I Capture the Castle (14 page)

When we went in, Topaz was washing up the tea-things.

“Mortmain, you deserve a medal,” she said.

“What for?” said Father.

“Oh, for talking to Mrs.

Cotton? I enjoyed it very much.”

Topaz simply stared at him.

“I got used to the vitality of American women when I was over there,” he explained.

“Do they all talk as much as that?” I asked.

“No, of course not. But she happens to belong to a type I frequently met—it goes to lectures. And entertains afterwards-sometimes they put one up for the night; they’re extraordinarily hospitable.” He sat on the kitchen table, swinging his legs, looking rather boyish.

“Amazing, their energy,” he went on.

“They’re perfectly capable of having three or four children, running a house, keeping abreast of art, literature and music-superficially of course but, good lord, that’s something—and holding down a job into the bargain. Some of them get through two or three husbands as well, just to avoid stagnation.”

“I shouldn’t think any husband could stay the course for more than a few years,” said Topaz.

“I felt that myself at first—the barrage of talk left me utterly depleted. But after a time I got used to it.

They’re rather like punch balls -you buffet them, they buffet you, and on the whole the result’s most stimulating.”

“Unless they knock you out altogether,” said Topaz, drily.

“They have that effect occasionally,” Father admitted.

“Quite a number of American men are remarkably silent.”

“She seemed to know a lot about Jacob Wrestling,” I said.

“She’d probably read it up before she came—they do that, and very civil of them. Curious how many of them are prematurely gray; most becoming. And I must say it’s a pleasure to see a woman so well turned-out.”

He began to hum abstractedly and went off to the gatehouse as if he had suddenly forgotten all about us. I could have slapped him for that “well turned-out” remark, because Topaz was looking so particularly far from well turned-out. She was wearing her hand woven dress which is first cousin to a sack and her lovely hair, being rather in need of a wash, was pushed into a torn old net.

“Perhaps he’d find it stimulating if I talked as much as that,” she said.

“We shouldn’t,” I told her. Actually, I had thought Mrs. Cotton very stimulating myself, but had no intention of being so tactless as to say so.

“Topaz, will there be moths in his evening clothes his He can’t have worn them since Aunt Millicent’s parties.” But she said she had taken care of them.

“We’ll have to get him some studs, though, because he sold his good ones. Oh, Cassandra, it’s fantastic-a genius, a man American critics write essays on, and he hasn’t a decent stud to his name.”

I said many geniuses had lacked shirts to put the studs in; then we got talking about our own clothes for the party.

I am all right—my white, school Speech Day frock will pass for anyone as young as I am, Topaz says. And she can fix up one of her old evening dresses for herself. Rose is the problem.

“There’s not a thing of your aunt’s I can use for her,” said Topaz, “and nothing of my own is suitable. She needs something frilly. As we’ll never be able to stop her turning on the Early Victorian charm, we ought to accentuate it.”

I could hear Rose playing the piano. I closed the kitchen door and said: “What did you think of her manner today?”

“At least it was quieter, though she was still making eyes. But, anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”

1 looked at her in astonishment and she went on:

“Simon Cotton’s attracted—really attracted—couldn’t you see?

Once that happens, a girl can be as silly as she likes—the man’ll probably think the silliness is fetching.”

“Is Neil attracted, too?”

“I doubt it,” said Topaz.

“I’ve an idea that Neil sees through her — I saw him give her a very shrewd look.

Oh, how are we going to dress her, Cassandra his There’s a chance for her with Simon, really there isI know the signs.”

I had a sudden picture of Simon’s face, pale above the beard.

“But would you really like her to marry him, Topaz?” I asked.

“I’d like her to get the chance,” said Topaz, firmly. Miss Marcy arrived then with a book for Father. She told us the Vicar has been invited for the same night as we have she heard from his housekeeper.

“Most people have only been asked to lunches or teas,” she said.

“Dinner’s ever so much more splendid.”

We told her about the problem of Rose’s dress.

“It should be pink,” she said, “a crinoline effect-there’s the very thing here in this week’s Home Chat.”

She dived into her satchel for it.

“Oh, dear, that would be perfect for her,” sighed Topaz.

