman my age. Well, I’m worth a dozen of him when it comes to smart.” She leaned closer to Andy, her face actually drawn with fear and a sort of jealousy. “He looks at Magnolia, I tell you.”

  “A fool if he didn’t.”

  “Andy Hawks, you mean to tell me you’d sit there and see your own daughter married to a worthless tramp of a wharf rat, or worse, that hadn’t a shirt to his back when you picked him up!”

  “Oh, God A’mighty, woman, can’t a man look at a girl without having to marry her!”

  “Having to marry her, Captain Hawks! Having—— Well, what can a body expect when her own husband talks like that, and before strangers, too. Having——!”

  Doc rubbed his leathery chin a trifle ruefully. “Stretching a point, Mrs. Hawks, ma’am, calling me a stranger, ain’t you?”

  “All right. Keep him with the show, you two. Who warned you about that yellow-skinned Julie! And what happened! If sheriffs is what you want, I’ll wager you could get them fast enough if you spoke his name in certain parts of this country. Wait till we get back to New Orleans. I intend to do some asking around, and so does Frank.”

  “What’s Frank got to do with it?”

  But at this final exhibition of male obtuseness Parthy flounced out of the conference.

  On their return from the bayous the Cotton Blossom lay idle a day at the New Orleans landing. Early on the morning of their arrival Gaylord Ravenal went ashore. On his stepping off the gangplank he spoke briefly to that same gimlet-eyed gentleman who was still loitering on the wharf. To the observer, the greeting between them seemed amiable enough.

  “Back again, Gay!” he of the keen gaze had exclaimed. “Seems like you can’t keep away from the scene of the——”

  “Oh, go to hell,” said Ravenal.

  He returned to the Cotton Blossom at three o’clock. At his appearance the idler who had accosted him (and who was still mysteriously lolling at the waterside) shut his eyes and then opened them quickly as though to dispel a vision.

  “Cripes, Ravenal! Robbed a bank?”

  From the tip of his shining shoes to the top of his pale gray hat, Ravenal was sartorial perfection, nothing less. The boots were hand-made, slim, aristocratic. The cloth of his clothes was patently out of England, and tailored for no casual purchaser, but for Ravenal’s figure alone. The trousers tapered elegantly to the instep. The collar was moulded expertly so that it hugged the neck. The linen was of the finest and whitest, and cunning needlecraft had gone into the embroidering of the austere monogram that almost escaped showing in one corner of the handkerchief that peeped above his left breast pocket. The malacca stick seemed to take on a new lustre and richness now that it found itself once more in fitting company. With the earnings of his first two weeks on the Cotton Blossom enclosed as evidence of good faith, and future payment assured, Gaylord Ravenal had sent by mail from the Louisiana bayous to Plumbridge, the only English tailor in New Orleans, the order which had resulted in his present splendour.

  He now paused a moment to relieve himself of that which had long annoyed him in the beady-eyed one. “Listen to me, Flat Foot. The Cotton Blossom dropped anchor at seven o’clock this morning at the New Orleans dock. I came ashore at nine. It is now three. I am free to stay on shore or not, as I like, until nine to-morrow morning. Until then, if I hear any more of your offensive conversation, I shall have to punish you.

  Flat Foot, thus objurgated, stared at Ravenal with an expression in which amazement and admiration fought for supremacy. “By God, Ravenal, with any luck at all, that gall of yours ought to get you a million some day.”

  “I wouldn’t be bothered with any sum so vulgar.” From an inside pocket he drew a perfecto, long, dark, sappy. “Have a smoke.” He drew out another. “And give this to Vallon when you go back to report. Tell him I wanted him to know the flavour of a decent cigar for once in his life.”

  As he crossed the gangplank he encountered Mrs. Hawks and Frank, the lumbering heavy, evidently shore-bound together. He stepped aside with a courtliness that the Ravenals of Tennessee could not have excelled in the days of swords, satins, and periwigs.

