Myra Carrol

by Noel Streatfeild

  Myra was eleven when the building of the bungalow was started. Uncle John was down to see the foundations laid. He was his quiet self but he squeezed Myra’s arm and said with enthusiasm: “This is a bit of an occasion, isn’t it?” Myra smiled the kindly smile of a parent watching a child at his first pantomime. She did not want to spoil her uncle’s pleasure, but she could see nothing to be excited about. It was inclined to rain, there was a cold wind, and, bent double, working with what seemed to her incredible slowness, were the builders. She felt she was being disappointing and tried to explain herself.

  “Of course it’s awfully nice it’s started, but I like things to happen quickly. It seems so slow.”

  “Ah, that’s because you don’t see what I see.” He nodded a good-morning to the foreman and started to walk home. “For years now I’ve been building that bungalow.”

  “But you didn’t know Miriam and George would want it.”

  “Not your Miriam and George, but a Miriam and George.”

  “When can I tell Miriam about it?”

  “Whenever you like.”

  “Are you going to give it to her and George?”

  “To you. It’s going to be your next birthday present.”

  “And I’m to give it to Miriam?”

  “You’ll let it to them. George will pay you rent for it. Not much—three or four shillings a week.”

  “That’s a lot. I only get a shilling a week now.”

  “Yes, but you’ll have to put the rent by for repairs. Of course, a new well-built place won’t need much doing to it, but it’s your business and, incidentally, to your advantage, to keep it properly.”

  Myra kicked a stone out of her way.

  “I don’t want to be rude about a present, but it seems to me I won’t get much out of this one. I mean, not like I have out of the necklace you gave me this year.”

  He laughed.

  “It’s a very handsome present as a matter of fact. It’s an investment. It’s yours; if the worst happens to you there is somewhere for you to live.”

  “Nothing can happen to me. I’m going to have lots of money. Daddy told me so.”

  “Your father meant you would as things are, but who can see into the future. I shall have a talk to your father next time he’s home, and suggest that he raises your weekly income and that you put some of that, together with the rent George will pay you, by for repairs to the bungalow. It’ll teach you something about money. I can see you going to call on Miriam and hearing that the chimney smokes, or there’s a door that doesn’t shut, or a coal shed is needed, and you’ll want to blame the landlord that things aren’t right or being done, and then you’ll realise that you are the landlord. That it’s you that have got to pay. Then you and Miriam and George can study your post office savings account, and George can produce some of his savings, and between you I don’t doubt you’ll come to a fair and sensible arrangement.”

  Myra felt even more dubious about the value of her birthday present when she told Miriam about it. There were no bungalows in the neighbourhood and Myra’s hazy second-hand knowledge did not help her.

  “No stairs! What, not up to the bedroom?”

  “Uncle John says nobody ever thinks of the housewife. That means you. If they did they would build bungalows that save your legs. That’s why there are no stairs.”

  “He’s a very kind gentleman, your uncle, but he’s only a man and you can’t expect them to know what’s nice. George’s mother won’t half think it queer there being no stairs.”

  “But there’s a bathroom,” Miriam’s face expressed what she thought of that, “and it means you can get married as soon as it’s built.”

  Miriam cheered up a little after she had talked to George. She came in to call Myra.

  “George wasn’t half pleased about the bungalow. He acted ever so silly. I told him to remember I wasn’t Mrs. Drake yet. Seems there’s been a lot of talk about this bungalow down at ‘The Dragon.’ The men who are building it say there’s everything of the best going in, might be a gentleman’s house. They say it seems a pity to put all that work into a bungalow, still, they reckon whoever gets it is lucky.”

  Myra sat up hugging her knees.

  “Did you fix the date of the wedding?”

  Miriam giggled.

  “Goodness, Miss Myra! No, of course not. There’s no reason to rush and tear. All the same, having a place to go to does make it nearer.”

  It was not having a place to go to that settled the date of the marriage. The bungalow was built and the papers relating to it had been formally handed to Myra on her twelfth birthday, and still no date was fixed. Myra, dancing with impatience, was told by George that he was hoping for the autumn when he could see his way clear. Miriam excused him.

  “I know he has steady work, and we’ve got a place to go, Miss Myra, but George wants to have enough put by to stand by us if things should go wrong. You never know, do you?”

  It was the European War that made George throw caution to the winds. They were married in the third week of August, 1914. They would have been married before because George, slow about everything else, insisted that he must join immediately, but cook said that Miriam must have a proper wedding or she would break her heart. The church was no great distance from the house. Andrews had gone from the moment he set eyes on a recruiting office; it was a lovely day so the household walked to the church. Connie, egged on by Myra, had bought a new hat. It was a floral affair which, as she pointed out, she was unlikely ever to wear again. It sat on her head looking detached and ludicrous, but Myra was delighted.

  “It’s a proper wedding hat, Foggy, and you look awfully grand.”

