I Capture the Castle (10 page)

Rose got up and walked straight out of the kitchen.

That night, after we were in bed, she suddenly said:

“Ask Miss Blossom what went wrong, Cassandra.”

I was absolutely stuck-I felt I ought to edge in some advice for the future but I couldn’t see how, without telling the brutal truth.

“She says she doesn’t know,” I said at last.

I didn’t make Miss Blossom say it herself because I think of her as very sincere.

“I expect it’s because we’re so poor,” said Rose, bitterly. Then she sat up in the iron bedstead (it was my week for the four-poster) and said: “I was nice to them-really I was.”

I saw my chance and said in Miss Blossom’s voice:

“Perhaps you were too nice, dearie.”

“But I wasn’t,” said Rose.

“I was charming but I was—oh, capricious, contradictory. Isn’t that what men like?”

“You just be natural, girlie,” said Miss Blossom. Then I went on in my own voice: “How much did you really like them, Rose?”

“I don’t know—but I know I don’t like them now.

Oh, I don’t want to talk about it.”

And that was all she ever did talk about it-that was almost the worst part of the gloom, our not talking naturally.

Never have I felt so separate from her. And I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard. For she is a girl who cannot walk her troubles off, or work them off; she is a girl to sit around and glare.

Topaz was wonderfully patient—but I sometimes wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows. It is rather like her imperviousness to cold; Father once said she had a plush-lined skin and there are times when I think she has plush-lined feelings. But they certainly aren’t plush-lined where Father himself is concerned. Three weeks ago I found her crying in Buffer State in front of her portrait of him—for which he never sits. (it is mostly orange triangles.) She said his disappointment was far more important than Rose’s, that he had so much enjoyed meeting Simon Cotton and was longing to talk about the American essay on Jacob Wrestling. “Particularly now he’s changed his mind about it -he now thinks he did mean all the things the critic says he did. And I was sure it had started him writing. But I’ve just sneaked into the gatehouse while he’s over at the vicarage, and what do you think he’s working on his Crossword puzzles!”

I suggested there might be money in crossword puzzles.

“Not that kind,” said Topaz.

“They didn’t make sense. Cassandra, what is the matter with him?”

I had a most dreadful thought. I wondered if Father really had been drinking for years, if he had found a secret wine-cellar under the castle, or was making drink out of something—I know there is some stuff called wood-alcohol.

“Oh, don’t be idiotic,” said Topaz.

“You can tell if men are drinking. We must be patient-it’s just that he’s a genius.”

She went to bathe her eyes, and then put on her favorite dress, which is cream satin-damask—Italian—just about dropping to pieces; she wears a little ruby-red cap with it.

Then she went down to make potato-cakes for tea.

I was in the garden, looking at a daffodil that was almost out, when Father came back from the vicarage.

“Any news?” I called, to be friendly.

“Only that it appears to be quite a distinction not to be asked to Scoatney. I gather invitations are being broadcast.”

He said it in his loftiest manner; then gave me a quick little embarrassed smile and added: “I’m sorry, my child. You know what the trouble is, don’t you?”

I stared at him and he went on: “It’s the rent -they’ve looked into that little matter, I know, because the usual application didn’t come in on the March quarter-day. Oh, they’re kind enough —the best type of American always is; but they don’t want to get involved with us.”

I knew Topaz hadn’t told him the truth; partly because she thought it would upset him and partly because she has a sort of women-must-stick-together attitude. I wondered if I ought to tell him myself. And then I decided that if he did feel guilty about the rent it would be a good thing—anything, anything to prod him into working. But as he stood there in his thin old coat, with the March wind blowing his fading gold hair, I felt very sorry for him;

so I told him there were potato-cakes for tea.

