Mary Shura - Gabrielle

GABRIELLE had been dreaming. The sharp rap of her fathers knuckles onthe door of her narrow cabin tumbled her back into reality with apainful start. With her eyes still tightly closed, she listened to thegentle slapping of the Mississippi River against the sides of theshowboat and groaned. It couldnt be three in the morning yet; itabsolutely couldnt. Yet above the rhythm of the current she heardmorning sounds, muffled voices calling outside, and feet scraping alongthe decks of the Levee Princess. Within minutes she was supposed tobe dressed and down in the galley to help Flossie McGregor fix coffeeand breakfast for the other crew members before they untied the boat andstarted her on downstream.

Since her dream was fading too fast as it was, Gabrielle didnt evenlight the lamp.

Instead, she opened her window in the dark and let down her bucket on arope. The bucket hit the river and filled swiftly, tightening the ropein her hands.

She pulled the bucket up and hesitated only a moment before pouring someof the water into her wash basin. If any silly little minnow had swuminto her wash bucket, that was its hard luck, not hers. She washed herface and hands, and, after dumping the soapy water back into the river,she tugged on her pantaloons. Like all the cabins on her fathersshowboat, the room was narrow with only her bed, a shelf for her books,a washstand with pitcher and basin, and a row of shelves on the wall forher clothes. She had to twist carefully in the narrow space to reach thebuttons down the back of her dress.

The memory of the dream was still more real than the darkness of hercabin. Her dress in the dream hadnt been ordinary blue gingham, butrose-colored taffeta, a deep, warm rose that flattered the vividcoloring she had inherited from her dead French mother: pale skin, hairas black as the wing of a crow, and brilliant blue eyes. The skirt ofthat dream dress had stood out like the flaring petals of a magnoliablossom as she bowed to a roar of applause filling the auditorium of herfathers showboat.

And Stephen DuBois had been the first to rise to his feet, clapping.Stephen, who made a point of always having a job to do somewhere else onthe boat when she came on stage to do her part in the show, would leapto his feet to start a standing ovation, a thundering ovation as shebent to the floor in one deep, graceful bow after another.

She stood motionless, thinking. If she could only talk her father intoletting her try an act like that, her wonderful dream might really cometrue.

The rap came again at the door. "Coming, Father," she called. She litthe lamp a brief moment to brush her hair back and tie it with a ribbon.Then, before blowing the lamp out, she looked again at the postersomeone had handed her at a landing near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Shehad studied the poster so much that by now the paper was ragged aroundthe edge. The rude handbill, just like the ones the Levee Princessdistributed along the river, showed a girl walking a tightrope above theheads of the staring audience.

COUNTESS ESMERELDA, it read, PERFORMING HER DEATH-DEFYING WALK BEFOREYOUR VERY EYES. She folded it into her pocket with an excited intake ofbreath. Her father had to at least let her try!

Out on deck, her breath formed a cloud of mist in the cold predawn air.There would be more warm days as they wended downriver between Illinoisand Missouri, but this morning felt more like October than earlySeptember. Although birds were twittering in the willow trees along thebank where they were moored, it was as black as midnight . out there.Aside from the glow of the lamp from the galley, the only lightsanywhere were stars.

Gabrielle stamped a little on the stairway down to the galley. Allright, she thought. So she was feeling sorry for herself, but she had aperfect right to. Nobody even knew what made that silly cook JakeHarwell mad enough to go packing off the boat at Hannibal, Missouri,without so much as a "fare thee well." One day he was whistling in thegalley, and the next he was marching down the gangplank with hissuitcase, leaving the galley full of dirty dishes for Flossie and her toclean up.

But showboat cooks were famous for being temperamental. Jake himself wasthe third cook her father had hired on since they started the trip inCincinnati in April. If Jake had been there, she could have slept a fewminutes more and brought the dream to its triumphant end.

But, then, that wasnt the only if. If she had been born to landpeople and lived in a regular house instead of on this boat, she couldhave slept for hours more. No other sixteen-year-old along theMississippi River had to be up at three in the morning the way she did,especially after working a three-hour show that ended at ten oclock.Even the round-eyed farm girls who came with their families andboyfriends to exclaim at the evening performances could lie in theirbeds until the sun was up!

Some day, she promised herself, some day I am going to sleep in, too,and in a proper bed on land, not in a narrow cot fitted against the wallof a showboat cabin.

The galley air was fragrant with the rich scent of coffee boiling in thebig blue-flecked enamel pot. "There you are," Flossie called over hershoulder. "The ovens heated up; you can get warm in here."

Gabrielle grabbed Flossie around the waist in a quick hug before gettingdown the coffee mugs. Flossie was not only wonderful, she was theclosest thing Gabrielle could remember to a mother. She was alsoGabrielles only real friend.

Soon there would be biscuits to make, and bacon and eggs and potatoes tocook for the crew of nine who ate their regular breakfast later.Gabrielle couldnt wait that long. She split a leftover biscuit,buttered it, and stuck it into the oven to warm.

Flossies husband Lance played leading man in all the showboatproductions, and probably was handsome to people who could stand him.Gabrielle couldnt. She considered Lance a conceited dandy not worth thesalt on his breakfast eggs. While Lance pranced around talking aboutacting and the theater as if he were Shakespeare himself, Flossie wasthe worlds best sport. Even though she wasnt a day older than Lance,she was perfectly willing to play any role they needed, even if it meantpowdering her beautiful red hair and making her voice creak like that ofan old woman. Flossie had a wonderful singing voice, but nevercomplained at only getting to sing the old peoples favorites, like "TheBlue Alsatian Mountains" or Stephen Fosters "Old Folks . at Home."

Gabrielle had been mad enough to spit when the cook had left. Flossiehad only shrugged and said, "Gabrielle and I can manage until thecaptain can find us another." To see Flossie like this, with a gauze caphalf covering her flaming red hair and her slim body hidden under agiant apron, no one would guess what a beautiful, talented woman shewas. Now she hummed at her work, the snappiest sort of tune, as if tokeep time with her hands.

Naturally Stephen DuBois had to come into the galley just as Flossiespoke. He poured himself a mug of coffee and blew away the steam, hisdark, insolent eyes on Gabrielle. He turned to Flossie with a painedface. "I hope she isnt planning to make the breakfast biscuits. Mystomach is still churning from the ones she made yesterday."

Gabrielle flushed and set two more mugs down hard on the table. Youdthink an eighteen-year-old newcomer to the boat would have better sensethan to pick on the captains daughter. But Stephen seemed to know thatCaptain Prentice, appearing in the doorway, was too genial to takeoffense at anything that could be treated as a joke. He laughed atStephen and patted his daughter on the shoulder in passing.