Myra Carrol

by Noel Streatfeild

  Once more everybody seemed to think she had been entertaining. They laughed and went back to their discussion of her.

  Myra, waiting for her tea, studied the room and marvelled. The walls and ceiling were letter-box red, the carpet and furniture black, on the walls were some very queer pictures. There was an odd smell like the inside of the sort of church that Connie called “high.”

  “Fascinating room, isn’t it?” said Maurice Minter.

  Myra had been fitted by him too often not to know that his and her ideas on what words meant varied considerably. She did not like to be rude to a room she was going to have tea in, so she nodded, but to herself she used the word “queer.” She carried the thought further and decided that it gave her the almost scared feeling that she also had of some of the people in it.

  Lucien let her down; he was not as sensible as he looked. He brought a tiny plate of sandwiches, and a few little fancy biscuits. She thought it was a miserable effort and gave him a look to tell him so, but Henry seemed delighted.

  “Such fun! A real schoolroom tea! We ought to have a whole cake with sugar on it. Never mind, spread it properly, Lucien. Which chair ought she to have?”

  A woman dressed as Mary Queen of Scots said:

  “She ought to have toast. We always had toast made by ourselves on a long, long fork.”

  Another woman in mediæval dress broke in.

  “And ginger cake, full of great squares of ginger.”

  “Of course,” Henry agreed, “and muffins. Oh, I do wish I’d thought of muffins!”

  Myra looked up from the cup of tea she was pouring out for herself.

  “So do I.”

  This convulsed them all again and to her great relief started a discussion as to whether frankness could be a success; while they talked she drank three cups of tea and ate everything Lucien had provided.

  Henry saw that she had finished.

  “All gone?” he said, as if talking to a baby. “Now we must wash our hands.” He slithered his fingers round her arm. “Come along, I’ll show you.”

  A silence fell on everybody, a silence that was so full of violent thought that Henry answered as if he had been spoken to.

  “Aren’t you awful, all of you!”

  Pauline Silk got off the sofa.

  “I’d like to wash too.”

  Aunt Lilian took command. She got up.

  “If Myra wants to wash she can at home. Come along, child, the car will be here.”

  In the car Myra longed to ask what had happened in the flat. There had been nearly a quarrel, and in some way she had been mixed up in it, and everybody else had thought it funny, but Aunt Lilian sat with her eyes shut saying nothing.

  Uncle John was in and had Fortesque with him. He seemed so nice and himself after the queer people of the afternoon that Myra flung herself on him with even more warmth than usual.

  “Darling Uncle John, has Fortesque been good?”

  “Fair. He doesn’t get any more obedient, does he?”

  Myra was hugging Fortesque.

  “Precious lamb, he does try.”

  “How was the rehearsal?”

  “All right.”

  “Any people your age in it?”

  “Lots. One of them is Lady Jane Grey, lucky beast.”

  “Talk to any of them?”

  “Only a boy. Skinner said his name is Carrol—Andrew Carrol.”

  Uncle John looked pleased.

  “Young Carrol. I know his people. Other two boys were killed in the war. They’ve got a nice place in Worcestershire. What’s the boy like? I did hear he was a bit of a dunce. Other two were brilliant.”

  “I hardly spoke to him. He said we’d meet to-morrow.”

  “Good. Long show, your rehearsal, wasn’t it?”

  “We went to tea afterwards.”

  “At a shop with cream buns?”

  “No, worse luck, with Mr. Hinch in his flat. It was a wretched tea.”

  “Henry Hinch?”

  “That’s right, he’s producing the pageant.”

  Aunt Lilian came into the study. Uncle John for once did not use a special humble tone of voice.

  “What’s this I hear about you taking Myra to that fellow Hinch’s flat?”

  Colour flamed to Aunt Lilian’s cheek-bones.

  “Half the pageant was there. All the committee.”

  Myra was shocked that an aunt could tell such a lie. Uncle John amazed her, he spoke so bravely.

  “I won’t have Myra meeting that sort of creature.”

  “You are making yourself ridiculous. You don’t know Henry Hinch.”

  “I know his reputation.”

  Aunt Lilian spoke almost in a whisper but so bitterly her voice shook.

