Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Ramon took her with him that very first afternoon down a grimy back street to the back door of a café, and up to the stage to watch him practise. Cervanez smoked cigarettes and pounded the piano, and Jacqueline watched critically.

  It seemed to her that she could do as well as that — at any rate with a little practise. And then it occurred to her there was something pitiful in that man’s need to dance like a marionette to support his mother and Pepita — a thought that brought a blush of shame with it. Did he work so hard for his money, and then lend to herself and Consuelo! And how were they to repay him? Did he always dance alone? No — she remembered he had danced in Louisiana with Cervanez.

  Cervanez herself answered that thought, by inviting Jacqueline to play the piano for a while, so that she herself might practise new steps with her son. But Jacqueline had taken music lessons at the convent because they were compulsory, not because she had the slightest natural gift in that direction, and though she made the attempt it was worse than useless. Cervanez came and pushed her almost roughly off the piano stool. Chagrin. Self-abasement. Ramon noted it, and gallantly did what he could to put her at ease again.

  “There is something the senorita can do better than us all!” he exclaimed, with one of his extravagant gestures. “Come, Senorita — do me the favor — yes?”

  He danced with her and the dancing did her good; it brought the color to her cheeks, the light back into her eyes, and made her glow all over healthfully.

  Consuelo burst in on the scene after a while and protested violently. But Ramon danced with her for two hours, until she could almost have dropped from weariness. He seemed to take delight in teaching her, making her do the same steps over and over again, and sometimes pausing to gesticulate with both hands and lecture her: “Senorita Conchita, permit me! You have left the convent! You are not — no longer — any more afraid to show beautiful legs, which may scandalize those who have taken the vows of religion, but which the public adores! Faces are good, but legs are very good!” He snapped his fingers. “Pep — zip — snap, Senorita! Now again!”

  But whenever he glanced at his mother she would light another cigarette and nod. Consuelo sat dumb through it all, after lodging her first protest. As she tried to describe it afterward, she felt like a shepherd whose ewe-lamb has gone to the butcher.

  “Honey dear, it’s awful! They’ll be asking you to dance in public next!”

  But it did not seem awful to Jacqueline, although her legs ached and her head swam with fatigue. It was novelty, and she was doing something. She rather reveled in the recklessness.

  And Ramon was cute! He strolled home afterward like a troubadour out of a story-book, flourishing a cigarette and throwing his shoulders back, paying her extravagant compliments and boasting of what they might do “poco tiempo” — soon — not very long, Senorita. Dance with me, Senorita, and the crowd he burst the walls! Then, you see! We go up, up, up! La Conchita becomes famous! Ramon, he take back seat! For Conchita — diamonds, flowers, limousine! For Ramon to salute her when she passes, hoping for just one condescension from the beautiful blue eyes! A nod in passing — no more! And Ramon will die happy!”

  Evening with Consuelo was the worst part, for she locked the bedroom door and kept all-comers at bay, lest the lodging-house manners and views should defile her darling. Jacqueline wanted to lie on the bed and stretch luxuriously, or talk with the frowzy old landlady. But Consuelo would have none of that; she was as frightened as a hen that has hatched one duckling and sees it take to water. There was a wonderful fat man from the floor above, whose pants were shiny at the knees, and who came in shirt-sleeves and suspenders and sang songs to Consuelo through the key-hole, making Jacqueline nearly die of giggling but arousing such wrath in Consuelo that she finally stuck a hat-pin through the key-hole and almost pierced the fat man’s eye. He pretended she had blinded him, and assured her he had one eye left, which was also at her service.

  She was so tired that she slept all night without dreaming; and shortly after daybreak she had to get up to admit Pepita and her monkey. The monkey got on the bed and nearly scared Consuelo out of her senses, which would have been good fun if only Consuelo had not been so angry and hysterical. She began to be very fond of Pepita, and the monkey was a darling, with its hands in everything including Consuelo’s false hair.

