Myra Carrol Page 9

  It was as if Lady Griss and Helen Perning drew their chairs forward in their eagerness to miss nothing. Myra was so startled at the outbreak that she gaped, a jam and cocoanut cake in her hand half-way to her mouth. What on earth had Aunt Lilian meant—“pawing”? Only dogs pawed, certainly not old gentleman like Sir Felix. How queer her aunt looked, sort of out of breath. She was fascinated by her beauty, she must be old, she supposed, as she was married to Uncle John, but she did not look old exactly, only old in the way a tree was old because it had been in the world a long time. She had what Myra called for lack of another word a very “certain” look, as if she had done everything and knew the best way to do it. But that was not being old, not in the Devonshire getting wrinkled up way. How odd to get angry so easily.

  Aunt Lilian spoke again in the same snapped out way.

  “Don’t stare, child. Go on with your tea.”

  Myra flushed crimson, nobody ever snapped at her, and it was pretty mean of Aunt Lilian to be so cross about staring considering the way everyone had stared ever since she came to the house. Once more she had a lump in her throat, and this time she had to blink back some tears. The other three came to her rescue. They offered her more cakes but, as well, they asked questions, about Connie, Devonshire, her lessons, what places she had been to. Myra, warmed by their apparent interest, got over her depression and answered as politely as she could, but she did wish they would talk to each other, it was pretty sickening with so good a tea to have to keep emptying her mouth to speak. Between questions and cakes she threw furtive glances at her aunt. She seemed all right again; she was lying back in her chair, her hands clasped in her lap. Myra missed that the hands were clasped so tightly that the skin where the fingers pressed was drained of blood, and she missed that aunt Lilian was trembling.

  Uncle John came in so quietly that he was in the room before Myra saw him. He was greeting everybody when she jumped up and flung her arms round him. In spite of the good tea London was queer and it was grand to have him; he was Devonshire, he was normality.

  “Darling Uncle John! I’m so glad you’ve come!”

  He was himself, giving her his usual kiss, when Aunt Lilian broke in, her voice sharper than ever.

  “What a touching scene!”

  Uncle John’s arms dropped away from Myra, he moved her to one side and went to Aunt Lilian. He kissed her forehead.

  “Having good bridge?”

  Myra could not believe what had happened. She and Uncle John had been so close to each other that she trusted him as she would her own hands. He could not really have pushed her aside. All her upbringing and her loyalty fought against what she knew had happened. There had been a small pause while Uncle John went to Aunt Lilian, then, like a spring temporarily dammed, the conversation bubbled up with particular force, everybody talking at once. Uncle John said he must go and do some work. Myra, in the ordinary way, would have asked could she come with him, she would read, she wouldn’t say a word, but the fight was not sufficiently won for that. He passed her, not pulling her curls or any of the gestures usual to him. She looked at him with hurt bewilderment. He returned her look and went out without saying anything. The bridge playing had started again. Myra wandered round the room, peering in glass-fronted cupboards, and fidgeting with the ornament s. She was thinking in Connie’s way to the end of her thoughts. She relived the whole scene. His usual kiss, Aunt Lilian’s voice, the way he had pushed her aside. Then his look. The same affectionate, friendly look it had always been but something new, an asking in it. What was he asking for? She thought back over his visits. All their long talks and never, never had he talked about Aunt Lilian. It was very odd now she came to think of it. She thought again of his look as he left the room. It was an asking look. She could get no further; in her understanding husbands loved their wives; aunts, because they were your aunts, were nice people; but Uncle John had been wanting something. Myra’s heart warmed, his need, and her inability to guess what his need was, strengthened the maternal feeling she had always had for him. He wanted something from her, she must find out what and give it to him. She was examining a little jade horse when something else came to her. Uncle John had always been hers before, now he was Aunt Lilian’s, and Aunt Lilian . . . Her thought broke off there and she turned to look at Aunt Lilian. She was three-quarters’ view to her. She was playing the hand; her fingers, glittering with rings, were stretched across the table to dummy, her head was bent. Her movements were all curves, she was as lovely to look at as the river. Could a person like that mind sharing people? A conversation of long ago came back to Myra, at first in a disjointed way, and she had to think hard to get it straight. It had been about Miriam and George. It had started because she had said that George would come first with Miriam and she would not mind, and then she had said she would hate to feel jealous. Uncle John had said jealousy could ruin a life, he had said it in such a miserable way that she had asked him if he knew somebody whose life had been ruined and he had said yes, and that it was an illness. From across the room Myra stared at her Aunt, struggling to pull herself away from her gentle upbringing to this new, terrifying adult world. She got no further than her old loyalties could take her. “Poor Uncle John! If she’s unkind to him, I’ll make it up to him.”

