The Happy Prisoner (11 page)

It was clear from the start, however, that this time she was out to please. Elizabeth had had some difficulty in finding her at the station, because she was wearing a tweed dress and coat and flat-heeled shoes. She had brought two bottles of gin and some expensive fruit, American chocolates for Mrs. North, cigarettes for Violet and a pre-war bottle of scent for Heather.

Oliver had only seen her once since he spent the whole of one leave in London with her nearly three years ago.

“I like your hair,” he said. It was cut short all over her head and arranged in hundreds of crisp little curls, all turning up from her fine-drawn, alert features. He could never get used to the fact that she was not as intelligent as she looked.

“Do you like it, darling? I did hope you would. It takes hours to do, and I should hate to think it wasn't worth it.”

“Last time I saw you, you said it didn't matter a two-penny damn whether I liked your hair or not, remember? You said you didn't care if it did look like William Tell's son.”

“Did I, darling? I don't remember.” She apparently did not mean to remember any of the other things she had said on that occasion. She was very thoughtful and solicitous, and fussed over him, pouring out his tea and giving little pats to his pillows.
If she had had any eau-de-Cologne, she would have dabbed it on his forehead. She wanted to spread his jam for him, so he let her.

“I'm not quite paralysed, you know,” he said.

“Oh, but you are! I mean—you know what I mean. Your mother pounced on me as soon as I arrived to tell me not to excite you.” She giggled. “You're not allowed to do a thing for yourself, they tell me, and I'm the girl that's going to see you don't.” After dinner, she insisted or reading to him. He tried to dissuade her, but she knew that reading aloud was one of the things you did to invalids. She found an old book in Mr. North's bookcase called
Rambling in Shropshire's Byways
. It made her laugh. Her idea of reading it aloud was to skim through whole paragraphs saying “Mm-hm-mm-etc, etc.—this wouldn't interest you, darling,” and then, “Oh, this is a scream, you must listen to this: ‘Treegirt Trafford Hall, a favourite subject of brethren of the brush, lies
perdu
until we come upon it round a graceful bend of the carriage drive.' Is there any more like that? Let's see.… Mm-mm-mm.…”

Oliver lay and watched her as she sat below him, curly head bent into the lamplight, her lovely hands turning the pages, very careful not to touch the bed, her tall body in a red dress looking at the same time relaxed and ready for action. The scent that came to him from her hair was disturbingly familiar and her presence still had the galvanic quality that made you feel that life was more exciting than it really was. He felt that the old emotions might be only just round the corner, but he did not want to bring them any nearer. He had got over Anne two years ago and he did not intend to let her spoil his peace of mind. He did not need her in this new life; there was no place in it for passion and jealousy and ecstasy and despair.

He wondered what her idea was in breaking their two years' silence with the affectionate letter which had brought her here. At the moment her attitude towards him was sisterly. She was not enticing him in any way except by just being Anne. She couldn't help that.

She was being very sweet to everybody this week-end. She tried not to stare at Violet when she came in in a dress with a dipping hem and a belt made from an old canvas girth. She played charmingly with the children after tea. She was friendly to Elizabeth, once she had satisfied herself that there was nothing between her and Oliver. She and Heather, who had drifted apart, converged again and stood with their arms round each other's waists and tried on each other's clothes. Mrs. North came into
Oliver's room in her dressing-gown to say she had been wrong about Anne and came back again ten minutes later to try to find out how she affected Oliver.

On Sunday morning he asked Anne what she thought of Elizabeth and Elizabeth what she thought of Anne. He enjoyed hearing what women thought of each other.

Elizabeth said politely: “She's very attractive.”

“You like her?”

“Yes. Give me your other hand, please.”

“I haven't seen her for two years, you know. I've been wondering why she suddenly came down here now.”

“Your nails are filthy. To see you, I suppose.”

Elizabeth had been at her most maddeningly reserved this week-end. Oliver decided to try and shock her out of it. “She and I had a terrific affair once,” he said, watching her face while she dug at his nails with an orange stick.

“How nice,” she said.

