The Captive Read Online Free PDF

all those kings and queens kept in their coffins all them years. It was unhealthy as well as unnatural and I never did think much of it. Little babies is more important than a lot of dead kings and queens and all the signs they made because they didn’t know how to write properly.”
    I laughed and she was glad to see me smile.
    She cheered up a little.
    “I’m all right,” she said.
     
    “I’ve got a cousin in Somerset. Keeps her own chickens. I always like a real fresh egg for breakfast… laid that morning. I might go to her. I don’t feel like taking on another… but I might. Anyway, there’s no worry on that score. Your mother says not to hurry. I can stay here if I want till I find something I like.”
    At length Felicity was married from the house of Professor Wills in Oxford. I went down with my parents for the wedding. We drank the health of the newly married pair and I saw Felicity in her strawberry-coloured going away costume which I had seen before and in fact helped her to choose. She looked radiant and I told myself I must be glad for her while feeling sorry for myself.
    When I returned to London they wanted to know all about the wedding.
    “She must have made a lovely bride,” said Mrs. Harlow.
    “I hope she’s happy. God bless her. She deserves to be. You never know with them professors. They’re funny things.”
    “Like governesses, you used to say,” I reminded her.
    “Well, I reckon she wasn’t a real governess. She was one on her own.”
    Mr. Dolland said we should all drink to the health and happiness of the happy pair. So we did.
    The conversation was doleful. Nanny Pollock had almost decided to go to her cousin in Somerset for a spell. She had drunk a little too much wine and had become maudlin.
    “Governesses … nannies … it’s their fate. They should know better. They shouldn’t get attached to other people’s children.”
    “But we’re not going to lose each other. Nanny,” I reminded her.
    “No. You’ll come and see me, won’t you?”
    “Of course.”
    “But it won’t be the same. You’ll be a grownup young lady. Them schools … they do something to you.”
    “They’re supposed to educate you.”

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    “It won’t be the same,” insisted Nanny Pollock, shaking her head dolefully.
    “I know how Nanny is feeling,” said Mr. Dolland.
    “Felicity has gone.
    That was the start. And that’s how it always is with change. A little bit here, a little bit there, and you realize everything is becoming different. “
    “And before you can say Jack Robinson,” added Mrs. Harlow, ‘it’s another kettle of fish. “
    “Well, you can’t stand still in life,” said Mr. Dolland philosophically.
    “I don’t want change,” I cried out.
    “I want us all to go on as we always did. I didn’t want Felicity to get married. I wanted it to stay like it always has been.”
    Mr. Dolland cleared his throat and solemnly quoted:
    ‘“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
    Mr. Dolland sat back and folded his arms and there was silence. He had pointed out with his usual dramatic emphasis that this was life and we must all accept what we could not alter.
     
    Storm at Sea
    In due course I went away to school. I was wretched for a time but I soon settled in. I found community life to my liking. I had always been interested in other people and I was soon making friends and joining in school activities.
    Felicity had done quite well with my education, and I was neither outstandingly brilliant nor dull. I was like so many others, which is perhaps the best thing to be for it makes life easier. No one envied me my scholarship and no one despised me for my lack of it. I soon mingled with the rest and became a very average schoolgirl.
    The days passed quickly. School joys, dramas and triumphs became part of my life, although I often thought nostalgically of