  It was so alien to Myra not to enjoy things, to be guarded with anybody or anything, that only at intervals did she let herself think of her feeling about Aunt Lilian. To Myra, a new day in a new house with clothes to buy was sufficiently of interest to grip her. She had accepted her removal from Devonshire, it had been like cutting off a limb, but it was off and she knew it was off, and though the place ached where the limb had been she was not weak enough to take off the bandages just in order to upset herself. The day started well with a letter in pencil from Connie; she was really better and would be about in no time. Myra and Aunt Lilian went out in the car soon after breakfast, Aunt Lilian looking so rich and lovely in mink that Myra had to tell her about it.

  “You do look gorgeous. My mother had a coat like that but she only put it round her shoulders sometimes when she sat on the terrace. You see, it was always summer when she was at home.” Aunt Lilian turned her amber eyes on Myra in a peering way, it was as if she could not believe in the spontaneity of this tribute. It was a gay morning with a winter blue sky, and frost in the air. Myra bubbled on. “Of course, though my mother was pretty, she wasn’t beautiful like you are.”

  Aunt Lilian searched Myra’s face.

  “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

  Myra thought the question idiotic.

  “Of course.”

  “What do you think about yourself.”

  “Isn’t she lovely,” said first when she was a baby and repeated out loud or in whispers by everybody except Connie, had bred calm acceptance.

  “I know I’m pretty.”

  Aunt Lilian turned her head away and stared unseeingly out of the window. This was torture. The pain offered by her looking-glass had been enough. The ageing skin, the crow’s feet; the first imagined fading of interest; the falling off of the number of men who loved her; the real back seat that she had been forced into. Faces had not mattered much during the war and hers had been on the wane some years ago; it interested few people now, but it was still her only love. The glorious years when she had reigned, when, however much they had disliked her, other women had to accept her beauty just as they accepted a sunset, when all doors were opened to her, when every whim it was somebody’s pleasure to grant, when John, doting, had been dragged at her heels as Lilian Enden’s husband. She was paying for those years now; so many had kept stones in their pockets to throw, and now that she was chained by oncoming age they threw them with cruel aim. She was left out of things, always just those things which could have bolstered up her belief in herself as still a reigning queen. And now this girl! She tried to blame John; he had brought her along to torture her. Even her overbalanced brain rejected that. He h
ad done his level best to keep the child out of the house. No, it was as if the Gods were taking their revenge, she had made them jealous and they knew how to punish.

  Myra saw a dachshund out of the window. She burst into an enthusiastic description of Fortesque and of how Miriam would look after him, but of how he cared for nobody but herself. Aunt Lilian, not because she was interested but because the idlest talk was distracting, asked questions, and presently Miriam, Fortesque and Connie grew under Myra’s words into flesh and blood, and how bitterly they were missed grew too. Aunt Lilian did not care but the facts registered.

  The dressmaker was Aunt Lilian’s own. She needed, even by bragging to Myra, to bolster up her sagging fame.

  “Maurice Minter will do anything for me. I made him, really.”

