Myra Carrol

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Well, it is, but air isn’t everything, old man. There are people. Children don’t need a change of people, but grown-ups do.”

  John was holding the cord of Andrew’s dressing-gown, pleating the fringe on the sash. He seemed absorbed in what he was doing. When he looked up his forehead was wrinkled with a puzzled frown.

  “But Mummy doesn’t see only us. I would have thought if anybody needed a change of people it was you. You are more seeing us than Mummy is.”

  Andrew had stopped shaving; this was a moment which he had not anticipated. In accepting his life with Myra as it was, he had seen himself as the only sufferer; in allowing her to slip away he had considered he had no right to protest, that he was paying for being the rather dull fellow that he was. He had never imagined that there was anyone but himself to protest, and to suffer. He knew that something had got to be done, that John was not to be placated with half answers, that he was not an infant but a thinking human being, that probably later Jane too would ask questions, and later still Nella. That he had got to arrive at some clear statement which would satisfy them all. That the days of fairy tales were passed. That the children would have to be given a new angle on their mother, and that this one must be something approximating to the real Myra. He searched round in his mind for a way of shelving the question temporarily, and thankfully heard the breakfast gong.

  “I see your point, old man. We’ll have a talk and I’ll try and explain. Better hurry along now; you know how punctual Granny and Grandfather are.”

  Lady Carrol chose that afternoon for her talk with Myra. She felt nervous, and being unused to the feeling it made her awkward. Myra, whatever she might consider her, looked outwardly so poised and mistress of herself. Although Lady Carrol did not believe that Myra really belonged to the queer people she went about with, they were nevertheless smart and clever and they accepted her as one of them. She had some of their more alarming tricks. She was wildly amused by things which Lady Carrol, try as she would, and she did try, for she did not like to be thought not to have a sense of humour, did not think funny at all. She could spoil any serious conversation by treating it as intended to be amusing. She could reply so elusively and with such odd words that it was difficult to be sure what she meant. She could say things which made, or rather, Lady Carrol told herself, were meant to make other people look foolish. In fact, Myra was not a person anyone, unless upheld by the strongest sense of duty, would tackle on any serious subject. But Lady Carrol was full to exploding point with a sense of duty. She had seen the children with their mother; it had not been a sight bringing unmixed pleasure. Nannie was not the only one who could feel jealous. Lady Carrol had enjoyed being the provider of nursery treats, and enjoyed her little share of her grandchildren. That share was not so big as she could have wished, but Nannie would not stop for ever, and thanks to her foot in the door she had held her place in the nursery, and when the time came she was ready to take a larger place in the children’s lives, larger, that is to say, if Myra kept away as she was now doing. It had been a week of conflict for Lady Carrol which had taken most of her will power, and a life of disciplined behaviour, to conquer; but win it she did. The children were happy with their mother, and Myra was delightful with them. These were facts and in the face of such facts selfish considerations must be killed. There were, of course, other points to remember: Andrew’s happiness, not a point which came naturally to his mother’s mind, and Myra’s future position, which swam into place very naturally indeed; but to do Lady Carrol justice, when she steeled herself to march down the winding path to the beach where Myra was sunbathing, she was only considering the children, and their happiness.

  Myra was lying on a towel in a hole which she had scooped out of the shingle. She had on a white bathing dress, against which her body looked the colour of a chestnut. She was wearing, Lady Carrol saw with discomfort, black glasses. Wearing black glasses was a habit of Myra’s that she found particularly trying; it was impossible to see what her eyes were doing behind them.

  “Hallo!” said Myra. “Don’t mind if I don’t move, do you. I’m trying to get a good brown before I leave. There’s nothing so infuriating to people who have spent weeks burning brown in expensive places as to see someone straight from England just as brown as they are.”

