by Edna Ferber
V
PINK TIGHTS AND GINGHAMS
Some one--probably one of those Frenchmen whose life job it was to makeepigrams---once said that there are but two kinds of women: good women,and bad women. Ever since then problem playwrights have been puttingthat fiction into the mouths of wronged husbands and building their "bigscene" around it. But don't you believe it. There are four kinds: goodwomen, bad women, good bad women, and bad good women. And the worst ofthese is the last. This should be a story of all four kinds, and when itis finished I defy you to discover which is which.
When the red stuff in the thermometer waxes ambitious, sothat fat men stand, bulging-eyed, before it and beginningwith the ninety mark count up with a horriblesatisfaction--ninety-one--ninety-two--ninety-three--NINETY FOUR! bygosh! and the cinders are filtering into your berth, and even the porteris wandering restlessly up and down the aisle like a black soul inpurgatory and a white duck coat, then the thing to do is to don thosemercifully few garments which the laxity of sleeping-car etiquettepermits, slip out between the green curtains and fare forth in search ofdraughts, liquid and atmospheric.
At midnight Emma McChesney, inured as she was to sleepers and alltheir horrors, found her lower eight unbearable. With the bravery ofdesperation she groped about for her cinder-strewn belongings, donnedslippers and kimono, waited until the tortured porter's footsteps hadsqueaked their way to the far end of the car, then sped up the dim aisletoward the back platform. She wrenched open the door, felt the rush ofair, drew in a long, grateful, smoke-steam-dust laden lungful of it,felt the breath of it on spine and chest, sneezed, realized that shewould be the victim of a summer cold next day, and, knowing, cared not.
"Great, ain't it?" said a voice in the darkness. (Nay, reader. A woman'svoice.)
Emma McChesney was of the non-screaming type. But something inside ofher suspended action for the fraction of a second. She peered into thedarkness.
"'J' get scared?" inquired the voice. Its owner lurched forward from thecorner in which she had been crouching, into the half-light cast by thevestibule night-globe.
Even as men judge one another by a Masonic emblem, an Elk pin, or theband of a cigar, so do women in sleeping-cars weigh each other accordingto the rules of the Ancient Order of the Kimono. Seven seconds afterEmma McChesney first beheld the negligee that stood revealed in the dimlight she had its wearer neatly weighed, marked, listed, docketed andplaced.
It was the kind of kimono that is associated with straw-colored hair,and French-heeled shoes, and over-fed dogs at the end of a leash. TheJapanese are wrongly accused of having perpetrated it. In patternit showed bright green flowers-that-never-were sprawling on a purplebackground. A diamond bar fastened it not too near the throat.
It was one of Emma McChesney's boasts that she was the only living womanwho could get off a sleeper at Bay City, Michigan, at 5 A.M., withoutlooking like a Swedish immigrant just dumped at Ellis Island. Travelinghad become a science with her, as witness her serviceable dark-blue silkkimono, and her hair in a schoolgirl braid down her back. The blondewoman cast upon Emma McChesney an admiring eye.
"Gawd, ain't it hot!" she said, sociably.
"I wonder," mused Emma McChesney, "if that porter could be hypnotizedinto making some lemonade--a pitcherful, with a lot of ice in it, andthe cold sweat breaking out all over the glass?
"Lemonade!" echoed the other, wonder and amusement in her tone. "Arethey still usin' it?" She leaned against the door, swaying with themotion of the car, and hugging her plump, bare arms. "Travelin' alone?"she asked.
"Oh, yes," replied Emma McChesney, and decided it was time to go in.
"Lonesome, ain't it, without company? Goin' far?"
"I'm accustomed to it. I travel on business, not pleasure. I'm on theroad, representing T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats!"
The once handsome violet eyes of the plump blonde widened with surprise.Then they narrowed to critical slits.
"On the road! Sellin' goods! And I thought you was only a kid. It's theway your hair's fixed, I suppose. Say, that must be a hard life for awoman--buttin' into a man's game like that."
