The Happy Prisoner

by Monica Dickens

  “Keep your wool on,” she told him without turning round. “I’m not scared to drive in the dark, if you are.”

  “Goodbye, old girl,” Oliver said. “Have a good time. Write and tell me how Jenny’s behaving.”

  “You know I can’t write letters. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. Wait till that mare gets her head on the moor, you won’t see us for dust. Probably fetch up in a bog.” She threw back her head to laugh, then, as she brought it down again, said surprisingly, for she was seldom solicitous of Oliver’s health: “Hope you don’t feel too fagged; you look a bit peaked.” As the horn sounded raucously once more, she held out a large friendly hand. “Well, goodbye then, old thing.” She leaned forward, stumbling against the step of the alcove. “And I say, Ollie, thanks awfully and all that. It was all your doing, talking me into it.”

  “Rot,” he said. “Happy?”

  “You bet.” She suddenly lunged and kissed him, nearly overbalancing on to the bed. She straightened up, confused, and turned to her husband. “Come on, Fred, for heaven’s sake, or we’ll never get there tonight.” He gave Oliver a conspiratorial look, which said: “Aren’t women illogical?”, shook hands and trotted after Vi in his green suit, like a harvest bug.

  “Well, they’ve gone at last!” Mrs. North staggered in and collapsed into Oliver’s armchair. “My goodness, will you just look at the mess in here! I’ll clear it all up for you when everyone’s gone—if they ever go.”

  “Was there an old shoe on the car?” asked Oliver.

  “There was.”

  “And a notice saying: ‘Just married’?”

  “I’m afraid so, dear. Fred’s friends put it on. No confetti or rice, though, thank goodness; that’s one mercy about austerity. Say, my feet are killing me, d’you know it?” She put them on to the footstool, but let them down again almost immediately and stood up. “Oh dear, there’s someone wanting to say goodbye.” She went out into the hall, where Oliver heard her weary voice slide easily into practised sociability.

  Elizabeth had made tea for the few remaining guests. Mrs. Ogilvie, who believed in getting her money’s worth, was still there, and Stanford Black was waiting to take Heather to the party. They sat jadedly in Oliver’s room, discussing the guests with lazy malice, while Oliver lay back with his eyes closed and heard their talk coming from far away.

  “I say,” said Stanford idly, in his flat Air Force drawl, “most extraordinary thing, Heather, you know that charm bracelet your mother-in-law’s got?”

  Oliver opened his eyes. Heather sat up. “Charm bracelet? She hasn’t got a charm bracelet!”

  “She has; I saw it. Haven’t you seen she’d got a little faun on it, just like you—”

  “John!” exploded Heather furiously, “this is just about the limit. If that woman doesn’t leave this house soon, I shall. Shoes and toothbrushes and hankies and things I can just stomach, though I’m getting pretty tired of it, but when it comes to jewellery, and especially a thing I prize so-much—”

  “What on earth—?” Stanford looked puzzled.

  “All right, old girl. All right, all right, all right.” John was painfully conscious that Mrs. Ogilvie was sitting bolt upright in her chair, mentally slapping her thighs with glee at having happened on such a promising scene.

  “It’s not all right!” Heather tossed her head. “I’ve been very good about it up to now, but this time I’m going to tackle her about it.”

  “Heather, you know what Smutty—”

  “Smutty encourages her. I shouldn’t wonder if they weren’t making a racket of the whole thing, and Smutty only puts out a few valueless things as a blind. What about that ring of Ma’s? That never turned up, did it?”

  “Now, Heather Bell, you know she thought it might have gone down the waste pipe when she was washing.”

  “Well, how do we know what your mother doesn’t take from shops? You all pander to her and say she can’t help it and let her pinch all your things—it makes me sick. I believe she knows perfectly well what she’s doing.” Mrs. Ogilvie’s eyes were snapping like the shutters of a camera, as if she were trying to photograph every detail on her brain for filing in her library of gossip subjects.

  “Did someone say tea?” The little black-and-white figure fluttered into the room like an innocent butterfly.

