The Happy Prisoner (24 page)

“I wonder he didn't take Elizabeth,” Oliver said.

“She'd have gone with him like a shot too,” answered Heather, and Oliver looked up at the rancour in her voice. “Don't think I haven't noticed how she makes up to him. She never produced that smile for any of us.”

“You're crazy,” Oliver said. “Just because she likes him and feels friendly. You always complain she's too unfriendly. What do you want?”

“I don't want her to make passes at my husband, I know that.”

“You do say the silliest things when you're worked up,” Oliver said, annoyed. “Anything less likely than John and Elizabeth having an intrigue.”

“Oh, I didn't say
John
would,” Heather said in an exasperated voice. “He's never looked at another woman since we were married, and not many before that, I should think. He's almost inhumanly chaste. Oh dear, I do wish I'd gone to the cinema with him.”

“Never mind,” said Oliver cheerfully, “it's very nice going to the movies by yourself. You can concentrate better without someone asking you whether you're enjoying it, or have you got a match.”

“Yes,” said Heather, sounding as if she were going to cry, “but he didn't enjoy the film.” Her mouth trembled, her eyes were blurring and her face was getting red, when suddenly the well-known squeal of the family car's brakes, which not even John was able to mute, drained the blood from her face with a gasp and she rushed out without shutting the door, so that Oliver heard her rapturous greeting of John. He came in looking rather sheepish, with Heather hanging on to his arm, recovered enough now to start asking questions. “But why didn't you ring up, Johnny? That's what I can't understand. Why didn't you let me know?”

“I couldn't get through. I tried several times, but I couldn't even get Toll. I'm terribly sorry, darling, I'd no idea you'd get so worried, or I'd never have stayed on for the later train when old
George suggested it. Hullo, Onions, how've you been?” Onions was John's name for Oliver.

“Oh, worried sick about you, of course, old boy,” said Oliver, grinning. “You really shouldn't do this sort of thing. It's bad for my heart.”

Heather had let go of John and was standing a little apart, scrutinising him with a slight pucker, as if surprised to find him not looking quite the same as her anxious imagination had drawn him. “George Hanbury,” she said with contempt. “Fancy anyone missing three trains for the sake of playing billiards with George Hanbury.”

“I rather like him,” said John apologetically “I know you don't, but it's not his fault if he hasn't got any of the social graces. You've never forgotten that time he spilled his drink on your dress have you?” he added, smiling his pride at her fastidiousness.

“Don't remind me of it,” she said. “And just to make everything perfect, he trod on the dress when we were dancing afterwards, and tore it.”

“Trust old George,” John laughed. “He damn nearly tore the cloth today. He will one of these days with that backhanded twist shot of his. You ought to see it, Onions; dangerous, but most effective when the angle's tricky. He gets his right arm cuddled round his waist and his left elbow somewhere up by his ear.”

“I think I'll go up to bed,” Heather said, and John leaped to open the door for her. “By the way, old girl,” he said as she came towards him, “did you know there was a colossal great mark on the skirt of that coat thing? You ought to do something about it.”

Oliver could not see his sister's face, but he knew she had worked on the stain for more than half an hour. Meeting her mother in the doorway, she burst out: “Ma,
where
d'you think he's been? Playing billiards with that awful George Hanbury.”

“Who's George Hanbury, dear?” asked her mother comfortably, and patted John's arm. “Your dinner's all ready for you, Johnny.” She disentangled her pendant watch from the chain of her pince-nez. “Why, it's two and a half minutes past ten. You must be starving. Did you have a good time, dear?”

“Grand, thanks. I'm awfully sorry I'm so late.”

“I don't mind. I like you to get among your own crowd again, after being stuck down here in our rut for so long. You should get up to town more. Would you like to have your dinner
in here? Heather will get it for you. She's been terribly worried, poor child, but you see now, Heather, I was quite right; he was with friends. You'll find everything in the oven, dear, and his soup's in a saucepan.” In the silence which followed Heather's slam of the door, they heard her footsteps going not to the kitchen but up the stairs.