  “If you’re going to repeat some probably perfectly incorrect gossip I think Myra had better go upstairs.” Myra looked inquiringly at Uncle John, hating to leave him to fight alone. Aunt Lilian raised her voice a shade, “And don’t stand there gazing at your uncle as if he were in need of protection. Run along, child, and take that funny creature with you.”

  The next morning early Aunt Lilian sent for Myra.

  “Sit down, child. You are too old to blunder in the stupid way you did last night. Certain subjects and people upset your uncle; he had a nervous breakdown once and he mustn’t have another. The kindest thing to do is to avoid mentioning them. He gets in a ridiculous state about nothing at all. Going about with me you will have to learn either not to talk to him about subjects which distress him, or else we had better send you to Switzerland as planned.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes! As for this afternoon, since there is so much fuss about it I think you had better not take part in the pageant.”

  Myra was horrified.

  “But I’ve rehearsed and I’ve got my dress and everything. Nobody else can do it but me.”

  “Nonsense. Anyone can stand in your place.”

  Myra was rubbing up the nap of the carpet with her toe. She liked herself in the pageant; it had been fun yesterday when the people crowded round, it had been fun when the few people in the theatre clapped, it would be more fun to-day.

  “But I want to do it.”

  Aunt Lilian, though Myra did not see her face, looked relieved.

  “Well, if I let you, can I be certain that we are not going to have a repetition of yesterday? We live in the world and you must meet the world as it is. Your uncle has not gone about for years and he’s old-fashioned. Just say you enjoyed yourself, but there’s no need to bother him with the names of people that you meet. In fact, it’s not right for it distresses him, and he’s not well . . . ”

  Myra’s head shot up.

  “Not well! What’s the matter with him?”

  Aunt Lilian paused; it was as if she was wondering whether to pick up something or not.

  “Nerves. If he is worried or made anxious it would be a very serious thing. He might break down again, this time for good.”

  “You mean he might die?”

  Aunt Lilian shrugged her shoulders.

  “By the way, your uncle has written to your governess. He wants her here as soon as possible.”

  “She isn’t well yet.”

  “So I understand. She is to go about with you. I think it rather ridiculous at your age but there it is, and I dare say I can make her useful.”

  Myra, dismissed, went into the drawing-room. She sat on a stool with Fortesque on her lap staring at the fire. She tried to see Connie in this house. She visualised Aunt Lilian making her useful. She shook her head as if she were speaking to someone.

  “I don’t think she must come here. She wouldn’t be happy.”

  The pageant passed but Aunt Lilian’s taste for going about again had only been whetted. Myra was taken back to Mauric
e Minter and innumerable evening frocks were designed for her. She was officially taken to flapper dances, and to theatres and a simple supper afterwards, actually she became an habituée of all the best night clubs, and she began to enjoy it. Enjoying her night life was a state of being that she accepted gradually and never searched her mind about, any more than she searched her mind about deceiving Uncle John. Of course, to begin with, it was done for his sake and peace and a quiet life, and then she drifted into unawareness that she was deceiving him. “Where are you going to-night?” “Just a dance.” It was easy to give an inflection to her statement which fitted in with Aunt Lilian’s story. “Everybody is giving flapper dances just now.” And in a way it was true; there were always young or youngish men attached to every party for her to dance with, but it was not they who filled the evenings with hectic excitement. It was the older people who gazed and said queer things, and suggested that they knew odd ways of enjoying yourself that one day they would show you. Myra found her words hung upon, just being herself was how it started, but by degrees she built on that, parodying the child from Devon. She found that Fortesque had his entertainment value, her devotion to him was considered “too sweet” and she built on that too. Though she knew that Fortesque was safely at home sleeping on Miriam’s bed she worked up small scares about him, pretending to be worried because it was part of her set-up and a good act to put over when nothing else was going on. The circle of people that they had supper with seemed unending, there were seldom the same lot two nights running, everybody called everybody else by their christian names, and they were often just friends of friends met somewhere or other. Myra and Aunt Lilian were in great demand.

