Myra Carrol

by Noel Streatfeild

  “I won’t worry Uncle John. I shouldn’t think he’d be interested anyway.”

  The so-called bathing dress when it was unpacked scandalised Miriam.

  “I don’t know what Miss Fogetty would say. So little of it, and being the colour it is and all. It would be all right if there wasn’t to be a gentleman present.”

  Myra posed on the bed, giggling.

  “Look, Miriam. I’m Peace. I don’t think dressmakers are men exactly.”

  They drove to the theatre. Miriam with Fortesque at her feet sat in front with Thompson, Myra in the back with Aunt Lilian. Myra looked enviously at Miriam’s back; how nice to sit there and gossip with Thompson, some people had all the luck. Fortesque, who liked to sit on knees and see where he was going, gave a disapproving bark. Aunt Lilian frowned.

  “I hope your maid has brought a lead for that funny creature.”

  It had been arranged between Thompson, Miriam and Myra that Miriam should smuggle Fortesque out to the car before Aunt Lilian came down, and that he should if possible remain invisible during the drive, and that while they were in the theatre Thompson should take him for a little walk. Myra was certain it was a mistake to explain this plan. She said the lead was there, which was true, and cast around for a subject that would distract attention from Fortesque.

  “Miriam thinks that bathing dress isn’t decent. She made me laugh she was so shocked.”

  Myra was so close to Aunt Lilian that she could feel her stiffen. She looked at her anxiously. Surely there was nothing in that to make her angry. It was a long while before Aunt Lilian answered.

  “I hope bringing Miriam up was not a mistake. These country girls have such bumpkin ideas. Perhaps I would do better to send her back and get you a French woman; it would be good for your accent.”

  Myra cried out, “Oh, no!” before she had time to control herself. Then her brain began to stir. To ask for things just because you wanted them would never work with Aunt Lilian. Only doing what you were told without a fuss, and making her think that you agreed about everything she wanted was any good. She could not face life without Miriam now, she was making all the difference; besides, if she went Fortesque would simply have to go too, it would be impossible to keep him from making mistakes unless there were two of them to do it. The free and easy life he had always led had not taught him anything that helped him in a London house, he was, of course, clean but that was about his only virtue in London. Aunt Lilian had been in a good mood lately. Skinner said it was because of the pageant. Could she always be kept in a good mood? If she tried hard couldn’t she find what Aunt Lilian wanted and do it? She seemed to want such easy, silly things. This pageant, Uncle John not being told about it, wearing what you were told without talking about it, even funny clothes like a bathing dress. She, Myra, wanted Miriam and Fortesque in London, she wanted Uncle John to be happier, dimly she saw the way to these things.

  “You’re very silent,” said Aunt Lilian.

  Myra looked at her with a dutiful expression.

  “I was thinking about the rehearsal and hoping I’d not make a fool of myself.”

  Aunt Lilian gave her a darting glance; when she turned away again she had a pleased relaxed smile.

  That morning, in the main boring, yet had for Myra patches of interest. That same frightening interest that she had felt when she was younger and had heard snatches of adult conversation relating to village births, illnesses, and deaths: “Of course the smell was terrible”; “When the doctor saw the colour it was he just shook his head”; words which flashed out like lightning showing for a second a foreign terrifying world.

  They had not succeeded in leaving Fortesque with Thompson; Aunt Lilian, as she got out of the car, had said, “See that funny creature stays in your dressing-room.” That had meant that Miriam had to stay with him, for Fortesque would take it for granted a mistake had been made if he found himself shut in a strange room, and would have barked for help. Myra was stood on a rostrum. Pauline Silk prowled round it staring at her. The stage was only dimly lit and Myra supposed that she stared in that fixed way because she could not see. She was nice to look at, Myra thought, with her short red hair and pointed white face. She wore a black coat and skirt, she smoked one cigarette after another in a chain out of a jade cigarette holder hanging from the corner of her mouth, the holder and her hair were the only colour about her. Myra got restless under her stare; “she’s like a heron fishing,” she thought.