“Well,” said Mrs. North, with a nervous little mm-hm, “well, I'll just go and see that she can find everything.”

When she had gone out, John pleated his forehead. “Actually,” he said, “I had some beer and sandwiches at Shrewsbury, because I thought I'd be too late for dinner. I don't really want anything, though as she'd kept it specially …”

“You have it, my boy,” said Oliver firmly. “You've caused enough trouble for one day. You may not think it, but Heather has honestly been awfully worried. You might have been one of the children, the way she was carrying on. Most gratifying. Don't pay any attention to all this.” He waved his hand up towards the rattling of the handles of Heather's tallboy as she banged drawers open and shut. “Reaction.” He thought he was being a ray of sunshine, putting things right between them, but John stiffened and his face took on a stubborn, blindly loyal look. “I'm sorry I've been such a nuisance,” he said. “It was damn thoughtless of me.” He left the room before Oliver could try again to discuss Heather.

Oliver wondered where he would go now. Upstairs to risk apologising to Heather, or politely to the kitchen to be piled with food he did not want? If he had any sense, he would go up and make violent love to Heather before she could say a word. How wise Oliver felt lying here knowing he could run people's lives better than they could themselves. He had visions of himself as the oracle and influence of the household, but it was difficult to be either an oracle or an influence when people kept going away and you could not get up and follow them and make them listen.

“What have you been plotting with my mother?” Oliver asked, when Dr. Trevor came into his room nearly half an hour after he had heard his car on the drive.

“Plotting?” Dr. Trevor hitched his trousers up his thick thighs and sat down in his Rodin attitude. “What d'you mean? I've been having a glass of sherry with her, if you want to know.”

“The wall between this room and the drawing-room,” said Oliver sententiously, “is quite thin. It was built much later than the rest of the house; about a hundred years ago in fact, when the
owners decided that two rooms would be cosier than one big one. I can hear the tone of people's voices through it, if not the actual words, and after months of practice I am very good at spotting the indulgent note that means they're talking about me.”

“You're wrong this time,” said Dr. Trevor, with the quirk that did duty for a smile on his granite face. “We were talking about Violet's wedding.”

“And,” said Oliver, with a triumphant glance at Elizabeth, “Ma was telling you not to let me up for it, because the excitement would be too much for me.”

Dr. Trevor could look you in the eye and lie without moving a muscle. “Whether you get up or not,” he said, “has nothing to do with your mother. It depends entirely on the state of your heart. If you'll shut up for a minute, I'll tell you what I think of it.” Elizabeth, with her usual inconspicuous efficiency, had brought in the stethoscope which be had left in his mackintosh and she handed it to him while he was patting his jacket pockets. When he was there she automatically assumed her hospital pose: hands behind back, head slightly on one side, expression politely intelligent, standing perfectly still, yet poised to spring for anything he needed, a second before he asked for it.

Oliver had not particularly wanted to go to Violet's wedding, until he realised that his mother meant to protect him from it, whether he were fit enough to go or not. It then became an issue of independence. To appear at the wedding would be the first move towards the normal life which his fragile heart dreaded, but on which he knew he must embark some time. There were times when he felt he could lie here for the rest of his life, when he could not face the effort to stop being an invalid. There were other times when he felt he could not stay in bed an hour longer and fancied himself striding up the hill towards the clump of trees so vividly that he was there already, with the roofs and chimneys of the house below him, and unequal fields with double hedgerows marking the lanes, and beyond, before the hills rose again, the winding line of trees that congregated along the Severn.

He had been dreading the ordeal of Violet's wedding, but because his mother was determined that he should not go, he was equally determined now that he could stand it. It would be a test of how much he was fit for.

Violet's head and shoulders filled the window before Dr. Trevor had finished with Oliver. It was pouring with rain, and she was standing in the flower-beds in gum boots with a sack over her head. “Well,” she said, “what's the verdict?”

Elizabeth raised her finger in a hushing gesture, and Dr. Trevor just shifted his eyes slightly and went on listening, so Violet waited, whistling through her teeth, squelching her feet up and down in the mud with a noise like blancmange coming out of a mould.

