Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

"I mean you must call me Cassandra, without the "Miss." You're one of the family--it's absurd you should ever have called me "Miss." Who told you to ?"

"My Mother--she set a lot of store by it," he said.

"I remember the first day we came here. You and Miss Rose were

throwing a ball in the garden and I ran to the kitchen door thinking

I'd play, too.

Mother called me back and told me how you were young ladies, and I was never to play with you unless I was invited. And to call you "Miss,"

and never to presume. She had a hard job explaining what "presume"

meant."

"Oh, Stephen, how awful! And you'd be--how old ?"

"Seven, I think. You'd be six and Miss Rose nine. Thomas was only four, but she told me to call him "Master Thomas." Only he asked me not to, years ago."

"And I ought to have asked you years ago." I'd never given it a thought. His Mother had been in service for years before she married.

When she was left a widow she had to go back to it and board Stephen

out. I know she was very grateful when Mother let her bring him here, so perhaps that made her extra humble.

"Well, anyway, I've asked you now," I went on, "so will you please remember ?"

"Would I call Miss Rose just "Rose"?" he asked.

I wasn't sure how Rose would feel about it so I said: "Oh, why worry about Rose his This is between you and me."

"I couldn't call her "Miss" and not you," he said firmly.

"It'd be setting her above you."

I said I would talk to Rose about it, then asked him to pass his cup

for more tea- I was getting a bit embarrassed by the subject.

He stirred his second cup for a long time, then said:

"Did you mean that about gentlemen being men who behave like gentlemen

?"

"Of course I did, Stephen. I swear I did --really."

I was so anxious to make him believe me that I leaned towards him,

across the table. He looked at me, right into my eyes. That queer,

veiled expression in his--that I fear I used to call his daft look- was suddenly not there; there seemed to be a light in them and yet I have never seen them look so dark. And they were so direct that it was more like being touched than being looked at. It only lasted a second, but for that second he was quite a different person --much more

interesting, even a little bit exciting.

Then Thomas came in and I jumped up from the table.

"Why are you so red in the face, my girl?" he said maddeningly --I do understand why Rose sometimes wants to hit him. Fortunately he didn't wait for an answer, but went on to say there was a bit in the King's

Crypt paper about the bear being washed up twenty miles away. I

laughed and put an egg on to boil for him.

Stephen went out into the garden.

All the time I was giving Thomas his tea I was worrying--because I

suddenly knew I couldn't go on pretending that Stephen is just vaguely devoted to me and it doesn't in the least matter. I hadn't given it a thought for weeks, and I certainly hadn't been brisk with him, as

Father suggested. I told myself I would start at once; and then I felt I couldn't-not after I had just asked him to stop calling me "Miss."

Incidentally, I never felt less brisk in my life, because being looked at like that makes a person feel dizzy.

I went into the garden to think things out. It was that time of

evening when pale flowers look paler- the daffodils seemed almost

white; they were very still, everything was still, hushed. Father's

lamp was lit in the gatehouse, Topaz and Miss Marcy had a candle in the dining-room, Rose was still playing the piano in the drawing-room,

without a light. I'd stopped feeling dizzy; I had a strange, excited

feeling. I went through the gatehouse passage out into the lane and

walked past the barn. Stephen came out.

He didn't smile as he usually does when he sees me; he looked at me

with a kind of questioning expression. Then he said: "Let's go for a little walk."

I said: "All right." And then: "No, I don't think I will, Stephen. I want to see Miss Marcy again before she goes."

I didn't want to see Miss Marcy in the least.

I wanted to go for the walk. But I suddenly knew I mustn't.

Stephen just nodded. Then we went back to the castle together without saying a word to each other.

When Rose and I were going to bed I asked her if she would mind Stephen dropping the "Miss."

"I don't mind one way or the other," she said.

"After all, I'm eating the food he pays for."

I started to talk about the Cottons then, but she wouldn't be jolly or excited about them--she seemed to want to think. And I did some quiet thinking myself.

Early this morning I met Stephen letting out the hens and told him Rose would like him to stop saying "Miss." I was splendidly brisk; it's easy to be brisk in the early morning. He just said: "All right,"

without very much expression. Over breakfast Rose and Topaz were

planning to go to King's Crypt to buy the stuff for Rose's dress. (they are there now, I have had most of the day to myself.) I was at the

fire, making toast. Stephen came over to me.

"Please let me ask Mrs. Mortmain to get you something for the party,"

he said.

I thanked him but said I didn't need a thing.

"You're sure?" Then he added, very softly and as if he were trying out some difficult word: "Cassandra."

We both blushed. I had thought that dropping the "Miss" for Rose as well would make it quite ordinary, but it didn't.

"Goodness, this fire's hot," I said.

