The Happy Prisoner

by Monica Dickens

  Oliver was by no means out of it all, however, even though he could not take an active part. People found him useful as ah audience for grievances or an adviser on problems which they had usually already settled, but wanted corroborating.

  His next visitor was Heather, in an overall, with her head tied up in Oliver’s silk invasion map of Germany. “I’ve just had a row with Ma,” she stated, taking one of his cigarettes.

  “So what?”

  “Well, Ollie, she really is exasperating. Got a match? I know she’s got a lot to do, and all that—incidentally, she wouldn’t have half as much if she’d occasionally trust someone else to do some of it—but she really is difficult. I took David in to see her in his party clothes, because I thought it would please her, and she went off the handle about his boots. She knows quite well McNaughton won’t let him wear shoes, and if she thinks I’m going to spoil the good work of months, not to mention the money I’ve spent on these flat feet—which he gets from John—just for the sake of Vi’s tiresome wedding, which there’s been more fuss about than the Lord Mayor’s Show—”

  “I don’t see that one day could matter.” Oliver had found that since he had been in bed, with his day made up of little things, he could take a genuine interest in trivial domestic affairs which before had been beneath a man’s notice. “Anyway, are the boots doing all that much good? Elizabeth says—”

  Heather blew up like a rocket. “Elizabeth says! Don’t quote that woman to me. What does she know about osteopathy, anyway? Isn’t that just typical of all hospital nurses? Because they’ve had a few years’ potty training they always think they know more than the doctors.”

  “Elizabeth is a very knowledgeable girl,” said Muffet, coming in, also in an overall. No one in the house had thought it was worth while dressing properly before putting on their wedding garments. John had been sloping about in a spotted dressing-gown with a silk scarf, like someone in a Noel Coward comedy. Muffet’s overall was of glazed chintz, with a bold design of peacocks tails and a wide sash round her matchstick waist. “You’re wanted upstairs,” she told Heather. “Your son has put bright red plasticine all over his face, and the effect, though striking, is un-English.”

  Heather raised her eyes to Heaven. “Oh God,” she said, “is there no peace in this house?” and went out, passing her mother-in-law like a gust of wind.

  “Absolutely none,” said Lady Sandys cheerfully. “I’ve been trying all morning to find somewhere to sit where they’re not moving furniture. As they won’t let me help, I thought I might at least read the paper so that I shall have something to talk about this afternoon. I came to ask you, darling, whether you think I ought to wear my orange, or my black-and-white? One doesn’t want to be overdressed in the country. On the other hand, one doesn’t want to appear to patronise the country folk by dressing down to them.”

  “Your orange? I’ve never seen you in an orange dress.”

  “Oh, my pet—how like a man. Of course you have; I’ve worn it hundreds of times for dinner.” Oliver had seen her in mustard yellow, and in navy blue with brass buttons, and in bright blue with a Toby frill round the neck.

  “You know, that orange dress I got at that shop where they were so unpleasant about the bill; I told you. I shall never go there again. It’s got a ruff round the neck like Queen Elizabeth. I always think it looks as if one’s head had been neatly carved off and dished up as a cutlet.”

  “Oh,” he said, wondering what colour she would call an orange dress, “you mean the orange. No, I should wear the black-and-white.” This would avoid the possible confusion of somebody telling her they liked her blue dress.

  “That’s got that settled then, thank goodness. You’re the only one that’s any help to me. Everyone else is too busy to talk. I’ve been swept out of the kitchen, and dusted out of the dining-room, and Hoovered out of the drawing-room. Smutty’s in one of her sombre moods, and when I ask her she just says: ‘Please yourself. All I know is I’m going to wear my wine.’ By which I suppose she means that bottle-green monstrosity. The poor old thing always was hazy on colours.”

  “Uncle Ollie, Uncle Ollie,” called a breathy voice at the window. Evelyn’s chin was on the sill, as she stood in the flower-bed in an unbuttoned mackintosh, with rat tails of hair streaming from under a sou’wester. “Uncle Ollie, isn’t it dreadful, one of the mares is dreadfully ill. It’s Marigold—you know, the one I told you about, that Fred took to be married to that horse at Culver. That man that came yesterday to be best man—he’s a vet. I’ve been helping him. I just thought I’d come and tell you. Goodbye!” Her face disappeared suddenly.

