Balance Wheel

by Taylor Caldwell

  Friederich had protested, but not very vehemently, and Charles had known that by his refusal to come for dinner he had relieved his brother of much of his suspicion.

  The telephone rang and Charles answered it. It was Mrs. Holt, again. “Charlie, have you any beer? Braydon loves it, secretly, but no one would ever think of giving him any. He doesn’t even know I know he sneaks down to the kitchen at night and helps himself to the servants’ beer. I’ve seen him, once or twice. He washes out the glass and puts it back and hides the bottle. Braydon didn’t always collect sculpture, you know.” She chuckled.

  Charles promised the beer. He inspected and found two cold bottles in the ice-box. He brought out two glasses and placed them on a silver tray in the parlor. Jimmy went up to his room to continue his studies in peace.

  The Holts’ mighty limousine drew up later, black and glittering. Charles went out into the windy March night to greet them. There was a smell of fecund air in the wind, of life and earthy movement, though it was still very cold. Then he stared. Mrs. Holt, whose sealskin coat was blowing up, had suddenly become a plump, short, blowsy, but reasonable facsimile of Irene Castle. Charles still stared as she and Mr. Holt came into his house. She said, happily: “Now, stop making your eyes bulge, Charlie. Braydon still isn’t speaking to me because I had my hair cut off. But so comfortable, you have no idea. No pins, no combs. Just lovely.” She put up her black-gloved fat hand and fluffed out the chopped-off mass of her light-brown hair about her big red face, which beamed proudly. The “bob” made her look like a harvest moon with a nimbus. “Daring?” she asked. “And Charlie, what do you think of this gown? Just the very latest. Irene Castle wore the original when she and her husband last appeared in New York.”

  The dress was even more alarming, to Charles, than the short locks. It was of pink satin, a few shades lighter than Mrs. Holt’s face, with a ruffled bodice which made her bosom seem even larger than it was. But the skirt petrified Charles. It flared out over Mrs. Holt’s huge hips, so that she appeared almost a yard wide at that point, and then was draped very narrowly to the ankles. This was bad enough, but the front of the skirt was open almost to Mrs. Holt’s robust knees, and when she walked one saw her big plump legs, in bright pink silk stockings.

  A rope of pearls dangled far below her waist, and there were ropes of pearls about her fat wrists, and pearls and diamonds dripping from her ears almost to her shoulders. She was a remarkable sight, and very pleased with herself. “I’m the first to have this bob and this sort of dress in Andersburg,” she said.

  “And the last, I hope,” said Mr. Holt, with dignified gloom. He was more distant and vague than ever, possibly in order to give the impression of complete detachment from his wife.

  “Oh, Braydon,” she said, slapping him so vigorously on the arm in her affectionate remonstrance that the poor, thin man tottered for an instant. “You and Charlie. So conservative. Hidebound. Why are men like that? They scream every time a woman changes her styles. I suppose you’d like me to wear an apron, or something, all the time.”

  Mr. Holt, who was distinctly unhappy, looked pointedly at his wife’s skirt. “An apron seems called for,” he said.

  “Oh, posh. If I were eighteen years old, and wore this dress, your eyes would bulge.”

  She linked her arm into Charles’ arm. “Don’t stand there trying to think of something complimentary to say, Charlie. I know you’re trying to, and you’re all confused. Do show us your house. Yes! So ugly, so wonderful, so anachronistic! Precious.”

  “Minnie,” said Mr. Holt, rebukingly.

  But Charles said: “I don’t mind. Everybody talks about it, particularly my brothers, Willie and Joe. I like it. It was my father’s house, and it’s comfortable.”

  Mrs. Holt left the men and was prowling rapidly around the parlor, inspecting everything, nodding her head as if delighted. “Just like you, Charlie,” she said, for a reason inexplicable to Charles. She had stopped before the whatnots and was clapping her hands over the very inexpensive bits of china which Charles’ mother had so loved. Charles went over to look at the whatnots, which were filled with tiny china cups, violently painted, little figurines of doubtful artistry, paper-weights with “snow-falls” in them, miniature china trays, china lady’s slippers, and small china castles. Mrs. Holt laughed gayly. “Just like you, Charlie!” she repeated.

  “How so?” asked Charles, somewhat annoyed.

