Wheels within Wheels

by Alec Waugh

  “The Humper’s” love-affair in Trinidad had decided Maitland’s telegram to Newton: Captain Fraser’s conversation at Fanny Tudor’s lunch party had indirectly persuaded Frank Newton to the writing of the letter that had lain that morning on Bergheim’s desk: the letter to which Caroline in her turn owed a diamond bracelet on her wrist and her meeting with a bright-eyed salesman.

  Unaware of that Caroline did not think of her future or her present as something that was dependent not on her own actions or on the behaviour of those with whom she was brought into immediate touch, but on people whom she did not know, whom she never would know; whose actions she could not foresee; towards whom it would be impossible for her to arrange any plan of action.

  She did not see herself as a link in a chain that starting in Trinidad had wreathed itself through London and New York and was now on its way back again to New Orleans; that she was one figure in the drama that had started with Newton’s visit in a tourist’s cruise to Port of Spain.

  She had no means of recognizing the significance of the part she played. It was as though an actor manager had said “You will go on to the stage at such a time. You will do this. You will say that. You will then return to the wings.” She did not know what had happened on the stage before her entrance; or what would follow upon her exit. She had no conception of the plot nor of her importance to it. Nor, indeed, that there was any plot. No more conception, in fact, than had any of the other more important actors who were imagining that their passage across the stage was the entire play.

  V

  Of the various actors in that play John Shirley alone had something of the poet’s power of recognizing the pattern in events. But he had not thought of himself as an actor called upon to take the stage when he had received a few hours earlier by long-distance telephone the astonishing intelligence that the land in Santa Marta which he had regarded as a forlorn white elephant was to provide him with a considerable amount of money.

  When he had been first rung up, the name “Bergheim,” had conveyed nothing to him.

  “Yes,” he said, and waited.

  “I’m afraid you don’t remember me.”

  “Well….”

  “It was I who arranged for the oil prospecting on your property in Santa Marta.”

  “But, of course.”

  He remembered the name now. He had received the letter in much the same spirit that an English author reads a request from a Hollywood film agent to handle the screen rights of a story. He had been amused at the idea of anyone imagining he could find employment for the sandy stretch of land, which he was not allowed to sell, since it was entailed, on which he could not borrow, since it was already mortgaged to its capacity; which on the whole cost him more than it brought in. He had been astonished when an affirmative reply to that first letter had brought him a cheque for a thousand dollars. He had regarded the cheque as one of the periodical windfalls that come most people’s way. He had furnished his apartment in Jackson Square and thought no more of it.

  When Bergheim rang him up he had imagined at first that it was to tell him that the prospecting had been abandoned; and that the land was returned to him earlier than had been anticipated. He was rather surprised that Bergheim should have bothered to telephone when a letter would have done as well. It was so like New York; thinking in terms of telephones and cables; saving time and wasting money. He could not believe that the New Yorker had anything to say to him that was of any interest. He could scarcely believe his ears when Bergheim went on to say:

  “I’ve received a letter this morning from Frank Newton. He is satisfied that there is oil on your property. He wants to form a syndicate. The terms that I suggest are these: you are to receive twenty-five per cent, of the profits. Till such profits are made you are to receive on account of those royalties the sum of five thousand dollars now, with a further sum of two thousand dollars quarterly. Would you be agreeable to that? It seems to me that the offer is a fair one.”

  It was so much beyond anything that Shirley had ever expected that he was incapable of the questions that ordinarily he would have put. The most he could do was to conceal his very vast surprise.

  “It sounds fair.”

  “Then in that case I’ll have an agreement sent down to you by air mail to-night. When I have it back, I will send you down the first cheque.”

  The conversation had not taken longer than a couple of minutes.

  “It isn’t real,” he thought. “Things like this don’t happen.”

  He was so excited that he rose to his feet and began to walk in quick strides backwards and forwards down the length of the long bed-sitting room. “I must do something,” he thought.

  Something that would be appropriate to the moment’s mood: something flamboyant and absurd; something new, reckless, improvident; like the seal of a flourished signature; so that memory would link the two events, seeing the one as the complement of the other. If only he were in Paris or Vienna; some foreign city where the unusual lay to hand. It was less easy here, in the city of which he knew every stone. In a quick agitated glance, as though within its familiar walls the answer lay, he looked round the room. On the table lay a small pile of invitation cards. They were for Komus, the last ball of Carnival, on the night of Mardi Gras itself; the curtain to a fortnight’s revel. His glance rested on the pile: meditatively. Then he laughed.

  Carnival. The Reign of Joy: the Parade of Masked Revellers: of masked romance: of fantasy: like a Venetian fairy tale. Here, surely, he could set a wild impulse to match a wild surprise. Taking up one of the envelopes he wrote on the top “Miss Marian Cortelli.”

  • • • • •

  He would have considered his impulse amply justified could he have witnessed the arrival of his invitation.

  It was delivered by hand, three mornings later.

