‘What is her part?’ Mathilda enquired, feeling herself incapable of explaining that Nathaniel profoundly disliked his niece’s association with the stage.
‘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 chimn
ey-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 way as he enunciated this, and appeared to wait for comment.
‘Ah yes, I see!’ said Joseph, with a deprecating glance at the assembled company. ‘You wish to convey an atmosphere of sordidness.’
‘Quite, quite!’ said Mottisfont, coughing.
‘And let us admit freely that you have succeeded,’ said Stephen cordially.
‘I always think there’s something frightfully sordid about corsets, don’t you?’ said Valerie. ‘Those satin ones, I mean, with millions of bones and laces and things. Of course, nowadays one simply wears an elastic belt, if one wears anything at all, which generally one doesn’t.’
‘You’ll come to it, my girl,’ prophesied Mathilda.
‘When I was young,’ remarked Maud, ‘no one thought of not wearing corsets. It would have been quite unheard-of.’
‘You corseted your minds as well as your bodies,’ interpolated Paula scornfully. ‘Thank God I live in an untrammelled age!’
‘When I was young,’ exploded Nathaniel, ‘no decent woman would have mentioned such things in public!’
‘How quaint!’ said Valerie. ‘Stephen, darling, give me a cigarette!’
He threw his case over to her. Roydon asked, trying to control his voice, whether anyone wished him to continue or not.
‘Yes, yes, for heaven’s sake get on!’ snapped Nathaniel testily. ‘If there’s any more about underwear, you can leave it out!’
‘You’ll have to, anyway,’ added Stephen.
Roydon ignored this, and read aloud in an angry voice; ‘Lucetta May is discovered, seated before her dressing-table. She is wearing a shoddy pink négligée, which imperfectly conceals –’
‘Careful!’ Stephen warned him.
‘It is grimy round the edge, and the lace is torn!’ said Roydon defiantly.
‘I think that’s a marvellous touch!’ said Valerie.
‘It’s surprising what a lot of dirt you can pick up from carpets, even where there’s a vacuum-cleaner, which I don’t suppose there would be in a place like that,’ said Maud. ‘I know those cheap theatrical lodging-houses, none better!’
‘It is not a theatrical lodging-house!’ said Roydon, goaded to madness. ‘It is, as you will shortly perceive, a bawdy lodging-house!’
Maud’s placid voice broke the stunned silence. ‘I expect they’re just as dirty,’ she said.
‘Look here!’ began Nathaniel thunderously.
Joseph intervened in a hurry. ‘Too many interruptions! We shall be putting Roydon off if we go on like this! I’m sure we’re none of us so old-fashioned that we mind a little outspokenness!’
‘Speak for yourself!’ said Nathaniel.
‘He is speaking for himself,’ said Stephen. ‘To do him justice, he is also speaking for most of the assembled company.’
‘Perhaps you would rather I didn’t read you any more?’ suggested Roydon stiffly. ‘I warn you, it is not meat for weak stomachs!’
‘Oh, you must go on!’ Valerie exclaimed. ‘I know I’m going to adore it. Do, everybody, stop interrupting!’
‘She sits motionless, staring at her reflection in the mirror,‘ suddenly declaimed Paula, in thrilling accents. ‘Then she picks up a lipstick, and begins wearily to rub it on her mouth. A knock falls on the door. With a movement of instinctive coquetry, she pats her curls into position, straightens her tired body, and calls, “Come in!”’
The spectacle of Paula enacting these movements in the improbable setting of a respectable drawing-room proved to be too much for Mathilda. She explained between chokes that she was very sorry, but that recitations always had this deplorable effect on her.
‘What you can possibly find to laugh at I fail to see!’ said Paula, a dangerous light in her eyes. ‘Laughter was not the reaction I expected!’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Mathilda assured her penitently. ‘In fact, the more tragic recitations are the more I feel impelled to laugh.’
‘I know so well what you mean!’ said Joseph. ‘Ah, Paula, my dear, Tilda is paying you a greater tribute than you know! You conveyed such a feeling of tension in those few gestures that our Tilda’s nerves frayed under it. I remember once, when I was playing in Montreal, to a packed house, working up to a moment of unbearable tension. I felt my audience with me, hanging, as it were, on my lips. I paused for my climax; I knew myself to be holding the house in the hollow of my hand. Suddenly a man broke into laughter! Disconcerting? Yes, but I knew why he laughed, why he could not help laughing!’
