Wheels within Wheels

by Alec Waugh

  She had always longed to wear black velvet. All young girls did, she had been told. But all young girls could not wear it. She could: with her white shoulders, her white skin, the dark eyes and the dark hair. It gave her a panther quality. It made a blonde like Elsie look anæmic. She wondered what he would think of it. She had little doubt. If she had made all that impression on him when she was wearing her rough workaday clothes, what would he not think of her now, in this rich, unelaborate finery? She had no doubt there would be a “He.”

  It was of “him” that she thought, far more than of the spectacle, as she took her place in the row of seats that edged the floor. Though the spectacle itself was gorgeous enough. There was drama in the steady tide of people filtering through the doors. In the chatter and movement in the promenade behind; in the slow filling of the balcony by all the people who had come to see her dance; the recognition of faces familiar to her in the press: girls who had belonged seemingly to a completely other world but were now at her side, participants in the same spectacle. Then with the balcony crowded, with not a spare seat in the horseshoe, with the galleries and promenade a buzz of talk, there had come the clash of cymbals to still instantly that buzz. The heavy red curtains parted, a figure in eighteenth century costume stepped forward, a long scroll in his hands.

  She scarcely heard the speech with which he announced the ballet, with its reconstruction of the Sun King’s court. When the curtain rose on a background of fountains and coloured lights and the vista of a formal garden, she did not catch the significance of the minuet. She looked carelessly at the Queen in her white satin, with her court about her; at the King on his throne, fingering his beard. It was the courtiers that she watched: the grotesque figures with their canvas masks, one of whom had sent that invitation.

  Which was it, she wondered. She picked out one man after another, to see if there were any mannerism, any trick that would be familiar to her. “Not that I expect to,” she thought. “I’ve probably never seen him. Certainly never noticed him.” And anyhow, what would there be to connect the trousered, close-coated twentieth century American whom she had seen hurrying down Canal Street with the gorgeously coloured, doubleted, cloaked cavalier who was slowly pirouetting through the figures of the minuet?

  “I shan’t know till I dance with him.”

  She waited eagerly for the pageant to end; for the number one to be posted above the band; for the ushers like a swarm of bees collecting honey to come down the gangway of the horseshoe calling out the names. She listened eagerly for hers. On all sides of her girls were rising; were pushing past; were being led by the ushers towards the maskers who bowed low in greeting; then in their turn conducted the debutantes to be presented to their Majesties, before being led into the dance.

  She listened, but her name did not come. Perhaps the usher who was to call for her was at the other end of the hall. There were fewer and fewer names now to be called. Only four ushers were looking for their charges. Two of them were responded to. Then the third. The last usher was in the middle of the hall. It was he who was looking for her. He was moving in her direction. In a moment he would be calling out her name. She was preparing to rise to her feet when a few seats away a tall, gawky, long-necked girl with tow-coloured hair made a sign towards him. It was the end. For the first dance she had not been chosen.

  “Oh well,” she thought. “I could not expect to be the first. He has got some sister or cousin: some one that has to be taken first.”

  She sat back, watching the dancers; studying now not the maskers but their partners; wondering which was the woman he was holding in his arms. It could not be that tall, prim, angular girl; whose legs moved as though they did not belong to the rest of her. If he had a relative like that, he’d contrive to forget her on Mardi Gras. It would scarcely be that dark, slim, graceful, Spanish-looking girl. If he had a sister like that, he would be looking for a sweetheart who would be the complete reverse: who would be like Elsie, blonde and bloodless. No; it was far more likely to be that nice, fresh-coloured, unexciting kind of girl who was laughing so friendlily as she danced. It was that kind of girl that he would be dancing with: a girl who had been his friend since childhood: whom he had confided in; but of whom he would never think in terms of love.

  He wasn’t the kind of man to find himself in love with some one he had known all his life. He was the kind of man who looking out of his window saw passing below him in the street a girl of whom he knew nothing: whom he had never seen before: of whom at a first glance he thought, “So this is it, then! I’ve always wondered. Now I know.”