  Maurice Minter leant against the proscenium arch and he too stared, but he divided his looks between Myra and Pauline Silk; he seemed amused. “I suppose it’s me being in a bathing dress indoors,” Myra thought. If Aunt Lilian had not, as she knew though she could not see her, been sitting in the stalls, she would have yawned. Suddenly Pauline Silk said, as if it were the end of an argument:

  “It must be Greek.”

  Maurice Minter, to Myra’s joy, slithered to the rostrum gesticulating.

  “Of course, darling, I know you are never wrong, but I still say a soupçon of Empire. It’s such fun to mix.”

  Pauline Silk took one hand out of her pocket and clicked her fingers. From the wings came a woman carrying scissors and a bale of soft muslin. Pauline Silk, without looking at her for her eyes were still on Myra, held out a hand.

  “Two or three yards and give me some pins.”

  The yard or two cut she knelt on the rostrum and began pinning the material to Myra’s waist line. Her moving fingers made Myra wriggle. Maurice Minter had gone back to his proscenium arch. He giggled.

  “Having a lovely time, Pauline?”

  Pauline Silk stiffened. She looked round at him, and spat out “beast.”

  The few words had been said so softly that only the people on the stage could hear them. Myra looked at the woman holding the muslin; she had a solid face which did not show expression easily, it showed none now. Yet she must have heard. Myra marvelled. Even in London where everybody was odd, surely it was a bit extra odd to call a man “beast” exactly like that. Then she knew that she was not thinking honestly. It was not just odd, but frightening somehow. It was as if Pauline Silk and Maurice Minter, and even the wooden assistant, were looking at something which she could not see, that frightening different world.

  The cutting and fitting went on. Myra had a brief tunic pinned on one side of her and draperies on the other. The feeling of anger between Pauline Silk and Maurice Minter went on, then suddenly he gave in.

  “Don’t be a crosspatch. I was only having my fun.”

  “Well, don’t have that sort of fun again. I don’t like it.” Pauline Silk got off her knees and went down to the footlights and peered at Myra with her head on one side. “Shall we have some light on that and see it from a distance?”

  Suddenly they were friends, fidgeting with a pleat here, moving the drapery, arguing, but as friends argue. Then they went through the pass door arm in arm.

  The assistant looked at Myra

  “Comics, aren’t they?”

  She had spoken softly. Myra answered in the same tone.

  “Why did she call him a beast?”

  The assistant gave her a look and then knelt down to roll up the remainder of the muslin.

  “Just acting silly.” There was a pause and then she said gently, “You don’t want to pay no attention to what they do. Always carrying on about something. What part are you taking?”

  “Peace.”

  The assistant looked surprised.

  “Are you? Funny, I thought Peace was more of a stout figure, same as Britannia.”

  A beam of amber light was thrown on to Myra from the lime in the dress circle. The assistant scuttled into the wings. Myra was dazzled for a moment, then it seemed to her as though she was on the terrace at home watching the sun flood the valley after a wet day. She lifted her head and smiled. Pauline’s voice came from behind the light with an
urgency that seemed out of place.

  “Stay like that.”

  There were voices from all over the theatre, Maurice Minter neighing, “Divine! A miracle! What did I say!” A strange man’s voice from below in the stalls, “I shall give her a live dove.” There was talk of an olive branch in which apparently Aunt Lilian joined, for the man in the stalls quoted her, saying, “Mrs. Enden says she thinks that under present conditions we might dispense with the olive branch,” then other people joined in and there was laughter. Presently the man spoke again from the stalls.

  “What’s the niece’s name?” Evidently Aunt Lilian told him. He came through the pass door. He was thin with greying hairs. “How do you do, Myra? My name is Henry. I’m producing this pageant, fun, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not really fond of standing still.”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “But you like being looked at.”

  She hated the way he said that and answered almost rudely.

