The Happy Prisoner

by Monica Dickens

  “I’m not fit for much at the moment, Liz. How on earth are we going to get me back to bed before the others come? You swear not to tell? I should look such a fool.”

  She got up, dusting her knees. “How about a drink?” she suggested.

  “Champagne,” he said huskily, licking his dry lips.

  “There’s none open yet. Whisky would be best for you, anyway.” She gave him a stiff one, and it lifted the top right off his light head, and he sang all the way along the passage in his wheel-chair. As she was getting him into bed, they heard the first tyres crackle on the drive. She locked the door quickly.

  To get back into bed and sink against the pillows was indescribable delight. He could not believe he had ever been away from this familiar softness pressing against him in all the right spots. “Did I ever do that?” he asked her. “Was I ever in the drawing-room pointing an unloaded revolver at you and saying: ‘Hands up’?”

  “That reminds me.” She took the gun from the pocket where it had been dragging her suit out of shape and slid it quickly into the drawer. “Now, are you sure you’re all right?” she said, hovering over him.

  “I feel fine,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t. You should be practically passing out by rights. I’ll try not to let you see too many people, anyway. You would have to do this on the one day I wanted you to be specially fit.”

  “I am fit,” he insisted. “I say, Liz.” He caught hold of her arm as she was turning away to unlock the door. “D’you think me an awful ass for doing that?”

  She shook her head. “I think you were pretty brave,” she said.

  “I think it was pretty nice of you to come back from the church. Thanks, Liz.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” she said, frowning. “I didn’t want to see Violet marry Fred. Not enough to risk the health of my patient, anyway,” she added primly, with that maddening, withdrawn air, which she assumed like a cloak whenever the conversation began to get interesting.

  “Thanks all the same,” said Oliver doggedly. He caught at her arm again, but she slipped away to open the door, behind which could be heard, two octaves higher than usual, the excited voice of Mrs. Fred Williams. “Must go and see Ollie first! Poor old Ollie, missed all the fun. Come on, Fred!”

  Now that they were married, she was much more possessive. She no longer followed Fred about like a well-trained animal, but led him like a pig with a ring through its nose. It was “Come on, Fred!” all over the house at the reception. The guests made plenty of noise, but Violet’s noise rose above them all, and through the drawing-room wall Oliver heard far more of her hearty laughs than there could have been witticisms in that company. She was exaltée, beside herself. Her laughter burst from her under inward pressure—any noise would have done—shouts and whoops that children give from sheer high spirits. Oliver hoped she would not laugh while she was eating or drinking and choke herself black in the face as she sometimes did.

  She was usually so shy and dumb with visitors, but today something seemed to have gone to her head, long before it could be the drink. It seemed that until the ring was actually on her sturdy finger and the momentous words spoken and the register signed in her rambling loops and Fred’s neat squiggle, she had not quite believed in her marriage. Something would happen to stop it; it would never come off. That was why she had talked so incessantly about her wedding, to try and reassure herself. Since long ago, she had been accepted as the inevitable spinster, had accepted herself as that and planned her future accordingly. Even after her engagement, she still could not quite believe she was going to be married. That happened to other girls, not to her. Not to her, who had seen so many local young women grow up behind her and pass by her through the gates of matrimony, leaving her outside, an unchanging feature of the landscape—“Good old Vi”, whom one was told to be nice to at parties, who had always looked like that and probably always would.

  But now that she was not “Good old Vi” but Mrs. Fred Williams, legally and inescapably, the lid of doubt had lifted and she bubbled over with exuberant pride. Elizabeth and Mrs. North were trying to keep the noisier people out of Oliver’s room, but they could not keep out Violet, because it was her day.

  Nearly pulling Fred off his feet, she dragged him in to see Oliver directly they got back from the church. She had taken off her hat in the car and the front curl which Heather had created flopped forward unanchored, like an errand-boy’s quiff. Her belt had got lower than ever, her gardenias were hanging upside down from her coat, she had splashed her stockings in a puddle outside the church and scuffed her new shoes kneeling before the altar. But her face, on which the make-up was wearing off in patches, was one vast grin, embracing all the world, including Fred when she remembered about him. Oliver was relieved to see that he was not wearing the emerald-green suit, but a neat brown pinstripe, rather short in the trouser, showing the gaudy clocks which were his sole concession to wedding display. His shirt and tie were modest and his buttonhole the smallest carnation he could find. The hand that Violet was not clutching still held his hat, for she had rushed him in before he could find anywhere to put it down.