As it turned out, the potato-cakes were spoilt;

because while we were eating them, we had one of those family rows which are so funny in books and on the pictures. They aren’t funny in real life, particularly when they happen at meals, as they so often do. They always make me shake and feel rather sick. The trouble arose because Thomas asked Rose to pass the salt three times and she took no notice, and when he shouted at her, she leaned forward and boxed his ears. Topaz said: “Blast you, Rose, you know Thomas gets ear-ache.” And Rose said: “You would bring that up-I suppose he’ll die and I’ll be responsible.” Father said:

“Damnation!” and pushed his chair back on to Heloise, who yelped.

And I said: “I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it,” which was ridiculous.

Stephen was the only person who kept calm; he got up quietly to see if Heloise was badly hurt. She wasn’t, and she came off very well because we gave her most of the potato-cakes. Our appetites came back later when there was nothing worth eating.

Food isn’t much better, in spite of Stephen’s wages coming in regularly, because we have to go slow until the tradesmen’s bills are paid off. Stephen keeps back a shilling a week; I this exercise book came out of his savings. I have an uneasy feeling he will spend most of them on me; he certainly spends nothing on himself.

He hasn’t brought me any poems lately, which is a relief.

That evening of the row was our lowest depths; miserable people cannot afford to dislike each other. Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

Had we but known it, our fortunes were already slightly on the mend, for that was the very day Father’s Aunt Millicent died. How dreadfully callous I sound! But if I could bring her back to life, truly I would; and as I can’t, there seems no harm in thanking God for His wondrous ways. For she left Rose and me her personal wardrobe which means clothes, not a piece of furniture as I thought at first. When the Vicar saw the death announced in The Times we entertained a faint hope that she might have left Father some money;

but she had cut him out of her will and left everything to a hostel for artists’ models—I suppose she thought they ought to stick in hostels and not go marrying her relations. (“Just think,” said Rose, “if Father hadn’t married Topaz we might be rolling in wealth by now.” And I asked myself if I would rather roll than have Topaz in the family and decided I wouldn’t, which was nice to know.) After the first exuberance had worn off, we remembered that Aunt Millicent was seventy-four and an eccentric dresser. But to be left anything at all gives one a lift.

The lawyers wrote asking us to come to London and pack the clothes ourselves; they said they would pay all expenses.

The prospect of a day in London was heaven, but the problem of what to wear was sheer hell, particularly for Rose—my clothes don’t bear thinking about, so I just don’t think about them. We sponged and pressed our winter coats and tried to believe that they looked better.

And then the weather turned fine—those coats were utterly revolting in the brilliant sunshine. I had a sudden idea.

“Let’s wear our old white suits,” I said.

Aunt Millicent had them made for us just before the row about Father marrying Topaz. They are some kind of silky linen, very plain and tailored. Of course they have had very hard wear and mine is too short, though it has been let down to the last quarter-inch; but they are much the nicest things we have and, by a miracle, had been put away clean.

“They’d be all right if it was midsummer,” said Rose, when we tried them on.

“But in April!” Still, we decided to wear them if the fine weather held. And when we woke up yesterday it was more like June than April. Oh, it was the most glorious morning!

I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer. It certainly helps one to believe in Him.

Mr. Stebbins lent Stephen his cart to drive us to the station and even the horse seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Did you ever see the sky so high?” I said. And then I felt ashamed to be so happy, knowing that I couldn’t have been if Aunt Millicent had stayed alive—and it probably hurt her to die, poor old lady. We were driving through Godsend and the early sun was striking the moss-grown headstones in the churchyard.

I tried to realize that I shall die myself one day; but I couldn’t believe it-and then I had a flash that when it really happens I shall remember that moment and see again the high Suffolk sky over the old, old Godsend graves. Thinking of death—strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off—made me feel happier than ever. The only depressing thing was seeing Scoatney Hall through the trees—and that only damped me on Rose’s account for what care I for Cottons his (anyway, what cared I then?) I was careful to avoid her eye until we were well past the park, spending two tactful minutes buttoning a one-buttoned shoe.

We got to Scoatney station in good time. Rose thought we should take first-class tickets as the lawyers would pay.

“But suppose they don’t pay at once?” I said. We had Stephen’s wages to see us through the day, but Topaz was counting on getting them back. In the end, we just took cheap day-tickets.

