Miss Pym Disposes

by Josephine Tey

  "Isn't she lovely in that get-up," he said, watching Desterro disappear behind the rhododendrons.

  "I take it that a rigmarole doesn't count as dancing."

  "Is she good?"

  "I don't know. I have never seen her, but I understand she is."

  "I've never even danced ballroom stuff with her. Odd, isn't it. 1 didn't even know she existed until last Easter. It maddens me to think she has been a whole year in England and I didn't know about it. Three months of odd moments isn't very long to make any effect on a person like Teresa."

  "Do you want to make an effect?"

  "Yes." The monosyllable was sufficient.

  The Seniors, in the guise of the English Middle Ages, ran out on to the lawn, and conversation lapsed. Lucy tried to find distraction in identifying legs and in marvelling over the energy with which those legs ran about after an hour of strenuous exercise. She said to herself: "Look, you have to go to Henrietta with the little rosette tonight. All right. That is settled. There is nothing you can do, either about the going or the result of the going. So put it out of your mind. This is the afternoon you have been looking forward to. It is a lovely sunny day, and everyone is pleased to see you, and you should be having a grand time. So relax. Even if—if anything awful happens about the rosette, it has nothing to do with you. A fortnight ago you didn't know any of these people, and after you go away you will never see any of them again. It can't matter to you what happens or does not happen to them."

  All of which excellent advice left her just where she was before. When she saw Miss Joliffe and the maids busy about the tea-table in the rear she was glad to get up and find some use for her hands and some occupation for her mind.

  Rick, unexpectedly, came with her. "I'm a push-over for passing plates. It must be the gigolo in me."

  Lucy said that he ought to be watching his ladylove's rigmaroles.

  "It is the last dance. And if I know anything of my Teresa her appetite will take more appeasing than her vanity, considerable as it is."

  He seemed to know his Teresa very well, Lucy thought.

  "Are you worried about something, Miss Pym?"

  The question took her by surprise.

  "Why should you think that?"

  "I don't know. I just got the impression. Is there anything I can do?"

  Lucy remembered how on Sunday evening when she had nearly cried into the Bidlington rarebit he had known about her tiredness and tacitly helped her. She wished that she had met someone as understanding and as young and as beautiful as The Nut Tart's follower when she was twenty, instead of Alan and his Adam's apple and his holey socks.

  "I have to do something that is right," she said slowly, "and I'm afraid of the consequences."

  "Consequences to you?"

  "No. To other people."

  "Never mind; do it."

  Miss Pym put plates of cakes on a tray. "You see, the proper thing is not necessarily the right thing. Or do I mean the opposite?"

  "I'm not sure that I know what you mean at all."

  "Well—there are those awful dilemmas about whom would you save. You know. If you knew that by saving a person from the top of a snow slide you would start an avalanche that would destroy a village, would you do it? That sort of thing."

  "Of course I would do it."

  "You would?"

  "The avalanche might bury a village without killing a cat—shall I put some sandwiches on that tray?— so you would be one life to the good."

  "You would always do the right thing, and let the consequences take care of themselves?"

  "That's about it."

  "It is certainly the simplest. In fact I think it's too simple."

  "Unless you plan to play God, one has to take the simple way."

  "Play God? You've got two lots of tongue sandwiches there, do you know?"

  "Unless you are clever enough to 'see before and after' like the Deity it's best to stick to rules. Wow! The music has stopped and here comes my young woman like a hunting leopard." He watched Desterro come with a smile in his eyes. "Isn't that hat a knockout!" He looked down at Lucy for a moment. "Do the obvious right thing, Miss Pym, and let God dispose."

  "Weren't you watching, Rick?" she heard Desterro ask, and then she and Rick and The Nut Tart were overwhelmed by a wave of Juniors come to do their duty and serve tea. Lucy extricated herself from the crush of white caps and Swedish embroidery, and found herself face to face with Edward Adrian, alone and looking forlorn.