‘I wouldn’t mind hazarding a guess myself,’ agreed Stephen.
This pleased Nathaniel so much that he changed his mind about banning the reading of Wormwood, and bade Roydon, for the third time, to get on with it.
Roydon said: ‘Enter Mrs Perkins, the landlady,’ and doggedly read a paragraph describing this character in terms revolting enough to have arrested the attention of his hearers had not this been diverted by Maud, who was moving stealthily about the room in search of something.
‘The suspense is killing me!’ Stephen announced at last. ‘What are you looking for, Aunt?’
‘It’s all right, my dear: I’m not going to disturb anyone,’ replied Maud untruthfully. ‘I just wondered where I had laid my knitting down. Please go on reading, Mr Roydon! So interesting! It quite takes one back.’
Stephen, who had joined Mathilda in the search for the knitting, remarked, sotto voce, that he had always wondered where Joe had picked Maud up, and now he knew. Mathilda, unearthing an embryo sock on four steel needles from behind a cushion, told him he was a cad.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Maud, settling herself by the fire again. ‘Now I can be getting on with it while I listen.’
The rest of Roydon’s play was read to the accompaniment of the measured click of Maud’s needles. It was by no means a bad play; sometimes, Mathilda thought, it hovered on the edge of brilliance; but it was no play to read to a drawing-room audience. As she had expected, it was often violent, always morbid; and it contained much that could with advantage have been omitted. Paula enjoyed herself immensely in the big scene; and neither she nor Roydon seemed capable of realising that the spectacle of his niece impersonating a fallen woman under tragic circumstances was unlikely to afford Nathaniel the least gratification. Indeed, it was only by a tremendous effort of will-power that Nathaniel was able to control himself; and while Paula’s deep voice vibrated through the room, he grew more and more fidgety, and muttered under his breath in a way that boded ill for both dramatist and actress.
It was past seven o’clock before the play ended, and during the last act Nathaniel three times consulted his watch. Once, Stephen said something in his ear which made him smile grimly, but when Roydon at last laid down his typescript there was no trace of a smile on his face. He said in awful tones: ‘Very edifying!’
Paula, carried away by her own performance, was deaf to the note of anger in his voice. Her dark eyes glowed; there was a lovely colour in her cheeks; and her thin, expressive hands were restless, as always when she was excited. She started towards Nathaniel, holding out those hands. ‘Isn’t it a wonderful play? Isn’t it?’
Mathilda, Joseph, Valerie, and even Mottisfont, whom Wormwood had profoundly shocked, hurried into speech, drowning whatever blistering things Nathaniel meant to say. Stephen lounged at his ease, and watched them derisively. Dread of what Nathaniel might yet say to Roydon made them praise the play in exaggerated terms. Roydon was pleased, and triumphant, but his eyes kept travelling to his host’s face with an expression on them of so much anxiety that everyone felt sorry for him, and repeated that the play was arresting, original, and quite made one think.
Paula, with an obtuseness which made Mathilda want to shake her, brushed aside the compliments she was receiving on her acting, and again attacked her uncle. ‘Now that you’ve heard it, Uncle Nat, you will help Will
oughby, won’t you?’
‘If by that you mean will I give you the money to squander on a piece of what I can only call salacious balderdash, no, I won’t!’ he responded, not, however, in a loud enough voice to be overheard by the author.
Paula stared at him, as though she scarcely grasped his meaning. ‘Can’t you see – can’t you see that the part is made for me?’ she asked, with a little gasp.
‘Upon my soul!’ exploded Nathaniel. ‘I should like to know what the world is coming to when a girl of your breeding can stand there and tell me the part of a harlot is made for her!’
‘That out-of-date rubbish!’ Paula said contemptuously. ‘We are talking of Art!’
‘Oh, we are, are we?’ said Nathaniel, in a grim voice. ‘And I suppose that is your idea of Art, is it, young woman? Well, all I have to say is that it isn’t mine!’
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