  “Well—” said Oliver. “Congratulations!” He shook hands with them both, for Violet would not kiss him. Her handshake nearly took his arm out of its socket; Fred’s was sticky and tentative. He was always afraid of touching any part of Oliver, as if he might break, like so many other delicate things he touched.

  “Do we look different?” asked Vi eagerly. “We’re really spliced. Old Norris gave us the whole works; it was super. You should have been there. Look!” She stuck out her hand for him to see the ring. “Eighteen-carat gold. I can’t take it off to prove it to you, because it’s a bit tight. Fred and Ken thought they’d lost it, of course—Ollie, you’d have died. There was I, waiting like a lemon, while they fished about in their pockets, each thinking the other had it. Old Norris’s face was a scream; I didn’t dare look at him in case I hooted.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry I made a mess of that,” said Fred. “It was a bad show. Still,” he added, with sudden quiet confidence, “You’ve got it on now. You’re really married to me.”

  “Can’t get it off, what’s more,” said Violet, giving it an experimental tug against her brawny knuckle, “so I guess I’ll have to stay married to you, for better or worse, till death do us part and all the rest of it.” This seemed to her a tremendous joke, but Fred, who was looking very s lemn, glanced at her fondly and said in an undertone: “Suits me.”

  The others burst in on them. Mrs. North, with a tear glittering behind each lens of her pince-nez; David and Evelyn, riotously working off the restraint of sitting still so long; Muffet at the top of her form, standing on tiptoe to kiss Violet, who rubbed at her cheek and said: “Oh blimey, I thought we’d got over all that in the vestry.” John, pleased that his ordeal was over, came in grinning with Heather, who was itching to get her hands on her sister.

  “Come upstairs quick, Vi,” she said, a pin in her mouth as she rearranged Violet’s flowers. “The photographer’s here and we must get that over before everyone arrives. Come on up and let me powder your nose. Where’s your bouquet?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know.” Violet looked vaguely round. “Must have left it in the car or somewhere.”

  “Evie, run and see if Mr. Peploe’s still there,” said Heather. “Oh, Vi, what have you done to your hair? It was looking so nice.”

  Violet jerked away her head as Heather put up a hand. “Don’t muck me about,” she said. “I let you before, so you might leave me alone now.”

  “Just go up and let her tidy you for the photograph, there’s a good girl,” said her mother coaxingly. “She only wants to make sure you look your best.” Violet gave her a martyred look and suffered herself to be led out. Deep-throated cries from the hall indicated that Mrs. Ogilvie was among the arriving guests who fell on Violet like a pack of hounds when the huntsman chucks them back their dead fox.

  Oliver watched the photographs being taken on th
e lawn. The photographer, who was a tactful man, arranged Fred on the highest side of the slight slope.

  Oliver could not see their faces, but he heard the photographer saying: “A little smile from the bridegroom please! The bridegroom a little less serious, if you will. This is a wedding, not a funeral, you know!” This joke, which she had heard him make at all the local weddings, made Violet laugh, and he had to come out from under his cloth to say: “Just close the lips a trifle more, Mrs. Williams, and try to keep the face still. I shan’t keep you a moment. Don’t lose the animation—yes, that’s very charming.” He pressed the bulb just before Violet doubled up in a fit of giggles.

  After several pictures had been taken of the happy pair, with Violet’s hands, as it afterwards transpired, looming exaggeratedly in the foreground, a family group was taken. Mrs. North had wanted Oliver brought out in his wheel-chair, but Elizabeth, who was not going to get him out of bed again, pretended that one of the tyres had come off and that the iron rim could not be wheeled over the soggy lawn. The group was arranged on a carpet, with David and Evelyn cross-legged in front Mrs. North in her chic postilion wedding hat looking like the president of a Mothers’ Day congress, Muffet unable to be kept still, and Miss Smutts, who had attached herself uninvited to the end of the row, brooding as if she were regretting having held her peace at the “If any man know of any just cause or impediment”.

