A Masque of Chameleons Read online

  “And what did your wife think about all that” Jason asked quietly.

  Even in the moonlight Roberta could see a hard look come over Will’s face. “Leave her out of it, cock. She’s not your affair.”

  “Come on,” Roberta broke in before Jason could reply, “we’d best go to dinner while there’s any food left.”

  *

  Hugh and Guy had shoved several of the tables next to each other so that the company could all sit together, but there were only five of them to be seated this night.

  “Daphne’s usually a good sailor,” Hugh said apologetically, “but she says the smell down there took her appetite clean away.”

  “I can tell you, the smell down there is what made me come up here,” Roberta added.

  Roberta looked around with curiosity at the other passengers. Apparently the Italian opera company were not so squeamish as Hugh’s people, for some ten of them were eating and drinking with gusto, interspersing mouthfuls of food with loud, rapid Italian and much laughter. Among the other passengers were three Cubans and some single people — mostly men. One man in particular caught her eye. He was lean and dark, perhaps in his early fifties, with a face so foxlike that she almost expected his ears to be tufted. Black hair curled elegantly about his ears, and he played absently with a medallion hung round his neck by a thick gold chain as he too watched the other diners with interest. Inevitably their glances crossed, and he smiled and raised his glass of wine to her.

  “Looks as if you’ve made a conquest,” Hugh laughed.

  “You know, I could swear I’d seen him somewhere before,” Jason said slowly. “He isn’t someone you’d forget in a hurry.”

  “I k-know I haven’t,” Guy commented. “You’d h-hardly forget a face like that. Downright sinister, if you ask me.

  “If we didn’t already have an Iago, wouldn’t he make a splendid one, though?” Hugh suggested.

  “I must say, I can certainly visualize him pulling the wings off butterflies,” Roberta added. There was something about that vulpine yet handsome face that attracted her and at the same time chilled her blood.

  “Oh, come on,” Will said impatiently. “He’s probably married to a jolly fat woman and got fifteen children who will all make our lives a misery once they get over being seasick.”

  Everyone laughed and fell to eating a startlingly good dinner of veal cooked in wine, green beans with almonds, endive salad, and baked apple with brandied cream.

  “Upon my soul, what a pleasant and totally unexpected surprise,” Roberta exclaimed as she licked the last fleck of cream from her dessert spoon. “From the condition of the staterooms, I thought we might be fed weevily hardtack.”

  The ship’s pitching had become worse. It felt as if the vessel made long slides backward, wallowed sloppily then, tipped up by the stern, and corkscrewed before repeating the whole process all over again. Coffee slopped out of cups, and once a plate from another table smashed on the floor. The stewards seemed unperturbed, balancing trayfuls of dishes as if the ship were lying on a placid lake. Their balance and skill were deceptive, as the company found when they got to their feet to go into the lounge. The corkscrewing caught Roberta unaware as she crossed the dining room, and she found herself plunging helplessly right at the foxlike man they had been laughing about earlier. Without even putting down his cigar, he rose and caught her gracefully with one arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “Don’t be,” he smiled. “It isn’t every night I have a beautiful woman catapulted into my very lap. Would that it happened more often.” He sat her in an empty chair at his table. “In return, you must join me in a liqueur.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” she replied, flustered.

  “Ah, but I insist.” He snapped his fingers at a steward.

  “Are you all right, Robbie?” It was Will in a tone that was almost belligerent.

  “Of course I’m all right, Will. I - ”

  “After such a fortuitous landing, introductions seem almost superfluous,” the foxlike man cut in smoothly. “I am Don Armando Salvador Zaragoza Castillo, a sus ordenes.”

  “Well, Mr. Castillo,” Will drawled dangerously, “I thank you for rescuing the lady, but I don’t see that it’s proper of you to insist she drink with you.”