  That was the kind of man that he would be; and sitting back there with the music in her ears, the blaze of colour before her eyes, her heart a-dream, she thought how lucky, how more than lucky, she was to be heart-free at this moment; so that she could welcome whole-heartedly this adventure; so that she would not see it as a complication, as something to have said about, “If only this had happened six months sooner”; or, “If it could have happened in six months’ time.”

  Things came so rarely at the right moment. Too soon: too late. Too much of a thing or too little of a thing. This had come just right; when only a week ago she had been grumbling because nothing ever happened to her. Night after night going out with Elsie; usually with a different date: going to the cinema, or drinking bath-tub gin at the barrel-house; dancing at the Red Cat, playing midget golf under the arc lamps of Royal Street; going for a drive in a closed Buick; buying orange wine, trying to feel good on it; picking up with Italian officers, seeing how near the brink one could tiptoe; not caring a dime if one never saw any of them again. Just waiting for the one person who would make an end of that; who would be like an arc light on a candled table. She had been waiting for that man. And now he had come. He was out there; hidden from her beneath a mask. But the music would soon cease; the duty dance would be at an end, the floor would be empty; the maskers would be retreating towards the stage; the ushers would be swarming again about the horseshoe, with her name “Miss Marian Cortelli” summoning her to her fate.

  Across her reverie came the swooned cadence of a dying chord. From all sides of her burst out the buzzing of chatter. The maskers were bowing over their partners’ hands. From the bags that hung from their wrists they took the small packets that were the offering of gallantry. The debutantes were clustering back; their cheeks flushed, their eyes bright, their fingers busy at the strings of the packages. For a few moments the promenade was crowded, the ball floor empty. Then once again the ushers were advancing along the horseshoe, filtering down the gangways, calling out the names. The debutantes one by one were rising to their feet; were pushing past on their way to the floor. But to Marian’s expectant ears there came no sound of the name “Miss Marian Cortelli.” She looked impatiently from right to left. Only ten ushers still seeking charges; only eight now; six; five; three. Now the last one had gone. The dance had started. The procession was on its way to the throne for the presentation.

  Limply she sank back into her seat. Again. Then perhaps Elsie had been right. Perhaps there was no “he.” The black velvet dress was wasted. Perhaps it was a joke some one had played on her. Well, if they had, they would get no change out of her. She would carry it with a high head. “I never imagined it was anything but a joke,” she would say. “Who is there that would be likely to send me an invitation? I’m very grateful to the practical joker. If he hadn’t played his joke, I should never have seen the pageant. A marvellous show, I’ll say it was.”

  She would describe the pageant with a glowing relish. She began to phrase the sentences which would paint her word picture of it. “Oh, but it can’t be like that,” she thought. “It can’t! It would be too cruel. He must be here.”

  All the same her faith and confidence had evaporated. When for the third time the ushers called the names, she hardly expected to hear hers. She felt scarcely any surprise when the black-coated figures left the horseshoe: when the last satin skirt had rustled past her. She sat b
ack with her heart cold, resolved to enjoy the pageant as best she could; looking round her; taking interest in the dresses and the personalities; looking behind her at the thronged promenade; trying to recognize faces in the balcony. She scarcely noticed when the dance ended and the calling of names began. So wrapt was she in other preoccupations that she, at the first calling, did not hear her name. It had to be repeated twice within a few feet of her before she realized that her moment had at last come.

  When she did realize: when at last she was pushing her way past other girls towards the gangway; when she was following the usher along the slippery floor towards the group of maskers, her first disappointment had so taken the edge off her excitement that she felt incurious about the man at whose bidding she had come: the man who had allowed her to wait till the fourth dance.

