Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

suddenly thought of her and wondered if she could see us. I felt

guilty, not only because of the fire, but because I no longer missed

her and was enjoying myself. Then it was time for the cake and I was

glad that I could have two pieces-she would only have allowed one; but in the end I only took one.

Stephen's mother always made us a beautiful Midsummer cake-the whole

family got some of it, but Rose and I never let the others join in our rites on the mound; though after the year we saw the Shape, Stephen

took to hanging about in the courtyard in case we called for help.

As I lay in bed watching the sun climb out of the wheat field

yesterday, I tried to remember all our Midsummer Eves, in their proper order. I got as far as the year it poured and we tried to light a fire under an umbrella. Then I drifted back into sleep again --the most

beautiful, hazy, light sleep. I dreamt I was on Belmotte Tower at

sunrise and all around me was a great golden lake, stretching as far as I could see. There was nothing of the castle left at all, but I didn't seem to mind in the least.

While I was getting breakfast, Stephen told me that he wouldn't be in to lunch, as he usually is on Saturdays, because he was going to London to sit for Mrs. Fox-Cotton again.

"She wants to start work the very first thing tomorrow," he explained,

"so I'm to go up today and sleep the night there."

I asked if he had anything to pack his clothes in and he showed me a

moth-eaten carpet-bag that had belonged to his Mother.

"Gracious, you can't use that," I told him.

"I'll lend you my attache case--it's big enough."

"It'll be that, all right," he said, grinning. I found he was only taking his nightshirt, his safety-razor, a toothbrush and a comb.

"Couldn't you buy yourself a dressing-gown, Stephen -out of the five guineas you earned last time ?"

He said he had other things to do with that.

"Well, out of your wages, then. There's no need to hand them over now we have two hundred pounds."

But he said he couldn't make any change without discussing it with

Topaz.

"Maybe she'll be counting on me. And two hundred pounds won't last for ever. Don't you go feeling rich, it isn't safe."

In the end he agreed to think about getting a dressing-gown, but I knew he was only saying it to please me. No --I expect he just said it to

end the argument; he has given up trying specially to please me. And, no doubt, it is a very good thing.

He had barely left the house when Father came down, wearing his best

suit- he, too, was off to London, and for several days, if you

please!

"Where will you stay--with the Cottons?" I ventured-"ventured" being the way I ask him all questions these days.

"What where his Yes, I daresay I might. That's a very good idea. Any messages for the girls his Don't speak for a minute."

I stared at him in astonishment. He had picked up a plate from the

table and was examining it carefully--just a cracked old willow pattern plate I had found in the hen-house and brought in to relieve the

crockery shortage.

"Interesting, quite a possibility," he said at last then walked out to the gatehouse, taking the plate with him. After a few minutes he came back without it and started his breakfast.

I could see he was preoccupied, but I did want to know about that

plate. I asked if it was valuable.

"Might be, might be," he said, staring in front of him.

"Do you know anyone who would buy it?"

"Buy it his Don't be silly. And don't talk."

I gave it up.

There was the usual scrimmage to get him off in time to catch the

train. I wheeled his bicycle out for him and stood waiting in the

courtyard.

"Where are your things for the night?" I asked as he came out towards me empty-handed.

He looked faintly startled, then said: "Oh, well--I couldn't manage a suitcase on the bicycle. I'll do without. Hello--" He caught sight of Stephen's carpet-bag--I had thrown it out of the kitchen because it was crawling with moth-grubs.

"Now, that. I could use--I could sling it across the handlebars.

Quick, get my things!"

I began to point out the awfulness of the bag but he chivvied me

indoors, shouting instructions after me- so that I heard "Pyjamas!"

as I went across the kitchen, "Shaving tackle, on the kitchen stairs and "Toothbrush, handkerchiefs and a clean shirt if I have one!"

as I rummaged round his bedroom. By the time I reached the bathroom

there came a roar: "That's enough--come back at once or I shall miss my train." But when I rushed down to him he seemed to have forgotten there was any hurry- he was sitting on the backdoor step studying the carpetbag.

"This is most interesting pseudo-Persian," he began- then sprang up shouting: "Great Heaven, give me those things!" Godsend church striking the half had brought him back to earth.

He shoved everything into the bag, hung it on his bicycle and rode off full-tilt, mangling the corner of a flower-bed. At the gatehouse, he

suddenly braked, flung himself off and dashed up the tower stairs,

leaving the bicycle so insecurely placed that it slid to the ground. By the time I had run across and picked it up, he was coming down carrying the willow-pattern plate. He pushed it into the carpet-bag, then

started off again--pedaling frantically, with the bag thumping against his knees. At the first bend of the lane he turned his head sharply

and shouted:

"Good-bye"--very nearly falling off the bicycle. Then he was gone.

Never have I known him so spasmodic--or have I? Wasn't he rather like that in the days when his temper was violent his As I walked back to

the house, it dawned on me that I was going to be alone for the

night--Thomas was spending the weekend with Harry, his friend at

school. For a second, I had a dismayed, deserted feeling but I soon

convinced myself there was nothing to be frightened of-we hardly ever get tramps down our lane and when we do they are often very nice;

anyway, Heloise is a splendid watchdog.

Once I got used to the idea of being by myself for so long I positively liked it. I always enjoy the different feeling there is in a house

when one is alone in it, and the thought of that feeling stretching

ahead for two whole days somehow intensified it wonderfully. The

castle seemed to be mine in a way it never had been before; the day

seemed specially to belong to me; I even had a feeling that I owned

myself more than I usually do. I became very conscious of all my

movements- if I raised my arm I looked at it wonderingly, thinking,

"That is mine!" And I took pleasure in moving, both in the physical effort and in the touch of the air--it was most queer how the air did seem to touch me, even when it was absolutely still. All day long I

had a sense of great ease and spaciousness. And my happiness had a

strange, remembered quality as though I had lived it before. Oh, how

can I recapture it- that utterly right, homecoming sense of recognition his It seems to me now that the whole day was like an avenue leading

to a home I had loved once but forgotten, the memory of which was

coming back so dimly, so gradually, as I wandered along, that only when my home at last lay before me did I cry: "Now I know why I have been happy!"

How words weave spells! As I wrote of the avenue, it rose before my

eyes- I can see it now, lined with great smooth-trunked trees whose

branches meet far above me. The still air is flooded with peace, yet

somehow expectant- as it seemed to me once when I was in King's Crypt cathedral at sunset. On and on I wander, beneath the vaulted roof of

branch and leaf .. . and all the time, the avenue is yesterday, that