Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

"Let's finish our cocoa in the dark," I said, and blew out the candle.

Rose is always more confidential in the dark.

The first thing she said was:

"How much did Stephen tell you on the way home ?"

I told her how he had said it was too dreadful to tell.

"I wondered if he'd seen," she said. Then she began to giggle-the first time for months. The giggles became muffled and I guessed she

was stifling them in her pillow. At last she came up for air and

said:

"I slapped Neil Cotton's face."

"Rose!" I gasped.

"Why?"

She said she had looked round and seen him coming, seen the pitchfork against the sky, and let out the scream we heard.

"Then I tried to get out of the coat but I couldn't find the buttons, so I went on running. He yelled "Stop, stop" -he must have seen by then that I wasn't really a bear--then he caught up with me and grabbed me by the arm. I said "Let go, damn you" and Stephen heard my voice and called out "It's Miss Rose."

Neil Cotton shouted "But why are you running away?" and I said

"Because I don't want to meet you--or your brother either. You can both go to hell!"

And I hit him across the face."

"Oh, Rose I" I felt all knotted up by the awfulness of it.

"What did he say?"

"He said "Good God!" and then Simon and Stephen came up, and Stephen said all the people on the train were out after me.

"That's your fault," I said to Neil Cotton, "you've made me the laughing.

stock of the neighborhood." And he said "Waitbe quiet"--and then he told them to pretend there really had been a bear, as I told you."

"Don't you think it was wonderfully kind of him ?"

I asked.

She said: "Yes, in a way," then stopped, and I knew she was trying to work out something in her mind. At last she went on: "But it's all part of his not taking us seriously- not just us, but England

generally. He wouldn't have dared to pretend anything so silly in

America, I bet. He thinks England's a joke, a funny sort of toy-toy

trains, toy countryside. I could tell that by the way he talked coming home in the car."

I knew what she meant--I had felt it a bit that night they first came to the castle; not with Simon, though. And I am sure Neil doesn't mean it unkindly.

I asked what the Mother was like.

"Beautiful, and never stops talking. Father'll want to brain her with a brick."

"If he ever meets her."

"He'll meet her all right. We shall be seeing quite a lot of the Cottons now."

Her tone was so confident--almost arrogant--that I was frightened for her.

"Oh, Rose, don't be silly with them this time!"-I had said it before I could stop myself.

She simply pounced on it.

"What do you mean' silly his Did Topaz say I was ?"

I said I was merely guessing, but she wouldn't leave it at that. She

battered at me with questions. What with wanting to defend Topaz and

being very tired, I wasn't as strong-minded as I ought to have been-

and Topaz had said it might be best to tell if we got another chance

with the Cottons. But I felt perfectly dreadful when I had told- mean, both to the Cottons and Rose.

Still, if it does her any good .. . And I was careful to stress about my being consciously naive. I left out the bit about Father.

She wanted to know which brother had said the worst things.

I sorted the remarks out as best I could.

"Well, at least Simon was sorry for me," she said.

"It was Neil who suggested dropping us. Oh, how I'll pay them out!"

"Don't count it against them," I begged.

"Look how very kind they were tonight. And if you're sure they want to be friends now" "I'm sure all right."

"Did they say anything about seeing us again ?"

"Never mind what they said." And then, to my surprise, she started to giggle again--she wouldn't tell me why. When she stopped, she said she was sleepy.

I tried to keep her talking by being Miss Blossom: "Here, Rosie, have you got something up your sleeve, you naughty girl ?"

But she wasn't having any.

"If I have, it's staying there," she said.

"You and Miss Blossom go to sleep."

But I lay awake for ages, going over it all.

Heavens, Godsend church clock has just struck four- I have been writing up here on the mound for six hours!

Topaz never rang the lunch bell for me; instead, she brought me out

some milk and two big cheese sandwiches, and a message from Father that I was to write as long as I liked. It seems selfish when the others

are working hard on Aunt Millicent's clothes, but while we were

unpacking them this morning I began to shake again, and when Topaz

found out what I felt about them she said I had better write it out of my system. I think I have, because I can now look down on them

flapping on the line without any horror-though I don't feel fond of

them yet, as I do of the furs.

Stephen cycled to Scoatney station before he went to work and brought back the bear coat; it was hidden in a ditch.

Father can re member hearing about this coat when he was little. He

says most coachmen were lucky if they got a short goatskin cape to

wear in the winter; but great-grandmother said that if her husband, who rode inside the carriage, had a beaver-lined coat, the coachman out in the cold ought to be at least as warmly dressed. He was grateful for

the bear coat but embarrassed, as little boys used to jeer and ask him to dance. The sealskin jacket was Aunt Millicent's, in the "nineties, before she turned against furs. Father thinks she kept all these out

of family sentiment and perhaps because she was only happy as a child.

