Myra Carrol

by Noel Streatfeild

  Myra remained on her face after Lady Carrol had left her. It had been a hateful scene. “Probably the best thing you can do is to go away and stop away.” “Old bitch,” Myra murmured, but it was only a lip murmur and was not what she thought. Lady Carrol was tiresome in many ways, but she had dignity. She had lived her life with dignity, knowing perfectly the place she should fill and never swerving from doing her best to fill it as admirably as an imperfect creature may. Myra could see herself lying on the sand, her white bathing dress, her brown body, and she could see she had not come well out of the interview. She had been cheap, and it was stupid cheapness, hurting her mother-in-law, and absolutely cruel to herself, for not one of the things she had said reflected in any particular what she felt. “It’s so difficult,” she thought. “It was her interfering. Nobody knows things are a muddle better than I do. Now she thinks I’m not worth bothering with.” Like a flash a query shot into her mind. “Well, are you?” She dug her toes into the pebbles while, as if an overfull cupboard had suddenly been opened, thoughts spilled out, thoughts put away as unwanted. She would have been delighted to see Nella in any case, but coming just when she did she was a most gratefully received diversion.

  Nannie, looking over the rusty gate to the beach, saw Nella and her mother hand in hand walking on the rocks. Usually she would, for the sake of the child, have been more tactful; now the pain in her head and anger at seeing Nella, who should have been in disgrace, being petted, was more than she could bear. She came down on the beach and as soon as she was within ear-shot shouted.

  “Nella! Nella! Come here at once. You are a naughty, disobedient little girl.”

  Nella and Myra were staring at a rock pool. It was one of those oddly complete pools the receding sea sometimes leaves. It contained one crab, one shrimp, one sea anemone, a few sea plants and some shells. Myra and Nella were both moved by it, Myra consciously enjoying its beauty, and Nella held as if by a charm; she was part of the pool, she lived there. Nannie’s shouts made them both jump; for a moment they could only blink at her, then Myra became at her most regal. Really, what was Nannie thinking of! That was no way to behave. She did not like having to say anything, but she was not going to put up with that sort of behaviour from Nannie or anybody else. She helped Nella across the rocks until they were near enough to Nannie for her to be able to speak without raising her voice, then she said with icy dignity.

  “Nella will stay with me. I dare say you have some sewing you want to do. I will bring her up to you later on.”

  It so happened that Nannie and Myra had not before reached such a scene. Myra had for years avoided Nannie, for she knew Andrew liked and trusted the woman, just as she knew Nannie disliked her, and the easiest way to avoid friction was not to see much of her. This sudden scene was just the sort of thing she had pictured and escaped. Nannie, for all her dislike of Myra, and her natural indignation at seeing Nella get away with her naughtiness, would at any other time have bottled up what she felt; she too felt the less there was said between herself and Myra the better, and she would, however angry, have left Nella on the beach and gone back to the house; but now, feeling as she did, everything suddenly got too much for her. She slithered to her knees and burst into tears.

  Myra left Nella and, jumping the last few rocks, came to Nannie.

  “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”

  Nannie sobbed so uncontrollably she found it hard to speak; when she did it was a splurge of self-pity. All her pent-up feelings, the hours of sacrifice she had given to the children, her ceaseless love, her care, and in could come the mother who never bothered if they were dead or alive and order them about and over-ride the things she had brought them up to think right. It went on in waves of sound and Myra listened, disgusted, because she hated hysterics, but also ashamed; there was so much that was obviously true seen as Nannie must see it. Suddenly Myra’s eyes were pulled from Nannie’s hat crown to Nella’s face. Nella was standing transfixed, which was natural enough, for a grown-up crying was an extraordinary phenomenon, but it was her expression which stabbed Myra. Away went the years. There was a primrosing picnic and a child called Cathleen sobbing behind a gorse-bush; she saw herself trying to be sympathetic but filled with loathing at being sucked in to share another person’s grief. Nella was a baby and not old enough to feel quite like that, but she was clearly terrified. Longing to run away. Myra had seldom disliked herself so intensely. She was to blame for this. The happy peaceful nursery atmosphere which should be a small child’s right was being torn to pieces by her mere presence; she was not meaning any harm, but she was causing it by just being about. Upsetting her mother-in-law, upsetting Nannie, upsetting Andrew; it was all wretched for the children. Too well she remembered the dread of upsets, the fear of seeing suffering, and she, who knew it, was causing this misery for her children.

