The Happy Prisoner (2 page)

Mrs. North gave a little click of impatience. “If it wasn't for her husband being such a fine man, I don't believe I could put up with that half-wit much longer.” She still said things like half-wit sometimes. “Still, we wouldn't get anyone else, and she never minds what you ask her to do. She seems quite to enjoy unstopping the scullery sink. Which reminds me, I must go back and see what she's broken. I heard an almighty crash
a short while back.” She bent to kiss him, smelling of face-creams and Turkish cigarettes. “Don't settle too late,” she repeated. “Remember you've got an exciting day tomorrow.”

An exciting day? Oh yes, of course, his new nurse was coming tomorrow. “I wonder what she's like. I bet she's even uglier than old Sandy.”

“If she knows her job half as well I shan't mind,” said his mother. “Anyway, Hugo seemed to think her all right when he saw her in town.”

“If she's gummy and arch, and says: ‘Bottoms up' when she wants to rub my back, I shall sling her out,” Oliver said.

“Yes, dear, of course,” said his mother soothingly. It didn't do for him to get too lively at bedtime. She moved towards the door. “Good night again, and—you'll ring the bell if you can't sleep, won't you?”

“You bet.” Oliver grinned. “And listen!” he called after her, as she opened the door. “Don't forget this new nurse is going to be as much yours as mine. I'm not going to have her here if she doesn't help you in the house. I hardly need a nurse now, anyway; it's ridiculous having one at all.”

“Now, Oliver.” His mother paused in the doorway, silhouetted in the light from the hall. “Don't be that way. Of course she's going to help in the house, she knows that; but not until she's done everything possible for you. Just you don't forget what I told you: you're the most important person in this house. And she'd better not either,” she added grimly, as she went out.

There had been a time when Oliver's mood of self-pity and invalid absorption would have fed on remarks like that. They simply irked him now. It was the same with the bell. He hated it because it emphasised his dependence. If he wanted anything, he put off ringing it as long as possible; but if nobody happened to come in and he had to ring it, he always imagined people looking up irritated from whatever they were doing, and someone getting up with a what-does-he-want-
now
expression, which they would try to fight down on the way to his room.

When he turned out the light, the scents of the country night outside the window seemed to grow stronger. Funny how you always got this extra wave of tree and flower smells with the first breath taken in in the dark. It even happened in London. He could remember when he was a boy, in that house they had had when they first came back from America, how when he turned out the light and stood at the window of his little room that was like a passage, he could suddenly smell the sooty plane-tree bark and the bitter leaves, turning and glistening under the gas lamp.

His bed was level with the window-sill, so that even after he had thrown out two of his pillows, in defiance of orders to sleep propped up, he could see out of the open casement. There was no moon tonight, and the hump of the hill in the meadow opposite, with its mushroom of oaks and beeches on top, was darker than the sky. His room was on the ground floor, so that he could smell the grass of the lawn only a few feet below him. His bed was built into the window recess, occupying the whole bay like a wide window-seat, so that one of the small side windows formed its head. Through the window at the foot, half obscured by the hump of the cradle that kept the bedclothes off his leg, he could see the line of elms on the western boundary of their land, their rounded tops shaped like cloud masses. In the gap between them and the sentinel poplar in Fred's cottage garden a pale-green streak showed where the sunset had been.

The position of his bed, as Nurse Sanderson had frequently remarked, was inconvenient for nursing, but Oliver had decided when they brought him home that he wanted it like that, so his mother had had it done and told Sandy that she must put up with it, just as she would tell this new nurse. She would probably tell her before she had a chance to complain. Mrs. North was a great believer in getting her word in first.

Oliver hoped the nurse would not come too late tomorrow. He would not let his mother or his sisters do much for him. They usually hurt him, because they were as afraid to touch him as he was of their touch.

An owl screeched suddenly and Oliver's toes twitched. Would they never stop itching and twitching and feeling heat and cold? It would spoil his attraction for young David if they did, and he might not come to visit him so often. There was a distinct fascination about an uncle who could wiggle toes that were not there.