  Lady Carrol sat down. She wished that she had not to sit on shingle; padded though her bones were, shingle was not the most comfortable seat for what ought to be a long interview. She was startled and shocked to feel her heart beating faster than usual; it was humiliating that a chit like Myra could produce such an effect. Myra had given her a lead and Lady Carrol bravely took it.

  “Must you leave England?”

  Myra knew her mother-in-law’s habits too well to suppose she had come to the beach to idle. She turned her head a little so that she could see her face.

  “The tan I get here is all right, but it’s not deep enough. I must get to look high yellow. I want to wear white in the evenings until at least November.”

  Lady Carrol stopped feeling nervous and felt annoyed. Really, Myra was insufferable!

  “Important to you, my dear, no doubt, but there are other considerations more important than sunburn.”

  “No! Are there! Could there be!”

  Lady Carrol wished more than ever that Myra had not got on those wretched glasses. She must be joking, she could not be serious. Surely nobody could think sunburn of paramount importance. Of course, when she had been a girl, keeping your skin white had mattered, which presumably was the same sort of thing, but Myra was not a girl: she was a married woman with three children.

  “I’m being serious, my dear.”

  “But of course. So am I.”

  “The children have been so happy with you. They have a right to such happiness, don’t you think? Won’t you stay with them?”

  Myra was furious. It was years since her mother-in-law had openly criticised her. She had always resented it but this time she did more than resent. Blundering old fool, she could only see what was under her nose! How on earth she had managed to produce a sensitive son like Andrew was past understanding. Surely she could see that the marriage had been a mistake and that according to their lights everybody was behaving well. If two people could not get on it was obvious that one had to get out of the way. Of course, the old fool could not know that it was she, Myra, who was to blame, that she had married Andrew without loving him. It was an impossible thing to explain and she certainly was not going to. Of course the poor mutt could not see that they were not doing so badly considering. Her world would always have bored Andrew and it was not fair to expect him to be bored as well as everything else; what he liked was writing his funny old plays and to have the children. Anyway they were keeping up some sort of show; they were not divorced, which they would be if they tried barging about together and boring each other stiff.

  “It is sickening for the children; my influence would be so marvellous. I know you feel that.”

  Lady Carrol felt her hands beginning to tremble. She folded them in her lap.

  “Please, dear, do be serious just this once. What are you getting from this life you lead? I dare say that Andrew is a little dull sometimes, but . . .”

  Myra turned over and lay on her face. She was determined not to quarrel, but how dare the old devil! Andrew might be all sorts of things, but nobody, not even his mother, had a right to criticise him to her.

  “Is he? Of course, you know him better than anyone else. Bone of your bone and all that.”

  Lady Carrol thought of her dead sons. She looked at Myra’s perfect body; they too had been perfect physical specimens. They had been magnificent in every way. If only Myra could have seen them, she, who only knew stuttering, stooping, delicate, scraggy Andrew to dare to talk of bone of your bone. She clenched her hands more tightly. She must not lose her temper.

  “I came to ask you not to go abroad, but to spend
the summer here. We should love to have you.”

  Myra had taken off her glasses; her face was on her folded arms. She lay still. She was tempted. Why should she go to St. Jean de Luz? Easily wire for Lucille, easily cancel the rooms. But Andrew. She had seen him, as it were, sag when he had found her on the station platform. He must have been planning this holiday, and of course he could not possibly have seen her in the picture. Certainly not seen her snaffling the children. Still, it was pretty gallant of the old girl to say they would love to have her. Pa-in-law might not mind, she had always got on with him, but she would take a bet that “love” was not the word the old lady wanted to use.

  “Can’t very well. As a matter of fact I rather think our plans are better as they are.”

  Lady Carrol snatched at this change of tone.

  “John is at such an impressionable age. Dear little boy, he’ll miss you.”

  Myra saw John. She saw him plunging through the jellyfish. Holding out her dress. Asking carefully thought out questions. It was true he would miss her, though only for a day or two, but it easily could be for longer. If she tried now, the children would be at her feet in the same way that she could get everybody else there. But it was not fair. This was something she was going to do without.

