Envious Casca (2 page)

Mathilda was not pretty. She had good eyes, and beautiful hair, but not even in her dewy youth had she been able to deceive herself into thinking that she was good-looking. She had sensibly accepted her plainness, and had, she said, put all her money on style. She was much nearer thirty than twenty; she enjoyed private means; lived in a cottage not uncomfortably far from London; and eked out her income by occasional journalism, and the breeding of bull-terriers. Valerie Dean, who was Stephen's fiancee, vaguely resented her, because she dressed so well, and made her plainness so arresting that she attracted a good deal of attention at parties at which Valerie had confidently expected to draw all eyes upon herself.

"Of course, darling, it isn't that I don't like your cousin," Valerie told Stephen, "but it's so silly to call her striking. Because she's practically hideous, isn't she, Stephen?"

"Sure," said Stephen.

"Do you think she's so frightfully clever, Stephen? I mean, do you?"

"Never thought about it. She's a damned good sort."

"Oh, darling, that sounds absolutely foul!" said Valerie, pleased. "Don't you wish she weren't going to be at Lexham?"

"No."

"Oh, Stephen, you are a swine! Why don't you?"

"I like her. I wish you'd shut your pretty little trap. I hate being yapped at when I'm driving."

"You are a low hound, Stephen. Do you love me?"

"Yes, damn you!"

"Well, it doesn't sound as though you did. I'm pretty, aren't I?"

"Yes, my little bonehead, you're lovely - Aphrodite and Helen rolled into one. Stop drivelling!"

"Oh, I can't think why I ever fell for you, darling. I think you're foul!" said Miss Dean cooingly.

He vouchsafed no answer to this remark, and his betrothed, apparently realising that his mood was not propitious, sank her chin into the collar of her fur coat, and relapsed into quiescent silence.

Their arrival at Lexham Manor coincided with that of Edgar Mottisfont, and all three were welcomed into the house by Joseph, who came trotting out into the porch, beaming with pleasure, and claiming the privilege of an old stager to embrace Valerie.

His rapt appreciation of the truly lovely picture she presented made Stephen look more than ordinarily sardonic, but was well received by his target. Miss Dean, who was indeed lovely, liked to hear her charms enthusiastically praised, and was not above responding to the arch sallies of old gentlemen. She lifted her large blue eyes to Joseph's face, and told him that she knew he was dreadfully wicked, a pronouncement which delighted Joseph, and made Stephen say ill-naturedly: "A case of si aieillesse pouvait!"

"Well, Stephen!" said Edgar Mottisfont, descending from the car which had been sent to fetch him from the station.

"Hallo!" said Stephen indifferently.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Mottisfont, looking at him with disfavour.

"Why?" asked Stephen.

"Now, now, now!" chided Joseph, overhearing this interchange, and bustling forward. "My dear Edgar! Come in, come in! You must be frozen, all of you! Look at the sky! We're going to have a white Christmas. I shouldn't be surprised if we found ourselves tobogganing in a day or two."

"I should," said Stephen, following the others into the house. "Hallo, Mathilda!"

"I thought I heard your mellow accents," said Mathilda. "Spreading goodwill, my sweet?"

Stephen allowed his bitter mouth to relax into a smile at this greeting, but as Nathaniel came into the hall at that moment, and favoured him with nothing more than a nod, and a curt "Glad to see you, Stephen," the disagreeable expression returned to his face, and he immediately laid himself out to be objectionable to everyone within range.

Nathaniel, having shaken hands in a perfunctory fashion with Miss Dean, and said "Oh!" dampingly to her announcement that she simply loved coming to spend Christmas in his perfectly fascinating house, lost no time in whisking himself and Edgar Mottisfont into his study.

"Remind me some time to give you some hints and tips on how to put yourself over with your Uncle Nat," Mathilda said kindly to Miss Dean.

"Blast you, shut up!" snapped Stephen. "God, I wonder why I came?"

"Probably because you couldn't think of anywhere else to go," said Mathilda. Catching sight of Joseph's absurdly dismayed countenance, she added: "Anyway, now you are here, behave yourself! Would you like to go up to your room now, Valerie, or have tea first?"