  “Never mind,” she answered, soothingly. “You wouldn’t understand.” Then she halted, shocked. She was staring at the Picasso over the fireplace. “My God!” she screamed. Her mouth fell open. Both men looked at the Picasso. Mr. Holt slowly approached it, putting on his pince-nez.

  “Excellent,” he muttered. “But of course, not in his present mood. Excellent.”

  Mrs. Holt rushed to examine the painting at a closer range. “Well, whatever,” she said, in a prayerful voice. She swung to Charles, and cried accusingly: “Charlie Wittmann! Have you lost your mind? How perfectly dreadful, revolting!”

  Charles said: “My brother Willie gave it to me.”

  Mr. Holt nodded. “Really wonderful.”

  Mrs. Holt was gazing at Charles with affront. Then, all at once, she began to smile. She patted Charles’ arm gently. “What one has to do!” she murmured.

  “What do you mean, Minnie?” asked Mr. Holt, puzzled. But Mrs. Holt sat down in a platform rocker covered with red plush and began to rock, shaking her head a little and smiling sympathetically. She laughed. The draped skirt fell widely apart and her legs were fully exposed. Charles modestly looked aside. She waved her hand at him. “Charlie, have you some beer?”

  “Beer?” repeated Mr. Holt, scandalized.

  Mrs. Holt eyed him fondly. “Well, Charlie doesn’t have those glasses out for water, Braydon. And they’re definitely not for sherry—too big.” She winked at Charles, who, after glancing at the two glasses, went out in the dark cold “shed,” rummaged about for another bottle of beer in the ice-box and brought it back with a third glass. He found Mr. Holt sitting in one of the other rockers, and looking very distinguished, indeed. He saw Mr. Holt regarding the three bottles of beer with a pretense of indifference. Mrs. Holt said: “If Braydon doesn’t want a bottle, I’ll have two, Charlie.”

  Mr. Holt became more distinguished than ever. He said: “I am a little thirsty. A glass of cold beer—”

  “Braydon gave up beer a long time ago,” said Mrs. Holt. She laughed again, a jolly sound. “You see, I was quite the Pennsylvania girl, or, I should say, the Philadelphia girl. But I loved Braydon at first sight.” Mr. Holt smiled, self-consciously, and crossed his thin legs. “So vigorous, so fresh, so strong,” said Mrs. Holt. “Ah, me. He smelled of oil, too. He was prospecting for it, down near Titusville, and he got a few wells even better than Mr. Rockefeller’s, and had sense enough to hold onto them, in spite of Mr. Rockefeller.”

  Charles poured the beer, carefully refraining from looking at Mr. Holt. But when he unavoidably had to do so, while giving the other man his glass, he found Mr. Holt perceptibly less distinguished in appearance, and smiling. “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Holt. “They tried everything, perjury, threats, buying me out, hiring away my workmen, and even setting fire to one of my wells. But I—”

  “Stuck,” supplied Mrs. Holt, with a glance even more loving than before. Mr. Holt cleared his throat. “I resisted.” He studied the frosted glass, smiled again. “Stuck,” he said. And put the glass to his lips and drank long and gratefully.

  “Then, after we were married, he started to collect stones,” said Mrs. Holt.

  “Really, Minnie.” But Mr. Holt settled down more comfortably in his rocker.

  “He thought stones more befitting than anything else. He thought he would fascinate me with his culture,” said Mrs. Holt. “And all the time I just loved him.”

  Mr. Holt turned red. His distant air had disappeared. He even grinned, now. “You were a county belle,” he said. He became thoughtful. “But I really like sculpture.
I really do.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Holt, tenderly. “You can get to like anything in time.”

  Charles said: “I’ve learned something about Van Gogh, from my brother Willie. I thought it pretty horrible at first. But now I like those—those strenuous yellows and blues and reds. They—well, they’re alive. Sort of. They don’t exist, I suppose, and the pictures still seem lopsided, but still I guess they have—”

  “A kind of charm,” Mrs. Holt nodded. “But give me Sargent, anytime. Or anybody, for that.”

  Mr. Holt was studying the room. “This looks like my father’s house, too,” he said. “I like it. Drafty, but the fire makes you sleepy and relaxed. I don’t think I like our house,” he said suddenly, looking at his wife.