  “Please excuse him, Senor Zaragoza, he isn’t accustomed to Spanish names.” Why did she always find herself lately excusing Will to other people, she wondered briefly. Turning to Will, she said in a determined voice, “Actually, I should very much like to have a liqueur with the gentleman. He was nice enough to save me from a nasty fall, and I hardly think he’ll be able to seduce me in the middle of the ship’s dining room.” There, that should teach him not to treat her like a two-year-old.

  Will’s face flushed, and he seemed about to make an angry retort when Hugh gently took him by the arm, bowed to Zaragoza, and led him off, speaking to him in too low a voice for the words to be distinguished.

  “It’s not hard to see why such a lovely — and refreshingly outspoken — lady should have her champions,” Zaragoza remarked, smiling at her. “How do you know so much about Spanish names?”

  She found herself torn between being flattered at his praise and suspicious because he was overdoing it. She was also secretly delighted that Will had obviously been willing to fight over her. “I was raised by a Mexican - ” She broke off briefly, suddenly unwilling to call Margarita a maid. “ — lady,” she finished a little lamely.

  The steward brought the liqueurs, a cognac for him and a creme de menthe for her.

  “And do you speak Spanish then?”

  “Como no. It was the first language I ever learned,” she answered in Spanish.

  He looked at her with interest. “You were right to call her a lady.” He, too, had dropped into Spanish. “No maid ever taught you to speak like that.” He had been very quick to pick up her hesitation and the reason for it.

  When she told him her mother and father were French, and that she was partly raised in the United States, she sensed rather than saw his attention sharpening. It was no simple romantic interest that quickened him now. “How old are you?” he asked abruptly.

  “Twenty-two, though that is not a question gentlemen — Caballeros — ordinarily ask ladies.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and almost visibly relaxed. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I often play a game with myself when dining alone in a public place, guessing the ages and nationalities and occupations of the other diners. For example, you and your friends are obviously a theatrical company.”

  “That couldn’t have been very difficult to deduce,” she retorted.

  Unperturbed, he went on to guess which members of the cast were not American. He was right until he came to Jason.

  “This time you’re wrong,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “He’s American all right, only educated in England.”

  With a look surely meant to elicit her sympathy Zaragoza said, “Well, I ought to be allowed half credit for him, then. I seem to have made a mediocre showing after all of my bragging. I’ve often wondered why you actors all do it. Surely there is work that is more secure.”

  “No doubt about that, but on the other hand at least we stage folk are alive, which is more than you can say for all of those poor creatures chained to machines fourteen hours a day.”

  “Don’t you think, however,” Zaragoza argued, “that it is God’s will to make some bom to labor for others? What else could those poor creatures, as you call them, do? At least they have enough to eat and a roof over their heads, humble as it may be.”

  “It’s not right that an accident of birth makes the difference between living as a human being and living as a beast of burden.”

  “That's just where I disagree. It is the natural order of things that men are not born equal, any more than are animals. A thoroughbred horse is not the same as a plow horse and never will be. Since some kind of horse has to do the plo
wing, it is only rational to use the plow horse for that for which he is bred rather than expecting him to leap a five-barred fence with a man on his back. Men are no different. You actors live by your wits, and I find it difficult to believe that you couldn't excel at some more remunerative occupation.”

  “Governess? Teacher? Come now, senor, you aren't being realistic.”

  “Oh, you. Well, any woman worth her salt can somehow contrive to marry well. You don't have to worry about an occupation.”

  “That's right,” she said bitterly, “in the natural order of things women were bom to belong to somebody else, weren’t they?”

  “But of course.” He was unruffled. “Otherwise God would have arranged for the men to bear the children, wouldn’t he?”

  “I'm not going to be anyone’s brood mare. At least in the theater you’re still a person, not just a wife and mother.”

  “There is no higher calling than being a mother,” he pronounced disapprovingly.

  “I happen to think that being a human being is more important than being a mother.”

