The Gentle Prisoner

by Sara Seale

  "Miss Lydia?" The old man's face crinkled in loving memory. "She was full of life. A big, strong, handsome girl, always laughing, as I remember. She and Mr. Nicholas were very close. It was hard that she should have had to go away at that time - Mr. Justin should have waited."

  Shelley looked startled. It was difficult to picture someone who had always laughed at Garazion.

  "And then there was Mrs. Penryn," Baines went on, and his old eyes had an inward look, remembering. "She was an invalid for so long. It was the shock, they said, of Mr. Nicholas'

  accident and Mr. Penryn's death. She lost the use of her legs. It didn't come on for some years, but she was never quite the same, poor lady, after that summer."

  "Then Mrs. Medlar wasn't here before the accident?"

  "Oh, not until some years after - when Mrs. Penryn could no longer get about, that was." He looked at her gently. "It was hard on Mr. Nicholas. He had no youth, as you might say."

  She began dimly to understand Nicholas, old before his time, shouldering responsibility and a bitter personal handicap together, shutting himself up with impersonal treasures which he once had told her possessed no power to hurt.

  "We were all very pleased," Baines was saying softly, "when we heard he was bringing home a bride. Mr. Nicholas has been alone too long."

  She thought he looked at her a little curiously, thinking perhaps she was a strange choice for a Penryn whose women had been big and broard and borne fine sons, and felt herself flushing. Nicholas was still alone. She had no part, she thought, in his closed, secretive life, and the ghosts of Garazion.,

  She wondered if she had failed him in some fashion on the day of their marriage, and remembered him showing her his treasures, as Martin had shown her his, and the gentleness in his scarred face as he had tried to put her at her ease. And later, had she shut him out with her concern for Martin, her relief at his presence in the house? She remembered Nicholas saying before he left: "I'm giving you time, Shelley ..." Time, she thought, there's all the time in the world at Garazion, and you must tell me what you want of me, Nicholas ...

  It was raining the day of Nicholas' return, and, looking out of the windows, Shelley thought how sad the garden looked, with the roses, almost finished now, bearing a few stray petals already brown at the edges. Fallen leaves were piled by the paths in orderly heaps, and the creeper on the high wall was turning red.

  Martin was in a difficult mood, resenting, no doubt, his uncle's return, and sensing, as children do, the threat to his own individuality.

  'You'll still play with me, won't you?" he asked Shelley, and he laughed.

  "Of course. I expect Uncle Nick will play with you, too." Martin scowled and momentarily looked extraordinarily like his uncle.

  "He won't," he said. "Besides, I don't want him."

  "Well, we'll see," said Shelley, and saw his first look of distrust at such a familiar adult remark.

  "Why don't you like him?" she asked curiously.

  "I don't know. His face frightens me."

  "That's nonsense! Come on - let's play hide and seek!"

  They were both suddenly gay, tearing round the house, laughing, shouting, keyed up in expectatiom, then disaster overtook them. Martin, in flight from Shelley, entered the first door which stood open and raced into Nicholas' study, overturning a small Empire table as he ran. There was a tinkle of splintering porcelain, and he stood aghast, and cried:

  "Shelley! Shelley!"

  They knelt on the floor, looking at the pieces of the broken bowl with frightened eyes. "Is it valuable?"

  "I'm afraid so. Everything in here is valuable," she said, and rang the bell for Baines.

  "Oh, dearie me!" the old man said, picking up the pieces with gentle hands. "The famille-verte ... Mr. Nicholas will be upset. It took him a long time to find that piece."

  "Couldn't it be mended?" Shelley asked. "It's not so badly broken. Look, the pieces fit."

  Baines shook his head sadly.

  "You see, miss - ma'am, I should say - it wouldn't be perfect, and its value's gone."

  "Oh, yes, I see. Was - was Mr. Penryn very fond of it?"

  Baines gathered up the pieces, fingering the delicate tracery lovingly.

