Джорджетт Хейер - Envious Casca

The oddments consisted of two streamers, a large paper bell, a sprig of mistletoe, a hammer, and a tin of drawing-pins. 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 simpleminded 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!" said Valerie.

As Stephen's treatment of his uncle was cavalier to the point of brutality, this remark was less fatuous than it sounded.

"Ah, I understand Stephen!" Joseph said, changing under her eyes from the skittish uncle into a worldly-wise observer of life. "To know all is to forgive all."

"I always think that's frightfully true," said Valerie, adding after a moment's reflection: "But has Stephen - I mean, is there anything - ?"

"No, no!" Joseph replied rather hastily. "But life hasn't been easy for him, poor old chap! Well! life hasn't been easy for me either, and perhaps that helps me to understand him."

He smiled in a whimsical way, but as Valerie was not at all interested in the difficulties of his life, she did not realise that he had stopped being wordly-wise, and was now a Gallant and Pathetic figure. She said vaguely: "Oh yes, I suppose so!"

Joseph was finding her a little difficult. A less selfcentred young woman would have responded to this gambit, he felt, and would have asked him sympathetic questions. With a sigh, he accepted her disinterest, and said, resuming his role of kindly uncle: "But that's quite enough about me! My life is nearing its close, after all. But Stephen has his all before him. Ah, when I look back to what I was at Stephen's age, I can see so many points of similarity between us! I was ever a rebel, too. I expect you find that hard to believe of such a respectable old fogy, eh?"

"Oh no!" said Valerie.

"Eheu fugaces!" sighed Joseph. "When I look back, do you know, I can't find it in me to regret those carefree years?"

"Oh?" said Valerie.

"No," said Joseph, damped. "But why should I bore a pretty young thing like you with tales of my misspent youth? It was about Stephen I wanted to speak to you."

"He's been utterly foul all day," responded his betrothed with great frankness. "It makes it absolutely lousy for me, too, only he's so damned selfish I don't suppose he even thinks of that. As a matter of fact, I've got a complete hate against him at the moment."

"But you love him!" said Joseph, taken aback.

"Yes; but you know what I mean."

"Perhaps I do," said Joseph, with a wise nod. "And I'm relying on you to bring your influence to bear on the dear old fellow."

"What?" asked Valerie, turning her large eyes upon him in astonishment.

He pressed her arm slightly. "Ah, you're not going to tell me that you haven't got any! No, no, that won't do!"

"But what on earth do you expect me to do?" she demanded.

"Don't let him annoy his uncle," he said. "Try to get him to behave sensibly! After all, though I suppose I'm the last person to preach wisdom, as this world knows it (for I'm afraid I've never had a scrap of it my whole life long!), it would be silly, wouldn't it, to throw away all this just out of perversity?"

A wave of his hand indicated their surroundings. Valerie's eyes brightened. "Oh, Mr. Herriard, is he really going to leave everything to Stephen?"

"You mustn't ask me that, my dear," Joseph replied. "I've done my best, that's all I can say, and now it depends on Stephen, and on you, too."

"Yes, but I don't believe Mr. Herriard likes me much," objected Valerie. "It's funny, because generally I go over big with old men. I don't know why, I'm sure."

"Look in your mirror!" responded Joseph gallantly. "I'm afraid poor Nat is a bit of a misogynist. You mustn't mind that. Just keep that young man of yours in order, that's all I ask."

"Well, I'll try," said Valerie. "Not that he's likely to pay any attention to me, because he never does."

"Now you're talking nonsense!" Joseph rallied her playfully.

"Well, all I can say is that it seems to me he pays a darned sight more attention to Mathilda Clare than he does to me," said Valerie. "In fact, I wonder you don't set her on to him!"

"Tilda?" exclaimed Joseph. "No, no, my dear, you're quite wrong there! Good gracious me, as though Stephen would ever look twice at Tilda!"

"Oh, do you honestly think so?" she said hopefully. "Of course, she isn't in the least pretty. I mean, I like her awfully, and all that sort of thing, but I shouldn't call her attractive, would you?"

"Not a bit!" said Joseph. "Tilda's just a good sort. And now we must go and wash our hands, or we shall both be late for tea, and I shall be making Stephen jealous! I'll just lean the steps up against the wall, and finish the decorations after tea. There! I don't think they'll be in anyone's way, do you?"

Since the half-landing was a broad one, the steps were not, strictly speaking, in anyone's way, but Nathaniel, when he came out of the library, a few minutes later, took instant exception to them, and said that he wished to God Joe would come to the end of all this tomfoolery.

Stephen, descending the stairs, identified himself with this wish in no uncertain tones.

"Now then, you two wet-blankets!" said Joseph. "Tea! Ah, there you are, Maud, my dear! We wait for you to lead the way. Come along, Nat, old man! Come along, Stephen!"

"Makes you feel quite at home, doesn't he?" Stephen said, grinning at Nathaniel.

Joseph's heartiness so nauseated Nathaniel that this malicious remark made him feel quite friendly towards his nephew. He gave a snort of laughter, and followed Maud into the drawing-room.

Joseph managed to tell Mathilda during the course of tea that he had (as he expressed it) tipped the wink to Valerie. She thought his impulse kind but misguided, but he triumphantly called her attention to the better relationship already existing between Stephen and Nathaniel. Whether this arose from the exertion of Valerie's influence, or whether, faced by the prospect of having a play read aloud to them by its author, they had been drawn momentarily together by a bond of mutual misfortune, was a point Mathilda felt to be as yet undecided, but it was evident that Stephen was making an effort to please his uncle.