The Happy Prisoner Read Free

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.

Chapter 2
    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 neglectedtennis 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