“Is Andrew invalided out?”
“He’s going to be. I know you think he’d be better in hospital. The doctors thought he’d be better at home and the children know it.”
“Not a hospital but some convalescent place. I don’t want to suggest anything that would come hard on him, but on your own showing his being about is not good for the children.”
“I know. Almost at once I worked out a plan. We’d close that house, put Andrew somewhere nice, and then we could make a home for the girls here, or if the raids start again I could take them off somewhere in the holidays.”
“Well?”
“The girls were horrified. Jane said she quite saw that I wanted to get away, but the doctors said Andrew was better at home and if I wouldn’t stay with him then she would have to leave school and take my place. You should have heard the way she said it. My God, I squirmed! Nella simply did not believe I had made the suggestion seriously. She said, ‘Mummy, poor Daddy, but you’re only teasing, aren’t you?’”
Joe refilled her glass.
“What’s in your mind then?”
“I’ve been to see the surgeon who operated on Andrew. He says he honestly believes it’s only time. I asked how long and he said it was impossible to say.”
Joe got up and walked round the room, fidgeting with this, straightening that. Presently he came to Myra and sat on the arm of her chair. He kissed the top of her head.
“Well, don’t let’s ruin the one evening we seem to be going to have for quite a while by discussing this any more. It’s a blind alley as far as I can see, and the only way out at the moment is one you can’t take.”
“You do see that?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t see why this need be our only evening for quite a while. I can come up every week really.”
He put his arm round her.
“No, darling. The journey’s insufferable and I never did like dividing you. As a matter of fact, I’m probably going up North for some months.”
“Oh, no, Joe!”
“Don’t be an idiot! The North is still only a train journey from Palting.”
“When you’re here I feel that any minute, if I can’t bear things any longer, I can get to you in a few hours.”
“Escapist! Go and put on all the things I like you in best and we’ll go out to dinner.”
Joe went up North and Myra did her best in her blind alley, but with Joe further away her trapped feeling grew. It was difficult to get him on the telephone at his hotel and without even the sound of his voice she felt desperately alone. He never had been a very expressive letter writer and now the fragments he sent her seemed hardly him at all, and though she cherished them and carried them about to re-read, they were not, as she tried to pretend, little bits of Joe to help her through her days.
It was in January. The telephone rang quite late in the evening. She jumped up and ran to it, saying to herself, “Joe.” She ran to all telephone calls saying the same thing, even when she suspected it would only be the butcher. A call at this hour filled her with hope and it was an eager “yes” that went down the wires. It was Joe.
“Is that you, Myra? Has Nella gone back to school?”
“Yes. Why?”
“And Jane’s away training?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to be sure that neither of them were about. I’m going to hurt you. Are you ready?” She made some sound. “I’m married, Myra.”
He said some more; the girl had a fiancé who had been killed and there was going to be a baby, she was a nice kid and knew all about Myra. There was, of course, nothing in a big way about the affair but she liked him and he liked her and, anyway, it was done, and then he said:
“It’s done for better or for worse and let’s vow now that all our lives we’ll run a mile from meeting each other, for if we do we’ll start this hell all over again.”
Nella tugged open the barn door. She shouted to the black poodle puppy who was sniffing about the yard.
“Come on, Winston, come and see if you are to be sent to a wartime nursery.” She shut the door. “Gosh, it’s cold in here! There’s a terrific fire; Daddy’s cut up simply hundreds of logs, so nobody need have a conscience about fuel.” She paused to examine Myra’s collection. “Are you giving away Bella?”
Myra pulled her mind back to the present.
“I think so. You don’t mind, do you?”
Nella removed some of the sacking off Bella’s face.
“No, I suppose not. He’s a nice rocking-horse, though. No, of course not, he ought to go to a wartime nursery really. This fire-guard should be useful. Oh, these chairs! They were in the day nursery. Isn’t it funny seeing things again in the wrong place?”
“There was no room for them here.”
“No, we just slopped things down anywhere here, didn’t we?”
“Did you?” Myra considered the house. “Yes, I suppose you did. But you like it here.”
Nella gazed at her mother in amazement.
“Why should we? It’s miles from anywhere. Anyway, we never wanted to leave home. I don’t mean we’ve not been all right here, and, of course, having you all this time has been super, but nobody could call it home, could they?”
