I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

little pocket money now, it will take a long time to make up for all

the years he didn't have any.

Father came down then; of course he hadn't remembered my birthday.

"But Topaz will," he said, cheerfully.

"She'll send you something from me." He was horrified to see the wireless --he has always said that being without one is one of the few pleasures of poverty; but he got interested during breakfast.

Only he couldn't bear the music or voices- what he liked were the

atmospherics.

"I suppose you wouldn't care to lend it to me for an hour or so ?"

he said, after Thomas had gone off to school.

"These noises are splendid."

I let him take it. All that really mattered to me was whether or not

Simon would send me a present.

The parcel-post came at eleven. There was a dressing-gown from Topaz, a Shakespeare from Father (so tactful of Topaz to remember how he hates lending me his), a nightgown -real silk- from Rose, six pairs of silk stockings from Mrs. Cotton, and a big box of chocolates from Neil.

Nothing from Simon.

Nothing from Simon, indeed! I was still sitting numbed with

disappointment when a motor horn hooted in the lane. The next minute a van drew up and the driver plonked a crate down on the drawbridge. I

yelled up asking Father to come down and between us we prized the lid off. Inside was a wireless and a gramophone combined--oh, the most

wonderful thing! When shut, it is like a fat suitcase, with a handle

to carry it by. The outside is a lovely blue, like linen but shiny.

There was a record case to match.

Nobody ever had such a glorious present.

Simon had enclosed a note saying:

Dear Cassandra, I wanted to send you an electric one, but remembered

you've no electricity. The radio works from batteries that can be

re-charged at the garage in Scoatney, but the phonograph is only the

old-fashioned type that has to be wound up--still, it's better than

nothing.

I am sending you the Debussy you liked, but couldn't get the Bach

record I played to you. Borrow anything you want from Scoatney until

you find out what your musical tastes really are and then I'll buy you lots more records.

They swear the thing will get to you on the right day and I do hope it does. Many, many happy returns. I'll be seeing you soon. Love from

Simon It was in pencil, written at the shop, so I couldn't expect it to be long or personal. And it did say "Love"--he might have put just

"Yours" or "In haste" or something. Of course, I knew it didn't mean my kind of love, but it was valuable.

I read the note again and again, while Father got the most agonizing

noises out of the wireless.

"Oh, stop!" I cried at last.

"It can't be good for it to shriek like that."

"Sounds like the lost souls of sea gulls, doesn't it?" he shouted above the din.

I pushed past him and turned it off. In the sudden quietness, we could just hear Stephen's wireless playing away by itself up in the gatehouse room. Father said:

"Has it occurred to you what this thing is going to do to your swam

?"

All that I felt was resentment against Stephen because his being hurt was going to interfere with my pleasure in Simon's present;

not very much though--nothing could do that.

Luckily Father didn't wait for an answer.

"This is a much stronger wireless," he went on. I'll borrow it awhile."

I shouted "No!" so loudly that he stared in astonishment.

"I'm longing to try the gramophone," I added, trying to sound calm and reasonable. He suddenly smiled and said, "Well, well"-in an almost fatherly voice; then actually carried the machine indoors for me and

left me alone with it. I got the records out of their corrugated paper and played them and played them. There were some Bach Preludes and

Fugues as well as the Debussy album.

Simon hadn't sent the "Lover" record.

By the time Stephen got home, my better nature had asserted itself and I was terribly worried about his feelings. I had his wireless in the

kitchen (father had lost interest in it) and was careful to have it on full blast when he came in. I nearly burst myself thanking him for it and I don't think I have ever seen him look so I had asked Father

during lunch if it would be a good idea to Simon's present for a day or two, but he thought that would harder for Stephen in the end.

"Just tell him how glad you are to have a really lightweight wireless you can carry around--and that you'll probably only use Simon's for the gramophone," he suggested, and I thought it was very sensible of him; but the next minute record round and round as if he were reading the

grooves, and surely a man who tries to read a gramophone record cannot be normal?

I did my best to break the news to Stephen tactfully--I said all Father had advised and a lot more besides.

