Envious Casca Read online

  ‘Well, they are hatched!’ said Paula crossly. ‘Uncle told me he was leaving me quite a lot of money, ages ago. It isn’t as though I wanted it all now: I don’t. A couple of thousand would be ample, and after all, what are a couple of thousand pounds to Uncle Nat?’

  Roydon, who presumably found this open discussion embarrassing, turned a dull red, and pretended to be busy fitting candles into their holders.

  But nothing could stop Paula. She went on striding about the room, and maintaining a singularly boring monologue, which only Joseph listened to. He, trying to pour oil on troubled waters, said that he knew just how she felt, and well recalled his own sensations on a somewhat similar occasion, when he was billed to appear as Macbeth, in Melbourne.

  ‘Go on, Joe! You never played Macbeth!’ said Mathilda.

  Joseph took this in very good part, but insisted that he had played all the great tragic rôles. It was a pity that he had not observed his wife’s entry into the room before he made this boast, because Mathilda at once called upon her to deny so palpable a lie.

  ‘I don’t remember his ever appearing as Macbeth,’ said Maud, in her placid way. ‘But he was very good in characterparts, very good indeed.’

  Everyone immediately saw Joseph as the First Gravedigger, and even Paula’s lips quivered. Maud, quite unconscious of the impression she was making, began to recall the various minor rôles in which Joseph had appeared to advantage, and threw out a vague promise of looking out a book of presscuttings, which she had put away somewhere.

  ‘That’ll be another book to be filched from her, and disposed of,’ remarked Stephen in Mathilda’s ear, rather too audibly.

  She started, for she had not heard him come into the room. He was standing just behind her, with his hands in his pockets, and his pipe between his teeth. He looked sardonically pleased; life had quickened in his eyes; and there was a suspicion of a smile playing about his mouth. Knowing him, Mathilda guessed that he had been enjoying a quarrel, probably with his uncle. ‘You’re a fool,’ she said abruptly.

  He looked down at her, eyebrows a trifle raised. ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ve been quarrelling with your uncle.’

  ‘Oh, that! I usually do.’

  ‘You’re almost certainly his heir.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘Did Nat actually tell you so?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘No. Improving homily from dear Uncle Joe.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night, after you’d gone to bed.’

  ‘Stephen, did Joe say that? That Nat had made you his heir?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not as tersely as that. Arch hints, winks, and nudges.’

  ‘I expect he knows. You’d better watch your step. I wouldn’t put it beyond Nat to change his mind.’

  ‘I daresay you’re right,’ he said indifferently.

  She felt a sudden stab of exasperation. ‘Then why annoy him?’

  His pipe had gone out, and he began to relight it. Over the bowl his eyes glinted at her. ‘Bless your heart, I don’t annoy him! He doesn’t like my intended.’

  ‘Do you?’ she demanded, before she could stop herself.

  He looked at her, evidently enjoying her unaccustomed discomfiture. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Sorry!’ she said briefly, and turned away.

  She began, somewhat viciously, to straighten the little candles on the tree. As well as one knew Stephen one still could not get to the bottom of him. He might be in love with Valerie; he might have grown out of love with her; he might even be merely obstinate. But fool enough to whistle a fortune down the wind from mulishness? No man would be fool enough for that, thought Mathilda cynically. She glanced sideways at him, and thought, Yes, you would; you’d be fool enough for anything in this mood. Like my bull-terriers: bristling, snarling, looking for trouble, always convinced you’ve got to fight, even when the other dog wants to be friendly. Oh, Stephen, why will you be such an ass?

  She looked at him again, not covertly this time, since his attention was not on her, and saw that he was watching Valerie, whom Joseph had drawn into one of the windowembrasures. He was not quite smiling, but he seemed to Mathilda to be enjoying some hidden jest. She thought, Yes, but you’re not an ass; I’m not at all sure that you’re not rather devilish, in fact. You’re cold-blooded, and you have a twisted sense of humour, and I wish I knew what you were thinking. Then another thought flashed across her mind, startling her: I wish I hadn’t come here!

  As though in answer, Paula said suddenly: ‘O God, how I hate this house!’

  Stephen yawned. It was Roydon who asked: ‘Why?’

  She detached the stub of her cigarette from its long holder, and threw it into the fire. ‘I can’t put it into words. If I said it was evil, you’d laugh.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t,’ he said earnestly. ‘I believe profoundly in the influence of human passions on their surroundings. You’re tremendously psychic: I’ve always felt that about you.’

  ‘Oh, Willoughby, don’t!’ implored Valerie, instantly distracted from her tête-à-tête with Joseph. ‘You make me feel absolutely ghastly! I keep thinking there’s something just behind me all the time.’

  ‘Nonsense, young people, nonsense!’ said Joseph robustly. ‘No ghosts at Lexham Manor, I assure you!’

  ‘Oh – ghosts!’ said Paula, with a disdainful shrug.

  ‘I often think,’ offered Maud, ‘that when one gets fanciful it’s because one’s liver is out of order.’

  Paula looked so revolted by this excellent suggestion that Mathilda, to avert an explosion, said hastily that it must be time for tea. Joseph at once backed her up, and began to shoo everyone out of the room, adjuring them to go and ‘wash and brush up.’ He himself, he said, had one or two finishing touches to make to the decorations, and he would ask Valerie if she would just hold a few oddments for him.

  The oddments consisted of two streamers, a large paper bell, a sprig of mistletoe, a hammer, and a tin of drawingpins. Valerie was by this time bored with Christmas decorations, and she received the oddments rather sulkily, saying: ‘Haven’t we hung up enough things, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s just the staircase,’ Joseph explained. ‘It looks very bare. I meant to do it before lunch, but Fate intervened.’

  ‘It’s a pity Fate didn’t make a better job of it,’ said Stephen, preparing to follow Mathilda out of the room.

  Joseph shook a playful fist at him, and once more picked up the step-ladder. ‘Stephen thinks me a dreadful old vandal,’ he told Valerie. ‘I’m afraid period-stuff makes very little appeal to me. You’ll say I’m a simple-minded old fellow, I expect, but I’m not a bit ashamed of it, not a bit! I like things to be cheerful and comfortable, and it doesn’t matter a bit to me whether a staircase was built in Cromwell’s time or Victoria’s.’

  ‘I suppose the whole house is pretty old, isn’t it?’ said Valerie, looking with faint interest at the staircase.

  ‘Yes, quite a show-piece in its way,’ replied Joseph, mounting the four shallow stairs which led to the first half-landing, and trying to erect the steps on it. ‘Now, this is going to be tricky. I thought if I could reach that chandelier we could hang the bell from it.’

  ‘Mr Herriard must be awfully rich, I should think,’ said Valerie, pursuing her own train of thought.

  ‘Awfully!’ said Joseph, twinkling down at her.

  ‘I wonder –’ She broke off, colouring a little.

  Joseph was silent for a moment; then he said: ‘Well, my dear, perhaps I know what you wonder; and though one doesn’t like to talk of such things, I have been meaning all day to have a little chat with you.’

  She turned enquiring eyes upon him. ‘Oh, do! I mean, you can say absolutely anything to me: I shall quite understand.’

  He came down the stairs again, abandoning the steps, and took her arm. ‘Well, I expect you’ve guessed that I have a very soft corner for old Stephen.’

  ‘I know, and I think it’s marvellous of you!�€