  “No!” Heather jumped up and confronted her. “But someone said charm bracelets! My God, you’re right, Stanford.” She picked up Muffet’s forearm, and held it out, to show the bracelet dangling down over the blue-veined hand.

  “Heather, for heaven’s sake!” John got up and went to them. “It’s all right, Mother; let’s go outside. I’ll bring you some tea in the drawing-room.”

  Heather pushed him back. “Don’t you interfere. This is between her and me.”

  Stanford and Mrs. Ogilvie goggled. Oliver said uncomfortably: “Oh, look here, Heather—”

  “And don’t you butt in, either,” she flung over her shoulder. “Now look here, Muffet,” she said grimly, while her mother-in-law stood with her arm still raised, throwing plaintive, puzzled glances at the others, as if appealing for help, “where did you get that bracelet?”

  “What bracelet, dear?” She looked at her hand as if she had never seen it before, and, with a start of surprise, picked up one of the charms and let it fall with a tiny tinkle. “This? Oh, isn’t it pretty? Someone lent it to me, didn’t they? Who was it? I forget—I’m a bit tired, you know. The party—”

  “Someone lent it you!” cried Heather scornfully. “You stole it!” Mrs. Ogilvie drew in her breath with a fascinated hiss. “It’s mine; you took it from my room. And what’s more, it’s not the first thing you’ve taken, as you know perfectly well, although you pretend to be so innocent. You may flatter yourself you’ve fooled the others, but you haven’t fooled me. I’m going to tell the police.”

  Stanford had the decency to look very uncomfortable. Mrs. Ogilvie was sitting on the edge of her chair, her legs planted like trestles.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Muffet looked as though she were going to cry. She passed a hand across her forehead. “It’s all such a muddle. You muddle me so with your wild talk.”

  “Oh, I give up.” Heather flung back her hand, as if disappointed that the result of’ her audacity had not been more spectacular. “You deal with her, John; she’s your mother. But I would like my bracelet back.” She held out her hand.

  John put his arm round Muffet. “Come on, old dear,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs, shall we? You ought to lie down and rest after all the excitement of the party. I’ll bring you your tea in bed.”

  She looked up at him coldly as if he were a presumptuous stranger. “Please leave me alone. This girl wants this bracelet,” she said in a flat voice, fumbling with the clasp. “I’m sure I don’t know—”

  “Muffet,” said Heather sharply, on a sudden note of fright, “do you know who I am?”

  “No, dear,” said Muffet sadly, “but I should be very pleased to if someone will introduce us.”

  Heather was really frightened now, and even Mrs. Ogilvie was beginning to look as if she would rather be somewhere else.

  “John, is she pretending?” Heather stepped back and put her hand on his arm, looking at her mother-in-law with wide eyes. “Oh, John, I don’t like it.”

  “Get Smutty!” said Oliver urgently. “Or Elizabeth. Can’t you see she’s not well?”

  “Anything I can do?” asked Stanford. He had got up and was standing embarrassed, hating to be at a loss when he was usually at home in any situation.

  “Shall I phone for a doctor?” asked Mrs. Ogilvie eagerly. Their suggestions hissed round Muffet, while she stood forlornly, fumbling with the clasp of the bracelet. They all stood a little back from her, as if they were afraid to touch her.

  “Stay with her, Heather,” said John. “I’ll get Smutty.”

  “No,” said Heather, giving Muffet a scared glance. “I’ll go.” She darted away and the ot
hers waited in the most uncomfortable silence any of them had ever known. Every time John tried to approach his mother she shook him off and gave him that blank, distant look again. “Let me undo the bracelet,” he said gently.

  “No, no,” she said, impatiently, pursing her lips like a cross old woman. “I can do it, I can do it. Thank you very much indeed, all the same,” she added as an afterthought of studied politeness.

  Heather came back with Miss Smutts, who had changed her best wine dress for her usual battleship grey and was intoning: “I knew it. I knew it. I told you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Shut up,” said John surprisingly, “and be some use. My mother isn’t well. Please take her up to bed.”

  “Hoity-toity, young man.” She put a hand on Lady Sandys’ arm. “Now what’s all this about? Why don’t you come upstairs with poor old Smutty and let her put you to bed? You shall have some bread and milk later on, how will that be?”