"Yours has a real wooden case," I told him, "with such a beautiful high polish." But the light went out of his eyes. He asked if he could see Simon's present I had carried it up to my bedroom. After staring at it a few seconds," he said: "Yes, that's very handsome"--and turned to go.

"The wireless part isn't very good," I called after him,

untruthfully.

He went on downstairs.

Oh, I was so sorry for him! After all the months he had been saving

up! I ran after him and, from the top of the kitchen stairs, I could

see him staring at his little brown wireless.

He turned it off, then went out into the garden with a most bitter

expression on his face.

I caught up with him as he was crossing the drawbridge.

"Let's go for a little walk," I said.

"All right, if you want to." He said it without looking at me.

We trudged down the lane. I felt as I did once when Rose had very bad toothache--that it was callous of me to be so separate from the pain, that just being sorry for suffering people isn't enough. Yet when I

asked myself if on Stephen's account I would be willing not to have had Simon's present, I knew that I wouldn't.

I tried to talk naturally about the two machines, enlarging on how I

could carry his little one from room to room and even take it out of

doors (although I knew that unless Stephen was around I should lug

Simon's everywhere, even if it broke my back). I suppose I overdid it because he interrupted and said:

"It's all right, you know."

I looked at him quickly. He tried to smile reassuringly, but didn't

quite let his eyes meet mine.

"Oh, Stephen!" I cried.

"It was a much bigger present from you.

Simon didn't have to save--or work for it."

"No, that was my privilege," he said quietly.

That seemed to me a most beautiful way for him to have put it.

It made me sorrier for him than ever--so sorry that I found myself

almost wishing I had fallen in love with him instead of with Simon.

Just then he added, very softly, "My dear." And that second, a wild idea flashed into my mind. Oh, why did it his Was it something in his voice awoke that feeling in me? Or was it because we were passing the larch wood and I remembered how I once imagined going into it with

him?

I stopped walking and stared at him. His face was golden from the

sunset. He asked me if I wanted to turn back.

I said, "No. Let's see if there are any late bluebells in the wood."

He looked at me quickly, right into the eyes at last.

"Come on," I said.

As we pushed aside the first green trails of larch I thought, "Well, this will disprove my theory that things I've imagined happening never really do happen." But it didn't- because everything was so different from my imagining. The wood had been thinned out, so it wasn't cool

and dark as I expected; the air was still warm and the rays of the

sinking sun shone in from behind us. The tree trunks glowed redly.

There was a hot, resinous smell instead of the scent of bluebells- the only ones left were shriveled and going to seed.

And instead of a still, waking feeling there was a choking

excitement.

Stephen didn't say any of the things I once invented for him; neither of us spoke a word. I led the way all the time and reached the little grassy clearing in the middle of the wood before he did. There I

turned and waited for him. He came closer and closer to me, then stood still, staring at me questioningly. I nodded my head and then he took me in his arms and kissed me, very gently. It didn't mean a thing to

me--I know I didn't kiss him in return. But suddenly he changed, and

kissed me more and more, not gently at all-and I changed, too, and

wanted him to go on and on. I didn't even stop him when he pulled my

dress down over my shoulder. It was he who stopped in the end.

"Don't let me, don't let me!" he gasped, and pushed me away so violently that I nearly fell over. As I staggered backwards I had a

wild feeling of terror and the minute I regained my balance I plunged blindly back through the wood. He called after me, "Mind your

eyes--it's all right, I'm not coming after you." But I went on

thrusting my way through the larches, shielding my face with my arm. I ran all the way to the castle and dashed up the kitchen stairs meaning to lock myself in my room, but I slipped when I was half-way up,

banging my knee badly, and then I burst into tears and just lay there, sobbing. The awful thing is that something in me hoped that if I

stayed there long enough he would come in and see how wretched I was-

though I still can't make out why I wanted him to.

After a little while, I heard him at the kitchen door.

"Cassandra, please stop crying," he called.

"I wasn't coming in, but when I heard you Please, please stop."