"Oh, I suppose any work that takes a woman out into the world--" beganEmma McChesney vaguely, her hand on the door-knob.
"Sure," agreed the other. "I ought to know. The hotels and time-tablesalone are enough to kill. Who do you suppose makes up train schedules?They don't seem to think no respectable train ought to leave anywherebefore eleven-fifty A.M., or arrive after six A.M. We played Ottumwa,Iowa, last night, and here we are jumpin' to Illinois."
In surprise Emma McChesney turned at the door for another look at thehair, figure, complexion and kimono.
"Oh, you're an actress! Well, if you think mine is a hard life for awoman, why--"
"Me!" said the green-gold blonde, and laughed not prettily. "I ain't awoman. I'm a queen of burlesque.
"Burlesque? You mean one of those--" Emma McChesney stopped, her usuallydeft tongue floundering.
"One of those 'men only' troupes? You guessed it. I'm Blanche LeHaye,of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles. We get into North Bend at sixto-morrow morning, and we play there to-morrow night, Sunday." She tooka step forward so that her haggard face and artificially tinted hairwere very near Emma McChesney. "Know what I was thinkin' just one secondbefore you come out here?"
"No; what?"
"I was thinkin' what a cinch it would be to just push aside that canvasthing there by the steps and try what the newspaper accounts call'jumping into the night.' Say, if I'd had on my other lawnjerie I'll betI'd have done it."
Into Emma McChesney's understanding heart there swept a wave of pity.But she answered lightly: "Is that supposed to be funny?"
The plump blonde yawned. "It depends on your funny bone. Mine's gotblunted. I'm the lady that the Irish comedy guy slaps in the face witha bunch of lettuce. Say, there's something about you that makes a personget gabby and tell things. You'd make a swell clairvoyant."
Beneath the comedy of the bleached hair, and the flaccid face, and thebizarre wrapper; behind the coarseness and vulgarity and ignorance,Emma McChesney's keen mental eye saw something decent and clean andbeautiful. And something pitiable, and something tragic.
"I guess you'd better come in and get some sleep," said Emma McChesney;and somehow found her hand resting on the woman's shoulder. So theystood, on the swaying, jolting platform. Blanche LeHaye, of the SamLevin Crackerjack Belles, looked down, askance, at the hand on hershoulder, as at some strange and interesting object.
"Ten years ago," she said, "that would have started me telling the storyof my life, with all the tremolo stops on, and the orchestra in tears.Now it only makes me mad."
Emma McChesney's hand seemed to snatch itself away from the woman'sshoulder.
"You can't treat me with your life's history. I'm going in."
"Wait a minute. Don't go away sore, kid. On the square, I guess I likedthe feel of your hand on my arm, like that. Say, I've done the samething myself to a strange dog that looked up at me, pitiful. You know,the way you reach down, and pat 'm on the head, and say, 'Nice doggie,nice doggie, old fellow,' even if it is a street cur, with a chawedear, and no tail. They growl and show their teeth, but they like it.A woman--Lordy! there comes the brakeman. Let's beat it. Ain't we thenervy old hens!"
The female of the species as she is found in sleeping-car dressing-roomshad taught Emma McChesney to rise betimes that she might avoid contactwith certain frowsy, shapeless beings armed with bottles of milkyliquids, and boxes of rosy pastes, and pencils that made arched andinky lines; beings redolent of bitter almond, and violet toilette water;beings in doubtful corsets and green silk petticoats perfect as toaccordion-plaited flounce, but showing slits and tatters fartherup; beings jealously guarding their ten inches of mirror space andconsenting to move for no one; ladies who had come all the way fromTexas and who insisted on telling about it, despite a mouthful ofhairpins; doubtful sisters who called one dearie and required to behooked up; distracted mothers with three sma
ll children who wiped theirhands on your shirt-waist.