  Mrs. Hawks was, after all, a woman; and no woman could look unmoved upon the figure of cool elegance that now stood before her. “Sakes alive!” she said, inadequately. Frank, whose costumes, ashore or afloat, always were négligée to the point of causing the beholder some actual nervousness, attempted to sneer without the aid of makeup and made a failure of it.

  Ravenal now addressed Mrs. Hawks. “You are not staying long ashore, I hope?”

  “And why not?” inquired Mrs. Hawks, with her usual delicacy.

  “I had hoped that perhaps you and Captain Hawks and Miss Magnolia might do me the honour of dining with me ashore and going to the theatre afterward. I know a little restaurant where——”

  “Likely,” retorted Parthy, by way of polite refusal; and moved majestically down the gangplank, followed by the gratified heavy.

  Ravenal continued thoughtfully on his way. Captain Andy was in the box office just off the little forward deck that served as an entrance to the show boat. With him was Magnolia—Magnolia minus her mother’s protecting wings. After all, even Parthy had not the power to be in more than one place at a time. At this moment she was deep in conversation with Flat Foot on the wharf.

  Magnolia was evidently dressed for a festive occasion. The skirt of her light écru silk dress was a polonaise draped over a cream-white surah silk, and the front of the tight bodice-basque was of the same cream-white stuff. Her round hat of Milan straw, with its modishly high crown, had an artful brim that shaded her fine eyes, and this brim was faced with deep rose velvet, and a bow of deep rose flared high against the crown. The black of her hair was all the blacker for this vivid colour. An écru parasol and long suède gloves completed the costume. She might have stepped out of Harper’s Bazaar—in fact, she had. The dress was a faithful copy of a costume which she had considered particularly fetching as she pored over the pages of that book of fashion.

  Andy was busy at his desk. Ranged in rows on that desk were canvas sacks, plump, squat; canvas sacks limp, lop-sided; canvas sacks which, when lifted and set down again, gave
forth a pleasant clinking sound. Piled high in front of these were neat packets of greenbacks, ones and ones and ones, in bundles of fifty, each bound with a tidy belt of white paper pinned about its middle. Forming a kind of Chinese wall around these were stacked half dollars, quarters, dimes, and nickels, with now and then a campanile of silver dollars. In the midst of this Andy resembled an amiable and highly solvent gnome stepped out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. The bayou trip had been a record-breaking one in point of profit.

  “… And fifty’s six hundred and fifty,” Andy was crooning happily, as he jotted figures down on a sheet of yellow lined paper, “… and fifty’s seven hundred, and twenty-five’s seven hundred twenty-five and twenty-five’s …”

  “Oh, Papa!” Magnolia exclaimed impatiently, and turned toward the little window through which one saw New Orleans lying so invitingly in the protecting arms of the levee. “It’s almost four, and you haven’t even changed your clothes, and you keep counting that old money, and Mama’s gone on some horrid business with that sneaky Frank. I know it’s horrid because she looked so pleased. And you promised me. We won’t see New Orleans again for a whole year. You said you’d get a carriage and two horses and we’d drive out to Lake Pontchartrain, and have dinner, and drive back, and go to the theatre, and now it’s almost four and you haven’t even changed your clothes and you keep counting that old money, and Mama’s——” After all, in certain ways, Magnolia the ingénue lead had not changed much from that child who had promptly had hysterics to gain her own ends that day in Thebes many years before.