  "Miss Pym! You are just the person I wanted to see. Have you heard that—"

  A Junior thrust a cup of tea into his hand, and he gave her one of his best smiles which she did not wait to see. At the same moment little Miss Morris, faithful even in the throes of a Dem., came up with tea and a tray of cakes for Lucy.

  "Let us sit down, shall we?" Lucy said.

  "Have you heard of the frightful thing that has happened?"

  "Yes. It isn't very often, I understand, that a serious accident happens. It is just bad luck that it should be Demonstration Day."

  "Oh, the accident, yes. But do you know that Catherine says she can't come to Larborough tonight? This has upset things, she says. She must stay here. But that is absurd. Did you ever hear anything more absurd? If there has been some kind of upset that is all the more reason why she should be taken out of herself for a little. I have arranged everything. I even got special flowers for our table tonight. And a birthday cake. It's her birthday next Wednesday."

  Lucy wondered if any other person within the bounds of Leys knew when Catherine Lux's birthday was.

  Lucy did her best to sympathise, but said gently that she saw Miss Lux's point of view. After all, the girl was seriously injured, and it was all very worrying, and it would no doubt seem to her a little callous to go merrymaking in Larborough.

  "But it isn't merrymaking! It is just a quiet supper with an old friend. I really can't see why because some student has had an accident she should desert an old friend. You talk to her, Miss Pym. You make her see reason."

  Lucy said she would do her best but could offer no hope of success since she rather shared Miss Lux's ideas on the subject.

  "You, too! Oh, my God!"

  "I know it isn't reasonable. It's even absurd. But neither of us would be happy and the evening would be a disappointment and you don't want that to happen? Couldn't you have us tomorrow night instead?"

  "No, I'm catching a train directly the evening performance is over. And of course, it being Saturday, I have a matinée. And anyhow, I'm playing Romeo at night and that wouldn't please Cath at all. It takes her all her time to stand me in Richard III. Oh dear, the whole thing is absurd."

  "Cheer up," Lucy said. "It stops short of tragedy. You will be coming to Larborough again, and you can meet as often as you like now that you know she is here."

  "I shall never get Catherine in that pliant mood ' again. Never. It was partly your doing, you know. She didn't want to appear too much of a Gorgon in front of you. She was even going to come to see me act. Something she has never done before. I'll never get her back to that point if she doesn't come tonight. Do persuade her, Miss Pym."

  Lucy promised to try. "How are you enjoying your afternoon, apart from broken appointments?"

  Mr Adrian was enjoying himself vastly, it appeared. He was not sure which to admire most: the students' good looks or their efficiency.

  "They have charming manners, too. I have not been asked for an autograph once, all the afternoon."

  Lucy looked to see if he was being ironic. But no; the remark was "straight." He really could not conceive any reason for the lack of autograph hunters other than that of good manners. Poor silly baby, she thought, walking all his life through a world he knew nothing about. She wondered if all actors were like that. Perambulating spheres of atmosphere with a little actor safely cocooned at the heart of each. How nice it must be, so cushioned and safe from harsh reality. They weren't really born at all; they were still floating in some pre-natal fl
uid.

  "Who is the girl who fluffed at the balance exercise?"

  Was she not going to get away from Innes for two minutes together?

  "Her name is Mary Innes. Why?"

  "What a wonderful face. Pure Borgia."

  "Oh, no!" Lucy said, sharply.

  "I've been wondering all the afternoon what she reminded me of. I think it is a portrait of a young man by Giorgione, but which of his young men I wouldn't know. I should have to see them again. Anyhow, it's a wonderful face, so delicate and so strong, so good and so bad. Quite fantastically beautiful. I can't imagine what anything so dramatic is doing at a girls' Physical Training College in the twentieth century."

  Well, at least she had the consolation of knowing that someone else saw Innes as she did; exceptional, oddly fine, out of her century, and potentially tragic. She remembered that to Henrietta she was merely a tiresome girl who looked down her nose at people less well endowed with brains.