  “I do.” She was very cheerful. “You can lose your guests in it; so many big rooms. And you can invite so many people that you don’t have to say more than a few words to any of them. Just give them plenty to drink and eat, and they’re happy, and I’m happy. We all have a nice time.” She pondered a moment. “That Wilcox house, where the Brinkwells live. Really dreadful. ‘A small mansion,’ the newspapers called it. You can’t get away from the thing, or forget it. It’s on you, all the time. Sometimes I suspect Pauline has no taste.”

  Charles glanced surreptitiously at his watch; Mrs. Holt saw the gesture. “Oh, I know, Charlie, it’s time we should be leaving. But we’re enjoying ourselves. What if we’re late? It doesn’t matter. Our family was more important in Philadelphia than Pauline’s.” She turned to her husband. “Do you suppose Roger will insist upon showing Charlie all those Gobelins? And that particularly horrid one he has over the fireplace in the big drawing-room?”

  “That’s early Flemish,” said Mr. Holt, reproachfully. He drank the last of the beer. “At least,” he conceded, “Roger said it was. I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t know anything much about tapestries.”

  “Roger’s very buoyant,” said Mrs. Holt. She stared blankly at Charles. “He does everything with so much verve. That big mill. Going up so fast. What do they make in those mills, Braydon?”

  Mr. Holt said: “I heard they’re going to have a machine tool shop.” Then he seemed distressed. He stood up. “It was just mentioned to me, Charles. Nothing—ah, I suppose, important. I know Waite. Elson Waite. The superintendent in Pittsburgh.” He was more distressed than ever. “Charles, it was mentioned in confidence. I don’t know why I was so—so indiscreet. It just slipped out, unintentionally.”

  Charles looked at his watch. He found it a little difficult to put it back in his small watch pocket. “Of course,” he said. He stood up, also.

  Mr. Holt, who was visibly disturbed, helped his wife out of the chair. “Minnie, they make many things in steel mills. Hundreds of things. I can’t begin to tell you how many.”

  He helped Mrs. Holt with her coat. She beamed happily. “So interesting. Business. And so exciting. Just think, Charlie, the Connington here are going to manufacture very special things for the Bouchards, too! So much work for everybody. Didn’t you mention that, too, Braydon?”

  But Mr. Holt was picking up his hat, and then he was trying to find his gloves.

  “Like guns,” Mrs. Holt rattled on. “Great big guns. The Bouchards make guns and things,” she said to Charles, with that same amiable blankness in her eyes. “And they’ve given out such big contracts to the Connington; they have steel mills of their own, too. Isn’t this mill a sort of subsidiary, in a way, of the Bouchards, Braydon?”

  “Minnie,” said Mr. Holt. “You don’t know anything about business. It is really too bad that you speak of things you heard in Elson’s house. You haven’t the slightest idea of anything.”

  “Of course not,” she agreed, contentedly.

  Mr. Holt, walking to the limousine, was very stately, but silent. Now, Charles. What was it that Roger was always saying about Charles, and others were always saying? Dull. No imagination. No enterprise. Not quick. Mr. Holt hoped this was true. Then, for no reason at all—with the beer agreeably in his stomach, and with his memory of the ugly warm parlor so like his father’s—he hoped that it was not true. But Minnie should really hold her tongue; nothing was ever safe with her.

  The limousine at the curb glittered and sparkled in the arc-light. It was warm, inside, and vast, and there were fur robes and vases for flowers at the rear windows. Charles settled back, at Mrs. Holt’s right hand, while Mr. Holt sat at her left. She chattered happily about nothing at all. Then Charles felt her give his arm a quick urgent squeeze.

  So. This branch of the Connington in Andersburg was to be a separate corporation, with the Bouchards having controlling interest. No one was to know, apparently. Charles became aware of the savage spasm in his stomach. Even old Holt didn’t know the import, Charles thought. The machine-tool shop. Competition.

  “Charlie,” said Mrs. Holt. “Your dinner jacket is sweet. Just sweet. And you look so handsome in it. Almost as handsome as Braydon.”

  The limousine passed another arc-light, and Mrs. Holt saw Charles’ face. She sighed.

  Even if the Brinkwells had not been living in the “Wilcox house” Charles would have disliked it. It was a broad but solid house, of white stone, and had an aggressive atmosphere about it, perched there in a big area which was wooded and would be expensively gardened in the summer. “Bastard Regency,” Wilhelm had called it. Charles did not know. He only knew it antagonized him, that it appeared unfriendly, with its little stone balconies around the windows, and the bronze door. Light shone out on the bare black earth; patches of snow remained here still on the mountain, leprous patches. The mountain wind was loud and cold in the empty trees. Far up in the sky curved the icy thread of the new moon.