  As a contrast to her night life, Myra’s days were simple. There were French lessons, there were long walks with Miriam and Fortesque, and there was Andrew Carrol. He had sent her a bouquet at the performance of the pageant, and had asked if she would have tea with him one day. Myra rather liked this, but because he was so unlike Aunt Lilian’s friends she kept her meetings with him secret. Andrew kept everything he did secret. All his parents’ love and pride seemed to have been centred on his brilliant brothers and to have been buried with them. Andrew hurt them, so much easier to say, “I have no children,” than to say, “I have one son,” and to feel, “This poor dolt.” Andrew accepted the fact that he was a feeble specimen, he stammered, he was not much to look at, he was delicate and he had been at the bottom of his class all through his school life. Because it was clearly a waste; he had not been sent to a university, but just about the time Myra met him a clerk’s job had been found for him in a shipping firm in which his father had interests. “It’s not much of a job, old man, but you must do something, so you stick to it and you may get to the top one day,” his father had said in a totally disbelieving voice, and then added, “Of course, you won’t be able to get along on what you earn but I’ll see you’re all right.”

  From the beginning there was a tremendous bond between Andrew and Myra, forged over their houses. Andrew had been brought up on the family place in Worcestershire and he worshipped ever clod of earth on it. The war had impoverished Andrew’s family, and land, in his father’s opinion, was going to be a bigger responsibility than it was worth. There was no entail. Had the eldest son lived, or even the second, he would have kept the place; his grandfather, the first Baron, had purchased it and it was part of the family; but with only Andrew to inherit the struggle was not worth while. The endless talks about improvements were aloes in the mouth. Improvements for what? For whom?

  Saturday afternoons and Sundays were Andrew’s free days. They took Fortesque for walks and had tea in shops where dogs were admitted. Miriam was supposed to be out with Myra but, guided by Skinner, she approved of the friendship with Andrew and sat hidden in her room sewing; she had by now learnt that it was better not to tell Aunt Lilian anything; what Aunt Lilian did not know about she could not stop, and she might, as Skinner pointed out, “Stop Miss Myra knowing a nice boy like that out of spite.” Myra did not tell Uncle John that she was seeing Andrew though she knew from what he had said that he would probably have approved, for it meant admitting that she was keeping Andrew from Aunt Lilian, and that she had to keep things from her would not only worry him, but was on the edge of a whole lot of other things, which she did not want discussed because she intended them to go on.

  To Andrew, Myra was the first sign of new life after a cruel bitter winter. Spring was coming, together they saw the crocuses, patches of gold and purple on the grass in the park. Together they watched the daffodils open. Together they saw the pink may come out in Hyde Park, and stood on the bridge in St. James’ Park and saw Buckingham Palace across water purpled by iris. They talked interminably, Andrew discussing his Worcestershire home and Myra violent in defence of Devon, allowing his home no single charm which was not bettered, or as good as the equivalent, in her own. Myra described her house and land and Andrew, loving her, followed her up and down the river banks and through the copses until he knew the place. As they understood each other better Andrew confided his dreams to Myra, how, though of course he was sure it wasn’t any good, he was writing a play; she wasn’t to tell anyone because they would be sure to laugh. It was cheek really, he was such a fool anyone would know he couldn’t write, but it was just an ordinary sort of play and he simply had to write it. As a matter of fact he had written plays at school; they had acted two of them, and nobody had actually walked out. No, he had not said anything about them at home; obviously with the reports he got they would think it pretty foul of him to waste his time writing plays. That was the one thing that made working in that ghastly office bearable, he could go to the theatre. He had seen almost everything.

  Spring was over before the question of Connie coming to London took definite shape. She had been slow convalescing, and had stayed in the bungalow with the district nurse, but Myra’s furniture was now stored, the tenants in the house, cook and Bertha working together in a new situation, so, pulling herself out of the lethargy that the break-up of the home together with her illness had produced, she decided that she must make a move. She wrote to Myra. If Myra wanted her in London, as her uncle seemed to think, then she would come to her; but Myra knew that she had always felt that when they made a break it should be a clean one. Of course, the original scheme by which she was to keep a home for her had been delightful, but Myra must feel this was now rather impracticable. It was obviously foolish to have a home by herself when she had an aunt and uncle in London anxious to make one for her. Would Myra think the whole question of the future over freely and clearly and write honestly what she herself felt. Connie wrote the letter sitting in the bungalow garden underlining feels and felts, Between sentences her eyes turned to the opposite side of the valley, where, hidden in trees, was the house and the schoolroom, and though she did not quite name it in words, there also she saw the happiest years of her life. It cost Connie a lot to write that letter. However clearly you see your duty, however clearly you may have forced yourself to think, it is not easy when you are well over fifty and have spent the last eight years and more almost as mistress of a house, to contemplate starting again with strangers. As Connie signed the letter “Your affectionate friend, Constance Fogetty,” the gardens disappeared and she was back in her headmistress’s room hearing, “All lives are full of crossroads such as you have just passed . . . ” but the sentence changed, no one, not even that stern woman, could say, “You have not stopped, you have not looked, you have let your feet guide you.” This letter was the result of that vaunted free unbiased thought. Though Connie had written the letter as the result of clear, free, honest thinking, she “felt”, in fact knew, that muddled thinking would certainly prevail if given time to assert itself, so she went indoors and fetched a stamp and hurried up the road and posted the letter.

