Виктория Холт - The Captive

I wrote to Felicity.

“Please, Felicity, I want to get away. If you could invite me … soon.”

There was an immediate reply.

“Come when you can. Oxford and the Graftons await you.”

“I am going to stay awhile with Felicity,” I told Aunt Maud.

She smiled smugly. With Felicity I should meet young men . the right sort of young men. It did not matter from which spot the scheme was launched. Operation Marriage could begin just as well in Oxford as in Bloomsbury.

To arrive in Oxford was an exciting experience. I had always loved what little I had seen of it. that most romantic of cities standing where the Cherwell and the Thames Isis here meet, its towers and spires reaching to the sky, its air of indifference to the workaday world. I loved the city, but what was most pleasant was to be with Felicity.

The Graftons had a house near Broad Street close to Balliol, Trinity and Exeter Colleges, not far from the spot where the martyrs Ridley and Latimer were burned to death for their religious opinions. The past was all around one and I found peace from Aunt Maud’s efficiency and the far from subtle care which everyone in the house seemed determined to bestow upon me.

With Felicity it was different. She understood me better than the others. She knew that there were secrets which I could not bring myself to discuss. Perhaps she thought I should one day. In any case she was perceptive enough to know that she must wait for me to do so and make no attempt to prise them from me.

James was tactful and charming and the children provided a great diversion. Jamie chattered quite a lot; he showed me his picture-books and proudly pointed out a pussycat and a train. Flora regarded me suspiciously for a while, but eventually decided that I was harmless and condescended to sit on my lap.

The day after I arrived Felicity said: “When I knew you were coming I wrote to Lucas Lorimer. I said how delighted we should be if he came for a visit and I guessed you and he might have something to talk about.”

“Has he accepted?” I asked. ^ “Not yet. When I saw him before, he clearly did not want to talk of his adventures. It may be that he will be afraid it will bring it all back too painfully.”

“I should like to see him.”

“I know. That’s why I asked him.”

All that day I thought of his being taken ashore to board the corsairs’ galley and that moment on the island when they had seemed to hesitate whether to take him or not. I had seen very little of him after that.

What had happened to him? How had he got away when Simon and I had been sold into slavery? Yet he . maimed as he was. had eluded his captors as we had been unable to.

There was so much I wanted to ask him.

The next day we were at breakfast when the mail was brought in.

Felicity seized on a letter, opened it, read it, smiled and looked up waving it.

“It’s from Lucas,” she said.

“He’s coming tomorrow. I’m so glad. I thought he would want to see you. Aren’t you pleased, Rosetta?”

“Yes. I am delighted.”

She looked at me anxiously.

“I dare say it will be a little upsetting, perhaps …”

“I don’t know. We’re both safe now.”

“Yes, but what an experience! Yet I am sure it is better for you both to meet and talk openly. It doesn’t do to bottle these things up.”

“I shall look forward so much to seeing him.”

Felicity sent the carriage to the station to meet him. James went with it. We had debated whether we should both go too, but we finally decided it would be better for us to wait at the house.

My first sight of him shocked me deeply. I had, of course, seen him in worse condition; on the island, for instance, and when we had dragged him into the lifeboat, but I was contrasting him with the man whom I had first met. There were shadows under his eyes and that certain cynical sparkle was replaced by a look of hopelessness. The flesh had fallen away from his features, which gave him a gaunt look. The tolerant amusement with which he had appeared to look out on the world had disappeared. He looked weary and disillusioned.

Our meeting was an emotional one. His expression changed when he saw me. He smiled and came towards me, leaning on his stick. He held out his free hand and took mine. He held it for some time, looking intently at me.

“Rosetta,” he said, and his lips twitched a little. The obvious emotion he felt made him look different again . defenceless in a way. I had never seen him look like that before. I knew he was remembering, as I was the island where Simon and I had left him to watch while we had gone off together, the arrival of the corsairs, those days we had spent in the open boat.

“Oh, Lucas,” I said.

“It is good to see you here … safe.”

There was a short silence while we continued to gaze at each other, almost as though we could not believe that we were real.

Felicity said softly: “I know you two will have lots to say to each other. First … let’s show Lucas his room, shall we?”

She was right. There was a great deal to talk about. The first evening was something of a strain. James and Felicity were the perfect host and hostess, full of understanding, skating over awkward pauses with skill and ease.

Felicity was the soul of tact. She knew that there would be things of which we would want to talk to no one but each other and only then when we were ready, and the following day James went off to his college, and she told us that she had an engagement which she must fulfill.

“Do forgive me,” she said.

“I’ll have to leave you two to entertain each other this afternoon.”

There was a pleasant part of the garden, walled in with mellow red bricks with a pond in the centre-the Tudor-type of intimate small garden within a garden. The roses were in bloom and I suggested that I show them to Lucas.

It was a mild afternoon, pleasantly warm without being too hot and we made our necessarily rather slow progress there. There was a stillness in the air and within the walls of that garden we might have stepped back two or three centuries in time.

“Let’s sit here,” I said.

“The pond is so pretty and it is so peaceful.”

There was silence and I went on: “We’d better talk about it, Lucas. We both want to, don’t we?”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“It’s uppermost in our minds.”

“Does it seem to you like a dream?” I asked.

“No,” he said sharply.

“Stark reality. I have a perpetual reminder.

Here I am now . like this. “

“I’m sorry. We didn’t know how to set it… and we had nothing that would help us.”

“My dear girl,” he said almost angrily.

“I’m not blaming you … only life … fate … or whatever you like to call it. Don’t you see? I have to spend the rest of my life … like this.”

“But at least you are here … at least you are alive.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you think that is a matter for great rejoicing?”

“For some at any rate. Your friends … your family. You are lame and I know there is pain now and then … but so much worse might have happened to you.”

“You are right to chide me. I am selfish, disgruntled and ungrateful.”

“Oh no, no. Do you think … it is possible … that something may be done?”

“What?”

“Well, they are very clever nowadays. There have been all sorts of medical discoveries …”

“My bone was broken. It was not set. It is too late to do anything about it now.”

“Oh, Lucas, I’m so sorry. If only we could have done something … how different it would have been.”

“You did a great deal and I’m a selfish creature thinking of my own misfortunes. I just cannot bear to contemplate what happened to you.”