  “Never mind, my dear, you'll grow out of such foolish notions. For now, why don't we simply agree to disagree? Tell me about the rest of your companions; I’ve never known any theater people before.”

  Relieved that he had dropped the argument, she found she was enjoying herself giving him a picture of their disparate personalities and glimpses of the life they led, the funny and the tragic things she had seen happen. She realized that she had been talking for a long time and was on her third? fourth? crème de menthe as she finished, “My mother and Margarita were determined that I shouldn’t be an actress, but when I was sixteen they both died of the cholera. Hugh was an old and dear friend of my mother’s, and he and Daphne took me in as if I had been a member of their family.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  She found that after all these years it still hurt. “When my mother died, he went away. He ran from things all his life, you see. Hugh says there are people like that who are born with something missing, as if they had only one hand or were lacking a leg. They can’t help it, they simply can’t face life as it is, and when the going is hard, they run off.”

  “Where do you think he went?”

  “Probably back to France.”

  “You didn’t look for him when you were there with the company?”

  She shook her head. “I really don’t much want to find him. If he wants to see me again, he knows where I am. He may well be dead.”

  The candles had guttered low, and the stewards had cleared and removed the stained cloths from all the tables save theirs. Roberta felt drunk far beyond what three or four crème de menthes should have been able to do to her, drunk with words and images, and before her in the now flickering light the dark fox smiled, and encouraged her and drew her on. My God, what’s happened to me, she wondered, and shook herself like a dog to try to throw off the strange spell.

  “My poor dear,” he exclaimed solicitously, “I’m afraid I’ve given you more than you should have had to drink. It was just that your stories were so fascinating I hadn’t the heart to stop you. Come, let’s go up on deck and get some fresh air.”

  He helped her up and with a hand under her arm half supported her as she tottered up the metal stairway and came out into the glorious fresh air on deck. The moon was almost directly overhead now, and it cast a cold pale light on the deserted deck. Zaragoza walked her over to the rail, where she clung with both hands, breathing deeply.

  “Look down, Roberta,” came his persuasive voice from beside her.

  Below them, the moonlit water was being plowed into the foaming hillocks of white roil that swept swiftly by as the bow of the ship cleft its way through the silvered water.

  “Ah, how soft and sweet a bed that would make,” he urged. “Aren’t you tired, Roberta? Wouldn’t you like your own Margarita to put you to bed in that white softness? You’re tired, my dear, so very tired. It’s time to sleep now.”

  Roberta leaned farther over the rail, held weightlessly by those strong hands. The white bed beckoned her, and she thought she could smell the perfume Margarita always wore. She had never felt so tired in her life, and all she wanted to do was to go to sleep. A shower of sparks suddenly arced over her head and fell down past her into the water below, where it disappeared. Zaragoza turned with a startled oath.

  “I rather think it’s past the lady’s bedtime, don’t you, señor?” It was Jason standing not six feet away, his scarred face pallid in the moonlight.

  “It was my fault,” Zaragoza admitted. “I didn’t realize she had so poor a head for such an innocuous drink. I hoped the fresh air would revive her. Help me, and we’ll see her to her stateroom.”

  Together the men helped the unresisting Roberta down the stairs and along the odorous corridor to her cabin. Rosemary was not only asleep but snoring as usual in the lower bunk, and they hoisted Roberta up, fully dressed as she was, to the upper one.

  She heard their footsteps, the closing of the cabin door, and the ring of their retreating boots in the passageway before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She felt she might have slept forever if Rosemary had not shaken her persistently. “Robbie, Robbie, wake up! Robbie, please, wake up, won’t you? What’s wrong?” “Nothing, except for your confounded shaking,” Roberta croaked finally out of a mouth lined with guncotton. Her lips felt so dry she was afraid they would split if she opened her mouth very far. A fearsome headache clanged about the inside of her skull, and she opened her eyes gingerly, squinting. Rosemary peered at her with a worried expression. “Why must I wake up?”

