“How long do you think before you can be free?”
“As I wrote to you, we’ve sent Jane to a boarding-school. It was better for her while Nella was so ill and the house full of nurses and all that. As soon as Nella is old enough I could send her too.”
“How old is Nella?”
“She’ll be six in September.”
“How old is old enough?”
“Eight, I suppose.”
“And when she goes to school would you feel free?”
“Yes. I expect I could arrange to have the children half the holidays.”
“Andrew might marry again.”
“I’ve thought of that; it would be a good thing for him.” She made little pellets of her bread. “You see, it’s years since we had anything to do with each other and it’s a wretched existence for him.”
“It’s hopeless between you two? I mean, all this Nella business hasn’t brought you together?”
“How could it when I’m in love with you?”
“What did you think we’d do for these two years?”
“Manage somehow. It’s a mess, but other people do it.”
“You’re so well known.”
“We’ll have to risk it.”
He said no more then, switching the conversation to his uncle’s affairs. They were drinking their coffee when, after a pause, he leant across the table.
“I rather think we may be making a ghastly mistake if we start a hole-in-corner love affair.”
“Start is hardly the word, is it?”
“It wasn’t hole-in-corner at Elsie’s; we might have carried on in the open for all the secret there was about it.”
“I dare say we could fix something of the same sort now. I haven’t seen Elsie more than about three times since you left, but she’s always kept open house in the widest sense.”
“Someone is bound to talk and then it’ll reach your husband, and you might just as well have gone to him in the first place.”
“None of Elsie’s crowd see Andrew, and though they’re all spiteful it’s quick, sudden sort of spite which says things to the people who are about; not deliberate, careful trouble-making. They wouldn’t be bothered unless they were jealous.”
“Is there anyone to be jealous?”
“Quite a lot, but less than usual because I haven’t been about much.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t like it. You’ve been mixed up with this crowd and they’re so peculiar they might pounce on you and tear you to bits. We just want a nice, normal clean divorce, not an affair pushed into the open by nudges and whispers.”
He paid the bill after that and, because it was a lovely night, they decided to walk part of the way home. They turned into the Green Park and strolled towards Hyde Park Corner, where they would get a taxi. He pulled her arm through his.
“Only arriving to-day I haven’t a car on the road, but when I have we can jog off into the country sometimes, perhaps.” She held his arm tightly to her side and said nothing. “I suppose that wouldn’t matter. I mean, there must be some place where you aren’t known.”
It was warm and the park was full of lovers. In the dusk faces became white blurs, and there were no interested eyes to watch. They stopped and clung to each other, blind to where they were. Myra drew away at last.
“We’ll go to your flat. I expect your servants will be in bed and if they aren’t I can’t help it.”
But how right Joe had been to argue. How ill-fitted they both were for the life they led. Joe, with his passion for ordinary living. How wretched for two people in love that sort of life was. Always a feeling that time was limited, hours where they wanted years. Tension and frustration all the time. Two years. Heaven a lot of it, but misery as well. “I want a home and children,” Joe had said and Myra, torn from him by the clock, would leave him sadly because he had growled, “this is a damnable way of living,” and would be racked with anxiety until they met again, Then, in the summer of 1934, he said:
“Is Nella going to school this autumn? She will be eight in September,” and then, not waiting for her evasions, “all right, I know she’s not. Listen, darling, I can’t stand this any longer.”
They were back exactly where they were on the beach near Elsie’s villa, except that everything was more difficult. Myra had cut adrift from her friends and now, outside her home, she had only Joe. At Elsie’s their love had been idyllic, every minute perfect; now there was quite a lot which, when they were apart, they would suffer in remembering. Then they were new to each other, exploring each other. Now they were as familiar as a favourite book. There was none of the excitement of exploring left, and all the ache of having something which has grown as an integral part torn away.
“Don’t go. I’ll send Nella next term and then I’ll go to Andrew.”
Joe shook his head.
“I wish I could believe you. And I honestly think it would be the best solution for us all.”
“Don’t go and honestly I will do it this time. In a way it’ll be easier now. I think Andrew is tougher than he was. He’s got other interests outside me and his plays. He’s quite keen on his territorials, and he meets people through them and——”
He stopped her.
“You’ve said all this before, my sweet, and you’ve done nothing. I must, for both our sakes, get away. I don’t want us to go on like this.”
“Home and children.”
“Yes, and why not? But with you about, whether you’re free or not, I can’t think. I’ve got to get away, but I’ll hope for a cable. All you’ve got to say is ‘everything fixed.’ But if you decide to stay then cable that too. Let’s drag out of this mess and fix things one way or the other.”
“I’ve decided now.”
“All the same, I’ll wait for a cable; I can see a hundred things looming ahead. John going to Winchester; you can’t upset him at a time like that. Probably quite right, too. Jane will get all her teeth knocked out, Nella will take a dislike to school. I feel and probably look all kinds of a cad trying to drag you from your children, double-crossing your husband. I don’t want to do any of these things. I’d cut you clean out of my life if it was possible to either of us. As long as you shilly-shally around we’re both tied up.”