  “No, I don’t. Not awfully.”

  “You will. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen. Seventeen quite soon.”

  He was prowling round her just as Pauline Silk had done. His eyes dug into her in just the same way.

  “To-day you’re a fish for the sea lions. To-morrow you’ll be a sea lion roaring with rage if there is one less audience than usual at your feeding time.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m going to give you a real dove to hold.”

  “Birds aren’t ever house trained.”

  He laughed again.

  “Have to risk it. It will be fastened to your wrist; you’re going to hold it to your heart, but your face is looking into the light and you’re smiling just as you did just now.”

  She did not like him at all or the way he looked at her.

  “Do you suppose I could get down? I’ve been standing here simply ages.”

  He went to the footlights.

  “Pauline, have you finished with her?”

  Maurice Minter’s voice answered.

  “What a question!”

  Again it was as if there had been a flash of lightning. There was some half-hidden laughter and someone said “Maurice!” in a shocked, amused way. Once more Myra felt alone, conscious that the world she knew was not the world everybody else saw. Then Pauline Silk called out.

  “Miss Jones, Miss Jones, unpin her, will you?” The assistant came out of the wings and began removing the pins. Someone in the theatre called out, “Henry, here a minute.”

  He turned back to her.

  “Au revoir, little Peace.” He gave another of his searching smiles. Myra wriggled. “I’ve got to go.”

  Miss Jones sniffed as the pass door clanged behind him.

  “I should hope so. Where’s your dressing-gown, dear. Funny they can’t turn off that lime. If you’d nothin’ on at all a lot they’d care.”

  Myra liked Miss Jones, she felt cosy with her, but all the same she wished she were in the dressing-room with Miriam. To hurry things up she began taking out pins herself.

  The dress rehearsal of the pageant established her beauty as a concrete possession in Myra’s mind. The rehearsal was the usual muddle of such affairs. People arriving late, dresses put on wrongly, positions wrongly held. Myra, standing in the wings, saw that Aunt Lilian could not blunder, she shone even amongst far younger women more noticeably dressed. She was proud of her, she was also glad that she would be able to tell her in the car how marvellous she looked, and mean it, the sort of enthusiasm Aunt Lilian expected was easier when you meant it. The last of the famous women having made her entrance, gauze curtains fell, and when one by one they were lifted again Myra was in place, poised on something dimly resembling a rock, the famous women grouped round her, their arms raised in what Henry called supplication. Myra had been rehearsed alone and had not seen the effect before, and it was all she could do not to look at the faces straining up at her, especially she wanted to see Aunt Lilian’s; she did hope that Henry had put her in the front and not behind the rock, then the last gauze rose and she had herself to think about. The dove was nervous and she had to hold it tightly to prevent it fluttering; the amber light fell on her as arranged, and once more it was like the sun on the valley at home; she raised her face and smiled.

  It was at the end of the rehearsal that the fuss started. She was about to get off her rock when hands from all round shot out to help her. People asked idiotic questions in cooing voices. Was she tired? Was she stiff? Others paid open compliments, and still more spoke about her so that she could hear what they said, or at least see by their faces they were talking about her admiringly. She was not at all disconcerted though a little surprised that such grand and important people should bother with her. She was worried about the dove, and she turned to a boy not much older than herself who had been a page attending on Queen Elizabeth.

  “Do you think you can find the man with a wicker cage for this poor dove, it’s terribly frightened.”

  The mention of the dove had been a mistake, people gathered round poking it and making chirping noises; it upset the dove, and Myra could sense their interest in it was feigned, it was her they wanted to talk to. She was annoyed.

  “There, it’s behaved beautifully until this minute, and now you’ve fussed it, and look what it’s done on my leg!”

  She might have said something witty; everybody laughed and her words were passed round, then Queen Elizabeth’s page came back with the property man and the wicker cage.

  She was busy helping to put the dove to bed when Aunt Lilian arrived. Her voice had its banjo note, and Myra’s heart sank.