  “It’s nearly lunchtime. You slept clear through breakfast, and I was afraid something was wrong with you.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought missing a meal would put you in such a tizzy, Rosemary. If I’d mentioned eating yesterday, you’d have been sick in my lap. Do get me a drink of water, there’s a love.”

  “It’s a beautiful day out,” Rosemary said, holding the glass of water for her, “and no one’s sick anymore. When I saw you sleep like that, and still all dressed, too, I couldn’t help but worry. Everyone’s asked after you, even that nice Mr. Zaragoza — my, but he’s handsome! Do you want me to help you change? How do you feel? What happened to you, you seemed to be such a good sailor?”

  “I was fool enough to have too much to drink,” Roberta snapped. “Does that satisfy you?” She was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, Rosie, but I really don’t feel all that well. I can manage to undress on my own, but could you bring me a pot of tea? I can’t face having a steward smirk at me.”

  When Rosemary had gone, Roberta managed to climb down from the upper bunk despite her throbbing head, and put on her nightgown. Just freeing herself of those dreadful stays cheered her somewhat, and once she had bathed her face and hands in cold water the cobwebs in her abused brain had all but vanished. She was back in bed by the time there was a knock at the door. Damn Rosie, she knew better than to call a steward!

  “Come in,” she said, resigned.

  When the door opened it was not the steward but Jason who entered, bearing a tray with a teapot, cups, and some covered dishes. “Good morning,” he smiled, “or rather, good afternoon. I told that idiot Rosemary to let you sleep it off, but she knew better, it seems. How do you feel?”

  “Terrible. I remember drinking too much wine once when Marry She Must turned out to be such a success, but I didn’t feel anything like this. I can’t think that three or four little liqueurs could have affected me so.”

  “How much do you remember of last night?” he asked, pouring a cup of tea and handing it to her.

  “Oh, that tastes good,” she sighed. “He wanted to know all about what a theatrical company’s life is like. It wasn’t his fault, Jason — really. Then I remember hanging onto the rail and looking down into the water. I was thinking what a nice soft bed all that foam would make, and then somehow you were there, and that’s all. I feel such a fo
ol.”

  “Well, as long as you’re not angry with him, I suppose it’s all right. Here, have a piece of buttered toast. If you get something in your stomach, you’ll feel better. Always feed a hangover.”

  She took a bite of toast and found she was starved. Silently she picked through her memories of the night before. She looked directly at Jason. “No, it’s not all right,” she said slowly. “Would you think I was mad if I said I thought he gave me something? But why would he have done it? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well,” Jason replied, “there is an obvious reason for gentlemen doing something like that to a lady. Did he try to make love to you?”

  “No, he didn’t. I’m sure he didn’t.”

  “Look, Robbie, as long as this is only a suspicion, please don’t say anything about it to anyone else. Zaragoza is obviously a rich man — God alone knows what he’s doing on this tub — and rich men have influence in Mexico. Chances are, we’ll never see him again once we reach Cuba, and I’d hate to have Hugh’s tour messed up if you’re not absolutely sure and can prove it.”

  “I take your point,” she said quietly. “This is a good opportunity for the whole company, and I’d be the last to spoil it. But Jason, if he tries anything else, I’m going to scream bloody murder.”

  “As well you should. Never mind, I’ll be looking out for him, he won’t have a chance to try anything else.”

  “Jason, what’s your interest in this? How did you come to be out on deck last night after everyone else had gone to bed?”

  “You said once that everyone treated you like a child. I was only playing the part of another older brother, you might say. I told them all I’d watch out for you, otherwise you’d have had Will and Hugh and Guy all out there, too, and you’d never have lived it down. Besides, with those loyal impetuous protectors we might have had the added problem of explaining how Serior Zaragoza got thrown overboard.”

  She laughed. “Why are they all willing to leave you alone with me down here? It’s hardly proper, you know.” There was a glint of amusement in her eye.