I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

years Rose and I have shared them! We used so scrupulously to keep to our own halves of the dressing-table.

Now there is nothing of hers on it except a pink china ring-stand for which she never had any rings- well, she has one now.

I suddenly know what has been the matter with me all week.

Heavens, I'm not envying Rose, I'm missing her! Not missing her

because she is away now--though I have been a little bit lonely but

missing the Rose who has gone away for ever. There used to be two of

us always on the look-out for life, talking to Miss Blossom at night, wondering, hoping; two Bronte Jane Austen girls, poor but spirited, two Girls of Godsend Castle. Now there is only one, and nothing will ever be quite such fun again.

Oh, how selfish I am--when Rose is so happy! Of course I wouldn't have things different; even on my own account, I am looking forward to

presents--though ...... I wonder if there isn't a catch about having

plenty of money his Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?

When I think of the joy of my green linen dress after I hadn't had a

new dress for ages!

Will Rose be able to feel anything like that after a few years his One thing I do know: I adore my green linen dress even if it did cost only twenty-five shillings.

"Only" twenty-five shillings! That seemed like a fortune when we bought the dress.

About has just walked in, mewing--it must be teatime;

that cat has a clock in his stomach. Yes--I can hear Stephen talking

to Heloise in the courtyard; and Father shouting through the gatehouse window to know if Thomas has brought him a copy of the Scout.

(now, what can a grown man want with the Scout?) I wonder if Thomas

remembered the kippers Yes, he did- I have just yelled down to him. He often brings us fish from King's Crypt now. Well, it's said to be good or the brain- perhaps it will help Father. Oh, kippers for tea, two

each!

Three, if anyone wants them.

I feel better.

I must go down and feed my family.

XII

I a" Is Midsummer Day- and as beautiful as its name.

I am writing in the attic; I chose it because one can see Belmotte from the window. At first I thought I would sit on the mound, but I saw

that would be too much- there I should keep re-living it all instead of writing about it. And I must set it down today so that I shall have it for ever, intact and lovely, untouched by the sadness that is

coming--for, of course it is coming; my brain tells me that.

I thought it would have come by this morning but it hasn't-oh, so much it hasn't that I can't quite believe it ever will!

Is it wrong of me to feel so happy his Perhaps I ought even to feel

guilty his No. I didn't make it happen, and it can't hurt anyone but

me. Surely I have a right to my joy? For as long as it lasts .... It

is like a flowering in the heart, a stirring of wings oh if only I

could write poetry, as I did when I was a child! I have tried, but

the words were as cheap as a sentimental song.

So I tore them up. I must set it down simply--everything that happened to me yesterday with no airs and graces. But I long to be a poet, to

pay tribute .... My lovely day began when the sun rose--I often wake

then but usually I go to sleep again. Yesterday I instantly remembered that it was Midsummer Eve, my very favorite day, and lay awake looking forward to it and planning my rites on the mound. They seemed all the more valuable because I wondered if it might not be my last year for

them--I didn't feel as if it would, but Rose outgrew them when she was about my age. And I agree with her that it would be dreadful to

perform them just as an affected pose; they were a bit peculiar last

year when Topaz kindly assisted me and went very pagan. The nicest

times of all were when Rose and I were young enough to feel rather

frightened.

We first held the rites when I was nine- I got the idea from a book on folklore. Mother thought them unsuitable for Christian little girls (I remember my astonishment at being called a Christian) and she was

worried in case our dresses caught alight when we danced round our

votive fire. She died the following winter and the next Midsummer Eve we had a much bigger fire; and while we were piling more wood on, I

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

long approach to beauty.

Images in the mind, how strange they are ...... I have been gazing at the sky I never saw it a brighter blue. Great featherbed clouds are

billowing across the sun, their edges brilliant silver. The whole day is silvery, sparkling, the birds sound shrill ...... Yesterday was

golden, even in the morning the light was softly drowsy, all sounds

seemed muted.

By ten o'clock I had finished all my jobs and was wondering what to do with the morning. I strolled round the garden, watched thrush on the

lawn listening for worms and finally came to rest on the grassy bank of the moat. When I dabbled my hand in the shimmering water it was so

much warmer than I expected that I decided to bathe. I swam round the castle twice, hearing the Handel "Water Music" in my head.

While I was hanging my bathing-suit out of the bedroom window, I had a sudden longing to lie in the sun with nothing on. I never felt it

before--Topaz has always had a monopoly of nudity in our household- but the more I thought of it, the more I fancied it. And I had the

brilliant idea of doing my sunbathing on the top of the bedroom tower, where nobody working in the fields or wandering up our lane could

possibly see me. It felt most peculiar crawling naked up the cold,

rough stone steps-exciting in some mysterious way I couldn't explain to myself. Coming out at the top was glorious, warmth and light fell

round me like a great cape. The leads were so hot that they almost

burnt the soles of my feet; I was glad I had thought of bringing up a blanket to spread.

It was beautifully private. That tower is the best-preserved of them

all; the circle of battlements is complete, though there are a few deep cracks--a marigold had seeded in one of them. Once I lay down flat I

couldn't even see the battlements without turning my head. There was

nothing left but the sun-filled dome of the cloudless sky.

What a difference there is between wearing even the skimpiest

bathing-suit and wearing nothing! After a few minutes I seemed to live in every inch of my body as fully as I usually do in my head and my

hands and my heart. I had the fascinating feeling that I could think

as easily with my limbs as with my brain--and suddenly the whole of me thought that Topaz's nonsense about communing with nature isn't

nonsense at all. The warmth of the sun felt like enormous hands

pressing gently on me, the flutter of the air was like delicate

fingers. My kind of nature-worship has always had to do with magic and folklore, though sometimes it turned a bit holy.

This was nothing like that. I expect it was what Topaz means by

"pagan." Anyway, it was thrilling.

But my front got so terribly hot. And when I rolled over on to my