The Happy Prisoner

by Monica Dickens

  He could smell onions cooking and found that he was looking forward to lunch. He picked up his shaving mirror. It had always been a bony, angled face, but since he had got thin his cheekbones seemed higher and his forehead more knobbly and prominent. His hair, ungreased for months now, seemed to be getting fairer and softer and kept trying to grow in the childish, untrained way of twenty years ago. It wanted cutting too. He smiled at himself. Ugly, grinning devil. Presently, he would ring the cow-bell for something and let the glad tidings spread through the house.

  Chapter 5

  Mrs. North often said to Elizabeth: “I don’t know what we should do without you.” She certainly was a most useful person to have about the house. Besides looking after Oliver and fulfilling to the letter the duties which Mrs. North had worked out for her, she was always doing little extra things which might have been taken for kindnesses if she had not done them in a manner that implied that this was what she was paid for. Mrs. North was often tired in winter; because the cold weather did not agree with her. Elizabeth would urge her into bed, professionally rather than solicitously, and appear later with a tempting tea-tray, just when Mrs. North was wondering whether to pander to her legs by staying in bed, or to her stomach by going downstairs for tea.

  Sometimes she would take her rest in Oliver’s room, with her feet on the red-leather stool in front of the fire. Lying back, the sides of the high armchair hid her face, but Oliver could tell when she was asleep by the steeper rise and fall of her chest, although she still held her book up on her lap. She would read for a while, then a long time would go by without a page being turned and her chest would start to appear beyond the sides of the chair. Waking in a few minutes, she would go on reading as if nothing had happened, until she dozed off again, to wake and read and doze and wake all through the afternoon. Sometimes, when they had been talking, she would throw out an idea on the instant of waking, as if she had been planning still in her dreams. She was napping thus one November afternoon, while Oliver played the wireless softly and watched Evelyn and a pigtailed friend, in scarves and gumboots, raking leaves on the lower lawn under a red and rayless sun.

  “Perhaps, after all,” said Mrs. North suddenly, “the little green room might be better. It’s warmer, being over the kitchen.”

  Oliver could not remember what they had been talking about half an hour ago. “Sure,” he said.

  “Of course, there’s a better bed in the big spare room. She’s probably used to a good bed.”

  “You mean Anne? Oh, don’t worry about her. Put her in a loose-box.”

  “Where do you figure she’d like to sleep?”

  “In here, I should think, judging by the tone of her letter. Look at those silly kids out there. They haven’t a chance in this wind. Evie!” he shouted. “You’ll never do it! Why don’t you give up?” Evelyn turned towards the house, spilling most of her armful of leaves. “We can do it,” came her shrill, breathless cry. “We must. Cowlin said—” The rest was smothered as the wind blew the leaves she held into her face and away before she could put them in the wheelbarrow. She grabbed the rake from her friend and began to work with desperate energy. She was always pitting herself against tasks that were far beyond her, convinced that she could do them, and battling on to the point of tears before she would give up. Oliver had watched her yesterday, building a jump in the hill field with Violet, struggling to get a heavy pit-prop into position across the uprights and thrusting Violet away when she ambled up to help.

  “Sweep them with the wind, not against it!” he shouted, making passes which she could not see, as people make gestures while telephoning.

  “You oughtn’t to shout, darling,” said Mrs. North, waking up. She read for a moment, and when she woke again Oliver asked: “Good sleep?”

  “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “You were—ten solid minutes.”

  “I can’t have been. I’m reading. I maybe just nodded for a second. I’m not crazy about this book, but the girl at the library said everyone was reading it, so I suppose I should.”

  When Elizabeth had brought Oliver’s tea, she came back again in a few moments with another tray for Mrs. North.

  “Isn’t that darling of you!” she exclaimed, taking her feet off the stool with a grunt so that Elizabeth could put down the tray. “You shouldn’t have bothered; I was just coming along. What about the children?” She always thought everyone would starve if she were not about.

  “Heather and I are having it with them in the nursery.”

