Free Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer Page A

got bad taste, do you hear me? This is the last time either of you will come to Lexham! Put that in your pipe, and smoke it!"
    "Tut-tut!" said Stephen, and walked out of the room, greatly disconcerting Sturry, who was standing outside with a tray of cocktails, listening with deep appreciation to the quarrel raging within.
    "I beg your pardon, sir; I was about to enter," said Sturry, fixing Stephen with a quelling eye.
    "What a lot you'll have to regale them with in the servants' hall, won't you?" said Stephen amiably.
    "I was never one to gossip, sir, such being beneath me," replied Sturry, in a very grand and despising way.
    He stalked into the room, bearing his burden. Paula, who was addressing an impassioned monologue to her elder uncle, broke off short, and rushed out; Joseph urged Valerie, and Maud, and Mottisfont to go up and change for dinner; and Nathaniel told Sturry to bring him a glass of the pale sherry.
    While this family strife had been in full swing, Mathilda, in the library, had been explaining to Willoughby, as tactfully as she could, that Nathaniel was not at all likely to finance his play. He was strung up after his reading, and at first he seemed hardly to understand her. Plainly, Paula had led him to suppose that her uncle's help was a foregone conclusion. He went perfectly white when the sense of what Mathilda was saying penetrated his brain, and said in a trembling voice: "Then it's all no use!"
    "I'm afraid it's no use as far as Nat is concerned," Mathilda said. "It isn't his kind of play. But he isn't the only potential backer in the world, you know."
    He shook his head. "I don't know any rich people. Why won't he back it? Why shouldn't p-people like me be g-given a chance? It isn't fair! People with money - people who don't care for anything but -"
    "I think you'd be far better advised to send your play to some producer in the usual way," said Mathilda, in a bracing voice calculated to check hysteria.
    "They're all afraid of it!" he said. "They say it hasn't got box-office appeal. But I know - I know it's a good play! I've - I've sweated blood over it! I can't give it up like this! It means so much to me! You don't know what it means to me, Miss Clare!"
    She began gently to suggest that he had it in him to write other plays, plays with the desired box-office appeal, but he interrupted her, saying violently that he would rather starve than write the sort of play she meant. Mathilda began to feel a little impatient, and was quite glad to see Paula stride into the room.
    "Paula!" said Roydon despairingly, "is it true, what Miss Clare says? Is he going to refuse to put up the money?"
    Paula was flushed and bright-eyed, stimulated by her quarrel with Nathaniel. She said: "I've just told him what I think of him! I told him -"
    "Well, we don't want you to tell us," said Mathilda, losing patience. "You ought to have known that there wasn't a hope!"
    Paula's gaze flickered to her face. "I shall get the money. I always get what I want, always! And I want this more than I've ever wanted anything in my life!"
    Judging by those of Nat's remarks which I was privileged to hear -"
    "Oh, that's nothing!" Paula said, tossing back her hair. "He doesn't mind having rows. We none of us do. We like rows! I shall talk to him again soon. You'll see!"
    "I hope to God I shan't!" said Mathilda.
    "Ah, you're so un-understanding!" Paula said. "I know him much better than you do. Of course I shall get the money! I know I shall!"
    "Don't buoy yourself up with false hopes: you won't!" said Mathilda.
    "I've got to get it!" Paula said, looking rapt, and tense. "I've got to!"
    Roydon glanced uncertainly from her glowing face to Mathilda's discouraging one. He said in a dejected voice: "I suppose I'd better go and change. It doesn't seem much use -"
    Paula said: "I'm coming too. It is of use, Willoughby! I always get my own way! Really!"
    A merry Christmas! Mathilda thought, watching them go. She took a cigarette from the box on the