  Myra, to Miriam’s embarrassment, insisted on being bridesmaid. There was no time to have anything made, but she wore an almost new pink party dress and she had a hat trimmed to match, and a bouquet arranged by George of pink sweet peas. Cook was torn between wishing to keep the respect of the household, and her wish to be recognised as the person who had the right to cry at the wedding. Myra saved her by choosing her clothes for her.

  “You must buy something new. I think you’d look simply gorgeous in purple with a bouquet of roses.”

  Cook was on her dignity.

  “What’d I want with a bouquet? An Aunty doesn’t carry a bouquet.”

  Myra had never heard the house gossip, and would not have understood it if she had.

  “You aren’t a bit like an aunt. You’re much more important. If I was being married I’d make Foggy have a bouquet. Flowers sort of show importance, I think.”

  The bride wore an atrocious shade of blue and George, crimson in the face and stiff about the collar, was very respectable in black.

  There was a reception after the wedding up at the house. Champagne, wedding-cake and all. After it was over Myra leant on the parapet and watched the departing guests stream down the hill. She kicked at the stonework. Connie glanced at her.

  “If you’re going to do that, dear, I should take off those slippers, don’t you think?”

  “I do hate things being over. We seem to have looked forward to this for days and days and when it comes it doesn’t take any time at all.”

  Uncle John sat down by her.

  “I hope they are pleased with their bungalow.”

  Myra straightened and leant against him.

  “They’re going to have supper cooked by Miriam. Foggy gave her saucepans for her wedding present. Cook’s been giving her cooking lessons. It seems odd to me to want to cook things on the very day you’re married. I’d have got in something cold.”

  Uncle John put his arm round her.

  “As he’s joining up she won’t have many chances to cook his supper. I expect she feels that.”

  Myra shook herself.

  “I hate the way everybody talks like that. The war won’t last long.”
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  “I wonder. It’s a mercy that for once your parents were not gadding about Europe. America’s the best place for them.”

  “Perhaps they’ll come back,” Myra suggested. Then a thought struck her. “All the ices weren’t eaten. Would you both like one if I brought them out?”

  Connie tried to speak casually.

  “Don’t you think they’ll come back? I mean, in wartime your own country is where you want to be.”

  “No, they won’t. My brother-in-law took my sister to America deliberately. He didn’t tell my sister, of course, but he was afraid war was coming and he wanted her within reach of a good climate for wintering in.”

  Connie let a little relieved sigh escape her. Then, thinking it had been noticeable, tried to explain it away.

  “That makes things easier. With Andrews gone and George going it would have been difficult to make them really comfortable. Now we can picnic.” She had taken off her garnished hat and looked her usual prim self but Uncle John, looking at her, thought there was something girlish, almost childish about her. Then, even as the thought came to him, he placed what it was. It was eagerness, the same sort of eagerness that made Myra so alive.

  “You have some scheme up your sleeve?”

  “It’s just we’re so isolated up here and we must have some means of getting about, that I thought, if you think her parents wouldn’t mind, we could lay up that big car and get another and I could learn to drive it.”

  Uncle John was puzzled. He could not know that the car driving was one of a dozen schemes Connie had thought out since war had been declared, all of which had hung on the question whether Myra’s parents would return or not. She had been ashamed at how greatly she had dreaded the thought of their return. It had been so likely that they would come back and, if they had, it would be the end of her happiness. She had thought the matter out fairly, she had accepted the fact that if they came for the war, however long that might last, she would do better to leave. She had, save for their visits, been in control too long to accept supervision. She had searched her soul to find if she was wrong to pray that they would decide to stay in America, and had decided she was not. She was educating Myra to a plan, and she did not want that plan upset until she herself passed the child on, so that others might give her that final polish which it was beyond her abilities to give.

  “A very good idea,” Uncle John agreed. “But do you know anything about driving?”

  “Andrews has taught Myra. Only in an empty lane, of course, and I have often been out with them, and sometimes I drove. He said it would take no time to teach me.”

  Myra came round the house with three plates of pink ice cream on a tray. Fortesque came wriggling behind her. She called out:

  “I’ve taken off his white bow, poor boy, he simply hated it.”

  “That child frightens me sometimes,” said John. “She counts so much on happiness.”

  “Perhaps she’ll get it.”

  Myra was almost on them.

  “Nobody gets it all the time, least of all the Myras of this world.”

  Connie threw him a worried look, but there was no time to say more then, and when she was next alone with him she had forgotten what he had said.

  The days of the war rolled by to make an indistinguishable past. The outstanding occasions disappeared. There were fewer entertainments, and those there were had about them the underlying sadness of an autumn afternoon. Outside classes stopped, the teachers went to other work, fathers and brothers of the children who had attended them were killed; what had been meant to be one term missed, became, because of lack of heart or lack of money or both, something permanent. Houses were too big to be kept up and some families moved away.

