The Happy Prisoner (19 page)

Five and a half hours before anyone would come near him. Desperately, although he was not hungry, he ate a bar of chocolate, as an act of bravado to his stomach, which retaliated by feeling sick. So, to take off the sickness, he had to smoke a cigarette, which made him thirstier for tea than ever. He drank some water and fell into a slight doze, waking every hour to look at the clock and sigh and punch the pillows and blow out his cheeks and try out a moan or two to see how it sounded.

When the cable came from John to say that he had sailed from Australia, Violet's first remark was: “Goodo, he'll be here for my wedding.”

It was a trait of the female Norths to run things to death. Heather ran Susan, Mrs. North ran Oliver, Violet had always run horses and dogs, and now she was running her engagement. The day fixed for her wedding was the only date on the calendar and all other time was referred to it. If someone remarked idly on the warm weather, Violet would say: “Bet
you it's grilling at my wedding. I shall sweat like a pig.” When Mrs. North talked about scrubbing the deck-chairs before the summer, Violet said: “What a scream, to think of you sitting out in the garden, just like every year, and I shall be married.” When Elizabeth repeated Dr. Trevor's half-promise to let Oliver sit out of bed in a month's time, Violet said: “Three weeks before my wedding.. He'll be able to give me away.”

“He'll hardly be fit for that, I'm afraid,” said Elizabeth in her professional voice, making a little pursed mouth. “He might be allowed to come to the service in a wheel-chair perhaps. We'll have to see.”

Violet frowned towards her brother. “Not if he's going to pass out in the aisle or anything. We don't want a flap like when George Adams was sick at his old man's funeral.”

As Violet's daily quota of conversation was so small, she used it all up on her wedding and had few words to spare for anything else. When not talking about what she would insist on calling “getting spliced” she would subside into blank-eyed, vacuously smiling comas, from which she only emerged at the smell of food or the sound of plates and cutlery. As far as she was concerned, no one had ever been engaged before, and certainly very few girls can have gone about it in her way. The basic fact of getting married was enough for her. Plans and details she swept aside as irrelevant, and cheated Mrs. North of cosy discussions on clothes and curtains and women to do the rough. “Do what you like, Ma,” she would say, and leave the room before she could be pinned, down to a day for going up to London to get at least one presentable suit. She scoffed at the idea of new underclothes. “Waste of money and coups. Who's going to see 'em?”

Mrs. North cleared her throat. “Well, dear, Fred—” But Violet did not seem to have envisaged the intimacies of married life, or, if she had, saw no need for such refinements as night dresses when she still had the two pairs of pyjamas bequeathed to her by Oliver, whose taste in stripes differed from that of the aunt who had given them to him. Perhaps it was just as well that the bathroom at the cottage was only a dark and mildewy lean-to shed off the kitchen, for Violet's sponge was fit only for car washing and her toothbrush looked as if she had been rubbing up curb chains with it. She probably had. Her mother planned to give her a dressing-table set for a wedding present, in the hope that her brush and comb would be relegated to the dogs, for whom they had apparently been designed. Now that she was certain of her destiny and no longer subject to spasms of thinking that there was something wrong with herself which
she ought to put right, Violet made no more attempts on her face and figure. “Fred doesn't like make-up,” she would say complacently when Heather shaded her eyes from the shine on Violet's nose, or: “Fred doesn't like fancy bits on clothes,” when her mother asked whether it was absolutely necessary to wear a luggage strap round her waist. Heather was determined that she was going to make her up on her wedding day if she had to tie her down in a chair to do it.

She took no part in the wedding plans. She would not even go to see the vicar, and when Heather bullied her into helping with the invitation cards, she made such a mess and objected to so many of the guests that they were glad to let her slouch whistling away to the farm and finish it themselves. Oliver, who had the neatest handwriting, filled in the cards, while the others checked lists and looked up addresses.

“Look here,” said Heather, “we simply must ask Toby and his parents, whatever Vi says. And the Gibsons, it'll look so queer.”