"'You can't treat me with your life's history. I'm goingin'"]
So it was that Emma McChesney, hatted and veiled by 5:45, saw thecurtains of the berth opposite rent asunder to disclose the rumpled,shapeless figure of Miss Blanche LeHaye. The queen of burlesque borein her arms a conglomerate mass of shoes, corset, purple skirt, bag andgreen-plumed hat. She paused to stare at Emma McChesney's trim, coolpreparedness.
"You must have started to dress as soon's you come in last night. Inever slep' a wink till just about half a hour ago. I bet I ain't gotmore than eleven minutes to dress in. Ain't this a scorcher!"
When the train stopped at North Bend, Emma McChesney, on her way out,collided with a vision in a pongee duster, rose-colored chiffon veil,chamois gloves, and plumed hat. Miss Blanche LeHaye had made the most ofher eleven minutes. Her baggage attended to, Emma McChesney climbedinto a hotel 'bus. It bore no other passengers. From her corner in thevehicle she could see the queen of burlesque standing in the centerof the depot platform, surrounded by her company. It was a tawdry,miserable, almost tragic group, the men undersized, be-diamonded, theirskulls oddly shaped, their clothes a satire on the fashions formen, their chins unshaven, their loose lips curved contentedly overcigarettes; the women dreadfully unreal with the pitiless light of theearly morning sun glaring down on their bedizened faces, their spotted,garish clothes, their run-down heels, their vivid veils, their mattedhair. They were quarreling among themselves, and a flame of hate forthe moment lighted up those dull, stupid, vicious faces. Blanche LeHayeappeared to be the center about which the strife waged, for suddenly sheflung through the shrill group and walked swiftly over to the 'bus andclimbed into it heavily. One of the women turned, her face lived beneaththe paint, to scream a great oath after her. The 'bus driver climbedinto his seat and took up the reins. After a moment's indecision thelittle group on the platform turned and trailed off down the street,the women sagging under the weight of their bags, the men, for the mostpart, hurrying on ahead. When the 'bus lurched past them the woman whohad screamed the oath after Blanche LeHaye laughed shrilly and made aface, like a naughty child, whereupon the others laughed in falsettochorus.
A touch of real color showed in Blanche LeHaye's flabby cheek. "I'llshow'm she snarled. That hussy of a Zella Dacre thinkin' she can get mypart away from me the last week or so, the lyin' sneak. I'll show'ma leadin' lady's a leadin' lady. Let 'em go to their hash hotels. I'mgoin' to the real inn in this town just to let 'em know that I got mydignity to keep up, and that I don't have to mix in with scum likethat. You see that there? She pointed at something in the street.Emma McChesney turned to look. The cheap lithographs of the Sam LevinCrackerjack Belles Company glared at one from the bill-boards.
"That's our paper," explained Blanche LeHaye. "That's me, in the centerof the bunch, with the pink reins in my hands, drivin' that four-in-handof johnnies. Hot stuff! Just let Dacre try to get it away from me,that's all. I'll show'm."
She sank back into her corner. Her anger left her with the suddennesscharacteristic of her type.
"Ain't this heat fierce?" she fretted, and closed her eyes.
Now, Emma McChesney was a broad-minded woman. The scars that she hadreceived in her ten years' battle with business reminded her to betender at sight of the wounds of others. But now, as she studied thewoman huddled there in the corner, she was conscious of a shudderingdisgust of her--of the soiled blouse, of the cheap finery, of the sunkenplaces around the jaw-bone, of the swollen places beneath the eyes, ofthe thin, carmined lips, of the--
Blanche LeHaye opened her eyes suddenly and caught the look on EmmaMcChesney's face. Caught it, and comprehended it. Her eyes narrowed, andshe laughed shortly.