Stephen kept begging me to be careful of the traffic;

he even ran along with the train to remind me again. Then he stood waving, smiling but a bit wistful-looking. It struck me that never in his life has he been to London.

It was queer how different things felt after we changed from our little toy train, at King’s Crypt. The feel of the country went—it was as if the London air was trapped in the London train. And our white suits began to look peculiar. They looked much, much more peculiar when we got to London; people really stared at us. Rose noticed it at once.

“It’s because they admire our suits,” I said, hoping to soothe her —and I did think they looked nicer than most of the drab clothes women were wearing.

“We look conspicuous,” she said, with deepest shame. Little did she know how much more conspicuous we should look before we got home.

It was three years since we had been in London. We never knew it well, of course; yesterday was the first time I ever walked through the City. It was fascinating, especially the stationers’ shops-I could look at stationers’ shops for ever and ever. Rose says they are the dullest shops in the world except, perhaps, butchers’.

(i don’t see how you can call butchers’ shops dull; they are too full of horror.) We kept getting lost and having to ask policemen, who were all rather playful and fatherly. One of them kindly held up the traffic for us, and a taxi-driver made kissing noises at Rose.

I had hoped the lawyers’ office would be old and dark, with a Dickensy old lawyer; but it was just an ordinary office and we only saw a clerk, who was young, with very sleek hair. He asked us if we could find our way to Chelsea by “bus.

“No,” said Rose, quickly.

He said: “Ok. Take a taxi.”

I said we were a little short of change.

Rose flushed scarlet. He gave her a quick look, then said, “Wait a sec.”

—and left us.

He came back with four pounds.

“Mr. Stevenage says you’re to have this,” he told us.

“It’ll take care of your fares, taxi to Chelsea, taxi to get the stuff to the station, and a slap-up lunch. And you must nip back here with the key of the house and sign a receipt. See?”

We said we saw, and went. Rose was furious that no one more important than a clerk had bothered to see us.

“It’s not respectful to Aunt Millicent,” she said, indignantly.

“Treating us like small fry!”

I didn’t mind what kind of fry I was, with four pounds in hand.

“Let’s find our way by ‘bus and save the taxi money,” I suggested.

But she said she couldn’t stand being stared at any more.

“We must be the only girls in London wearing white.” Just then a bus conductor said: “Hop on, snowdrops.” She haughtily hailed a taxi.

The lily-pond was dry in Aunt Millicent’s little flagged garden. I hoped the goldfish had found good homes.

We unlocked the front door. I was surprised to find the hall quite bare—I hadn’t realized that all the furniture had been taken away.

“It does feel queer,” I said when the door was closed and the sunny day shut out.

“It only feels cold,” said Rose.

“I suppose the clothes’ll be in her bedroom. I wonder if she died there.”

I thought it a tactless thing to wonder out loud.

On our way up we looked in at the double drawing-room. The two tall windows stared across the Thames; it was dazzlingly light.

The last time I had seen that room it had been lit by dozens of candles for a party. That was the night we first met Topaz.

Macmorris’s portrait of her had just been exhibited and Aunt Millicent asked him to bring her with him. She wore the misty blue dress he painted her in and he had lent her the great jade necklace. I remember being astonished at the long, pale hair hanging down her back.

And I remember Father talking to her all evening and Aunt Millicent, in her black velvet suit and lace stock, glaring at him.

There was nothing in the big front bedroom, much to my relief;

though I can’t say it felt as if anyone had died there, merely cold and empty. The clothes were in the little back dressing-room, lying in heaps on the floor, with two old black leather trunks for us to pack them in. There was very little light because the green venetian blind was down. The cord was broken so we couldn’t get it up, but we managed to tilt the slats a little. Aunt Millicent’s old black military cloak lay on top of one of the heaps. It used to frighten me when I was little; I suppose it made me think of witches. It was frightening yesterday, too, but in a different way-it seemed somehow to be part of a dead person.