  "The famille-verte ..." he said. "Yes, Mr. Nicholas was fond of it. Oh, dearie me! On the very day he is coming home."

  The mishap set the key note to Nicholas' homecoming.

  Martin, in a storm of tears was led away to Mrs. Medlar who remarked that she had known such freedom from discipline could have but one end, and Shelley, waiting for Nicholas in the library, felt her throat constricting further, and knew that her forebodings of the morning were to be fulfilled. She was going to have a temperature.

  She heard the car on the gravel outside, and then the sound of the heavy front door opening, and she went out into the hall.

  He stood looking at her for a moment, waiting, perhaps, for her to run to him, then he tossed his hat and coat onto a chair. "How are you, Shelley?" he said.

  She went to him then, lifting her face to kiss him. Their lips met lightly, his cold from the raw, wet night, and he held her away from him, looking keenly at her face.

  "You look flushed," he said. "You're well?"

  "Quite well," she answered. "Did you have a good journey?"

  "Yes, thanks." He released her, sighing a little as he turned away. He had hoped so much that on his return she would have been glad to see him. "Come and tell me what you've been doing since I've been away."

  He went directly to his study, and she followed, seeing the way he glanced at the cabinets, unconsciously making sure that all was well with his treasures.

  "I hope you haven't been too lonely," he said.

  "No," she replied. "I had Martin. Were you busy in London?"

  He smiled a little crookedly.

  "What a polite little interchange," he said. "Yes, I was fairly busy. Your jewels are being re-set, and some new clothes should"be arriving soon." His eyes, wandering about the room, fell at last on the Empire table.

  "Where's the famille-verte bowl?" he said sharply. "Has Baines put it away somewhere?"

  Her throat felt tight and burning, and her skin had the familiar prickling of a rising temperature.

  "Nicholas," she said, "I've something to tell you - something bad. I'm afraid you'll be very angry, but- "

  He looked at her piercingly.

  "But what? Bad news is better out, Shelley."

  "The famille-oerte bowl - it's broken," she said.

  His face was very quiet.

  "How did that happen?"

  "It was Martin - both of us, really. We were playing hide-and-seek and Martin knocked the table over."

  "And did you" - his voice was quite expressionless - "have to play hide-and-seek in my study?"

  "Martin ran in here by mistake," she said miserably. "He was very upset, and we are both terribly sorry."

  The bowl had been one of his more prized possessions, but it was her immature attitude that annoyed him most.

  "Really, Shelley, I should have thought with all the house to play in you could have left my study alone," he said impatiently.

  Mrs. Medlar opened the door. She had, Shelley thought, a gift for interrupting at the wrong moment.

  "Good evening, sir. I hope you had a pleasant trip," she said then turned to Shelley. "You'll have to go to Master Martin, ma'am. He's been crying ever since he broke that bowl, and I can't do anything with him."

  Shelley hesitated.

  "Come with me, Nicholas, and tell him you're not angry." she said, but Mrs Medlar said at once:

  "You'd best not see him till the morning, sir. He only wants Mrs. Penryn."

  "Then by all means let him have Mrs. Penryn," said Nicholas smoothly, and Shelley left the room.

  By the time she had soothed Martin and changed her dress for dinner, her head had begun to ache. They had said at the convent that she would outgrow these nervous upsets, and so she had to a large extent, but tonight she knew there
was no escape, and the old, nervous desire to weep at small things took possession of her and she hoped Nicholas would preserve his annoyance and not be too gentle.

  But he, when they met for dinner, no longer showed his annoyance or his disappointment at his home-coming, and

  seemed just as she remembered him, courteous, a little remote, Penryn of Garazion.

  "You're not eating," he said once, as Baines removed her almost untouched plate.

  "I'm not very hungry," she said. He smiled.

  "Such an unanswerable reply I always think," he said. "Still, drink up your wine."

  Back in his study he said:

  "Don't worry about the bowl. I'll find another some day."

  Her eyes filled, as she knew they would, easily, treacherously.

  "I do worry. I know how much your things mean to you."