How queer to think that the old lady in the black military cloak was

the Miss Milly who went to the dancing class! It makes me wonder what I shall be like when I am old.

My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing.

I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people--the me

imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in--the me in what is going to happen next.

Will the Cottons ask us to Scoatney his Topaz thinks they will.

She says the oddness of the bear incident will fascinate them, just as they were fascinated by the oddness of the first night they came to the castle--and that Rose running away will have undone the damage she did by being too forthcoming. If only she doesn't forth-come again! Topaz approves of my telling her last night; she had a talk with her herself about it this morning and Rose listened with surprising civility.

"Just be rather quiet and do a lot of listening until you feel at ease," Topaz advised her.

"And for pity's sake don't be challenging. Your looks will do the challenging if you give them the chance."

I do love Topaz when she is in a down-to-earth mood.

Is it awful to join in this planning? Is it trying to sell one's

sister?

But surely Rose can manage to fall in love with them--I mean, with

whichever one will fall in love with her. I hope it will be Neil,

because I really do think Simon is a little frightening-only it is Neil who thinks England is a joke ...... I have been resting, just staring down at the castle. I wish I could find words--serious, beautiful

words- to describe it in the afternoon sunlight; the more I strive for them, the more they utterly elude me. How can one capture the pod of

light in the courtyard, the golden windows, the strange long-ago look, the look that one sees in old paintings his I can only think of "the light of other days," and I didn't make that up ...... Oh-- I I have just seen the Cottons" car on the Godsend road --near the high

cross-roads, where one gets the first glimpse of the castle. They are coming here! Do I watch and wait again? No fear!

I am going down.

VII

WE are asked to Scoatney, to dinner, a week from today!

And there is something else I want to write about, something belonging to me. Oh, I don't know where to begin!

I got down from Belmotte in time to warn the others Rose and Topaz were ironing and Rose put on a clean blouse hot from the iron. Topaz just

tidied herself and then set the tea tray. I washed and then reckoned I had only enough time either to warn Father or to brush my hair; but I managed to do both by taking the comb and brush to the gatehouse with me. Father jumped up so quickly that I feared he was going to rush out to avoid the Cottons, but he merely grabbed my hairbrush and brushed

his coat with it-neither of us felt it was a moment for fussiness.

In the end, we had a few minutes to spare because they left the car at the end of the lane-the mud is dry now but the ruts are still deep.

"Mrs. Cotton's with them!" I cried, as they came round the last bend of the lane. Father said he would meet them at the gatehouse

arch--"It's not going to be my fault if anything goes wrong this time; I've promised Topaz." Then he looked a bit grim and added:

"I'm glad you're still on the young side to be marketed."

I bolted back to Rose and Topaz. They had lit a wood fire in the

drawing-room and arranged some daffodils. The fire made the room feel more spring like than ever. We opened the windows and the swans sailed by, looking mildly interested. Suddenly I remembered that first spring afternoon in the drawing-room, with Rose playing her piece. I saw

Mother leaning out over the moat--I saw her gray dress so clearly,

though I still couldn't see her face. Something inside me said "Oh, Mother, make the right thing happen for Rose!"--and I had a vision of poor Mother scurrying from Heaven to do the best she could. The way

one's mind can dash about just while one opens a window!

Then Father came in with the Cottons.

Rose thought Mrs. Cotton beautiful but that isn't how I would describe her. Topaz is beautiful- largely because of the strangeness of her

face: that look she has of belonging to a whiter-than-white race. Rose, with her lovely coloring and her eyes that can light up her whole

expression, is beautiful. Mrs.

Cotton is handsome--no, that makes her sound too big. She is just

wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right-looking. She has exactly

the right amount of color. Her black hair is going gray without

looking streaky because it has exactly the right number of gray hairs in exactly the right places--and it has exactly the right amount of

wave. Her figure is perfect, and so were her clothes--just country

tweeds but so much more exciting than I ever thought tweeds could be; they had clear colors in them, shades of blue which made you notice her eyes. I rather fear that I stared too hard at her --I hope she

realized that it was only admiration. As she is Simon Cotton's Mother she can't be much less than fifty, which is hard to believe.

Yet now I come to think of it, I can't imagine her being any younger; it is just that she is a different kind of fifty from any I have ever seen.

She came in talking solidly, and solidly is a very good word to

describe it; it made me think of a wall of talk. Fortunately she

speaks beautifully--just as Simon does--and she doesn't in the least

mind being interrupted; her sons do it all the time and Father soon

acquired the technique--it was him she talked to most. After he had

introduced Topaz and me and she had shaken hands with us all, and hoped Rose had recovered from her shock, and said "Will you look at those swans ?" -she started on to Jacob Wrestling and how she had heard Father lecture in America. They went on interrupting each other in a

perfectly friendly manner, Rose sat on the window seat and talked to