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Authors: Georgette Heyer
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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
"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
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