  Breakfast at eleven o’clock Jacqueline admitted was not so good. The eggs tasted shop-worn, and there was still the blended smell of cigars and cabbage from the day before. Nobody was at his best at breakfast, and the fat man with the shiny black pants made disagreeable noises with his teeth, which were false and did not fit properly. The landlady was cross because some one had skipped in the night without paying his bill. And the coffee, to quote the fat man, tasted as if a crocodile had wept it. Even the canary in its cage over by the window seemed melancholy, and the red-and-gray parrot on a stand in the corner dropped his head and never said a word.

  However, breakfast did not last forever, and absorbing topics followed it, that blew all drabness to the winds. Cervanez opened fire, half- jealously:

  “Ramon, he say you learn so good, he buy you costume if you dance instead of me!”

  “Then I should only be owing you more money,” answered Jacqueline.

  What most surprised her was that Consuelo’s prophecy should be so soon fulfilled.

  “What is a little more or less?” Cervanez retorted; but there was a greedy glitter in her eye. “Ramon, he is lending you much money—”

  “Senorita — my mother means — she is not so young — not so very young and active. Rheumatism — now and then it makes her a hard agony; yet she must dance. She means — if now there were perhaps an understudy — a young lady kind enough to take her place in case of sickness—”

  He was watching those lake-blue eyes, but affecting not to. He had hit the mark. He looked at her frankly at once and waved his cigarette in the grand manner that dismissed real essentials as trifles beneath consideration.

  “And for an understudy there must be a costume — naturally. If the senorita consents — ?”

  Jacqueline could not refuse that. The request appealed to every nerve of her generosity.

  “If you think I could do it in a pinch—”

  And so outdoors, into the roaring city, with her arm through Ramon’s;

  “For in a sense we are partners now, Senorita. I am proud!”

  Cervanez and Consuelo tagged along behind, Consuelo unprotesting because she knew no protest would avail. They took a trolley to a street where a costume shop was jammed between a pawnbroker’s and a second-hand clothier’s. In the shop was a beady-eyed fat Jewess, who seemed to know everybody in the world by the first name and to want to talk about them all at once, while she looked at you and registered impressions with a sixth sense. Presently, without so much as being asked to do it, she brought out armfuls of elaborate frocks, all of which Ramon sent back again unglanced at, with a magnificent gesture of his left hand.

  There seemed to be no possible chance of their getting together on the prices, until suddenly Cervanez nudged Ramon and took Jacqueline and Consuelo out of the shop. They looked in the pawnbroker’s window for about five minutes, when Ramon suddenly emerged and it seemed to Jacqueline that he was suppressing a smile of triumph. She supposed he had his own way. She caught him exchanging a swift glance with Cervanez. Yet his first words intimated that the guess was wrong.

  “Senorita, it is well that I was present, or she would have charged twice — three times as much. Bear me witness that I did my utmost to reduce the cost. You begin to see now what expenses there are in our profession. It is debt that makes us dance! The cost of traveling — the price of pork and beans — the extortions of a landlady — the unreasonable price of costumes — the salary, so low that it becomes a weekly insult — moreover, the fees to agents! It is well we dance! Believe me, it is necessary! We dance one step, and no more, ahead of the devil all the time!”

  Ahead of the devil! She t
hought of Wahl instantly, and her face clouded. Cervanez, who noticed everything, promptly improved on Ramon’s little sermon.

  “Conchita, all these bills — they, mount up. You will be owing us many hundred dollars.”

  She did not like to be called Conchita by Cervanez, but they had agreed on that as the name she should be known by; and it was well understood that nobody was to call her Jacqueline or as much as drop hints about her past. But she liked still less the prospect of being in debt to these people, and began to be troubled about it. But, when she questioned Ramon or Cervanez they became vague, and said it all depended; and the more vague they were, the more miserable Consuelo grew.

  Jacqueline was finding some sort of balance at last — at least knew what she wished to forget, and what she would always remember. She would never forget Desmio; but she would remember him as he was when he gave her that locket with his portrait in it, and told her there would some day be another man whom she would love. She would always wear the locket next her heart. And she would never forget Sherry Mansfield, although she must never see him again.

