Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

But I hated the handkerchiefs -and the gloves and the stockings; and a dreadful pair of broken-looking corsets.

"People's clothes ought to be buried with them," I said.

"They oughtn't to be left behind to be despised."

"I'm not despising them," said Rose.

"Some of these suits are made of wonderful cloth."

But she was bundling them into the trunks in a somehow insulting way. I made myself take them out and fold them carefully, and had a mental

picture of Aunt Millicent looking relieved.

"She always liked her suits to be well-pressed and brushed," I said.

"As if it mattered to her now!" said Rose.

And then we heard someone coming upstairs.

I went icy cold from my heart up to my shoulders.

Then the fear got into my throat so that I couldn't speak. I just

stared at Rose, in agony.

"It isn't, it isn't!" she gasped.

"Oh, Cassandra--it isn't."

But I knew that she thought it was. And I knew, in the way I so often know things about Rose, that she had been frightened ever since we

entered the house, that the casual way she handled the clothes had been all bluff. But I didn't know then that she was doubly frightened, that she thought if it wasn't Aunt Millicent coming up the stairs it was a tramp who had been hiding in the basement --that he would kill us both and put our bodies in the trunks.

Oh, wonderful Rose! With both these fears in her mind, she flung open the door and said: "Who's there?"

The lawyers" clerk stood outside.

"How dare you, how dare you ?" she cried, furiously.

"Sneaking into the house, terrifying my little sister--" "Don't, Rose!"

I said in a weak voice.

The poor clerk apologized profusely.

"And I only came to do you a good turn," he finished. Then he handed her a letter.

Rose read it.

"But we can't pay this!"

I snatched it from her. It was a reminder that money was owing for the cold-storage of some furs.

"You don't have to pay anything, I fixed that by telephone," said the clerk.

"We're your aunts' executors so we get her bills, see his That was actually on my desk when you came in this morning but I hadn't got

round to reading it. Those are your furs now."

"But Aunt Millicent never had any furs," I said.

"She thought they were cruel to animals." And I always thought she was right.

"Well, those belonged to her," said the clerk, "and cruel or not, you'd better pop along and get them. Furs are worth money."

I looked at the letter again. It didn't say what the furs were.

"They must be good ones if she paid out all that to store them," said the clerk.

"Tell you what, you shove all this stuff in the trunks and I'll take them down to the station--leave them in the Left Luggage Office for

you, see his And you cut along for the furs."

We bundled the clothes in hurriedly--I am ashamed to say I forgot about Aunt Millicent's dead feelings. The clerk and his taxi-driver dragged the trunks downstairs; then he got another taxi for us.

"Wish I could come with you and see the fun," he said, "but I'm due in the Courts at three." His hair was oily and his complexion spotty, but his heart was kind. Rose evidently thought so, too, be cause she

leaned out of the taxi and said she was sorry she had been so cross.

"Don't mention it," he said.

"I'm sure I'd have given myself a fright if I'd been you." Then the taxi started and he shouted after us: "Here's hoping they're sables."

We hoped so, too.

"They must be fairly new as she didn't have them when we knew her,"

said Rose.

"I expect her principles dwindled as she got older and colder."

"They'll probably be rabbit," I said, feeling I ought to damp our imaginings; but I didn't really believe Aunt Millicent would have worn anything cheap.

The taxi drew up at a wonderful shop- the sort of shop I would never

dare to walk through without a reason. We went in by way of the glove and stocking department, but there were things from other departments just dotted about; bottles of scent and a little glass tree with

cherries on it and a piece of white branched coral on a sea-green

chiffon scarf. Oh, it was an artful place--it must make people who

have money want to spend it madly!

The pale gray carpets were as springy as moss and the air was scented; it smelt a bit like bluebells but richer, deeper.

"What does it smell of, exactly?"

I said. And Rose said:

"Heaven."

There was a different scent in the fur department, heavier, and the

furs themselves had an exciting smell. There were lots of them lying

about on the gray satin sofas; deep brown, golden brown, silvery.

And there was a young, fair mannequin walking about in an ermine cape over a pink gauze dress, with a little muff. A woman with blue-white

hair came and asked if she could help us and took away our storage

bill; and after a while, two men in white coats came in with Aunt

Millicent's furs and dumped them on a We shook them out and examined

them. There were two very long coats, one of them black and shaggy and the other smoothish and brown; a short, black tight-fitting jacket with leg o' mutton sleeves; and a large hairy rug with a green felt

border.

"But what ever animals were they ?" I gasped.

The white-haired woman inspected them gingerly.

She said the brown coat was beaver and the short jacket, which had a

rusty look under its black, was sealskin. She couldn't identify the

rug at all--it looked like collie dog to me. Rose tried the long

shaggy black coat on. It reached to the ground.

"You look like a bear," I said.

"It is bear," said the white-haired woman.

"Dear me, I think it must have been a coachman's coat."

"There's something in the pocket," said Rose.

She drew out a piece of paper. On it was scrawled: Meet madam's train 1:20. Miss Milly to dancing class at 3. The young ladies to the Grange at 6.

I worked it out: Aunt Millicent was Father's father's youngest sister.

These furs must have been her Mother's.

That made them-"Heavens!" I cried.

"These belonged to our great-grandmother."

A sort of manager person came and talked to us.

We asked him if there was anything valuable.

"You couldn't get the beaver today for love or money," he said, "but I don't know if you can sell it for much. We treat furs so differently

now. It weighs a ton."

The shop didn't buy second-hand furs and he couldn't advise us where to take them. We felt that London was the most likely place to sell them in and wanted to leave them until we could get advice from Topaz; but he said that if they stayed any longer they would run into another

quarter's storage charges and Aunt Millicent's lawyers probably

wouldn't pay any more. So we said we would take them over our arms--it seemed the only way. We signed things and then loaded up. On the way

out, we looked through the archway into the department we had come in by. There was a woman buying pale blue suede gloves. She wore the

plainest little black suit, but Rose thought she looked wonderful.

"That's how we ought to dress," she said.

We stood there staring at the scent and stockings and things-we saw one woman buy a dozen pairs of silk stockings--until I said:

"We're like About when he sees birds fly past the window. At any moment we'll let out wistful cat noises."

Rose said she felt just like that.

"Well, let's walk round the whole shop while we're in it," I suggested.

But she said she couldn't bear to, loaded up with furs; so I put my

head through the archway and took one big sniff of the bluebell scent, and then we went out of the main door, which was close at hand.

Rose wanted to take the furs straight back to the City by taxi, but