  Andrew, because of nurse’s sobs, was not heard until he was quite close. He was puzzled at the sight of Nannie; what on earth? But he was coming eagerly to talk to Myra and it was on her that, after one quick look at the group, his eyes were fixed.

  “What’s the trouble?”

  Myra’s eyes were bitter.

  “Me. I’ve upset everybody as usual.”

  This was not the right opening for what he had to say; the look in her eyes frightened him. He stammered.

  “Nonsense. You could never upset anybody. Could she, Nella?”

  Myra found this statement unbearable. Andrew still struggling in the face of hopeless odds. She patted his arm.

  “I’m leaving earlier than I meant to. I’m going tomorrow.” She bent over Nannie. “If you can spare her you might send Miriam up to help me pack.”

  The barn was unbearably cold, that damp cold which makes the limbs heavy. Myra, in spite of the layers of wool in which she was encased, shivered, but she had no idea of it, nor was she conscious that her fingers were searching her pockets for her lighter and cigarette case; nor did she know that she had lit a cigarette and put it in her mouth. She had not taken her eyes off the wardrobe trunk. She had not come back from 1931. Her eyes were still on her twenty-nine-year-old self, running up the steps from the beach, pushing through the creaking iron gate into the garden, flying up the twisting path, into the house, into her bedroom, where, not even troubling to get out of her bathing dress, she began to pack. Forty-one-year-old Myra made a little groaning noise, but it was no good; she had that memory now, the one which she had struggled to keep locked up. She could not stop herself, she had to follow it now that it was free.

  Myra travelled by the Folkestone-Boulogne route. Andrew, John, Jane and Archibald saw her off. From the moment Myra had left the beach she had been at her most difficult, warding off one word of even semi-serious conversation by pretending the speaker was being funny, humming unendingly, in an attempt to show that however anyone else might feel, she was in the best of spirits, flying off to the shops on apparently urgent errands so that it was impossible for anyone to attempt to talk to her. Andrew, watching her, was reminded of a swallow at the end of summer: the restless darting, the certainty that it would fly away, that nothing that anyone could do would alter that, that winter was coming. There the imagery came to an end; the swallow would return, but would Myra? There was not a word said about separation, but there was a good deal in her departure which suggested it.

