Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

Heavens, Godsend church clock has just struck four- I have been writing up here on the mound for six hours!

Topaz never rang the lunch bell for me; instead, she brought me out

some milk and two big cheese sandwiches, and a message from Father that I was to write as long as I liked. It seems selfish when the others

are working hard on Aunt Millicent's clothes, but while we were

unpacking them this morning I began to shake again, and when Topaz

found out what I felt about them she said I had better write it out of my system. I think I have, because I can now look down on them

flapping on the line without any horror-though I don't feel fond of

them yet, as I do of the furs.

Stephen cycled to Scoatney station before he went to work and brought back the bear coat; it was hidden in a ditch.

Father can re member hearing about this coat when he was little. He

says most coachmen were lucky if they got a short goatskin cape to

wear in the winter; but great-grandmother said that if her husband, who rode inside the carriage, had a beaver-lined coat, the coachman out in the cold ought to be at least as warmly dressed. He was grateful for

the bear coat but embarrassed, as little boys used to jeer and ask him to dance. The sealskin jacket was Aunt Millicent's, in the "nineties, before she turned against furs. Father thinks she kept all these out

of family sentiment and perhaps because she was only happy as a child.

How queer to think that the old lady in the black military cloak was

the Miss Milly who went to the dancing class! It makes me wonder what I shall be like when I am old.

My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing.

I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people--the me

imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in--the me in what is going to happen next.

Will the Cottons ask us to Scoatney his Topaz thinks they will.

She says the oddness of the bear incident will fascinate them, just as they were fascinated by the oddness of the first night they came to the castle--and that Rose running away will have undone the damage she did by being too forthcoming. If only she doesn't forth-come again! Topaz approves of my telling her last night; she had a talk with her herself about it this morning and Rose listened with surprising civility.

"Just be rather quiet and do a lot of listening until you feel at ease," Topaz advised her.

"And for pity's sake don't be challenging. Your looks will do the challenging if you give them the chance."

I do love Topaz when she is in a down-to-earth mood.

Is it awful to join in this planning? Is it trying to sell one's

sister?

But surely Rose can manage to fall in love with them--I mean, with

whichever one will fall in love with her. I hope it will be Neil,

because I really do think Simon is a little frightening-only it is Neil who thinks England is a joke ...... I have been resting, just staring down at the castle. I wish I could find words--serious, beautiful

words- to describe it in the afternoon sunlight; the more I strive for them, the more they utterly elude me. How can one capture the pod of

light in the courtyard, the golden windows, the strange long-ago look, the look that one sees in old paintings his I can only think of "the light of other days," and I didn't make that up ...... Oh-- I I have just seen the Cottons" car on the Godsend road --near the high

cross-roads, where one gets the first glimpse of the castle. They are coming here! Do I watch and wait again? No fear!

I am going down.

VII

WE are asked to Scoatney, to dinner, a week from today!

And there is something else I want to write about, something belonging to me. Oh, I don't know where to begin!

I got down from Belmotte in time to warn the others Rose and Topaz were ironing and Rose put on a clean blouse hot from the iron. Topaz just

tidied herself and then set the tea tray. I washed and then reckoned I had only enough time either to warn Father or to brush my hair; but I managed to do both by taking the comb and brush to the gatehouse with me. Father jumped up so quickly that I feared he was going to rush out to avoid the Cottons, but he merely grabbed my hairbrush and brushed

his coat with it-neither of us felt it was a moment for fussiness.

In the end, we had a few minutes to spare because they left the car at the end of the lane-the mud is dry now but the ruts are still deep.

"Mrs. Cotton's with them!" I cried, as they came round the last bend of the lane. Father said he would meet them at the gatehouse

arch--"It's not going to be my fault if anything goes wrong this time; I've promised Topaz." Then he looked a bit grim and added:

"I'm glad you're still on the young side to be marketed."

I bolted back to Rose and Topaz. They had lit a wood fire in the

drawing-room and arranged some daffodils. The fire made the room feel more spring like than ever. We opened the windows and the swans sailed by, looking mildly interested. Suddenly I remembered that first spring afternoon in the drawing-room, with Rose playing her piece. I saw

Mother leaning out over the moat--I saw her gray dress so clearly,

though I still couldn't see her face. Something inside me said "Oh, Mother, make the right thing happen for Rose!"--and I had a vision of poor Mother scurrying from Heaven to do the best she could. The way

one's mind can dash about just while one opens a window!

Then Father came in with the Cottons.

Rose thought Mrs. Cotton beautiful but that isn't how I would describe her. Topaz is beautiful- largely because of the strangeness of her

face: that look she has of belonging to a whiter-than-white race. Rose, with her lovely coloring and her eyes that can light up her whole

expression, is beautiful. Mrs.

Cotton is handsome--no, that makes her sound too big. She is just

wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right-looking. She has exactly

the right amount of color. Her black hair is going gray without

looking streaky because it has exactly the right number of gray hairs in exactly the right places--and it has exactly the right amount of

wave. Her figure is perfect, and so were her clothes--just country

tweeds but so much more exciting than I ever thought tweeds could be; they had clear colors in them, shades of blue which made you notice her eyes. I rather fear that I stared too hard at her --I hope she

realized that it was only admiration. As she is Simon Cotton's Mother she can't be much less than fifty, which is hard to believe.

Yet now I come to think of it, I can't imagine her being any younger; it is just that she is a different kind of fifty from any I have ever seen.

She came in talking solidly, and solidly is a very good word to

describe it; it made me think of a wall of talk. Fortunately she

speaks beautifully--just as Simon does--and she doesn't in the least

mind being interrupted; her sons do it all the time and Father soon

acquired the technique--it was him she talked to most. After he had

introduced Topaz and me and she had shaken hands with us all, and hoped Rose had recovered from her shock, and said "Will you look at those swans ?" -she started on to Jacob Wrestling and how she had heard Father lecture in America. They went on interrupting each other in a

perfectly friendly manner, Rose sat on the window seat and talked to

Simon, and Topaz and I slipped out to bring the tea in. Neil kindly

came after us saying he would carry things.

We stood round the kitchen fire waiting for the kettle to boil.

"Doesn't your Mother really know Rose was the bear ?" I asked.

"Gosh, no-that wouldn't do at all," he said, "it isn't her kind of joke. Anyway, it wouldn't be fair to your sister."