“You wouldn’t like to go back to Chelsea.”
“Wouldn’t I! Just think! Proper music again. That heavenly house, and just imagine how glad the others would be; John could get there much more easily. Besides, it’s more fun for him to be in London where he can go on the binge. Jane would adore it. Of course, we’d never stop having those awful friends of hers; still there’s a war on and civilians must make sacrifices. It would be grand for Daddy. You know how he likes going to theatres.”
“Why on earth haven’t you said so before?”
Nella flushed. To hide it she picked up Winston.
“Thought you’d hate it.”
“I never did like Chelsea, but still, if everybody else would like it I don’t mind.”
Nella shook her head.
“No, darling, no. Forget I ever said anything. We’ve often talked about it and everybody agrees that it wouldn’t work unless you liked it. I mean, you matter so awfully to all of us.”
“I do! Not now your father’s so much better.”
“Of course you do. You always have. Think of those beastly five years when——”; she broke off and put one arm round Myra. “I say things so badly, darling, but you must know that to all of us—Daddy, John, Jane, me, Miriam—you are the bow, as it were. I mean, the violin just doesn’t play without you.”
Myra stroked Winston’s head. Her mind was racing. At last she spoke.
“I’ve had an idea. Chelsea now if you like. It’s a bit bombed; it will want repairing but I expect it could be managed; but after the war a flat in town, you’ll need that for your music, but as a home Devonshire.”
“You say Devonshire as if it was the nicest bit of a symphony.”
Myra walked across the barn. Outside she stopped while Nella closed the door.
“When that woman comes you’ll have to show her the stuff. I’ve been in that barn for the last time.”
“You’ll have to go in and sort things if we move.”
Myra shook her head.
“No, darling, not me. I’ve done all the sorting of old things that I’m ever going to do. Do you remember when there were bears under the stairs? Well, I had bears in the barn and we’ve shut the door on them, I hope for good.”
EPILOGUE
THE OFFICE was about to be locked for the night when the van driver returned. The fire had been allowed to go practically out, the office was icy and the smell of the moth preventative seemed to have grown stronger. Grey-hair had spent the afternoon guarding every word lest she should snap at Mid-brown. Mid-brown had spent the afternoon taking offence and
saying nothing but looking a lot. The arrival of the van driver was a relief.
“Any luck with Mrs. Carrol?” Grey-hair asked.
“Any amount; the van’s full but there’s more to come; they’re moving.”
“Where to?”
“London. They’ve a house in Chelsea.”
Mid-mouse took her coat off a hanger behind the door.
“It all makes a great deal of work in wartime; I don’t think people should be allowed to move.”
The van driver winked at Grey-hair.
“You ought to live in Germany. You’d like to see verboten written on everything.” She turned to Grey-hair. “She’s a queer cuss, that Mrs. Carrol. The little girl, Nella, helped me get the stuff out of the barn, but I was brought in to have a cup of tea. Mrs. Carrol was burning a mass of letters and she looked hot and messed up for her, you know how soignée she always is. I thanked her awfully for the things and she didn’t answer at once, and then she said, ‘nothing to thank for. As a matter of fact I’m glad you made me go in there. I turned up a portrait and had a look at it.’ The child said, ‘What, that fat Angel?’ and Mrs. Carrol said, ‘no, of a woman.’ I said I hoped she’d found it was valuable and she said, no, that was what was such fun. She had thought it was valuable, but not at all. Quite worthless. And, what’s more, it was the portrait of an idiot. Now, don’t you think that was an odd thing to be bucked about?”
THE END
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Noel Streatfeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild was born in Sussex in 1895. She was one of five children born to the Anglican Bishop of Lewes and found vicarage life very restricting. During World War One, Noel and her siblings volunteered in hospital kitchens and put on plays to support war charities, which is where she discovered her talent on stage. She studied at RADA to pursue a career in the theatre and after ten years as an actress turned her attention to writing adult and children’s fiction. Her experiences in the arts heavily influenced her writing, most notably her famous children’s story Ballet Shoes which won a Carnegie Medal and was awarded an OBE in 1983. Noel Streatfeild died in 1986.
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Bello
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First published 1944 by Collins
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