  “Minute,” Andy muttered, absently. “Can’t leave this money laying around like buttons, can I? Germania National’s letting me in the side door as a special favour after hours, as ’tis, just so’s I can deposit.… And fifty’s eight-fifty, and fifty’s nine …”

  “I don’t care!” cried Magnolia, and stamped her foot. “It’s downright mean of you, Papa. You promised. And I’m all dressed. And you haven’t even changed your——”

  “Oh, God A’mighty, Nollie, you ain’t going to turn out an unreasonable woman like your ma, are you! Here I sit, slaving away——”

  “Oh! How beautiful you look!” exclaimed Magnolia now, to Andy’s bewilderment. He looked up at her. Her gaze was directed over his head at someone standing in the doorway. Andy creaked hastily around in the ancient swivel chair. Ravenal, of course, in the doorway. Andy pursed his lips in the sky-rocket whistle, starting high and ending low, expressive of surprise and admiration.

  “How beautiful you look!” said Magnolia again; and clasped her hands like a child.

  “And you, Miss Magnolia,” said Ravenal; and advanced into the cubby hole that was the office, and took one of Magnolia’s surprised hands delicately in his, and bent over it, and kissed it. Magnolia was an excellent enough actress, and sufficiently the daughter of the gallant and Gallic Andy, to acknowledge this salute with a little gracious inclination of the head, and no apparent surprise whatever. Andy himself showed nothing of astonishment at the sight of this suave and elegant figure bent over his daughter’s hand. He looked rather pleased than otherwise. But suddenly then the look on his face changed to one of alarm. He jumped to his feet. He scratched the mutton-chop whiskers, sure evidence of perturbation.

  “Look here, Ravenal! That ain’t a sign you’re leaving, is it? Those clothes, and now kissing Nollie’s hand. God A’mighty, Ravenal, you ain’t leaving us!”

  Ravenal flicked an imaginary bit of dust from the cuff of his flawless sleeve. “These are my ordinary clothes, Captain Hawks, sir. I mean to say, I usually am attired as you now see me. When first we met I was in temporary difficulties. The sort of thing that can happen to any gentleman.”

  “Certainly can,” Andy agreed, heartily and hastily. “Sure can. Well, you gave me a turn. I thought you come in to give me notice. And while we’re on it, you’re foolish to quit at Natchez like you said, Ravenal. I don’t know what you been doing, but you’re cut out for a show-boat actor, and that’s the truth. Stick with us and I’ll raise you to twenty—” as Ravenal shook his head—“twenty-five—” again the shake of the head—“thirty! And, God A’mighty, they ain’t a juvenile lead on the rivers ever got anywheres near that.”

  Ravenal held up one white shapely hand. “Let’s not talk money now, Captain. Though if you would care to advance me a fifty, I … Thanks … I was going to say I came in to ask if you and Mrs. Hawks and Miss Magnolia here would do me the honour to dine with me ashore this evening, and go to the theatre. I know a little French restaurant——”

  “Papa!” She swooped down upon little Andy then, enveloping him in her ruffles, in her surah silk, her rose velvet, her perfume. Her arms were about his neck. Her fresh young cheek pressed the top of his grizzled head. Her eyes were enormous—and they looked into Ravenal’s eyes. “Papa!”

  But years of contact with the prim Parthy had taught him caution. “Your ma——” he began, feebly.

  Magnolia deserted him, flew to Ravenal, clutched his arm. Her lovely eyes held tears. Involuntarily his free hand covered her hand that clung so appealingly to his sleeve. “He promised me. And now, because he’s got all that money to count because Doc was delayed at Baton Rouge and didn’t meet us here like he expected he would this afternoon and Mama’s gone ashore and we were to drive to Lake Pontchartrain and have dinner and he hasn’t even changed his clothes and it’s almost four o’clock—probably is four by now—and he keeps counting that old money——”

  “Magnolia!” shouted Andy in a French frenzy, clutching the whiskers as though to raise himself by them from the floor.

