Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

"Well, somebody will, sooner or later. But I'd rather it was some nice girl in the village. It's no use looking horrified, Cassandra. You

mustn't be a dog in the manger."

I said I shouldn't mind if it was someone good enough for him.

She stared at me curiously.

"Doesn't he attract you at all his At your age I couldn't have resisted him for a minute--not looks like that.

And it's more than looks, of course."

"Oh, I know he has a splendid character," I said.

"That wasn't what I meant," said Topaz, laughing.

"But I've promised your Father not to put ideas into your head about Stephen, so let's leave it at that."

I knew perfectly well what she had meant. But if Stephen is physically attractive, why don't I get attracted--really attracted?

Or do I his After breakfast, I went to church. The Vicar spotted me

from the pulpit and looked most astonished. He came to talk to me

afterwards, when I was waking Heloise from her nap on one of the oldest tombstones.

"Does this delightful surprise mean you have any particular axe to grind with God?" he enquired. It didn't, of course--though I had taken the opportunity to pray for Rose; I don't believe that church

prayers are particularly efficacious, but one can't waste all that

kneeling on hard hassocks.

"No, I just dropped in," I said lamely.

"Well, come and have a glass of sherry," he suggested, "and see how well the collie dog rug looks on my sofa."

But I told him I had to talk to Miss Marcy, and hurried after her;

seeing her was my real reason for coming, of course.

She obligingly dived straight into the subject to which I had meant to lead up.

"Isn't it splendid about Stephen," she said, blinking delightedly.

"Five guineas for just one day--nearly six, if he saves the money that was sent for taxis! So thoughtful--how kind Mrs.

Fox-Cotton must be!"

I didn't find out anything interesting. Stephen had come to her for a guide to London; there isn't one in the library but she had helped him with advice. When I left her she was still burbling about the

wonderful chance for him, and Mrs.

Fox-Cotton's kindness.

Miss Marcy isn't the woman of the world Topaz and I are.

Stephen didn't come home until late in the evening.

"Well, how did you get on?" asked Topaz-much to my relief because I had made up nay mind not to question him. He said he had taken the

right 'bus and only been lost for a few minutes, while he was looking for the house. Mrs. Fox-Cotton had driven him back to the station and taken him round London on the way.

"She was nice," he added, "she looked quite different--very businesslike, in trousers, like a man. You never saw such a huge great camera as she has."

Topaz asked what he had worn for the photographs.

"A shirt and some corduroy trousers that were there. But she said they looked too new--I'm to wear them for work and then they'll be all right for next time."

"So you're going again." I tried to make it sound very casual.

He said yes, she was going to send for him the next time she had a free Sunday, probably in about a month. Then he told us about the broken

bits of statues he had been photographed with and what ages the

lighting had taken and how he had lunched with Mr. and Mrs.

Fox-Cotton.

"The studio's at the back of their house," he explained.

"You wouldn't believe that house. The carpets feel like moss and the hall has a black marble floor. Mr. Fox-Cotton asked to be remembered

to you, Mrs. Mortmain, ma'am."

He went to wash while Topaz got him some supper.

"It's all right," she said.

"I misjudged the woman."

I talked to him when he came back and everything seemed natural and

easy again. He told me he had wanted to buy me a present but all the

shops were closed, of course.

"All I could get was some chocolate from a slot-machine on the station platform, and I don't suppose it's special London chocolate."

He was too tired to eat much. After he had gone to bed, I thought of

him falling asleep in that dank little room with pictures of the studio and the Fox-Cottons" rich house dancing in front of his eyes.

It was odd to think he had been seeing things I had never seen--it made him seem very separate, somehow, and much more grownup.

Next morning, I had something else to think about.

Two parcels arrived for me! Nobody has sent me a parcel since we

quarreled with Aunt Millicent. (the last one she sent had bed socks in it, most hideous but not to be sneezed at on winter nights. They are

finishing their lives as window-wedges.) I could hardly believe it when I saw my name on labels from two Bond Street shops, and the things

inside were much more unbelievable.

First I unpacked an enormous round box of chocolates and then a

manuscript book bound in pale blue leather, tooled in gold; the

pages--two hundred of them, I counted --have dazzling gilt edges and

there are blue and gold stars on the end papers.

(topaz said it must have cost at least two guineas.) There was no card in either of the parcels, but of course I remembered Simon had promised me a box of "candy" if I let him look at my journal.

And he had sent me a new journal, too!

There was nothing for Rose.

"He can send me presents because he thinks of me as a child," I pointed out.

"He's probably afraid you wouldn't accept them."

"Then he's a pessimist," she said, grinning.

"Well, eat all you can, anyway," I told her.

"You can pay me back when you're engaged--you'll get dozens of boxes then."

She took one, but I could see that it was the idea of owning them that mattered to her, not the chocolates themselves. She didn't eat half as many as Topaz and I did; Rose never was greedy about food.

We had scarcely recovered from the excitement of the parcels when the Scoatney car arrived. Only the chauffeur was in it. He brought a box

of hot-house flowers and a note from Simon asking us all to lunch the next day even Thomas and Stephen. The flowers weren't addressed to

anyone and the note was for Topaz;

she said Simon was being very correct, which was a good sign. She gave the chauffeur a note accepting for all of us but Thomas and Stephen,

and saying she was uncertain about them--she didn't like to refuse for them without knowing how they felt; which was just as well because

Thomas insisted on cutting school and coming.

Stephen said he would sooner die.

I ought to have recorded that second visit to Scoatney immediately

after it happened, but describing May Day had rather exhausted my lust for writing. Now, when I look back, I mostly see the green of the

gardens, where we spent the afternoon- we stayed on for tea.

It was a peaceful, relaxed sort of party-- I never felt one bit

nervous, as I did when we went to dinner. (but the dinner-party was

more thrilling; it glows in my memory like a dark picture with a

luminous centre--candlelight and shining floors and the night pressing against the black windows.) Mrs. Cotton was still away and Simon was

very much the host, rather serious and just a bit stately, talking

mainly to Father and Topaz. Even with Rose he was surprisingly formal, but he was jolly with me. Neil took a lot of trouble with Thomas,

encouraging him to eat a great deal and playing tennis with him Neil

asked Rose and me to play, too, but she didn't want to as she hasn't

had any practice since she left school. So she and I wandered around

on our own and drifted into the biggest greenhouse.

It was lovely moving through the hot, moist, heavily scented air and it felt particularly private--almost as if we were in a separate world