  Myra seem untouched by the sadness around her. She did not show the slightest regret as her outside classes disappeared, she accepted the lack of parties without comment. But Connie, watchful for every new mood, felt that this was an outward appearance only. She had nothing but feelings to go on. She “felt” that Myra was happy to be shut away in her home and garden; she “felt” this was wrong for a child of her age, but since the shutting in was caused by conditions outside anyone’s control, it was difficult to lay a finger on why she “felt” as she did about Myra’s happy acceptance of them. It was the second Christmas after war was declared which gave her something definite instead of vague feelings. She suggested a party. “It’s going to be a sad Christmas for so many of your friends, we ought to see what we can do to cheer things up.” Myra was looking out of the schoolroom window. Rain was scudding up the valley in a grey mist. She seemed more interested in the view than in what Connie was saying.

  “I don’t expect they’d want it.”

  “What rubbish! All children enjoy parties.”

  Myra gave Connie an amused glance over her shoulder.

  “All children don’t like anything, any more than all grown-ups think alike. I don’t much like parties and I’m a child.”

  Connie turned her head to look up at her old friend the angel; those patient harping fingers had often helped her to concentrate on something difficult. It was not entirely true what Myra was saying. Rows of parties, for birthdays, Christmas, Easter, May Day, outdoors, indoors, ran through her mind. Myra at eight, bouncing on the very chair on which she was now kneeling, singing, “party day to-day.” Myra sparkling over an invitation: “Fancy dress! What fun! Oh, Foggy, let’s think of something nobody’s ever thought of going as before.” Myra saying: “I know it’s not my birthday or Christmas or anything, but let’s have a party. Just because I absolutely feel like it. Do let’s, Foggy.” Connie chose her words carefully.

  “This is new, dear. You used to love parties.”

  Myra’s back moved restlessly; she plainly disliked being questioned.

  “I refused heaps. You know I did. Besides, people change as they grow old. That’s what I’m doing, I expect.”

  “You are just making excuses, you know why you don’t want to have one, don’t you?”

  “In a way, but it’s nothing really.”

  “Whatever it is let’s have it out and see if it’s a good reason for not having one.”

  Myra stiffened; her voice was angry.

  “No. Oh, for goodness’ sake don’t let’s have all that ‘think it out’ business. As a matter of fact, if you want to know, I have thought this out and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Connie turned again to look at the placid angel above her. She spoke as if she had noticed nothing in Myra’s voice.

  “I’m always willing to hear your point of view and to give way to it, but I can’t give way about something which I think right for you, and against which you can only say you don’t want to discuss it. I think you ought to give a party, so I shall write the invitations.”

  Myra slid off her knees and sat on her chair. Her hands were on the table, she scowled at her fingers.

  “That picnic we had at Easter. Cathleen told me about the telegram coming about her father. She cried and cried, she said it was simply awful at home. She said everybody said she ought to be particularly nice to her mother, and she meant to be, but something was making her rude every time she said anything. I never saw Cathleen cry before. I never saw anyone cry like that. It was awful.”

  “Perhaps telling you about it did her good.”

  “Of course it didn’t. She doesn’t usually talk to me much, but there wasn’t anybody else. She usually talks to Barbara, but Jim being drowned made them the same, so that was no good.”

  “Did you talk to Barbara about Jim?”

  “Goodness no! You can’t talk about somebody you knew at parties being drowned, can you? She was just the same as if nothing had happened.”

  “Cathleen’s father and Barbara’s brother happened some time ago now. I expect the girls have got over the shock and will be glad to have something to amuse them.”
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  “Cathleen won’t. She said her mother was different, that she was always expecting them all to be a comfort to her, she never used to be like that. Besides, we’ll have to ask Harold and Margaret and that’s quite new.”

  “Poor little things! They’re a bit young to understand what’s happened. Anyway, their poor mother’s ill with shock, a party will do the children good.”

  “I don’t want it. I know it’s selfish and hateful of me, but I don’t want ever to have to see people I can’t talk to about something.”

  “But Cathleen did talk to you.”

  “Not really. She just cried when we were playing hide-and-seek and we happened to be hiding in the same place and she had to explain. She told me it’s simply awful if she cries at home, because everybody sees her face is smudged, and they pat her and squeeze her hands and all that way grown-ups do.”

  “You don’t want to have your friends here because you know they are unhappy and you don’t want to know about it. That doesn’t seem very courageous.”

  Myra scowled more than ever.

  “It sounds simply ghastly said like that, but it’s true, and I’ve thought it out and I think it’s a good reason.”

  Connie deliberately pushed aside the question of giving a party and tried to see the mental path Myra had followed. Avoiding the sight of suffering, that was what it seemed to amount to. That accounted for the child’s apparent contentment in the narrow limits of her home and garden. Myra was not usually a coward, but to refuse to come in contact with suffering was surely cowardice. Connie’s eyes returned to the angel, who, because she was such an old friend, led her back over the years, to Myra and the first time-table. “What’s wrong with it?” “It’s the way you want it, and not the way I do.” Change that conversation. “What’s wrong with the world?” “It’s the way it is, and not the way I want it.”