  "Do you, Shelley? Perhaps one's things, as you call them, shouldn't be so important."

  There was another silence. It was a slow, difficult evening. She got up abruptly.

  "Do you mind if I go to bed?" she said, fighting that childish desire to cry.

  His face changed and he got to his feet.

  "You're not well, are you?" he said, and put a hand on her forehead. "You've got a temperature, my dear. What have you been doing with yourself?"

  "Nothing," she said. "It's a kind of nervous thing. I used to get temperatures as a child. It'll be gone tomorrow."

  He touched her flushed cheeks.

  "I should have sent you to bed long ago," he said. "If you're not better in the morning we'll have old Doctor Tregel-las up. Poor child, run off to bed and I'll come and tuck you up."

  "Oh, Nicholas, don't!" she cried and the tears spilled over. Weeping, she broke away from him, and ran blindly out of the room.

  He was in to see her the next morning before she was called, a dressing-gown flung over his pyjamas and his black hair ruffled from sleep. He took her temperature, looked satisfied when he found it was normal, and told her to stay where she was until lunch time.

  "Have you to go to the works today?" she asked.

  "I'm afraid so, after a fortnight's absence. I must have a word with the foreman, but I'll be back for lunch." He ran

  a hand over his chin and grimaced. "I need a shave," he said and went back to his own room.

  She did not see him again until the evening. She took his advice and stayed in bed for the morning because it was pleasant to relax in idleness when there was really nothing the matter with you, although she could not quite get rid of the slight feeling of guilt, which the early risings of the convent training had instilled in her, at such wanton laziness. She and Martin had tea together in the old wing of the house, and when the boy's bedtime came, Shelley went downstairs to wait for Nicholas.

  He had already returned and was in his study examining an unframed print when she came in.

  "Hullo," he said. "I was just coming up to find you. How are you, my dear?"

  "Quite all right again," she said.

  There was still a trace of anxiety in his regard, then he smiled.

  "Very well," he said. "But don't try and hide it from me another time. I was just looking at a Bartolozzi print I found in London. Come and see."

  He picked up the print and she looked at it doubtfully over his shoulder. She knew as little of pictures as she did of glass and china, and of the merits of old prints, nothing at all.

  He explained to her the methods of the earlier engravers and how the art developed until it was finally perfected by Bartolozzi, and she thought how well he talked upon subjects which really interested him, and how courteous he always was in never dismissing her own ignorance.

  "But I'm afraid I bore you," he finished abruptly, observing the grave politeness of her attention.

  "Oh, no, Nicholas," she said quickly. "I want to learn."

  His smile was a little enigmatical.

  "There are simpler lessons which, no doubt, should come first," he said. "Perhaps I'm not a very good instructor."

  She made no answer, for she was a little unsure of his meaning, but she experienced a strong desire to do something for him that would give him pleasure, to surprise him as she sometimes surprised Martin with an unexpected treat. The

  idea of having the Bartolozzi framed and ready to hang at once in his study came to her with simple clarity. She still had five pounds left over from one of her father's rare gifts of pocket money, and she could surely find a frame for that. It was not much to do for Nicholas, but it would be a surprise, an indication that she wished to please him and take an interest in the things which mattered to him.

  It took a little contriving, for she must manage to get to the nearest town tomorrow while Nicholas was at the works, and that meant she must walk across the moor to the village and catch a bus to Polzeal, a place she had never before visited. She set off as soon as Nicholas had left the house.

  It was a five-mile walk to the village, and the print, wrapped carefully in newspaper, was a tiresome encumbrance. She was afraid of bending the edges, and in the bus, she sat with it on her lap, guarding it anxiously from contact with her fellow passengers, and looked with interest out of the windows. It was, she realized, the first time she had made a journey from Garazion without Nicholas since he had married her.