Miss Dean, whose major preoccupation in life was the possibility of her hair becoming disarranged, or her complexion impaired, chose to go to her room. This put Joseph in mind of his wife, but by the time he had run her to earth in the drawing-room, Mathilda had escorted Valerie upstairs.

Maud, gently chided by Joseph for not having come out to welcome the visitors, said that she had not heard their arrival. "I have a very interesting book here," she said. "I got it out of the library today. It is the one you or Nat had out a little while ago, and which you thought I should not care for, about the poor Empress of Austria. Fancy, Joseph! She actually rode in a circus!"

Joseph, who possibly had a very fair idea of what the company would have to suffer from his wife's perusal of this, or any other, book, suggested tactfully that it should be put away until after Christmas, and reminded her that she was Valerie's hostess, and should have showed her the way to her room.

"No, dear," replied Maud. "I'm sure I had nothing to do with inviting Valerie here. Nor do I see why I shouldn't read my book at Christmas as well as at any other time. She could sit on her hair. Fancy!"

There did not seem to be much hope of dragging Maud's attention away from the Empress's peculiarities, so, with a fond pat on her shoulder, Joseph bustled away again, to irritate the servants by begging them to put tea forward, and to trot upstairs to tap on Valerie's door, and ask if she had everything she wanted.

Tea was served in the drawing-room. Maud laid aside the Life of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and poured out. She sat on the sofa, a dump of a woman behind a staggering array of embossed silver, and when each of the visitors came into the room, she extended her small plump hand with the same mechanical smile, and the same colourless phrase of welcome.

Mathilda sat beside her, and laughed when she saw the title of the book Maud had been reading. "Last time I was here it was the Memoirs of a Lady-in-Waiting," she said, teasing Maud.

Mockery slid off the armour of Maud's self-sufficiency. "I like that kind of book," she replied simply.

When Nathaniel came in with Edgar Mottisfont, Stephen dragged himself out of a deep armchair, saying ungraciously: "Got your chair, uncle."

Nathaniel accepted this overture in the spirit in which it was presumably meant. "Don't disturb yourself, my boy. How have you been keeping?"

"All right," Stephen said. He added, with a further effort towards civility: "You look very fit."

"Except for this wretched lumbago of mine," Nathaniel said, not quite pleased that Stephen should have forgotten his lumbago. "I had a touch of sciatica yesterday, too."

"Bad luck," said Stephen.

"The ills the flesh is heir to!" said Mottisfont, shaking his head. "Anno domini, Nat, anno domini!"

"Nonsense!" said Joseph. "Look at me! If you two old fogies would take my tip, and do your daily dozen every morning before breakfast, you'd feel twenty years younger! Knees bend - touch your toes - deep breathing before the open window!"

"Don't be a fool, Joe!" growled Nathaniel. "Touch my toes indeed! "Why, there are some mornings when I should be set fast if I stooped an inch!"

Miss Dean offered her contribution to the discussion. "I do think exercises are the most ghastly bore, don't you?"

"Shouldn't be at your age," said Nathaniel.

"A dose of salts every morning would do most people a great deal of good," said Maud, handing a cup-andsaucer to Stephen.

Nathaniel, after casting a malevolent look at his sisterin-law, at once began to talk to Mottisfont. Mathilda gave a gurgle of laughter, and said: "Well, that's settled that topic, at any rate!"

Maud's pale eyes met hers, uncomprehending, devoid of any hint of humour. "I find salts very beneficial," she said.

Valerie Dean, who was looking entrancingly pretty in a jersey-suit which exactly matched the blue of her eyes, had been taking stock of Mathilda's tweed coat and skirt, and had reached the conclusion that it did not become her. This made her feel friendly towards Mathilda, and she moved her chair nearer to the sofa, and began to talk to her. Stephen, who seemed to be making a real effort to behave nicely, joined in his uncle's conversation with Mottisfont, and Joseph, radiant now that his party looked like being a success after all, beamed on everyone impartially. So patent was his satisfaction that Mathilda's eyes began to twinkle again, and she offered, after tea, to help him to hang up his paper-chains.

