‘I will lay you odds you’re in for a disappointment, ducky. I don’t wish to throw a damper on your girlish enthusiasm, but the moment doesn’t seem to me propitious.’
‘It’s all Stephen’s fault for bringing that sickening blonde here!’ Paula said. ‘Anyway, I’ve got Uncle Joe to put in a word for me.’
‘That’ll help a lot,’ mocked Stephen. ‘Just fancy!’
‘Lay off Joe!’ commanded Mathilda. ‘He may be God’s own ass, but he’s the only decent member of your family I’ve ever been privileged to meet. Besides, he likes you.’
‘Well, I don’t like being liked,’ said Stephen.
Three
THERE WAS A LIGHT COVERING OF SNOW ON THE GROUND
on Christmas Eve. Mathilda, sipping her early tea, reflected with a wry smile that Joseph would talk of a white Christmas all day, perhaps hunt for a pair of skates. He was a tiresome old man, she thought, but disarmingly pathetic. No one was trying to make his party a success, least of all Nathaniel. Yet how could he have expected such an illassorted gathering of people to mix well? Pondering this, she was forced to admit that such imperceptive optimism was part and parcel of his guileless nature. She suspected that he saw himself as the beloved uncle, everybody’s confidant.
She began slowly to eat one of the thin slices of breadand-butter which had been brought up with the tea. What on earth had made Stephen come to Lexham? Generally he came when he wanted something: money, of course, which Nathaniel nearly always gave him. This time it was Paula who wanted money, not, apparently, Stephen. From what she had heard, Stephen had had rather a serious quarrel with Nathaniel not so many weeks since. It hadn’t been their first quarrel, of course: they were always quarrelling; but the cause of it – Valerie – still existed. Extraordinary that Joseph should have prevailed upon Nat to receive Valerie! Or did Nathaniel believe that Stephen’s infatuation would burn itself out? Recalling his behaviour on the previous evening, she had to admit that this seemed very likely to happen, if it had not already happened.
Valerie, of course, saw herself as the mistress of Lexham: a horrible prospect! And, thought Mathilda, that was odd too, when you came to think of it. Odd that Stephen should have risked bringing his Valerie into close contact with Nathaniel. Enough to ruin all his chances of inheriting Nathaniel’s fortune, you would suppose. Stephen looked upon himself as Nathaniel’s heir; sometimes Mathilda wondered whether Nat had made his will after all, overcoming that unreasoning dislike he had of naming his successor. Like Queen Elizabeth. Strange, in a man usually so hard-headed! But they were strange, these Herriards: one never got to the bottom of them.
Paula: now, what had she meant by all that nonsense about the evil influence of the house? Did she really mean it, or was she trying to instil a distaste for the place in Valerie’s feather-brain. She would be quite capable of that, Mathilda thought. If there were something wrong, it wasn’t the house, but the people in it. There was an uneasiness, but what on earth possessed Paula to try to make it worse? Queer, flamelike creature! She lived at such high pressure, wanted things so desperately, gave such rein to her uncurbed emotions that you could never be sure when you were seeing the real Paula, and when the unconscious actress.
The playwright: Mathilda, no sentimentalist, felt sorry for him. Probably he’d never been given a fair chance; never would be given one. Quite likely his play would be found to be a clever piece of work, possibly morbid, almost certainly lacking in box-office appeal. He was obviously hard-up: his dinner-jacket was badly cut, and had worn very shiny, poor kid! There was a frightened look behind the belligerence in his eyes, as though he saw some bleak future lying before him. He had tried to interest Nathaniel, falling between his dread of seeming obsequious and his desperate need of enlisting support. He wouldn’t get a penny out of Nathaniel, of course. What a cruel little fool Paula was, to have bolstered him up with false hopes!
Stephen: Mathilda stirred restlessly as her thoughts drifted towards Stephen. Cross-grained, like his Uncle Nathaniel. Yes, but he was no fool, and yet had got himself engaged to a pretty nit-wit. You couldn’t ascribe all Stephen’s vagaries to his boyhood’s sick disillusionment. Or could you? Mathilda put down her empty teacup. She supposed adolescent boys were kittle-cattle: people said they were. Stephen had adored another feather-brain, his mother, unlike Paula, who had never cherished illusions about Kitten.