  “I loathe and detest the stuff,” said Muffet clearly. “Oh—hullo.” She looked at Miss Smutts vaguely as if she were a distant acquaintance whom she knew by sight but not by name. “Help me get this damned thing off. They keep bothering me for it, and heaven knows I don’t want it.”

  “Let’s go where the light’s a bit better, shall we?” Miss Smutts was able to shepherd her out, throwing a lugubrious glance of triumph at the others as she went. When she had got Muffet into the hall she stepped back into the room for a moment. “This is a terrible thing you’ve done,” she told Heather in a voice like the clanging of the brass doors in the House of Ussher. “A terrible thing. I’m not answerable for the consequences. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Oh, shut up,” shouted Heather and John and Oliver together.

  Smutty sniffed, and withdrew. Mrs. Ogilvie got up. “I can only say—” she began. They wanted to say “Shut up” to her too, but it was unnecessary, because, for once in her life, she did not know what to say, and simply opened her hands in a helpless gesture.

  “My mother hasn’t been well, you know,” said John hastily. “She had a nervous breakdown from war strain.”

  “Oh, of course, of course,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, grasping this soothing explanation eagerly, and Stanford mumbled: “Of course. We quite understand.”

  “Look,” said. Heather. “Stanny, why don’t you be a dear and run Mrs. Ogilvie home to save her walking and then come back for me? I’ll be changing.”

  “Heather, you’re not going out?” John looked hurt.

  “Why not? I can’t do anything here, and I need something to take my mind off this. And don’t say anything to me,” she said defensively. “I know it was my fault; I know I’d been told, but don’t say anything, or I shall scream.”

  Her voice wobbled on the last word and she bit her lip and rushed out, fumbling in her sleeve for a handkerchief.

  “Well, goodbye, Mrs. Ogilvie,” said John, with the false geniality of relief that she was going. He pumped her hand. “Hope you enjoyed the party. Forget that it ended like this. I need hardly ask you,” he said pompously, “not to talk about it. My mother doesn’t like people to think she’s not strong, you know.”

  “But my dear John!” She raised her eyebrows at him. “What do you take me for?”

  “We take her for what she is,” said Oliver gloomily when she had gone. “Can’t you imagine how she and Stan are getting down to it now in the car? They’ll probably call in on a few people on the way and tell them. Jonathan, why do you let Heather go out with that bounder?”

  “Oh—” John made a harassed gesture.

  “Sorry, forget it. You don’t want to be badgered now. I say, I—I’m most terribly sorry about all this. I suppose she’ll be all right, will she? Has she been like this before?”

  John shrugged his shoulders and turned away as if he did not want to talk about it. He looked drawn and old, much older than forty-three. He didn’t look like Max Baer any more. If he looked like a pugilist, it was a passé, retired pugilist, who had taken a lot of beatings and given up fighting.

  Much later that night John wandered back into Oliver’s room. Dr. Trevor’s partner had been, and taken Lady Sandys away to a Birmingham nursing-home where, he said with empty cheerfulness, he could get sympathetic nursing for her and arrange for suitable psychological treatment. Miss Smutts tried to tell him what had happened last time a psychologist had tampered with Muffet’s libido, but the doctor, who thought Smutty was the old family nurse, had said: “Yes, yes, yes, Nanny. Now don’t you worry yourself; everything’s going to be all right.”

  Elizabeth had gone with him to Birmingham and had not yet returned. Heather had gone defiantly to her party with Stanford. Oliver noticed that she was not wearing the bracelet; she would probably never wear it again. Mrs. North had gone to bed early with sleeping pills. She had cried when they told her what had happened and had insisted on blaming herself for not having been in the room to prevent it. Miss Smutts, too, had gone to her room early to pack. She was going to stay with her sister at Malden, until she should be needed again. “And the dear knows when that will be,” she had prophesied gloomily, “now that you’ve let the medicals get their hands on her. Much better have left her to me.” At about eleven o’clock Oliver heard her come downstairs again, and heard her shuffle along to the kitchen in her bedroom slippers to put the kettle on for peppermint water for her indigestion.