“I daren't ask Francis, after what she said about him. Her language is just terrible, you know; it's all this farm work,” said Mrs. North, who was sitting at a table covered with envelopes, cards, the blotter, letter rack and inkstand from her desk, ashtrays, cigarette boxes and cups of tea.

“Oh, ask him,” said Heather, “she'll never notice. He'll only make trouble if he doesn't come, because he's sure to hear all about it.”

“What about Lady Salter? Vi's still sore about that rat poison one of the dogs picked up. I should die of shame if she was rude to her.”

“Risk it,” Heather said. “She probably won't talk to a soul, anyway. If we had only the people Vi wants, the place would be like the farmer's tea tent at an agricultural show.”

“Joan Elliot I bar,” put in Oliver.

“We must have her,” wailed his mother, “she's Violet's best friend. She talks about her being a bridesmaid.”

Oliver groaned. “In corduroy knickers and a leather waistcoat.”

Violet did not really care whom they asked. All that concerned her was that she was going to marry Fred Williams. Someone would see that it came about; they had always seen to things for her. She was not so much selfish as like a child who takes it for granted that cooked meals and clean clothes appear and that his toys get put away and his socks mended. Domestic details are none of his business, and they were none of hers.

“But, Violet, you must have a bed at least,” said Mrs. North despairingly, after fruitless attempts to make her discuss furniture. “You can't sleep on the floor, even if you do insist on wearing those terrible pyjamas.”

“Fred's got a bed, hasn't he? What's wrong with that?”

“But, dear, that ugly old bed—not really a proper double—”

Mrs. North looked helplessly at Oliver and he made a face. The thought of Fred Williams and Violet in that sagging brass bed was impossible, but no more impossible than the thought of them sitting up side by side in little twin divans from Heal's with reading lamps and chintz flounces.

Mrs. North changed the subject. “Say, how would it be, Violet, if you let your hair grow a little before the wedding? It would be much more becoming.”

Violet ran a hand through her bristly crop and snorted. “Heck no, it wouldn't grow now if I tried. Fred likes it all right like this, anyway.” She fell into a rumination and came out of it with a hoarse chuckle. “Coo, fancy me being married, you know.” This was one of her stock remarks, which she produced at intervals during the day.

“Fancy,” Oliver said.

“Violet has quite come out of her shell,” announced Mrs. Ogilvie after a Sunday lunch during which Violet's conversation had consisted mostly of Fred says and Fred thinks, while Fred, who always had to come to Sunday lunch nowadays, had sat looking like a Punch doll when the Punch-and-Judy man's hand is not inside, saying, and apparently thinking, nothing. “I suppose you're very happy about it, Hattie?” This was not one of her rhetorical questions. She had been trying for a long time to find out what Mrs. North felt about her prospective son-in-law.

“Why, surely. I think Violet and Fred will be very happy.” Oliver recognised his mother's acting voice. “He's such a—” She searched in vain for something she could say about Fred.

“Yes,
isn't
he?” cried Mrs. Ogilvie with automatic enthusiasm. “I can't tell you how glad I am you're having the wedding here and not at Shrewsbury, like the Gibson girls did. You'll never believe what they had to pay for the reception, with those bogus cocktails and the sandwiches obviously cut the night before and curling up at the corners. I ate something bad there too, I was terribly ill next day. I didn't want to hurt Sybil's feelings, but I had to tell her, so that she could make a complaint. Poor Mr. Norris will be so pleased. He hasn't had a wedding in the church
for years. I shall cry, of course; I always do. You mustn't think I mean anything by it, but it's just the idea of the bride all in white, you know, so sacrificial.”

“Violet doesn't want to be married in white,” said Mrs. North. “She couldn't, anyway. She's spent all her coupons on a new riding-coat and a pair of boots.”