Kitten! Even her children had called her that. What a name for a mother! thought Mathilda. Poor little Kitten, in the widow’s weeds which had suited her so well! Lovely little Kitten, who had to be protected from the buffets of this cruel world! Clever little Kitten, who had married, not once, but three times, and who was now Mrs Cyrus P. Thanet, indulging her nerves and her extravagant tastes in Chicago! Yes, perhaps Stephen, who had seen through her so reluctantly, and had taken it so hard, had been soured by his discovery. But what the devil possessed him, then, to get engaged to Valerie, surely a second Kitten? He was regretting it, too, if his indecent laughter last night were anything to go by.
Valerie herself ? Resolutely stifling an impulse to write her off as a gold-digger, Mathilda supposed she might have been attracted by those very peculiarities in Stephen which would most quickly disgust her: his careless rudeness, his roughness, the indifferent, sardonic gleam in his deep-set grey eyes.
Mathilda found herself wondering what Maud thought about it all, if she thought anything: a question as yet undecided. Maud, with her eternal games of Patience, the chatty biographies of royal personages which she wallowed in! Mathilda felt that there must be more to Maud than Maud chose to reveal. No mind could be quite so static, surely! She herself had sometimes suspected that Maud’s placidity masked a good deal of intelligence; but when, idly curious, she had probed Maud to discover it, she had been foiled by the armour of futility in which Maud so securely encased herself. No one, Mathilda was ready to swear, knew what Maud really thought about her preposterous husband, about her brusque brother-in-law, about the quarrels that flared up between Herriard and Herriard. She did not seem to resent, or even to notice, Nathaniel’s contempt of Joseph; apparently she had acquiesced in the arrangement which made her a guest on sufferance in her brother-in-law’s house.
That Joseph found nothing to irk him in his position as hanger-on could not surprise anyone who knew him. Joseph, thought Mathilda, had a genius for twisting unpalatable truth to pleasing fiction. Just as Joseph saw Stephen as a shy young man with a heart of gold, so he would, without much difficulty, see Nathaniel as a fond brother, devoted (in spite of every evidence to the contrary) to himself. From the day of his first foisting himself and his wife on Nathaniel’s generosity, he had begun to build up a comforting fantasy about himself and Nat. Nat, he said, was a lonely man, ageing fast; Nat did not like to admit it, but in reality he leaned much on his younger brother; Nat would, in fact, be lost without Joe.
And if Joe could see Nat in such false colours, in what roseate mist did he clothe his own, faintly ridiculous person? Mathilda thought that she could read Joe clearly enough. A failure in life, it was necessary to his self-esteem that he should see himself as a success at least in his crowning part of Peacemaker, Beloved Uncle. Yes, that would explain Joe’s insistence on this dreadful family gathering.
A laugh shook Mathilda as she flung back the bedclothes, and prepared to get up. Poor old Joe, trotting from member to member of this house-party, and pouring out quarts of what he fondly believed to be balm! If he did not drive Nat at least to distraction, it would be a miracle. He was like a clumsy, well-meaning St Bernard puppy, dropped amongst a set of people who were not fond of dogs.
When she walked into the dining-room presently, Mathilda found that her first waking fears were already being fulfilled. ‘Good morning, Tilda! A white Christmas, after all!’ Joseph said.
Nathaniel had breakfasted early, and had gone away. Mathilda sat down beside Edgar Mottisfont, and hoped that he would not think it necessary to entertain her with conversation.
H
e did not. Apart from some desultory comments on the weather, he said nothing. It occurred to her that he was a little ill-at-ease. She wondered why, remembered that he had wanted a private interview with Nathaniel on the previous evening, and hoped, with a sinking heart, that more trouble was not brewing.
