The Gentle Prisoner

by Sara Seale

  She looked at him in swift denial.

  "Oh, no," she said, "only I wish sometimes I had something to do - something important, I mean."

  "I don't want you to do anything which doesn't please you," he said a little harshly. "Have you no interests of your own?"

  "I'm not very talented," she said. "And there isn't a piano here."

  He frowned.

  "A piano? Do you play?"

  "A little. They taught music well at the convent."

  He made no further comment, but at the end of the week a small Bechstein grand piano arrived from London and was carried up to Shelley's sitting-room.

  Nicholas was out at the time, but she was waiting in the library with the door open, listening for his return, and when she heard him come in she ran into the hall. She had already changed for dinner, and he stood and watched her. Her wide silk skirts billowed from her narrow waist, and the pale hair, soft and fair as a child's, flew back from her glad face as she ran to meet him. For the first time since he had known her, she forgot to be shy with him, and flung both arms round his neck.

  "Nicholas! Oh, Nicholas..." she cried.

  He stood quite still, and his hands were a little unsteady on her waist.

  "That's the first time you've ever done that," he said slowly. "Are you so pleased to see me?"

  "Yes," she said. "Oh, Nicholas, you never said a word, and it's the most lovely surprise I've ever had. Thank you ... thank you..."

  "What's a surprise?" he asked, the moment already fading for him.

  "The piano, of course. I'm so happy."

  "Oh, the piano." He released her gently. "It's come, has it? I'm glad you're pleased, Shelley."

  She drew back a little, aware of the flatness in his voice, and aware, too, that she had indulged in the kind of demonstration which, in a less exalted moment, she would never have dreamed of showing him. Shyness descended on her again, and she said more soberly:

  "It was so very good of you, and you've made me so happy." "As easily as that?" he said a little sadly and became a stranger again.

  "It wasn't a little thing," she said uncertainly. "It was a - a generous thought and - and must have cost an awful lot of money."

  He smiled.

  "Money is only relative, you know," he said, taking off his coat. "If you have it, what you spend on things means very little."

  "I suppose so," she said doubtfully, then the pleasure bubbled up in her again. "Come and hear it," she begged. "It has a most beautiful tone." She took him by the hand and pulled him towards her sitting-room.

  She was not at all shy of playing for him. She had been well taught at the convent, and although her execution was faulty, she had a delicate touch, and a certain facility for playing from ear. Nicholas knew little about music, but it seemed to him that she played surprisingly well. He leant on the piano, watching her, and thought how strange it was to hear music in Garazion.

  "What was that?" he asked.

  "The Turtle Dove - a Somerset folk song. Listen, you should like this..."

  She played him airs from the Elizabethans, and Purcell's lovely Evening Hymn.

  "You play very well," he said.

  "Not really," she replied, but turned to him eagerly with the assurance that here was something of which he knew nothing.

  "You like my music?" she asked softly, and he reached out a hand to her.

  "Shelley ..." he said, and as her fingers touched his, there was the sound of a badly suppressed sneeze from behind a Chinese screen.

  Nicholas took two strides and pushed back the screen, revealing Martin, in pyjamas and dressing-gown, crouching against the wall.

  "What are you doing here?" he demanded harshly.

  The boy blinked up at him, his face already puckering for tears.

  "I - I wanted to hear her play again," he stammered. "I knew she would. When you came with her I -I hid behind the screen."

  "Oh, Martin," Shelley said softly. "You're supposed to be in bed."

  Nicholas pulled him out, and, glancing at his face, Shelley thought she had never seen him look so angry.

  "It's time you knew when you're not wanted, young man," he said grimly.

  Martin started to whimper, and Shelley said, defensively: "He hasn't done any harm, Nicholas. He'll go to bed now.

  like a good boy, won't you, Martin? And tomorrow I'll play

  anything you like."

  "He will stop me," said Martin, the tears already running

  down his face.