At last Dr. Trevor leaned back with his stethoscope dangling on his broad chest, glanced at Oliver, then at Violet, and gave his head half a shake. “Wiser not, I think,” he said. “It's going on fine, but it's early days yet to face a crowd and too much carting about. I don't want to risk putting you back months; it isn't worth it.”

“It is worth it!” Violet stamped her foot with a splosh that spattered her skirt. “I'm sure he's well enough. He told me yesterday he was, when Ma was saying he wasn't. I do think it's a swizz. Who's going to give me away? Nobody cares about my wedding.”

“As far as I can gather,” said Dr. Trevor, fixing her with a small, clear eye like a tortoise, “the whole house is revolving round your wedding, but I don't see that it will make it extra lively if your brother dies at it.”

“Dies!” snorted Violet. “Don't be such an old woman.”

“It's all right, Vi,” said Oliver. “It's a conspiracy. I'm perfectly fit to come. They're just treating me like a kid that doesn't know when it's tired.” He had slumped down in the bed. At the back of his mind he was relieved, but he was not going to admit it.

“You're both being exceedingly childish,” said Dr. Trevor, stuffing his stethoscope into his pocket. “Run away now, Violet, because I want to look at Oliver's leg.” She scowled at him, said: “Hard cheese, Ollie,” and went slouching away over the lawn, hunched in the sack, kicking up little spurts of water.

When Dr. Trevor had finished and Elizabeth was rearranging the bedclothes, he said: “Sorry about the wedding, old chap, but don't think I've been influenced by your mother, because I'm in the habit of making my own decisions. I tell you what, you can start sitting out of bed for five minutes every day. You can sit in that chair and dangle your leg. Later on, when the wheelchair comes, you can go out in the garden when it's warm enough.”

“I don't want to get up,” muttered Oliver.

“See that he does it regularly, Nurse, once he's started.”

“I will, sir.” She went out to get Oliver's pulse chart, and Dr. Trevor said, with a jerk of his square head: “Nice girl that. Reminds me of a Swedish girl I used to know, fresh and cool, like butter. She in love with you yet?”

“Don't talk tripe,” Oliver told him.

“Oh, I'm not flattering you. It's inevitable with any young male patient they nurse long enough. Same with the patient—natural reaction of dependence and gratitude, even with far worse lookers than this one. That's the way nurses get engaged. Disastrous sometimes, when he sees her out of uniform and she sees him out of pyjamas and they don't need each other any more.”

Violet was furious. She received most ungraciously the idea of John giving her away. She had wanted Oliver, and Oliver had wanted to do it. Nobody ever let her do anything for him, and now she was not even allowed to give him this bit of fun.

“Glad you think it's fun,” said Heather. “I should say he was well out of it. You needn't think it's going to be any fun for John to stand up there in that depressing church with half the county criticising his back view, and to try and make a convincing speech afterwards about how charming you are, which Mrs. Ogilvie will take down in mental shorthand for the benefit of everyone we haven't invited.”

“Why do it then?” retorted Violet. “I'm sure
I
never asked him.”

No one but Heather was allowed to slight John. She fired up in his defence. “Because he's too good-natured to refuse, that's why. You don't imagine he's going to get a thrill out of delivering you over to Fred like a lamb to the slaughter? No, not a lamb”—she looked coldly up and down Violet, who was standing in front of her dishevelled, in the Land Girl jersey and stained grey flannels, a bandana handkerchief bulging the pocket in the seat—“some old bellwether.”

“Cheek!” shouted Violet. “Did you hear what she said, Fred? Hit her.”

“Hit me yourself,” grinned Heather. “You're stronger than he is.” The most embarrassing part of this quarrel was that both Fred and John were in the room. The sisters never cared who was there when they started on each other; in fact, an audience seemed to encourage them. Fred had been crimson since the beginning of the argument, but his nose now flushed to an even richer shade. It forced itself on your attention, dominating his face, yet so out of proportion to it that it seemed no more part of his anatomy than the lamp a miner wears in his hat. When he was very embarrassed he blinked his eyes rapidly, as if they could not stand the glare from his nose.