  “I was brought up with my family away a great deal. I adored it. I was bored to Hell when they came back.”

  Lady Carrol went on manfully.

  “Jane is such a queer little character. Just inclined to be domineering, don’t you think? You could have great influence there.”

  “Me! I’ve domineered everybody all my life!”

  “And little Nella! Such an affectionate baby.”

  Nella! Myra squirmed physically at her mother-in-law’s tone but also mentally from her own reaction. Nella was Andrew’s child. A final present to him at the end of what really amounted to their married life. With the coming of Nella they had taken two quite different roads, and without a word said had come to an agreement to stick to them and not interfere with each other, just as they had a wordless agreement to keep the superficials going, those odds and ends which made up a semblance of home life.

  “The little che-ild in its mother’s arms.”

  Lady Carrol got up.

  “Really, Myra, you are impossible! You make fun of everything, even your own children. Why Andrew puts up with it I don’t know. I came to you in all friendliness. I know you think me old-fashioned; I dare say I am, but if you made any effort you would find I would back you. Considering what we have to put up with from you, I think I have not been intolerant at any time. However, I see you are past doing anything with. When it comes to mocking at the affection of your own children I wash my hands of you. Probably the best thing you can do is to go away, and stop away.”

  Andrew had gone for a walk along the front. He wanted time to think. He felt he ought to have a talk with Myra but he could not see himself opening it. Not that she would not listen, she would, and whatever else she laughed at, she never laughed nowadays at what he said; but it was so difficult to see how not to sound as if he were using the children, and John in particular, as a trick to get her, not back, of course, as a wife, but to be more at home. In a play it would be simple; it would be a difficult scene to write; it would, of course, come at the end of the third act and it would finish beautifully. But then the men in his plays were not tongue-tied asses like himself, liable to say the wrong thing, and though all his women were rather like Myra they were not like her really. As he walked he imagined the scene, trying to keep people something like himself and Myra in the two parts. He wrote mentally a long rather wordy speech for himself, explaining that he did not want his wife to do anything that she did not want to do, and climaxing in an emotional appeal for help with the children. The wife made some elusive answer which gave him a chance to go on and talk about the children. Then suddenly he snapped off his thoughts. God, what an ass he would sound if he talked like that! Nobody would. Certainly nobody talking to Myra. He stopped walking and leant on the esplanade railings, frowning in a worried way at the sea. As he stood there a thought sharp as a shaft of light came to him. “This is nonsense. I wouldn’t talk like that all. Nor would anybody. I’d just say, John said this to-day. What ought I to say to him? Can you help me?” He did not move at once. He stayed on repeating the words over in his mind, pulling them to pieces. When finally he turned homeward he walked purposefully. There was nothing wrong with just asking her; she could not think he was trying to get at her; it was just possible all the same that when she heard what John had said she would manage to be at home more, even quite a lot, or at any rate she would tell him what to say to John. Anyway he would go and have a talk to her. Even if nothing came of it but advice it would be good to have something which they could thrash out. The chips of conversation, amusing, gay, or even serious that she tossed to him were such scrappy fare for a hungry man that the idea of sitting down to a whole meal of talk straightened his back and made his feet hurry.

