The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens Page B

down, anyway, to get some toothpaste,” she said, and Oliver wondered whether she liked his mother and did these things to save her, or whether she were really as detached as she seemed.
    â€œOh, Elizabeth!” Mrs. North called her back as she was closing the door, with the lilting cry with which Americans call up the stairs. “I’ve been wondering whether I won’t put Miss Frith into the little green room after all. We might make the bed up presently.”
    â€œI did it this morning,” said Elizabeth.
    â€œIn the green room? But how did you know I—”
    â€œYou suggested it last night, before you decided on the other, but I thought you’d probably change your mind again.” She said this not rudely, but as a commonsense statement.
    Oliver laughed when she had gone out. “How well she knows you already, Ma.”
    â€œBetter than I know her, I’m afraid. I can’t seem to get near her at all. And she’s such a good little thing, I would like to be fond of her, but if you show her any affection she shies off as if she were afraid of it. She certainly can make scones, though. I taught her that.”
    â€œI thought she could when she came.”
    â€œMm-
hm
. Didn’t rise properly. She had her dough too wet,” said his mother with her mouth full. “I showed her.” Oliver saw Elizabeth go out through the drawing-room on to the lawn to call the children in to tea. The wind blew her white overall close to her body. She put a hand up to her head, but her thick corn-coloured roll of hair stayed neat. It was too neat. It made an effective round frame to her composed little features and it showed off the clean line of her chin and nose and forehead, but sometimes, wondering what she would look like with it tumbling in disorder round her shoulders, he had to repress an impulse to pull it down when she was bending over him withthe serious expression she used for nursing. Heather had taught him at an early age the folly of tampering with a woman’s hair. “Evelyn and Nancy!” she called. “Evie! Tea!” But they could not hear her. She did not often shout, and when she did, her voice had no carrying power. The children had got the barrow full of leaves and Evelyn was trying to lift the handles to wheel it away. It was too heavy for her, and Nancy tried to help, but Evelyn pushed her away. Oliver could imagine her scarlet, furious face. Eventually, after a little scrapping, they took one handle each, but they had only trundled a few yards when the cumbersome old barrow toppled over, taking Evelyn down with it because she would not let go and spilling out the leaves which they had taken two hours to collect. It was Evelyn who hurt her wrist, but it was Nancy who bellowed. Elizabeth ran, jumping nimbly down the steep bank between the two lawns instead of going by the steps, and when she reached the children, Oliver was surprised to see Evelyn fling her arms round her waist. Elizabeth dropped on one knee among the leaves and did not seem to notice that Evelyn, clutching at her, knocked her little white cap off while she was examining the wrist.
    â€œWill you look at that?” said Mrs. North, who was peering over the bed in frustrated anxiety because she could not go across the lawn in her bedroom slippers. “The girl looks quite human. Funny—Evie never hugs anyone, even when she’s upset.”
    Elizabeth picked up her cap and stood up and Evelyn aimed a vicious kick at the overturned wheelbarrow and then took her hand and they came towards the house, Nancy wiping her nose on her scarf. The light was failing as they came across the top lawn and Oliver could not be sure whether it was his imagination or whether Elizabeth’s expression was really softer and friendlier than any of them had yet seen it.
    .…
    Somebody had to go and meet Anne at the station, because she chose to come on a train that did not connect with