"I'm glad you've come, Tilda," Joseph told her, as she gingerly mounted the rickety steps. "I do so want this party to go well."

"You're the World's Uncle, Joe," said Mathilda. "For God's sake, hang on to these steps! They feel most unsafe to me. Why did you want this family reunion?"

"Ah, you'll laugh at me if I tell you!" he said, shaking his head. "I think, if you hang your end just above that picture it would just reach to the chandelier. Then we could have another chain over to that corner."

"Just as you say, Santa Claus. But why the reunion?"

"Well, my dear, isn't it the season of goodwill, and isn't it all working out just as one hoped it would?"

"Depends what you hoped," said Mathilda, pressing a drawing-pin into the wall. "If you ask me, there'll be murder done before we're through. Nat's patience will never stand much of little Val."

"Bosh, Tilda!" said Joseph roundly. "Bosh and nonsense! There's no harm in the child, and I'm sure she's pretty enough to eat!"

Mathilda descended the steps. "I don't think that Nat prefers blondes," she said.

"Never mind! It doesn't matter what he thinks of poor little Val, after all. The main thing is that he shouldn't carry on a silly quarrel with old Stephen."

"If I'm to fix this end to the chandelier, move the steps over, Joe. Why shouldn't he quarrel with Stephen, if he wants to?"

"Because he's really very fond of him, because quarrelling in families is always a pity. Besides-"Joseph stopped, and began to move the steps.

"Besides what?"

"Well, Tilda, Stephen can't afford to quarrel with Nat, the silly fellow!"

"You should worry!" said Mathilda. "You aren't going to tell me that Nat has at last brought himself to make a will? Is Stephen the heir?"

"You want to know too much," said Joseph, giving her a playful smack.

"Sure I do! You're very mysterious, aren't you?"

"No, no, upon my word I'm not! I only feel it would be very foolish of Stephen to go on being on bad terms with Nat. Shall we hang this big paper-bell under the chandelier, or do you think a bunch of mistletoe would be better?"

"If you really want my opinion, Joe, I think they look equally lousy."

"Naughty girl! Such language!" Joseph said. "You young people don't appreciate Christmas as my generation did. Doesn't it mean anything to you?"

"It will, by the time we're through," replied Mathilda, once more ascending the steps.

Chapter Two

Paula Herriard did not arrive at the Manor until after seven, when everyone else was changing for dinner. Her appearance on the scene was advertised, even to those in remote bedrooms, by the unusual amount of commotion heard downstairs. Paula's entrances always commanded attention. It was not that she deliberately staged them: merely, her personality was rather overpowering, her movements as impetuous as her vivid little face. In fact, Mathilda said with gentle malice, she seemed to have been born with the hallmarks of a great emotional actress.

She was several years younger than her brother Stephen, and resembled him scarcely at all. She was pretty, in the style made popular by Burne Jones, with thick, springy hair, a short, full upper lip, and dark eyes set widely under discontented brows. There was an air of urgency about her; you could see it in her restless movements, in the sudden glow in her changeable eyes, and in the hungry line of her mouth. She had a beautiful voice, like a stringed instrument. It was mellow, and flexible, which made her the ideal choice for a Shakespearean role. It cast into shocking relief the light, metallic tones of her contemporaries, with their clipped vowels, and the oddly common inflexions they so carefully cultivated. She knew how to throw it, too: no doubt about that, thought Mathilda, hearing it float upstairs from the hall.

She heard her own name. "In the Blue Room? Oh! I'll go up!"

Mathilda sat back on her dressing-stool to await Paula's entrance. In a minute or two there was a perfunctory knock on the door, and before she could call Come in! Paula had entered, bringing with her that uncomfortable feeling of impatience, of scarcely curbed energy.

"Mathilda! Darling!"

"Ware my make-up!" Mathilda exclaimed, dodging the embrace.

Paula chuckled, deep in her throat. "Idiot! I'm so glad to see you! Who's here? Stephen? Valerie? Oh, that girl! My dear, if you knew the feeling I have here about her!" She struck her chest as she spoke; her eyes quite blazed for a moment, but then she blinked her thick lashes, and laughed, and said: "Oh, never mind that! Brothers -! I've brought Willoughby."