“But she can't get married in those!” shrieked Mrs. Ogilvie. Mrs. North did not mention that she had only just weaned Violet from the idea of going to the church on horseback and coming out under an archway of riding-crops and hoes. “They're having a riding honeymoon,” she murmured, but Mrs. Ogilvie was not listening. “She positively must get married in white. My dear Hattie, it's the one day in a girl's life—the one day in yours too, really, since Heather had such a quiet wedding. Let me help you with the coupons. I know a man”—she glanced hastily round, although there was no one in the room but Mrs. North and Oliver—“who sells them at two shillings each. Can you believe such a price, but what can one do? I got this that way!” She plucked at a dun-coloured jersey suit, which could have saved at least one coupon if the skirt had not dipped six inches at the back.

“I don't know that I care about black market—” began Mrs. North, but Mrs. Ogilvie cracked her fingers like a stockwhip. “Nonsense! It's the duty of people like us to diddle the Government all we can. They're doing it to us. I happen to know for a fact they've got bales and bales of cloth stored in that American depot near Reading. You can see it from the train, six hangars full of it. Socialism gone mad.” This was her latest battle-cry, applicable to everything from bus strikes to no more dried eggs.

She continued to pace the room. She seldom sat down, and conversation with her was as tiring to the eyes as following the play at Wimbledon. “That's settled then. Violet shall be a white bride, and I'll get Lady Salter to lend her that lace veil that's been in their family for generations. It'll cover up her hair. Who's going to give the girl away?” She drew up opposite Oliver. “You going, to get this young man out and about by then? High time he was off that bed, if you ask me. One of these days, old chap, I'm going to take you in my two hands”—he flinched as she lunged at him—“and pull you out of bed”—she strained backwards with stiffened arms—“and hop you into the fresh air. That's all that's wrong with you now. You're coddled.”

“I get plenty of air,” said Oliver sourly. “I haven't got T.B.”

“You will have if you stay here much longer,” said Mrs. Ogilvie cheerfully. “Let's see what your chest expansion is. Got a tape measure, Hattie?”

“No,” lied Mrs. North. She manœuvred herself protectingly between them and remained there until Mrs. Ogilvie puttered away on her bicycle with a little outboard motor fixed to the rear wheel, on which she went everywhere, even to London wearing A.R.P. overalls and a leather helmet.

“She's still talking about coupons,” said Mrs. North, coming back from the front door. “I couldn't get a word in to say we don't want them. If she does get them, I shall use them to buy 4 new dressing-gown and slippers for you when you get up. And Lady Salter's priceless veil! I saw it when her grandchild was christened. Can you see her lending it? And can you see it after Violet had worn it half an hour? It's just as well she doesn't want to wear white; she wouldn't look well in it, and I should never get her to go for fittings. I can't even get her as far a the linen cupboard to look at sheets.”

“She's worse than she ever used to be,” said Oliver. “She's forgotten all about training Evelyn's pony while the kid's at school. He's simply running wild up in the top field, half broken, and she's fused my electric razor, doing the hairs at the back of her neck.” There were times when he regretted having given the advice which had helped to put Violet into her present state!

“So long as she's happy,” sighed his mother. “I should have hated her not to marry, but oh dear, if only it had been anyone but Fred. Do you suppose I shall have to go on making conversation to him for the rest of my life? I wish your father were alive, dear. He could have taken him into his study sometimes and it wouldn't matter Fred not talking because your father never cared to talk much either. Only this wouldn't have been his study now that you're in here. How should we have managed? Your father could have had the telephone room, or you could have had my bedroom and I could have had the spare room. I've always liked those built-in cupboards in there. We could have had the electric fire in my room changed for an open grate. The chimney may be blocked up, though; I don't know.”

“Stop making hypothetical plans,” said Oliver. “You've got trouble enough with real ones.”

“But at least your father could have saved me that awful interview with Fred, when he came to tell me he wanted to marry Vi. I knew what he wanted to say, because she'd already told us, and I wanted to help him, but he
would
say it by himself,
although he just couldn't get it out. I've never been so embar rassed. Poor Fred, I was in the kitchen baking, and he came to the front door and rang the bell as if he were a formal caller I had him come into the kitchen, because I thought it would make him feel more homey, but it didn't seem to. He tried to shake hands with me; and when he realised mine were all doughy, he pretended he'd only been holding out his hand to look at his watch, although it was on the other wrist.