Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

there wasn't one to be seen and I was so ravenous that I persuaded her we ought to have something to eat first. We tottered to Oxford

Street--those furs certainly did weigh tons--and found a place with

nice white tablecloths and great round cruets.

It was a bit of a business getting ourselves settled; we tried folding the furs and sitting on them, but then found we could reach neither the floor nor our plates. In the end we had to dump everything down beside us, which was rather unpopular with the waitress. But I did like the

restaurant; most of the people eating there were unusually ugly, but

the food was splendid. We had roast chicken (wing portion, two

shillings), double portions of bread sauce (each), two vegetables,

treacle pudding and wonderful milky coffee. We were gloriously bloat.

By the time we finished it was getting on for four o'clock.

"We've seen hardly anything of London," I said, as we drove back to the lawyers. Rose said she wouldn't have wanted to even if we hadn't been burdened with the furs, because it was no fun being in London in the

wrong clothes.

After that, she was quiet so long that I asked her what she was

thinking about.

"I was willing God to give me a little black suit," she said.

Our friend the clerk laughed his head off at the furs, but he said it was a damned shame. He thought the beaver must have been a man's

travelling coat--it was too big for him, even- and that the beaver was the lining and the Scotch plaid was the right side. He gave us cups of tea and two squashed-fly biscuits each, but we were too full to eat

them; so we put them in an envelope for the journey.

When we got the old leather trunks from the Left-Luggage Office, the

man there asked if there were any bodies in them.

It was then Rose told me how she had feared that there might have

been--ours.

We had a compartment to ourselves on the train and, as it turned cold after sunset, I put on the beaver coat, fur side inwards. It felt

wonderfully friendly. It was extraordinary, I had the most

affectionate feelings for all those furs -no horror of them at all, as I had of Aunt Millicent's clothes, though I knew they must all have

been worn by dead people. I thought about it a lot, getting warmer and warmer in the beaver, and I decided that it was like the difference

between the beautiful old Godsend graves and the new ones open to

receive coffins (which I never can bear to look at) be that time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

A year ago, I would have made a poem out of that idea. I tried to,

yesterday, but it wasn't any use. Oh, I could think of lines that

rhymed and scanned but that is all they were. I know now that is all

my poems ever were, yet I used to feel I could leap over the moon when I had made one up. I miss that rather.

I leaned back and closed my eyes--and instantly the whole day danced

before me. I wasn't merely remembering, it seemed to be trapped inside my eyelids; the City, the traffic, the shops were all there,

shimmering, merging. Then my brain began to pick out the bits it

wanted to think about and I realized how the day made a pattern of

clothes--first our white dresses in the early morning, then the

consciousness of what people were wearing in London, then Aunt

Millicent's poor dead clothes, then all the exquisite things in the

shop, then our furs. And I thought how important clothes were to women and always had been. I thought of Norman ladies in Belmotte

tower-keep, and Plantagenet ladies living in Godsend Castle, and Stuart ladies when our house was built on the ruins--and hoops and Jane Austen dresses and crinolines and bustles, and Rose longing for a little

black suit. I had the most profound, philosophic thoughts about it

all, but perhaps I dreamt them for they all seem to have floated away.

When Rose woke me I was dreaming of the white branched coral on the

sea-green chiffon scarf.

It was time to change trains. I felt frozen when I took the beaver

coat off-- I thought I had better because it not only looked peculiar, but trailed on the ground. I was thankful when we were in our little

branch-line train and I could put it on again.

Rose put on the coachman's coat and we each leaned out of a window to smell the sweet country smell- you don't notice it unless you have been away.

We still had our squashed-fly biscuits so we ate them leaning out into the night; only I saved one of mine for Stephen who was to meet us with Mr. Stebbins's cart to take the trunks.

And then it happened. As we stopped at Little Lymping, I looked

towards the guard's van to make sure our trunks didn't get pulled out by mistake--the stationmaster is a bit daft. And there, looking out of the train, not six yards away from me, was Simon Cotton.

His hair and beard looked very black, the sickly light from the

platform lamps made him seem very pale, and even in that quick glance I noticed the naked look of his mouth.

I dodged back and yelled to Rose.

I reckoned we had ten minutes to think in- we were five miles from

Scoatney and the little train crawls. But, oh, I needed more time! I

couldn't make up my mind if I ought to tell Rose what the Cottons had said about her- I was so frightened that if I didn't she might be silly again.

"Let's be distant with them," I said, while I tidied my hair in the glass between photographs of Norwich Cathedral and Yarmouth Beach.

"Distant his Do you think I intend to speak to them his After they've ignored us ?"

"But we'll have to say "Good evening," won't we his We can say it coldly and sweep on with dignity."

She said we couldn't do anything with dignity, dressed as we were and laden with furs like hearth rugs She wanted us to jump out of the train as it stopped and dash away before the Cottons saw us.

"But we can't dash away without our trunks," I said. Then I had an idea--"We'll get out on the wrong side of the train and walk along the line to the guard's van. By the time we get there, the Cottons will be out of the station."

She thought it would work. We decided to keep the fur coats on, so

that we should be invisible in the darkness at the end of the platform if the Cottons looked back while we were getting the trunks.

Rose turned up the huge bearskin collar to hide her bright hair.

"Let's hope no train comes on the other line while we're walking along," I said. But I knew it was unlikely at that time of night, and they come very slowly.

"Anyway, we could push these little trains back with one hand," said Rose.

I hoisted the collie dog rug over my shoulder, Rose took the sealskin jacket. The instant the train stopped we jumped down on to the line.

We hadn't realized how difficult walking would be --the coats were so awkward to hold up and we kept tripping over things. The paraffin

lamps on the platform gave a very weak light and there were no lamps at all so far along as the guard's van. We couldn't reach the doors on

our side, so we went round the back of the train and climbed up on to the platform. The doors of the van were open that side, but there

appeared to be no guard to put the trunks off.

The stationmaster usually helps with luggage but he is the ticket

collector, too, and I was sure he would be busy seeing the Cottons

off.

"We must manage by ourselves," I said.

The van was so dimly lit that at first we couldn't see the trunks;

then Rose spotted them at the far end, behind a lot of tall milk

cans.

As we went over, we passed a big crate. The feeble little gas mantle

was just above it and I saw on the label Cotton, Scoatney, Suffolk.