  The dressmaker was a thin man, yellow-faced, nervous, full of shrugs and twitches; he was at the far end of the showroom deep in consultation with a number of women. Aunt Lilian had swept in as if she had only to appear for all work to stop. A kindly-faced assistant was the only person who seemed to notice their arrival. She greeted them in a friendly way but with anxiety in her voice. Aunt Lilian sat on one of the yellow sofas which were round the walls and said in her soft, venomous voice:

  “Tell Mr. Minter I am here. He is to show me some clothes for my niece.”

  The woman became confidential. Mrs. Enden knew what it was; it was the dresses for that Peace Pageant, famous and beautiful women through the ages. Such lovely dresses! One of Aunt Lilian’s feet tapped the floor, the flame of colour was creeping over her cheeks. Myra looked at her anxiously. She pulled off her hat; it made her feel less shut up. The woman’s voice grew more apologetic. Mr. Minter would not be long; they had some nice models for a young girl; might she have some of them shown while they were waiting?

  The group in the window at the end of the showroom tortured Aunt Lilian. So few years ago and such a group would have centred round herself. The loveliest design, the high spot of the pageant. She had known it was taking place, known who was on the committee, had waited to be asked to take part; after all, the women to be depicted were not all young girls. Such a passion of fury shook her that she longed to sweep across the room and crack all their foolish heads together. A pageant of beautiful women and she not a part of it.

  Myra was thoroughly frightened. Her aunt was shaking, her hands clenched; she must be ill, nobody could get in such a fuss about clothes. Then she saw a cat; she did not care for cats in the same way she did for dogs, but it made an excuse to get up. It was an expensive cat with long blue-grey silky fur which matched the carpet. It was walking in a proud manner across the room. Myra leapt at it and seized it round its middle and tried to hold it in her arms. The cat was of the elusive sort, it gave a miaou and fought its way free. Maurice Minter looked over his shoulder at the sound with a frown then, seeing it was a young stranger and young strangers being the future of his business, he came to her smiling.

  “I am afraid Mayfair is too tiresome. He is the most individualistic creature.”

  Myra, entranced at what she thought his screamingly funny way of talking, looked up from Mayfair; she caused a miracle for she silenced Maurice Minter. She prompted him.

  “Is he?”

  He looked round to see with whom she had come, and since they were fixed on him like two lamps, his eyes contacted Aunt Lilian’s. The woman assistant snatched at the opportunity and hurried towards him. She explained the situation in a whisper.

  It was like old times the way Maurice Minter greeted Aunt Lilian. He was devastated to keep her waiting, she knew she was absolutely the one person whom he cared to see, but there was this tiresome committee. Would she be terribly sweet and wait just a few minutes; honestly he would not be more.

  Myra settled back on the sofa. The incident with the cat and Maurice Minter’s funny voice had been sufficient to more or less swing her world back into place.

  Aunt Lilian was examining the germ of an idea. It was so small an idea at that moment that she could barely see it. Then she was conscious of an old and cherished sensation. She was being stared at. Maurice Minter had said something to the committee and they were glancing in their direction. Myra was chattering about the similarity between Mayfair and a cat she knew in Devonshire. Aunt Lilian seemed to her to be listening with the sort of absorbed interest that she expected from an aunt.

  The committee broke up. They all knew Aunt Lilian. Too often lately a bow was all that acknowledged acquaintanceship. Now some of them paused and Myra was introduced. A red-headed woman stayed behind. She talked to Aunt Lilian with her eyes on Myra; her conversation was all questions. How old was Myra? When was she leaving for Switzerland? Was there no blood relationship between aunt and niece? Wasn’t that extraordinary? Both Aunt Lilian and Maurice Minter looked full of thoughts by the time she had talked herself out of the room.

  Dreary days followed the visit to the dressmaker. Although Myra’s belief in the goodness of aunts made her reject the thought that there was anything wrong with Aunt Lilian, she avoided her. But in London there seemed to be nothing to do if you did not sit in the drawing-room or go out in a car. There was a square garden; she visited it once but was disgusted with its size and sootiness. She talked to the servants when she could. Carson, the butler, was good company. He had a pantry off the dining-room where he cleaned silver. Myra would join him and hear about horse racing and of the glorious days when he had lived with a racehorse owner; but Carson, like everybody else in the house, was a different person when Aunt Lilian was about. In the middle of the most enthralling description of how somebody had dreamt a Derby winner, he would break off at the sound of a key in the front door, and give Myra a nervous nod.