"Oh, I dunno," drawled Blanche LeHaye. "I wouldn't go's far's that, kid.Say, when I was your age I didn't plan to be no bum burlesquer neither.I was going to be an actress, with a farm on Long Island, like the restof 'em. Every real actress has got a farm on Long Island, if it's onlythere in the mind of the press agent. It's a kind of a religion with'em. I was goin' to build a house on mine that was goin' to be a crossbetween a California bungalow and the Horticultural Building at theWorld's Fair. Say, I ain't the worst, kid. There's others outside of mysmear, understand, that I wouldn't change places with."
A dozen apologies surged to Emma McChesney's lips just as the driverdrew up at the curbing outside the hotel and jumped down to open thedoor. She found herself hoping that the hotel clerk would not class herwith her companion.
At eleven o'clock that morning Emma McChesney unlocked her door andwalked down the red-carpeted hotel corridor. She had had two hoursof restful sleep. She had bathed, and breakfasted, and donned cleanclothes. She had brushed the cinders out of her hair, and manicured. Shefelt as alert, and cool and refreshed as she looked, which speaks wellfor her comfort.
Halfway down the hail a bedroom door stood open. Emma McChesney glancedin. What she saw made her stop. The next moment she would have hurriedon, but the figure within called out to her.
Miss Blanche LeHaye had got into her kimono again. She was slumped ina dejected heap in a chair before the window. There was a tray, with abottle and some glasses on the table by her side.
"Gawd, ain't it hot!" she whined miserably. "Come on in a minute. I leftthe door open to catch the breeze, but there ain't any. You look like apeach just off the ice. Got a gent friend in town?"
"No," answered Emma McChesney hurriedly, and turned to go.
"Wait a minute," said Blanche LeHaye, sharply, and rose. She slouchedover to where Emma McChesney stood and looked up at her sullenly.
"Why!" gasped Emma McChesney, and involuntarily put out her hand,"why--my dear--you've been crying! Is there--"
"No, there ain't. I can bawl, can't I, if I _am_ a bum burlesquer?"She put down the squat little glass she had in her hand and staredresentfully at Emma McChesney's cool, fragrant freshness.
"Say," she demanded suddenly, "whatja mean by lookin' at me the way youdid this morning, h'm? Whatja mean? You got a nerve turnin' up your noseat me, you have. I'll just bet you ain't no better than you might be,neither. What the--"
Swiftly Emma McChesney crossed the room and closed the door. Then shecame back to where Blanche LeHaye stood.
"Now listen to me," she said. "You shed that purple kimono of yours andhustle into some clothes and come along with me. I mean it. WheneverI'm anywhere near this town I make a jump and Sunday here. I've a friendhere named Morrissey--Ethel Morrissey--and she's the biggest-hearted,most understanding friend that a woman ever had. She's skirt and suitbuyer at Barker & Fisk's here. I have a standing invitation to spendSunday at her house. She knows I'm coming. I help get dinner if I feellike it, and wash my hair if I want to, and sit out in the back yard,and fool with the dog, and act like a human being for one day. Afteryou've been on the road for ten years a real Sunday dinner in a realhome has got Sherry's flossiest efforts looking like a picnic collationwith ants in the pie. You're coming with me, more for my sake than foryours, because the thought of you sitting here, like this, would sourthe day for me."
Blanche LeHaye's fingers were picking at the pin which fastened hergown. She smiled, uncertainly.
"What's your game?" she inquired.
"I'll wait for you downstairs," said Emma McChesney, pleasantly. "Do youever have any luck with caramel icing? Ethel's and mine always curdles."
"Do I?" yelled the queen of burlesque. "I invented it." And she was downon her knees, her fingers fumbling with the lock of her suitcase.
Only an Ethel Morrissey, inured to the weird workings of humanity byyears of shrewd skirt and suit buying, could have stood the test ofhaving a Blanche LeHaye thrust upon her, an unexpected guest, and withthe woman across the street sitting on her front porch taking it all in.
At the door--"This is Miss Blanche LeHaye of the--er--Simon--"
"Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles," put in Miss LeHaye. "Pleased to meetyou."