  Nannie had wakened with the beginning of what were known in the kitchen and nursery as “one of her heads.” They were migraines and made her sick and wretched for at least twenty-four fours. Like so many people who have suffered with the same complaint all their lives, she appeared totally unable to detect an attack in its initial stages. Miriam might look at her with an experienced eye and suggest that she ought to take something right away. Cook might offer a nice cup of tea in bed; Bertha might say that if Nannie liked to lie down she would give Miriam a hand with the children, but Nannie not only refused them all, but either produced fantastic stories to account for her faded looks, or said there was nothing wrong and then got angry if anyone argued with her. The truth being that she dreaded her headaches, and when one was approaching would comfort herself that it was not going to be a headache with tales of chills from a draught, or that she had thought something was not too good when she ate it, or more often that she wished people would not fuss; she had never felt better. This was one of the approaching headaches that she denied was approaching. When she opened her eyes to dancing spots and an inclination to see two of everything, she shook her head furiously to clear her vision. This was a moment, with Mrs. Carrol leaving and the children likely to be in a state, when she could not afford to be ill and she was not going to be. Stubbornly she went through the day’s usual routine, not only omitting nothing but doing a little extra to prove to herself that she felt splendid. But by lunch time it was all she could manage to sit at the table, let alone eat anything; her head had begun to throb. She was still not admitting even to herself anything but a headache, which a couple of aspirins would put right in no time, but she was admitting that half an hour on her bed for the aspirins to work would be wonderful, when Lady Carrol came in. She came to the table and smiled possessively on her grandchildren.

  “Have they been good, Nannie?”

  It was a rhetorical question. No matter how bad the children might have been, Nannie would never have considered their grandmother should hear about it. Lady Carrol stopped by the children’s chairs and laid twelve pennies by each plate.

  “I thought it would be fun if Nannie and Miriam took you to the pier, and then you can have a picnic on the beach.” She turned to Nannie. “Tea is being packed.”

  Nannie found herself battling with a lump in her throat. The pier! Trailing from one slot machine to the other. Or the beach with the sun dancing about on the waves, and the glare hurting her eyes. Of course she had but to speak the word and Miriam would take the children on her own, but at the mere thought of speaking the word panic gripped her; she was not in for one of her heads, she definitely was not.

  Slot machines and the pier naturally attracted the children. John and Jane, telling each other exactly how each penny would be spent, kept fussing to be off. It was Nella who delayed the party; for no reason that Nannie could see she became suddenly contrary and said she did not want to go, and finally b
urst into tears. Nannie, controlling herself with difficulty for, really, a screaming child was a bit much, sent John, Jane, Archibald and the tea on ahead with Miriam, and said she would follow presently with Nella and the push-cart, adding that if Nella were not behaving by the time they reached the pier her twelve pennies would be divided between the other two.

  Nannie seized on Nella’s tears. Nella was to sit where she was; she was not going to talk to a child who cried; then she sat back in her chair, shut her eyes, and hoped for twenty minutes’ rest before she started. Something woke her with a start and looking round she saw Nella was gone. The short sleep had made her feel worse; she had added a dry mouth and excessive heaviness to her other discomforts. She put on her hat and with a grim expression went off to find Nella.

  Nella had been with Myra about ten minutes when Nannie arrived. She had not at first any idea of disobeying Nannie, for she was an obedient child, but she wanted to be with her mother. She had some little cake moulds and on the beach that morning Myra had helped her fill them with sand and turn out what seemed to Nella exquisite cakes, which together they garnished with broken fragments of shells. Myra had said that they would make some more when the tide was out, this time garnished with seaweed. Nella had supposed her mother meant that afternoon, so it was a bitter disappointment when she was told she was going on the pier. She was not a tearful child but she had to cry about that. Nannie had said sit, but obviously that was impossible for long with nothing to do. Nella stood up, by standing on tiptoe she could just see out. She saw the lawn, and the roses, and the grey stone parapet and then something beyond the parapet. She peered round at Nannie. Her head had dropped on to her chest. Nella quietly pushed her chair to the window and stood on it. She had been quite right, it was a rock; the tide was out. She climbed off the chair, fetched her moulds off a shelf and slipped out of the room. She meant to go straight to the beach, but as she was coming down the path she heard her grandmother coming up. She knew she was being naughty, and anyway Granny was sure to ask what she was doing all by herself. She jumped on to a flower-bed and hid behind a shrub until her grandmother, very red about the face and angry looking, had puffed by.