"No, honestly- I can't think of anything I want."

"Then I'll.just go on saving up for--for what I was saving up for," he said, and then went off to work.

It is now four o'clock. Father has gone to call on the Vicar so I have the castle to myself. It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts --I

shall think some ..... I didn't get very far with my thoughts. It is

the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet--I have been staring blankly at the bright square of the kitchen window for a good ten minutes. I shall pull

myself together and do some honest thinking ...... I have thought. And I have discovered the following things:

(1) I do not reciprocate Stephen's feelings.

(2) I wanted to go that walk with him yesterday evening and having

always loathed girls in books who are too, too innocent, I set it on

record: I think) I thought that if I did go, he would kiss me.

(3) This morning, by the hen-house, I did not wish him to kiss me.

(4) This moment, I do not think I wish him to kiss me .... I have

thought some more--I have been stuck in the un-blank kind of dream. I re-lived the minute when Stephen looked at me across the table. Even

to remember it made me feel dizzy. I liked feeling dizzy. Then, in my mind, I went for the walk with him that I didn't go. We went along the lane, over the Godsend road and into the little larch wood. There are no bluebells there yet, but I put them in. It was nearly dark in the

wood and suddenly cool, cold, there was a waiting feeling. I made up

things for Stephen to say, I heard his voice saying them. It got

darker and darker until there was only the palest gleam of sky through the tops of the trees. And at last he kissed me.

But I couldn't make that up at all--I just couldn't imagine how it

would feel. And I suddenly wished I hadn't imagined any of it..

I am finishing this in the bedroom because I heard Stephen washing at the garden pump and dashed upstairs. I have just looked down on him

from the window and I feel most guilty about taking him for that walk in my mind; guilty and ashamed, with a weak feeling round my ribs. I

won't do that sort of imagining again. And I am now quite certain I

don't want him to kiss me.

He does look extremely handsome there by the pump but the daft look is back again- oh, poor Stephen, I am a beast, it isn't really daft!

Though he certainly couldn't have thought of all those things I made

him say; some of them were rather good.

I won't think about it any more. My spare time pleasure-thinking shall be about the party at Scoatney, which is really much more interesting-though perhaps more interesting for Rose than for me.

I wonder what it would be like to be kissed by either of the Cottons.

NO! I am not going to imagine that.

Really, I'm shocked at myself And anyway, there isn't time Rose and

Topaz are due back.

I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book.

Shall I his No- a journal ought not to cheat. And I feel sure no one

but me can read my speed-writing. But I shall hide the book --I always lock it up in my school attache case and this time I shall take the

case out to Belmotte Tower; I have a special place for hiding things

there that not even Rose knows of. I shall go through the front door

to avoid meeting Stephen I really don't know how I can look him in the face after borrowing him as I have done. I will be brisk with him in

future- I swear I will!

VIII

I shall have to do the evening at Scoatney bit by bit, for I know I

shall be interrupted- I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long. On top of the Cottons' appearing to

like us, we have actually come by twenty pounds, the Vicar having

bought the rug that looks like a collie dog. Tomorrow we are going

shopping in King's Crypt. I am to have a summer dress. Oh, it is

wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!

Now about Scoatney. All week we were getting ready for the party.

Topaz bought yards and yards of pink muslin for Rose's frock and made it most beautifully. (at one time, before she was an artists' model,

Topaz worked at a great dressmaker's, but she will never tell us about it--or about any of her pasts, which always surprises me because she is so frank about many things.) Rose had a real crinoline to wear under

the dress; only a small one but it made all the difference. We

borrowed it from Mr. Stebbins's grandmother, who is ninety-two. When

the dress was finished, he brought her over to see Rose in it and she told us she had worn the crinoline at her wedding in Godsend Church,

when she was sixteen. I thought of Wallet's "Go, Lovely Rose' How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

--though I refrained from mentioning it; the poor old lady was.

crying enough without that. But she said she had enjoyed the outing.

It was fun while we were all sewing the frills for the dress; I kept

pretending we were in a Victorian novel. Rose was fairly willing to

play, but she always shut up if I brought the Cottons into the game.

And we had no nice friendly candlelight conversations about them.

She wasn't cross or sulky, she just seemed preoccupied--given to lying in bed not even reading, with a faint smirk on her face. Now I come to think of it, I was just as secretive about myself and Stephen, it would have embarrassed me dreadfully to tell her about my feelings; but then I have always been more secretive than she usually is.

And I know that she thinks of him as- well, as a boy of a different

class from ours. (do I think it, too? If so, I am ashamed of such

snobbishness.) I am thankful to be able to record that I have been

brisk- though perhaps it would be truer to say that I haven't been un brisk except for that second last night when I took his hand But that is part of the evening at Scoatney Hall.