"Who is Willoughby?" demanded Mathilda.

There was again that disconcerting flash. "One day no one will ask that question!"

"Pending that day," said Mathilda, intent on her own eyebrows, "who is Willoughby?"

"Willoughby Roydon. He has written a play…'

It was strange how much that throbbing voice and those fluttering hands could express. Mathilda said: "Oh?

Unknown, dramatist?"

"So far! But this play - ! Producers are such fools! We must have backing. Is Uncle Nat in a good mood? Has Stephen upset him? Tell me everything, Mathilda, quick!"

Mathilda laid down the eyebrow-pencil. "You haven't brought your playwright here in the hope of winning Nat's heart, Paula? My poor girl!"

"He must do it for me!" Paula said, impatiently pushing back the hair from her brow. "It's art, Mathilda! Oh! When you have read it - !"

"Art plus a part for Paula?" murmured Mathilda.

The shaft glanced off Paula's armour. "Yes. A part. Such a part! It was written for me. He says I inspired it."

"Sunday performance, and an audience composed of intellectuals. I know!"

"Uncle has got to listen to me! I must play it. I must, Mathilda, do you hear me?"

"Yes, my sweet, you must play it. Meanwhile, dinner will be ready in twenty minutes' time."

"Oh, it doesn't take me ten minutes to change! Paula said impatiently.

Mathilda reflected that this was true. Paula never bothered about her clothes. She was neither dowdy nor smart; she flung raiment on, and somehow one never knew what she was wearing: it didn't count, it was nothing but a covering for Paula's thin body: you were aware only of Paula herself. "I hate you, Paula; my God, how I hate you!" Mathilda said, knowing that people remembered her by the exquisite creations she wore. "Go away! I'm less fortunate."

Paula's gaze focused upon her. "Darling, your clothes are perfect."

"I don't know. Such an absurd fuss! As though the house weren't big enough - ! Sturry said he'd see to it."

"Well, as long as your playwright doesn't wear soft shirts and a plume of hair - !"

"What do these things matter?"

"They'll matter fast enough to your Uncle Nat," prophesied Mathilda.

They did. Nathaniel, introduced without warning to Willoughby Roydon, glared at him, and at Paula, and could not even bring himself to utter conventional words of welcome. It was left to Joseph to fill the breach, and he did so, aware of Nat's fury, and covering it up with his own overflowing goodwill.

The situation was saved by Sturry, announcing dinner. They went into the dining-room. Willoughby Roydon sat between Mathilda and Maud. He despised Maud, but Mathilda he liked. He talked to her about the tendency of modern drama, and she bore it very meekly, realising that it was her duty to draw his fire.

He was a sallow young man, with rather indeterminate features, and an over-emphatic manner. Listening, a little inattentively, to his conversation, Mathilda pictured him against a middle-class background of indifference. She felt sure that his parents were worthy people, perhaps afraid of their clever son, perhaps scornful of a talent they could not understand. He was unsure of himself, aggressive from very lack of poise. Mathilda felt sorry for him, and schooled her features to an expression of interest in what he was saying.

Paula, seated beside Nathaniel, was talking to him about Roydon's play, forgetting to eat her dinner in her earnestness, annoying him by gesticulating with her thin, nervous hands, insisting on his attending to her, even though he didn't want to, wasn't interested. Valerie, on his right, was bored, and taking no pains to hide it. She had pretended at first to be deeply interested, saying: "My dear, how marvellous! Do tell me about your part! I shall adore coming to see you in it!" But Paula didn't want to capture Valerie's interest; she brushed her aside with that careless contempt which made her look suddenly like Stephen. So Valerie sighed, patted her sleek curls into position, and despised Paula for wearing a dress which didn't suit her, and for combing her hair so casually off her face.

It was being a bad evening for Valerie. She had wanted to come to Lexham (in fact, she had insisted on Stephen's bringing her) because she knew that Nathaniel did not like her. She hadn't doubted her ability to captivate him, but even the Chanel model she was wearing had failed to bring that admiring look into his eyes which she was accustomed to see in men's eyes. Joseph had twinkled appreciation, but that was no use (though pleasant) because Joseph had no money to leave.