  "Don't be so silly," Shelley put an arm round him. "Of course he won't, will you, Nicholas?"

  He looked at them both, ranged in the moment against him, and said coldly:

  "I must change for dinner. Go back to your room, Martin, and don't let this happen again."

  He saw the old look of uncertainty come into Shelley's eyes, and turning on his heel, left the room without another word.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  With November, the gales came in earnest. The wind tore across the moor, pulling at the house, beating on the windows, and Shelley listened to it, deep in her isolation, crouching over a fire, afraid to venture outside for what the wind might do to her. Nicholas was away for several nights at a time, and she and Martin would resume their meals together, sometimes in the morning-room, sometimes in Martin's own wing'where the wind seemed less violent.

  To Nicholas it was a period of great frustration, and his only defence was to be much away from home. He knew he had handled matters badly, but Shelley, eighteen, unawakened and a little afraid of him, was outside his knowledge. Always there seemed some little thing to distract. Interruptions, business matters, and Martin, always Martin, with his childish claims and jealousies driving him into the position of unwanted guardian to them both. With bitterness he remembered that he had told her he did not expect her to love him. He still did not, for his humility had sprung from bitter causes. But he had himself come to love very deeply this gentle child whom he had married in such strange circumstances, and he could only wait - perhaps for the year and a day of the fairy-tale, perhaps for ever.

  Shelley, he thought, watching her darkly as she sat at her piano, or with her hands folded quietly in her lap like the child in the picture, had no conception of the hunger that often shook him. How should she? He had taken her straight from the schoolroom, and what knowledge could she have of the long years which had taken toll of his youth and his manhood?

  But there was much that gave him pleasure. He liked to watch her running down the stairs when he called, her hair flying out behind her, he liked to see her sitting at his table, drinking wine with him in the candlelight, or in a straight, high-backed chair in his study under the portrait of the child she so much resembled. And he liked to hear her play. Then she would seem released and unaware of him, and her fingers were

  loving on the keys and her lifted face grave as a child's. He loved the way she would turn to him and ask: "Did you like that?" and the serious air with which she explained a song to him.

  After all, he thought a little wearily, there was time enough and to spare at Garazion, and the months stretched ahead of them. Perhaps in the spring he would take her away...

  By December the gales had spent themselves, and there were days of fine sparkling weather when even the moor looked gay under its web of frost and the great iron gates of Garazion were laced with silver.

  Christmas at Garazion, Shelley thought, lying at night in her fourposter bed and watching the firelight dance on the high ceiling. Would they decorate the house with holly, she and Martin, and perhaps bring a little tree from the plantation behind the stables? But Christmas was a time for giving, and she had nothing to give, and even if she had some money, what could she find for Nicholas which, amongst all his rare possessions, could hold its own?

  She could hear him moving about in his room, getting ready for bed, and wished he would come in sometimes and sit and talk to her. But he seldom did. She called him softly; then, as he did not answer, more loud
ly.

  He opened the door between their rooms.

  "Did you want me?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said. "I wanted to talk about Christmas."

  His eyes had a slightly ironical expression.

  "Couldn't it wait till the morning?"

  "It could, but-"

  "But what?"

  She held out a hand to him.

  "It's just an excuse, really. I'd like you to come and talk to me."

  He came slowly across to the bed and sat down. "What did you want to say about Christmas?" he asked her gently.

  "I wondered if Martin and I could have a tree - a small one from the plantation - and decorate the house." His smile was a little twisted.

  "We never do decorate the house," he said. "But of course if you want to, Shelley, you may, only be careful where you put your holly."

  For a moment she felt chilled.

  "We wouldn't put it anywhere that mattered," she said, thinking at once of the many things in the house which must not be touched.

  He saw the withdrawal in her face and said:

  "I'm afraid we never do much about Christmas at Garazion. You see for so many years there's only been myself here."