“We had a flat in London for three weeks. Captain and Mrs. Oliver North. It was rather fun.” “It must have been.”

“I thought we were really going to be Captain and Mrs. Oliver North, but it didn't come off. Ever felt like throwing yourself in the river, Elizabeth?”

“Hundreds of times,” she said shortly, giving him back his hand. “Your mother wants to know how you want your egg done.”

.…

Anne said: “I think she's sweet, poor thing. It must be awful.”

“I don't see why,” said Oliver. “I don't think I'm so revolting.”

“I didn't mean that, darling, you know I didn't. I mean living in other people's houses and being neither one thing nor the other. Bit trying for the family too, always having someone around. When I had my tonsils out at home, Mummy used to make the nurse have her meals up in her room. Then, of course, I the maids struck.”

“I wonder the nurse didn't,” Oliver said.

“But, darling, she was such a crashing bore. You must admit this one isn't exactly scintillating. Is she always so
piano?
”

“She has hidden depths.”

“Poor Ollie, why are you so sweet about everyone nowadays? You have changed. You used to be so divinely malicious. Remember how we used to lie in bed and pick everybody we knew to pieces?”

“Heather says I'm getting saintly.”

“Well, you are rather, you know,” Anne said sadly. “You'd better look out. Poor Ollie!”

“Why are you looking at me so tragically?” he asked, and she went on looking at him for a moment and then suddenly burst into tears.

“What on earth—? Here, Anne—Anne—what's up?”

“It's so sad! Oh, it's so sad.”

“Don't be a chump. Here, blow your nose; you know you look awful when you cry. Stop it, Anne.”

She stopped, and holding her handkerchief to her mouth, looked at him with enormous, swimming eyes. “But, darling, it
is
so sad. I can't help crying for you.”

“Is that why you wrote and came down, because you felt sorry for me?”

“Of
course
I was sorry. Oh, I know we'd bust up and everything—that was my fault—but when I heard about you I was dreadfully upset. I cried and cried.” Her eyes took on a faraway look, seeing herself doing it.

“Listen here, Anne, I don't want pity from you or anyone.”

“Don't be horrid to me, Ollie. You don't know how awful I felt, remembering how I'd done you dirt.”

He laughed. “I got over that ages ago.”

“Oh, I'm sure you did, darling,” she said quickly. “But you were in love with me, weren't you?” she added a little wistfully. “I kept remembering how vile I was that last time we met, when I broke it to you that we weren't going to be married.”

Oliver took her hand and put a kiss into it. “Little Annie,” he said. “No one would ever suspect what a nice person you really are. And to think I thought you'd only come down because you'd just finished off a boy friend and looked through your little red book to see who else you knew.”

“
Ollie
!”

He knew quite well now why she had come down. Anne was always either dramatically unscrupulous or dramatically noble. He must stop her saying what she felt she had got to say. He could not tell her that he did not need her now any more than she really wanted him, but he must wean her from the idea that had sent her down to Hinkley in a sacrificial cloud.

“Good thing we didn't get married two years ago,” he began.

“Why? Oh, I wish we had.”

“No. I don't want to be married to anyone now. Not ever, I think. I suppose having this sort of thing makes you a complete
egoist; I seem to be absolutely self-sufficient. I don't need a wife, and I shouldn't be any good to anybody as a husband.”

Anne looked embarrassed, which was an unfamiliar expression on her insouciant face. “You mean—Ollie, can a man who—” He knew what she was dying to ask him and he laughed and laughed. “Oh, Anne, I don't know,” he said weakly. “I haven't tried. I didn't mean that, anyway. I just meant that I'm happiest like this, on my own. I feel fine.”

“You really mean,” she said incredulously, “that you're quite happy, lying here like this?” Her eyes threatened to fill again.

“I shan't always have to stay here, of course; but at the moment, yes, I believe I am quite happy.”

“D'you know, I really believe you are,” she said wonderingly.

“You are sweet, Anne,” he said suddenly.

“Why?”

“Oh, I don't know. You just are.” She was sweet because she was so transparently relieved.