  • • • • •

  Through the slots of his mask Shirley looked down at her: it was to this minute that he had counted minutes during the long hours of Mardi Gras: it was the expectation of this minute that beneath the bright clothes of carnival had wakened the spirit of carnival in his heart as the parade of floats had swept down St. Charles Avenue into Canal Street, past the sidewalks thronged with darkies; the fronts of the shops hung with lights and flags; with the naphtha glare of the torch bearers flickering ahead, the float swaying beneath his feet, the bright lights about him; the darkness overhead; the gaily-dressed companions, the bags of trinkets at his side, the dark hands stretched out to clasp them, the scramble as the trinkets fell; past the upturned faces lit by an occasional gleam; past the gay dresses on the balcony; past the music; the glitter; the noise; towards the blaze of lights of the auditorium, the wide dance floor, the King and Queen in their robes on either side, the horseshoe of debutantes like flowers in their greens and gold, their white and mauve: a garden of lavender and lilac; and above in the gallery the sea of faces; the men in their black coats, their white waistcoats and white ties; the grey women at their sides, the chaperones, who remembered as they sat there the days when their names had been called out.

  It was the approach of this moment that had made his step light through the three duty dances that the obligations of family had forced on him.

  The moment had come at last. “I wonder what she’s thinking now,” he thought.

  • • • • •

  He would have been surprised could he have known Marian’s thoughts were anything but romantic.

  The masker was probably some old man, she thought, who could not get young girls to dance with him, who had seen her somewhere and had thought it would be amusing “to give the child a treat.” It would make a good story afterwards in the club. She looked negligently at the tall figure in cream and orange, whose shoulder was on the level of her eyes. As he offered her his arm to lead her towards the throne she cast a glance at him, but it told her nothing. The mask that covered the entire face and throat was for her as complete a disguise as it was for the other maskers. Some of them had already begun to dance. From their stiff movements she could tell that they were past middle-age. Some of them were shuffling uncertainly as though their feet were unsteady: half-drunk, she supposed. Her nose wrinkled contemptuously. It was scarcely the romance that she had dreamed.

  All the same it was exciting to be walking across the polished floor, in a hundred dollar dress, at a masker’s side, under this blaze of light, under a thousand eyes, towards the many-coloured stage; the King in his purples and his orange; the Queen in her black and white: with the music throbbing; knowing that she was herself one of the loveliest women in the hall; knowing that many eyes must be noticing her, many women thinking enviously, “If only I were like that!” many young men thinking, “If only I were dancing with her!”

  They were at the throne. She was curtseying before the Queen. The picture crossed her mind of the Queen only two days before sweeping through the Quarter in a large six-seater car. It had been a warm spring day. She had looked like a spring flower, in petalled muslin. She had not noticed the rough-skirted girl who had stood in the doorway of the delicatessen shop. Yet she was smiling now at the woman in black velvet and silver shoulder-straps who curtseyed forward.

  It was a proud moment. Her partner’s hand was upon her waist, her fingers had been lifted by his white-gloved hand. With a long stride she was being swept into a foxtrot rhythm.

  To be dancing on this large smooth floor, with this perfect music pulsing through her feet; with the lights and the eyes about her, was in itself such a revelation that for a moment she did not realize its significance. She surrendered to the moment and the mood: to the dance without thinking of the dancer. Then suddenly she realized. But why! he was a young man, after all: only a young man would have this grace and suppleness. There was youth in the pressure of his fingers on her waist, in the firm touch of his fingers against her palm, in the slight swaying of his shoulders, in the easy strength of his movements. He was young, just as she had dreamed; just as she had hoped. If only she could see his face! She looked closely at the sockets of his mask. But the eyes were hidden. In a way she was glad that she could retain the dream a little longer. In the same way that she was glad he did not speak to her: that he let his dancing speak: let the rhythm of the music, and their response to it, be his wooing of her.

  She closed her eyes, relaxing to his guidance: to the hand that held her: the body against which her own was held. It was a dream such as she had inhabited in girlhood: such as she had thought never to know again: that she told herself did not exist, in spite of her heart’s obstinacy, her heart’s credulity.

