Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

but I understood perfectly.

As we walked on, I asked Simon questions about American country and he described some of the old New England villages.

They did sound nice: very trim and white--much more spacious than our villages, with wide streets lined with shady trees. And he told me

about little places on the coast of Maine, where he had spent

vacations. He says "vacations" where we would say "holidays."

Although I still think his voice is like extra-good English, I now

realize that almost every sentence he speaks has some little American twist--"guess" for "suppose, .... maybe" where we use "perhaps," "I've gotten" when we would say "I've got"-oh, there are dozens of words. And he is much more American with me than he is with Father, and very much younger; with Father he chooses his words so correctly that he sounds quite pedantic and middle-aged, but with me he was almost boyish.

"Why, the may's out already," I said, when we came to the

crossroads--the buds on the hedges were tightly closed, but there were dozens of open ones on the tree by the signpost. I set a lot of store by may--I once spent hours trying to describe a single blossom of it, but I only managed "Frank-eyed floweret, kitten-whiskered," which sticks in your throat like fish bones ""The palm and may make country houses gay,"" quoted Simon.

"I think it's that poem that makes me feel the Elizabethans lived in perpetual spring."

Then we remembered the rest of the poem between us and by the time we got to Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, In every street

these tunes our ears do greet M. Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we,

to-witta-woo!

we were into the village.

"Can you hear any birds obliging with those noises ?" I said.

"Let's listen," said Simon.

We listened. We heard:

Somebody hammering, A hen announcing an egg, A cottage wireless saying it was the British Broadcasting Corporation, The pump on the village

green clanking --all rather ugly noises, really, but the church clock striking the quarter somehow drew them together into one pleasant

country sound floating on the light spring air. Then Heloise shattered it all by flapping her ears after rolling on the green.

"And how many things can you smell?" I asked Simon.

We counted up:

Wood smoke, A farm smell coming on puffs of breeze (we subdivided this into:

Straw, hay, horses, clean cows: good Manure, pigs, hens, old cabbages: bad--but not too awful if only in little whiffs), A wonderful pie

cooking somewhere, The sweet, fresh smell which isn't quite flowers or grass or scent of any kind, but just clean country air--one forgets to notice this unless one reminds oneself.

"I wonder how many more things Heloise smells," said Simon.

"Let's see, what could Chesterton's dog Quoodle smell? Water and stone and dew and thunder .. ."

"And Sunday morning--he was so right about that having a smell of its own," said Simon. Oh, it is amicable being with some one who knows the poems you know! I do hope I get Simon for a brother-in-law.

We crossed the green and turned down the short lane that leads to the prettiest bit of Godsend. The church, which is Norman (and a bit of it may be Saxon), stands on one side of the lane between the Queen Anne

vicarage and Miss Marcy's little eighteenth-century schoolhouse; "The Keys" inn is opposite, but because the lane curves just there they all seem part of one group--Topaz says the "composition" is very beautiful.

"The Keys" is painted cream and has very irregular gables; beside it is an enormous chestnut tree--not in bloom yet but its leaves are at their very best, all new and vividly green, with some of the sticky buds

still unopened. There is a bench with a long table against the front

of the inn, partly shaded by the chestnut--and sitting there, with

stone bottles of ginger beer, were Rose and Neil.

It turned out that she had come across the fields from Four Stones to get a cake of scented soap from the post-office shop (topaz is giving us a shilling a week pocket-money while the Vicar's twenty pounds holds out), and had found Neil there buying cigarettes.

"And when I said you'd be along soon, she very obligingly waited," he told Simon. Perhaps I imagined it, but I did think he sounded a bit

satirical.

We sat down, Simon by Rose. Neil asked me what I would have to drink.

I was going to say lemonade and then a wild idea struck me: "Could I have a cherry brandy his I've always wanted to taste it."

"You can't drink liqueurs before lunch," said Rose in a very grown-up way.

"Yes, she can if she wants to," said Neil, going in to the bar. Rose shrugged her shoulders rather histrionically and turned to talk to

Simon. He did look pleased to see her. After a few minutes he

suggested we should all lunch there and called out to Neil to arrange it.

As a rule, Mrs. Jakes only serves bread-and-cheese but she managed

cold sausages as well, and some honey and cake. Neil ate his sausage

with honey, which simply fascinated me-but by then almost everything

was fascinating me. Cherry brandy is wonderful.

But I don't think my haze of content was all due to the cherry

brandy--the glasses are so small. (i had lemonade for my thirst.) It

was everything together that was so pleasant--the food out-of doors the sunshine, the sky through the chestnut tree, Neil being nice to me and Simon being more than nice to Rose;

and, of course, the cherry brandy did help.

While Neil was getting me my second glass I took a good look at Rose.

She was wearing her very oldest dress, a washed-out blue cotton, but it looked exactly right for sitting outside an inn. One branch of the

chestnut came down behind her head and, while I was watching, a strand of her bright hair got caught across a leaf.

"Is that branch worrying you?" Simon asked her.

"Would you like to change places his I hope you wouldn't because your hair looks so nice against the leaves."

I was glad he had been noticing.

Rose said the branch wasn't worrying her in the least.

When Neil came back with my second cherry brandy, she said:

"Well, now that we've finished lunch, I'll have one, too." I knew very well she had been envying mine. Then she called after him:

"No, I won't -- I'll have creme de menthe."

I was surprised, because we both tasted that at Aunt Millicent's once and hated it heartily; but I saw what she was after when she got

it--she kept holding it up so that the green looked beautiful against her hair, though of course it clashed quite dreadfully with the

chestnut leaves.

I must say she was being more affected than I ever saw her, but Simon appeared to be enchanted. Neil didn' the winked at me once and said:

"Your sister'll be wearing that drink as a hat any minute."

Neil is amusing- though it is more the laconic way he says things than what he actually says; sometimes he sounds almost grim and yet you know he is joking. I believe this is called wisecracking.

Rose was right when she said he thinks England is a joke, a comic sort of toy, but I don't believe he despises it, as she feels he does;

it is just that he doesn't take it seriously. I am rather surprised

that Rose resents this so much, because England isn't one of her

special things in the way it is mine-oh, not flags and Kipling and

outposts of Empire and such, but the country and London and houses like Scoatney. Eating bread-and-cheese at an inn felt most beautifully

English- though the liqueurs made it a bit fancy. Mrs. Jakes has had

those two bottles for as long as I can remember, both full to the

top.

We sat talking until the church clock struck two and then the nicest

thing of all happened: Miss Marcy began a singing class. The windows