“Would you like me to read to you, Ollie?” she said presently.

“Why should you bother? Look, the sun's out. Go for a walk before lunch; do you lots more good.”

“I'd much rather read to you, Ollie dear, if you'd like it. Is there anything you want before we Start?” Now that he had let her off dedicating her life to him, she could not do enough for him. There must be something she could do to make up for all the things he had lost. She thought of his loss in terms of all the things they had enjoyed together, and knowing how she would feel in his position, she marvelled that he had said he was quite happy.

“You have changed, you know, Ollie,” she said again, looking up at him. Her mind had been no more on the book than his.

“I suppose I have. For the better, would you say?”

“I don't know. We did have such fun.… I used to know you so well, and now—” She gave a little laugh. “It's silly,

but I feel I hardly know you at all.”

“Don't you love me any more?” he teased her.

“Darling, of course I love you, you know that. I always shall.”

“
That's
good,” he said comfortably.

“In quite a special way,” she added, to avoid having to say: “like a sister.”

He could not resist interrupting her reading a moment later to say: “By the way, Anne, you haven't told me a thing about your love life yet. Who is it at the moment?”

She gave him one of her candid looks, eyelashes fanned out along her upper lid. “Actually,” she said, “there isn't anyone
at the moment.” And then she looked down and her mouth twitched. “And my address book isn't red, it's blue,” she murmured.

On Sundays at Hinkley, everyone had lunch in Oliver's room. He often had to take two Veganin afterwards and sleep it off. Even Heather's baby Susan was brought down in a wicker basket and mulled on a stool in front of the fire. She was growing too big for the basket and she was getting beyond the age when lying down and making faces was enough amusement. She would struggle to sit up and lean over the side, and lunch was constantly interrupted by someone jumping up to stop her falling into the fire.

While Anne was reading, Elizabeth, in the flowered overall she wore for housework, came in with a tray to set the table. She glanced at the
tête-à-tête
, and when Anne offered to help, said: “Please don't let me disturb you,” and started trying to manoeuvre the refectory table from the window to the middle of the room by herself. Anne jumped up and took the other end, and Oliver watched them laying the table, Elizabeth so quick and neat, and Anne slinging the knives and forks about, and sitting down to read the rhymes on David's mackintosh mat, while Elizabeth finished the work. Sometimes, if Elizabeth were cooking the lunch, Heather laid the table on Sundays, which put Oliver in a draught for half an hour, because she made so many trips to the pantry for things she had forgotten that it was not worth opening and shutting the door each time. Elizabeth, of course, had brought everything she needed, and when she had set the chairs round and put a cushion and one volume of Mr. North's Oxford Dictionary on David's, she went out, shutting the door quietly.

Anne, going out soon after to get some more cigarettes, came back and said: “Darling, there's a most attractive man in the hall. The front door was open, so he walked in, and he wants to know if you're visible. Are you?”

“Depends who it is. If he's wearing a Gunner's tie and a moustache the same colour as his plus-fours, no, because he keeps trying to sell me a Ford station wagon to convert into an invalid car.”

“No moustache, no plus-fours.”

“Not Colonel Jukes then, thank God. I hope it's not old Fothergill. He'll expect to be asked to lunch and I couldn't stand those castanet teeth now that we've got water biscuits.”

“Sweetie,” said Anne gently, “I
said
attractive.”

“You have some odd ideas about men, though. Has he got suéde shoes and a face like Oscar Wilde? I couldn't bear to have Francis explaining the country customs of Shropshire to me this morning. Oh, I tell you who it might be—that awful man who gets up the local plays.”

“I don't think it's any of those,” Anne said. “I wish I'd asked him his name. I can't very well go out now and say: ‘If you're Colonel Jukes or Old Fothergill or Francis or a man who gets up plays, go away; if not, come in.'”

At that moment, there were cries of hospitable pleasure from the hall and Mrs. North came in, bringing a tall, dark, well-fed young man, whom Oliver greeted with: “Toby! How grand to see you. Why didn't you come straight in? Anne's been making me sweat thinking of all the people you might be.”