  “Evie!” He called her back. “I don’t think you should be down there. You—you might get in the way.”

  “I’m helping them, I tell you. Oh, you mean because Marigold’s going to have a foal. Pooh, that’s nothing. I’ve seen stacks of calves born—lambs too, but that’s more dull.”

  “Your Aunt Hattie’s looking for you,” said Lady Sandys.

  “Oh blow. I’d better scoot before she catches me. She wants to get me dressed for the wedding. How can they have a wedding when Marigold might die?” She raised a tragic, rain-washed face to Oliver.

  She had barely disappeared round the corner of the house when Mrs. North arrived in an overall with horizontal stripes, and smocking stretched to its fullest extent at the waist. “I told her not to go out this morning. She’ll get soaking wet, and I shan’t be able to do a thing with that hair. If I don’t get dressed before lunch, we shall never get to the church on time. Oh—” she said vaguely, “good morning, Muffet.”

  ‘I’ve seen you already,” said Lady Sandys, “but only en passant. You were travelling too fast to hear me say good morning. What time is lunch? I’d better go and change too.” She flung back the wide sleeve of her overall, and as she looked at her watch, Oliver saw with horror that she was wearing Heather’s charm bracelet. So it had started again. After nearly two clear weeks, she must choose today to get acquisitive.

  “Yes, you’d better go, or you’ll be late,” he said nervously, wanting to get her away before his mother heard the familiar jingle. There was no point in adding to her worries by telling her now. This might be just an isolated aberration. Lady Sandys had got to come to the party, anyway, and it would be time enough to worry when she was seen walking round in Mrs. Ogilvie’s regimental brooch or Lady Salter’s foxes.

  “Thank the Lord she’s all right,” said Mrs. North when she had gone. “I shouldn’t have a minute’s peace if I thought she were having one of her fits with all those people in the house. As it is, you never know what she’ll do. I only pray she won’t choose to make a speech. She might say anything.”

  Violet was not back by twelve o’clock, nor by half-past. Evelyn, who had been sent back from the stables by Cowlin, reported that Fred and Ken were still there, in their shirt-sleeves. “The foal isn’t born yet,” she said. “At least, not properly. Do you know, Aunt Muffet, they wear little sort of slippers over their shoes so that they can’t hurt—” She saw Mrs. North’s expression.

  “How extraordinarily interesting,” said Lady Sandys. “Do go on.”

  “You come upstairs with me,” said Mrs. North, propelling Evelyn before her. “What your father will say to you, I don’t know. Child, look at your hair! It’ll have to be pigtails, whether you like it or not. I’m quite resigned now,” she told the others, through Evelyn’s wails of protest. “I shall never get any of them to the church on time. Oh, a swell wedding it’s going to be without the bride and bridegroom and best man!”

  “Perhaps Vi will go straight to the church and get married in Oliver’s trench coat,” said Heather. “Ma, I can’t find my charm bracelet anywhere. Have you seen it?” It was so long since the half-moon table had been in use that people did not automatically connect Lady Sandys with any loss. “What are you making faces for, Ollie?” asked Heather obtusely. “Have you got a pain? For God’s sake, don’t say you’re going to be ill now, just to make
everything perfect.”

  “Wind,” said Oliver, as his mother started towards him, all her other worries forgotten.

  “And I had to go and finish all the bicarbonate,” she lamented. “Go and see if Elizabeth has any, Heather.” Oliver did not get a chance of seeing Heather alone. He prayed that she would not notice the bracelet, because she would be quite capable of making a scene, and it had been said that if Lady Sandys were ever made aware of what her subconscious was making her do, it might upset her mental balance completely and permanently. Looking out of the window while he picked at the cold remains of last night’s dinner, he saw Fred and Ken and Violet leaning in consultation on the rail of the stackyard. He shouted at them, but the wind was wrong. Finally, he rang his bell, and after a long time Eilzabeth came in.

  “Now what do you want?” she asked intimidatingly. “As if we hadn’t got trouble enough with David spilling gravy down his party blouse. If you’ve spilled anything down your pyjamas, it’ll have to stay, because you haven’t got another clean pair.”

  “I only wanted to say that Fred and Ken and Vi are out there gossiping in the stackyard,” said Oliver meekly.

  “They’re not! Why didn’t you say so?” Elizabeth was rushing out, but Oliver called her back.