  Magnolia must have been enjoying the situation. Here were two men, both of whom adored her, and she them. She therefore set about testing their love. Her expression became tragic—but not so tragic as to mar her delightful appearance. To the one who loved her most deeply and unselfishly she said:

  “You don’t care anything about me or my happiness. It’s all this old boat, and business, and money. Haven’t I worked, night after night, year in, year out! And now, when I have a chance to enjoy myself—it isn’t as if you hadn’t promised me——”

  “We’re going, I tell you, Nollie. But your ma isn’t even here. And how did I know Doc was going to be stuck at Baton Rouge! We got plenty of time to have dinner ashore and go to the theatre, but we’ll have to give up the drive to Pontchartrain——”

  A heartbroken wail from Magnolia. Her great dark eyes turned in appeal to Ravenal. “It’s the drive I like better than anything in the world. And horses. I’m crazy about horses, and I don’t get a chance to drive —oh, well—” at an objection from Andy—“sometimes; but what kind of horses do they have in those little towns! And here you can get a splendid pair, all shiny, and their nostrils working, and a victoria and lovely long tails and a clanky harness and fawn cushions and the lake and soft-shell crabs——” She was becoming incoherent, but remained as lovely as ever, and grew more appealing by the moment.

  Ravenal resisted a mad urge to take her in his arms. He addressed himself earnestly to the agonized Andy. “If you will trust me, Captain Hawks, I have a plan which I have just thought of. I know New Orleans very well and I am—uh—very well known in New Orleans. Miss Magnolia has set her heart on this little holiday. I know where I can get a splendid turnout. Chestnuts—very high steppers, but quite safe.” An unadult squeal of delight from Magnolia. “If we start immediately, we can enjoy quite a drive—Miss Magnolia and I. If you like, we can take Mrs. Means with us, or Mrs. Soaper——”

  “No,” from the brazen beauty.

  “—and return in time to meet you and Mrs. Hawks at, say, Antoine’s for dinner.”

  “Oh, Papa!” cried Magnolia now. “Oh, Papa!”

  “Your ma——” began Andy again, feebly. The stacks and piles still lay uncounted on the desk. This thing must be settled somehow. He scuttled to the window, scanned the wharf, the streets that led up from it. “I don’t know where she’s got to.” He turned from the window to s
urvey the pair, helplessly. Something about them—the very fitness of their standing there together, so young, so beautiful, so eager, so alive, so vibrant—melted the romantic heart within him. Magnolia in her holiday garb; Ravenal in his tailored perfection. “Oh, well, I don’t see how it’ll hurt any. Your ma and I will meet you at Antoine’s at, say, half-past six——”

  They were off. It was as if they had been lifted bodily and blown together out of the little office, across the gangplank to the landing. Flat Foot stared after them almost benignly.

  Andy returned to his desk. Resumed his contented crooning. Four o’clock struck. Half-past four. His pencil beat a rat-a-tat-tat as he jotted down the splendid figures. A gold mine, this Ravenal. A fine figger of a boy. Cheap at thirty. Rat-a-tat-tat. And fifty’s one thousand. And twenty-five’s one thousand twenty-five. And fifty’s—and fifty’s—twelve twenty-five—gosh a’mighty!——

  A shriek. A bouncing across the gangplank and into the cubby hole just as Andy was rounding, happily, into thirteen hundred. A hand clutching his shoulder frantically, whirling him bodily out of the creaking swivel chair. Parthy, hat awry, bosom palpitating, eyes starting, mouth working.

  “On Canal Street!” she wheezed. It was as though the shriek she had intended were choked in her throat by the very force of the feeling behind it, so that it emerged a strangled thing. “Canal Street! The two of them … with my own eyes … driving … in a … in a——”

  She sank into a chair. There seemed to be no pretense about this. Andy, for once, was alarmed. The tall shambling figure of Frank, the heavy, passed the little ticket window, blocked the low doorway. He stared, open-mouthed, at the almost recumbent Parthy. He was breathing heavily and looked aggrieved.

  “She ran away from me,” he said. “Sees ’em in the crowd, driving, and tries to run after the carriage on Canal, with everybody thinking she’s gone loony. Then she runs down here to the landing, me after her. Woman her age. What d’yah take me for, anyway!”