The arrival of an unexpected male guest had been exciting, but he seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Mathilda. Valerie wondered what men saw in Mathilda, and glanced resentfully across at her. It happened that Roydon looked up at that moment, and their eyes met. He seemed to see her for the first time, and to be shaken. He stopped in the middle of what he was saying, flushed, and picked up the thread again in a hurry, Valerie began to feel more cheerful. Playwrights! One never knew about them; they became famous overnight, and made pots and pots of money, and were seen about everywhere with the best people.

Joseph, whom Nathaniel suspected of having connived from the start at Willoughby's arrival, said that he could smell the sawdust again, a figure of speech which apparently left Roydon with the impression that he had been a circus-artist. Joseph speedily disillusioned him. "I remember once in Durban, when I was playing Hamlet…' said Joseph.

"Go on, Joe! You never played Hamlet in your life!" interrupted Mathilda. "Your outline's all wrong."

"Ah, the days when I was young!" Joseph said.

But Roydon wasn't interested in Joseph's Hamlet. He shrugged Shakespeare aside. He said that he himself owed a debt to Strindberg. As for Pinero's comedies, which Joseph had played in, he dismissed them with the crushing label: "That old stuff!"

Joseph felt depressed. He had a charming little anecdote to tell, about the time he had played Benedick, in Sydney, but it didn't seem as though Roydon would appreciate it. A conceited young man, thought Joseph, dispiritedly eating his savoury.

When Maud rose from the table, Paula was obliged to stop telling Nathaniel about Roydon's play. She glowered at being interrupted, but went out with the other women.

Maud led the way to the drawing-room. It was a big room, and it felt chilly. Only two standard-lamps, placed near the fireplace, lit it, and the far corners of the room lay in shadow. Paula gave a shiver, and switched on the ceiling-lights. "I hate this house!" she said. "It hates us, too. You can almost feel it."

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Valerie, looking round half-fearfully, halt-sceptically.

"I don't know. I think something happened here, perhaps. Can't you feel how sinister it is? No, I suppose you can't."

"You don't mean that it's haunted, do you?" Valerie asked, her voice rising slightly. "Because nothing would induce me to spend a night here, if it is!"

"No, I don't mean that," Paula answered. "But there's something about it - I'm always conscious of it. Cigarette, Mathilda?"

Mathilda took one. "Thank you, my love. Shall we gather round the fire, chicks, and tell ghost stories?"

"Oh, don't!" shuddered Valerie.

"Don't let Paula impress you!" Mathilda advised her. "She is just being fey. There's nothing wrong with this house."

"It is a pity that there are no radiators in this room," said Maud, ensconcing herself by the fire.

"It isn't that," said Paula curtly.

"I expect that's what gives Nat lumbago," said Maud. "Draughts -"

Valerie began to powder her nose before the mirror over the fireplace. Paula, who seemed to be restless, drifted about the room, smoking a cigarette, and nicking the ash on to the carpet.

Mathilda, taking a chair opposite to Maud, said: "I wish you wouldn't prowl, Paula. And if you could refrain from badgering Nat about your young friend's play I feel that this party might go with more of a swing."

"I don't care about that. It's vital to me to get Willoughby's play put on!"

"Love's young dream?" Mathilda cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

"Mathilda! Can't you understand that love doesn't come into it? It's art!"

"Sorry!" Mathilda apologised.

Maud, who had opened her book again, said: "Fancy! The Empress was only sixteen when Franz Josef fell in love with her! It was quite a romance."

"What Empress?" demanded Paula, halting in the middle of the room, and staring at her.

"The Empress of Austria, dear. Somehow one can't imagine Franz Josef as a young man, can one? But it says here that he was very good-looking, and she fell in love with him at first sight. Of course, he ought to have married the elder sister, but he saw Elizabeth first, with her hair down her back, and that decided him."

"What on earth has that got to do with Willoughby's play?" asked Paula, in a stupefied voice.

"Nothing, my dear; but I am reading a very interesting book about her."

"Well, it doesn't interest me," said Paula, resuming her pacing of the room.