  “Hot scones!” Mrs. North lifted the lid of the muffin dish. “Did you make these? You are a dear.” Elizabeth was a disconcertingly difficult person to thank. She simply said: “You said this morning you wanted the sour milk used up.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want you to cook in your off-duty time.”

  “Oh, I’ve been out,” said Elizabeth. “I went down to the village. I got your stamps and envelopes, and I took your shoes to Mr. Betteridge. He says they’ll take a week.”

  “You shouldn’t have bothered. I could have taken them. But it was darling of you to think of it.” But Elizabeth would not have it so. “I had to go down, anyway, to get some toothpaste,” she said, and Oliver wondered whether she liked his mother and did these things to save her, or whether she were really as detached as she seemed.

  “Oh, Elizabeth!” Mrs. North called her back as she was closing the door, with the lilting cry with which Americans call up the stairs. “I’ve been wondering whether I won’t put Miss Frith into the little green room after all. We might make the bed up presently.”

  “I did it this morning,” said Elizabeth.

  “In the green room? But how did you know I—”

  “You suggested it last night, before you decided on the other, but I thought you’d probably change your mind again.” She said this not rudely, but as a commonsense statement.

  Oliver laughed when she had gone out. “How well she knows you already, Ma.”

  “Better than I know her, I’m afraid. I can’t seem to get near her at all. And she’s such a good little thing, I would like to be fond of her, but if you show her any affection she shies off as if she were afraid of it. She certainly can make scones, though. I taught her that.”

  “I thought she could when she came.”

  “Mm-hm. Didn’t rise properly. She had her dough too wet,” said his mother with her mouth full. “I showed her.” Oliver saw Elizabeth go out through the drawing-room on to the lawn to call the children in to tea. The wind blew her white overall close to her body. She put a hand up to her head, but her thick corn-coloured roll of hair stayed neat. It was too neat. It made an effective round frame to her composed little features and it showed off the clean line of her chin and nose and forehead, but sometimes, wondering what she would look like with it tumbling in disorder round her shoulders, he had to repress an impulse to pull it down when she was bending over him with the serious expression she used for nursing. Heather had taught him at an early age the folly of tampering with a woman’s hair. “Evelyn and Nancy!” she called. “Evie! Tea!” But they could not hear her. She did not often shout, and when she did, her voice had no carrying power. The children had got the barrow full of leaves and Evelyn was trying to lift the handles to wheel it away. It was too heavy for her, and Nancy tried to help, but Evelyn pushed her away. Oliver could imagine her scarlet, furious face. Eventually, after a little scrapping, they took one handle each, but they had only trundled a few yards when the cumbersome old barrow toppled over, taking Evelyn down with it because she would not let go and spilling out the leaves which they had taken two hours to collect. It was Evelyn who hurt her wrist, but it was Nancy who bellowed. Elizabeth ran, jumping nimbly down the steep bank between the two lawns instead of going by the steps, and when she reached the children, Oliver was surprised to see Evelyn fling her arms round her waist. Elizabeth dropped on one knee among the leaves and did not seem to notice that Evelyn, clutching at her, knocked her little white cap off while s
he was examining the wrist.

  “Will you look at that?” said Mrs. North, who was peering over the bed in frustrated anxiety because she could not go across the lawn in her bedroom slippers. “The girl looks quite human. Funny—Evie never hugs anyone, even when she’s upset.”

  Elizabeth picked up her cap and stood up and Evelyn aimed a vicious kick at the overturned wheelbarrow and then took her hand and they came towards the house, Nancy wiping her nose on her scarf. The light was failing as they came across the top lawn and Oliver could not be sure whether it was his imagination or whether Elizabeth’s expression was really softer and friendlier than any of them had yet seen it.

  .…

  Somebody had to go and meet Anne at the station, because she chose to come on a train that did not connect with any bus.

  “Blast her,” said Violet. “We’re short of petrol. I haven’t got time, anyway.”

  “I’d go,” said Heather, who had been Anne’s friend before Oliver appropriated her, “but I’m supposed to be taking the children out to tea with that woman with no roof to her mouth.”