  “There’s your aunt. Run along now.”

  Skinner was the same. When Aunt Lilian was out she would give imitations of music hall artistes, but she, too, would suddenly break off, run out of the room, hang over the stairs and either come back to hiss, “Run along, here she is,” or to say casually, “It wasn’t her after all,” and go straight on with her imitations.

  It was worrying to Myra; it made her feel that she and Carson and Skinner were in league against Aunt Lilian. It was odd she felt like that, she admitted to herself, because in a way, of course, she and the servants at home had been in league against Foggy, but it was quite different. It was not that anybody didn’t like Foggy, it was just that she wanted people to cook and all that and would be fussed if she knew they weren’t. It was all summed up by cook as “what the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve about.” The way Carson and Skinner behaved about Aunt Lilian was not like that all. It was as if they were afraid of her. Why should anyone be afraid of her? Of course she was not nice when she was angry, but she couldn’t hurt you. The worst thing was that she had an ever-growing feeling that Uncle John was afraid too. She hated to admit this even to herself, for it seemed a poor thing for a man to be. Of course, in a way it made him more a person to be fond of. It would explain the asking look when he had to seem unkind, it would mean, “I’m not changed really, but I must be careful not to make your aunt angry with me.” Sometimes he almost said it. When he came in and she bounded down to meet him in the hall, and told him Aunt Lilian was at a bridge party, and he led her into his study, and she sat on the arm of his chair and he stretched out relaxed, and pleased, and said, “Isn’t this jolly? Quite like Devonshire,” or when she asked him to go out with her and he said, in a tone that meant he could not, “I’ll see, old lady, we must ask your aunt; mustn’t upset her plans, you know.” He, too, would change in a flash when Aunt Lilian came in. They would be laughing over a picture in Punch, or he would be hearing an animated account of something she had done or seen, and then there would be a shutting door or a step on the stairs, and the contentment would die in his face, life would go out of his voice and he would move as far from her as possible.

  Aunt Lilian changed. She sent Skinner to fetch Myra.
She was in bed, not in bed as Myra understood it, but just as made-up and neat headed as if she were downstairs, and wearing a white fur coat lined with gold satin. She patted her quilt.

  “Come and sit here, darling.” Myra had learnt a little and she did not bound forward convinced that everything was all right at last, as she would have done when she first arrived. She gave her aunt a cautious look and sat down gingerly. “Are you keen on this funny idea of a school in Switzerland?”

  The school in Switzerland had been accepted by Myra. It was coming just as surely as Christmas Day.

  “Of course. We’ve ordered the clothes and everything.”

  “I’ve got a better idea which I think you may think is more fun. How about you living here and going to classes?”

  Myra was gazing at her aunt with amazement; she had changed completely, even her voice.

  “I don’t think Uncle John will think that will do. It’s my French; he says you can only learn it in a country where it’s spoken.”

  “Nonsense, private lessons with a Parisian is what you need.” Aunt Lilian watched Myra’s face, and a shade of her old sharpness crept into her voice. “Well?”

  Myra scratched at the satin eider-down.

  “I think Uncle John wants me to go to Switzerland.”

  Aunt Lilian ran a caressing hand over Myra’s hair. Myra looked up and got the full blaze of a smile and was held by the softness and laughter in the amber eyes. She, who had always used every charm to get what she wanted, failed to recognise what was happening when charm was used on herself. Aunt Lilian was gently reasonable.

  “We must see what he says, of course, but I’ve been thinking ever since you came that it was hard for you being separated from your dog.”

  She got no further. Myra had bounded up and had her arms round her Aunt’s neck.

  “D’you mean you’d let Fortesque come and live here?”

  “Yes. I thought your maid, Miriam, I think you said her name was, could bring him; she could train under Skinner.”