  Meanwhile, there was something in life after all. The title of understudy gave her a thrill of pride. It felt almost like earning your own living, and she was not quite such a burden to these people as she had been. And so back to the practise on the shabby El Toro stage.

  It needed nothing but Ramon’s critical coaching to turn Jacqueline into a superb dancer. The convent had given her all the grounding necessary. She had perfect command of her muscles, poise and balance; all Ramon had to do was to subtract some elements of super-modesty, and add what he called “pep-zip-snap” in place of it.

  Papa Pantopoulos, the owner of the café, in nobody’s confidence yet, but with an imagination of his own, sat at a table and began to figure advertising space rates with a stub of pencil on the back of yesterday’s menu card. He presently went out to buy four more secondhand tables.

  Ramon was a dancer who improved incredibly if a partner inspired him to it, and he liked to lavish praise, because it cost nothing and yet made him feel generous. Jacqueline flourished under praise like a flower in the rays of the sun; it did not turn her head, but made her try harder than ever. And as it was Ramon’s habit to fall cavalierly in love with every pretty girl in sight, in or out of turn, it was only a matter of hours before Jacqueline discovered a new problem on her hands.

  She talked it over that night with Consuelo, but received no help of the sort she wanted. Consuelo’s idea of how to keep a man at bay was limited to boiling-water, hat-pins, and looking daggers at him, with maybe some vinegary comment thrown in. So Jacqueline had to work it out for herself, and lay awake long after midnight puzzling over how to manage Consuelo too; for if Consuelo were to grow too tart with Ramon and Cervanez there would soon be an explosion, by which nobody would be the gainer.

  She prayed long and earnestly. But it was Mother Eve who came to her assistance — original feminine art and an inborn gift for rising to occasions. She would flirt with Ramon. Why not? She would let him hope all he cared to. Then, if Consuelo should grow too quarrelsome, perhaps Ramon’s ambition might help to keep him good tempered.

  Having reached which decision, Jacqueline slept in the same undisturbed peace that doubtless once breathed o’er Eden — calm, because she was quite sure that the Blessed Virgin had heard her prayer and answered it.

  CHAPTER 23.

  “The Tribune be damned!”

  The Tribune Building in San Francisco hummed to the throb of the enormous presses. The news-room grew suddenly quiet, and then noisy with voices, as it always did when an edition had gone to press. Sherry Mansfield, back into routine a week ago and looking as if he had never seen dirt or muddy water, stood in the big window with both hands in his pockets, staring moodily at the street. Dad Lawrence beckoned the city editor, and walked out with him for coffee and cigarettes that were almost a part of the daily ritual, in a dingy, smoky little café down a side-street — a place where any one could find them in a hurry, and where the entire staff often drifted in during the half-hour between editions. Dad had almost reached the elevator, when John Covert Mansfield’s door opened with a jerk.

  “Dad — I want you.”

  Dad strolled in with both hands in his pockets. Mansfield senior resumed the seat at the desk, that he never vacated for a minute longer than he could help, stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth, and looked up at Dad Lawrence with one of the peculiar dry grimaces that implied dissatisfaction coupled with combativeness.

  “Seen much of Sherry since he got back?” he asked.

  “About as much as usual,” Dad answered.

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He seems well.”

  Mansfield made a gesture of impatience. “I’d call in a doctor, not you, if I thought he had a bellyache!” he answered. “Is he in love, or something?”

  “He hasn’t said so to me.”

  “Find out, will you?”

  “Why? Are you and he not hitting it?”

  “No!” Mansfield answered, biting off the end of the cigar and looking up at Dad again. “For the first time I don’t know what he’s thinking about. He mopes and says nothing — work’s all to hell, too — look at that drivel!” He tossed some sheets of paper across the desk. “Calls that trying his hand at editorials!”

  “Any specific reason for supposing he’s in love?” Dad inquired, stroking his chin and eying Mansfield quizzically.