“If you knew how I despised myself.”
He kissed her.
“I know it all. Make up your mind this time, and if you’re not coming, however much it hurts, let’s cut free.”
Myra, deep in her memories, was walking up and down the barn. Why had she let Joe go away again? Why had not the merest suggestion that he would go sent her flying to Andrew? The answer, of course, was the children; that she wanted to eat her cake and have it. Nella was really the chain that held her. Nella was quite strong again but she dragged one leg, and that dragging leg, together with the child’s adoration for her, made it impossible even to contemplate hurting her, and it would be a cruel shock if she went away. All the same, why had not she had it out with Joe? Why had she let him go with a promise to send Nella to school, and that then she would get free? Undoubtedly because when Joe was anywhere near her she could not think straight. She knew she could not face his being out of her life and so she had fooled herself into thinking that she would go off with him, knowing really at the back of her mind that she never would, or at least not until Nella was older and stronger. She admitted her life with Joe was horribly unsatisfactory. They had, as it were, all high spots and no low ones and it was the low spots of married life, the little humdrum goings-on that welded you together, a network of custom and quiet intimacy. Not that low spots alone could make a marriage; if they did she and Andrew would be positively clamped together.
It had been a tiresome autumn. Jane had a threatened mastoid following measles. John was cast to play Portia in the end-of-term play and he came out with scrum-pox just beforeh
and and looked hideous instead of the best-looking boy in the school, which he really was. Then Nella suddenly showed signs of being exceptionally musical. Myra, dashing about, allowed these happenings to appear of vast importance, making it quite impossible for her to take momentous decisions. She went about a good deal again, not that she really wanted to but she had for the last two years spent most of her evenings with Joe, and Andrew would think it odd if she suddenly stayed at home, and anyway, just to sit looking at Andrew night after night was an intolerable idea. The friends, because they were getting older and their vitiated tastes took more titillating, were, in a way, gayer on the surface then ever, and were certainly more bitterly amusing. Myra, grateful that they still wanted her, plunged headlong in amongst them and swam as wildly as the rest.
It must have been nearly Christmas when she had that talk with Andrew. She knew it must have been nearly Christmas because she had been reading the amusement guide, wondering which shows the children would like to see, and while Andrew was talking titles kept jingling in her head. “Mother Goose.” “Peter Pan.” “Aladdin.” “The Babes in the Wood.” “Where the Rainbow Ends.” Andrew had been to a territorial dinner, he was in his mess things, she remembered thinking it suited him. He came over to her; she smiled at him vaguely, her mind on the amusement column; it did not strike her that he was more purposeful than usual. His stammer was at its worst. He was taking a new course of treatment, which meant that he had to try and check it by pausing with his mouth open and then breathing deeply before he made a fresh start. She was sympathetic to any treatment for his stammer, but she found this one annoying; it made her want to cry out, “Oh, get on and don’t mind about it!”
“I say.” There was a long pause and she did not look up, visualizing his open mouth. “I say, do you know a fellow called Rock?”
“Aladdin.” “Peter Pan.” “Where the Rainbow Ends.” “The Babes in the Wood.” Myra’s heart was beating too fast. What was she to answer? The truth, of course. Then, even as she lifted her head to speak, she felt as if a window had been opened and the wind was roaring in. This was the end. No more “shall we? shan’t we?” Andrew knew. He was going to turn her out.
“Yes.”
“Mother heard, she told me. Where is he now?”
“Java.”
“I heard he was away.”
There was silence and at last she said gently.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to tell you for three years.”
“You’d met him that time you came back suddenly in August?”
“Yes. I came back to ask you to divorce me.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Nella.”
“Three years!” He thought about it and then repeated, “three years!”
“I know it sounds awful, I mean living here all the time while there was somebody else, but it’s been so difficult. You know it was when Nella was ill, she wanted me all the time. I couldn’t go then, and then I found all the children quite liked me. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“They’ve always thought the world of you. I’ve never come anywhere but a bad second.”
“That’s not true. There was only you up to Nella’s illness.”
There was a decanter of whisky and a siphon and glasses on a table; he poured out a drink for her and one for himself.
“It was always true, except perhaps with Jane. What do you plan to do?”
“Joe wants you to divorce me. He wants a home and all that. I’m sick of going on as we have been; living in sin is an awfully over-rated pastime. I suppose it’s all right for casuals but it’s no good when you’re in love.”
He watched her swallow some of her drink before he answered.
“Mother told me about this some time ago. There was that fellow Ramsgate at dinner to-night; he was a bit tight.”
“I see.” She did indeed “see.” Poor Andrew! No one would loathe the label cuckold more.
“I wouldn’t have cottoned on to what he meant only I knew before. I dare say if I’d listened I’d have picked up a hint years ago!”
“Oh, Andrew! I am sorry. How hateful for you!”
“Oh, well! But that’s not why I’m telling you. I want to tell you that I won’t divorce you.”
