Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

"You're a larger child than I realized," he said.

As I took the clothes, I caught sight of the other man. He had just

the sort of face to go with his voice, a nice, fresh face. The odd

thing was that I felt I knew it. I have since decided this was because there are often young men like him in American pictures--not the hero, but the heroine's brother or men on petrol stations.

He caught my eye and said:

"Hello! Tell me some more about your legless stepmother-and the rest of your family. Have you a sister who plays the harp on horseback, or anything?"

Just then Topaz began to play her lute upstairs -she must have slipped in at the front door. The young man began to laugh.

"There she is," he said delightedly.

"That's not a harp, it's a lute," said the bearded man.

"Now that really is amazing. A castle, a lute- his And then Rose came out on to the staircase. She was wearing the dyed-green tea-gown,

which is mediaeval in shape with long flowing sleeves. She obviously

didn't know that there were strangers in the house for she called

out:

"Look, Cassandra'" Both men turned towards her and she stopped dead at the top of the stairs. For once Topaz had her lute in tune. And she

was, most appropriately, playing "Green Sleeves."

VLaiR. Up on the chaff in the barn again.

I had to leave Rose stranded at the top of the stairs because Topaz was ringing the lunch bell. She had been too busy to cook, so we had cold Brussels sprouts and cold boiled rice -hardly my favorite food but

splendidly filling. We ate in the drawing-room, which has been cleaned within an inch of its life. In spite of a log fire, it was icy in

there; I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra

cold.

Rose and Topaz are now out searching the hedges for something to put in the big Devon pitchers. Topaz says that if they don't find anything

she will get bare branches and tie something amusing to them- if so, I bet it doesn't amuse me;

one would think that a girl who appreciates nudity as Topaz does would let a bare branch stay bare.

None of us is admitting that we expect the Cottons to call very soon, but we are all hoping it like mad. For that is who the two men were,

of course: the Cottons of Scoatney, on their way there for the first

time. I can't think why I didn't guess it at once, for I did know that the estate had passed to an American.

Old Mr. Cotton's youngest son went to the States back in the early

nineteen hundreds- after some big family row, I believe- and later

became an American citizen. Of course, there didn't seem any

likelihood of his inheriting Scoatney then, but two elder brothers were killed in the war and the other, with his only son, died about twelve years ago, in a car smash. After that, the American son tried to make it up with his Father, but the old man wouldn't see him unless he

undertook to become English again, which he wouldn't. He died about a year ago; these two young men are his sons.

Simon--he is the one with the beard--said last night that he had just persuaded his grandfather to receive him when poor lonely old Mr.

Cotton died, which seems very sad indeed.

The younger son's name is Neil, and the reason he sounds so different from his brother is that he was brought up in California where his

Father had a ranch, while Simon lived in Boston and New York with the Mother. (i gather the parents were divorced.

Mrs. Cotton is in London now and is coming down to Scoatney soon.)

Father says Simon's accent is American and that there are as many

different accents in America as there are in England-more, in fact. He says that Simon speaks particularly good English, but of an earlier

kind than is now fashionable here.

Certainly he has a fascinating voice--though I think I like the younger brother best.

It is a pity that Simon is the heir, because Rose thinks the beard is disgusting; but perhaps we can get it off. Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and

doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretence -and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet any

eligible young men. They just .. . wonder. And if any family ever had need of wondering, it is ours. But only as regards Rose. I have asked myself if I am doing any personal wondering and in my deepest heart I am not. I would rather die than marry either of those quite nice

men.

Nonsense! I'd rather marry both of them than die.

But it has come to me, sitting here in the barn feeling very full of

cold rice, that there is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of

those minds are shut to what marriage really means. Now I come to

think of it, I am judging from books mostly, for I don't know any girls except Rose and Topaz. But some characters in books are very real

--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of

Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at

Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of

marriage. I wonder if Rose is?

I must certainly try to make her before she gets involved in anything.

Fortunately, I am not ignorant in such matters- no stepchild of Topaz's could be. I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much

of them.

It was a wonderful moment when Rose stood there at the top of the

stairs. It made me think of Beatrix in Esmond--but Beatrix didn't trip over her dress three stairs from the bottom and have to clutch at the banisters with a green-dyed hand. But it all turned out for the best

because Rose had gone self-conscious when she saw the Cottons--I could tell that by the way she was sailing down, graceful but affected. When she tripped, Neil Cotton dashed forward to help her and then everyone laughed and started talking at once, so she forgot her

self-consciousness.

While I was hurrying into my clothes, behind the sheets, the Cottons

explained who they were. They have only been in England a few days. I wondered how it would feel to be Simon- to be arriving by night for the first time, at a great house like Scoatney, knowing it belonged to you.

For a second, I seemed to see with his eyes and knew how strange our

castle must have looked, suddenly rising from the water-logged English countryside. I imagined him peering in through the window over the

sink--as I bet he did before he came back without his brother. I think I got this picture straight from his mind, because just as it came to me, he said:

"I couldn't believe this kitchen was real--it was like looking at a woodcut in some old book of fairy tales."

I hope he thought Rose looked like a fairy tale princess--she certainly did. And she was so charming, so easy; she kept laughing her pretty

laugh. I thought of how different she had been in her black mood not

half an hour before, and that made me remember her wishing on the

devil-angel. Just then, a queer thing happened. Simon Cotton had

seemed about equally fascinated by Rose and the kitchen--he kept

turning from one to the other. He had taken out his torch- only he

called it a flashlight- to examine the fireplace wall (i was dressed by then) and after he had shone it up at the stone head, he went to the

narrow window that looks on to the moat, in the darkest corner of the kitchen. The torch went out and he turned it to see if the bulb had

gone. And that second, it came on again. For an instant, the shadow

of his head was thrown on the wall and, owing to the pointed heard, it was exactly like the Devil.

Rose saw it just as I did and gave a gasp.