  A butler opened the door for the Holts and Charles. Charles saw the black-and-white marble of the hall floor. The house was warm, yet for Charles it was cold. Nothing could soften this place. They went into a drawing-room sparsely yet elegantly furnished. Charles guessed these were “antiques,” these small dainty sofas and chairs and tables. In a white marble fireplace a brisk fire was burning. Faintly colored draperies of velvet were drawn over the long windows. The walls were hung with tapestries.

  The other guests were waiting. Charles, with some surprise, saw that these were only Wilhelm and Phyllis, Jochen and Isabel. Roger came up to him and the Holts, all welcoming and jeering smiles, while Pauline trailed languidly after, her big watery blue eyes as cold as the air outside. But she kissed Mrs. Holt, and showed every sign of pleasure, so Charles guessed that the coldness was for him, alone. She took Mr. Holt’s hand graciously, then turned as if her attention had been called to a stranger. “So happy you could come, Mr. Wittmann,” she murmured. She gave him her hand, and it was boneless in his. Female, but not feminine, thought Charles, in spite of the floating chiffon draperies and the long pale hair about her paler face.

  Roger was jovially clapping him on the shoulder. Charles, who was not conspicuous for height, was pleased that Roger had to reach to make this unwelcome gesture. “Well, well,” said Roger. “Thought you had all forgotten about us.”

  Then he saw Mrs. Holt’s dress, and visibly held back an exclamation. “Irene Castle,” said Mrs. Holt, placidly. “I had it made. Like it, Roger?”

  “Marvelous,” he said, enthusiastically.

  “Wonderfully becoming,” said Pauline. “And as I said before, Minnie, I do love your hair cut short that way.”

  “Such liars,” said Mrs. Holt, comfortably. “You think I look awful. Braydon does. I think I look chic. I’ll murder any woman who copies this gown.” She added: “I’m learning to tango. Braydon is, too, and he hates it.”

  Wilhelm and Jochen were standing. Charles had not seen Wilhelm for some time. On the Sunday when he was to call upon Wilhelm and Phyllis he was notified by one of their servants that “Mr. and Mrs. Wittmann have been suddenly called to New York.” That had not disturbed Charles. Wilhelm often made these unplanned visits out of town. Then he noticed, now, that Wilhelm was unusually s
ilent, that he did not look directly at him even when he inquired about Charles’ health, and that he turned immediately to Mr. Holt and began to talk to him rapidly about something.

  What the hell’s the matter with him? Charles thought, irascibly. He thought of all the burden of his real and enormous troubles and his acerbity against his brother grew stronger. Phyllis was smiling up at him, beautiful, if thinner than ever, in her simply draped black silk gown. “How are you, Charles?” she was saying, and she gave him her hand.

  Phyllis. Charles always braced himself for the pain when he saw Phyllis. It came to him furiously like an animal which recognized that he was unusually vulnerable tonight. It was this pain which made him hold Phyllis’ hand very tightly, and keep it. “I am all right,” he heard himself saying, “And you, Phyllis?”

  “I have had a little cold,” she said. “My usual Spring cold.” She did, indeed, seem frailer. The lines of her chin had sharpened, and the lines of her cheeks. This made her lovely blue eyes very large. Her bright hair was coiled about her face in a new fashion, and its vividness made her lack of color more evident.

  She gently withdrew her hand, but not before a faint pink flush ran over her face. Charles turned, in order to greet his other sister-in-law. It was then that he saw Wilhelm watching him, and Wilhelm’s expression was cold and intense, and full of enmity.

  This confused Charles. Had old Joe been plotting against him, Charles, with Willie, again? Charles’ irritation vanished, was replaced by the familiar alarm. What were they up to, now?

  Charles could no longer evade acknowledging the presence of Jochen’s wife, Isabel. He had been hating Jochen steadily for some months, and this in itself was disturbing to him, for though he had often hated Jochen it had been a brief emotion and almost good-natured. He saw Jochen daily, but for a long time there had been a tension between them and they rarely discussed anything these days but the business of the shops. Charles had been to the house on Beechwood Road only three times since Christmas. He had stayed but half an hour. He had not been invited for dinner at any time.