  “Let me go,” suggested Mrs. North, but they rounded on her. Cars were precious these days.

  “I’ll go,” said Elizabeth, “if you don’t mind me driving the car.”

  “But it’s your off-duty time, dear, and I do like you to stick to that. It’s not fair otherwise.”

  “I want to get some things in Shrewsbury, anyway,” Elizabeth said. “How shall I know Miss Frith?”

  “She’ll be the only person on the train in sheer silk stockings,” said Heather. “She works at an American Army club.”

  “She’s a skinnymalink,” said Mrs. North, “with eyes like saucers and beautiful clothes.”

  “Look for dark rings under the saucers.” Violet guffawed at her own wit.

  “Last time I saw her,” Oliver said, “her hair was scraped up on top of her head, with a kind of diamond hatpin stuck through it. It’s probably hanging down her back by now, or bright yellow with a fringe—sorry, Ma, I mean bang. She’ll be wearing highly unsuitable clothes in which she’ll manage to look exactly right. I remember once she came to a point-to-point in a sort of black swishy thing and a hat made of one ostrich feather and a veil, and had all the other women in the party chewing their tweeds in mortification. God knows how she does it.” His mother looked at him sharply. If he wanted Anne to stay, of course he must have her, but Mrs. North had not wanted her to come. She had once made Oliver very unhappy.

  It was clear from the start, however, that this time she was out to please. Elizabeth had had some difficulty in finding her at the station, because she was wearing a tweed dress and coat and flat-heeled shoes. She had brought two bottles of gin and some expensive fruit, American chocolates for Mrs. North, cigarettes for Violet and a pre-war bottle of scent for Heather.

  Oliver had only seen her once since he spent the whole of one leave in London with her nearly three years ago.

  “I like your hair,” he said. It was cut short all over her head and arranged in hundreds of crisp little curls, all turning up from her fine-drawn, alert features. He could never get used to the fact that she was not as intelligent as she looked.

  “Do you like it, darling? I did hope you would. It takes hours to do, and I should hate to think it wasn’t worth it.”

  “Last time I saw you, you said it didn’t matter a two-penny damn whether I liked your hair or not, remember? You said you didn’t care if it did look like William Tell’s son.”

  “Did I, darling? I don’t remember.” She apparently did not mean to remember any of the other things she had said on that occasion. She was very thoughtful and solicitous, and fussed over him, pouring out his tea and giving little pats to his pillows. If she had had any eau-de-Cologne, she would have dabbed it on his forehead. She wanted to spread his jam for him, so he let her.

  “I’m not quite paralysed, you know,” he said.

  “Oh, but you are! I mean—you know what I mean. Your mother pounced on me as soon as I arrived to tell me not to excite you.” She giggled. “You’re not allowed to do a thing for yourself, they tell me, and I’m the girl that’s going to see you don’t.” After dinner, she insisted or reading to him. He tried to dissuade her, but she knew that reading aloud was one of the things you did to invalids. She found an old book in Mr. North’s bookcase called Rambling in Shropshire’s Byways. It made her laugh. Her idea of reading it aloud was to skim through whole paragraphs saying “Mm-hm-mm-etc, etc.—this wouldn’t interest you, darling,” and then, “Oh, this is a scream, you must listen to this: ‘Treegirt Trafford Hall, a favourite subject of brethren of the brush, lies perdu until we come upon it round a graceful bend of the carriage drive.’ Is there any more like that? Let’s see.… Mm-mm-mm.…”

  Oliver lay and watched her as she sat below him, curly head bent into the lamplight, her lovely hands turning the pages, very careful not to touch the bed, her tall body in a red dress looking at the same time relaxed and ready for action. The scent that came to him from her hair was disturbingly familiar and her presence still had the galvanic quality that made you feel that life was more exciting than it really was. He felt that the old emotions might be only just round the corner, but he did not want to bring them any nearer. He had got over Anne two years ago and he did not intend to let her spoil his peace of mind. He did not need her in this new life; there was no place in it for passion and jealousy and ecstasy and despair.