  The dream continued even when the dance was finished; when his hand still upon her waist, his left hand dropped from hers, he had guided her back towards her seat. She wished that she could see the smile in his eyes as his absurd masked head bent over her. Was it tender? Was it grateful? Was it wondering? Was it surprised at finding her more beautiful than he had expected? Of one thing she was very sure: there would not be in it the hard look of desire that she had surprised sometimes in men’s faces: that had in part attracted, in three parts repelled her. There would not be that look. He must be living in the same dream as she.

  The dream continued even when the music had begun again: when she was back in her seat: when the ushers were calling names: when fresh dresses were rustling past her: when another girl had been led out to join the tall dancer in cream and orange. She did not notice the girl; she scarcely saw the dancer as he swirled in and out between the others. She was living the moments of the dance. She leant forward, her hands clasping in her lap the small brown paper parcel that he had handed her as he had bowed good-bye. She had not opened it. She would keep that for afterwards: till she was back in her room, alone with her thoughts. She did not look ahead. She did not wonder who the man was, or to what his dancing with her was the prelude. She did not think, “When shall I see him again? How? Where? “But she felt no surprise when the usher called once again her name. Once again they danced in silence; bound by the same rhythmic dream. Nor later, when they danced for the third time, was it any surprise to her to find pressed in her hand at the dance’s end, a scribbled note! “Wait for me afterwards in the blue and white Humber, 6743.”

  In some such way, she had felt, this fairy evening was bound to end. She sat, blissfully happy, the note and the small package within her hands, scarcely aware of the evening’s end: of the lovely curtain to carnival, when just before midnight the King and Queen of Carnival drove over from the people’s ball in symbol of the city’s unity, when the two courts march round the horseshoe of the auditorium while the band plays the immemorial hymn of carnival:

  “If ever I cease to love

  If ever I cease to love

  May the grand duke Alexis

  Ride a buffalo through Texas

  If ever I cease to love.”

  “In a few moments I shall be seeing him. I shall be knowing who he is,” she was thinking.

  She had little difficulty in finding the blue and white Humber w
ith the plate number 6743. It was a car that she did not recognize as having seen before, but she was not particularly observant in noticing cars. One wasn’t, if one hadn’t one oneself. She could guess from the body and the upholstery that the car was expensive but old. It was a four-seater. She snuggled herself up against the driver’s seat and waited. She had not long to wait. A tall figure wrapped in a large tan overcoat had slipped quickly into the seat beside her. He bent forward, fiddling with the key, and the self-starter. His collar was turned up high about his neck. She could not see his face; only his hair that was a pale straw colour matching the tan fleece of his coat. The engine started with a sudden whirr. He sat back; turned; a gleam of lamplight fell across the oval face, the high forehead, the long nose, the full lips, the indecisive chin.

  “What, you!” she exclaimed. Then laughed.

  “You didn’t guess!”

  “You’re the last person in the world I thought it would be.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  She hesitated, but not coquettishly.

  “I’m rather glad.”

  “Then in that case, let’s go back to my apartment and have a drink.”

  “Please.”

  “It isn’t far.”

  He drove in silence through streets over which a Lenten silence had already started to descend.

  She glanced at him quickly: then looked away. John Shirley. He, of all people: whom she had only met that once at Joan Marlow’s studio. They had talked together. She had liked him. She had been conscious of a warm glow when she was in his company. Of most men she met she asked herself: “Would I like to be kissed by him?” Of most men she had answered that question, “No.” Of only a very few had she thought more than “If I had to, I shouldn’t mind.” Of Shirley she had thought, “Well, yes, perhaps I should rather like it.” She had thought that: then she had put it from her mind. He would not be bothering about a girl like her. She had never dreamed that they would share a carnival, that she would dance with him at the Komus Ball, that she would ride at his side through a city that for this one day wore travesti.