  “Well, what a day, what a day for you all!”

  While he was grinning out of the window, Mrs. Ogilvie came in, unwinding scarves and flinging down gloves and bags all over his room. “I must say I give full marks to Violet for her appearance; I never would have believed it. She looks what my mother would have called a handsome woman. It’s a fine English type—a lot of people admire it. And how do you feel about the whole thing? Everyone’s in the drawing-room, stampeding the food and drink, but of course I had to come straight in to see my wounded warrior.”

  “I’ve brought you some champagne, Ollie,” said Muffet, coming in with a glass in one hand and a plate of sandwiches in the other. “There they all are guzzling away in there; it’s a good thing you’ve got someone to think about you.” She liked to think she was the only one who really considered Oliver. As Mrs. Ogilvie did too, they eyed one another rather coldly as Oliver introduced them.

  “But I knew you, of course,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, casting off another scarf and shaking her jacket out in front to give herself air. “I’ve seen you often in the village. I know your son very well, of course. He’s one of my pets—next to this boy. I must get him along for another game of golf as soon as he’s fit enough. My dear, I can’t tell you how shocked I was to see him looking so seedy. When he came up the aisle with Violet, I thought: Well, you look far worse than when you came back from SEAC. Are you sure it was only flu he had?”

  “Oh, quite,” said Lady Sandys airily. “He opened the window and Influenza! I made that up.” She giggled. “Good, isn’t it?” Mrs. Ogilvie looked at her sharply and then raised her eyebrows at Oliver. He pretended not to see, and said to Muffet: “Why don’t you go and get yourself a drink, Muff? I’m sure you need it.”

  “Oh, I do, I do. And I want to go and study the local fauna in there. I just had to make sure you were quite happy before I could settle down to enjoy myself. I’ll come back and drink your health in a minute, darling.”

  On her way out she absentmindedly picked up Mrs. Ogilvie’s crocodile pochette, which her son had brought back from Cairo. She studied it for a moment undecidedly while Oliver held his breath, then tucked it under her arm and continued on her way.

  “Excuse me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, striding forward. “I think you’ve taken my bag by mistake.”

  “What?” Muffet turned vaguely in the doorway. Her eyes had the same blank, unfocused look as on the night when she had come pattering down in her nightdress.

  “My bag,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, enunciating as if Lady Sandys were deaf or a foreigner. “I suppose you have one like it. Did John bring it home?”

  “John?” said Muffet, as if she thought her daft.

  “My bag,” repeated Mrs. Oglivie quite impatiently, snapping her fingers for it. Muffet followed her eyes and looked extremely puzzled to find the brown crocodile pochette, bursting full, like all Mrs. Ogilvie’s bags, under her arm.

  “This isn’t mine,” she said irritably, as if Mrs. Ogilvie had put it there. “Do you want it?” She offered it uncertainly, and when Mrs. Ogilvie had snatched it away she held her hand for a moment to her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose and giving her head a little shake as if trying to clear it. Then, with a lost look at Oliver, she turned and went out. He felt very nervous.

  “Well, can you believe it?” Mrs. Ogilvie blew off steam when she had gone. “What an extraordinary way to behave! Is she a bit—you know?” She rapped her knuckles on her forehead.

  “Lord, no.” Oliver forced a laugh. “Just absent-minded.”

  “I wouldn’t ask, but you know what they say about her in the village.”

  “No. What do they say?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly repeat it. After all, she’s practically related to you, isn’t she?”

  “How dare they gossip about our guests? A lot of ignorant bumpkins, gawping at somebody from London as if she was an aboriginal—”

  “Oh, forget all about it, dear boy. I shouldn’t have said anything. You know what a lot of gossips they are; they make up stories about everybody. You ought to hear what they say about Francis. Have you seen him yet, by the way? You’d never believe his tie if I described it, so I’ll let him spring it on you himself. Oh, look, here’s your mother, bringing in some visitors. I’ll go and do the polite next door for a bit.” She obviously wanted to go and investigate Lady Sandys.