  “Good gracious, child! Why aren’t you in your dressing-room changing?”

  Myra tried not to look reproachfully at her aunt’s stage dress.

  “I don’t take long.” She thought it was not a bad moment to put in a word for Miriam. “Miriam’s awfully quick helping me dress.”

  Carson was looking after Fortesque so Miriam had been in front with the other maids to see the show. She was full of pride.

  “You looked very nice, I will say. Of course, I still wish the dress wasn’t cut to nothing one side, and I can’t be too glad Miss Fogetty hasn’t seen you. All the same, it’s a very pretty scene, that the end.”

  Myra was dragging on her stockings.

  “We’ve got to be awfully quick. Aunt Lilian sounds cross.”

  “Oh dear! Poor Miss Skinner! But she looked nice, I will say. What a pity if she’s upset; Miss Skinner said when she saw how nice she looked she ought to be in a good mood for a week.”

  There was a tap on the door and Skinner came in.

  “She’s going out to tea dressed as she is; you nearly ready, Miss Myra?”

  “Am I going out to tea too?”

  Skinner nodded.

  “You got a beau. He’s waiting in the passage.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s Mr. Andrew Carrol. Very classy beau, too, he’s the honourable.”

  “Was he in the pageant?”

  “Page to Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, him!” Myra put on her shoes. “He’s only a boy.”

  Skinner laughed.

  “What do you want, something of fifty? Come on, now, you don’t want to keep your aunt waiting.”

  Andrew Carrol blundered forward as Myra opened her door.

  “I-I say, I thought you were awfully good. Everybody thinks so.”

  “There wasn’t much to do except keep the dove quiet.”

  “I suppose you’ve got to rush off.”

  “Yes, my Aunt’s taking me out to tea. She doesn’t like being kept waiting.”

  Andrew at eighteen had still sufficiently a foot in childhood to recognise and accept that urgent note.
His mother did not like being kept waiting, nor his grandmother, nor his aunts . . .

  “All right. I’ll see you to-morrow. You won’t be in such a hurry then, perhaps.”

  Aunt Lilian was on the stage talking to Henry, Pauline Silk, Maurice Minter and a few of the cast. Myra hoped she was not going to tea with any of them; they were all, to her, old, and Henry she did not like at all. Aunt Lilian, however, was looking pleased and that was something. She held out a hand.

  “There you are, dear. We are going to tea with Mr. Hinch.”

  Myra’s face showed she did not know who Mr. Hinch was. Henry put his fingers round her arm.

  “Me, darling.”

  Nobody during tea made any attempt to hide from Myra that she was under discussion. Her face was compared, feature by feature, with the faces of people of whom she had never heard, always to the glory of her own, usually with a rude dismissal of her rivals. “That hag! How can you compare her!” Only Pauline Silk took no part in the conversation. She sat on a sofa and whenever Myra looked her way she was staring at her. She had a look in her eyes as if she was saying something, but Myra had no idea what, and supposed she must have imagined it, for if Miss Silk wanted to say something why not say it in words in the ordinary way. She was disgusted with the promised tea. Everybody had drinks out of bottles, and Henry turned to her.

  “And what does the child drink?”

  “Tea,” said Myra firmly.

  “Tea!” He turned to the room. “Isn’t she delicious!” He rang a bell. To the man-servant who arrived he explained Myra’s queer taste.

  “This lady wants tea, Lucien. Have we tea?”

  Lucien seemed a man of sense.

  “China or Indian, miss?”

  Myra saw a chance to solve a problem that had puzzled her ever since she had come to London. She turned to her aunt.

  “Is that pale stuff we drink in your house China or Indian?”

  “China, of course, silly child. Nobody drinks Indian.”

  Aunt Lilian sounded in a good mood so Myra risked disagreeing with her.

  “I do,” She turned back to Lucien. “Indian, please, and something to eat, I’m hungry. You needn’t cut anything for me, the loaf and some jam would be perfect.”