Valerie, breakfasting on half a grape-fruit and some dry toast, and explaining why she did so, wanted to know what they were all going to do. Only Joseph seemed to welcome this desire to map out the day’s amusements. Stephen said that he was going to walk; Paula declared that she never made plans; Roydon said nothing at all; and Mathilda only groaned.
‘I believe there are some very pretty walks in the neighbourhood,’ offered Maud.
‘A good tramp in the snow! Almost you tempt me, Stephen!’ Joseph said, rubbing his hands together. ‘What does Val say, I wonder? Shall we all brave the elements, and blow the cobwebs away?’
‘On second thoughts,’ said Stephen, ‘I shall stay indoors.’ Joseph bore up under the offensiveness of this remark, merely wagging his head, and saying with a laugh: ‘Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning!’
‘Aren’t you going to read your play to us, Willoughby?’ asked Valerie, turning her large blue eyes in his direction.
It never took Valerie more than a day to arrive at Christian names, but Roydon felt flattered, rather excited, at hearing his on her lips. He said, stammering a little, that he would like to read his play to her.
Paula at once threw a damper on to this scheme. ‘It’s no use reading it just to Valerie,’ she said. ‘You’re going to read it to everybody.’
‘Not to me,’ said Stephen.
Roydon bristled, and began to say something rather involved about having no desire to bore anyone with his play.
‘I hate being read to,’ explained Stephen casually. ‘Now, now!’ gently scolded Joseph. ‘We are all longing to hear the play, I’m sure. You mustn’t pay any attention to old Stephen. What do you say to giving us a reading after tea? We’ll gather round the fire, and enjoy a real treat.’
‘Yes, if Willoughby starts to read it directly after tea, Uncle Nat won’t have time to get away,’ said Paula, brightening.
‘Nor anyone else,’ interpolated her brother.
This remark not unnaturally involved Roydon in a declaration of his unwillingness to inflict the literary flowers of his brain upon an unsympathetic audience. Stephen merely said Good! but everyone else plunged into conciliatory speeches. Finally, it was agreed that Roydon should read his play after tea. Anyone, said Paula, casting a dagger-glance at her brother, incapable of appreciating Art might absent himself with her goodwill.
It next transpired that Joseph had instructed the headgardener to uproot a young fir tree, and to bring it up to the house for decoration. He called for volunteers in this festive work, but Paula evidently considered a Christmas tree frivolous, Stephen was apparently nauseated by the very mention of such a thing, Edgar Mottisfont thought it work for the younger members of the party, and Maud, plainly, had no intention of exerting herself in any way, at all.
Maud had been reading more of the Life of the Empress of Austria, and created a diversion by informing the company that the Hungarians had all worshipped Elizabeth. She feared, however, that her mind had not been stable, and suggested to Roydon that she would provide an excellent subject for a play.
Roydon appeared bewildered. He said that costume pieces (with awful scorn) were hardly in his line.
‘She seems to have had a very dramatic life,’ persisted Maud. ‘It wouldn’t be sword-and-cloak, you know.’
Joseph intervened hastily, saying that he thought it would hardly be suitable, and could he not persuade Maud to lay aside the book and help him with the tree?
He could not. In the end, only Mathilda responded to his appeal for assistance. She asserted her undying love for tinsel decorations, and professed her eagerness to hang innumerable coloured balls and icicles on to the tree. ‘Though I think, Joe,’ she said, when the company had dispersed, ‘that no one else feels any sympathy with your desire for a Merry Christmas.’
‘They will, my dear; they will, when it comes to the point,’ said Joseph, incurably optimistic. ‘I have got a collection of little presents to hang on the tree. And crackers, of course!’
‘Does it strike you that Edgar Mottisfont has got something on his mind?’ asked Mathilda.
‘Yes,’ Joseph replied. ‘I fancy there is some little matter connected with the business which has gone wrong. You know what a stick-in-the-mud Nat is! But it will blow over: you’ll see!’
Judging from Mottisfont’s crushed demeanour at luncheon, his interview with his sleeping partner had not been in keeping with the Christmas spirit. He looked dejected, while Nathaniel sat in disapproving gloom, repulsing all attempts to draw him into conversation.