  The small seaside town of Polzeal at the end of September was deserted and a little forlorn. Shelley explored the streets, conscious of the cold gusts of wind which blew from the sea, and the end of season lassitude which had settled over the little town. She found no picture dealers with frames to sell, and at last paused before one of those arts and crafts shops to be found in every town. Time was getting short; her bus was due to leave again in half an hour, and she went into the little shop, encouraged by its displayed reproductions among the china rabbits and bric-a-brac, and the pile of frames stacked against the wall.

  A woman in a smock enquired languidly what she wanted, and Shelley unwrapped the print. The woman glanced at the Bartolozzi without interest and produced a selection of frames.

  "That one," said Shelley, choosing a plain, narrow frame. "How much will it be, and can you do it now?"

  "If you care to wait ten minutes," the woman replied indifferently. "The price is seven pounds."

  "Oh!" Shelley looked dismayed.

  "Would you have something a little cheaper?"

  "Not that size," the woman replied. "And that's cheap, I assure you, but the end of the season - "

  "I only have," Shelley faltered, "five pounds."

  "Too bad," the woman said without interest. "Well, what about a smaller frame? You only have to cut down the margin of your print. It would look nicer, I should say."

  "All right," Shelley said, deciding. She wanted her surprise at once, and perhaps the print would look better without all that surround of white. "Would you please be as quick as you can? I have a bus to catch, and there isn't another for two hours."

  She was tired by the time she reached Garazion. A ten-mile walk across unfamiliar country was quite an effort, but she got home before Nicholas, and she put the framed print back on the mantelpiece with the happy satisfaction of something important achieved, and went up to Martin's room for tea, having told Baines to let her know the instant Nicholas returned.

  When the summons came, she ran down the stairs with the excited anticipation of a child He was standing before the fire-place, looking at the print, and she ran behind him, and slipped a shy hand through his arm.

  "Do you like it?" she asked.

  He turned to look at her and for a moment she was uncertain of the reception of her surprise, so dark and uncompromising was his expression.

  "Did you have this done?" he asked slowly.

  "Yes," she said. "It was my surprise for you. The frame I wanted cost more than I had, so I had to have a smaller one, but the woman in the shop said it would look better. Don't -don't you like it, Nicholas ?"

  His expression was still curious, but he said with gentleness:


  "What shop?"

  "A shop in Polzeal. One of those places that sell china animals and reproductions. All the reproductions were framed like this."

  "How did you get there?"

  "I walked to the village and got a bus."

  His eyes suddenly softened.

  "Five miles there and five miles back all to get me a frame?" he said.

  "It was a surprise," she said, and repeated a little doubtfully: "Don't you like it, Nicholas?" He stooped and kissed her forehead.

  "It's a lovely surprise," he said gently, and would never tell her that prints without their margins lost all value to a connoisseur.

  "Thank you, Shelley, for a charming thought. I'm delighted with it."

  Baines came in with the evening drinks as Nicholas finished hanging the print.

  "Don't you think that's charming?" Nicholas said. "Mrs. Penryn walked ten miles across the moor to get a bus to Polzeal to find me a frame."

  Baines looked at the print and then at Nicholas.

  "Very charming, sir," he said softly. "We shall have Madam a collector, yet."

  October came, and with it rough weather. The strong moorland wind blew the last leaves off the trees and the garden lay drowned and sodden in the rain. Nicholas spent most days at the works, sometimes coming home for lunch, sometimes not, and Shelley drifted once again into Martin's company.

  Nicholas neverentertained,and no one called. Very occasionally collectors and art experts came to Garazion and were asked to stop for lunch, looking with surprise at Shelley when she was introduced, and the elderly and more gallant of them would be sure to say to Nicholas:

  "Ah, the gem of your collection, I observe, my dear Penryn."

  "I wish they wouldn't," Shelley said on one occasion.

  "Why not?" He smiled at her. "It's true."

  "No," said Shelley.

  His eyebrows went up.

  "That was meant to be a compliment, you know."

  She could not explain to him how she felt; perhaps she hardly knew herself, but she cared less and less to sit in Nicholas' study surrounded by his beautiful things while he looked at her enigmatically under his dark, brooding brows.