  Myra hung over the ship’s side counting the minutes till it moved off. How like Andrew to insist on not only coming to see her off himself but on bringing the children. He looked so wretched she was angry with him. It was true she had made trouble, but she was going away as quickly as she could; it was idiotic and tiresome of him to look like that. John had been so difficult too. You could refuse to let adults badger you into discussion of things far better not discussed, but children were so persistent and could not be put off. John, with his interminable questions. “Daddy says you need a change of people. Why do you, Mummy?” “Will you need to be long w
ith other people?” “Why do you need other people and Daddy doesn’t?” Each question asked with such seriousness, his eyes, so earnest and trusting, fixed on hers. She hoped she had answered intelligently. If only she could have told him the truth. That she did not fit in and everybody was happier when she was away. That she and his father could not get on and were better seeing very little of each other. That one of them had to be with other people and, obviously, none of them could bear it if his father were the one to go. Instead she had tried to explain temperament. That some people liked moving about, and some staying where they were. That she was the moving about sort and his father was not. That she could not say for certain when she would be back. No, she did not think it would be this holidays. John gave her an opening to hold on to their new-found friendship. Would she come and see him next term? Would she write to him? It had been a temptation. To have her place in John’s life would be something she would like, but even as she considered the idea she turned it down. That would be a messy way of going on. If she was leaving the children to Andrew, then leave them. Dabbling about, holding pieces of them for herself was not fair. She was careful not to hurt John, but she was certain that if she moved herself completely, leaving no strands about, that in a few days he would cease to care if he saw her or not. Nevertheless, just to tide him over a possibly unsettling period, she said that she would perhaps come down for his half-term with Daddy. This answer did not seem to satisfy him. He said no more but he made her feel wretched by looking reminiscent of a dog who finds its master behaving inexplicably unkindly. If only he were like Jane. Provided certain fundamentals remained static, such as possessions, meals, Nannie, John and Nella, Jane went her imperturbable way. She was devoted to her father but he was out working all day in the normal way, so he was not necessary to her routine. As for her mother, she was far too seldom about to be counted on, though useful when she was there, and it was fun having her, but her going away was not spoiling even half an hour for Jane. Nella was, of course, too small to feel anything clearly. Quite likely, Myra thought, she would cry for her some time during the day, but they would be tears a chocolate could clear away. Myra saw a stretch of sea between the ship’s side and the pier. She gave John a dazzling smile and kissed her hand to him. Jane was holding Archibald between her knees and making him wave a paw. Andrew looked wretched to the end; it was ridiculous of him, he must be glad really. John was blinking miserably. Thankfully Myra watched them all fade from her vision. It had been very nasty ever since the row on the beach, this seeing-off business put the hat on a dismal time; she was glad it was over. Of course she was glad it was over. She was impatient with herself that she felt so low-hearted when she ought to be relieved. “Snap out of it,” she told herself. “What you need, my girl, is a strong drink.”

  “It is Mrs. Carrol, isn’t it?”

  Myra turned from the barman from whom she was ordering a cocktail. She knew the face but for a moment the name escaped her. Then it flashed back. Joe Rock, Elsie Ramsgate’s brother from Patagonia or somewhere. She was bored at the thought of travelling alone and fiddling with her own luggage and finding her own way across Paris to the Biarritz train, so she gave him her most dazzling smile, and when he suggested they drank together agreed with pleasure. While he collected the drinks she studied him. Funny, she had not remembered thinking him good-looking when she had met him before. Perhaps her eye was out; stuck in Sandgate seeing nobody might give an imaginary glow to the first face she met. He was the sort of shape she admired, long and thin. He was well-dressed too, which as a rule, in her experience, people’s relations from abroad were not, for they apparently left all their warm weather clothes in brown paper parcels where they stayed for two or three years until wanted again. Joe lifted his glass and smiled at her. She liked his quiet slow voice and his shy smile.

  “You know, you’ve been a surprise to me.”

  “How?”

  “Meeting you with Elsie, I thought you belonged to that half-baked lot she calls her friends. In fact, I insulted you. I imagined you one of their bright particular stars.”

  “What a way to talk! Elsie knows everybody. You can’t sweep them together and call them half-baked as if they were all the same.”

  “Everybody! Everybody who can raise a laugh; I didn’t see any other talents.”

  “That’s not so small a talent either. As a matter of fact, you’re wrong; she knows all the painters, writers, musicians and the rest, but, of course, living in Patagonia you wouldn’t know them by sight.”

  “Now that’s a place I’ve never been to.”

  “Well, you don’t know them by sight, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, and I don’t believe I’ve seen them now.”

  “But . . .”

  He passed her a cigarette.

  “Don’t be angry with me. I know that Elsie knows everybody, as you call it, but the sort of everybody who does the work—painters, writers and the rest of it—may come to an occasional party but they are not hanging around all day with her half-baked collection, are they? Real artists work. I’ve met some.”

  Myra searched her mental filing system. She turned up a lot of names, but each one she rejected. It was true the owners came and went. They added a gloss when they were about, but now she came to think of them in regard to their time-spending, they were not what he called hanging around ever; in fact, on the whole they were difficult to get hold of, and when they had promised to turn up they often let you down. She had always supposed they were unreliable because they were artistic, but was work the reason?

  “Painters work hard,” she admitted. “I’ve sat for lots of them. They work like slaves then, and never think of the person who is sitting for them.”