"Come in," said Miss Ethel Morrissey witho
ut batting an eye. "I just'phoned the hotel. Thought you'd gone back on me, Emma. I'm baking acaramel cake. Don't slam the door. This your first visit here, MissLeHaye? Excuse me for not shaking hands. I'm all flour. Lay your thingsin there. Ma's spending the day with Aunt Gus at Forest City and I'mthe whole works around here. It's got skirts and suits beat a mile. Hot,ain't it? Say, suppose you girls slip off your waists and I'll give youeach an all-over apron that's loose and let's the breeze slide around."
Blanche LeHaye, the garrulous, was strangely silent. When she steppedabout it was in the manner of one who is fearful of wakening a sleeper.When she caught the eyes of either of the other women her own glancedropped.
When Ethel Morrissey came in with the blue-and-white gingham apronsBlanche LeHaye hesitated a long minute before picking hers up. Then sheheld it by both sleeves and looked at it long, and curiously. Whenshe looked up again she found the eyes of the other two upon her. Sheslipped the apron over her head with a nervous little laugh.
"I've been a pair of pink tights so long," she said, "that I guess I'vealmost forgotten how to be a woman. But once I get this on I'll bet Ican come back."
She proved it from the moment that she measured out the first cupful ofbrown sugar for the caramel icing. She shed her rings, and pinned herhair back from her forehead, and tucked up her sleeves, and as EmmaMcChesney watched her a resolve grew in her mind.
The cake disposed of--"Give me some potatoes to peel, will you?" saidBlanche LeHaye, suddenly. "Give 'em to me in a brown crock, with a chipout of the side. There's certain things always goes hand-in-hand in yourmind. You can't think of one without the other. Now, Lillian Russell andcold cream is one; and new potatoes and brown crocks is another."
"'Now, Lillian Russell and cold cream is one; and newpotatoes and brown crocks is another'"]
She peeled potatoes, sitting hunched up on the kitchen chair with herhigh heels caught back of the top rung. She chopped spinach until herface was scarlet, and her hair hung in limp strands at the back of herneck. She skinned tomatoes. She scoured pans. She wiped up the whiteoilcloth table-top with a capable and soapy hand. The heat and bustleof the little kitchen seemed to work some miraculous change in her.Her eyes brightened. Her lips smiled. Once, Emma McChesney and EthelMorrissey exchanged covert looks when they heard her crooning one ofthose tuneless chants that women hum when they wring out dishcloths insoapy water.
After dinner, in the cool of the sitting-room, with the shades drawn,and their skirts tucked halfway to their knees, things looked propitiousfor that first stroke in the plan which had worked itself out in EmmaMcChesney's alert mind. She caught Blanche LeHaye's eye, and smiled.
"This beats burlesquing, doesn't it?" she said. She leaned forward abit in her chair. "Tell me, Miss LeHaye, haven't you ever thought ofquitting that--the stage--and turning to something--something--"
"Something decent?" Blanche LeHaye finished for her. "I used to.I've got over that. Now all I ask is to get a laugh when I kick thecomedian's hat off with my toe."
"But there must have been a time--" insinuated Emma McChesney, gently.
Blanche LeHaye grinned broadly at the two women who were watching her sointently.
"I think I ought to tell you," she began, "that I never was a minister'sdaughter, and I don't remember ever havin' been deserted by mysweetheart when I was young and trusting. If I was to draw a picture ofmy life it would look like one of those charts that the weather bureaugets out--one of those high and low barometer things, all uphill anddownhill like a chain of mountains in a kid's geography."
She shut her eyes and lay back in the depths of the leather-cushionedchair. The three sat in silence for a moment.
"Look here," said Emma McChesney, suddenly, rising and coming over tothe woman in the big chair, "that's not the life for a woman like you.I can get you a place in our office--not much, perhaps, but somethingdecent--something to start with. If you--"
"For that matter," put in Ethel Morrissey, quickly, "I could get yousomething right here in our store. I've been there long enough to havesome say-so, and if I recommend you they'd start you in the basement atfirst, and then, if you made good, they advance you right along."