Miss Marcy blushed and blinked her eyes, then said:

“Could you make it, Mrs. Mortmain? If—if dear Rose allowed me to give her the material?”

“I’ll allow you,” said Topaz.

“I feel justified.”

Miss Marcy shot her a quick glance and Topaz gave her the very faintest nod. I nearly laughed—they were so different, Miss Marcy like a rosy little bird and Topaz tall and pale, like a slightly dead goddess, but just that second they so much resembled each other in their absolute lust to marry Rose off.

“Perhaps we could offer Miss Marcy something of Aunt Millicent’s as a small return,” I suggested. They went off to the dining-room where the clothes are spread out, while I stayed to get Stephen his tea—Topaz had decided that those of us who’d had afternoon tea would have supper with cocoa, later.

Stephen was worried to hear I shall be wearing such an old dress at Scoatney.

“Couldn’t you have a new sash?” he asked.

“I’ve got some money saved.”

I thanked him but said my blue Speech Day sash was as good as new.

“Then a ribbon for your hair, Miss Cassandra?” “Goodness, I haven’t worn a hair-ribbon since I was a child,” I told him.

“You used to have little bows on the ends of your plaits before you cut your hair,” he said.

“They were pretty.”

Then he asked how I liked the two Cottons, now I knew them better.

“Oh, I don’t know Simon at all—he talked to Rose most of the time. But Neil’s very nice.”

“Would you call him handsome?”

I said I hardly thought so—”Not really handsome—not the way you are, Stephen.”

I spoke without thinking—we all of us take his good looks for granted; but he blushed so much that I wished I hadn’t said it.

“You see, you have classical features,” I explained, in a matter-of fact voice.

“It seems a waste when I’m not a gentleman.”

He grinned—a little sarcastic sort of grin.

“Don’t talk like that,” I said quickly.

“Gentlemen are men who behave like gentlemen. And you certainly do.”

He shook his head.

“You can only be a gentleman if you’re born one, Miss Cassandra.”

“Stephen, that’s old-fashioned nonsense,” I said.

“Really, it is.

And, by the way, will you please stop calling me “Miss” Cassandra.”

He looked astonished. Then he said: “Yes, I see. It should be “Miss Mortmain” now you’re grown up enough for dinner parties.”

“It certainly shouldn’t,” I said.

“I mean you must call me Cassandra, without the “Miss.” You’re one of the family—it’s absurd you should ever have called me “Miss.” Who told you to?”

“My Mother—she set a lot of store by it,” he said.

“I remember the first day we came here. You and Miss Rose were throwing a ball in the garden and I ran to the kitchen door thinking I’d play, too. Mother called me back and told me how you were young ladies, and I was never to play with you unless I was invited. And to call you “Miss,” and never to presume. She had a hard job explaining what “presume” meant.”

“Oh, Stephen, how awful! And you’d be—how old?”

“Seven, I think. You’d be six and Miss Rose nine. Thomas was only four, but she told me to call him “Master Thomas.” Only he asked me not to, years ago.”

“And I ought to have asked you years ago.” I’d never given it a thought. His Mother had been in service for years before she married. When she was left a widow she had to go back to it and board Stephen out. I know she was very grateful when Mother let her bring him here, so perhaps that made her extra humble.

“Well, anyway, I’ve asked you now,” I went on, “so will you please remember?”

“Would I call Miss Rose just “Rose”?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure how Rose would feel about it so I said: “Oh, why worry about Rose his This is between you and me.”

“I couldn’t call her “Miss” and not you,” he said firmly.

“It’d be setting her above you.”

I said I would talk to Rose about it, then asked him to pass his cup for more tea-I was getting a bit embarrassed by the subject.

He stirred his second cup for a long time, then said:

“Did you mean that about gentlemen being men who behave like gentlemen?”

“Of course I did, Stephen. I swear I did —really.”

I was so anxious to make him believe me that I leaned towards him, across the table. He looked at me, right into my eyes. That queer, veiled expression in his—that I fear I used to call his daft look-was suddenly not there; there seemed to be a light in them and yet I have never seen them look so dark. And they were so direct that it was more like being touched than being looked at. It only lasted a second, but for that second he was quite a different person —much more interesting, even a little bit exciting.