She could not have been more surprised.
“What!”
“Because of the children.”
“You could let me see them.”
“I always think that’s a rotten arrangement; the children take sides, and all that, and it would work out in your getting them altogether. You see, I shan’t marry again. I’ve never looked at anyone else and I never will.”
“But if I go off with Joe you’ll have to divorce me.”
“No, I won’t.”
“I can’t live without Joe.” Certainty of that strengthened her voice. “I can’t. Now you know about him you must divorce me.”
Unconsciously she spoke the last words out loud. They whispered through the barn. The sound pulled her back to to-day. She went to the wardrobe trunk and knelt down by it, trying to decipher the remains of the labels. That was Lytham St. Anne’s. What a nice little house that was! That was that holiday in Sicily. What a job Joe had had to get that wardrobe trunk carted up to Taormina; the driver had been so fussy about his springs. Batavia. Hong Kong. Bangkok. Penang. These new bright ones were American. Travelling over alone because of their comic laws. Five years! And in all that time Andrew not so much refusing to divorce her as not accepting what was going on. She was now the mother who loved travelling, who would send home exciting presents. He wrote to her as if that were all that was happening. He made no change without writing to her about it. Nella and her music; she must leave school and have a governess so that she could get first-class training. There were a lot of letters about Nella.
“O-u-r-n-e.” That must have been Eastbourne. The Grand Hotel, Eastbourne. The glass veranda, the orchestra in the distance, the cars sweeping in and out. The neat, suburban-looking sea. It was coming back so vividly that she felt the very chair on which she had sat, and the cocktail glass was again between her fingers.
Joe looked up from a letter.
“They want me in London.”
“Are they taking over your holiday camps?”
“Yes. That will satisfy Uncle Fred’s ghost all right; half the children will be girls, I suppose.”
“How long will you be in London?”
“From the sound of things I look like being permanently there. There seems some job in a ministry.”
“To do with evacuation?”
“Partly. I don’t know what to do about you. You don’t want to be in London if there is going to be bombing.”
“Perhaps there won’t be a war.” He did not answer that; he knew she was merely saying words. “John will be eighteen in February.” He had heard her say that before; he gave a sympathetic grunt. “I wonder what he’ll do. I don’t think he’ll be the sort of boy who wants to fly, but, of course, it’s a year since I’ve seen him; he may have changed. I wonder what Andrew will do about London.”
“Have you told the children you are back?”
“I wrote to Jane to ask if she got her birthday present and told her The Grand, Eastbourne, would find us. I’ve been wondering if that frock was quite her. American girls are so grown-up at fifteen.”
“The flat’s a bit high up; all they write about what to do in bombing, talks of cellars.”
“I shouldn’t like, to be lower down; I’ve always loved the view across Hyde Park.”
“I suppose Andrew and the children are away; they aren’t likely to be in Chelsea in August, are they?”
“He’ll have arranged with somebody to forward the letters.”
“When shall we go to London?”
“To-morrow, the next day. I’m sick of being here anyway.”
&n
bsp; “We’ll have to put a firm on to making black-out curtains; you notice they’re already up here. I don’t expect we shall feel any better in London; it’s this awful waiting. It’s like the time I had that operation: it was the days before that were the worst. Thank heaven we had our passages booked; might have got stuck over there for months.”
A porter came out and looked at them, then he stood aside to let somebody pass. Myra jumped up.
“Andrew!”
Andrew was horribly embarrassed at meeting Joe. He turned to Myra, speaking as if he and she were alone.
“I say, Jane got your letter yesterday. It’s the luckiest thing you’ve come back now. I’m off.”
“Off where?”
“With my regiment.”
“You! But you’re too old.”
“I dare say I don’t look much good but I’m trained, that’s the thing. But I couldn’t think what to do about the house and all that; I must get the children into the country. I’ve found a place, not a bad house and it’s miles from anywhere, a place called Palting; nobody would bomb it, and there’s a hell of a great barn for any stuff you can’t get into the house.”
Joe broke in quietly, his voice as unruffled as usual.
“How do you mean ‘you’ can’t get into the house?”
Andrew was not stammering at all; he seemed carried away from his usual awkwardness. He could even answer Joe, which must have been strange for him, since he had steadfastly denied his existence.
“Myra will have to see to the move; there’s nobody else.”
Joe was plainly holding back his temper.
“Look here, you wouldn’t divorce Myra, but except for that little formality she’s ceased to be your wife, you know.”
Andrew clearly thought Joe was not taking in the situation.
“I’ve got my orders. There is only the maid, Miriam, who knows anything. Jane can’t manage, she’s only just fifteen.”
“But none of this affects Myra.”
Andrew was obviously quite honestly puzzled.
“But they’re her children.”
Joe spoke with laboured patience.
“I hate to be unpleasant but, you see, I look upon Myra as my wife, and as it happens she’s pretty busy in that capacity. We only got back from the States a day or two ago and were taking a breather when I hear I have to more or less settle in London.”
Myra Carrol Page 26