  Lucy wondered what to offer Edward Adrian by way of distraction. She saw coming down the path a floppy satin bow-tie against a dazzling collar and recognized Mr Robb, the elocution master; the only member of the visiting Staff, apart from Dr Knight, that she knew. Mr Robb had been a dashing young actor forty years ago—the most brilliant Lancelot Gobbo of his generation, one understood—and she felt that to hoist Mr Adrian with his own petard would be rather pleasant. But being Lucy her heart softened at the thought of the wasted preparations he had made—the flowers, the cake, the plans for showing off—and she decided to be merciful. She saw O'Donnell, gazing from a discreet distance at her one-time hero, and she beckoned to her. Edward Adrian should have a real, authentic, dyed-in-the-wool fan to cheer him; and he need never know that she was the only one in College.

  "Mr Adrian," she said, "this is Eileen O'Donnell, one of your most devoted admirers."

  "Oh, Mr Adrian—" she heard O'Donnell begin. And she left them to it.

  When tea "was over (and Lucy had been introduced to at least twenty different sets of parents) the drift back from the garden began, and Lucy overtook Miss Lux on the way to the house.

  "I'm afraid that I am going to cry off tonight," she said. "I feel a migraine coming."

  "That is a pity," Lux said without emotion. "I have cried off too."

  "Oh, why?"

  "I'm very tired, and upset about Rouse, and I don't feel like going junketing in town."

  "You surprise me."

  "I surprise you? In what way?"

  "I never thought I should live to see Catherine Lux being dishonest with herself."

  "Oh. And what am I fooling myself about?"

  "If you have a look at your mind you'll find that that's not why you're staying at home."

  "No? Why, then?"

  "Because you get such pleasure out of telling Edward Adrian where he gets off."

  "A deplorable expression."

  "Descriptive, though. You simply jumped at the chance of being high and mighty with him, didn't you?"

  "I own that breaking the engagement was no effort."

  "And a little unkind?"

  "A deplorable piece of self-indulgence by a shrew. That's what you're trying to say, isn't it?"

  "He is looking forward so much to having you. I can't think why."

  "Thanks. 1 can tell you why. So that he can cry all over me and tell me how he hates acting—which is the breath of life to him."

  "Even if he bores you------"

  "If! My God!"

  "------you can surely put up with him for an hour

  or so, and not use Rouse's accident as a sort of ace from your sleeve."

  "Are you trying, to make an honest woman of me, Lucy Pym?"

  "That is the general idea. I feel so sorry for him, being left—"

  "My—good—woman," Lux said, stabbing a forefinger at Lucy with each word, "never be sorry for Edward Adrian. Women spend the best years of their lives being sorry for him, and end by being sorry for it. Of all the self-indulgent, self-deceiving------"

  "But he has got a Johannisberger."

  Lux stopped, and smiled at her.

  "I could do with a drink, at that," she said reflectively.

  She walked on a little.

  "Are you really leaving Teddy high and dry?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "All right. You win. I was just being a beast. I'll go. And every time he trots out that line about: 'Oh, Catherine, how weary I am of this artificial life' I shall think with malice: That Pym woman got me into this."

  "I can bear it," Lucy said, "Has anyone heard how Rouse is?"

  "Miss Hodge has just been on the telephone. She is still unconscious."

  Lucy, seeing Henrietta's head through the window of her office—it was known as the office but was in reality the little sitting-room to the left of the front door—went in to compliment her on the success of the afternoon and so take her mind for at least a moment or two off the thing that oppressed it, and Miss Lux walked on. Henrietta seemed glad to see her, and even glad to have repeated to her the platitudes she had been listening to all the afternoon, and Lucy stayed talking to her for some time; so that the gallery was almost filled again when she took her seat to watch the dancing.

  Seeing Edward Adrian in one of the gangway seats she paused and said:

  "Catherine is coming."

  "And you?" he said, looking up.