Elizabeth Gray arrived before lunch. Oliver saw her from his bedroom window. Mrs. North had taken her out through the drawing-room on to the stone steps which joined the two levels of lawn at the back of the house, and was pointing things out to her. Soon she would bring her in and show her Oliver, as she was now showing her the rose garden, and the neglected
tennis court, and the fruit cage, and the herd of Herefords in the dip below the ha-ha wall, and the clump of trees on the hill-top where the Roman camp had been.

Thank goodness this girl was not going to crackle round him in hospital armour. Sandy had worn a mauve dress stiff as cardboard, a straining apron encircled by a belt with a vast buckle like a portcullis, and an outsize Army square which caught on beams and was whipped off her head if she ventured outside on a windy day.

Elizabeth wore a white overall with a half-belt nipping in her neat waist at the back, light stockings and a little perky American cap on the back of her fair hair. His mother was wearing her second-best corsets, Oliver noticed. She really should have worn her best under that grey jersey suit, but she kept them for social occasions. She wore a purple and green scarf tied in a big bow under her chins and her thick legs in grey silk stockings ran straight as tree trunks into high-heeled crocodile shoes, which made dents in the damp lawn. After fifteen years, she was still no more congruous in the country than a week-end visitor. He thought of calling out for her to bring the girl over to the window to be introduced, but decided not to spoil her pleasure in doing things in their right order. She would make quite a little ceremony of bringing Elizabeth into his room, leading her forward by the hand and saying: “This is your new nurse. This is my son—Oliver, whom you're going to look after for me.” She had probably planned it out last night while she was doing her hair. This was the time when she laid most of her plans and did what she called her Figuring. Often, after she had kissed him good night, she would come in again in her quilted satin dressing-gown with a comb in her hand and some of her hair pinned flat to her head, to tell him something she had just thought of. Looking up from his book, he would agree, and ten minutes later she would be back again with a bit more of her hair in curls and an alternative idea.

“Don't read too long,” she would say going out, and he would say: “Just going to finish this chapter,” and probably go on reading for another hour. Sometimes, when she drew back the curtains in her bedroom, she would see his light shining on to the lawn and would come down again to see whether he had gone to sleep with the lamp on.

He hoped they would come in soon. He was very uncomfortable. There were crumbs in his bed and his dressing wanted changing and the pillow in the small of his back had knotted itself into a hard lump. Heather had washed him after breakfast
with a too dry sponge which did not rinse off all the soap, and Violet, coming in later, had set up his shaving things for him on the bed-table and had spilt some water which had now soaked right through the blankets and sheet to his pyjamas. He would also like to know what was for lunch before he started on the chocolate Bob had sent him from America.

When his mother turned to come indoors, she waved and smiled in his direction, although she could not see him behind the mullions of the open casement. When she was working in the garden or sitting in a deck-chair under the cedar, she would look up from time to time and wave to show him he was not forgotten.

She said something to Elizabeth, who also looked towards him. He was too far away to see her features, but the general effect was not unpleasing. Good.

When she came into his room, he saw that she had china-blue eyes in a smooth, well-mannered face, neither pretty nor plain, but strangely unanimated. Yet it was not a lethargic face; it was alert and intelligent and healthy, but controlled beyond its youth.

“This is your new nurse, darling,” said Mrs. North. “Elizabeth Gray. This is my son—Oliver. You're going to look after him for us, aren't you?” Elizabeth stepped forward, avoiding, either by accident or deliberately, the hand with which Mrs. North was going to lead her up to the bed.

“How do you do?” she said politely, with a professional glance at the untidily made bed, the arrangement of the pillows and the plaster on Oliver's chest where it showed under the open neck of his pyjamas. Being in bed gave you an advantage over people, Oliver always thought. Simply by turning your head, you could follow them as they moved about the room, conscious of your eyes. It was rather like being royalty. You waited at your ease for them to come to you, so much less at their ease because you were in bed and there was that hump under the quilt, which they were not sure whether they ought to notice or not. Even people whom he knew quite well were embarrassed when they first came to see him.

