Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

After a minute or so, the enclosed silence began to press on my ears--I thought at first that this was a good sign, but nothing interesting

happened. Then I remembered what the Vicar had said about knowing God with all one's senses, so I gave my ears a rest and tried my nose.

There was a smell of old wood, old carpet hassocks, old hymn books--a composite musty, dusty smell; no scent from the cold altar roses and

yet there was a faint, stuffy sweetness around the altar--I found it

came from the heavily embroidered cloth. I tried my sense of taste

next, but naturally it only offered a lingering of madeira and

biscuits. Touch:

just the cold stone of the steps. As for sight- well of course there

was plenty to see: the carved rood-screen, the great de Godys tomb, the high pulpit- which managed to look both particularly empty and slightly rebuking. Oh, I noticed dozens of things, many of them beautiful, but nothing beyond sight came in by the eyes. So I closed them-the Vicar

had said "All senses--and none of them" and I thought that perhaps if I made my mind a blank I have often tried- I once had an idea it was the way to foresee the future, but I never got any further than imagining blackness.

Sitting on the altar steps, I saw a blacker blackness than ever before, and I felt it as well as saw it--tons of darkness seemed to be pressing on me. Suddenly I remembered a line in a poem by Vaughan: "There is in God (some say) a deep but dazzling darkness" -and the next second, the darkness exploded into light.

"Was that God--did it really happen?" I asked myself.

But the honest part of my mind answered: "No. You imagined it."

Then the clock up above boomed the three-quarters, filling the air with sound.

I opened my eyes and was back in a beautiful, chilly, stuffy church

that didn't seem to care whether I lived or died.

The clock made me realize that I was going to be late with Father's

lunch, so I ran most of the way home--only to find that he had helped himself to food (the cold meat looked as if he had carved it with a

trowel) and gone out. As his bicycle was missing, I guessed he had

ridden over to Scoatney. I took a chance on getting my face right in

time for tea and had a very good cry, with cake and milk afterwards;

and felt so much better than I usually do, even after crying, that I

wondered if I really had come by some little whiff of God while I was in the church.

But the next morning, the weight on my heart was the worst I had ever known. It didn't move at all while I got our breakfasts, and by the

time Stephen and Thomas had gone and Father had shut himself in the

gatehouse, it was so bad that I found myself going round leaning

against walls-- I can't think why misery makes me lean against walls, but it does. For once, I didn't feel like crying;

I wanted to shriek. So I ran out in the rain to an empty field a long way from anywhere and screamed blue murder; and then felt quite

extraordinarily silly- and so very wet.

I had a sudden desire to be sitting with the kind Vicar by his fire,

drinking madeira again, and as I was almost half-way to Godsend as the crow flies, I went on, scrambling through hedges and ditches. I kept

trying to think of a good excuse for this second visit--the best I

could manage was that I had been caught out without my raincoat and was frightened of taking a chili--but I was really past minding what the

Vicar or anyone else thought of me, if only I could get to the warm

fire and the madeira.

And then, when I arrived at the vicarage, there was no one in.

I stood there ringing the bell and banging on the door, feeling I could somehow make someone be there, yet knowing all the time that I

couldn't.

"Shall I crawl into the church and wait?" I wondered, coming down the streaming garden path. But just then, Mrs.

Jakes called across from "The Keys" that the Vicar and his housekeeper were shopping in King's Crypt and wouldn't be home until the evening.

I ran over and asked if she would trust me for the price of a glass of port. She laughed, and said she couldn't legally sell me a drink

before twelve o'clock but she would give me one as a present.

"And, my goodness, you need it," she said, as I followed her into the bar.

"You're wet through. Take that dress off and I'll dry it by the

kitchen fire."

There was a man mending the sink in the kitchen so I couldn't sit in

there without my dress; but she bolted the door of the bar and said she would see that no one came through from the kitchen.

I handed my gym-dress over and sat up at the bar in my vest and black school knickers, drinking my port.

The port was nice and warming, but I don't think old country bars are very cheerful places; there is something peculiarly depressing about

the smell of stale beer. If I had been in a good mood, I might have

liked the thought of villagers drinking there for three hundred years; but as it was, I kept thinking of how dreary their lives must have

been, and that most of them were dead. There was a looking-glass at

the back of the bar, facing the window, and reflected in it I could see the wet tombstones in the churchyard. I thought of the rain going

down, down to the sodden coffins.

And all the time my wet hair kept dripping down my back inside my

vest.

However, by the time I finished the port I was less violently

miserable.

I just felt lumpish and my eyes kept getting fixed on things.

I found myself staring at the bottles of creme de menthe and cherry

brandy that Rose and I had our drinks out of on May Day.

suddenly I felt the most bitter hatred for Rose's green creme de menthe and a deep affection for my ruby cherry brandy.

I went to the kitchen door and put my head round.

"Please, Mrs. Jakes," I called, "can I have a cherry brandy? It's striking twelve now, so I can owe you for it without breaking the

law."