  “Just a second, Liz. Shut the door; I want to tell you something very private.” She shut the door and stood against it, looking at him with interest, caught by the urgent, intimate tone of his voice.

  “Muffet’s got Heather’s charm bracelet on,” he said earnestly. “Don’t let Ma know; it’ll only worry her. Tell Smutty to get it off her somehow before Heather sees it.”

  “Oh yes.” Elizabeth’s look of interest died. “All right,” she said impatiently. “I’ll fix it. Don’t get so fussed.”

  It stopped raining after lunch and the veil of clouds drew away from a pale-blue sky and a mild May sun. Birds sang from everywhere with early-morning exuberance, and hopped on the juicy lawn. Miss Smutts, who had been saying at intervals during the rainy morning: “Happy the bride the sun shines on,’ now stopped saying it, and dwelt on the fact that it would still be too wet underfoot for the guests to overflow from the drawing-room into the garden, as Mrs. North had planned.

  The whole party came in to show themselves to Oliver’before starting for the church, and lined up in a self-conscious row for his inspection. Violet, who had insisted on sitting down to a square meal when she was finally hauled in, had been dressed in half an hour, and Heather had done a few rapid things to her face and hair. She was passed from hand to hand like a lay figure, thinking and talking of nothing but Marigold’s foal, which only Ken’s skill had saved, until they began to wonder whether she would not rather be marrying Ken than Fred.

  The others thrust her forward and she stood now helplessly before Oliver in the dark red silk dress and matching coat. Perhaps because she had not dressed herself, she had the air of not being inside her clothes. They hung from her square shoulders as if they were secured only by tabs, like a paper doll’s one-dimensional wardrobe. They had buckled her belt tightly into her waist, to lessen her appearance of being the same shape all the way down, but she had loosened it surreptitiously on the way downstairs and had pushed it towards her hips, so that she looked longer-bodied than ever. She wore silk stockings on her muscular legs, and boat-shaped court shoes, low-heeled, because of Fred, in which she complained that she could not walk. A spray of gardenias was pinned to her coat and she carried a posy of the same flowers, clutching them doggedly before her like an orphan presenting a bouquet to a visiting mayoress. The other hand hung uselessly, encased in a black kid glove, which, like the rest of her clothes, did not seem to be on her, but to be a separate entity, like a false hand. She had quite a successful hat, a red silk turban, matching her dress. Heather had coaxed a big curl up in front of it and fastened a diamond clip on either side. Violet had rejected ear-rings, and ever since Heather had tried them on had been rubbing at her ears until the lobes were red.

  There had been a struggle, too, about Violet’s glasses, without which she declared she would never see her way up the aisle. Even now, when she had been overruled by numbers, she kept taking them furtively out of her pocket and putting them on, pushing the turban up at the sides, so that Heather had to come in front of her and reach up to jam it down again. Last night, to the accompaniment of roars and kicks, she had plucked her sister’s eyebrows, and powder, rouge and eyelash cream had made something quite pleasing of Violet’s face. Brightened by lipstick, her mouth looked fuller and softer than usual, and the lower lip quivered slightly now and again from nervousness.

  “Vi, you look grand!” said Oliver, glad that he could speak truthfully. He had been afraid they were going to guy her up like a pantomime dame. “I’ve never seen you look so stunning.”

  Somehow, one expected this different-looking Vi to speak with a different voice. “Oh, shut up assing, Ollie,” said the old Vi, however. “I look like something the cat brought in, and I feel an absolute twerp.”

  “Honestly, Ollie,” said Heather, who was looking prettily overdressed in a flower hat, a frilly blouse and every bit of jewellery she possessed, except the charm bracelet, “the old horse doesn’t look too bad, does she?” She stepped out of line to admire her handiwork and Violet stuck out her tongue at her, said “Here, I’m sick of being a peepshow,” and retired to a corner to put on her glasses. The children, who normally wore dungarees and jerseys, were excited by their clothes and ran shrilly in and out of people’s legs, showing off, making faces and screaming with laughter at each other. Miss Smutts, heavy as a thundercloud in her braided wine frockcoat, said more than once: “It’ll only end in crying.” Susan, in Heather’s arms, wore a stiff white dress like a fairy doll and a quilted satin jacket to match the Dutch cap which kept falling askew over her primrose-coloured curls, as she fought with Heather for the right to play tug-of-war with her pearls.