This girl seemed completely self-possessed, but of course she was used to seeing people in bed and to humps under quilts. They smiled at each other gravely, summing one another up, wondering how they were going to like seeing so much of each other.

“You'll find me an awful fraud,” said Oliver. “Nothing wrong with me. I'm afraid I'm a dead loss as a case, but I don't suppose a bit of a rest will do you any harm.”

“Now, Oliver,” said Mrs. North hastily, terrified that he might give the girl the wrong ideas, “don't talk like that. It's no use your pretending you can do things for yourself, because you know quite well you can't. Miss Gray isn't going to think you lazy or spoiled. She's a nurse and she knows what a man with a heart may and mayn't do. We've had a long talk about you already and I've explained your condition exactly, so you needn't start trying to muddle her.” She turned to Elizabeth. “I told you, didn't I? A shell splinter just grazed the outer muscle of the heart. They say it's healing all right at last, but of course the least exertion …”

Elizabeth, who had formed her own opinion of the case long ago from her interview with Oliver's doctor, listened politely to what they both had to say, and when Mrs. North at last decided to go and finish off the lunch, set about making Oliver comfortable as surely and successfully as if she had been nursing him for weeks.

.…

It was a lovely afternoon. The sun, which had been in and out of clouds all morning, was standing in a clear blue sky by the time it reached the spot above the hill from where it shone on to his bed. The autumn and spring suns were better than the high suns of midsummer, which were only at the right angle for his low old window in the early morning and in the evening. This sun could shine into his room from two o'clock until it set behind the elms.

“Going out this afternoon?” he asked Elizabeth, when she came to fetch his coffee-cup. “Wish I could show you round. It's rather a nice old place. We rent out most of the land and the farm buildings now, but Fred won't mind where you go. Fred Williams—he's our tenant. He lives in that cottage you can see by the poplar over there. My eldest sister works for him. D'you like farms? There's a couple of cart foals in the paddock by the front drive, they tell me, that might appeal to you. Don't worry about me if you want to go out. I shan't want a thing. Never do.”

“I might go out perhaps,” said Elizabeth, “when I've done the washing up.”

“Don't let them work you too hard. I warn you, my mother is one of these people who would die at the sink sooner than leave the plates till tomorrow.”

He spoke lightly, but Elizabeth answered quite seriously, “It's specified as part of my job that I should help in the house. Mrs. North has drawn me up a time-table so that I can fit that in with
my nursing.” She pulled a typed sheet of paper out of her pocket and showed it to Oliver.

He laughed. “Isn't that typical? Every minute of the day accounted for, my poor Nurse Gray. ‘Off Duty: 2.30–4.30.' You'll find yourself going down to the village then to do some shopping and catch the London post. You wait. What's this? ‘Household chores!'” He laughed again. “How the woman harks back to Ardmore, Pa. ‘9 a.m.: Major North's breakfast. 9.15: Make beds with me upstairs. 10 a.m: Major North's dressing.' How the devil does she know when I want my dressing done? ‘11.1: Help Mrs Cowlin prepare lunch, when I'm not doing it. Listen for Major North's bell—' Look here, I
never
ring my bell. You can cut that out.” He rummaged on his bedside table for a pencil and Elizabeth stepped forward quickly and handed it to him. He scored heavily through a line.

“Thanks. I say,” he said, reading on, “I hope you don't think we're expecting too much. It looks an awful lot set down like this but half the things aren't necessary, and when you shake down and sort of get into the hang of things here, it'll boil down a bit.”

“It seems quite all right, thank you,” said Elizabeth, taking back the paper, folding it neatly and putting it back into her pocket. It would help a lot, Oliver thought, if she would give some indication of what she thought of the household.

“What about your back?” she asked. “You ought to have that rubbed at two, oughtn't you?”

“Good God, no. I'm not in hospital now, thank Heaven. You go away and do your ‘Household chores' and then get out into this sun. Get one of the girls to show you round. You've met them, have you—my sisters?”