She came and got it for me, and after she put the bottle back I could gloat over there being more gone out of it than out of the creme de

menthe bottle.

"Now everyone will think the cherry brandy's the popular one," I thought. Then two old men came knocking at the door, wanting their

beer, and Mrs.

Jakes whisked me and my drink out of the bar.

"You can wait in Miss Marcy's room," she said.

"Your dress won't be dry for quite a while yet."

Miss Marcy has an upstairs room at the inn, well away from the noise of the bar. Ever since she came to Godsend she has talked of having her

own cottage, but year after year she stays on at "The Keys" and I don't think she will ever move now.

Mrs. Jakes makes her very comfortable and the inn is so handy for the school.

As I climbed the stairs I was surprised to find how wobbly my legs

were. I said to myself, "Poor child, I'm more exhausted than I

realized." It was a relief to sit down in Miss Marcy's wicker

armchair--except that it was much lower than I expected; I spilt a

valuable amount of cherry brandy. I finished the rest of it with deep satisfaction--each time I took a sip I thought, "That's one in the eye for the creme de menthe." And then the very confusing thought struck me that generally green is my color and pink is Rose's, so the liqueurs were all mixed up and silly. And then I wondered if I was a little bit drunk. I had a look at myself in Miss Marcy's dressing-table glass and I looked awful- my hair was in rats'-tails, my face was dirty and my

expression simply maudlin. For no reason at all, I grinned at myself, Then I began to think: "Who am I his Who am I ?" Whenever I do that, I feel one good push would shove me over the edge of lunacy; so I turned away from the glass and tried to get my mind off myself--I did it by

taking an interest in Miss Marcy's room.

It really is fascinating--all her personal possessions are so very

small. The pictures are postcard reproductions of Old Masters. She

has lots of metal animals about an inch long, little wooden shoes,

painted boxes only big enough to hold stamps. And what makes things

look even tinier than they are is that the room is large, with great

oak beams, and all Mrs. Jakes's furniture is so huge.

While I was examining the miniature Devon pitchers on the mantelpiece (five of them, with one wild flower in each), the glow from the cherry brandy wore off-probably because the wind down the chimney was blowing right through my knickers. So I wrapped myself in the quilt and lay on the bed. I was on the fringe of sleep when Miss Marcy arrived home for her lunch.

"You poor, poor child," she cried, coming over to put her hand on my forehead.

"I wonder if I ought to take your temperature ?"

I told her there was nothing wrong with me but strong drink.

She giggled and blinked and said "Well, reely!" and I suddenly felt very world-worn and elderly in comparison with her.

Then she handed me my gym-dress and got me some hot water. After I

had washed I felt quite normal, except that the whole morning lay on my conscience in a dreary, shaming sort of way.

"I must dash home," I said.

"I'm half-an-hour late with Father's lunch already."

"Oh, your Father's at Scoatney again," said Miss Marcy.

"They're giving him a nice, thick steak." She had heard from Mrs.

Jakes, who had heard from the butcher, who had heard from the Scoatney cook.

"So you can stay and have your lunch with me.

Mrs. Jakes is going to send up enough for two."

She has her meals on trays, from the inn kitchen, but she keeps things she calls "extra treats" in the big mahogany corner-cupboard.

"I like to nibble these at night," she said as she was getting some biscuits out.

"I always wake up around two o'clock and fancy some thing to eat."

I had a flash of her lying in the wide, sagging bed, watching the

moonlit square of the lattice window while she crunched her biscuits.

"Do you lie awake long?" I asked.

"Oh, I generally hear the church clock strike the quarter. Then I tell myself to be a good girl and go back to sleep.

I usually make up some nice little story until I drop off."

"What sort of story ?"

"Oh, not real stories, of course. Sometimes I try to imagine what happens to characters in books- after the books finish, I mean. Or I

think about the interesting people I know--dear Rose shopping in

London, or Stephen being photographed by that kind Mrs. Fox.

Cotton. I love making up stories about people."

"Don't you ever make them up about yourself?"

She looked quite puzzled.

"Do you know, I don't believe I ever do his I suppose I don't find myself very interesting."

There was a thump on the door and she went to take the tray in.

Mrs. Jakes had sent up stew and apple pie.

"Oh, good," said Miss Marcy.

"Stew's so comforting on a rainy day."

As we settled down to eat, I said how extraordinary it must be not to find oneself interesting.

"Didn't you ever, Miss Marcy ?"

She thought, while she finished an enormous mouthful.

"I think I did when I was a girl. My dear Mother always said I was very self-centered. And so discontented!"

I said: "You aren't now. What changed you?"

"God sent me a real grief, dear." Then she told me that her parents had died within a month of each other, when she was seven teen, and how dreadfully she had felt it.

"Oh, dear, I couldn't believe the sun would ever shine again.

Then our local clergyman asked me to help with some children he was

taking into the country- and, do you know, it worked a miracle for me his I suppose that was the beginning of finding others more interesting than myself."