Valerie, who seemed during the course of the morning to have made great headway with the dramatist, was unaffected by her host’s blighting conduct, but everyone else seemed to feel it. Stephen was frankly morose, his sister restless, Mathilda silent, the dramatist nervous, and Joseph impelled by innate tactlessness to rally the rest of the guests on their lack of spirits.
The gloom induced by himself had the beneficent effect of raising Nathaniel’s spirits at least. To find that his own illhumour had quenched the gaiety of his guests appeared to afford him considerable gratification. Almost he rubbed his hands together with glee; and by the time the company rose from the table, he was so far restored to equanimity as to enquire what his guests proposed to do to amuse themselves during the afternoon.
Maud broke her long, ruminative silence by announcing that she would have her rest as usual, and very likely take her book up with her. Still cherishing the fancy that the life of the Empress would make a good play, she said that of course it would be rather difficult to stage that erratic lady’s travels. ‘But I daresay you could get over that,’ she told Roydon kindly.
‘Willoughby doesn’t write that sort of play,’ said Paula.
‘Well, dear, I just thought it might be interesting,’ Maud replied. ‘Such a romantic life!’
Nathaniel, perceiving from the expressions of weary boredom on the faces of his guests, that the Life of the Empress Elizabeth was not a popular subject, at once, and with illdisguised malignity, affected a keen interest in it. So everyone, except Stephen, who lounged out of the room, had to hear again about the length of the Empress’s hair, the circushorses, and the jealousy of the Archduchess.
‘Who would have thought,’ murmured Mathilda in Mottisfont’s ear, ‘that we undistinguished commoners should be haunted by an Empress?’
He gave her a quick, perfunctory smile, but said nothing.
‘Who cares about Elizabeth of Austria, anyway?’ asked Paula impatiently.
‘It’s history, dear,’ explained Maud.
‘Well, I hate history. I live in the present.’
‘Talking of the present,’ struck in Joseph, ‘who is going to help Tilda and me to finish the tree?’
He directed an appealing look at his niece as he spoke. ‘Oh, all right!’ Paula said ungraciously. ‘I suppose I shall have to. Though I think it’s nonsense myself.’
Since it had begun to snow again, and no other entertainment offered, Valerie and Roydon also joined the treedecorating party. They came into the billiard-room with the intention of turning on the radio, but they were quite unable to resist the lure of glittering tinsel, packets of artificial frost, and coloured candles. Roydon was at first inclined to lecture the company on the childishness of keeping up old customs, and Teutonic ones at that, but when he saw Mathilda clipping candlesticks on to the branches, he forgot that it was all very much beneath him, and said: ‘Here, you’d better let me do that! If you put it there, it’ll set light to the whole thing.’
Valerie, finding several boxes of twisted wire icicles, began to attach them to the tree, saying at intervals: ‘Oh, look! it really is rather sweet, isn’t it? Oh, I say, here’s a plac
e with absolutely nothing on it!’
Joseph, it was plain to see, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He beamed triumphantly at Mathilda, rubbed his hands together, and trotted round and round the tree, extravagantly admiring everybody’s handiwork, and picking up the rickety steps whenever they fell over, which they frequently did. Towards teatime, Maud came in, and said that it looked quite a picture, and she had never realised that the Empress was a cousin of Ludwig of Bavaria, the mad one who had Wagner to stay, and behaved in such a peculiar, though rather touching, way.
Paula, who, after an abortive attempt to discuss with Mathilda the probable duration of Nathaniel’s life, had bearded her uncle in his study, interrupting him in the middle of a business talk with Mottisfont, joined the Christmas-tree party midway through the afternoon in a mood of glowering bad temper. Apart from making a number of destructive criticisms, she offered no help with the decorations, but walked about the room, smoking, and arguing that, since Nathaniel meant to leave her money in his will, she might just as well have it before he was dead. No one paid much attention to this, except Mathilda, who advised her not to count her chickens before they were hatched.