  “What else would have made him act like a plain born fool?” demanded Mansfield. “If he’s in love, I’m going to know it, and bring him to his senses before some woman ruins him. Wahl tells me he suspects Sherry knows something about that Lanier girl — and by the way, that’s a corking good Sunday feature Wahl’s made of her. Have you seen it?”

  “Wahl would suspect the Almighty,” Dad answered. “Why don’t you ask Sherry himself?”

  “I have — twice. The boy’s lying to me, and he never was a liar before in all his life. Wahl says Sherry was missing two days, and turned up in a launch with a girl, who disappeared a moment afterward. He says Sherry’s conduct that night was elusive, to put it mildly. Wahl wanted to leave Sherry on the job to clean up that story; he doesn’t believe the Lanier girl was drowned, and they haven’t found her body. It’s quite likely she’s alive. Sherry gave Wahl the slip, so Wahl found a man named Harris and left him in charge. Now comes a letter from Harris complaining that a young man named Mansfield locked him into a cabin, and adds that he suspects this Mansfield of having aided the girl to escape. Mansfield is unquestionably Sherry. Sherry pretends to know nothing at all about it. Lie number one.”

  “Does sound fishy, doesn’t it?” Dad agreed.

  “Fishy as hell. Yesterday Sherry walked in and asked me for ten days off.”

  “Did he give any reason?”

  “No. Refused. So I refused the request. He got off some damfool stuff about my having known him a number of years, and that it’s time I could trust him without an argument.”

  “Well, can’t you?”

  “Not if he’s in love!”

  Dad stroked his chin again, and worked his jaw as if he were shaving.

  “I think I’d trust Sherry anywhere,” he answered. “But I tell you, the boy’s lying! I’ll bet ten thousand dollars there’s a woman in it! I thought Wahl might do him good, but they don’t hit it off; he seems to hate Wahl. You’re no constellation, Dad, but Sherry likes you, and so do I. I’m going to turn him over to you for a while. Trot him around with you to do the social stuff, and keep your eyes peeled, but get this: I’m not asking you to run and tell me tales about him.”

  “No, I guessed you knew better than that,” Dad said quietly.

  “Watch him and give him the right steer. Use your influence to try to get him to tell me what’s on his mind. I want it straight from him. I want to feel he and I are friends again.”

  “Suppose he came and told you he’s in love?” Dad suggested.

  �
��There’d be a fight, of course. But I’d win! I’d hold him to his promise to have no truck with women until he’s thirty.”

  “Was that a promise that he made you definitely, with his eyes wide open?” Dad asked.

  “It was a stipulation I made. If he wanted to come on the Tribune with me, that was the condition.”

  Dad wrinkled his mouth up and straightened it again. “Well, I’ll do my best,” he answered. “Have you told Sherry?”

  “No, you tell him. Take him in charge until you hear again from me.”

  So Sherry came off the regular schedule, and roved with Dad all over the city, covering odd assignments at odd hours, interviewing hostesses, who liked to have their names in print, and attending weary social functions interspersed with occasional plays and road-house openings. Dad knew San Francisco as a dock rat knows the water-front, and had reduced to a fine art the subdivision of a crowded evening; knew where to stay longest, and where just to nose in and disappear. But there were occasional functions where they had to stay an hour or two, as at Mrs. Carstairs-Coningsby’s, for instance. As the wealthy American wife of an equally wealthy Englishman, she felt it incumbent on her to know everybody and do everything; there were always surprises at her house, and she knew enough to spring them not too early in the evening. “Dance — supper — tableaux vivants” ran the invitation; and Sherry and Dad attended, expecting to get “copy” out of it, but also to be bored.

  Mrs. Carstairs-Coningsby made rather a fuss over Sherry; if not a lion just yet, he was likely to be one some day. So she took him in hand and introduced him right and left.

  “His father owns the Tribune, Mr. Miro. Mr. Mansfield, surely you’ve heard of John Miro?”

  “I support his father’s paper!” Miro answered, with a glittering twinkle in his eyes. “Simply outrageous advertising rates! I presume, Mr. Mansfield, you are one of the reporters I have been hiding from.”