Blanche LeHaye stood up and, twisting her arm around at the back, beganto unbutton her gingham apron.
"I guess you think I'm a bad one, don't you? Well, maybe I am. But I'mnot the worst. I've got a brother. He lives out West, and he's rich, andmarried, and respectable. You know the way a man can climb out of themud, while a woman just can't wade out of it? Well, that's the way itwas with us. His wife's a regular society bug. She wouldn't admit thatthere was any such truck as me, unless, maybe, the Municipal ProtectiveLeague, or something, of her town, got to waging a war against burlesqueshows. I hadn't seen Len--that's my brother---in years and years. Thenone night in Omaha, I glimmed him sitting down in the B. H. row. Hisface just seemed to rise up at me out of the audience. He recognizedme, too. Say, men are all alike. What they see in a dingy, half-fed,ignorant bunch like us, I don't know. But the minute a man goes toCleveland, or Pittsburgh, or somewhere on business he'll hunt up aburlesque show, and what's more, he'll enjoy it. Funny. Well, Len waitedfor me after the show, and we had a talk. He told me his troubles, andI told him some of mine, and when we got through I wouldn't have swappedwith him. His wife's a wonder. She's climbed to the top of the ladder inher town. And she's pretty, and young-looking, and a regular swell. Lensays their home is one of the kind where the rubberneck auto stops whilethe spieler tells the crowd who lives there, and how he made his money.But they haven't any kids, Len told me. He's crazy about 'em. But hiswife don't want any. I wish you could have seen Len's face when he wastalking about it."
She dropped the gingham apron in a circle at her feet, and stepped outof it. She walked over to where her own clothes lay in a gaudy heap.
"Exit the gingham. But it's been great." She paused before slipping herskirt over her head. The silence of the other two women seemed to angerher a little.
'"Why, girls, I couldn't hold down a job in a candyfactory'"]
"I guess you think I'm a bad one, clear through, don't you? Well, Iain't. I don't hurt anybody but myself. Len's wife--that's what I callbad."
"But I _don't_ think you're bad clear through," tried Emma McChesney. "Idon't. That's why I made that proposition to you. That's why I want youto get away from all this, and start over again."
"Me?" laughed Blanche LeHaye. "Me! In a office! With ledgers, and salebills, and accounts, and all that stuff! Why, girls, I couldn't holddown a job in a candy factory. I ain't got any intelligence. I neverhad. You don't find women with brains in a burlesque troupe. If they had'em they wouldn't be there. Why, we're the dumbest, most ignorant bunchthere is. Most of us are just hired girls, dressed up. That's why youfind the Woman's Uplift Union having such a blamed hard time savin'souls. The souls they try to save know just enough to be wise to thefact that they couldn't hold down a five-per-week job. Don't you feelsorry for me. I'm doing the only thing I'm good for."
Emma McChesney put out her hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "I only meant itfor--"
"Why, of course," agreed Blanche LeHaye, heartily. "And you, too." Sheturned so that her broad, good-natured smile included Ethel Morrissey."I've had a whale of a time. My fingers are all stained up with newpotatoes, and my nails is full of strawberry juice, and I hope it won'tcome off for a week. And I want to thank you both. I'd like to stay,but I'm going to hump over to the theater. That Dacre's got the nerve toswipe the star's dressing-room if I don't get my trunks in first."
They walked with her to the front porch, making talk as they went.Resentment and discomfiture and a sort of admiration all played acrossthe faces of the two women, whose kindness had met with rebuff. Atthe foot of the steps Blanche LeHaye, prima donna of the Sam LevinCrackerjack Belles turned.
"Oh, say," she called. "I almost forgot. I want to tell you that if youwait until your caramel is off the stove, and then add your butter, whenthe stuff's hot, but not boilin', it won't l
ump so. H'm? Don't mentionit."