  "But now there's Martin," she said gently.

  His eyes were quizzical.

  "So there is. Well, we must see what we can do about Martin."

  "Nicholas - " She fidgeted under the bedclothes, curling her toes round her hot water bottle.

  "What now? Won't you leave it to me?"

  She had been going to tell him that she had no money with which to buy presents, but she thought he sounded impatient. She had never asked him for money before, and for no reason she remembered her father had been under an obligation to him.

  "It doesn't matter," she said, and he got up. "Was that all?" he asked, and, like a child, she wanted to keep him a little longer.

  She caught his hand, holding him there. "It was, really," she said with a little sigh. He looked down at her impassively.

  "What was it you began to say just now?" he asked, and she let him go.

  "Nothing. You don't understand," she said. He bent and kissed the soft hair.

  "No, my child, it's you who don't understand," he said gently, and left her.

  Lack of any money of her own was also a handicap to Shelley in other ways. Lucius in his more recent letters had hinted that now his daughter was a rich woman, a tactful cheque now and again would not come amiss. He reminded her delicately of the

  money which had been lavished on her education, pointing out that his expenses, now he lived in London, had risen considerably, whereas hers, buried in the middle of a moor, must be negligible.

  It distressed Shelley that she could not help him. It was true that she never needed money for herself, since she seldom went outside the gates of Garazion; her clothes and personal needs were dealt with directly by Nicholas himself, and since Mrs. Medlar took care of all the household bills, a house keeping allowance was quite unnecessary. She supposed it was usual, as her father had pointed out, for a husband to make his wife a settled allowance, but Nicholas had never suggested it, and she did not like to ask him.

  Early in December he went to London again, and to her tentative suggestion that she might go with him to look at the Christmas shops, he replied evasively:

  "My plans are unsettled. I don't know how long I may have to stay."

  She did not try to persuade him. She knew nothing of Nicholas' arrangements in London; she would probably be in the way.

  "Will you be seeing Father?" she asked a little wistfully. "Possibly. Any messages?"

  "Just - just my love and - a happy Christmas. Tell him I'll be writing." He glanced at her a little oddly.

  "Are you worrying about Christmas?" he asked. "Don't. I'll find him a suitable present on my rounds and send it to him from us both."

  "Thank you," she said a little flatly.

  He knew quite well what was in her mind, but he had no intention of opening up yet another source of revenue with which to line Lucius' pockets.

  "Take care of yourself while I'm gone," he said kindly. "And let me have a line from time to time to tell me you're all right. I'll attend to Martin's presents and anything else that's necessary."

  It never occurred to him that she might want to get something for himself.

  He had been away a week when he wrote to say he would not be returning until Christmas Eve. He had seen Lucius who sent his love; she was to take care of herself and not run temperatures.

  A week before Christmas the snow came. They went to bed one night to the sound of an icy wind blowing round the house and woke the next morning to a white world and the strange hush of falling snow.

  After breakfast they went out, and Martin, after his first, rather timid steps, flung himself in the snow, rolling like a puppy, and tossing handfuls of it into the air. They ran out onto the moor, and Shelley thought how beautiful it looked with its unbroken mantle of white hiding the bleak, rough ground and the treacherous bog beyond. Only the rocks of Garator showed black and sombre where the snow had not covered them, and, in the distance, the slag-heaps of china-clay looked dirty against the dazzling whiteness.

  "It looks," said Martin, awed, "like magic. As if we had woken up in another country, and no one was alive but us. I think, Shelley, we were safer inside the wall."

  Yes, it was lonely, Shelley thought, big and lonely. Even the road was lost in that vast blanket of white, and Garazion a castle, a fortress, perhaps, with no way in or out.

  Shelley sat in Nicholas' study that evening, and wished he was there. After the carefree day she felt lonely and grown-up, sitting by herself in the quiet house with no one to talk to.