  He wondered what her idea was in breaking their two years’ silence with the affectionate letter which had brought her here. At the moment her attitude towards him was sisterly. She was not enticing him in any way except by just being Anne. She couldn’t help that.

  She was being very sweet to everybody this week-end. She tried not to stare at Violet when she came in in a dress with a dipping hem and a belt made from an old canvas girth. She played charmingly with the children after tea. She was friendly to Elizabeth, once she had satisfied herself that there was nothing between her and Oliver. She and Heather, who had drifted apart, converged again and stood with their arms round each other’s waists and tried on each other’s clothes. Mrs. North came into Oliver’s room in her dressing-gown to say she had been wrong about Anne and came back again ten minutes later to try to find out how she affected Oliver.

  On Sunday morning he asked Anne what she thought of Elizabeth and Elizabeth what she thought of Anne. He enjoyed hearing what women thought of each other.

  Elizabeth said politely: “She’s very attractive.”

  “You like her?”

  “Yes. Give me your other hand, please.”

  “I haven’t seen her for two years, you know. I’ve been wondering why she suddenly came down here now.”

  “Your nails are filthy. To see you, I suppose.”

  Elizabeth had been at her most maddeningly reserved this week-end. Oliver decided to try and shock her out of it. “She and I had a terrific affair once,” he said, watching her face while she dug at his nails with an orange stick.

  “How nice,” she said.

  “We had a flat in London for three weeks. Captain and Mrs. Oliver North. It was rather fun.” “It must have been.”

  “I thought we were really going to be Captain and Mrs. Oliver North, but it didn’t come off. Ever felt like throwing yourself in the river, Elizabeth?”

  “Hundreds of times,” she said shortly, giving him back his hand. “Your mother wants to know how you want your egg done.”

  .…

  Anne said: “I think she’s sweet, poor thing. It must be awful.”

  “I don’t see why,” said Oliver. “I don’t think I’m so revolting.”

  “I didn’t mean that, darling, you know I didn’t. I mean living in other people’s houses and being neither one thing nor the other. Bit trying for the family too, always having someone around. When I had my tonsils out at home, Mummy used to make the nurse have her meals up in her room. Then, of course, I the maids struck.”

 
; “I wonder the nurse didn’t,” Oliver said.

  “But, darling, she was such a crashing bore. You must admit this one isn’t exactly scintillating. Is she always so piano?”

  “She has hidden depths.”

  “Poor Ollie, why are you so sweet about everyone nowadays? You have changed. You used to be so divinely malicious. Remember how we used to lie in bed and pick everybody we knew to pieces?”

  “Heather says I’m getting saintly.”

  “Well, you are rather, you know,” Anne said sadly. “You’d better look out. Poor Ollie!”

  “Why are you looking at me so tragically?” he asked, and she went on looking at him for a moment and then suddenly burst into tears.

  “What on earth—? Here, Anne—Anne—what’s up?”

  “It’s so sad! Oh, it’s so sad.”

  “Don’t be a chump. Here, blow your nose; you know you look awful when you cry. Stop it, Anne.”

  She stopped, and holding her handkerchief to her mouth, looked at him with enormous, swimming eyes. “But, darling, it is so sad. I can’t help crying for you.”

  “Is that why you wrote and came down, because you felt sorry for me?”

  “Of course I was sorry. Oh, I know we’d bust up and everything—that was my fault—but when I heard about you I was dreadfully upset. I cried and cried.” Her eyes took on a faraway look, seeing herself doing it.

  “Listen here, Anne, I don’t want pity from you or anyone.”

  “Don’t be horrid to me, Ollie. You don’t know how awful I felt, remembering how I’d done you dirt.”

  He laughed. “I got over that ages ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you did, darling,” she said quickly. “But you were in love with me, weren’t you?” she added a little wistfully. “I kept remembering how vile I was that last time we met, when I broke it to you that we weren’t going to be married.”