  Myra read the letter in bed. She had been late the night before and Aunt Lilian had given orders she was not to be disturbed until she rang. It was nearly eleve
n when she woke and Miriam, coming in with the tray and the letter, looked disapproving.

  “What a time to be in bed on a nice day like this.”

  Myra, quite unmoved, took the cover off the hot dish.

  “Good. Scrambled eggs.”

  “It’ll spoil your lunch.” Miriam looked round the bedroom. “Look at your frock, and I put out a hanger especially to remind you.” She took it to the window and examined it. “Perhaps the creases will come out on their own if I hang it in the air. I don’t like to keep ironing it; Miss Skinner says it isn’t good for it.” She came back to the bed. “You know, if your dresses don’t look right Mrs. Enden will blame me. Miss Skinner says she was very upset over your pink.”

  “Well, that wasn’t my fault; somebody upset champagne over it. Aunt Lilian knows they did, she saw it happen, and sent me to the Ladies to have it wiped.”

  “Mrs. Enden will blame me if she feels that way; it isn’t as if I was an experienced maid. Miss Skinner’s very good teaching me but still we have to face facts.”

  Myra looked frightened.

  “I will try, honestly I will. Do you think if you pinned a note on my pillow saying, ‘Don’t forget to hang up your frock,’ I’d remember? Nobody could go to sleep lying on a piece of paper, could they?”

  “You could. Still, we’ll try it. Now, don’t give Fortesque egg. You know it sometimes upsets him. Ever since he was sick in the passage by her door I’ve been on the jump. I wake in the night thinking I hear him urge.”

  “She didn’t see it, thank goodness, and he’s not done it since except in your room.”

  “Still, it makes you jumpy thinking what might happen. Try as I will, when you’re out I can’t watch him all the time. Aren’t you going to read your letter from Miss Fogetty? I’ll just take this dress along to Miss Skinner and ask what she thinks.”

  Myra read the letter, then she crumpled it up and threw it at the wall. She pulled Fortesque on to the bed for comfort. How difficult things were! Of course Foggy couldn’t come here, it would be hopeless. She would disapprove of her doing so little work and going out every night and she would say so, and then there would be rows, Aunt Lilian at her very worst, and it would mean a hateful time for Uncle John, and Foggy would be miserable; Aunt Lilian would snub her. At the thought of a snubbed Connie, Myra hugged Fortesque until he whined in protest, she needed his warmth to dispel that dreary vision. She needed his comfort too for other thoughts which were clamouring for attention. She did not want Connie in the house for her own sake. Queer though her life was, it was exciting and she did not want it changed. She got along all right with Aunt Lilian now. Aunt Lilian wanted the telephone bell to ring all day, and to be the centre of a gay table every night; she did not want to go back to the way things were when she had arrived. Bridge and luncheons but nothing to do in the evenings; Aunt Lilian was not used to it and she hated it. As a matter of fact Aunt Lilian was no more used to the night club world than Myra was. Before the war she had gone about a lot but to private houses, and had entertained in her own. The people she had known were entertaining no longer, or if they were it was for their children. The restaurants and night clubs were a substitute and a satisfactory one; there were plenty of eyes to stare, head waiters to be obsequious, there was a thin brittle gaiety that covered everything, including for the time being minding getting old. The conversation at the supper table often took a cruel turn and Myra, without completely following all that was hinted, had yet followed sufficiently to understood Aunt Lilian this far, especially that she minded growing old.