Then Thomas came in and I jumped up from the table.

“Why are you so red in the face, my girl?” he said maddeningly —I do understand why Rose sometimes wants to hit him. Fortunately he didn’t wait for an answer, but went on to say there was a bit in the King’s Crypt paper about the bear being washed up twenty miles away. I laughed and put an egg on to boil for him.

Stephen went out into the garden.

All the time I was giving Thomas his tea I was worrying—because I suddenly knew I couldn’t go on pretending that Stephen is just vaguely devoted to me and it doesn’t in the least matter. I hadn’t given it a thought for weeks, and I certainly hadn’t been brisk with him, as Father suggested. I told myself I would start at once; and then I felt I couldn’t-not after I had just asked him to stop calling me “Miss.” Incidentally, I never felt less brisk in my life, because being looked at like that makes a person feel dizzy.

I went into the garden to think things out. It was that time of evening when pale flowers look paler-the daffodils seemed almost white; they were very still, everything was still, hushed. Father’s lamp was lit in the gatehouse, Topaz and Miss Marcy had a candle in the dining-room, Rose was still playing the piano in the drawing-room, without a light. I’d stopped feeling dizzy; I had a strange, excited feeling. I went through the gatehouse passage out into the lane and walked past the barn. Stephen came out.

He didn’t smile as he usually does when he sees me; he looked at me with a kind of questioning expression. Then he said: “Let’s go for a little walk.”

I said: “All right.” And then: “No, I don’t think I will, Stephen. I want to see Miss Marcy again before she goes.”

I didn’t want to see Miss Marcy in the least.

I wanted to go for the walk. But I suddenly knew I mustn’t.

Stephen just nodded. Then we went back to the castle together without saying a word to each other.

When Rose and I were going to bed I asked her if she would mind Stephen dropping the “Miss.”

“I don’t mind one way or the other,” she said.

“After all, I’m eating the food he pays for.”

I started to talk about the Cottons then, but she wouldn’t be jolly or excited about them—she seemed to want to think. And I did some quiet thinking myself.

Early this morning I met Stephen letting out the hens and told him Rose would like him to stop saying “Miss.” I was splendidly brisk; it’s easy to be brisk in the early morning. He just said: “All right,” without very much expression. Over breakfast Rose and Topaz were planning to go to King’s Crypt to buy the stuff for Rose’s dress. (they are there now, I have had most of the day to myself.) I was at the fire, making toast. Stephen came over to me.

“Please let me ask Mrs. Mortmain to get you something for the party,” he said.

I thanked him but said I didn’t need a thing.

“You’re sure?” Then he added, very softly and as if he were trying out some difficult word: “Cassandra.”

We both blushed. I had thought that dropping the “Miss” for Rose as well would make it quite ordinary, but it didn’t.

“Goodness, this fire’s hot,” I said.

“No, honestly-I can’t think of anything I want.” “Then I’ll.just go on saving up for—for what I was saving up for,” he said, and then went off to work.

It is now four o’clock. Father has gone to call on the Vicar so I have the castle to myself. It’s odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts —I shall think some ….. I didn’t get very far with my thoughts. It is the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet—I have been staring blankly at the bright square of the kitchen window for a good ten minutes. I shall pull myself together and do some honest thinking …… I have thought. And I have discovered the following things:

(1) I do not reciprocate Stephen’s feelings.

(2) I wanted to go that walk with him yesterday evening and having always loathed girls in books who are too, too innocent, I set it on record: I think) I thought that if I did go, he would kiss me.

(3) This morning, by the hen-house, I did not wish him to kiss me.

(4) This moment, I do not think I wish him to kiss me …. I have thought some more—I have been stuck in the un-blank kind of dream. I re-lived the minute when Stephen looked at me across the table. Even to remember it made me feel dizzy. I liked feeling dizzy. Then, in my mind, I went for the walk with him that I didn’t go. We went along the lane, over the Godsend road and into the little larch wood. There are no bluebells there yet, but I put them in. It was nearly dark in the wood and suddenly cool, cold, there was a waiting feeling. I made up things for Stephen to say, I heard his voice saying them. It got darker and darker until there was only the palest gleam of sky through the tops of the trees. And at last he kissed me.