I still went on. He came to the foot of the stairs.

I began to pull myself up by the banisters, still crying. He said:

"But it's all right- really it is. There's nothing wrong in it if we love each other."

I turned on him fiercely: "I don't love you. I hate you."

And then I saw the look in his eyes and realized how dreadful it all

was for him--until then I had only been thinking of my own misery. I

gasped out, "No, no- I don't mean that but .... Oh, I'll never be able to explain." And then I dashed through to my room and locked both doors. I was just going to fling myself on the bed when I caught

sight of Simon's present, on the window-seat. I went over, closed the gramophone part and lay with my head and arms on it. And for the first time in my life I wished I were dead.

When it was quite dark I pulled myself together enough to light a

candle and begin to go wretchedly to bed. A few minutes later, there

was a knock on the door to the landing and Stephen called out:

"I don't want to come in, but please read the note I'm pushing through to you." I called back "All right," and saw the note coming under the door. As I picked it up I heard his footsteps going downstairs, and

then the noise of the front door shutting.

He had written:

DEAREST CASSANDRA

Please do not be unhappy. It will come right. It is just that you are so young. I forget that sometimes, because you are so clever. I

cannot explain because I think it would make you feel worse and anyway I do not know how. But there was nothing wrong happened. It was all

my fault. It you forgive me for shocking you so, please write YES on a piece of paper and put it under my door. I am going out now and will

not come back until your light is out so you need not be frightened of meeting me. And I will go to work before you are up in the morning.

We won't talk about it--anyway, not for a long time. You say when.

Truly it is aa right, With love from X X X X X X but not until you want them.

On a separate sheet he had written: "Perhaps this will help you to understand. Of course it is only for when we are married"--and then he had copied out four lines from "Love's Philosophy."

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one

another's being mingle-Why not I with thine his By Percy Bysshe

Shelley. (born t79, died r82.) I guessed he had put Shelley's name and dates so that I wouldn't think he was stealing poetry again. Oh,

Stephen--I know so well why you used to steal it! I long and long to

express my love for Simon and nothing of my own is worthy.

I wrote YES and put it under his door. I couldn't bear not to-and, of course, it was true in a way; I did forgive him. But it let him

believe a lie- that I was upset just because he had shocked me.

Since then, we haven't been alone once. We talk fairly naturally in

front of the others, but I never look straight at him. I suppose he

just thinks I am shy.

Of course the honest thing would be to tell him it will never any good but, even if I could bear to hurt him so, I doubt if I could convince him without owning that I care for someone else because I certainly

showed every sign of its being some good while he was making love to

me. Oh, why did I let him his Let him his You encouraged him, my girl!

But why, why? When my whole heart was longing for Simon! Perhaps I

could understand myself better if I didn't so loathe remembering

it--even now I haven't quite put down everything that happened.

I know this: asking him to go into the wood was a wicked thing, wicked to him and wicked to myself. Truly, being so sorry for him had

something to do with it, but it was mostly sheer wickedness.

And it was only due to Stephen that it didn't turn out much wickeder.

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the

mound repenting in deepest shame ...... Oh dear, that was a great

mistake! My mind wandered from repenting to thinking it wouldn't have been sin if Stephen had been Simon. And changing them over has made me realize more and more how I have spoilt the memory of Simon's kiss. Oh, how can I face my wretched future his I shall have to be Rose's

bridesmaid, see her living with Simon at Scoatney year after year,

watch him worshipping her. And how am I going to hide my feelings,

when I see them together?

If only I could go away! But the one thing I live for is to see Simon again.

I have just remembered I once wrote that I didn't envy Rose, that I

thought a happy marriage might be dull.

Heavens, what a fool I was! ...... Father is cycling along the lane,

after spending the day at Scoatney again, and the boys will be home any minute now. I suppose I must go down and get tea; tinned salmon would cheer me up most, I think. It is most strange and wretched coming back to the present after being in this journal so long--I have been writing all day with only one break when I took Heloise indoors for her dinner and gave myself a very few cold sausages.

One of my worst longings to cry has come over me.