  It was Violet’s idea that the cake should be cut and the speeches made in Oliver’s room. His mother did not hear of it until the cake had been brought in and the guests were flocking after it, filling his low, shadowy room with smoke and gabble and bright colours.

  Mrs. North pushed her way through the crowd to his bed. “This is just what I didn’t want to happen,” she said. “Are you sure you can stand the racket? I can’t very well turn them out now; it looks so rude. That fool Violet—no, I suppose I shouldn’t say that on her wedding day—but she’s so thoughtless. Did you ever see anyone so over-excited? Will you just look at her now!” Violet was brandishing a large carving knife, making believe to cut off Fred’s head, to the great amusement of a bunch of Fred’s friends, weathered-looking men in tight best suits.

  “I don’t mind,” said Oliver. “It’s fun. So long as I don’t have to talk to too many people. I get a bit breathless, that’s all.”

  His mother gave him a penetrating look. “You look tired already,” she said. “Oh dear, I do wish … Where’s Elizabeth? I told her to stay by your door and keep people out.”

  “If I know anything about Elizabeth,” said Oliver, “she’s working like a beaver somewhere in the background. I haven’t seen her since the party started.”

  “She’s been flirting with that Ken,” said Mrs. North disapprovingly. “He’s gone quite daffy about her and I guess it’s gone to her head. They’re together somewhere now, I expect.” She looked round the room. “I don’t see him in here.”

  “She’s probably lancing his carbuncle,” said Oliver, and his mother said: “Don’t be disgusting, dear. I’m not pleased with Miss Gray today, though. She’s let me down. You know she never came into the church at all? Simply sneaked off somewhere. She might at least show a little polite interest in Violet’s wedding, even if she doesn’t feel any. She’s interested enough to drink our champagne, I notice, although she always pretends she doesn’t drink liquor.”

  “That’s what it’s there for, to drink, isn’t it?” asked Oliver. “And I’d like some more, by the way. It’s doing me a power of good. It’s the first I’ve tasted since we rustled the German H.Q. at Nijmegen. Hi, Toby!” He waved his glass at Toby, who was moving urbanely amo
ng the crowd. “Fill me up, will you, before someone proposes a toast.”

  “How’s yourself, Ollie?” Toby asked, as he poured the champagne, holding an expensive white handkerchief round the bottle. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you properly.”

  “I’m fine,” said Oliver. “How about you? I don’t seem to have seen you for years.”

  “I’m in town most of the time,” said Toby. “Only get home for the occasional week-end. I’m in my uncle’s office, you know—Ketch and Blackett, the solicitors.”

  “Pretty good firm,” said Oliver knowledgeably, as if he had heard of them. “Er—see anything of Anne these days?”

  “Oh—we’ve done the town once or twice, you know,” he said casually. “She’s good fun on a party, isn’t she? And I’ll say one thing for her—she can dance.”

  “I could say more than that for her, old boy,” said Oliver, grinning. “She’s a swell girl, Anne is.”

  “She get down much to see you?” asked Toby, to satisfy himself that Anne was telling the truth when she said she never came.

  “Lord, no. Our little romance ended long ago,” Oliver said. “That time when you met her here, she was just coming to see whether perhaps I wasn’t rather fascinating after all, now that I’d only got one leg.”

  “And were you?”

  “No, thank goodness. You can’t heat up a thing that’s gone as cold on you as our affair had. But I expect Anne’s told you all about that. She always tells the next boy friend about the one before.”

  “Does she?” Toby sounded rather uncomfortable.

  “Rather. You wait. In a few months’ time some guy or other will be highly entertained by indiscreet details about you.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact—” began Toby, easing his neck in his collar.

  “Oh—like that, is it? Well, I suppose you have pretty well had your run. Six months is usually about Anne’s limit of endurance.”

  Toby drained his glass and poured himself out another. He stood watching the bubbles, swirling the champagne gently round the glass as if it were brandy. “I made the fatal mistake, you see,” he said, without looking at Oliver, “of asking her to marry me.”