Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

Then he turned and exclaimed in horror at the wallpaper-he said it

looked like giant squashed frogs. It certainly did, and there was a

monstrosity of a fireplace surrounded by tobacco-colored tiles. But

the diamond-paned windows overlooking the garden and full of the sunset were beautiful, and I was already in love with the moat.

While Rose and I were waving to our reflections, Father went off

through the short passage to the kitchen we suddenly heard him shouting

"The swine, the swine!" Just for an instant I thought he had found pigs, but it turned out to be his continued opinion of the people who had spoilt the house. The kitchen was really dreadful. It had been

partitioned to make several rooms- hens had been kept in one of them; there was a great sagging false ceiling, the staircase and the

cupboards were grained ginger like the hall. What upset me most was a bundle of rags and straw where tramps must have slept. I kept as far

away from it as possible and was glad when Father led the way

upstairs.

The bedrooms were as spoilt as the downstairs rooms -false ceilings,

horrid fireplaces, awful wallpapers. But I was very much fetched when I saw the round tower opening into the room which is now Rose's and

mine. Father tried to get the door to it open, but it was nailed up so he strode on across the landing.

"That corner tower we saw from outside must be somewhere about here,"

he said. We followed him into Thomas's little room, hunting for it,

and then into the bathroom. It had a huge bath with a wide mahogany

surround, and two mahogany-seated lavatories, side by side, with one

lid to cover them both. The pottery parts showed views of Windsor

Castle and when you pulled the plug the bottom of Windsor Castle fell out. Just above them was a text left by the previous tenants,

saying:

"Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." Father sat down on the side of the bath and roared with laughter.

He would never have anything in the bathroom changed so even the text is still there.

The corner tower was between the bath and the lavatories.

There was no door to it and we started to climb up the circular stone stair case inside, but the steps had crumbled so much that we had to

turn back. But we did get high enough to find a way out on to the top of the walls; there was quite a wide walk with a battlemented parapet on each side. From there we could see Mother in the car, nursing

Thomas.

"Don't attract her attention," said Father, "or she'll think we're going to break our necks."

The wall led us to one of the gatehouse towers; and inside it, opening on to the staircase, was the door to the gatehouse room.

"Thank the lord this isn't spoilt," said Father as we went in.

"How I could work in this room!"

There were stone-mullioned windows looking in to the courtyard, as well as the ones at the front overlooking the lane. Father said they were

Tudor;

later in period than the gatehouse itself, but much earlier than the

house.

We went back into the tower and found the steps of the circular stone staircase good enough for us to go up higher -once we were crawling

into the darkness I wished they hadn't been; Father struck matches but there was a dreadful black moment each time one burnt out. And the

cold, rough stone felt so strange to my hands and bare knees. But when at last we came out on the battlemented top of the tower it was worth it all--I had never felt so high in my life. And I was so triumphant

at having been brave enough to come up. Not that I had had any choice; Rose had kept butting me from behind.

We stood looking down on the lane and over the fields stretching far on either side; we were so high that we could see how the hedges cut them up into a patchwork pattern. There were a few little woods and, a mile or so to the left, a tiny village. We moved round the tower to look

across the courtyard garden -and then we all shouted: "There it is!" at the same moment. Beyond the ruined walls on the west side of the

courtyard was a small hill and on the top of it was the high tower we had driven so long in search of. It puzzles me now why we hadn't seen it when we first came through the gatehouse passage. Perhaps the

overgrown garden obstructed the view; or perhaps we were too much

astonished at seeing the house to look in the opposite direction.

Father dived for the staircase. I cried "Wait, wait!" and he turned and picked me up, letting Rose go ahead striking the matches. He

guessed the bottom of the staircase must come out in the gatehouse

passage, but Rose used the last match as we reached the archway on to the walls; so we went back along them to the bathroom and down the nice little front staircase of the house into the hall. Mother was just

coming through the front door to look for us, dragging a cross, sleepy Thomas--he never liked to be left alone in the car. Father showed her the tower on the hill--we could see it easily once we knew where to

look--and told her to come along; then dashed across the courtyard

garden. She said she couldn't manage it with Thomas. I remember

feeling I ought to stay with her, but I didn't. I raced after Father

and Rose.

We climbed over the ruined walls which bounded the garden and crossed the moat by the shaky bridge at the south-west corner; that brought us to the foot of the hill-but Father told us it was ancient earthworks

and not a natural hill (ever since then we have called it the mound).

The turf was short and smooth and there were no more ruins. At the top we had to scramble over some ridges which Father said must have been

the outer de fences This brought us to a broad, grassy plateau. At the far end was a smaller mound, round in shape and very smooth, and rising from this was the tower, sixty feet tall, black against the last flush of sunset. The entrance was about fifteen feet up, at the top of an

outside flight of stone steps. Father did his best to force the door

but had no luck; so we didn't see inside the tower that night.

We walked all round the little mound and Father told us that it was

called a motte and that the wide grassy plateau was a bailey; he said all this part was much older than the moated castle below. The sunset faded and a wind got up and everything began to look frightening, but Father went on talking most happily and excitedly. Suddenly Rose

said:

"It's like the tower in The Lancashire Witches where Mother Demdike lived." She had read bits of that book aloud to me until I got so frightened that Mother stopped her.

Just then we heard Mother calling from below; her voice sounded high

and strange, almost despairing. I grabbed Rose's hand and said: "Come on, Mother's frightened." And I told myself I was running to help Mother; but I was really terrified of being near the tower any

longer.

Father said we had all better go. We climbed the ridges and then Rose and I took hands and ran down the smooth slope--faster and faster, so that I thought we should fall. All the time we were running I felt

extremely frightened, but I enjoyed it. The whole evening was like

that.

When we got back to the house, Mother was sitting on the front

door-step nursing Thomas, who had fallen asleep again.

"Isn't it wonderful ?" cried Father.

"I'll have it if it takes my last penny."

Mother said: "If it's to be my cross, I suppose God will give me the strength to bear it."

Father laughed at that and I felt rather shocked. I don't in the least know if she meant to be funny-but then, I realize more and more how

vague she has become for me. Even when I remember things she said, I

can't recall the sound of her voice. And though I can still see the