Envious Casca Read online

  ‘She’s a prostitute,’ said the author simply.

  Mathilda spilt her tea. Wild ideas of imploring Roydon not to be fool enough to read his play gave way, as she dried the skirt of her frock, to a fatalistic feeling that nothing she could say would be likely to prevent this young man from rushing on to his doom.

  Stephen, who had strolled across the room to the cakestand, saw her spill her tea, and tossed her his handkerchief. ‘Clumsy wench! Here, have this!’

  ‘Tea stains things absolutely fatally,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Not if you rub hard enough,’ returned Mathilda, using Stephen’s handkerchief vigorously.

  ‘I was thinking of Stephen’s hanky.’

  ‘I wasn’t. Thanks, Stephen. Do you want it back?’

  ‘Not particularly. Come over to the fire, and steam off!’

  She obeyed, rejecting various pieces of helpful advice proffered by Maud and Paula. Stephen held out a plate of small cakes. ‘Take one. Always fortify yourself against coming ordeals.’

  She looked round, satisfying herself that Roydon, at the other end of the long room, was out of earshot, and said in an anguished undertone: ‘Stephen, it’s about a prostitute!’

  ‘What is?’ he asked, interested. ‘Not this misbegotten play?’

  She nodded, shaken with inward laughter. Stephen looked pleased for the first time that day. ‘You don’t mean it! Won’t Uncle enjoy himself ! I meant to go away, to write mythical letters. I shan’t now. I wouldn’t miss this for a fortune.’

  ‘For God’s sake, behave decently!’ she begged. ‘It’s going to be ghastly!’

  ‘Nonsense, my girl! A good time is going to be had by all.’

  ‘Stephen, if you’re unpleasant to the poor silly young ass, I shall have a shot at murdering you!’

  He opened his eyes at her. ‘Sits the wind in that quarter? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.’

  ‘No, you fool. But he’s too vulnerable. It would be cruelty to children. Besides, he’s in deadly earnest.’

  ‘Over-engined for his beam,’ said Stephen. ‘I might get a rise.’

  ‘More than you’d bargained for, I daresay. I always play safe with that unbalanced, neurotic type.’

  ‘I never play safe with anyone.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me in that showing-off way!’ said Mathilda tartly. ‘It doesn’t impress me!’

  He laughed, and left her side, returning to his seat beside Nathaniel on the sofa. Paula was already talking about Roydon’s play, her stormy eyes daring anyone to leave the room. Nathaniel was bored, and said: ‘If we’ve got to hear it, we’ve got to. Don’t talk so much! I can judge your play without your assistance. Seen more good, bad, and indifferent plays in my time than you’ve ever dreamt of.’ He rounded suddenly on Roydon. ‘What category does yours come into?’

  The only weapon to use against these Herriards, Mathilda knew, was a directness as brutal as their own. If Roydon were to reply boldly, Good! Nathaniel would be pleased. But Roydon was out of his depth, had been out of it from the moment Nathaniel’s butler had first run disparaging eyes over him. He was wavering between the hostility born of an over-sensitive inferiority-complex and nourished by his host’s rudeness, and a desire, which had its root only in his urgent need, to please. He said, stammering and flushing: ‘Well, really, that’s hardly for me to say!’

  ‘Ought to know whether you’ve done good work or bad,’ said Nathaniel, turning away.

  ‘I’m quite sure we’re all going to enjoy ourselves hugely,’ interposed Joseph, with his sunniest smile.

  ‘So am I,’ drawled Stephen. ‘I’ve just told Mathilda I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.’

  ‘You talk as though Willoughby were going to read you a lively farce!’ Paula said. ‘This is a page out of life!’

  ‘A problem-play, is it?’ said Mottisfont, with his meaningless little laugh. ‘There used to be a great vogue for them at one time. You’ll remember, Nat!’

  This was said in propitiating accents, but Nathaniel, who seemed still to be cherishing rancorous thoughts about his business-partner, pretended not to hear.

  ‘I don’t write problems,’ said Roydon, in rather too high a voice. ‘And enjoyment is the last thing I expect anyone to feel! If I’ve succeeded in making you think, I shall be satisfied.’

  ‘A noble ideal,’ commented Stephen. ‘But you shouldn’t say it as though you thought it unattainable. Not polite.’

  This sally not unnaturally covered Roydon with confusion. He flushed deeply, and floundered in a morass of disclaimers and explanations. Stephen lay back, and watched his struggles with the interest of a naturalist.

  The entrance of Sturry, followed by a footman, to bear away the tea-things saved Roydon, but it was evident that Stephen’s remark had shaken his already tottering balance. Paula rent Stephen verbally for several blistering minutes, and Valerie, feeling herself ignored, said that she couldn’t see what there was to make such a fuss about. Joseph, divining by what Mathilda could only suppose to be a sixth sense that the play was in questionable taste, said that he was sure they were all broad-minded enough not to mind.

  Nathaniel at once asserted that he was not at all broadminded, if, by that elastic term, Joseph meant that he was prepared to stomach a lot of prurient nonsense, which was all any modern play seemed to consist of. For a minute or two, Mathilda indulged the hope that Roydon would feel himself sufficiently insulted to refuse to read the play at all; but although he did indeed show signs of rising anger, he allowed himself to be won over by Paula and Valerie, who both assured him, inaccurately, that everyone was longing to hear his masterpiece.

  By this time, the butler and the footman had withdrawn, and the stage was clear. Joseph began to bustle about, trying to rearrange the chairs and sofas; and Paula, who had been hugging the typescript under one arm, gave it to Roydon, saying that he would find her word-perfect when he wanted her.

  A chair and a table were placed suitably for the author, and he seated himself, rather white about the gills, but with a belligerent jut to his chin. He cleared his throat, and Nathaniel broke the expectant silence by asking Stephen for a match.

  Stephen produced a box from his pocket, and handed it to his uncle, who began to light his pipe, saying between puffs: ‘Go on, go on! What are you waiting for?’

  ‘Wormwood,’ said Roydon throatily. ‘A play in three acts.’

  ‘Very powerful title,’ nodded Mottisfont knowledgeably.

  Roydon threw him a grateful look, and continued: ‘Act I. The scene is a back-bedroom in a third-rate lodging-house. The bedstead is of brass, with sagging springs, and two of the knobs missing from the foot-rail. The carpet is threadbare, and the wall-paper, which is flowered in a design of roses in trellis-work tied up with blue ribbons, is stained in several places.’

  ‘Stained with what?’ asked Stephen.

  Roydon, who had never considered this point, glared at him, and said: ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not to me, but if it’s blood you ought to say so, and then my betrothed can make an excuse to go away. She’s squeamish.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t! I don’t write that kind of play. The wallpaper is just stained.’

  ‘I expect it was from damp,’ suggested Maud. ‘It sounds as though it would be a damp sort of a place.’

  Stephen turned his mocking gaze upon her, and said: ‘You shouldn’t say that, Aunt. After all, we haven’t heard enough to judge yet.’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Paula fiercely. ‘Don’t pay any attention to Stephen, Willoughby! Just go on reading. Now, all of you! You must make your minds receptive, and absorb the atmosphere of the scene: it’s tremendously significant. Go on, Willoughby!’

  Roydon cleared his throat again. ‘Nottingham lace curtains shroud the windows, through which there can be obtained a vista of slate-roofs and chimney-stacks. A tawdry doll leans drunkenly on the dressing-table; and a pair of soiled pink corsets are flung across the only armchair.’ He looked round in a challenging kind of w