  “Miss Marian Cortelli,” a boy announced.

  “That’s me.”

  “Letter for you.”

  She turned the envelope over in her hand. It was large and white and rough. Except at Christmas she had never received so imposing and opulent an envelope. She was half afraid to open it. When she did, she refused to believe the evidence of her eyesight. There was a large engraved card headed The Knights of Komus. It conveyed an invitation to sit in the horseshoe. It announced she would be called upon to dance.

  “This can’t be for me,” she told the boy.

  “It’s got your name on it.”

  She looked at the envelope. “Miss Marian Cortelli.” It was her name all right. And there on the card was her name again. There were two cards: the smaller one that would admit her into the auditorium; the larger one into the horseshoe.

  “Mother,” she called out. “Mother, look at this!”

  The large, Italian woman behind the counter adjusted her spectacles upon her nose, and scrutinized first one card and then the other; then both side by side, looking from one to the other quickly.

  “Father,” she called out. “Here, father. Look what our Marian’s got!”

  The little man shuffled forward; his ankles were swollen with lumbago; he read the card out loud, word by word.

  “So our Marian’s been invited to a dance. Now, that is nice. What kind of a dance is it?”

  His daughter looked hopelessly at him.

  “Have you never heard of The Knights of Komus?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “And I suppose you’ve never heard of Proteus, the Atlanteans, Mystick.”

  “Mystick sounds familar.”

  Marian shrugged her shoulders. Her father had lived in New Orleans for three quarters of his life. Yet he had rarely crossed Canal Street. He relied on an Italian news sheet for his information. He had never really grasped the fact of his citizenship.

  “Tell him what it is, mother.”

  The old woman endeavoured to explain.

  “Our Marian has been asked to the big dance of the year, at the Auditorium.”

  “Will it cost m
uch?”

  “Silly, it won’t cost her anything. She’s been invited.”

  “That’s nice for her. Who’s invited her?”

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “Then how’ll she know who to dance with?”

  Marian and her mother exchanged a glance. It was useless trying to explain anything to Poppa. He never would understand. All the same, the source of invitation was proving extremely puzzling to Marian. She did not know who could have invited her. You had to be rich to be a masker. She did not know anyone rich: only an occasional salesman. People who talked big; but hadn’t much. Who didn’t, anyhow, belong here. She supposed the invitation was all right. She didn’t want to be made a fool of: going to the auditorium all dressed up; then being laughed at by some fool attendant.

  “I’m going to show these cards to Elsie,” she informed her parents.

  Elsie worked in the lingerie department at Holmes. Whenever a boy said to either of them, “Let’s make a date some day,” the reply always was, “Get a nice boy and I’ll bring my friend.” They wore each other’s clothes; read each other’s letters; exchanged magazines; confided intimacies; and on the whole disliked each other.

  She held Elsie out the envelope.

  “What do you make of that?”

  She watched Elsie closely as she studied the cards; noting with pleasure Elsie’s start of surprise.

  “A forgery,” was Elsie’s comment.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Who do you know that would be likely to invite you to a ball?”

  “Who do I know that would go to the expense of having a card like that engraved for a practical joke?”

  “They needn’t have. They can have stolen one of those cards from the printers: or from one of the masker’s desks.”

  “It’s numbered.”

  “You can fake a number.”

  “I bet you, anyhow, I can get in there with it.”

  “You’ll look precious silly if you can’t.”

  “I’m not running the risk. I’m going up there first to ask.”

  “Oh!”

  “Coming with me?”

  “If you like.”

  They walked in silence, Elsie looking suspiciously at her friend from time to time. The auditorium was crowded with a number of workmen. The preparations for the pageant of the evening were on foot. An important-looking man who seemed to be doing nothing, lounged in the doorway. Marian went up to him.

  “You in charge here?”

  “Sure.”

  “See this?” She handed him her cards.

  “Sure.”

  “Is that O.K.?”

  “Sure.”

  “A person with those cards can get in on Tuesday night?”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s O.K. by me, then.”

  Elsie was unconvinced.

  “I bet it’s a mistake, anyhow.”

  “Sure it is, but I’ll get in all the same.”

  “There won’t be any one for you to dance with.”

  “I don’t care. I shall see the ball.”

  Elsie sniffed.

  “What are you going to wear?”

  “Nothing grand, since there’ll be no one to dance with me.”

  They continued their walk in silence. At the corner of Toulouse and St. Ann they paused.

  “Till to-night,” said Elsie.

  “Till to-night.”

  They were being met at a quarter to eight by two officers from an Italian cargo boat that was due to sail for Genoa on the Sunday night. They would watch the parade; then they would go and eat sandwiches and drink a Tom Collins at the Barrel House. If they were lucky they might get an hour or so’s dancing; if they were unlucky they would have to start repulsing the sailors’ enterprise straightaway.

  “No,” they would say, “that isn’t us at all. What you want is a door or two away from Arnaud’s. You can’t miss it. There’ll be a light up. They’ll see that you’re amused.”