  She remembered the moment at Christmas time, the Crib in the chapel with its gentle, watching effigies, the candles, and the carols. But no carol-singers came to Garazion, Baines had told her. It was too isolated, and since Nicholas had shut himself up alone there, the house had become forgotten. The thought of the carol-singing made her feel very lonely, and she remembered those Christmas holidays spent at school, which had seemed lonely, too, and saw herself, the only child left among the nuns, with the veil which always would slip off her head in chapel, singing Holy Night before the Crib. She could almost hear the words now - Stille nacht - heilige nacht... But that was German, and she realized with a start that someone was singing; someone was singing outside the house.

  She ran out into the hall to listen. There were two voices, perhaps three, she thought, and one was a clear, high tenor, true and trained, and piercingly sweet.

  The carol finished and she opened the door, and stood there in her long, pale dress, the snowlight falling on her hair, turning it to silver, and a voice from the shadows said softly:

  "It is true, then. This is the ogre's castle and here is the imprisoned princess."

  She looked gravely at the dim forms clustered in the porch, their lantern casting shadows on the snow, then the speaker picked it up and held it above her head.

  "Amazing," he said. "Won't you ask us in, princess?"

  "Of course."

  She stood back for them to enter, and they stepped into the hall, shaking the snow from their shoes. There were three of them, as she had thought, and the first and tallest of them looked about him slowly.

  "Amazing..." he said again.

  She closed the door and said.

  "Who are you? You sing very beautifully."

  He bowed deeply while his two companions stood silent, shifting from one foot to the other.

  "We are but strolling mummers," he said. "And having heard of the walled fastness of Garazion, came to see for ourselves."

  "Were you the tenor?" she asked, and he stepped into the circle of lamplight.

  He was as fair as herself, fair and young, with twinkling blue eyes and laughter in his voice.

  "I was, alas, madam, the tenor," he replied. "These voiceless clods are my henchmen - Jake and Willy. My name is Colin."

 
"And mine," she said, "is Shelley."

  "Now that," the young man said, "is perfect."

  "Won't you come in to the fire?" she said, and walked ahead of them into Nicholas' study.

  Inside the room, Colin paused and whistled softly.

  "So it's all true," he said slowly. "The rare pieces, the connoisseur's delight."

  "So you've heard of us here at Garazion?" she said, sitting in her straight-backed chair by the fire. "Oh, yes, I'd heard of you."

  "My husband's away from home, I'm afraid," she said, and he answered with fresh laughter in his voice: "Yes, I'd heard that, too."

  Shelley blinked. It was all a little unreal, and this strange, fair young man confused her.

  "Will you have something to drink?" she asked politely, and rang for Baines. After all, it was traditional to refresh the carol-singers.

  Jake, or perhaps it was Willy, spoke for the first time.

  "I think we should go, Colin. You've got in, and now I think we should go."

  "Did you not expect to get in?" asked Shelley with surprise. Colin smiled at her.

  "Well, no," he said. "Garazion has its legends, you know, like all the other wonders of the moor."

  She did not understand him, and turned with relief to Baines, standing enquiringly in the doorway.

  "Oh, Baines," she said, "the carol-singers have come to Garazion. Will you bring drinks, please, and, perhaps some sandwiches."

  She saw Colin looking at the portrait of the child.

  "Did you sit for that?" he asked.

  "No," she answered, smiling. "It was painted in the eighteenth century - artist unknown."

  "The likeness is extraordinary. Are you really married to Penryn of Garazion?"

  "Of course."

  "You look so young."

  She was silent, her hands folded in her lap. Jake and Willy sat on the edges of chairs, looking uncomfortable, but Colin was entirely at his ease.

  "Shall we sing for our supper while we wait?" he said, and without more ado, lifted up his voice, and after a moment's hesitation, the other two joined in. They sang an old sixteenth-century carol which was new to Shelley, and Baines, carrying in a loaded tray, stood for a moment to listen.