  When she had creaked upstairs again all was quiet. A dead weight of fatigue hung over the house and it was difficult to imagine that the rooms had so lately been filled with noisy, happy people. Oliver was playing the wireless softly to keep himself awake until Elizabeth came back, so that he could hear about Muffet. John opened the door just wide enough to admit his shaggy head. “D’you mind if I come and smoke my last pipe in here?” he asked. “I saw your light on when I was in the garden. I can’t sleep yet and the house gets on my nerves when it’s so quiet. D’you mind? I won’t talk if you don’t want to.”

  “Come in, old boy. We’ll wait up for Elizabeth together, and hear how your mother’s settled in. Get yourself a drink. There should be some whisky in the cupboard.”

  “No, thanks. Oh well—perhaps it might pep me up a bit.” Oliver heard him pour a long drink, with only a splash of soda, which he took over to the armchair by the fireplace. When he leaned back behind the high side of the tapestry chair, Oliver could only see one trouser leg crossed over the other, and one slipper swinging from his toe. He remembered the first time he had sat out of bed in a chair, how funny it had felt not to be able to cross his legs.

  For a while neither spoke. The only sound was the gentle strum of the wireless and an occasional bubbling whistle from John’s pipe, which had been mended with sticking plaster after David had knocked it out of John’s face, leaping up to hug him. Presently John crossed over the other leg and swung the other slipper. He stirred and gave one or two deep sighs and Oliver, who did not want to talk, took pity on him and said: “If I was Mrs. Ogilvie, I should say: ‘A penny for them.’”

  John was not sensitive to platitudes. He said: “I was thinking about poor old Heather.”

  “Oh, her,” said Oliver. “I should have thought you’d got troubles enough without thinking about her. Personally, I’d rather not think of her floating ecstatically over the floor in the arms of Squadron-Leader Black.”

  “It’s different for you; she’s your sister. I can’t help feeling miserable for her. You see, this whole business is worse for her than anyone.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “But don’t you see, Onions, it’s worse for her because she thinks it’s her fault. Of course it isn’t; it would probably have happened, anyway, sooner or later. Nobody’s blaming her, but she’s got it into her head that we are. She’ll hardly speak to anyone because she feels so sensitive about it. She wouldn’t even say good night to me, and I heard her say to that Black fellow: ‘Thank God to get out of this house; they all look at me as though I was a criminal.’”

/>   “Poor old Heather,” said Oliver. “She does love to see herself as the black sheep.”

  John leaned forward and knocked out his pipe in the empty grate, a habit which always annoyed Heather. “Who d’you think’s going to clear it up?” she would ask. “Or do you think it can be left there until the fire’s lit next autumn?” He sat for a while with his hands between his knees, turning the pipe round and round, and then suddenly looked sideways at Oliver from under his puzzled brow. “What can I do?” he asked helplessly. “How can I get near her? She won’t even let me try to explain that I’m not blaming her, just takes it for granted that I am, and shies off accordingly. God knows, we were getting far enough apart before; this’ll just about finish it.” He put the pipe between his teeth again and leaned back again, hugging one knee, sucking gloomily on the empty pipe.

  “D’you know what she told me once?” Oliver said. “She said you made her feel inferior because you had a much nicer nature than she has.”

  “Oh rot,” said John. “What a damn fool thing to say. She’s worth ten of me. And if it’s a question of being pi—look at the way she’s always rushing off to church. I never go more than once a week.”

  “Perhaps why she rushes, why she took up this Catholic business in the first place, is because you made her feel there was something lacking in herself and she wanted to find it.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have made her very happy.” The evening’s troubles seemed to have weakened John’s loyal refusal to discuss his wife. Once having started, he unburdened himself now with relief. “D’you know what,’ Onions, I wish she hadn’t done it; I think it was a great mistake. One ought to stick to what one was brought up to. It’s only unsettled her more than before to go floundering about among all these mysteries which the priests can’t possibly explain properly. I think that’s why they go in for all this incense and fancy dress and omnia saecula saeculorum, to cover up the fact that they don’t really know who they’re chanting and mumbling at. I wish Heather had listened to me. If only I’d been at home …”