  “The car’s there! The car’s there!” yelled Evelyn, streaking in from the hall and out again.

  “Ve car! Ve car!” echoed David, streaking after her, falling down, waiting for a moment to see if he was hurt, finding he was not and bellowing all the same.

  “Why, it’s my dear Mr. Steptoe!” Lady Sandys waved to him through the open doorway, and Oliver saw with a sinking heart that she was still wearing the charm bracelet. He tried to catch Miss Smutts’ eye, but she had gone to make sure of the front seat of the car, because she was always sick at the back.

  After the others had gone, John and Violet waited in Oliver’s room for Mr. Peploe to come back for them. John, looking burly and handsome in a dark suit with a white carnation buttonhole, his curly hair greased into little waves, seemed to be more nervous than Violet. She slumped, creasing her skirt, with her glasses on, in an armchair, ejaculating at intervals: “God, I wish it was all over.” John moved his long legs about the room, talking jerkily about nothing at all. His forehead was like a harrowed field. He had cut his chin shaving for the second time that day and kept dabbing his handkerchief on a tiny spot of welling blood.

  At last the returning car was heard, and Violet, with a “Here goes, chaps!” pushed herself out of the armchair, pulled up her stockings like a schoolgirl and grasped her posy like a police man’s baton. “’Bye, Ollie,” she said gruffly. “Wish you could come. Sure you’re all right?”

  “It seems awful leaving you,” said John anxiously. Oliver waved them away with his blessing and leaned forward with his arms on his knee to watch them get into the car. At the last moment Violet turned to wave to him, bumped her head on the roof turning back, and got in, rubbing at the turban. Oliver hoped that Heather would be at the bottom of the church to put it straight for her.

  He watched the car go round the little green button of lawn and out of his sight and leaned back to explore the feeling of being alone in the house. Everyone in turn had volunteered to stay with Oliver, but he had resolutely refused, and to quiet them had even written to Dr. Trevor for his permission to b
e left on his own. He had never been quite alone here since his illness and he was looking forward to the experience.

  The Cowlins were at the church. So were most of the people who worked on the farm, although by leaning out of the window and twisting his neck, he could see a man with a tractor making patterns on a sloping field at the eastern boundary of the land. He was quite alone in the house and the stillness was so complete that he fancied he could hear all the clocks ticking, and even the kitchen range whispering, with a hiss now and then as the kettle lid lifted and a drop of water skidded over the hot old iron. All alone in the house. He felt perfectly well, so well that it was amusing to speculate idly on what he would do if one of his waves of dizzy faintness attacked him, or if he had the heart attack which Dr. Trevor was always holding over him as a warning against doing too much.

  For interest’s sake, what would he do? The man with the tractor would never hear him. Could he get out of bed and hop or crawl to the corner cupboard where his pills were? He could never get to the telephone in the next room, and if he did, whom should he ring up? They would not be long, of course; they would be back before anything serious could happen to him. Elizabeth would be back. She would know what to do. But he was perfectly all right today. He had wanted so much to be feeling his best that it was quite surprising to find that he was.

  He took up his book and began to read. Pity they were not going to be away longer, really. It was pleasant being on his own after the hurly burly of the last few days. He needed this solitary respite before the influx of the horde, who would all come in to see him whatever his mother said. Some of whom did not know him very well and would be embarrassed because he had lost a leg and they did not know whether they ought to talk about it. He must make the most of this peace before they came, enjoy it consciously, as an active rather than a passive state.

  The wind banged a door somewhere in the direction of the kitchen, then it banged again, more gently. Oliver cursed, and, listening for it to bang a third time, could have sworn he heard a footstep. Something bubbling on the stove probably. How easy it was to imagine things when you were alone in a house and helpless. There it was again, and a creak—that was the stairs, of course. They did that sometimes at night—creak, creak, creak, just as if someone was walking up, when really it was the old boards relieving themselves of the imprint of the feet that had trodden them down during the day. A different sort of creak, long drawn-out. That must be another door opening in the wind. Why the hell couldn’t they latch the doors on a windy day? Had they no imagination? He was not nervous, but angry. How would they like to be left alone and unable to move in a house where all the doors were kicking up the shindy of souls in torment? He lowered his book—he had been reading the same paragraph for the last five minutes—and waited for the door that had creaked open to bang shut. Why couldn’t it shut itself properly and have done with it, so that it couldn’t open again?