  He took her glass and went back to the bar for the other halves of their drinks.

  “You’re a funny girl,” he said when he came back. “When you think of something you get a wondering expression. It’s as if you’d just been dumped on this earth and never had an opportunity of looking round before. A person like you, now, with an ordinary decent background, must have had your nose very much in the air not to smell something queer about Elsie’s gang, and mind you, queer is putting it mildly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dangerous, that sort is. Decadent. Flabby but dangerous. I doubt if they believe in anything.”

  “But they’re doing no harm.”

  “I wonder. I don’t like the look of things. The world’s in a shocking muddle and Elsie’s crowd, and the like of Elsie’s crowd, are not the least of it. They’re a big dirty growth on civilisation, and like all growths they harm the tissues underneath. You know, Mrs. Carrol, as long as a thing is despised by the rest of the world it’s not getting far, but it’s when it’s admired that it’s damned dangerous.”

  “Who’s admiring it?”

  “Rows of people. You take up any picture paper. Whose faces grin at you? Elsie’s gang. What do you suppose the girl in the factory or the shop, or the housewife living in a little semi-detached called ‘The Laburnums’ feels about that? Envy. What a wonderful exciting life those people lead. How grand it would be to know them! You see? Grand to know a lot of drunken drug-taking degenerates!” He broke off and smiled. “You must think me a rude devil after telling you I thought you were their bright particular star, but, as a matter of fact, when I saw you saying good-bye to your husband and children, I knew how I’d been fooled. Where are you going, by the way?”

  “St. Jean de Luz. Where are you? To stay with Elsie?”

  “Elsie! God, no!”

  “She’s got a place St. Jean way.”

  “Has she? Well, I didn’t know and anyway one week of staying with her was enough to go on with. No, I’m off again. I’m picking up a ship at Marseilles.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Did Elsie never tell you about me?”

  Myra
thought of Elsie. She was a real party and week-end friend. Thin as a rake, screeching like a parrot, divinely smart with something more than a flair for clothes; she had married Ramsgate for the title presumably, for he had nothing much else to offer. They lived, so Elsie admitted, with a wolf on a chain on the front door-step. Asked how she was she always presumed the question was meant financially, “My wolf’s got his tongue out.” “He’s having the paint off.” “There’s not a lick of paint left.” Really, considering how often she met her, Myra was surprised to find how little she knew about her; certainly she had never had that sort of heart to heart where relatives were discussed. Elsie was the type who would think that sort of talk so boring as to be indecent.

  “No. I didn’t know you existed until you turned up.”

  “Funny, because I’m rather a good story. To begin with I’m awfully rich.” Myra thought of Elsie’s wolf and her face showed it. “To give money to Elsie is like tipping it down a drain. Besides, it isn’t mine in the sense I can give it where I like.”

  “Why?”

  “Shall we go on to the deck and I’ll tell you if it won’t bore you.”

  Walking up and down, Myra heard the story of Joe’s great-uncle Sam. Joe had a detached, amused way of speaking. Even when castigating his sister and her world he had spoken, in spite of his fiery words, with coolness; it was as if he were sitting on a cloud above the world, marking its goings-on rather than taking part in them. When it came to his great-uncle this detachment was even more noticeable.

  “He was a shocking reprobate, my great-uncle, but he died a very wealthy man, leaving all his worldly goods to my Uncle Fred, my father’s eldest brother. Both he and my father were parsons.” He caught Myra’s look. “Surprised? Didn’t Elsie tell you? It’s perfectly true, of course, that the rectories of the country have produced a disproportionate amount of our leading people, but it’s equally true that they’ve produced some surprising scoundrels and scum. Uncle Fred was neither a leader nor scum, he was just worthy. As soon as he inherits he goes off to see under what conditions all the workers who produced Uncle Sam’s money worked. It was something of a trip, for Uncle Sam had estates in every corner of the Far East, but Uncle Fred was a fellow who did his duty however unpleasant and off he went. Poor Uncle Fred!”