  "No, alas; I am having a migraine at six-thirty sharp."

  Whereupon he said: "Miss Pym, I adore you," and kissed her hand.

  His next-door neighbour looked startled, and someone behind tittered, but Lucy liked having her hand kissed. What was the good of putting rose-water and glycerine on every night if you didn't have a little return now and then?

  She went back to her seat at the end of the front row, and found that the dowager with the lorgnettes had not waited for the dancing; the seat was empty. But just before the lights went down—the hall was curtained and artificially lit—Rick appeared from behind and said: "If you are not keeping that seat for anyone, may I sit there?"

  And as he sat down the first dancers appeared.

  After the fourth or fifth item Lucy was conscious of a slow disappointment. Used to the technical standards of international ballet, she had not allowed in her mind for the inevitable amateurism of dancing in this milieu. In everything she had seen the students do so far they had been the best of their line in the business; professionals. But it was obviously not possible to give to other subjects the time and energy that they did and still reach a high standard as dancers. Dancing was a whole-time job.

  What they did was good, but it was uninspired. On the best amateur level, or a little above. So far the programme had consisted of the national and period dances beloved of all dancing mistresses, and they had been performed with a conscientious accuracy that was admirable but not diverting. Perhaps the need for keeping their minds on the altered track took some of the spontaneity from their work. But on the whale Lucy thought that it was that neither training nor temperament was sufficient. Their audience too lacked spontaneity; the eagerness with which they had watched the gymnastics was lacking. Perhaps they had too much tea; or perhaps it was the cinema had brought to their remotest doors a standard of achievement that made them critical. Anyhow their applause was polite rather the enthusiastic.

  A piece of Russian bravura roused them for a moment, and they waited hopefully for what might come next. The curtains parted to reveal Desterro, alone. Her arms raised above her head and one slim hip turned to the audience. She was wearing some sort of native dress from her own hemisphere, and the "spot" made the bright colours and the barbaric jewels glitter so that she looked like one of the brilliant birds from her Brazilian forests. Her little feet in their high-heeled shoes tapped impatiently under the full skirt. She began to dance; slowly, almost absent-mindedly, as if she were putting in time. Then it became evident that she was waiting for her lover and that he was late. What his lateness meant to her also became rapidly apparent. By
this time the audience were sitting up. From some empty space she conjured a lover. One could almost see the hang-dog look on his swarthy face. She dealt with him: faithfully. By this time the audience were sitting on the edge of their seats. Then, having dealt with him, she began to show off to him; but did he not realize his luck in having a girl like her, a girl who had a waist, an eye, a hip, a mouth, an ankle, a total grace like hers? Was he a boor that he could not see? She therefore showed him; with a wit in every movement that brought smiles to every face in the audience. Lucy turned to look at them; in another minute they would be cooing. It was magic. By the time she began to relent and let her lover have a word in, they were her slaves. And when she walked away with that still invisible but undoubtedly subdued young man, they cheered like children at a Wild West matinée.

  Watching her as she took her bow, Lucy remembered how The Nut Tart had chosen Leys because for the proper dancing schools "one must have a métier."

  "She was modest about her dancing after all," she said aloud. "She could have been a professional."

  "I am glad she didn't," Rick said. "Coming here she has learned to love the English countryside. If she had trained in town she would have met only the international riff-raff that hang around ballet."

  And Lucy thought that he was probably right. There was a distinct drop in temperature when the conscientious students reappeared to continue their numbers. Stewart had a Celtic verve that was refreshing, and Innes had grace and moments of fire, but the moment Desterro came among them even Lucy forgot Innes and all the others. Desterro was enchanting.

  At the end she had an ovation all to herself.

  And Miss Pym, catching the look on Rick's face, felt a small pang.

  It was not enough to have one's hand kissed.

  "Nobody told me that Desterro could dance like that," she said to Miss Wragg as they went over to supper together when the guests had at last taken their departure with much starting up of engines and shouted goodbyes.