  Then they would go back to the delicatessen store, and discuss the evening in its every detail; what the one had said, what had been countered to it. They would watch each other’s every step. They could not have been better chaperoned.

  “Mother,” said Marian, “I’ve got to have a dress.”

  Mrs. Cortelli looked up from the counter and blinked across it.

  “Well, my dear, there’s that very pretty red frock. Perhaps with a bow at the waist, one on the shoulder.…”

  “No, no, mother, I don’t mean that kind of dress. I’ve got to have a real dress.”

  “Oh!”

  “You wouldn’t like me to look ridiculous at the ball.”

  “No, I wouldn’t like you to look ridiculous….”

  “You wouldn’t like people to say ‘Marian Cortelli can get herself invited to the ball, but her family cannot send her there so that she may be a credit to them.’ You would not like that said, mother?”

  “I would not like that said, daughter.”

  “I have been a good daughter to you, mother?”

  “You have been a good daughter, Marian.”

  “I have not been extravagant. I have not invited young men to our dinner table who have drunk over much chianti?”

  “You have not.”

  “I have not been unreasonable in the things that I have asked?”

  “You have been well brought up.”

  “Then when I ask something special of you now, you will realize that it is asked reasonably after due consideration.”

  “I shall know that.”

  “I want one hundred dollars to buy a dress with.”

  “You said …?”

  “One hundred dollars.”

  “For what?”

  “A dress.”

  “How much did you say you wanted?”

  “One hundred dollars.”

  “And you say that you want that for a dress? One hundred dollars? One hundred dollars … for a dress. A dress. A hundred dollars for a dress!”

  She raised her hands above her head and brought the palms down resonantly upon her knees. She shook backwards and forwards: laughing immoderately.

  “Father!” she called out. “Father, you must listen to this! What was it our passage cost from Nice? Two hundred lire? And how many dollars is that? Twenty dollars. That was a three weeks passage. And she for one dress, for one dress, the price of five passages from Nice to New Orleans!”

  And again the hands rose and the palms fell resonantly upon her knees.

  Her husband, who had hurried down to discover the cause of the outburst, stood blinking in the doorway. Did Marian want to go back to Nice? It would be cold now in France. Did she want to exchange her dresses for a passage? It could probably be arranged if one knew the right people to ask. It was always a question of getting in touch with the right people. But it would be very cold, he warned her, in Nice, at this time of year.

  Marian stood quite still, till the flow of her father’s ignorance and her mother’s hilarity had alike subsided.

  “Now listen. I am not being unreasonable,” she said. “I have not asked for anything like this before. I am not a girl who is always coming to you with ridiculous requests. I should not ask you if it were not something I really needed; something I am resolved to have. If you do not give it me, I know where I can borrow the hundred dollars. But I think you are too proud to let a Cortelli borrow.”

  She spoke quietly, but firmly. She meant to get, and knew she was going to get, her way. She was going to show the fashionable ladies of New Orleans that she could look as elegant as they. She was going to justify his choice to whoever it was that had sent that card to her. For she had no doubt that that invitation had been sent genuinely. Beneath her surface sophistication, beneath her adroit handling of insistent wooers, there was the romantic girl who believed that Hollywood held a mirror up to nature.

  The situation as she saw it was very like a film. Some man had seen her as she walked down Royal Street on her w
ay to the studio where she posed. He had been struck by her beauty. He had asked who she was. Perhaps he had a window that overlooked some street she passed through daily. Perhaps he sat at that window morning after morning, waiting for her to pass; counting the hours; thinking, “She will be passing this way soon.” He had dreamed about her. He had made inquiries about her. He had wondered how he could get to know her. He knew no friend of hers. He lived in a different world. He was too shy to speak to her. He did not know what kind of letter to write to her. Then he had remembered carnival: the city’s immemorial rendezvous.

  That was how she pictured the situation. She wondered what kind of a man he was. Was he young or middle-aged or old? He must be rich: or at least comfortably incomed, or he would not be one of the maskers. It was the old and the middle-aged for the most part who had money. But he was shy, certainly: since he had not written to her or spoken to her. And the old and the middle-aged were rarely shy. They were obtuse, crafty, blustering, cynical; but they were not shy. Although he was rich, he was more likely to be young. She hoped though, that he was not a boy: some callow, tongue-tied idiot, who would look at her with wide eyes and gape. She would like him to be in the late twenties. Eight years older than herself, with some experience, but with a diffidence that did not take things for granted. She hoped that he was tall, so that her eyes would be on a level with his shoulders: not taller, though. She wondered if he danced well. Unless he danced well, he would scarcely have suggested that their first meeting was to be at a dance; he would be too anxious to make a good impression. Unless he hadn’t thought of that. But he was bound to have. He couldn’t be insensitive on that point. He was perfect, she was sure of that. And because he was perfect she knew that he’d appreciate the directness and the vigour of the black velvet dress with the silver steel straps on the shoulders.